My Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Most Noble and Honourable Pamela the Tremulous of Featherstonehaugh St Fanshaw Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Please Vote for Me in the Bobbys!

If you are a member of Ravelry, Please vote for my Mr. Slugbunny in the Bobbys Most Unusual project thread.

Thanks!!

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by my friend, Margaret. So, here goes.

4 JOBS I'VE HELD:
3rd grade teacher
Domino's Pizza manager
Sonic Drive-In carhop
Project manager

4 MOVIES I WATCH OVER AND OVER:
Shaun of the Dead
Wizard of Oz
Harry Potter and the ...
Princess Bride

4 PLACES I HAVE BEEN:
Monaco
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Stonehenge
Atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa

4 PLACES I HAVE LIVED:
Albuquerque, NM
Springfield, OR
King's Worthy, England
Lake Hopatcong, NJ

4 TV SHOWS I WATCH:
American Idol
Heroes
Lost
House

4 PEOPLE WHO EMAIL ME REGULARLY:
Paul
Mom
Lori
People in my meetup groups

4 FAVORITE FOODS:
Queso
Really good burgers
Roasted Chicken Sopapillas with Boom Boom Sauce and a side of Green Chile Rice
Cereal

4 PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE:
In a castle
On an empty beach
(In the summer) up in the mountains
In a coffee shop

4 THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO:
Getting old
Seeing the kids grow up
Teaching music again
Making more really weird crochet animals

4 PEOPLE TO TAG:
Velma
Dulcedosa
Sandra
Nicki

More Spinning

I spun this Mermaid colorway 100% wool Navajo 3-plied. I'm using it on the Granny Square Afghan I'm making. The yarn turned out so soft. It's really quite good.














This is the crayola colorway wool roving that I got from Jenny. There is sooo much of this! I'm going to have to think what I want to do with this stuff for sure. Right now, I'm spinning it as a slubby single with the slubs every few feet. I'm thinking that I will ply this with ribbon, maybe, or I don't know. Can't think of what I'm going to ply this with. I have so much, I might just make a skein by itself, then start doing other ideas. Hmmmmmmm...

Yarn, Crocheting, Spinning

A week or so ago, I finished my 4-ply Enchanted Rock Merino Yarn. It is made from 4 colors of 100% Merino wool. I spun 2 separate singles of gray, 1 of dark pink, and 1 of light pink. When I plied all 4 of them together, I added tufts of the light green every 2 feet or so. It was a big pain in the butt to ply this way, but it turned out really cool.








I'm now spinning milk fiber in to a single on my top whorl drop spindle. It's very weird and kinda slippery. I don't particularly like spinning it--at least compared to merino or silk--because it seems to fall apart easily. It's gorgeous, though. Very silky, almost leaves your skin feeling like you've used lotion or something. I was planning to try my hand at dyeing it with Kool-Aid, but it's such a gorgeous color, I don't know. I'll have to think about it a bit.





Ladybug's not sure if she should eat it, lie on it, play with it, or ignore it.




















Yesterday, I finally added a bit more to my freeform scrumble that I am (mostly) crocheting. The 3-dimensional pieces look awesome and I'm enjoying the bufugliness of the yarns. I inherited a bunch of squeaky yarns from my mother-in-law and I had some left over from my pre-yarn-enlightenment days. Understand, I have used a couple of yummy yarns on it, but I feel that it is my duty to use up my stash of crappy yarn.





I've been crocheting a giant granny square afghan with all the yarn I've been spinning. The yarn is all different thicknesses and qualities, but it's mine and it's beautiful! The very inside of the square is the 2-ply silver gray wool that was the first yarn I ever spun, followed by rows of the kitchen sink yarn, Navajo-3-plied teddy bear, and the 4-ply Enchanted Rock. Then, getting closer to the outside, is a beautiful 2-ply black alpaca mixed with dyed alpaca locks, then a 3-ply merino/silk/alpaca blend, and the last yarn (so far), a 100% wool in "mermaid" colorway that I spun thick and Navajo-3-plied.

Mrs. Slugbunny, who (according to my DH, Paul) looks like a crocheted sperm, has been released from her mute, spermy blindness with the addition of eyes and a mouth.














The button eyes have little stitches coming out from the center, perhaps indicating a slugbunny hangover and the ties have been left loose to indicate sparse eyelashes. Although she now has a blood red mouth, her lips are stitched in little Xs and are not very good for talking or eating.










I've also tried my hand at novelty spinning. This is alpaca fleece straight off the animal that I spun in to a single, then Navajo plied it adding in beer bottle caps every 3 feet or so. It's so soft, but reeeeeally hard to untangle because of the caps. I plan to make a cool belt or purse flap from it. This has not been washed or rinsed yet, but I probably won't before I use it.







Finally, this is my absolutely favorite yarn to date. It is purposely spun with big nubby slubs every few feet. Also, Navajo plied. I think it turned out looking like a beautiful necklace, like a string of beads. This has not been washed/rinsed yet.

Our Beautiful Kitty, Bachelor, Has Died

I haven't been updating my blog as much as usual. On Monday, our beautiful Maine Coon, Bachelor, died after suffering from kidney failure. He was a graduation present for me when I got my Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies from Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) back in May of 1991. He was born on April Fool's Day of '91, so he was almost 17 years old.

Our Maine Coon was huge. Never a fat cat, although at one time he weighed 17+ pounds, he was loooong. He could stretch on his hind legs and reach past my husband's waist. In Bachelor's younger years, we would drape him over our shoulders like a shawl.

He never was one to have accidents outside of the litter box and once, as a kitten, he had an accident--but only in the spot on the bathroom floor where the litter box belonged. I was cleaning it at the time and had it in another room! Any other time he didn't use the litter box was an indication that he was sick.

Bachelor had his favorite "places." We'd find him under the piano bench and that would be his den for weeks until one day he'd be missing. He would have changed places. Now his new spot would be exactly on the crack of the couch between two cushions. Next time, maybe it would be upstairs just to the left of the top step. He would repeat places, but he seemed to keep them a few weeks before moving on to the next one. Did he get bored? Did he need a new smell? Was he following the cycles of the sun? We'll never know.

Speaking of places, for years Bachelor seemed to love lumpy things. If we had a basket of clothes on the floor, you could bet that was where he was...spread out across the lumps with his legs hanging off. If the kids left a backpack in the middle of their room over the weekend--yep, that was his spot. We have a couch cushion that is permanently sagged because of our big ol' cat.

Not a very weird cat (at least compared to our others), he loved him some catnip, played with string, and was very much connected to our girl kitty, Tiny. After her mysterious disappearance in California, Bachelor would cry for her at night. Very sad. Every once in a while, when you were petting him, he would do the kitten kneading movements. Mostly, Bachelor was just a very, very sweet and companionable cat.

Our African Gray parrot, Shortstop, kept watch over him in his last few days. Because of his illness, Bachelor was confined to a crate next to the bird's cage. Shortstop uncharacteristically stayed on that side of the cage and not on his main perch. He would crane his neck to watch the cat and fluffed his feathers if we were trying to comfort Bachelor. Our parrot is an amazing talker and has been calling for Bachelor and asking if he wants to go outside. He really seems to know that the cat is gone, but doesn't realize that the cat isn't coming back.

Ladybug, our 1 1/2 year old pug has been looking for her friend. She hasn't whined or anything, but she can't figure out where the cat is hiding. It's very sad.

We'll miss ya, Bachelor.

Monster Toy exchange

On Ravelry, I'm participating in a crocheted monster toy exchange. These are my sketches for my future partner to do with what she will: