Lover of Color. And Colours, Too

Today’s topic for the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012 (or, rather yesterday’s topic in Australia time…I had the most difficult time finding the topics for these blog posts. Oh well! It’s still the 23rd in Hawaii.) is Color Lovers. Actually, it’s ColOUr Lovers. I’m assuming Eskimimi is British. Or Canadian. Or Australian? I actually don’t know if Australians spell things funny like that. Considering they spell fiber “fibre,” then I’m thinking they probably do.

AHEM.

ANYwho… I LOVE this topic. I love this topic because I love color. Or colour. Either way. If it’s bright and colorful and especially if it’s purple then I love it. I tend to think and feel in color. When I’m sad or in a funk, my world seems monotone or even colorless. Conversely, when I’m happy and engaged with life, the world is bursting with color- usually from all the unicorn farts. Heck, I even smell in color. My Mister thought it was really odd the first time I told him, “Yummm…this smells so pretty. It smells purple.”

When it comes to yarn, I don’t discriminate. I’m all, “YAAAAARN!” and then buy out the whole store. Usually after snorting as many skeins as I can while rubbing the really soft ones on my face while purring, “Baaaay-beeeee.” You think I’m kidding- just ask Lyteyz. Unfortunately (for my dignity) she’s been witness to my wool induced craziness.

I was looking through my stash and found that I do have lots (and lots and lots) of just about every color in the rainbow. I do seem to have more pinks/reds and blues. Yes, even more than purple, which is odd, really. (*Note to self: Buy more yarn. I mean, buy more purple yarn.)

I love bright, “LOOK AT ME!” colors.

From top left: Stitch Nation bamboo ewe "Snapdragon," Lion Brand Wool "Pumpkin," Universal Yarn Deluxe Worsted 100% Wool "Marigold," RHSS (unknown color), Patons Classic Wool "Too Teal," Classic Elite Yarns Silky Alpaca Lace "2495," Stitch Nation bamboo ewe "Geranium"

And more subtle, “Meh. Whatever. I’m too hipster to notice,” colors.

From top left: Jojoland Rhythm "M13," Caron Simply Soft "Country Blue," Naturally Caron Country "Loden Frost," Patons Classic Wool Merino "Old Gold," Patons Classic Wool "Paprika," Patons Classic Wool "Cognac Heather"

I love pastel colors.

From Top left: Lion Cashere Blend "Light Blue," Sensations Bellezza Collection Tesoro "Purple," Sensations Bellezza Collection Tesoro "Pink," Sensations Bellezza Collection Tesoro "Peach," Sensations Bellezza Collection Tesoro "Yellow"

I love variegated colors. Maybe a little too much…

From top left: Senations Arctic "Berry," Patons Classic Wool Merino "Regency," Patons Classic Wool "Rosewood," Lion Brand Wool "Autumn Sunset," Patons SWS "Natural Crimson," Reynolds Top Seed Cotton Print "5132," Patons Classic Wool (unknown), Patons Classic Wool "Retro," Lion Brand Wool "Ocean Blues," Elegant Yarns, Inc Kaleidoscope "21"

I love putting different colors together and seeing the outcome.

As part of this blog topic, one of the suggested questions was, “How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern?” I thought about it for a second and realized that I really don’t crochet things from other people’s patterns. I love looking through the patterns and have a great collection of crochet pattern books, but I find I have too many ideas in my head to crochet other patterns. This makes me a little sad, really. I have so many things I’d love to make that so many gifted designers have made. Like this jacket from Shibaguyz.

Bangkok Jacket, AKA: MINE, ALL MINE!!!

How amazing is that??? I must admit, the gorgeous bright green is one of the reasons this jacket has suction cupped itself to my face while chanting, “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I am soooo pretty!! Make me NOW!” I find that that color with that design is just perfection. I love it!

Then I realized that many times when I see patterns, I do often think, “Ooooo…it’d look great in this color!” One exception is this blanket by Lisa Naskrent.

Moorish Mosaic Afghan AKA: *jaw on the floor*

I can’t even begin to express how much I am in love with this blanket and it’s precisely due to the perfect combination of colors she chose. I have seen different versions of this blanket on Ravelry and none come close to the absolute jaw dropping awe I felt when I first laid eyes on this blanket. I remember the first time I saw it. My Mister and I were eating lunch at Mama Lucci’s and I was flipping through the Interweave Crochet magazine when I was dumbstruck with the gorgeousness and literally gasped, slobbered and tried stringing together words, “Daaaaa…….Must….lick…..purdy……….AAAAAACKKKKK!”

That, my friends, is the power of color over me.

I’ve showed that having the right color can make a project pop with my Super Mario Blanket.

