Day 59: my many projects

As promised, here's a picture of the two completed wristwarmers. Aren't they cute?


Detail close-up of the picot bind-off.


And here's the same for the ruffles.


And my new knitting project!
I'm knitting a rug. Knitting needles are not like wire gauge; as the number goes up, the circumference of the needle gets bigger. So, the pattern called for #19 needles. My tension is pretty loose, anyway, I could have gotten away with #18 or possibly #17 needles and still gotten about the same size finished piece as someone else using #19 needles. Unfortunately, the largest size I have #15. I know it's hard to tell, maybe I'll take a picture of my holding the needles, so you can see it next to a person, but #15 are huge. And still not big enough.
But I'm doing it anyway, because I need a rug in the kitchen. So I got sheets from DI, and I've been ripping them up, and knitting with them. So, you can see the beginnings of the rug, the needles, the ball of "yarn", and the sheets, which I need to continue ripping ...


And one last project, a new project: I gathered willow branches (by picking them up from where the tree had shed them like a pine sheds needles), and I want to weave them into a basket. I want to make a basket for my bike. It would make my bike ten times more useful than it already is, if I could pack things on it. I figure, if this project goes well, I'll be able to weave a couple more baskets for use as panniers (saddlebags), and then I'll have three baskets.
But for now, I have a bunch of willow branches on my floor.


end-of-the-month edit: This month, I posted 63 pictures (I only fell short of the-end-of-January's prediction by 7 pictures!), which makes 143 pictures so far this year. Also, this month holds the record so far: on Day 49 I posted 15 pictures, which beats last month's record of 11 pictures on Day 19. Both of these days were really good camera-days for me, not just for number of pictures, but just getting really good shots, so yay for record days!
So, my goal for March is to not have any no-picture days. That's it. I may take a picture of my carpet, or something, but I will have a picture per day.

Day 58: spring flowers

Yay, spring! Yay flowers!

These ones I did not plant, they just started growing out front near our door. I don't know what kind of flower they are.


And these are the flowers I planted last year. I believe this picture represents all three of the bulbs I planted: the daffodils, the crocuses, and the other ones that I thought were bluebells, but maybe aren't.


Closer-up.


First we forgot where we planted those bulbs last year
And then we forgot that we planted at all
Then we forgot what plants are altogether
And I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and
The nights were long and cold and scary
Can we live through February?
February, Dar Williams

Day 57: bushy

This did not turn out the way I wanted it to: I was aiming for sharp front leaves, and blurry background. I tried several times to achieve this, and somehow failed to.

Day 56: no pictures

Still no pictures, and still feeling a bit better.
Actually, I should have had pictures. I finished the pair of wristwarmers on Tuesday, and I remember taking a picture.
I don't know what happened to it! Oh, well, I'll take a picture soon, and put it up ...

Day 55: no pictures

Yet again, no pictures today, and I have no real excuse, because I was starting to feel a little better by this time. But oh, well.

Day 54: panda & bear (cavies)

So, here's the first time I took them out of the cage for an extended time period (read: I was up and about and out of bed long enough to turn on my computer, and do some of my other normal activities). I needed to sex them.
My mom had told me on the day she dropped them off, that she was "still pretty sure they were both females". I had looked a little bit before this, but with my computer on, I was able to check out the website that details how to properly sex your cavies (cavyspirit.com).
I was able to get the penis to extrude on both of them, plus I felt it (as a little ridge) beneath their fur in both cases. They are officially both male.

So, here's their introduction:
This is Panda, so-named for the black panda-like circles around his eyes. He's kind of shy; he hides more than his brother does, and he hates being taken out of his cage. When I take him out, if there's not someplace immediately available to curl up in, he just sits out in the open, frozen like a deer in headlights.


And this is Bear. He's bigger than Panda, and also more adventurous. He'll explore. I think he's actually looking for a place to hide, but he at least LOOKS for a place to hide, instead of just standing there.


They are both ridiculously adorable. My favorite thing about cavies, and the thing that made me fall in love with them, back when I first met my sister's piggies, is the noises they make. It's a sort of cooing, completely foreign to people who are used to mice (as I was, since I'd had a few growing up). They only make the sound when they are relaxed, and so they didn't for the first few days, at least when I was around. They've gotten used to me by now, and they'll coo around me now, and it's adorable.
I officially love cavies.

Day 53: fancy knitting

So, I've been anticipating making these for a while, practicing with yarn I didn't care so much about, and then when I finally started the actual pair, I'd work on it for a bit, and then rip it out and start over, etc.

