Movie Musings Monday: The Illusionist

The Illusionist outpaced my expectations by a mile. I honestly do not remember seeing any in theater commercials, and I rented it on a whim at Blockbuster. What I got was one of the best movies I've seen in quite some time (and have since purchased on DVD). The underlying star-crossed love plotline wasn't contrite nor overly mushy; romantic movie watcher I am not. Seeing the lead character, Eisenheim, use his knowledge and skills learned from his tradesman family to challenge the tyrranical prince of Vienna was inspiring. I tend to like movies that depict characters rising above adversite to stick it to "The Man". Excellent movie with stunning visuals.

Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars. Excellent movie.
Knitting Rating: 2/5 Skeins. Best suited for mindless stockinette in the round. The visuals distracted me from a relatively simple, repeated pattern.

Ahem!

Go Colts!!! They're going to the Super Bowl!!

From the Book Friday: Fessin' Up

This week's From the Book Friday prompts me to fess up to one of my shortcomings. (No, this post will not be about my relative lack of height...)

One of my biggest shortcomings is my inability to keep any vegetation alive. Apart from the funky pink mold noodles I grew in the fridge over the course of two months. No signs of a green thumb can be found on me, not even a green pinky or toe. I affectionately blame my routine killing of plants in my care on my Thumb of Death.

New hearty poinsettias, 20 year old cacti, and most of the lawn have all fallen victim to the Thumb of Death. It changes its preferred manner of attack on a random basis - killing it with kindness, neglect, overwatering, incorrect sunlight. I vowed my freshman year of college to keep a poinsettia alive beyond the month of December. I named it George and even took it home over Christmas vacation with me. (Looking back, I really needed a pet of some sort through college.) One sunny post-Christmas day, I set George on the enclosed backporch to catch some rays. And forgot about him until hours later. George was frozen, damn.

Again, I'm tempting fate with a mountain laurell my mom brought back from Pennsylvania in November. It's transplanted to our front lawn area (taking the spot of Bandit's beloved dead pee bush) and is hibernating in a flake of hay and a burlap sack. Hiding it is, from my dreaded thumb of plant doom!

Oh Yeah, I Do Knit

I started a few new projects this weekend. First onto the needles was the North Star Scarf from Arctic Lace.

Start of the North Star Scarf

I'm being such a diligent knitter with this project. The pattern came from a book I received as a Christmas present (Thanks Dad & Betty!), the yarn is from my Spooky Secret Pal, and the needles were even on hand. This is my first project where I chose the pattern after I had the yarn on hand. No waiting for a trip to the yarn store with this project. The pattern grabbed me; a lace pattern that wasn't too frou-frou for my tastes. The picture doesn't capture the true color of the yarn, it's a very pale blue Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks. It's so soft and cuddly!

Big surprise, more socks!

Second project to my needles is a pair of socks for my mom. A few days after Christmas, I got a call from her which started with a cryptic "Christina, I have to tell you something about your knitting." Luckily, that was followed by a request for another pair of socks because the pair I gave her for Christmas took a few days to dry, and she wanted a back-up pair. How could I say no to that? For this pair, I'm trying to bring together elements of different sock patterns to establish my own "easy sock recipe". I want to find the nicest looking heel turn, gusset decreases, and toe decreases because most of the ones I've done exactly from a pattern look like ass. Not picky, am I? :)

Words of Wisdom Wednesday

My final planned weekly blog feature is Words of Wisdom Wednesday. I'll share my wealth of knowledge gleaned from years of learning from my mistakes. Plenty of blog fodder with this topic.

Today's words of wisdom are this, "Let sleeping blogs lie." After moving to the new version of Blogger, I updated my blog's template. In my overzealousness, I altered my blog's name. Which caused my Atom feed to be completely FUBAR-ed. Atom feed issues equate to a non-functional site feed which you, dear readers, use to be notified of updates to Knotts Knitts.

I have a working site feed now, but it has a different address. If you subscribe via Bloglines or other feed aggregator, you can re-subscribe by clicking the nifty subscribe button to the site or manually add the new feed address, http://knottsknitts.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Biggest apologies to my 8 subscribers; I just had to try out all the new "features" of the new Blogger version. :(

Movie Musings Monday: Nacho Libre

Today marks the start of another new weekly blog feature, Movie Musings Monday. Since August, I've had a Blockbuster Online account. Couple that with an all-consuming knitting habit which works best with me in front of the TV, and I watch a ton of movies and TV shows on DVD. Of course, my reviews will have a slant towards knitting, so I won't be duplicating existing movie review sites. Without further ado, below is my review of Nacho Libre.

