basimah knits… and spins… and maybe complains about things a little…

cold hands can officially suck it!  i’ve got handspun handknit superwash merino gloves in pinkbrown, no less… AND they’re finished right in time for winter (holy spaghetti, i’m never that skilled with project timing).

so we had an unreasonable amount of ridiculously old and broken crayons at work.  my co-worker and i spent an unreasonable amount of time sorting out the crayolas from the "others"*.  i brought the resulting crampacked gallon ziplock bag of crayolas home and spent an unreasonable amount of time peeling and sorting them.  then i crammed some** of them in a mini muffin tin and melted the crap out of them in the oven and ended up with crayon nubbins that are good and fun and awesome.  the end***.

*i am not a crayon racist, i just know that different brands of crayons have different ingredients and melting points and i figured if i went with only the majority (which happened to be crayola) i would end up with a halfway decent finished product.

**i still have well over a half of a gallon bag full of crayons yet to be peeled and sorted and melted into muffins

***or is it?

specifically, cake of the birthday variety!

first, the one i made

then, the one vickie brought to work for me

it’s my little people mini-me in cake form! and she’s super tasty!

so i made it to the stephenson county fiber arts fair last month, and i didn’t go too super crazy with the spending this year. i got some red sparkley leicester merino, pink/brown corriedale, multi-color sparkley wool with silk noil, and multi-color dyed locks from a sheep named julia. i haven’t spun any up yet.

so, anyone close to me probably knows that i live in a constant state of chaos.  i’m kind of like that pigpen kid from charlie brown.  you know the one with the dust cloud everywhere he goes.  well, ok… i’m not THAT bad, but i do tend to surround myself with clutter and randomness.  anyone really close to me would know that despite my chaotic surroundings and lack of general tidiness skills, deep deep down i crave neatness and order.  one of my beloved childhood pasttimes was "Roy G. Biv"ing my big box of crayons (rainbow order… Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet).  the idea of everything having a place and everything actually being in its place makes me warm and fuzzy inside, but the practice of actually putting things into place overwhelms and frustrates me.  cruel world, why must you mock me so?

i think that i’ve found a place to start in my eternal quest for order.  bento lunches.  not sure what i’m talking about?  go on over to my new favorite blog and check things out. they’re neat, they’re tidy, once lunch is done, they’re gone forever and i can start planning the next one.  no frustration, no stress, small enough to not be overwhelming.  perfect for me and my crazy brain.

i’ve been as yet unable to find a bento box around here (not a big surprise in this crappy town), and the ones i’ve found online are rather spendy or little kid size tiny, so it will be a shopping around kind of purchase.   until i find one that NEED to have, i’ll just use the 100s of ziplock and gladware containers that are always floating around the kitchen.

so here’s my first bento-style lunch

it’s not super fancy, but i had fun making it and i suspect i will have fun eating it tomorrow (i know the kids at work will have fun looking and probably poking at it).  it’s 3 couscous piggies, a piggie hardboiled egg, a handful of baby carrots, and a wedge of laughing cow cheese.  the couscous is super easy and super tasty and has dried apricots and cranberries and nuts and cumin and green onion.  the piggies were made with an ice cream sandwich maker i found in the clearance section at walmart.  it came with a cow face one too.

and now that i’ve spent more time writing about my lunch than i probably will spend actually eating it, i’m going to head to bed.

is that how this blog thing is sposed to go?  interesting.

well once again it’s holiday time which means i’ve waited way too long to start too many projects and no one will be getting anything super awesome and handmade (well, almost no one… more to follow).  it also means i’ve gone broke buying things for people who probably won’t really appreciate it and there’s still more people i should shop for.  i know that it’s not about the presents and the money and the commercialism and whatnot, but i feel like an ass when other people give me something really good and i give them something kinda lame, and i don’t so much enjoy feeling like an ass too often.

so, i did finish a few handmade gifts this year, a fancypants paisley fabric crochet hook case for mom and a shawl for my friend wendy’s mom who decided to move to oklahoma before i finished the shawl, so now i have to mail it which means it will probably get sent out some time in march or april because i’m just bad at that sort of thing.  a pic of the shawl…

it’s Kiri knit with knitpicks undyed lace yarn that i dyed with koolaid and food coloring.  i’m not super in love with the color, but i’m not big on green.  wendy told me green is her mom’s favorite, so hopefully she’ll like it.

