Archive for October, 2008

A spooktacular day

Welcome to my haunted site….I’m your blogger, Skullella’. In honor of this 31st day, celebrating the fun holiday “Halloween”, I’ve temporarily transformed my website.

I have some goodies to share with all you ghouls!

These freaky pumpkins were hand carved by little goblins last night, and YES, they made it finally to the Pumpkin Patch! My Mother was able to rush them to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday so we could enjoy a night of knives, cutting, stabbing, carving, and spilling the guts of the poor pumpkins.

Now ghoulies for my secret Halloween FO. I had been wanting to knit something special for Halloween, and like I always do, time got away from me and before I knew it, Halloween was just a week away. My original plan was to knit a black scarf with skulls in white yarn, but given that I only had a week to Halloween, I knew there was no way I was going to knit it by today. So I had to create my own pattern. I decided to make a cowl, a “Skull” cowl. I used black Malabrigo yarn with white “glow in the dark” yarn. I invested in 2 balls of the “glow in the dark” yarn about a month ago just for Halloween. I wanted the skulls to stand out as I’m Trick ‘O Treating tonight.

This is my evil creation, which will be available for free on Ravelry within the next few days, it is my 1st official “Rocky Moreno Design”.

I tried so many times to get a good shot, but the evils that be just didn’t give in.

Here is the Skull Cowl being blocked late last night

And look at this frightening “Skullella” woman with skulls around her neck. (This is pre-blocking, so it’s not as flat or straight as I wanted.)

Ahh! I yell when I see myself! I will frighten you with more pictures later tonight when we get all gored up.

I hope all you ghouls have a creepishly safe and fun night! Watch out for those goblins and vampires out there.

Skullella will return again tonight!

But wait, I have one more morsel to share with you ghouls, it is yes, “EYE CANDY”, the latest installment from the “Madelin Tosh Society”. 200 yards of luscious yarn. I was rushing this morning so I didn’t get the yarn specs 8(.

Good-bye my ghoulies! Have a Devilish time

FOs-Sports-News

I don’t know where to start, guess with news. It seems like lately there has been just bad luck circulating in my family. I had a cousin pass away over the last week, she died before her time. Still young, and much more to live for. I attended her funeral yesterday, and have scattered memories of times I spent with her as a kid. I admit that we weren’t in touch lately, more of the time I had with her was as a kid. When I go to funerals, I just get all these awful thoughts in my head about the ones closest to me and how I just can’t bear to go through it, even though I know someday I’ll have to no matter what. Hopefully, later… much much later. I will think positive thoughts **emitting positive feelings now**

In other news, if you can believe it, my hubby, kids and I all have tried at least 3 x to go to the Pumpkin Patch to get some pumpkins, everyone we’ve went to has been closed! At 8 p.m. no less! Were going to try again tonight, this time at 6 p.m., and we’ll see if we finally get pumpkins, if not, off to the grocery store.

For my Sports portion, a good friend gave me a couple of great Lower Reserved tickets to the SF 49ers game this past Sunday vs. Seattle Seahawks. My hubby and I had such a great time, but the game overall was just a mess for the 49ers and horrible at that! I wish they were at least decent or showing signs of improvement, but geez, it’s hard being a fan. Only the most faithful of fans stick around during the hard times, my hubby and I being faithfuls, for sure!

Here’s how the 49ers make their intro for the game, I love all the fireworks, and huge display they put on, so cool:

And here’s the guys huddling up on the field:

Lastly, my FO 8-)…for the Tech Square Afghan. Another square down the “Monogram Square”.
I zoomed past this one, totally fun! But hard because you have to pickup stitches that aren’t slipped, so it was somewhat tricky, other than that, easy-peesy.

Here’s the square pre-monogram

Did you notice that I have begun to incorporate another color into my blanket? Red I thought was needed to add a little kick to all the neutral colors I’m using. I’m really like the red now.

In the book, that middle tan square is where the monogram goes. The author doesn’t provide any instructions, stitch patterns for letters, nothing. Kind of dumb if you ask me cause it’s whole purpose is adding a monogram, hence “monogram square”, duh! So I had to do some knitting math, number of rows across vs. number of columns (stitches) vertically. Then I had to come up with a stitch pattern for my initials “RM”. It was easy, but just alot of tweaking to get my letters to fit within the stitches I had. I did look for some monogram patterns, and there are free ones out there, only problem is there all for a larger amount of stitches, so not much help there. In the end, I’m just super-uber happy with how it turned out. I let my hubby choose whether to use Red or Olive Green yarn for the monogram, you’ll see here what he choose:

I took this picture early this morning rushing, so I didn’t have any time to flatten out the piece so it looks wavy, but isn’t. He choose the olive green obviously, which I think looks good and is probably a better fit than having gone with a red monogram. I’m liking how it came out, but I think I might raise that “M” about 2 rows up, what do you think??? Should I leave it or move it up a bit??? Hmm… what to do??