I confess to enjoying brainless comedies - the Griswold movies of the 80s, Euro Trip, American Pie, to name just a few. Nacho Libre tried very hard to have even the brainless-level of comedy and missed. Hubs fell asleep during our Friday night viewing; that's the first time in almost 13 years that I've known him that he's fallen asleep during a movie. I started a charted lace project, yet I did not miss any of the movie's plot. Under-appreciated, poorly stereotyped Mexican priest takes up wrestling to help the orphans that live at the monastery and falls for a nun. Add in an a village idiot tag team partner and some poop jokes, and voila, Nacho Libre.

Overall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars. I rented this movie with a free coupon, and still felt that I was due a refund.
Knitting Rating: 5 out of 5 skeins. Complex lace or cable charted projects are a perfect fit with this movie. Even with higher levels of concentration needed, you won't miss much.

From the Book Friday: Week 1

A few months ago, I bought and read the book No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason. Its chock-full with teasers to write insightful, coherent blog posts that (hopefully!) are enjoyable for readers.

This week's topic will delve into my irrational fears.

In all honesty, I could make an entire weekly blog feature on my irrational fears. I'd rather not get all Freudian, so I'll stick with the humorous and odd ones.

One of my fears that impacts me the most is my fear of house fires. My grandparents lost their home in the 70s while they were vacationing in Florida to a house fire. As a result, I grew up with a healthy respect for fires and was used to a routine of ensuring heaters were clear, water heaters were turned off, amongst others. As the old saying goes, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Here is where the paranoia starts for me. Every morning, I use a hair iron to straighten my hard to manage curly hair. The iron rests on my wooden vanity when it's not immediately in use. Correction, my slightly scorched vanity from a few days in 2004 when I was very distracted and forgot to turn the hair iron off. After I saw the stripes of burnt brown vanity top, I freaked. Now, every morning before I drive to work, go to bed, or leave the house unattended, I have to check that my hair iron is off. I even check it when I haven't turned it on that day. Guess I'm a bit OCD, at least it gives Hubs a good chuckle.

Redemption

Whew! As you can tell by the new look of my blog and the obnoxious spamming of XML updates to Bloglines, I've moved to the new Blogger. The move itself was simple and gives me access to labels. Look for lots of label usage. :)

Further redemption was found last night when I finished Grandpop's socks around 2 AM. I'm not a bad granddaughter after all.

Photographic Evidence of Finished Socks with CSI Season 1, never mind the pasty leg and pajama bottoms.

Pattern: Gentleman's Sock with Lozenge Pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks
Materials: Knitpicks Essential sock yarn in Navy, 2.01 skeins used (broke open the third skein for the toe of the second sock. Crystal Palace US1 DPNs.

I did enjoy knitting these, but due to the 10 row repeating stitch pattern these were only knitted around the house. Much cursing ensued Wednesday night when I completely screwed up the second to last pattern repeat when I was too involved in a rerun of House. I love the re-vamped Essential sock yarn line. It's a bit thicker and much softer than the older skeins I used on the cabled socks a few weeks ago. These and Clapotis #3 will hit the post office tomorrow for mailing if I can get all the dog fur out of them!

Backlog

Er, backblog. Thus far, I'm falling quite behind on my blogging goals for 2007. Unfortunately, that's on par with the rest of my life this year. As of this week, I am:

• Out of my migraine preventative meds. My head reminded me of that fact on Monday to keep better tabs on the number of remaining refills I have.


• Around 800 miles overdue for an oil change. Trip out to Pennsylvania in November added miles I had almost forgotten. It goes in tomorrow though.


• Still in a Christmas-y house. After New Years finishes, I find our Christmas decorations get very stale. Hopefully, this weekend the tree will be put back into storage.


• Remaining a weakling with lifting restrictions post-surgery. I can't wait till the weight lifting restriction is lifted next Tuesday, and I can get started on my organizing goals for 2007.


• Have all my blogs on old Blogger. Can't wait to get these moved over to the new Blogger and use labels.


• Furiously finishing Christmas knitting. I'm a horrible granddaughter; Grandpop's socks are still on my needles and not finished. I have one completed and the other is almost to the toe. Saturday should be the big mailing date depending on my pattern reading skills.

