The aroma of beauty

Having pink hair is a fair amount of work. When I first dyed it, I needed to refresh the color every 2-3 weeks, and my roots every 6 weeks. But, since I'm committed to awesomeness, I did it.

Later, I was looking for a shampoo that wouldn't strip the dye. I switched to the DevaCurl shampoo, and BAM! I was re-pinking my hair every 4-5 weeks- and the color wasn't fading the way it was before!

(Believe it or not, my philosophy on beauty is that doing less with superior outcome is always better.)

Then, I got the AMAZING hair cut. This one:

(The front. Have you ever had a day where you're like, "Hell, YES, I look awesome!"? That was this day.)


(That's the side and some of the back. You get the idea.)

With this cut, no hair day was a bad hair day. To add to it's allure, it hid over an inch of roots in curls. That made bleaching out the roots an 8-10 week thing.

Now, I've got a more extreme cut. It is super awesome, and superior to the last cut. Easy to style, looks amazing, and hides roots like nobody's business.

So, tonight, we touched up my pink, because my hair was showing blonde through the pink and purple. I usually don't let it get it to that point, but since I hurt my ribs, I've been too exhausted and achy to sit for Mom to touch up the pink.

So, for your enjoyment, here is the pro-con list of pink hair.

Pro:
-Having pink hair is awesome.
-Pink hair is fun.
-It suits me.
-It's kind of glamorous.
-Little kids give you secret smiles and loudly whisper to their parents about it.
-When you tell a sales guy "I have pink hair and I'll be there in an hour" they remember.
-Customer service (most places) improves drastically.
-It makes you easy to find in a crowd.

Con:
-Hair dye smells bad.
-Vaseline on your face and ears is NOT glamorous.
-Exfoliating becomes a neccessity afterwards to keep from looking like a Pink Jasmine.
-It makes you easy to find in a crowd.
-All the grout in your shower turns pink.

But really. Look at the top picture. TOTALLY worth it, right?

Faster than a blinking Elphie...

It's fair to say that I love the new camera. I took it out to play with one of the lenses, and managed to get some surprisingly good shots.

As always, Niki was ready to pose:

And Elphie. Ahhh, Elphie. Are you familiar with Calvin and Hobbes? How Calvin would pose for a school picture, and at the last moment, as the shutter was clicking, he'd make a face? That's Elphie's philosophy of photography.

Still, I got some nice shots of her:

The shutter worked so quickly that Elphie didn't quite have time to make a face:

(It looks like she's trying to do the I Dream of Jeannie blink, doesn't it?)

I haven't ripped out my Jacoby mitts yet, but let's face it. Knitting black yarn in bed is a recipe for blindness.

Even if it is cashmere. Mmmmmmm....cashmmmmmmere.

Brain cells? Paging Jasmin's brain cells...

Since I knit the Dashing Mitts for Alison, I've developed a fever. A fever to knit with CASHMERE, that is. Couple that with watching Tika whip out a pair of Jacoby Mitts for herself at lightening speed, and we have Inspiration(tm).

(You feel it too, now. Right?)

In my fever to get started (and finished with said Jacoby mitts), I made a couple of crucial mistakes.

Mistake #1: I glanced at the pattern, and didn't read that it was done in 2x2 ribbing. You'll see that mine are in a 1x1. This is not critical, so I plugged along.

Mistake #2: In fingering weight yarn, on size 2 needles, 60 stitches is too many for the cuff of a sock (for me). I have little birdy bones, like Mom. My little wrist positively SWIMS in these.

(Note for a moment that I made sure that the Dashing mitts fit Alison's little birdy-bones. Evidently, when knitting for myself, I neglect to make those considerations.)

I'll be ripping them out tonight, and restarting them with 48 stitches, in 2x2 ribbing.

Also, Happy Birthday, Mom!

Mitts and pics

Alison has been sick. You know this already. Here are the mitts I made for her:

In other news, I got a new camera. Lisa took this picture of Mom while we were at Bobbin's Nest yesterday:

(cropped for Ravatar-y goodness)

Fancy schmancy

I am currently uploading Episode 35, and living up to Jasmin 2009. I'm eating a leftover eclair off of my Wedgewood china and drinking milk out of the Good Crystal.

Some things are just too glamorous to keep to myself.

Santa Fe

(No, I'm not going to serenade you with "Santa Fe" from Newsies. But, if you want to, you can hear it here. I'm not a Christian Bale kind of girl, but I still enjoy it.)

I do a fair amount of social knitting, and thus, I tend to pick projects that are both portable and simple. I also read the Yarn Harlot's blog, and I find her knitting to be (98.9%) inspiring.

She went on the striped Noro scarf kick, and I thought, "Wow. Those look cool. But I would stab my own eyes out if I was knitting a scarf like that. Bo-ring."

So, I went through my knitting library and stash (because I have become a creature of excellent habits through the Social Pressure Experiment), and I present you with the Santa Fe Wrap:

That is the back. It is - in my opinion- one of the few good applications of mitered squares. Plus, the center/back panel took me about a day and a half to knit. This is potato chip knitting at it's best.

That's the front. Half-done. When it is finished, there will be four long strips that will make me look six feet tall and thin when I wear it. At least, the woman I saw wearing it at the yarn shop did. She may have been actually six feet tall and thin, but now you're splitting hairs.

What's that? A shadow rib. Look above and below and you'll notice that NOT ONLY is it NOT in garter stitch (which kills my knitting mojo), but both the main color and the contrast color get noticed.

It is knitting up surprisingly quickly, and I'm noticing that one skein of Noro Sock lasts FOREVER.

Another year

Today marks our fourth wedding anniversary. Andrew continues to be too tall. Still, it says something that I'm willing to knit socks on size 0/1 needles for a man with size 12 feet.

Evidence:

Happy anniversary, Monkey.

A little less whining, a little more action

Ok- for those of you who worried, I have definitely damaged the muscles between my ribs (in the under-boobage area). We're waiting on the results of yesterday's x-ray, but until then, I'm on bedrest and delicious painkillers.

However. I have been finishing stuff at an alarming clip, and given Jasmin 2009's objectives, I'll actually have some knitting content (with pictures!) for the blog- which is purportedly about knitting. I present you with the Black and Gold batt I spun for Mom:

(That's my favorite shot of this yarn.)

I talked about this on the podcast, and I absolutely loved spinning it. I bought it from Crystal Creek Fibers, and I couldn't be happier. In person, the yarn looks like ore. I love it! (Mom is pretty keen on it, too.) I have more of her batts, which I'll be spinning in the near future.

I think my favorite thing about this colorway is how much it reminds me of Niki's fur. It has two shades of gold (a reddish-gold, and a white-ish gold) and black. I was snuggling with Niki, and I caught a glimpse of his fur at at an angle, and the colors were identical. Add that to the fact that his guard hairs have black tips. Granted, this yarn is more bling that bow-wow, but I think the batt was inspired by the gal's German shepherd.

Speaking of being inspiration, I have also finished knitting my sample for a submission to Knitty- now, I just need to find props and a way to maximize the brilliance of this piece. I have a feeling that when I'm feeling better, I will wrangle Andrew into helping with this. Bwa ha ha!

Why yes, Grace IS my middle name!

Last Monday, I cracked a rib coughing. I'm pretty sure I cracked a rib, I'm going in to the doctor confirm this today. Why has it taken me a week to go in to the doctor? I didn't want to be the person who goes in with MINDNUMBING pain in her side only to find out that it's a strained muscle.

While I am entirely aware that I am not a doctor, and can not be expected to tell the difference between a cracked rib and a strained muscle, I know that a strained muscle will stop hurting in a few days, where a cracked rib will not. I also know that they don't do much for a cracked rib (a "rib belt" and painkillers).

So, enough of that. But know, before you start lecturing, that I'm on it. Really, really.

Last night we recorded episode 34, which is a great one, but looooong. The company that hosts our sound files has been having some upload issues, which meant I spent WAY too much time in the futile attempt to get the show live, on time. After attempt #3, I clicked on the "support" link, and wouldn't you know it, my problem isn't unique. They solved it before 7 AM today.

Aside from the company we had recording (Chloe and Tika), Colleen came over with Hana, the amazing Akita puppy. Colleen and I suspected that Hana could use some time with other dogs, and the vet cheerfully informed me that I am a responsible enough dog parent that it is perfectly safe for Hana and our dogs to play, now.

Niki did great with her; Elphie is still a little hesitant, but doing well. When the dogs were done out in the yard, Hana went and crashed in her crate, with Niki sleeping a few feet away, facing her. It was so cute. Until Niki stole the hippo toy out from under Hana's SLEEPING HEAD.

(This is when I get twitchy as Niki's mom. I assure you that my dogs have more than enough toys and do not need to be stealing toys from sleeping puppies.)

In any case, it's nice to know that there's no hostility between the dogs, which means more playdates!

Given the excessive uploading last night, I finished my pair of Day-Glo socks:

(That's sock #1)


(That's sock #2.)

Why aren't they photographed together in that second picture? Because I couldn't find sock #1, but decided not to let that slow me down. You'll also notice that the socks are fraternal. The fraternity of the socks doesn't bother me, but the knots in the skein do.

Given that I haven't hit a knot in a skein of Opal before, I can forgive this one. Just this once.

Dude! I do stuff!

I would like to announce that today, when I thought about doing something, I just did it.

Example 1:

(Still in bed.) Andrew announces that he has caught my plague. (Ahem, I told him not to kiss me.) I ask what I can do for him. He wants a Jamba Juice. I take a shower, get dressed, make the shopping list (because he said that he might want some of my all-healing chicken soup), and run errands with Mom.

We come home, make the soup, clean up as we go, and enjoy the all-healing soup.

Example 2:

(Post-soup.) Look at the dogs. Remember that one of them may have eaten a pen cap. Go outside and scoop poop. (No pen cap, but I'm not worried about it.)

Example 3:

Plied the remaining bits of Mom's black and gold batt. Wound the bobbin that had been resting up.

Example 4:

Saw the pile of stuff to be photographed for blogging and Ravelry. Set up photo lights and my photo area. Got Mom to assist. Took all of my pictures as well as hers. Uploaded, labeled, and updated my Ravelry. (This is partly so that the podcast listeners have some idea of what my stuff looks like.)

Example 5:

Blogged about it all.