Procrastiknitting

Never have I been so diligent in my knitting practice. I have knit and ripped back and re-knit the top cuff of my arm warmers.... (counting in head) four times. I think. I'm pretty happy with what I've got going on now. No pictures because there is only tungsten or super-flash so any photo I took tonight would be terrible. Hopefully I will finish mitt the first tomorrow and photograph it. I am super happy with the pattern. It is the Lovisa Armwarmer pattern (rav link). The pattern is wicked cute and supremely free. I am knitting it in what is quite possibly my all time favourite everyday yarn: Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed. Using the DK weight this time which I like better than the aran.

I will post my mods when I finish at least one mitt and have a snappy snap to go with it.

That is all.
What a good little blog keeper I am... My my! There must be assignments due, I'm not usually so productive!

Photos aka what Mr Handsom does all day

So when the boy isn't gaming or talking to people in far off places he takes photos or edits photos or writes about photos on the blog he and his friend/mentor run. And when he isn't doing that he is pouring over the Google Analyitics of the blog trying to figure out how to get more readers. It's so much more technical than I can bothered to be about the whole blogging thing.

In an attempt to assist him in his quest for more readers I got him a great little ebook from Craftypod, Diane Gilleland's craft blog/shop/self contained universe. The ebook is Creating a Blog Audience. It's full of advice, handy tips and such that even non-audience-interested people such as myself will find useful. It's also really well written, so when I was just having a glance through before I passed it over, I actually got sucked into reading half of it and felt sad when I had to hand the computer over.

But the blog in question here is not my little (and somewhat insignificant) corner of the intertubes, but Metaphor Online, Mr Handsome's main project. They have little run downs on some great photographers in Australia and overseas. It's still in its infancy but the boys are off to a good start. I think so anyway.

Today's craving is brought to you by Rowan

Absolutely dying to knit some crack silk haze. Have two balls bought at Purl SoHo. Startitis is hitting me hard at the moment. Got me a lace craving. Silly old brain, I know that I am way too virus riddled to handle the tricky stuff and it is just the Codral talking. Still feel like casting on a shawl though.

Well I'm no good now, am I

Ho hum...
So the gap is ever-widening.
In my defence, I am a very boring individual and have little to report.
+ New semester of Uni is half done. Am taking a politics unit which feels distinctly un-me. Interesting though.
+ Have an assignment for said pols unit, but finding it more tricky than I should. Will blame virus-brain.
+ Virused for the third time this season. Most displeased. Think maybe a better diet and more exercise is required.
+ have been working on my mad spinning skillz. Actually pretty happy with them. Was lent an Ashford spindle by one of the girls at a spinning afternoon. Much better than my sadly crap ebay spindle.
+ Decided that a spinning wheel is absolutely necessary to my on-going existence. Mister says not til we move out. I am still looking for nooks and crannies around the home in which to hide one.
+ have been doing battle with the bohemoth that is Centrelink. Application was finally approved today. After two and a half months. Now just need to rustle up payslips from the intervening weeks.
+ Am notorious for loosing/ chucking out my pay slips. I have found 4/10. Not happy.
+ After watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mister decided that Centrelink is run by Vogons. Agree entirely. "bring me the request to pursue fugitive form"

That's all. I am off for a nap.

whoops (of a different ilk)

A different sort of whoops... the kind you could report to mum back in the day because clause b of [(a)Someone's getting hurt or (b) something's getting broken] was actualised.
I trod on my spindle. In my books that makes it a spundle.
I blame the treding directly on exams, because if I didn't have exams I wouldn't a) need to spin to relieve stress/ procrastinate and b) have a shockingly messy room.

The whoops has been remedied though, thanks to our good friend eBay. I would have done the responsible thing and etsyed a new spindle except that US dollars suck and it's too tricky to find Australian producers for specific things... I want to be able to refine a product search by location but either I am too stupid to find this function or it doesn't exist.

Am also waiting to hear back from some spindle making dude on Rav but was getting impatient and might get one from him after exams anyway.

A scarf for a boy, worn by a girl

Done done diddly. I'd like to thank Yarns on Collie, American Express, The Freo knitters, ABC TV and iView and most of all the lovely Mister for whom all this labour was for. Quite frankly I am so relived it is over and I don't have to do endless rows of seed/single moss any more. What peeves me slightly is that he hasn't worn it yet and thus I am yet to get a photo of the finished product on its intended recipient. So here I am.

Behind me you will see the other fruit of my procrastinating labour, the new upstairs bookshelf. Built by my very clever father, assisted by Mister. For years we have had teetering stacks of books scattered around the house, next to peoples' beds, on the stairs, on the tables and side tables, on top of other books on bookshelves etc. Thanks to the new bookshelf, we have real estate for approximately 600 novel sized books. Four and a half of the ten shelves have been filled by me in an attempt to justify not studying for my looming exams. This shelf filling means our bigger books have places to go on various other bigger bookshelves. Yay! I could spend my whole exam period happily re-arranging our family library. But I shan't. I shall be good and get back to studies now. After I have a spot of lunch.

IWONIWONIWON!!!!

WEEEEEEEEE!!! I finally won something! I enter blog giveaways a little half heartedly, seeing as nothing has ever come of my entries but at last, VICTORY! The giveaway was hosted by Julie of Little Cotton Rabbits, a very cute little site with some great free patterns. (Digression: I knitted her cupcake as the decoration on my sister's birthday card a couple of years ago. You'd have though I'd hand selected a star from the night sky and tied it on the card, so well was it received.) The prize in question was one of her new Hedgehog patterns.... extreme cuteness. Makes me wish I had some brown tweed stashed to get it underway... alas, I think a trip to the yarn store is in order (Damn!). Julie is selling said hedgehogs and donating money to the hedgehog protection peeps... get on board.