Heck, I’ve spent the last couple weeks taking apart a million rows of Tunisian crochet just because of the differences in these colors.

NEED MORE COLORS!

Yeah. I know. It’s a sickness, I tell you. Nothing a little crochet therapy can’t handle, though. Fondling all that yarn made me a leeeetle bit loopy. Til tomorrow, y’all.

From Eskimimi: To read all about other peoples' love of colour from those taking part in Knitting and crochet blog week, simply perform a Google search for the tag 3KCBWDAY1

Good Mom/Bad Mom

You guys, we had a rough night. Little Mister didn't sleep at all, thus Big Mister and I didn't sleep at all. It’s been another 6 days since Little Mister pooped. AGAIN. He did have a little bit of a shart yesterday, but certainly not a 6 day poop shart. I also think he’s teething again since he’s sticking everything in his mouth- including my giant plastic crochet hooks. I so wish I had my camera while he was holding it while under his Fibonacci blanket yesterday. Of all the times to forget my phone at home…argh.

He's not napping today, either. I finally put him on the floor in my bedroom so I could have a minute to myself to…take care of business…and the next thing I know, the cat is running into the bathroom, her arthritic hips flailing, while meowing maniacally and pointing accusingly at Little Mister who was stealthily army crawling our way with a laugh on his lips, a twinkle in his eye, and a look of determination on his face. At least I hope it was “determination.” I’m afraid it was, “homicidal mania” and his “happy laughter” was, “Ima gonna get you, cat,” with “This ain’t no “twinkle” I be crazy, yo!”

I'm tired and a little bit on edge today and the only things that keep popping into my head were the following Good Mom/Bad Mom examples. And they gave me ideas made me giggle. I could really use a laugh today, so if you can add any to these, please do.

Ten Differences Between A Good Mom and A Bad Mom

Good Mom: Teaching your child the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do to you.
Bad Mom: Teaching your child the Golden Rule: You poop on me, I poop on you.

Good Mom: Offering your baby your breast for some nutritious breast milk.
Bad Mom: Offering your baby your toe for some moldy toe jam.

Good Mom: Teaching your baby to say, “I love you, grandma!”
Bad Mom: Teaching your baby to say, “I’ll cut you, dirty whore!”

Good Mom: Securely fastening your baby to their car seat.
Bad Mom: Not fastening the car seat to the car.

Good Mom: Giving your baby a teething ring to help with the pain of teething.
Bad Mom: Taping your baby’s mouth shut so they’ll quit crying about their stupid teeth.

Good Mom: Offering your baby a variety of fruits and vegetables.
Bad Mom: Offering your baby a variety of road kill.

Good Mom: Teaching your child to pick up their toys and put them away.
Bad Mom: Teaching your child to pick up some hos and put them in ICU.

Good Mom: Letting your child play with a rubber ducky in the bathtub.
Bad Mom: Letting your child play with a plugged in toaster oven in the bathtub.

Good Mom: Clapping and laughing when your baby rolls over.
Bad Mom: Clapping and laughing when your baby rolls down an embankment.   

Good Mom: Gently rocking your baby and cooing, “Go to sleep, sweetie.”
Bad Mom: Not so gently hitting your baby with a rock while yelling, “GO TO SLEEP, BUTTMUNCH!”




Here's hoping tonight will be better than last night!


PS: I'm going to be participating in the 3rd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog week this week. Should be fun! (Thanks to Libby for blogging about it, otherwise I'd never have known!)

The Voices In My Head

In my mind, I’m still 22 years old and able to hike hours and hours and bike miles and miles and I can still lose 5 pounds in a couple days by skipping lunch every now and then and still climb up the pinon trees to shake down those lovely, tasty deer turds. In reality? In reality I’m mrfmrfmrf years old, had a baby fairly recently, and I haven’t been exercising regularly in….well, about 2 years, if I’m honest. (HOLY COW! TWO WHOLE FREAKING YEARS??? How did that much time slip by me without me realizing it???)

So, thanks to my new friend Miss A, I’ve been remedying that sad, sad fact and have been walking just about every day with her. Some days we’ll even jog. Or she’ll jog and I’ll try to walk really really fast picking up my knees really high so that it resembles jogging to people driving by. Then I manually jump start my heart again while using my stealthily hidden bicycle pump to reinflate my lungs. We’ve also been steadily increasing our mileage. We started out with about 4 miles and, as of Thursday AND Friday this week, we’ve completed 6 miles. Or just about 10km. I KNOW, RIGHT? We’re like some super-fit postpartum mega babes or something.

As I’m trudging along, trying not to die too much, I’m constantly trying to shush the voices in my head and try to pay attention to our conversation. One of the voices is extremely optimistic, enthusiastic and maybe a tad bit annoying. We’ll call her “Geanie.” The other voice is a little more realistic, pessimistic, and sometimes really grouchy. We’ll call her “Meanie.”

This is the conversation between Geanie and Meanie on Friday as Miss A and I went on our 6 mile trek.

Geanie: OMG! I’m so excited to try a different route today! We’re going to totally work those muscles and I’m going to be a super fit, hot, mega babe in no time flat. How flat? AS FLAT AS MY ABS ARE ABOUT TO BE! Booyah!

Meanie: OMG my butt is so sore from that stinking walk yesterday. Why didn’t we stretch? Now we’re going to have to go to that sadistic massage therapist again. Aw crap. I forgot my water. I’m going to dehydrate and die! UGH! It’d be a whole lot easier if I didn’t have to push this kid in this stupid heavy stroller.

Geanie: WHOO! Feel that burn! Extra weight from pushing Little Mister = more calories burned = I AM SO FREAKING AMAZINGLY AWESOME!

Meanie: Oh c’mon! Hills?!? There were no stinkin’ hills on our regular route! Why did we have to do this stupid trail, anyway?

Geanie: WAHOO! Hills! My butt is going to look so amazingly amazing! You’ll be able to bounce a quarter off of it!

Meanie: Bounce a quarter off of it??? Do you listen to yourself, woman? It’d be a total “WIN” if it just stopped flapping in the breeze when we farted.

Geanie: I can’t believe we’ve already gone 2 miles. Just one more mile and then we can turn back and then another measly 3 miles and we are done!!! Such a short, pretty, AMAZING walk!

Meanie: OH MY LANTA! Only 2 miles so far??? I AM GOING TO DIIIIIIIE!

Geanie: My goodness there are a lot of flies out today. They must be attracted to all of the carbon dioxide I’m producing which means my lungs are TOTALLY WORKING!! GO RESPIRATORY SYSTEM, GO!!

Meanie: AAACKKKK!! These stupid flies won’t leave me alone! My lungs are full of lead! My heart is going to stop any moment now and Little Mister is going to be motherless! I’ll haunt Big Mister to the ends of the earth if he tries bouncing a quarter off my embalmed butt!!!

Geanie: Whew! Feel that burn!! YAAAAAY!!

Meanie: OOOOOHHHHH MYYYYY GOOOOOOOODD!! One of those stinking flies just flew in my mouth! I ATE A FLY! I ATE A FLY!! I’M GOING TO DIIIIIIIE!

Geanie: Oh my- what a thoughtful little creature. Trying to give me some added protein during this AWESOME workout!

Meanie: I FORGOT MY WATER!!! THE FLY IS FLYING IN MY THROAT! I CAN FEEL IT! It’s going to poison me slowly and claw out my esophagus and then I’m going to DIIIIIIIIIIE!

*Miss A kindly and thoughtfully unscrews her water bottle cap so I can take a gulp of water to wash down the fly*

Geanie: Ahhhh….a mouthful of water is so refreshing.

Meanie: I hope she didn’t backwash. Drinking water she backwashed in means we’re married in some countries. UGGGHHHH! Why didn't I check Australia's marital laws before moving here????

Geanie: YAY! A wedding! Maybe we should buy her flowers or something?

Meanie: Yeah- keep walking there, Miss A. Keep your eyes off my badunkadunk. I ain’t no easy trollop.

Geanie: BEST FRIENDS F.O.R.E.V.E.R. !!!!!!!!

Meanie: FINALLY! I can see the parking lot so this stupid, inhumane torture walk of insanity will finally end. KILL ME NOW!!!!!

Geanie: WHEW! 6 miles! I am amazing!!! Feel the burn, fat! WAHHHOOOOOO!

Meanie: Must….drink…..water…..going….to…..die………….now.






Little Mister and I thankfully made it home safely. Yes, I am both proud of walking a hilly 10k and a little leery of Australia's marital laws. Either way, Miss A and I are totally super fit, postpartum mega babes. Bounce a quarter off of THAT!

Hot, Acrylic Lovin'

So, as I mentioned a few days ago, I have to rip apart Little Mister’s Blanket o’Love that I’ve been working on since last year since I am basically a neurotic perfectionist when it comes to my crochet. If there is a mistake or a hint of a mistake, or a whisper of a hint of a mistake, or if it sucks really, really badly, I need to rip it all apart and then do it over and over and over again until the planets are aligned and the unicorns are once again farting rainbows.