I’ve also started the next square in line, the “Pocket Square”, which has 3 different types of pockets plus a knitted cord. First in the pattern is the Kangaroo pocket. The instructions don’t really tell you very well how to form the kangaroo pocket so it took some thinking on my part, but I made it work, and so far, I’m happy with it. I’m currently knitting up the back stitches (wall) behind the front pocket that is already knit. Once the wall height is the same as the front pocket stitches, I’ll then do a 3-needle bind off to join and continue knitting until the next pattern change comes into play for the other 2 pockets.

Now you tell me, but doesn’t it resemble a woman’s thong??? When I laid it out to take pics, I just though, “thong”! Guess I know how to make a thong now

So far so good for it, for now. I also have a secret project I started, very late, last night, which is supposed to be for Halloween, and I hoping I can get it done by Friday. Either way, look out for pics, I’ll share even if I don’t get it done!

Pink Friday

I got my October installment for Woolgirl’s Sock Club, and it is totally peechee pink. It has very suttle and relaxing pink tones, with a touch of gray. The kit came with very nice cocoa butter, smells fresh and invigorating. Plus a ruby like stitch marker, a notepad, a very pretty sock patttern, and some really good tea, and a tea holder to brew with. So because of this, it is “Pink Friday”.

Here’s the “Pink” candy

TGIF!

Were almost there

It seems like these weeks are flying by faster than I can catch up. So many changes, so many things to deal with nowadays.

As I’ve posted prior, my job has not be one that I’ve enjoyed, in most aspects. Anyways, I found my own inner peace and ways to enjoy myself and feel like I’m making progress. All that I’ve preached to my kids about making your environment enjoyable is actually paying off. I can also attribute my enjoyment to a co-worker who works with me, she’s pretty cool, and we get along great. Were both very strong willed and both have a desire to make things work. I’m thankful she’s there, it’s definitely a nicer environment.

As for other things, my kids are just getting bigger and bigger. My daughter still wants to Trick’o Treat, she’s 15yrs., but we have no kids to Trick’o Treat with, so she’s kind of bummed. My son isn’t interested, but more so because he has braces and candy isn’t an option for him, plus he’s a total health freak, literally, counts calories, saturated fats, etc.

Last time this year, I was working at my job of 7 years, I was living in the Central Valley in a brand new 3000 sq. foot home on a 13,000 sq. foot lot, 3 bath, 5 bedrooms, 3 car garage, on a half court, next door to my cousin, who is like my brother, commuting to work daily from Newman to San Jose to Palo Alto. This was my life then, now I’m back in San Jose, commuting about 25 minutes to work, sometimes less, living in a house, 4 bedroom, 3 bath, decent lot, probably about 7000-8000 sq. foot, renting it, and working at a new company, that I’m trying to grow into. What a difference time makes, huh?

These weeks, so fast, it’s amazing. Halloween is just around the corner, and I can already feel Thanksgiving. This is my favorite time of the year, and sometimes I wish things would just slow down so I can really take in the season. I love the gloominess that comes, the misty mornings, the mornings you just want to have a nice warm cup of coffee or chai tea in bed, just relaxing and enjoying what nature has to offer. So, if your wondering what got me in this mood, it was, no joking around, the new Yarn Pirate colorway from the Booty Club I just received, “Smoke Rings”. This color is so pretty and just emanates this time of year, the gloomy mornings, and smells of mist in the air. The name itself is cool, I love the names that the dyers come up with. They’d probably admit that it’s actually very hard to come up with a name, and I believe them. What little dyeing I’ve done, and colors I’ve come out with, it’s just a very hard thing to do, come up with a name. I’m working on really getting my dyeing going, to try and have a small customer base who would be interested in my hand-dyed yarn, so I pay attention to the names alot.

Just check this out, so soft and cool:

Look at this dye job, Yarn Pirate has such an awesome talent! I just admire her work, it is a very skillful thing to be able to have a dye lot come out like this:

There’s no bleeding, the color changes blend so nicely:

**Drool!**

Real quick, but I leave yah.. hopefully drooling like me *-), I joined yet another Traveling Scarves group, #42 Tweeds! It’s as you guessed, all about Tweeds! I love Tweeds, and as I said in my prior post, I’ll be going with Tweed yarn for my Central Park Hoodie, and now I’ll have a scarf to match it. I don’t have any pics yet of my seedlet section, so keep on eye out.

Were almost to Friday folks Enjoy!

Two for Tuesday

I have two cool things to share with you this Tuesday, plus I’ll also introduce my puppy, or doggy really, but I like saying puppy, cause she’s still a pup to me.

