Update

Still hate packing.

Still have too much stuff.

The first casualty of the move was one of my little fairy figurines. It was me, with the heavy metal candlestick, in the foyer. Jag also has a fairy figurine whose wings have broken off, so maybe they can form a wing amputee support group until we can locate the Super Glue.

I hate packing.

Also, I have too much stuff.

That is all.

Grinding to a halt

I was pretty productive craft-wise before the holidays, and I've started a couple new projects, including a Liesl sweater in a bulky wool from handpaintedyarn.com:

...and some socks in Araucania Ranco Multy, using a pattern from the very nifty Little Box of Socks my parents got me for Christmas.

However, my existence for the next several weeks is going to be centered on this.

Jag and I have packed up 30 boxes of books since yesterday evening. That's on top of the 26 we had already packed, and doesn't count the boxes of books and magazines we moved over in my car a few weeks ago. And I still have everything else to pack.

One of the most time-consuming things about moving is figuring out what to ditch. I used to buy a lot of technical books, and these have proven to be some of the most annoying things to get rid of. They're big and heavy. The information in them is now so outdated that they are utterly and completely useless. Up to the minute info on the same topics is available online for free. I can't in good conscience dump them on Goodwill, because they're no good even for teaching someone who might want to learn Perl, or Oracle, or whatever else, unless they happen to be sucked into a time vortex and transported to the mid-90s. I have waist-high stacks of these things, and the only thing I can think to do is haul them to the recycling center. This is why I haven't bought a technical book in a very long time.

Anyone want to learn Exchange 5.5, Perl 4 circa 1993, or need a manual for an IBM Proprinter (dot matrix, tractor feed...)?

Something for MEEEEE

This holiday season, I made a lot of gifts. Nine woven placemats, one woven stole, one woven table runner for someone who doesn't know they're getting it yet, a pair of knitted socks, a knitted/felted ornament, an 8x10 cloth collage on canvas, 5oz of handspun yarn, and a handpainted platter. So it feels decadent to get to work on something for myself again. I started these handspun socks back in October and set them aside for 2 months. I finished them last night, and I love them. Soft and cushiony and visible from space.

Mister Happy Moon says, "Yay!"

This was the week that was...

I'm just now finally getting around to blogging about the family Christmas celebration. At least I managed to do it before the new year hit!

On Christmas Eve, we had our usual appetizer and gift-opening extravaganza. The table was covered with snackage, including deviled eggs, hot beef dip, Parmesan cheese profiteroles, ham rollups, sausage and cheese balls, baked Brie, and dill dip with veggies.

Here's a closeup of the baked Brie. Mmmmm. Cheese.

There was much giftage. Dad's socks fit....

....and Mom liked the wrap that I wove for her.

My mom crocheted up a storm this year, and made lots of great stuff, including some potholders/hot pads that are far too cute to actually use. Robin got a piggie:

And this steer (which, um, bears more than a passing resemblance to Thumper in shape and coloration) is now hanging up over the sink in Jag's kitchen. The cows are taking over!

My mom also made me a crocheted shawl which she mysteriously instructed me not to wear out of the house. I can be seen here shamelessly parading around Brightleaf Square in flagrant disobedience to her instructions.

How to tell when someone loves you

You know that someone loves you when they buy you something like this, with the full knowledge that it's going to be hanging in their kitchen for many years to come.

(You may need to replay the video to get it to display correctly; Vimeo is doing some weird things with it.)

Cow clock from Heather Sarik on Vimeo.

Almost done

I've been weaving, knitting and doing other things like a fiend for the past few weeks. I forgot to get a picture of my grandma's gift before I mailed it out (dammit!), but here are pictures of some other things I've been working on. The person the gift is intended for should not click on the links below. Robin, your picture is not in Flickr, so feel free to look at the mom and dad links.

Yuletide cheer and wrapping up the year

For various reasons, I haven't been getting much into the holiday spirit this year. This weekend has been sort of a turning point, and I'm feeling much more chipper these days.

