Mojo missing

I've been in a bit of a funk this last week or so. With it comes the loss of mojo -- knitting, blogging and otherwise. But I'll be back soon with an update, I promise. Including a few great things that came in the post this week that helped make life more bearable. See you soon!

Friday Fill-ins

1. Making someone else happy feels great.
2. The solution is more Malabrigo. And Wollmeise.
3. Lately it takes me mere minutes to fall asleep.
4. How about some sunshine this weekend, Mother Nature? Please? .
5. Hanging out with a shelter animal is something I highly recommend!
6. Imagine a Netherlands-England final -- Woot! .
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to knitting with a glass (or two!) of wine, tomorrow my plans include watching the England-USA game, and Sunday, I want to win some dough at the track while freaking out the muggles!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Ebony

Hedging my bets...

Flightless fairy

Awwww, shucks!

I've been so busy tinking, frinking and frogging all sorts of projects I almost missed something really, really nice today: I've been nominated for the Beautiful Blogger Award by the lovely Sara at Lazy Knits and Purls. [ETA: Wow, Piggy's a lucky girl -- Lori from Thrums also nominated me! Thanks so much, Lori!]


Thank you so much, Sara -- you've really made my day.

Now I have to list 10 little-known facts about me, then nominate 10 beautiful bloggers of my own. So here goes:

1. I have a great memory when it comes to historic dates, trivia, etc. But I have a really hard time remembering the 'big stuff'.
2. Before I became a vegetarian (when I was 23, I think, see above), I rarely ate vegetables. And I liked my steak blue. Very blue.
3. When I was seven (yes, I know this one for sure), I was carried up and down the aisles of a 747 (or it might have been an L10-11...) en route to Vancouver by several rowdy professional soccer players. I know I was seven, because said players were members of the Vancouver Whitecaps, who had just won the 1979 North American Soccer League championship..
4. I suffer from social anxiety. Many people who know me might doubt this, but it's true.
5. I have a weird crush on Kofi Annan.
6. I have a chunk of pencil lead (yeah, I know it's graphite, but lead just sounds better) stuck in my right palm. It's been there since I was seven (or so...see #1). Every once in a while I consider performing surgery on myself to extract it, but so far, sanity has always won out.
7. Hot new potatoes with homemade mayonnaise seriously rocks my world. 
8. I set fire to myself this morning. Very briefly. 
9. I tie my shoes using the Bunny Ears method. (Erm...am I the only one who thinks that a website devoted to shoelaces is a little strange?)
10. I'm really quite boring; I can't come up with anything else. At least nothing I haven't already shared.

And now, my nominees. This is almost as hard as the list above -- there are so, so many beautiful bloggers I love to visit. Here are just 10 of them:

1. Louisa, of Damselfly's Delights
2. Mrs.Quimby, of The Adventures of Gladys and Harold Quimby
3. Tammy, of so now what?
4. Plae, of Land Unknown
5. Marie, of Permission to Unwind
6. Tania, of Cherry makes...
7. Fiolinn, of Fiolinn and the handy gnomes
8. Fridica, of Fridica
9. Chris, of alice*thelma
10. Rae, of Rae Knits N WA

Now I'd better get back to my knitting, so I have something to blog about soon!

Stash acquisition > stash usage

I'm pretty sure I hit S.A.B.L.E. (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy) quite a long time ago, but there's little evidence of improvement in either the yarn diet or knitting output departments chez Piggy. Science textbooks should include Piggy as a classic example of inertia -- I'm just not going to change direction on my own.

As you've probably guessed, I've done next-to-nothing on the actual knitting front, and a whole lot on the pre-process knitting front.

Last night, for the second Thursday in a row, I stalked the Wollmeise shop and came away with two skeins -- this time, in Pesto (nom, nom, NOM). And I think I may have neglected to mention the skein of Malabrigo Worsted I scooped up last weekend:


Mmmmmmmmmmm, Malabrigo! Little Lovely colourway, which is lovely indeed.

And on the not-quite-knitting-but-close front, I've spent the past three days planning my project for Ancient Runes this month. Serious research has been involved. And also yarn shopping. Fortunately today's purchases were much more modest: two skeins of Cascade 220. More on this project later.

Meanwhile, Ebony has been hanging out in the garden.


She's still hunting squirrels, but fortunately the death count is holding at two. I think the little buggers have wised up and are, for the most part, laying low (by which I mean high) when Ebby is outside.

Right. I'm off to start my Runes project...about a bajillion stitches of stocking stitch in WHITE white before anything remotely interesting happens, so don't get your hopes up for a good pic anytime soon, eh?

I'm living with a serial killer (and other believe-it-or-not news)

You know how crime reports often feature quotes from incredulous neighbours of freshly captured alleged killers? "I never would have guessed good old Ralph was an axe murderer. He was always so friendly and helpful."

Well, it's Piggy's turn to be fooled. For this week, I have discovered that a close pal and sometimes-roommate is, in fact, a ruthless killer. And a charismatic one at that. Somehow she's managed to enlist me as her fixer: I clean up the body one minute, then prepare her dinner the next.

Y'all remember Ebby, right?


Don't be fooled by those puppy-dog eyes. That, my friends, is a picture of a cold-blooded assassin. Two poor, innocent squirrels so far this week. Not. Pleasant.

More Shocking News

Brace yourselves, piglets: yesterday I finally cast on for Spring Leaves.


I know. There's not much there. But it's enough to count as a swatch for the purposes of an O.W.L. proposal. I only just made the 11:59 pm deadline, too. (Many thanks to my tweeps, particularly chrispy, for their encouragement and chart-deciphering skills!)

I love, love, love the Mistelzweig (Misteltoe) Wollmeise. Such a gorgeous colour.

And the unlikely news keeps coming...yesterday I completed two projects. Modest projects, to be sure, but House Cup points-getters nonetheless.

First up, a bib for my wee friend Emily:



Emmy's a bit of a cheeky monkey herself, so I think this pattern is appropriate. I used this for May Ancient Runes (Gebo = gift) and Ravenclaw's May Monkey Madness challenge.


Project Details:

Pattern: Imp Bib, by Elaine Fitzpatrick (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, Pale Yellow, about 3/4 skein
Needles: 4 mm/ US 6
Modifications: I used a garter stitch edging and the short-row shaping instructions from the designer's Hippity Hop! bib pattern instead of seed stitch and casting on stitches every row of the bottom border.

The other project isn't really worth showing, but what the heck...at my rate of production, I can't be picky, right?

So for May Potions, I made an extra-absorbent coaster for my Bodum, using three strands of dishcloth cotton and 7 mm needles.





More Stash Enhancement

As I hinted at in the last post, I did indeed stay up late and stalked the Wollmeise shop for the regular Thursday night (Pacific time) update. And I just might have bought two skeins of Blaue Tinte (Blue Ink) 100%. Maybe.