Handmade jewelry for sale.

Yep, that's what I've been doing instead of knitting lately. Making tons of jewelry! Eventually, I intend to have a website.

Details:

• All items come from a smoke-free home.


• Shipping to the US is included in all prices.


• Multiple-item purchases will be discounted.


• Payment methods: I can accept Non-Credit Card Paypal.


• To purchase, please e-mail me at negative_1nfinity@yahoo.com.


• Also, if the item you'd like is gone... I can make more of most of these!

Fishy bracelet. Glass beads and labradorite. $15.


Skull earrings with Swarovski crystals. $9.


Swedish Fish earrings! (not actually candy) $5.


Astronaut & Star earrings. $7.


Extra-long amythest necklace (~24"). $40.


<3 Sharks. $8.


Pink owls. $8.

Frustration

I wanted to post pictures of the new sweater and hat that I've just finished, but they're stuck in the camera. Hopefully I can get them up soon. I'm working on many new projects, so expect to see great things!

Muffins

So I'm sitting here at my computer wondering why I'm so hungry... when suddenly I realize that it's because I haven't eaten anything today! I thought back to the "squiggly-brains-masquerading-as-food" debacle, but realized that was nearly 24 hours ago. So MY brains made an executive decision to go to the kitchen and rustle up some grub.

I'd grown rather tired of the perpetual rice and ramen, so I decided to make some muffins. Almond Poppyseed Muffins of Deliciousness, to be exact. Suddenly, a thought struck my head, like an anvil from above. "Do I have a MUFFINS PAN?" I said aloud. Now this WAS a legitimate concern, as my last roommate had run off with mine.

Upon utterance of this ridiculous sentence, I realized that it was actually called a CUPCAKE TIN, not a MUFFINS PAN.

Sometimes I'm convinced I have aphasia. For all my supposed intelligence, I often have the most difficult time putting things into words, or coming up with the correct word. Sometimes I'll just substitute a made-up word in the sentence (at which point I usually think of the correct word immediately upon saying it, causing me to feel even more foolish). I often refer to items by their purpose as opposed to their actual names. If I can think of similar words I have even more trouble, because every time I try to think of the words, the similar words block it out. For instance, today I was trying to come up with the word "impression," but no matter how hard I tried to call it to mind, I kept thinking of "impact" and "influence" instead. A while back, my roommate enquired as to the location of a certain item in the kitchen. Without a word, I got up and showed him. I realized afterward that it might have made more sense to describe the location instead, but then realized this would have actually been more difficult for me--perhaps because I had encoded it as a spatial location rather than a verbal designation, and having to switch between modalities during retrieval increases the time required to retrieve information.

(I also feel awkward calling people by their names, but that most likely has a different cause.)

Anyway...

Perhaps I shall add the Muffins Pan to my arsenal of deadly kitchen appliance, alongside the BlendMaster2000 and Microwave of Doom.

Etsy Shop

Just a heads-up: I've begun to add handspun yarn to my Etsy shop:

Deathray Productions Handspun Yarn!

More socks

I finished another pair of handspun socks:


They are 3-ply merino, knit on size 4 needles. Very soft and squishy. Here's a closeup:


Earlier this week, the King of Pie (my sister's boyfriend) saw me spinning this yarn, and begged me to make him something from it:


First he asked for a beanie, but then he found out that I could make hacky sacks, so he wants a beanie with a matching hacky sack. Aww, so cute. I only have a bit over 70 yards, so I'm going to stripe it with some black Cascade 220, of which I possess a bounteous supply.

I've made a lot of progress on my knee socks; I'm almost finished with one leg:


I also finished the knitting on my Silk Garden sweater, so once the ends are woven in and it's blocked, I'll have pictures of that. And I started a new, secret project!

Pretty little things

"I'm hiding in your yarn!"
This is my favorite yarn that I have ever made! 226 yards of fingering-weight BFL, and ridiculously soft, shiny, and beautiful. It's too pretty for me to knit with, so I shall keep it forever.




I started a pair of knee socks in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in "Bittersweet":

They have a little cable running down the back, which will show better when they are worn. Of course, I didn't think it out too well before starting... I don't know what to do with the cable once I get down to the heel. It can't just stop, and I don't want to continue it onto the heel. Perhaps the stitches on either side of it will eat it up. I'll have to think of something clever.

These will be awesome in the fall with a denim miniskirt and my mary janes with skull buckles!


I finished up the "Dark Side" sock yarn. It doesn't have enough black, and it's only 211 yards, so I'll solve both problems by making the ribbing, heels, & toes solid black. That is, if I can stand to knit with it. This yarn is just dripping with masculinity. Maybe he'd like pink socks better? You never know...


And speaking of pretty little things, I just got my MAC order in the mail! Hooray!

