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Man is that a cute baby!

Anyway, I have a couple of finished objects! ~gasp~

I finished Maxx’s sweater and he looks very dashing in it. He loves wearing little outfits and does a good job of lifting his front legs to help put them on. He’s a good guy, that Maxxie. I recently discovered that he spells his name with two “x”s and I think it makes him even more of a stud. I learned of this odd spelling in a most peculiar way. Maxx’s owner is a dear friend named Ronnie. Ronnie’s mom was an amazing woman who passed away last week after a long battle with lymphoma. It was impossible not to love Carolyn. And she loved Maxx to smithereens, often taking him with her and her husband on weekend getaways to their vacation house. Carolyn left strict instructions to have a bouquet of peach roses from Ronnie’s and his sister’s dogs and cats placed at the head of her casket. When we went to pay our respects to her at the wake, there was a lovely bouquet from Oliver, Felix, Maxx, and Miss Kitty right beside her. It’s always such a great relief when someone can provide you with a smile at such a solemn occasion, and when it’s the guest of honor that’s providing that smile, it’s even better. It was such a perfect testament to the kind of lady she was.

I managed to get the sweater knit just in time for her to see it, though I hadn’t gotten the buttons on it yet. Knitting this was a major stress reliever, I did it all on the day before seeing Carolyn for the last time. We all knew it was going to be the last time and I didn’t know what else to do with myself, so I made a tiny sweater for her grandpup. I’m glad Ronnie doesn’t have a Great Dane!

So here is Carolyn’s special little guy in his brand new sweater. The buttons don’t hold it closed, they’re just decorative. And I could have sworn I sewed them on straight. Maybe the sweater is just a little twisted from being on a wiggly dog body.

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It has a pocket on the back so he can carry his favorite toy or maybe a few extra bucks for some Snausages in case he gets hankering during his walk.

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Wow, I didn’t realize how much that sweater meant to me until just now.

And here is another thing I’ve finished as a thank you to someone who’s helped me out tremendously recently. There’s just something about being able to make a handmade gift for someone. So much gets poured into it that it feels much more real than buying a gift. I’m really happy with the way this turned out. I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but I lined it and attached an old-fashioned label from Charm Labels that said “From the needles of Stitchy McYarnpants” inside. I also attached metal grommets to the inside of the lining. I did this mainly because the grommets wouldn’t fit over the felted fabric, but I think they might have ruined the look of the bag if they had been on the outside. Don’t ever let anyone tell you to just “pop in some grommets, it’s easy!” It ain’t. Not by a longshot. I ended up tossing the stupid little grommeting tool off to the side and just smashed the crap out of each one with a hammer. Turns out it was the only way to get them to attach themselves. Sure, they got all banged up and dented, but it looks more homemade that way. Yeah, that’s it. Dented = Fine Handmade Quality.

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Hooray for finished objects! Hooray for heartfelt offerings of yarny goodness! Hooray for cute doggies! Hooray for smashing crap with hammers! Hooray!

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OK, in perusing magazines for MOKS fodder, I ran across what very well may be the cutest baby ever. Don’t you just want to squeeze him? He looks like a little Purdue Chicken. I can’t stand it.

It saddens me a little to think that this baby is now in his late 40’s. Or maybe he’s a magical eterna-baby who never grew up. Yeah. I’m going to assume that’s the case. He’s to cute to have a second mortgage and a boring job that he hates.

The knitting masses say Word Verification, and Word Verification it shall be. Thank you, gentle readers. And spam you, spamsuckers! Blow it out yer spamhole! (This may be my favorite new way of swearing.) I love the idea of typing in a word to prove you’re human. I feel that my existence in validated every time I do it. Typing “Ve6t8soK” means I’m me! I just hope that I haven’t offended any artificial life forms. If any of you are artificial life forms, I apologize, but I just can’t take the chance that you won’t turn out to be a spambot. Sorry.

I’m so glad you guys enjoyed the Opacity link. It’s nice to know there are so many admirers of old out there. AND, my sister-in-law, Becky, says she lives near Bannerman’s Island, which is one of the places the guy at Opacity explored. CooOOOool! Road trip!

So I’ve decided on my own personal Rhinebeck sweater. It’s the SnB Under the Hoodie sweater. I have all the pieces knit, now I just need to do a little Dr. Frankenstein magic on it. Stitch it up, bring it to life and voila. If I could only remember where I stored those pieces lo those many months ago.

I’m really looking forward to Rhinebeck this year. I went last year and had a great time. Now that I know more people, it’ll be even more fun! Last year, Jon came with me. What a trooper. He said the only way he’d come this year is if he could host a booth with vibrating Lay-z-Boy chairs, video games and a beer keg for all the yarn widowers who were dragged to the fair unwittingly. (one can only assume that at least some of the guys there thought they were going to a rifle range or an outdoor comic book convention) He even wants to put up a dart board with a luscious skein of alpaca as the bull’s eye. He will not be joining us. I’m heading over with my sistergirls Kellee and Melanie (and Melanie’s lil’ knitters-to-be). My mother-in-law and sister-in-law live up that way as well, so I need to see if they can make it. (Becky, I know you read this blog, so whaddaya say? Up for some gratuitous yarn porn?) My mother-in-law came last year and reacquainted herself with lure of the stash. She hadn’t knit in a long time, but since going, she has returned to her yarny ways.

