Happy St. Patricks' Day! New Alltop Feed

(This adorable photo is by dalcrose at Flickr under a Creative Commons license)

I have but a wee bit of unproven Irish ancestry in me. My grandmother's family always carried the story that their ancestor Robert Perry was Irish. So far I've got the tree back to 1700s Virginia and hit a dead end. He may have been Irish, English, or possibly Welsh.

So I'm not sure. If it was true, my share of the Irish bloodline wouldn't be large, but enough to celebrate today! :-)

One of my favorite sites to use for mass amounts of news - Alltop - released customized URLs and personal sites. Hurray! If you would like to learn more about what I like to read, feel free to check out the

Crafting in Yoohooville Alltop

Essentially, its a hybrid list of many of the blogs I read that's kind of like looking through a magazine rack, only its online stuff (though a couple blogs are missing, namely Bargain Babe and Retire at 40).

Please check it out and enjoy! And feel free to create your own Alltop and let me know where it is so I can check you out too!

A beautful scarf pattern - Harry Potter colors?

I was surfing the Interweave Knits forum over at Ravelry and a girl posted this lovely pattern based off of a design she saw in IK two summers ago.

Shazam Scarf

That's her image above - so, so pretty!

So I got looking at it, and it immediately brought to mind Gryffindor - can you imagine this in burgundy with gold (the color hue, not the metal or shiny) beads?

It totally brings it to mind. If I ever get through my current slog of projects, this one will be on the list!

1st Year at Hogwarts! (AKA Induction into the sock world), and progress on Ginny's Vest

Ooh! I am SO excited!!! I was accepted for my first year in the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap Round 4!!!!

Gryffindor, here I come!

Not that I'm a regular sock knitter, persay (ref. my earlier blog post), but on occasion, they are a good thing to work with. It all started with the making of a cast sock for my brace, because barefeet in December is well, not a real good idea in the midwest! And it took me no longer than a day, so it was a super easy knit, too.

So then I searched out how to do them better, because, while the cast sock was comfy and warm, it wouldn't fit over anything but the brace it was so huge! I went to my friend YouTube and discovered a way of making them WITHOUT DPNS.

Earth shattering, I know, for you sock knitters. People have been doing it forever, blah, blah, blah. It was earth shattering to me!

So I tried it - and while I haven't actually done one I'm proud enough to photograph, I'm working on one now in baby yarn (thanks to the advice of the awesome people in the Ravelry forums), that will probably put in the KCGB Mothers Day sale, but is turning out well enough to be photographable and put-table into Ravelry.

So anyway, back to Hogwarts. I am SO excited to be accepted into the swap - it is one of the most prestigious Blogger swaps to take part of, IMO. 100 members, kits worth $30-40 each, classes, quidditch, and other games. I can't wait!



Onto the progress on Ginny's vest from OOTP, its, well, conflicted. I had the idea to do it all modular until I saw this LiveJournal. I think she's got the general shape right, however, the problem is that to me the cables don't look like they go down as far as she suggests. I really think the main portion is hexagon modules!


(just in case you don't know what I'm talking about)

Of course, not knowing what the bottom looks like since you barely see this in the movie, well, who knows.

Edit: I just got some high-rest screen shots but I can't seem to get them to post as nicely using photoservices. I'll post them when I can!

Are you a vegan?

So off my blog, on most of the crafty lists I've gotten lots of questions about my list of favorite links.

Several of them are for vegan cooking blogs and so the inevitable round of "are you a vegan?" questions began.

The answer? No, I'm not a vegan. I've been against it since I attended Ithaca College back in 1999. The people there are crazy obsessed.

Now, does that mean I hate animals? No.

Does that mean I devour meat only like a carnivore? No, not really. I'm a big fan of turkey and chicken, but I don't eat pork, lamb, veal, most pieces of the cow, etc.

Does that mean I'm a closeted vegetarian? Nah, not really. Its more of a budget thing - my husband and I are just starting out in the world - we can't afford it and we've grown accustomed to it.

Do I eat a lot of vegetables? Yes, yes I do! I love almost all of them except okra. And tomatoes. But tomatos cross over the list into the "I hate almost all fruit" category.

Do I eat fish? Absolutely! Its my favorite food that's not a dessert item :-D

Am I adamant about not eating so much meat? No - I eat it when I like. Like last night, DH and I had steaks for a once in a while treat. And the occasional Arbys enters my diet. I feel its better for the environment that way - if we all ate a little less meat, there would be more resources for the animals that should be living in peace here -- and instead who are living in hotel parking lots and darting across freeways.

Hopefully that makes sense to most of you. I don't feel I need to fit into a particular category dietetically. Plus, those vegans are crafty people - check out Hannah's Bittersweet blog - she's not only a vegan but also has tons of Little Visitors she's made. And she's a great writer :-) = something I aspire to be someday.

Dollar Store Exchange / Life in General

Well, this exchange has been interesting. My partner is from the Netherlands, so I'm making her a couple things and trying to send her a bunch of unusual stuff from the US.

Mom and Dad want to go to Michigan later this week, so I'm taking Thursday and Friday off of work. Hopefully I'll get to stop by the Library of Michigan!

I got to see the puppies this weekend. My goodness, they're little ladies now! Nearly nothing remains of their cute baby faces, and in their place is soft, muscular adult ones. I'll have to update my pictures!

I'm trying to learn how to do that "picture from a photo" trick that everyone seems to do in photoshop. I think it'd make an awesome blog header!