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I suck. I do, I know I do. I am a bad blogger. And a bad knitter. And a bad person in general. I forgot my dad’s 65th birthday on Wednesday! How crappy is THAT?! I mean, as far as birthdays go, 65 is right up there with 1, 21, 30, and 80. It’s a big one. And I forgot. Luckily, my father is a lovely and forgiving man. And good-looking, to boot (yes, he reads my blog). So I’m hoping he’s not too disappointed in me. He said that he’s had so many birthdays already that he’s stopped counting, but I think he was just being nice. I’d be annoyed if my ungrateful daughter forgot mine. I did my best to make it up to him by sending him some filet mignon and stuffed potatoes from Omaha steaks. Plying him with meat and taters may be the only way to fix this. (*just wanted to add that as of posting, he received his steaks and all is well. Yay!)

Have you ever looked down for a second, only to look up and find that it’s a month later? Freaky, man. It’s been that kind of month. I think all of the non-stop rain and grayness was really affecting me adversely. I was feeling pretty crappy and bummed out. Not depressed, really, just sort of like a lump of boneless chicken with no motivation. Even if I had felt like blogging, you probably wouldn’t have wanted to read it. I was actually too much of a slug to even knit. Bad. Bad. Bad. But the sun is out, the sidewalk is dry, and it’s all good.

Thanks for all the great feedback about the quilters! I’m going to put together all the links into a post and link to it on my sidebar. It’ll be easy to keep tack of and update that way. And no, I still have no plans to take up quilting. But I do want to just sit in the middle of a room cutting out little shapes with a shiny pair of razor sharp shears. That’s the part that most appeals to me. But since most of those little pieces would go missing in a matter of minutes, I’ll hold off.

Also, I just want to give a shout out to my girl, Bookish Wendy, for hosting a swell Taste of Yarn party. It was a great break from being crabby! All that amazing food and lovely knitters and tasty yarn were just what I needed. There are lots of accounts written by different bloggers who were in attendance, so all I’ll say is that I’m in love with Future Man (pictured very provocatively in the linked post) and leave it at that. At the party, the ever-delightful Melanie gave this gorgeous wool for spinnin’. She got it at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. I think I would have picked this very thing out of everything they surely had there. The colors are spot on. She’s trying to suck me into that whole world of spinning. It may work.

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And lest you think I haven’t been knitting at all, I have been. A little. I started a Flower Basket Shawl with some red Koigu I had lying around (I know! Koigu. Lying around. I told you I’m a bad knitter). But I just can’t concentrate on a chart right now, so I’ve packed it up for a while. I need to fix my botched Branching Out scarf before embarking on another lace project, anyway.

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So because I’m having a tough time focusing lately, I’ve been doing simple stuff. The two projects I’ve almost finished are both felting projects. The knitting part is done, I just need to toss them into the machine. The first is a cute little rose from Two Old Bags’ booklet “Wooly Embellishments”. There are lots of cute flowers and vines in here that are silly and fun. They’d be good for felted bags or hats or any number of things around the house that need wooly embellishment.

The other thing I’m almost done with is a purple felted bag. Pretty straightforward. It started as a Booga Bag , but it’s a lot smaller than it should be, so it’s more of a Booga purse. The yarn is something extra scratchy I got for 5 bucks at Rhinebeck. I can’t remember what it is. Let’s hope it felts . . .

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Oh, and I need to thank Maryse for sending me some great pattern books recently. I think she has a fetish for knitted bathroom paraphernalia, since two of the books have an entire ensemble du toilette within. I sent one of the booklets to Marnie as part of her prize package, so she should be making a toilet cozy real soon. Merci, Maryse! mwah!

Ok, I feel better now that you all don’t think I’m dead or have ditched you. Bear with me and we’ll have a new MOKS in no time!

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