Car go "VROOM VROOM!"

So this is my knitting blog and I don't normally wander about my life walking into the sections that include my dancing, my car, my job and other scenery, but since I brought up my car accident in a previous post, I feel justified.

My car has been in the shop for the last two weeks and I've been racking up the miles on a Suzuki Forenza (took it from a tiny 200 miles to a respectable 740 miles--yes, I commute that much). I knew before the accident that I was going to need work done on my exhaust as it had been making some noise for a couple of weeks. I had taken it in for an estimate and they had told me that it would be $300 for a new "Flex Pipe" and all the labor it would take to get the rusted one off and a new one on. I had put it off, as I didn't really have an extra $300 to blow and it wasn't too terribly bad.

The insurance agent had called and mentioned the exhaust problem and said it wouldn't be covered, as it was a pre-existing problem and said that I "really should get it fixed". I, of course, replied that with the $500 deductible for an accident that wasn't my fault in any way I was in even LESS of a position to have it fixed now. He gave me the name of a mechanic who he said might be able to "just weld it up temporarily". I figured it probably wouldn't hurt to take the number, and use it whenever I decided to have the work done.

WELL.....I went to pick my car up this morning. I waited while they fixed the glue on a side light. I cleared out my rental car. I got in my car and waited for them to open the garage door. I turned the key.

VROOOOOOOOM!

My exhaust now sounds like I'm driving some sort of monster truck with a straight pipe and no muffler. I'm guessing the accident sped the process up a bit, because it was DEFINITELY not that loud before the accident.

I drove to work today with thoughts of old ladies cowering and small children scurrying aside as I drove by. Even though I quickly adjusted to the power my Volvo has that my rental did not, I did not adjust as well to the growling roar of my exhaust, so everytime I punched the gas, I cringed a bit as well.

...There goes new yarn buying in the next month or two.

How unique do I need my work to be?

So occassionally I do something like the Scull & Crossbones tote in which I don't mess with the pattern and make something exactly as told...but that's rather rare for me. And I work pretty hard at figuring things out in order to change patterns to suit my aesthetic. I like that they are unique and exactly what I want.

This is why I'm struggling with the idea proposed to me by several friends that I should *gasp* PUBLISH my patterns. It was brought up specifically with regards to the X&O cabled lattice scarf I did and I've been considering it for my green scarf and variation on the Tivoli as well.

So I'm still undecided on the issue of whether I want a bunch of other people having matching items, but I'm toying with the idea. In the meantime I had my brother take some pics of the scarves in question just in case. Here are a couple of preview shots:

Skull & Crossbones Tote Felted

I was right to worry about the twisted stitches from the back showing, but partway into felting I used single stranded yarn to do a little ladder stitch to tighten up some of the gaps and not too much of the contrast color can be seen through now. Some of the stitch definition from the white still shows, but the black is completely felted with an occassional ribbed look where you can make out vertical columns of what were stitches.

I'll post pics, but you have to excuse their poor quality, as my camera phone is much less than ideal for all matters of quality, detail, color, exposure or focus (it does do an excellent job at forming perfectly rectangular blurry images however).




In other news my week looked like this:
Last Wednesday= haircut (slightly longer than shown in front--I had it tucked behind my ear)


Last Thursday= My car being hit while in a parking lot


Today = A 40 degree shift in weather--to a freak Mid March snowstorm

Skull & Crossbones Tote

Every knitter should have a bit of the ol' Pirate spirit with her, right? So I was really excited when I saw the Skull & Crossbones tote bag pattern on HelloYarn.com a while back and ordered some Virgin Wool just for the project, and finally got to it this past week.

I started while at my parents house this past weekend, but left the Oh-So-Scary Intarsia work for Wednesday. I am happy to say that I have intarsia-ed without major injury or hairloss and feel all the better for it now.

I think the true test will be how well it holds up when I felt it tonight! I'm a little worried about some of those twisted and stranded colors showing through to the other side when it's felted, but no use worrying until there's actually a problem, right?

I'll keep you updated!

Must be that Olympic spirit

I don't know how I'm doing it, but I've been zipping along through the green scarf that is meant to be a gift to my mom (who I'll be seeing on Sunday). At this rate I will probably have knitted too much by the time I get home. Who has put the wind in my fingertips? I'm loving it!...so much wind is there that I whipped out a hat as well this week!

Red XandO scarf finished!!!

Just need to weave in some of the ends, block it, photograph it and send it to Sweden now!

Fun around Town

So I had a friend visiting from Australia and I took a few days of vacation to be a tourist with him. I hadn't realized how much I missed my camera until I got ahold of his (also a Cannon, so I didn't have too hard of a time adjusting).

I took some great shots of Chicago that I thought I'd share here...

We had an inside joke about dolphins going on, and so when we saw some stuffed dolphins at the Field Museum we, of course, HAD to have pictures with them: