You know you're hardcore when...

... you get up at 5am just to stand in line outside a yarn store in hopes of getting a door prize on their big sale day. I won't tell you the whole story because I have comprehensive exams tomorrow which I technically should be studying for, but my awesome friend IfIhadaboat wrote down the whole story so please do hop on over to her blog to read about the adventure. I do have corresponding pictures though, which I will post here for your enjoyment. Oh, and I completely forgot to get a picture of it, but we'd brought a tarp to sit on and blankets to huddle under at our campout.

Above is our cheery group, looking remarkably chipper considering that it's 6am and we've been standing out in the cold for half an hour.

And here is the view from the steps of the yarn store. The sun is just starting to rise, and you can see the silhouettes of the mountains on the horizon. By this time, the line had grown to around 20 people.

Here is the jam-packed inside of the store. The first rush to select yarn was over, and everyone had formed one giant line to the checkout that snaked through the whole store (took me about half an hour to get through, but gave me lots of time to think about my yarn choices).


Here is my doorprize! Superwash wool, yum! Totally worth the 5am wakeup.


I had been waiting for ages for an opportunity to buy yarn to make the Rogue cardigan to knitalong with the Langley knitting girls. A 40% off sale was just what I needed! I picked up this Cascade Pastanza to try out, and I've already knitted my guage swatch. I've never knit with wool-llama yarn before, but I think this will be a fun experiment. I love how this yarn looks.


Oh Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Suri Silk.....I could not resist buying it. So expensive, but so lovely.


Sock yarn! After only having variegated sock yarn, I wanted something to show off fancy cables or lacy stitch patterns.

And now, I am poor, but very happy with my purchases. If I can't afford groceries next month, now you know why.

Meanwhile, I've been slowly frogging the ill-fated shrug and transforming it into some Dragonscale Gauntlets for myself! Behold the transformation process!
I also got around to felting a little purse I made more than a year ago. I might run it through the washing machine one more time to felt it a little more.

That's all for me for tonight! Wish me luck on my exams tomorrow and Friday ^_^

Oreos and toboggans

Oreos are evil. I don't know what they put in them, but it is a powerfully addictive substance. Doublestuff Oreos in particular are liable to cause me to turn from a rational human being into a desperate Oreo junkie. Why oh why were they on sale? Next time, I will walk away from the cookie aisle in the grocery store, and buy more broccoli instead. The photo above is courtesy of a google image search which I have modified in the style of one of my favourite sites, Om Nom Nom Nom.

So there you have the Oreos. But what about toboggans? Well, I have my first commissioned knitting request (it's like I'm a Real Designer now!) and one of the suggested items for me to knit was a toboggan. Now, I don't know about you, but when I hear toboggan, I think of a sled that children use to go down a hill, and the mental picture of knitting one of these to WEAR, well that's just absurd. It turns out that in certain US dialects, the word toboggan actually refers to a knitted hat. So here I go, knitting a toboggan!

Also on the knitting front I have finally, after attempt #3, completed the Dream in Color Shrug for my lovely sister-in-law. She has been waiting quite patiently for her Christmas present, and it's finally done! More details plus pictures to come next post.

Since it's been a while since we've had a post about anime, I'd like to briefly review Casshern Sins. I'm not going to link you to the anidb entry, because it's fairly spoilerish. This is a series that is just wrapping up, and has been one of the best of this past season. It follows the story of a robot named Casshern who wakes up with no memories, but apparently has been responsible for the ruin of the world. It follows his journey as he tries to find out who he is, what has happened to the world, and what he must do. It's a very bleak post-apocalyptic setting, yet some of the landscapes are truly gorgeous and the characters are very vivid. The episodic nature of it is somewhat reminiscent of Mushishi, where not every episode is a feel-good happy ending, but more of a realistic look at how people deal with hardship and find meaning in their lives. It's much more action-packed than Mushishi though, since Casshern was essentially created to be a killing machine, and puts his talents to use fighting off the scores of other robots trying to kill him.