as i was looking for the picture of the shawl, i was reminded by this picture that i have another finished object…

this is the hemlock ring blanket, and i used leftovers of knitpicks wool of the andes heathers that i was supposed to have used on purses to sell at various craft shows this past season (which would have been a great plan if people would actually spend money at the shows).  ah well, it makes a nice lap blanket and it’s rainbowey and good.

so that’s about it for now…. merry christmas and happy festivus.

pattern: mystery stole 3
yarn: knitpicks bare laceweight
needles: size 4 (i think) plastic circulars

it’s done and blocked and i don’t think i LOVE love it, but i’m glad i made it nonetheless.  the stole itself is really pretty and i learned some new techniques and i kinda liked the mystery of it all.  i’m just not sure if it’s something i’ll really ever wear, and i wish it was a bit longer to better work with my broad shoulders and fluffy arms.  i might gift it or something.  not sure yet.

on a less knit-related note, i threw out TONS of crap from my room and now there’s walking space and a closet and all that stuff that normal people always have access to in their rooms.  there’s still a lot of stuff, but i’m slowly going through that and getting rid of more and organizing and such.  i’m still not sure what to do with all the yarn, but i’m thinking it will get donated to a school or nursing home or shelter or someplace.  it’s unreasonable for me to pretend that i’ll ever actually use it all so it might as well go to someone who will (before anyone asks what kind of yarn, it’s nearly all partial balls of red heart and novelty acrylics).

no, not poo crap, junk crap.  in my bedroom.  tons of it.  apparently when you never throw anything away because you have an irrational belief that as soon as it’s gone you’ll need it for something, you end up with a lot of crap that you will never need ever and no space for walking on your floor.  so, once again, i’ve decided to take on the task of "cleaning" things up.  now, usually, "cleaning" mostly means just shuffling things around and cramming things into the least crammed areas in the room.  this time, believe it or not, i am throwing things away.  no really, i am… at least 5 bigass garbage bags full of old stuff i’ll never use have gone out to the curb over the past week or so.  i have mixed emotions about the progess.  part of me is stoked that i might finally have shaken my horrible packrat tendencies and i may have a living space that i can enjoy living in.  the other part is both saddened and disgusted at just how bad i let things get in the first place.  not disgusted because there’s gross things going on (that would be my brother’s room or the creepy basement), but disgusted because i must think so little of myself and my stuff that i don’t take the time to take care of it or at least find a reasonable place for it (clothes do not belong in a giant pile infront of the bookshelf, and yarn does not belong crammed into any and every little crammy hole that can be found).  i’ve read and heard that packratting (hoarding) can be a sign of depression, but as long as i can remember, i’ve held onto stuff.  not even important or sentimental stuff… just stuff.  i still have almost all of my notes and tests and such from high school.  high school!  i barely used that stuff then, so why the hell should i keep it around now.  it makes no sense.  i’m not stupid, i know that it makes no sense to keep all this stuff around that i know is of no use to me, yet i keep letting it pile up.  am i just lazy?  is it some sort of chemical imbalance?  will i ever get better?  is the only thing saving me from becoming the lady with the house crammed full of garbage and the 100s of cats the fact that i’m entirely allergic to cats?  scary thoughts.  scary enough to get me off my ass and back to the pit to throw away some more stuff right now.  wish me luck.

every once in a while my dad will do something totally random that makes me smile.  mom put him in charge of ordering a birthday cake for me this year.  usually, this means a way-too-huge cake in weird flavors with some sort of pink flowers or something on it (i’m pretty sure that he actually asks for "some sort of pink flowers or something" when he goes to the bakery).  not this year, my friends.  this year’s cake is reasonably sized with a very thoughtful decoration on it (there’s still "some sort of pink flowers or something", but that’s not the important part.  check it out!

it’s knitting needles and yarn!  the flavor is yet to be revealed, but the knitting theme is super awesome enough to make up for whatever weirdness might be hidden under the frosting-ey goodness.  yay dad!

yes, i realize it’s pretty lame to be so excited over a lunch box, but it’s new and shiny and red and looks like a purse and it’s awesome!  vickie (co-worker) got it for me for my upcoming birthday (saturday).  she was aware that i’ve been bringing my lunch to work in any sort of bag/container i could grab on the way out of the house (gift bag, big ziplock, grocery bag, etc), and she knew how upset i was over the death of my big red tote bag (strap broke and i’d have to get all the straps replaced to make it look halfway decent, and i’d end up probably spending more than the bag cost to begin with) so she got me this great red lunchbox…

now my lunch can travel in style.. yay!