So, I started, from scratch, on the bus ride over to Magna on Sunday at about noonish, maybe a little earlier. I finished one wristwarmer sometime before the end of game, which was about 11pm.


Here's a close-up of the cables:


They're ruffley, the bind-off is cool and not a straight line (the instructions called it a picot bind-off), and it's allover cables, which is my new favorite thing to do with knitting. It is fancy knitting at its finest.

Day 52: more cavies

Yes, I do still call them guinea pigs, or piggies, but I like the term cavies, because they don't actually look like pigs.
Anyway, this picture is pretty bad and fuzzy, but they are out of the tissue box, so it's a better picture of them ...

Day 51: the spiny rat

Main Entry: ca·vy
Pronunciation: \ˈkā-vē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural cavies
Etymology: New Latin Cavia, genus name, from obsolete Portuguese çavia (now sauiá) the spiny rat Makalata (Echimys) armata, from Tupi saujá
Date: 1796

: any of several short-tailed rough-haired South American rodents (family Caviidae) ; especially : guinea pig

So, I got my cavies on Thursday (Day 50), and right now they are hiding in a tissue box. It's their favorite place to be, because they can both fit in it.

Day 50: no pictures

Day 50 ought to feel like an accomplishment.
I'm sure it would if I hadn't been flat on my back the ENTIRE day, getting up only to greet my mom and allow her to take me out to lunch after dropping off my guinea pigs (pictures of them tomorrow), and to drift through writing group (to which I went only because it was something of mine being critiqued that night).

Day 49: holy picture day, batman!

Today, my pictures fall into three categories. The first category is:
While I Was Walking Home:

I like the nearly black tree against the puffy white clouds and bright blue sky. I also like the neat angle. This is one of my favorites for today.


This (and the following ones) is part of a house/lot that is near my own home. I'm not sure how much of it belongs to which people (there's two houses connected (like a duplex) and a lot of land surrounding both), but there's a lot of really cool-looking stuff associated with this area, like my pyrocanthus bushes. So, this is a little stream.


I imagine there will be a stream, here, too, once the snow melts a little more, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's just an indentation in the ground and not a stream-bed.


And here we are from the side looking into maybe the "other" yard.


And this is looking into the same area, but from above, where the pyrocanthus bushes are. This is where the guy whose step-dad owns this area (the area pictured here, not sure about the stream and all that) came and asked me if I worked for the state, because apparently, there's some issues about whether or not his step-dad has managed to fulfill all state regulations about something-or-other yet. We chatted for a bit, and I told him I just like taking pictures, and I wished I'd had some kind of card that I could give him, so he could visit my site, and see the pictures I've taken of his property, but alas. He told me to keep taking pictures, so I did.


I like this picture better than the other. But there's this little pond down there, and a little pavilion, and his step-dad has an RV he parks down there, and it's all very cool. I would live down there if I could ...

Now, here's category #2:
I Was Bored At The Laundromat

Plus, I've wanted to take pictures of clothes drying anyway, it seemed like it would be a good picture. Now I'm not so sure. I think the washers would be more interesting, but the sideloaders with the see-through doors are more expensive, so I use the top-loaders, and it's less interesting.


And my darks ...

Category #3 is:
While I Was Waiting For The Bus

It was an exceptionally nice day, with a gorgeous sky, so here I am taking pictures at the bus stop.


Yay, more tree-and-clouds-and-blue-sky!


I love the odd angle on this one. Odd angles, macros, and bright colors are my favorite things to photograph. This is perhaps another of my favorites of today's pictures ...


And, in case you didn't believe me, here's a picture OF the bus stop.


I looked at this picture later, while deciding which pictures to include for oday, and which ones to leave out, and I could not remember what I was taking a picture of. I think it's the house. I think I thought the house just looked cool. Or something.


And this is where I do laundry. It's called the Sunshine Center. It's on 1100 E, just south of 1300 S.
I remember looking at the sign along the top, where they list their various services (because some guy disturbed me while I was folding my clothes to ask if they did dry cleaning, and since I never dry clean my clothes (and don't work there), I had no idea, and said so, and he left, without trying to find out the answer to his question from someone who might actually know), and saw the 'tanning salon', and for a moment (because my mind was on textiles and things worn) I had this image of them tanning leather in the back, and I thought that was SO COOL!
But, yeah, I don't think that's what they mean.


And more on perspectives and angles and whatnot.

Very productive camera-day, it more than makes up for my other (less-productive) camera-days of the rest of the month: 15 photos.

Day 48: experimental

I feel like these are "experimental", because I was "trying something".
I was trying to be artistic. Did it work?