My Mister wishes I was this neurotically obsessed about keeping our house in a perpetual state of perfection, or at least NOT in a state of OMG THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A TORNADO SO CALL FEMA NOW! But we all know that is plain silliness because I need to work on perfecting my crochet which leaves the sum total of zero minutes to work on the house. Dishes are dirty? Maybe a double crochet through back loop only will help me to forget about clean them. Floors need to be vacuumed? Maybe this fine lace weight alpaca/silk mix gorgeousness will magically distract me make the crap disappear. POOF! (If not, I’m pretty sure Little Mister won’t mind working on his pincher grip/self feeding skills he’s been utilizing as of late.)

As much as I obsess about my crochet, I must admit this particular project has me dragging my feet. I am having cold sweats thinking that I might give my sweet Little Mister something less than perfect, but the scope of what I have to do makes me think, “Well, he has to learn about disappointment sometime.”

What’s causing me this heartburn is the fact that I have to rip apart 60 rows or so of Tunisian color work. That's about 70 kajillion rows of regular crochet because Tunisian crochet eats regular crochet for breakfast, poops it out to make room for second breakfast and then still has more yarn to eat for elevensies and luncheon. Thus, I’ve been dragging my feet and not getting on with it since it is an incredibly, incredibly painful yarn-eating endeavor. Honestly, if I lived in the States and had easy access to the yarn, I might just start the whole thing again and give this one to my brother since he’d love it and I’d be totally ok giving him something that sucks is less than perfect. (Your turd sandwich is in the mail, li’l bro! *giggling and running away*)

Because it’s Tunisian, I have about 15 hundred million different colors in each row that start making passionate, sensual, worthy-of-Sting-tantric-sexy-time tangles with each other as soon as I release them from their crocheted chastity belts.

Actual yarn conversation, I swear:

Oooooh baby. She’s starting on our row. That’s right, baby. She’s going to loosen these bonds keeping us apart and we’ll be able to get all kinds of nasty, kinky, tangleness going on. Oh, come on, baby. You know you want to. Give daddy some hot acrylic lovin’!

And then I look away and blush and then make sure Little Mister can’t hear what’s going on because he’s much, much too sane young for this kind of thing.

So, this has been a sloooow process. And, since I need to do it but don’t really want to do it, I’m finding things to distract myself from the task at hand. Like *shudder* cleaning. *SHUDDER* (Truth be told, I’ve been pretty obsessed with my new vacuum and have been taking it out at any little provocation because it actually works and I’m all, “WHEEEE! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!” Although I think I’m so excited by the fact that, since it works so well, I don’t have to try to create a vacuum by holding in my farts anymore.)

However, I’m slowly but surely getting there. I know I’ll feel better once it’s all out and I can start working on it again. But, Little Mister? Turns out he’s a vindictive little guy.

RIP OUT MY BLANKET, I'LL RIP OUT YOURS!!!

Either that or he overheard the Tunisian crochet yarn conversation which means I've got a lot of therapy to pay for when he's older.

What's hot acrylic lovin' mama?

Free, Free, I'm Free At Last!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very pleased to inform you that The Eagle Has Landed. It took six days of nail biting apprehension, two days of trying to get apple juice down the gullet, and one thermometer up the backside, but it has finally happened. Little Mister finally pooped.

I know, I know. Y’all are probably saying, “This is way more than we needed to know about your child’s digestive behavior.” To which I have to say, “DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD BECAUSE MY BABY POOPED!”

You have no idea how very relieved I am about this. I have been lining his car seat with an inch stack of paper towels just in case. I’ve been massaging his tummy throughout the day being careful to aim him at his dad. I’ve been playing “Bouncy Bouncy” with him in hopes that vigorous shaking would somehow loosen his sphincter’s death grip on the payload. I’ve been sniffing his butt at night before I pick him up to feed him to avoid a midnight surprise. DUDES! I’ve become a BUTT SNIFFER!! (Now there’s a sentence I’ve never thought I’d type. Oh, and hello to all you weird perverts who arrived here from googling butt sniffage. Sorry to disappoint you.)

(Actually, no, I’m not. Perverts.)

And then today, Day Numero 6 of Poop Watch 2012, I went to the Chemist (Pharmacist for you Yanks) and bought an infant suppository.*cue suspenseful music here* DUNN DA DUNNNNNN.

Oh yes. I was bringing out the big guns. To paraphrase Marvin Gaye, ain’t no butt cheek high enough, ain’t no diaper thick enough, ain’t no colon deep enough to keep me from getting the poop.

Fortunately, just the threat of having a little glycerol bullet shoved up his pooper was enough to get Little Mister to get with the program and release the hounds, as it were. *Dance of Joy*

So, we can all rest well tonight. He doesn’t have a full, uncomfortable belly to prevent him from sleeping peacefully and I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to find when I go sniff his butt in the middle of the night. Wait...I mean...I don't have to sniff his butt at night anymore. Yes. That's what I meant...