Photographic Evidence of My Slow-Ass Progress. Kindly ignore the added dog fur.

Meanwhile,

• I've kept a busy social calendar. I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend starting tomorrow though! Granted, it will be spent deChristmasing our house.


• We have a clean house. Though I'm starting to chomp at the bit to get stuff organized.


• In Viva Pinata, I have a level 30 Gardener and have unlocked 28 in game achievements. I think these in-game state are directly correlated with my increased number of delayed to-do tasks.

I truly feel the need to buckle down and get started on 2007.

Viva La Time Sink!

Since the day after Christmas, I've been hooked on an XBox 360 game, Viva Pinata. In a nutshell, it's similar to The Sims, but with a garden. The premise is to continuously improve your garden plot to attract new and improved animal pinatas as visitors and residents. On the first in game day, you attract worms and birds to eat those worms. The game just snowballs from there. Many, many in game hours later, one of my chicken pinatas hatched a dragon egg. I named him Trogdor. Now to attract a unicorn resident...

You Say You Want Some Resolutions...

Complete apologies to The Beatles for hacking "Revolution" lyrics to come up with a snappy title.

In no particular order, here are my resolutions for 2007:

1. Get organized. My knitting supplies and yarn are a mess, and I can't find a damn thing. DVDs have taken over our house since our DVD holder is very much past its maximum capacity. Get a new cabinet and organize console games and DVDs. Don't even ask about books, need to organize those somehow, too. My poor bookshelf is three books deep on some shelves. Time to get it under control.

2. Keep up on voicemail better. I'm a diligent (ok, addicted) email checker, why do I let voicemail messages linger for more than a week?

3. Be a diligent blogger. I created this blog on January 2nd of 2006, it's high time that I start a regular post schedule.

4. Prioritize. Know that family comes first and everything else can be sorted out. :)

5. Get over my fear of knitting sweaters. With "Knitting Without Tears" and EZ's percentage sweater patterns, I hereby resolve to knit a sweater this year!

2007: The Year of Karmic Balance

If today is an indication of how 2007 will progress, it will be a year of karmic balance. Hubs was awakened early this morning by Bandit wanting to go outside. He let Bandit out on a leash, noted that his paws weren't muddy, and proceeded to let Bandit off the leash. Bandit pounced right back into our bed, exactly on Hubs' side of the bed and settled in. As he did so, he smeared crap that was stuck between his toes on our sheets and comforter. :-/ Luckily, Hubs smelled it before laying back down. A few minutes of cleaning toes and starting a few loads of laundry later, all was well. What a shitty start to 2007! (Bad pun completely intentional.)

PS3 we picked up today and Hubs' Christmas present from me, an XBox 360.

After cleaning up the disaster area formerly known as our bed, we headed out for some light shopping this afternoon. My favorite local yarn store is having a big sale today, so I dropped Hubs off at Best Buy and started off for Westfield. Hubs called me a few minutes later, Best Buy had PS3s in stock. Needless to say, my yarn shopping was quickly canceled, and Hubs is in the living room hooking up our new toy.

Happy 2007 to One and All!

Creepy...

Check out the virtual fortune cookie I just opened:

My Fortune Cookie told me: Your wounds are strangely shaped. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Apparently, the internets can see my still ouchy tummy surgical wounds. Weird.

Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas :)

Can't Quite Get There

That's the way I feel about the holidays this year. I just can't quite get there - getting presents bought, finishing knitted presents, wrapping said presents, no holiday baking, excessive tiredness when I do get away from the house. My mood today was rather battered after having to go out last minute shopping again. Then coming home to a corrupted Playstation 2 memory card. Of course, it had to wipe out our Guitar Hero 2 data. :P I'm having a bah humbug kind of day.

I tried wrapping presents this evening, but Bandit thought I made him a new bed with the wrapping paper


At least Bandit is comfy on the wrapping paper

The knitting front has been a bit more productive though. I finished the Mock Cable socks earlier this week. These socks will be known by me as my surgery socks. I worked on them while I was waiting for over four hours in the pre-op room waiting for surgery and picked them back up as soon as I could sit upright.


