etc.

I am smitten with socks all over again. Once I finished my sister’s second sock (I finished it, I really did! I forgot to take a picture of it though!) I just had to keep knitting them, so I whipped through this pair, made with luscious Fleece Artist merino. I like this colourway just fine but I’m not so sure I like the way the colours pooled in some spots and stripped in others. But, whatever, they’re the most comfortable socks I own and were a dream to knit.

I’m ready for more socks, but I’m fresh out of sock yarn, so I’m on the hunt. Tell me, dear knitting readers, do you have a favourite sock yarn? Something that makes you swoon as it feeds off your needles? Something ridiculously luxurious? Something silken and buttery? I need to know about it!

This is a picture I dug up from last year’s archives (taken in front of the Met in NYC) while trying to decide whether to chop my hair off or not. I’ve half-heartedly been trying to grow it out, but I’m not good with in-between-hair and am very tempted (very, very tempted) to cut it this short again, and throw in some pink highlights while I’m at it. I am seriously not kidding about the pink.

More SPT on Flickr & this list of self portrait bloggers.

Has it been five days? When I turned on my computer this morning and realized that the last time I posted was Tuesday, it occured to me that if I didn’t post again soon, we would be faced with back-to-back self-portrait-tuesday posts. Can’t let that happen.

I have nothing crafty to put on display here for you, for, you see, I am currently channeling my creativity into librarianish things. I have a bunch of talks, courses, and writing projects in the pipeline, whose deadlines range from three weeks from now to February 2006, so there is not likely to be as much knitting, sewing, crafting, beading, &c. going on here as we’ve been used to. Here’s where the energies will be focused over the next few months:

• preparing for BlogU, three weeks from now. I get to talk about blog design, content, and marketing, and hang out with some excellent libraryblogfolk.
• getting ready for Northern Exposure. Six days in the Rocky Mountains talking about library things. Fun!
• updating course materials for an online course, which begins in October. A reprise of this course that I taught last year.
• pulling together a hands-on workshop for the Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto, for November.
• writing a chapter for a “Day in the Life” type book about library jobs, edited by Priscilla Shontz, due December.
• working on a paper to be delivered at the OLA Super Conference in February on my library’s instant messaging reference service.

…And a couple other projects that have not yet been finalized for early next year. Whew, busy.

Of course, this is not to say that there will be no crafting going on around here. I owe six bags to a friend of mine who wants them for her shop, and I need to get working on a little commisson of cats for another friend. And I anticipate the inevitable need for other bits of sanity-crafting along the way, O yes. Stay tuned!

My mum-in-law asked for a picture of me with my new machine, so this is for her. She was probably hoping for something a little more natural and a little less contrived, but this is all I could manage. There is a mirrored closet door opposite my sewing table, so this was a simple set up. And, oh! I’m wearing “Earth”, the sweater from Rowan 29 that I mentioned a few weeks ago. A finished object and a self portrait; two birds, one stone.

More: self portrait bloggers & the Flickr pool.

Can you crave knitting? If you can, I would have to say that sock knitting is the dill pickle of my knitting world. Every once in a while, a sudden jonesing creeps up upon me and I am only ever sated once I have five little bamboo needles in my hands, and some self-patterning yarn of some variety feeding off those needles.

Anyway, all this is to say that last night, I got a bad case of sock craving right before I fell asleep, so I bounded out of bed, up to the studio, into the Bag of Languishing Knits (to borrow a much-loved phrase from the much-loved brainylady) and pulled out the single sock and companion ball of yarn you see pictured above. And, in case you were under any sort of delusions about me being a good gifter, I should tell you that the above sock (and companion ball of yarn) was wrapped in tissue, placed in a gift bag, and presented to my sister last Christmas. Oh yes, that’s right. Not only did I give my sister a knit-in-progress for Christmas, but I have waited until 8 months have passed to do anything about rectifying that shameful display of careless knit-gift-giving.

So, before any Knitting Higher Authority knocks upon my door and rips the needles out of my unworthy hands (how have I gotten away with it for this long?), I have set upon the task of completing the pair, thus feeding the sock craving and righting the wrongs. Next week, I’m counting on you to ask me about these socks.

How fast? This fast. I ripped through 10 of these little fellers between Big Brother 6 and bedtime last night! Oh, come on, I know you’re watching it too (save Kaysar!). Oh, and, in the 6 seconds I spent on the CBS website looking for that link, I learned that The Amazing Race 8 premieres on September 27th. Hip, hip!

So, anyway, we now have card holders in the shop. Hip, hip, & huzzah!

Self portrait with a little bunch of lavender picked from my garden this morning. I still have that lingering lavender scent on my fingers. Lovely.

More self portrait bloggers and the Flickr pool.

Thank you for all your kind birthday wishes! And in case you’ve been wondering why it is that I wished myself a happy birthday and then proceeded to remain absent for 5 days, I’m here to tell you that I have a very good reason why. It is this:

My shiny, new sewing machine! A most extravagant birthday present from my family and the mister. They gave it to me last Sunday, at the very start of the little party we had, and when I say they “gave” it to me, I should really say that they made me find it. It was a treasure hunt fit for a 30-year-old! My mum has pics on her camera and as soon as she sends them my way, I’ll add them to Flickr.

The problem, of course, with having learnt how to sew on a toy machine is that I am terrified of this one. It has a light! And a needle threader! And 36 stitches! And a one-step buttonhole thing! I have spent most of the past week reading the manual (over and over) and simply staring at the lovely apparatus for long periods of time. Yesterday, I suppressed the sweaty-palm-terror, wound a bobbin, threaded the machine, collected some fabric scraps, and made this little card holder:

Good times ahead, I can just feel it!

30 to-day. I have a good feeling about this decade.

My first self-portrait Tuesday. This is me in the car this morning, on my way to work. I figured that if ever there was a good time to start self-indulgently taking photographs of yourself on a weekly basis, the day you turn 30 would be as good a day as any.

Other self portrait Tuesday bloggers and the Flickr pool.

Happy birthday to me & happy Tuesday to you!

Finally. While I’ve technically been a Flickr member since a few weeks after it launched, I spent a lot of time resisting actually using it (there is this vague discomfort associated with having my images living on someone else’s server), until I discovered the Flickr Uploadr for Mac. Convenience wins out over vague discomfort on this one, thanks to batch uploading straight from iPhoto. It’s brilliant! And, I’ve only just discovered it! Yes, I’m woefully behind!

So, anyway, I had a birthday party last night (I turn 30 on Tuesday. 30!) and there was backyard soccer with our 3½ year-old nephew. Here are the pictures! There is another party to-day, so more Flickr to-morrow. Fun!