After watching episode 19 I opened up my photoshop (the likelihood of me opening photoshop increases proportionally to the amount of homework I have) to make myself a new forum signature and avatar. I made them as a tribute to Lyuze, one of the recurring characters in the series. I dismissed her in my mind after the first couple episodes as just another angsty side-character, but they've really done some great character development with her and she's become one of my favourites. If you're wondering about the 'KitKat', that's my other online alias (I've mostly switched over to Arzu these days but on my anime forum it would just be weird to change the name I've had there for so long).

OWOH Winners!

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in this exciting event! It's now time for the super exciting announcement of the winners! Without further ado, our lucky entrants are

*drumroll*

Jenna Z the crafter and swapper extraordinaire who you can find over at her blog CorgiPants

Barbara Cagle, a crafter of words (you can read about her book - the wonderful story of her mother who raised 16 children - over at her blog)

and last but not least, Nairo Sionuill a long-time alliance friend from Guild Wars, who shall one day take over the world with aardvarks.

I had my sister supervise the rolling of the dice (the d8 helped out the d20, because it wouldn't do to give the d20 ALL the credit for determining the winners) and all the winners have been notified. In the event that a winner doesn't email me back within 3 days, a new winner will be chosen.

Thanks again everyone for stopping by! This was such a fun contest that I may have more giveaways in future, so please come visit again!

The Blissful Life of a Part Time Student

....enables me to knit all weekend long. That's right, I knit with reckless abandon the Whole Entire Weekend. Other related accomplishments include getting most of the way caught up on watching Battlestar Galactica, cooking a Very Delicious Meal of taco pie and impossible coconut pie with 3 of my siblings, walking to the video store and renting a movie that became unplayable in the second half due to a large scratch, and learning how to recount a simple story of "Vinni Pux" (that's the soviet version of Winnie the Pooh) in Russian. Altogether a very satisfying weekend. Homework and job searching can wait for next week.

So, onto the knitting! Well, just scroll on down to last week's OWOH post to see updated pictures of the goodies I'm giving away. That was pretty much my whole weekend. I charted out a pattern for Red Mage from Final Fantasy, to keep Black Mage company. He was a bit trickier to chart than Black Mage, but managed to stay fairly recognizable. I'm also very happy with my 1up doubleknit Mario Wristband. I'll be sad to give that one away. It's made from leftover yarn from the last two pairs of socks I made.

I also have some retroactive knitting pictures for you! I present to you the Dragonscale Wristwarmers, as modeled by their lovely recipient. The yarn is the same as I used for those RPM socks, many moons ago, which you may remember (or may have seen recently, if you're new to my blog). More pictures are up on Ravelry on its project page.

Next up, I have for you a sneak peak at a little item I've knit up for Baby Rena. Honest, I'll get it done and sent off before she grows out of it (which is why I made the 6 month old size of the pattern). Anyways, I won't spoil the surprise of what it is, although those of you on Ravelry can probably see it easily enough, but I wanted to point out something odd about the stitches. Look closely:See that? Instead of being little 'v's, the stitches are like little twisty ladders. I don't know how this happened, because I knit it normally like I knit always, but it looks pretty awesome. It's probably due to how twisty the yarn is, and the direction I was knitting relative to the twist of the yarn. It's lovely bamboo sock yarn and feels absolutely luxurious, so soft and smooth. I learned mattress stitch for this project (I know, I know, I've been a knitter for so long, and never learned how to do a proper seam until this month, making do with sloppy ragged seams for all my projects) and it was a lot of work, but definitely worth it for how wonderful it looks. We'll see if this interesting stitch configuration lasts through the blocking process.

Oh, and speaking of new readers up above, I just wanted to give my greetings to anyone new who may have wandered in for the OWOH contest, and if you're reading this, I'm quite flattered that you've stuck around. Your comments really made me blush. It has been great getting a chance to connect with so many new people, and I didn't think it would, but it really does feel like a global open house event. I wish I could give prizes to all of you!