I wish there were a blogger booth or something. It would be great to be able to sign in and out with arrival and departure times. Then you could see who was around at that time. It would be like a living scavenger hunt trying to pick out all the bloggers in da hizzy! Maybe we could do Blogger Bingo and whoever fills up their card first wins! Oooooh, someone needs to do this! As it is, we’ll all be able to sign a living autograph book so she’ll be easy to pick out.

Now, I’m going to research that insulation as FiberFetish suggests. With a name like that, how can she possibly be wrong?? And Leisel left a helpful comment about decorating. She suggests finding a piece of fabric or artwork and decorate based on that. That makes sense. Can I base an entire house on the contents of my stash? Hmmmm . . . (by the way, check out her blog, she has a hilarious button about Fun Fur as it relates to the flesh of Cookie Monster. Good one!) You commenters are awesome! I know I’m terrible about responding to comments, but just know that I appreciate everyone’s feedback. I feel the love! Mwah! Perhaps part of the turning of my new bloggy leaf is being better about addressing comments. Tell me, is it considered good blog etiquette to do it in the comments section?

So what the hell kind of jerk spends all sorts of time spamming blogs just to get theirs noticed? And while doing it, they pretend to compliment the bespammed by saying “Hey nice blog ya’ got here! Come check mine out!” It may work once, but geez Louise, 40 or 50 times? Screw you, spammy! So what’s a blogger to do? I know I’ve heard other people mention this happening, so how do you stop it if the spamholes have Blogger accounts? Lousy motherspammers.

Anyhoo. Have you ever seen Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? You know the scene where he runs into the burning pet shop to save the animals, and every time he goes by the snake tank, he makes a face and moves on to something cuter and fuzzier? Eventually, everything cute and fuzzy has been rescued, so he has no choice but to save the snakes. Moments later, he runs out of the shop screaming, arms flailing, his hands full of snakes, then he just passes out.

Yeah. I’ve been feeling a lot like that lately. I hate being a grown up and having to make decisions and junk and stuff.

Carlos the Electrician is finally done (yes, that Carlos and that electrical work). He came a couple of times a week on average and I didn’t act as his assistant most days, so it took for-freaking-ever. And now we need to decide what the next step is do we look into having insulation blown into the ceiling while the ceilings are all messed up? I have no idea how much it costs, but I’m guessing it’s hella expensive. And then we have to patch all the holes. Honestly, there are probably at least 50 places that need patching. I haven’t counted, but we had work done in every single room in the house. Do we do it ourselves over time, making mess after mess every weekend for the rest of our lives? Or do we spend more money to have it done in one or two weekends? Then we have to paint the walls in every room. In most places, this means removing wallpaper. And neither Jon nor I are any good at decorating, we still have milk crates everywhere, fer chrissakes! So I have no idea what colors to choose or anything. Oh my heavens, what a mess.

I suspect we’ll just cover the holes with plastic “for the winter” and never speak of it again. It will be our silent pact to just pretend we don’t live in a wooden box with holes poked in it. Egads, we’re living like a couple of tree frogs captured by an 8-year-old!

Another snake in my craw, unfortunately, is my blog. I keep wanting to post, but I just never have time to write anything good, so I just put it off until a later than never seems to come. I’ve gotten out of the habit and its bugging me. So I hereby declare that I will write something every day until I leave for Rhinebeck. It may not contain pictures and it may not be brilliant, but I’ve got to get back in the habit of blogging. So there you go. Instead of a vow of silence, I’m taking a vow of daily rambling. And if I don’t do it, you can feel free to mock me, berate me, even spam the bejesus out of me with links to blogs about David Hasselhoff. As Dot is my witness, I shall blog again!

And since I have no pictures today, either, I will leave you with a link that is probably not everyone’s cup of tea. But if you like spooky, abandoned buildings particularly asylums, than have I got a link for you. This guy is a great photographer and even has pictures of a building that Charlene and I have a dangerous crush on. Yes, we have a crush on an old insane asylum, so what?! It’s in Danvers, MA. If you drive up Rt 1 north, past all the strip malls and whatnot, you can see its spires peeking out above the trees on the left. The best time to see it is in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. They’re going to be replacing it with condos very soon. I don’t know how much demolition they’re going to do, but they will be some and it’s a shame to loose such an amazing piece of architecture. You can’t drive up to it, there’s pretty tight security, but it’s worth a drive by just to see the peaks of the buildings. It gives me shivers just to look at it. I don’t know if I believe in ghosts and hauntings and wayward spirits, but if such things existed, this place would be crammed to the gills with them. It even starred in a movie called Session 9, which I loved.

So take a peek Opacity, not only at Danvers State Hospital, but of the other urban ruins he’s explored. They’re truly beautiful and creepy and sad and stunning.