Summary

This should give you a summary of how things are here at Chez Snargle:

Recently, the independent variable (TV time) has been very small - in fact, near 0. Thus, due to the near-linear relationship between TV time and knitting time, the dependent variable (knitting time) has also decreased to near-zero. Ergo, no progress pictures.

I have been crafting. Here is a photo of everything I sent out in the Sea Swap on craftster.org.

There are coral-esque earrings made from seed beads (online how-to here), an ocean-themed collage (closeup here) with a photo that I took of an orca in Alaska a few years ago, a stencilled and reconstructed t-shirt, and a knitted Nautie. Yes, knitting! Can you stand it? He's from some of the Kool-Aid dyed yarn that I did ages and ages ago.

Cute, isn't he?
If you're curious about everything else that was sent and received in the swap, you can visit the gallery here.

And my assertion that I haven't been knitting much is true, but I do have something to show you. Next time :)

Don't Panic

Howdy, folks!

First, a progress report.

Celtic Icon is coming along. Very slowly, but some progress is evident:

Sleeve!

This is still the first sleeve. Ignore the color in this picture - it's nothing like that. I'm still loving the yarn (Brooks Farm Fiber Limited Edition from Maryland S&W). I'm still not quite sure how to do the increases and decreases - I keep messing with them. And I still have quite a long way to go. My goal is to finish this green sleeve in May so that I can knit another part of the sweater in blue (the sweater is in panels of different colors) to keep up with Project Spectrum!

I've also started a sock out of one of my hand-dyed skeins.

Peppermint Twist!

The goal here was to get those skinny stripes. Actually, that's a lie, the goal was to get something else entirely, but that didn't work. I know where I went wrong, and I'll fix it for next time. In the mean time, I'm enjoying the skinny stripes. And that gradual pink spiral (from the color changes). I did a new toe cast-on this time - the one from the Knitty article. I like it, but I think next time I'll do a few more stitches - this one is a bit pointy for me. My main desire in these socks was some mindless stockinette for games and movies. I made most of the progress on these socks during "An Inconvenient Truth" which we saw on Saturday. Scary (in a good way).

Let's see, what else... Mostly I've been neglecting the blog (and blogs in general, so don't take it personally if I haven't commented) in favor of Craftster. Somehow I've really become addicted recently. I signed up for my first swap - items with a "sea" theme (how fitting). So most of my crafting time and energy lately has gone into my swap items. I'll have to wait to post them until they're received, and they're going to Italy, so that will be a while. Suffice it to say I'm having fun, and I'm doing a lot of different things (not just knitting) which is a bit liberating. I'm also having fun poking around craftster and the web in general for inspiration. I made a wist - whenever you're on a webpage of something you like you can bookmark it by adding it to your wists. OK, you could always bookmark something, but this way you can share it - hence the concept of social shopping. I think it's cool. And good for gift ideas! (Mom, Sis :) ) If anybody else has one, let me know.

Dan & I have been doing lots of home improvement lately. One major project - sanding and painting the back porch (before the paint all peels off on its own). We've got it mostly done. I might have to post before and after pictures. It was quite a task, but it looks better, and it's definitely better for the wood. Go us!

And we've also decided where we're going for our (other) vacation this year. Are you ready for it? How about Tanzania? Um, yeah. Seriously. We're going with a group from DC to go on safari in the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara. I'm so excited. We decided that the trip was meant to be when we realized that it was leaving on my birthday. So happy 30th birthday to me! And to Dan! And Happy Anniversary! And Merry Christmas! We're getting a lot of gifts out of this one, but it's going to be totally worth it (and the price actually isn't bad, compared to any of the other Africa trips I've ever seen). Now I just have to buy a new camera...

But before I have photos of lions and leopards to share with you, I have a few kitties that are closer to home. But just as cute. You decide.

They're holding paws!