Finished Mock Cable Socks to be gifted

Project Details
Pattern: Mock Cable pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn Used: Two skeins of older model Knitpicks Essential sock yarn in Navy (I used stash yarn!)
Needles: Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs Size 0
Project Duration: December 9th to December 19th

I also started my last Christmas knitting project this week, too. No way in hell will I get these done prior to Christmas, especially since they'll be mailed to my grandpa in Pennsylvania. My tardiness is excused by my grandma, so no pressure for me :)


Gentleman's Sock with Lozenge Pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks

I've all ready altered the pattern slightly. The pattern calls for a 10 1/2 inch cuff, but I really don't want to knit my grandpa thigh highs. So, I shortened them :)

Back in the Saddle

Whew! I'm back, in the knitting chair again anyway. Still mighty sore though post-surgery. I'm single-handedly trying to bring back the baggy pants look of the late 90s since I can't even contemplate wearing something with a waist band around my actual waist. What I hadn't counted on was my bout with Vicoden and only being able to fight pain with Advil. :-/ (For the record, the half life of Vioden post ingestion is 12 hours and I was sick as a dog for exactly 12 hours.) Nor the fact that I would be a Slitheen for days afterwards either. Lovely.

Yesterday, I did feel well enough to pick up the needles to make actual progress on Christmas knitting. I finished the first of a pair of socks.

Hallelujah, I was able to put a sock on my own foot!!

Home safe and sound

Hello, this is lk's husband. She got through the surgery just fine and is home resting and recoving. Tomorrow I'll be setting up my laptop for her bedside so she can post and such if she feels well enough.

Just wanted to let you all know she's home doing great.

eepie!

Tomorrow's the big day. I go in for gallbladder surgery tomorrow morning. Needless to say, I'm a big bundle of nerves tonight. Wish me luck :-/

SP and a FO

Dial-up readers beware, very picture heavy post!

I enjoy acronyms, almost as much as I enjoyed a surprise secret pal package on my doorstep this afternoon. :) Thank you so very, very much to my Winter Cheer Secret Pal, KnitChick07! :)

Box of pretty packages


Non-fibery goodies: a Dick Francis novel "Banker", two Cadbury Crunchie bars (I'll have to share these with my mom), blue M&M guy, sock in progress bag, Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD "Beethoven's Last Night", mini-stationary, and a pooch calendar/mousepad!


Wool and silk handspun made by KnitChick07 in Sky Blue - look at that sheen! :)


Handspun in natural lighting


Handspun, up close and personal




Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in shades of green


Nature Wool Chunky in natural lighting


And extreme close-up



Latest Christmas Finished Object, Clapotis 3.0! It was so cold Thursday night, Bandit didn't attempt to wriggle out of modelling it :)

Quick Trip

As usual, I miscalculated my vacation for 2006 and found an additional 4 hours. I took this afternoon off and headed up to my hometown.

Odie and Hershey

I visited my dad, stepmom, and grandparents in the afternoon. And their cutie-pie puppies pictured above of course :)

This evening, I spent some time in the elementary school bleachers (and my butt STILL hurts!) for Chelsea's first band concert. She's been playing since August and is doing pretty darned good!


She's by far surpassed my hair doing skills :)


Least fuzzy picture I was able to capture during the concert

I'm so proud of her! :)

Care and Maintenance of My Blog

If this blog was a house plant, it would be dead and shriveled. Mea culpa, dear readers!

I've been deeply entrenched in holiday knitting. Here's my current project. By this time, it should look rather familiar. It's my third Koigu Clapotis.

Clapotis in Our Christmas Tree

Holidays 2006 shall be known as the year of socks and The Clap. For my third time knitting this pattern, I'm rather shocked that I still find it to be an enjoyable project.

So far, my holiday knitting stands at 2 completed paris of socks and a Clappy and a half. I'd like to finish at least another 2 pairs of socks. Hopefully, I won't be up until 3AM Christmas Eve finishing projects like I was last year. :)

Can I just say that today's weather completely SUCKS?? Bandit and I have been listening to the freakishly strong wind beating the Christmas wreath against the front door all morning. My plans were for Bandit and I to spend the day curled up at home staying warm. Unfortunately, he has a cracked toenail that's really bothering him, so he gets to go to the vet this afternoon. I feel completely AWFUL about his nail. Can't help but think if I was more diligent about trimming his nails, he wouldn't have gotten it. :( Poor little boy!

Edited: Back from the vet, and Bandit is all right. Trimmed up his ouchy nail and sent him home with a round of antibiotics. Also picked up the Drinkwell Water System that he's been eyeballing for a few years for Christmas. :)