A lottle of very little

G'day all!

I am still knitting - see?

New socks for me!

These are my new socks.  I wish I could find the label of them - I bought them from a vendor at Knit Fit (my local knitting conference!!!  Like four small blocks from me or a bit over 5 minutes!) in November.  I call them Antidote because they are a nice bright pick me up for dull days.  Hooray - found the label - dyed by Deidra MacKimmie, Spinner's Candy, "Sour Skittles Splash."

See, there are two!

They are quite nice and thick and squishy and I like them quite a lot.

I'm knitting a smoke ring with some
lovely lovely MadTosh merino.

This smoke ring is quite quick to knit up - ok, I've been knitting it on and off over over a week now and I've only done 1.5 repeats (more than what the pic shows) but it is my knitting whilst thinking piece by the computer.

Plus I have another sock on the go - I got a whole lot of it knitted in the TWO HOUR LONG queue to get into Comicon on Friday.  I only cast on in the bus on the way there...  I am so glad that I had the sock to keep me entertained.

Jan 2013 sock club yarn from
Flamboyant Yarn. 
Blurry pic by me and my phone.

I wandered around Comicon and gawped at costumes and people and things, and talked to the Oatmeal guy - he's a bit of alright!  I bought his books and got them signed and all.

Costumes.  Emerald City Comicon.

But it didn't entertain me as much as it did some.  I thought about queueing to get a couple of signatures but really?  My B5 signatures that I went to so much effort to get have been in storage for so long I don't even know where they are, so why would I go pay for signatures that I don't really care about?  Also they wanted cash unless I waited for Wil Wheaton who was not charging.  Yay Wil!  But I had waited in line for long enough that day.

A lottle bit of Star Wars.

Today I went off to a craft fair in Puyallup.  It is supposed to be HUGE! but every time I go to something that is HUGE I find it relatively small.  Maybe I'm just used to Australian craft, quilting and knitting conventions, though Stitches West was pretty big.  Anyway, this "easy chair" amused me.

!!!!  !!!!!!!!

I did buy a few bits and bobs, like some extra material for my brother's quilt and some material because it was pretty, and a lot of people commented on my skirt, the skirt I still don't have pics of because the weather on the weekend keeps being manky - actually it is manky most of the time at the moment.  It keeps promising a bit of spring but we haven't seen much in the way of sun since Tuesday I think and I want my sun back!  Anyway, it is made of "upcycled" felted jumpers (sweaters in US parlance) that are cut up and then overlocked (serged) into a new form.  Quite a few people asked me about it.

Despite the manky weather, we are winding our way towards Spring.  Various plants are budding out rapidly and some of the cherry plums are in bloom in the city (downtown).  I give you a very small cavalcade of daffodils, like two whole pics of them:

The tete a tetes (mini daffodils) on my balcony are almost blooming too.

The days are getting longer - over 11 hours now, way up from the not quite 8.5 hours of midwinter.  It does make a big difference to moods, though when it just pours rain and then goes sullen and grey for three or four days in a row, or a week, it gets a bit sad-making.

Last weekend we went off to the Flower and Garden Show.  I lost one of my tops there, but picked it up on Friday when I went back there for Comicon - someone had handed my top in!  Last time I lost a top, I never found it again.  We wandered around and saw some amazing stuff and brought home a number of orchids (mostly Oz natives).

Love the beetles and bugs made by
Sean Goddard  (search SeanGoddardInsects)

Awww, almost fairy land.

Of course we liked this!  It won the peoples' award.

This certainly made a statement.

As I go back in time through my pics and the blog, I find that I've finished another pair of socks, technically for Valentine's Day for DH but only a week late.  That's ok.

Socks.  Two of them.

I was particularly pleased with the way the heels used a repeat of the striping so that they did not interrupt the pattern as it continued up the leg.  It was sheer luck, but I made sure it happened on the second sock.

And the other exciting thing we did was accidentally go to the snow.  DH didn't give me very good directions to Cougar Mountain, and eventually we ended up at Snoqualmie Pass.  I was very glad I'd worn my hiking boots and winter jacket but DH only had mesh runners and a cotton "fleecy" (plus trousers, of course!) so we spent about 10 minutes outside if that and most of our time there in an eatery.

The clouds sat down on the mountains

so we decided to leave.  We didn't have good
snow gear or chains/etc for the car.

We stopped in North Bend, technically for petrol but I drove straight past all the fuel stations without realising and then decided not to chuck a u-ey.  Wish I had've cos I ended up fuelling up on Mercer Island after driving in circles there...

Love the snow/ice line.

Now if only I could clear the decks on my work stuff - I am at the pointy end of the project now and argh, it is taking me soooo long to get it finished.   I have had enough of it but I must persist and get the blasted thing done so it can be tested and fixed and tested and fixed and then sent off to the big wide world where it can be a grown up training module.  And I will be pleased to let it go!

anon!