On Friday night, me and Jag went out for comfort food at Elmo's, did a little shopping on 9th Street, and went out to get a tree from the TROSA folks on Guess Rd.

The full moon was amazing,

Here's our tree, Fir-gus, all decked out for the season. Jag picked out the gold Moravian star tree topper, which I love. Members of my immediate family will recognize most of the ornaments, I'm sure.

On Saturday, we did more shopping (yay Morgan Imports!) and then in the late afternoon headed over to Jeff and Michelle's for gaming. It was a very fun session, as usual. Their doggie, Callay, reclined on her area of the sectional sofa with her usual dignified demeanor.

My Etsy store will be closing temporarily for a few months so I can relax over the holidays and get this move thing figured out. Last December, I'm not even sure I even knew what "roving" or "combed top" was. The fact that total strangers have been willing to buy my hand-dyed fiber from me still boggles my mind in a lot of ways. I'm really grateful to everyone who has been a customer and supported my little venture. Based on sales and my current inventory, I've created over 60 different fiber colorways. At at least 4oz each, that's more than 15 lbs of fiber I've dyed since August! Not that much compared to people who do this as a serious business, but not bad for someone working out of her kitchen sink.

One of the advantages of the shop closing is that I get to dye for ME again, which I haven't done for months. I recently got some really nice, soft Shetland fiber, which took the dyes much more vibrantly than I expected. Here they are, and they're ALL MINE.

Adventures in Scrabble

I haven't played Scrabble in ages, so this weekend when I noticed that Jag had a Scrabble set among his piles of games, I challenged him to a match.

My luck with tiles started out bad and didn't improve much. It turns out that "Eaaaizt" is not a valid word to describe "a follower of Eaaa".

This set wasn't much better, unless I had wanted to work in some kind of "Old MacDonald" reference, or possibly the name of an insurance company.

It later became clear that I should have kept the "G" and that I was subconsciously thinking about biscuits.

Despite being left with an unusable "Q", I squeaked by for a 6-point victory. Here's the slightly risque finished board. I wonder if some kind of psychological analysis can be done using peoples' Scrabble words. In case you want to take a stab at it, Jag was responsible for "nude", "nun", and "dirt" and I'm on the hook for "teats", "bolus" and "pox". And yes, "gi" and "ria" (Jag), and "ye" (me) are all valid words.

Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend has been whizzing by. On Thursday, there were 6 for dinner at the parental household and the usual yummy feast.

The Thanksgiving table, pre-feast:

I forgot to take pictures of the food before everyone sat down, so here is what you get when you interrupt the munching with your camera flash. We had turkey and gravy, stuffing inside and outside the bird, Robin's cranberry sauce, Greg's 2 kinds of green beans (the almond and blue cheese ones were my favorite), Greg's cornbread, squash casserole and rolls I made, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cole slaw. For dessert, pumpkin pie and a pecan-chocolate-bourbon pie that turned out to be more of a chocolate chip cookie pie. We all ate until we were nearly comatose and waddled home.

Jag and I had a quiet Black Friday at home and didn't buy anything except some groceries.

I knitted some more on the Dad Secret Project, and finished a hat made from the bottom two Uniquely Yours batts, which were full of sparkly angelina. I had a lot of fun spinning the batts into some wacky thick and thin singles. In general the batts were great, but it turns out that I am not a fan of the multicolored wool neps that were added to the black batt. I spend too much time picking neps OUT of yarn to want to put any IN, and they don't actually stay spun into the yarn. My house looks like it's been the site of a rainbow mini-hailstorm, or possibly a tiny clown explosion, and I'm sure the hat will be shedding neps into my hair and the surrounding environment for months to come.

The hat still needs a decorative button on the flap and Jag feels it needs a multicolored pompom, so I have a little more finishing to do before I can wear it. A haircut would help too, since it looks a little ridiculous with all my hair hanging out of it.

I've also been working on a Christmas gift for mom and dad, who should *****NOT CLICK HERE*****.

Perl says, "FEED ME".