Next one ...


And some ivy. I like this one. Not sure about the others.

Day 47: no pictures

Thus begins the series of days of no pictures.
I still wanted a post for the day, though ...

Day 46: holes in my ears

So, last night I found that my ears are still pierced. I thought the holes had closed up forever ago, and that I was doomed to earring-less-ness forever, or at least until I scraped up the money and courage (because I've pierced my ears twice now, and twice they've gotten infected and closed up) to get them done again.
But I pushed out pus (actual, thick-yellow pus, instead of this clear damp stuff), and then got an earring to see if I could push out anything more, and ended up pushing it all the way through the hole in my ear.

So, today's pictures are of me wearing earrings, because that's the only exciting thing in my life today, because I feel like shit. I didn't know which picture I liked better, even though neither of them were quite what I was going for (I didn't mean to cut off bits of my face). So, I put up both.

Day 45: a gray world

Snow today. Blah. :(
But I was walking, and I saw this tiny sliver of blue in the white sky, contrasted with the white and dark world ... it was maybe a little cooler where I first saw it, but of course, I didn't have my camera with me ... so I took this just outside of my house.

Day 44: happy lady day

So, Friday 13th is supposed to be unlucky largely because Friday is Freya's day, the day of the goddess, and 13 is one of her sacred numbers, for the 13 moons in a year, and because Christianity wanted to get rid of the goddess as much as possible. So I consider Friday 13th "Lady Day", because it's a double-goddess day.
(Hence today's title)

So, today's picture.
So, on Day 36, there was that date ... I've been on a few more dates with that boy, and we're officially dating now. So, on Thursday he gave me this drawing he'd done. He was showing off some of his art (some of which is REALLY cool-looking), and when I was leaving his house, he picked this one up and gave it to me, because I liked it. So I put a ribbon on it and hung it on my wall Thursday night, and in the morning I took the picture.

It's a piece of wood with canvas covering part of it (the canvas ends with the wing), done in chalk.

Day 43: (fancy) knitting project

This is me working with double-pointed needles for the first time ever, basically. I found an awesome pattern online that I HAD to try (Victorian wristlets; they're ruffled), and because it involves so many new things I've never done before, and because every time I make a pair of something new, the first one is always crappy, I decided to practice by making one wristlet, but making it short (there are supposed to be four or five cables, and I only did one or two) ... so this is me practicing on some yarn I have a lot of but don't care too much about. I have finished, and I've started the actual wristlets. I'll post pictures when I'm done.

Day 42: more about hair

Not a very good picture, but I dyed my hair again. You might not be able to tell real well, but it's less reddish, and more brown, although still lighter than my natural hair color (which has darkened considerably over the last couple years).

Next time I dye my hair, I'm just going to buy some permanent dye and get it as close to my natural hair color as possible, and then leave it. I'm getting tired of my hair. I can't decide if I want to grow it out or keep it short (or go shorter).

Day 41: birthday project

This is my birthday present for my sister Emmy, who is in Chicago. I mailed it to her, and it got there on her birthday, so that makes me happy, because I was worried it'd get there late. Her birthday is February 13th.

So, I sent her this shirt, which I made (well, I painted it), and some chocolate (Chocolove), and a card with an elephant holding a bouquet, because she likes elephants.
She really likes the shirt, which made me happy.

Day 40: kicking sexual oppression in the balls

First, another sky-picture. I just loved the texture in the clouds. This is out in Sugarhouse, by the way; I was getting supplies for my sister's birthday present. Her birthday is February 13th.


So, I went to Goddess Circle, which is a local Pagan activity once per month put on by a local group, and there's a ritual for and information about a goddess once a month. It's cool. So this is the altar to Godiva:

Godiva, who is more like a culture-hero (like Fionn McCumhail (vaguely pronounced like 'Finn McCool') or Heracles) than an actual goddess (which is perfectly acceptable), was given the attributes of goddess of social justice and sexual freedom (she rode through town naked as a protest to her lord and husband's raising the taxes beyond the ability of the peasants' ability to pay), and just a lot of what they said about her made me think of Brighid (whose holy day was very recently), and so I was thinking about how they were very similar, especially in the areas of 'social justice and kicking sexual oppression in the balls'.
And I laughed at the thought, and knew that's what I had to call today in this blog.

What I want to know, though, is what happened next? The lord raised the taxes, Godiva told him she would ride through the town naked if he didn't lower them, and he didn't, so she rode through the town naked. Did he then lower them? I mean, it's not like she could have upped the ante; that was about the most shameful thing she could think of doing to him. So what happened?