My camera hates me

So, I had quite a few new projects to take pictures of, but my camera wouldn't take any decent pictures; everything kept coming out blurry. I'm going to try again tomorrow, but for now, here's a picture of some yarn that I am working on:



This is 520 yards of DK-weight, single ply yarn. It's colonial wool from Copper Moose in "Northern Nights." I bought a pound, so when it's all done, I should have plenty for a sweater. This fiber is extremely easy to spin; this is some of the most even single-ply yarn I've ever managed to create. The texture of the fiber is a bit strange though. It seems to have no crimp and it has a weird "dry" feel. I like the color blends, but I think next time I might spring for the merino/silk instead!

Other than the aformentioned camera difficulties, I'm having a great day! I got a new job and I made some delicious chocolate chip cookies. What more could you ask for?

Life's great mysteries revealed

So, today I turned in the last paper that I will ever write at UC Davis. It was kind of a strange moment…I realized that now little stands in the way of my graduation. There are no longer any obstacles that seem as if they may be insurmountable. I have two finals next week, but short of me sleeping through them entirely, it would be nearly impossible for me to screw up. And after pulling 6 all-nighters in the past two weeks to get papers done (without the aid of caffeine, I might add), that kind of assurance is extremely comforting.

I’ve gone through most of my time at Davis in sort of a daze, feeling as if this is not where I am supposed to be. All this time, I’ve just been waiting for something to happen.

But my time here has changed me, nonetheless. I’ve done a lot of growing up here. I’m made of sterner stuff now. I no longer give up when faced with a challenge (though I still might be tempted to avoid them altogether). I fear nothing, now. And most importantly, I know that there is something at the core of me that cannot be changed, by anyone but myself.

I feel as if now, I can finally start living.

You spin me right round

So, I haven't posted because I haven't gotten much knitting done lately. I'm almost done with school now--only finals left! I won't be walking for graduation because silly me forgot to sign up for tickets for my family, but I suppose you can just imagine any generic graduation scene from a movie with my name added to it somewhere. I'm taking a year or two off school, partly because I'm not sure what I want to do yet. My GPA in my major is pretty high, so I might just stick with it and go to grad school.

Sometimes I feel like I'm so behind, but I just need to stop and remind myself that I'm still only 20!

Here's the only real knitting progress I've made this week...

The blue socks are almost done! This picture gives a more true representation of the color than the last one.

My usual sock recipient is a cutie who just happens to think that he is the Dark Lord of the Sith. When I made myself a sweater out of Noro Kureyon #116, he fell in love with it because it was in "dark side" colors--black, charcoal, gray, and dark red (picture here). He asked me to dye him up some matching sock yarn, but it didn't turn out quite right, so I overdyed it blue. To surprise him, I've tried again, this time with unspun wool.

I'm still shocked that I managed to get such a vivid blood red with a totally imprecise mixture of Hot Fucshia, Bright Yellow, Turquoise, and Black. The "gray areas" picked up a little too much color in some places, but I'm sure that when I spin it finely, the colors will blend better.

I've been doing a lot of spinning lately, so much that I've almost run out of wool! Here's a bit of what I'm spinning now:



And some recent yarns...


The teal skein on the left is the cashmere/silk laceweight I posted last week. I ended up just putting it in a dyepot with enough Turquoise dye to give it an even, saturated color (precise measurement: a shitload).


Ultraviolet: 152 yards of wool plied with silk.


Peachy: 95 yards of 2-ply merino.


Sour: 102 yards of 2-ply merino. I'm in love with this.

All three are heavy worsted weight. I think I will try to sell them, once I get my Etsy shop fully set up.

And here's a bit of yarn porn... part of my handspun stash!




I have quite a bit more, but this is probably the yarn I will want to sell eventually.

You have no chance to survive make your time

I haven't gotten much in the way of knitting or spinning done over the weekend, because the looming threat of multiple research papers has filled my heart with doom, I seem to be coming down with a minor illness of some sort, and I am currently addicted to Final Fantasy II. I'm still on the heel flap of the first blue sock, and I've only spun up about half a skein of (totally awesome) merino. I haven't started on the body of the Silk Garden sweater, because I still need to sit down and do the calculations for the body. The sleeves went something like this...

"Hmm, this yarn has been sitting around forever, and I sort of hate it. I want to make an Irken Army sweater, but that yarn is at my mother's house... as is ALL my good sweater yarn! Oh noes! Well, I guess I'll cast on some stitches... 34? that works. Hmm, I haven't used a provisional cast on in a while... I'll do that! And then I'll knit that together with some active stitches after a while to form a hem! 20 is a nice even number, so I'll do increases every 20 rows."

And thus two sleeves were formed, in the most haphazard manner possible. By some miracle, they are the perfect size and shape. I hold no such illusions for the body. I haven't tried to do waist shaping on a sweater in a while, so that should be... interesting.

I did manage to whip up a headband out of a tiny skein of older handspun. The shaping and construction is simple, but elegant. I think it looks better when my hair is up in a clip with crazy ends sticking out everywhere than it does here...


I am a zombie at 8am.


Much better...