Here is my puppy “Rosie”, she is a 3 yr. old Full Bred Golden Retriever from Kentucky. I worked with a great breeder a few years back, and was lucky to get Rosie, who was the premier pup of the liter. It all came down to timing and chance really that we got her, cause typically you pay top $$$ for the premier pup, but through some unfortunate events, her original intended owners had a death in the family and couldn’t go through with the purchase, which is where I came along, literally the same day the breeder was notified, and voila, I had my puppy about 2 weeks later! Course, she was ever more cute and irresistible then as she is now.

She had a spa day at “Spa for Pets” in Los Gatos, CA this past Saturday, believe me, she needed it! They gave her the cutest tie with glow in the dark ghosts, great for trick’o'treating this year.

What she doing here? Well she’s got her eyes on some squirrels in the back, she goes nuts for those squirrels!

Here she is just being her lovey self, and cuddling next to me. I have the spa use Oatmeal soap for her skin, if you know Golden Retriever’s, they have sensitive skin, and usually go well with Oatmeal. Her coat is so soft right now…**petting her right now**

Ok and now to the two things I want to share. I received another great swap package! This time for my “Day of the Dead” swap. My spoiler did her work good, she gave me some great stuff! Here’s a full view of all the goodies.

Do you see that green chinese food box? There were 2 of them, both filled with homemade Peanut Butter cookies! My absolute fave cookie! The other box, well, aheemm…, didn’t make it to the photo shoot, courtesy of my hubby and kids. This box I stowed away for Lil’o me Cheryl even provided the recipe she used for these cookies! I’m so lucky for this!

Cheryl included everything in this package, fresh peanut butter cookies (can you tell I’m crazy about them?), yummy skully candy (gooey skulls, candy bones, skull rings), BFL roving, Dinosaur pattern, handmade soap in the shape of skulls, fake tattoos, 2 Marigold skull planters, a pencil, and a handmade knitting bag.

It’s all just fabulous, one of my faves, and I just can’t thank her enough, so so nice and awesome, is this knitting bag! Look at this, black, my fave color, and that fabric! I did a post on it awhile back because I saw some clothes she made with this fabric and I thought it would be awesome for a knitting bag, and now I have one! The bottom of the knitting is reinforced, and keeps a nice square shape, and there’s 3 buttonholes to string yarn through. The strap is comfortable and stretchy, she totally outdid herself. Check out her site “Rocka-ma-baby creations for mama and baby” over at Kavelizrd.etsy.com. It’s an awesome job she did, and she’s quite a seamstress!

Now onto the BFL! I now have in my possession, BFL roving! I love BFL, and always wanted some roving to spin with. I love greens, and this “Jonquil” is just pretty, I can’t wait to spin it. She got this from Etsy shop “The Fiber Denn“, such great fiber there.

My “Day of the Dead” soap came from “Queen of Queens” on Etsy, there so cute, I can’t use them, I’ll have to stash them next to my sheep soap!

Again, thanks oh so much to my spoiler “DevotiontoKnit”! You rock!

Second to share, is my progress on the “Tech Square Afghan” KAL. I had this project on hold for awhile, and finally finished the Tree Square. It’s basically a pattern of a tree you make, out of variations of cable stitches. For some reason it took me forever to get this square knitting. This is is now the 2nd square completed, and leaves me 9 squares left to knit. I also got all my leave buttons sewed on the other night.

If you look at the top of the tree, you’ll see towards the end I switched to just garter stitch, what I was supposed to be doing was a 3 stitch garter stitch border and reverse stockinette for the inside stitches. Well, I was watching the ever so painful 49ers game, and umm..fudged it up. I was so thankful to be done knitting this square though, that I just binded off and called it finished. Who knows, I might rip back and fix it but I don’t think it’s too too noticeable.. we’ll see, it will have to wait until I’m done with all the squares though.

In the picture above, I tried to get the completed Domino square, Tree Square, and the starter I’ve done so far of the Monogram square.

Here’s a closer look at the Monogram square, in the beige’ish center square, I’ll be using Swiss stitch to add my initials, RM, or I might just add M for my last name. Not too sure yet. I should get this square done by tomorrow, it’s going super fast.

In other news, I bought the “Central Park Hoodie” pattern, finally! Now for the yarn. I’ve finalized on going with tweed, but am still indecisive on whether to use Green tweed, brown tweed, or gray tweed…hmm? Plus I need to get a good brand, that is less than $10 a ball and is soft to touch. I’ve been browsing Knit Picks, and will probably purchase it at the end of this month. It will be my November project. I plan to start and finish my CPH during November **fingers crossed**.

That’s all for now… see you hump day

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