Another Reason I Can't Use My Camera

This Memorial Day weekend, Sam and I went to his reunion in Oberlin. At Oberlin, they have reunions in clusters, so while Class of '03 was having their five year reunion, Class of '04 and Class of '02 (i.e. Sam) were there too. It was weird (but not a bad thing) staying in a dorm again. It brought back memories of college for me (it smelled like dorm!) and more, I am sure, for the people that actually went to Oberlin.

One of Sam's college bands played. They do punk renditions of Simon and Garfunkel, under a name not suitable to mention on a crafts blog. Here is a clip of a show they played in Boston last year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igMZq37ZOdU

We did a "car share" with two nice Oberlin people (and Andy - who of course is also nice!) on Monday and drove for hoooooooooooours. We got back to Sam's place in Astoria and crashed (as in, bed - not crashed the car!)

Needless to say, I was exhausted and running late on Tuesday morning, so I left all my stuff at Sam's place and have yet to pick it up. My camera was there. (So was my phone charger!) So I have no pictures from the trip (and can take none of my latest star necklace).

I promise I will put one or two of our trip up here...and to prove that I am good on my word, I will finally put up some pictures I've been promising for a while.

Here is the custom bracelet - my first sale in 7 years:
And here is that rowdy (but soft, I' m sure!) alpaca that we met in Australia:

G'Day from Sydney!

I'm in Sydney now - the land of my youth! I've done a lot since I got to Australia (including spend a few days in Canberra and Melbourne) but I haven't had much time for crafts here! I did, however, find the bag of jewelry I made to sell. Now I just have to go through it and figure out what is sellable!

Although I've done very little knitting (except for a tiny bit on the plane on the way over), I have two quick things to recount:

1) Alpacas are OUTTA CONTROL! Or at least that's what Sam found when one tried to bite his hand on a farm outside Melbourne (I have photos which I will put up soon, but I don't have time to upload them just yet). They are also pretty cute! (And, um, their wool is really soft. Yeah.)

2) In Canberra, on the way to Sydney, they forced me to either check or chuck my plastic knitting needles, even though THE SAME AIRLINE LET ME BRING THEM ON THE WAY THERE! Needless to say, I chose the former. Needless to say, this made me MAD! Grr!

Ah well. That is all for now. Lata!

<3

I love making things. It's like my comfort food. My chocolate cake. (OK, well maybe that's taking it a little too far, but you get my point.)

And that is why I spent my Friday night making myself a necklace. It's the same one that I made for Angela and Hilary, but in olive green. Back in the day when I used to sell jewelry, I always made quite a few pieces for myself. So while I have some new ideas up my sleeve, the first few things will probably be for yours truly. Besides, I use them as measuring devices. (Who needs rulers anyway?) It's just the same as using an old sweater to take measurements for a new one when knitting.

I used Japanese Delica beads that I got with my mom at an expo in Australia a few years ago. As a rule, Japanese seed beads are more uniform than Czech seed beads, and that is why I mostly bead with them these days. But these Delica beads, though freakin' expensive, are the most near-perfectly uniform beads I have ever used. I love love love them!

Olive green has always been a comforting color for me. I know that that is really silly, but it's true! When I was a little kid (like, three years old) my mom put me in a pottery class. The teacher's only complaint about me was that I refused to paint anything any color other than olive green. I can only imagine how strange it would have been to see me come home with a clay sculpture of a bowl of Cheerios, painted olive green. That I, at three, had chosen that color, is pretty bizarre.
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my UFOs. I've been working on Sam's mystery item, but I think I don't have enough yarn, so I went back to the place where I got it last weekend to see if they could get that dye lot in, and I still haven't heard back from them. (So I should probably follow up on that.) If they can't get it in, I will probably have to incorporate stripes of some sort.

I swear, this is totally not cheating, but I am counting long overdue gifts that I haven't exactly started yet as UFOs. Hence my dad's fiftieth birthday sweater come-post-fiftieth birthday scarf. I am using Misti Alpaca, which is amazingly soft. I looooooooooove it. I using the pattern I mentioned before. It looks pretty cool and it's not as tedious as seed stitch. My only minor annoyance is that it isn't quite symmetrical. On both sides, it starts with garter then knit, and ends with purl then garter. Even though I am a very messy, cluttered person who loves olive green, asymmetry to this magnitude annoys me. But I'm not starting over. And I still love the scarf so far. I just hope my dad isn't allergic to alpaca!

I was a little extra cautious and bought way too much yarn for my purple headband. I went back to Sophie's to return the extra stuff but they didn't have the anything bulky for the sweater I want to make. They didn't have it there at Loop the last time I was there either. So I decided to make another headband. Turns out, my separation anxiety wasn't just from my thesis. The pattern ended way too quickly. I'm not used to such instant gratification. So I'm making another one now. This one is black baby alpaca. It is amazingly soft. And I can wear it to my new job (at least that's the plan).

One problem. This one will end too; and I won't have anything to bring to New York this weekend. Yes, I'm still working on the green sweater. Maybe I should figure out that little place marker problem.