Being dirty is fun!
I locked myself out of the house so I’m stuck throwing pottery in my work clothes. Isn’t my little vase pretty?

It’s going to be that sort of day…
This morning on the bus I was stuck between a woman wearing a Feathers scarf and a woman who was CLIPPING HER FINGERNAILS. (And we’re not talking just giving a quick trim to a snagged nail; she was doing a full-on manicure and – as far as I could tell – dumping the clippings on the windowsill.) The sad thing is, I really couldn’t decide which was more offensive.

Well, that was quick. Rogue’s done!

Except for the zipper. She’s so nice and warm! The 4-stitch I-cord edging down the front was harder to start than I expected. My first attempt turned out way too tight and curly. It took me a while to realize that my beautiful chain selvedge had one stitch for every two rows; therefore I needed to do alternate plain rows of I-cord between the rows where I joined it to the picked up body stitches. Then I noticed that my instructions had me knitting the last stitch and body stitch together through the back of the loop, which looked crappy when I then knitted the resulting stitch through the front of the loop on the subsequent plain row. (Trust me; it makes perfect sense when you’re doing it.) So I pulled it apart and decided to always knit that last stitch through the back. Then there was the grafting… and while mine isn’t seamless, it’s good enough. (Personally, I don’t think it’s possible to seamlessly graft a four-stitch three-dimensional tube onto a four-stitch curled stockinette edging. But whatever.) There’s some noticeable bulk there, but I figure that my zipper should end right about there anyway and that might disguise it. Once I find my zip, I think she needs one more good blocking. The sleeves could probably use another inch or two, and I still think that folded hem could lay flatter. But she’s finished!

Bring on the Arockalypse!
Many, many thanks to Jussi for the surprise package of Eurovision winner Lordi’s entire back catalog! I can’t wait for my next run so I can rock out to such classics as “Hard Rock Hallelujah,” “Bringing the Balls Back to Rock,” “Would You Love a Monsterman?” and “The Deadite Girls Gone Wild.”

What happens when five bloggers – me, Amy, Rob, Morgan, and Andrew – all go out to dinner together? We race back home to see who can be the first to post about it! (I live closest to the restaurant; hence I WIN!) This was the Snook’s and my second outing to Baja Cantina in Glebe, and while the food was again excellent, the service left a lot to be desired. We’ll cut them some slack since they’re new but they really need to pick up their game if they’re going to survive. I went with the Steak Chimichanga tonight – very meaty and good – while the Snook had chicken enchiladas. (He said they weren’t as “saucy” as the ones he’s had before, but he enjoyed them.) We also sampled the chipotle prawn appetizer (fairly ordinary, I thought) and the red sangria (dangerously smooth and tasty). I can’t decide which is the more amazing – that the Snook survived two hours as the only non-blogger in the group, or that there were four hardcore photobloggers at our table and not one photo was taken? I’m as surprised as you are.

Rogue Blocking
Blocking‘s one of those things you don’t really get when you start out knitting. I’d read references to it in patterns and books, but it always seemed like a weird idea to iron my knitting. I just knew it was something you were supposed to do. I tried it on my first Gryffindor scarf, mostly because I’d seamed the thing and I wanted it to lie flat without twisting. Of course, I’d also knitted it out of crappy acrylic yarn and I didn’t realize that applying heat would be a bad idea. I didn’t melt it, but I definitely took a lot of the body out of the yarn. It went really drapey and limp. (My sister liked it though, so no harm done.) Eventually I learned that only animal fibres should be heat-blocked, and that for the fake stuff you have to just wet it and let it dry. So from then on, I blocked sporadically when it seemed like the pieces needed it. Blocking is also great for straightening up pieces before sewing them together, but since I knit most of my garments in the round, I haven’t had this problem.

But now there’s Rogue… and she’s been sitting in a bag for nearly a month while I got up the courage to seam. So tonight, I blocked. What a difference a steam makes! Look at these two sleeves. One flat and smooth and beautiful; one lumpy and curled and homely. (I have to just say, I am completely in love with the Naturally Harmony. This is the nicest wool I’ve ever knit with, and blocking just makes it even softer and nicer. I must knit more with it.) For the curious, I pinned out each sleeve in turn on my ironing board and then overlaid it with a damp tea towel. Then I used my iron to press down and steam the piece before letting it sit to dry. (I really am going to have to have the Snook help me make a blocking board soon.) And then I was so entranced by the lovely flat pieces that I just sat right down and started seaming! The Snook and I watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky while I patiently seamed the arms. I usually hate doing this; my seams always end up too rigid and bulky. But because I’d had the forethought to do a chain selvedge, it was easy as pie. Now all I have to do is set them in! Maybe I’ll get to wear this beauty before winter’s over…

And the Sale has officially begun! Now I’m going to chill.

Can you do me a favour? Go to the shop website and tell me what you see. You should get a holding page since I’m working on the site. I just want to make sure I’m not letting anybody else in…

Stupid Customer of the Day: So this Canadian lady was here on holiday and bought a $280 tapestry kit imported from England. When she got home to Canada, she discovered her local store was selling it for $80 cheaper. That’s such a “huge discrepancy;” did we make a mistake? *blink blink* Okay, who doesn’t know that it’s more expensive to buy just about anything in Australia than it is North America? DURRRR. Example: The low-end MacBook costs USD $1099, which should equate to AUD $1461. Yet the price the Australian Apple store charges is AUD $1749, nearly $300 more! I found a six pack of Heineken selling for USD $7.49, which equates to AUD $9.95. Yet Coles are selling the same product here for AUD $15.99! This is the reality Australians live with everyday. We’re bloody far from everywhere else, so that means a lot of stuff ends up costing more. And if you’re some idiot from overseas who doesn’t get the concept, that’s not my fault.

The Snook would like it to be known that the emphatic answer to the question “What’s your favorite beer?” should always be: “My beer!” Yeah, it’s winter and he’s in brewing mode again.