Stop needeling me!

Or not.
Some where over this last weekend, I lost my favorite needle. I shudder to think where it may be, for I have no idea. Thankfully the local craft shop has plenty of replacements. I am now in possession of 36 lovely millinery needles. What a novelty. Only problem is that the eye on them is a bit small, but they are certainly strong enough and long enough for my needs. What a goober I must sound like though. HAH. It really is amazing how I just find one thing and think it suits until I lose it or it breaks, then I'm forced to find something new, and discover what I've been missing all this time. Which reminds me of my bff's eternal search for the perfect hair clip that got away...
Well enough of that.
This Saturday I get to turn 31! Woohoo. We're having a quite little BBQ with the friends, and going out with the parents earlier in the day. It really isn't that easy fitting both our parents into our lifestyles. Don't get me wrong, they're all easy going enough, but it's just strange to have to do things with and around a new family combined with the original family. Which is why we're just doing a simple lunch somewhere, or else forcing them to come over early before the BBQ. I don't know what to do honestly. I suppose this is where we get to start making our new family traditions isn't it. What a novelty.
So for the BBQ I believe I'm going to sport the newest uber petite top hat. It's so cute and so light weight that it doesn't even need a cord holding it on the head, and it can be set upon the head cockeyed. Too cute. On the same note, I'm determined to get to Britex fabric's over in the city. Four floors! Four! What the hell. I just can't wait and I'm dragging my mum. She'll love it. And Union square is such a cool place to go in the city, especially since our train system takes you right there.
On the knitting front, the log cabin blanket slowly grows, I believe I'm back on the 6th square. Tonight is the Beer Bitch meetup downtown, so at least I'll get something done. The spinning hasn't been touched since I last talked about it, and well I kind of like doing it on the weekends while watching Torchwood. It's my Saturday thing.
On the garden front, the stones are still waiting to be moved, and I only took horrid low light photos that were all blurry of the mystery lily. But spring is still slowly unfurling. All my seeds out front are getting a little bigger, and I can't wait to see what they look like in a few months here.
The honestly great thing about spring is that Rennaisane Faire is just around the corner. Let's start with the most wonderous Faire around these parts, Valhalla. When Valhalla finally rolls around it's like it's been an entire year since I last dressed in my faire garb. I get all anxious thinking about what I can make for this year, or what I should save my pennies up to buy. And usually my bff and I have a running list that we chant off, 'I need to get some... or a new...' The best thing about Valhalla is that I get to camp there right outside of faire, and even sneak back in afterwards if I wanted to (not that I ever have). The people at Valhalla are more into the scene, the actual faire is smaller, and in general the vendors are better, and different than the ones from regular NorCal Faire. I believe we'll be going the second week which June 7-8th. So if you're there, look for me. I'll probably be sporting a mini hat, if the weather permits, and tons of gypsy garb. I'll probably have 5 different animal tails on and may be wearing my found deerspine. I believe my colors this year are all in cool greens, periwinkles, and hues of blues. There will most hopefully be a husbeast not dressed as he should be trailing behind gawking at all the boobies (if I know him, as I do believe I do.)
Yeahhhhheheh! Even all my hippy friends we go fairing with get all excited and cute and eager for Valhalla. Looks like there'll be about 12-15 of us this year, give or take a few here and there. It's getting to be a pretty big affair with us with good reason. I believe the husbeast and I will be organizing the cooking, can we say dutch oven cooking. Fun.
Cheers and have a lovely weekend

Lots to Say, Little to Show.

It certainly was a lovely and relaxing Easter weekend. I started rotating rocks from one bed to another. What a tiring job, that is still only half done. I've also noted that the abundance of salamanders certainly comes from this new house of ours, as opposed to the thought that the little buggers followed us down from the house on the hill. They're so cute and slimy, like little snakes with feet.
Over the weekend a mystery plant has flowered, and I really need to post picts because I think it's some sort of Agapanthus, but I can't even find any varieties of it on the web. So pretty, with bright blue star shaped flowers, and yellow inside.
I also need to post some wonderful picts from Saturday and subsequently Sunday when I discovered that I really enjoy spinning. Yes that's right. I've been bitten by the spinning bug. The whole thing is like second nature. If only my wheel could keep up! Well kind of. And much thanks to my lovely friend over at Seamstrix Art for housing me and my ginormous wheel and showing me the ins and outs of this beast. Much fun was had Saturday. I went home with a little less than 2oz of BFL, and had that all spun onto a bobbin. Sunday I attacked some merino like roving from the husbeasts mum's stash. Even though it's about 20 y.o. it gave me little hassle and I worked that more evenly than the BFL. I suppose I'm going to have to mix these little bits on the bobbins with something else, or one another. Oh I just can't wait to get to the roving's I picked up at Stitches.
On the hat front, I looked at them, and decided to spin instead of picking up the fabric and needle. Heheehhe, don't worry a truly mini mini top hat is in the works.
Tonight, back to moving more rocks, with less in the bin than before to facilitate moving them! And perhaps a mini mini hatter.... we shall see.

Tales of the Frankenpudd

This is Franky, he's a big pudd-in-cat. Probably nearing 20 lbs. since we left the hill we were living on. He was terribly sad and depressed when we left, he would hide behind our bed and refuse to come out, or even to go outside. A couple of weeks later we discovered that he had a girlfriend that would sit outside our old pad and wait for him. How sad and lovelorn they both were, we just had no idea.
Last night we come back from eating out, and there's a big black fur ball laying in the cat mint right by the front door. Franky's lurking off by the side gate. So we scare the puffball off, it jumps over Franky and Franky gives an utterly displeased vocalling. Our darned cat walks up to us, I look down at him, and there's all this goo in a straight line down the center of his back. We freaked out thinking that it was blood for a second, then a finger test cleared it, to being oil! A nice huge glob of oil. And we're thinking that the puffball was giving him the huge assed 20 lb. cat a hard time, and claiming the cat mint for itself. Well looks like I have a little gardening to do this weekend. The cat mint is being moved to the back yard, and I have some seeds to go with it. Of course some more kitty mint, but then a whole bunch more wild flowers.
I plan on moving a bunch of rocks from up against our house, over to the side fence where the husbeast tramples all the time while working on his old VW. I'll till some of the dirt, add a little new dirt and spread, rather haphazardly, the scores of seeds I have. There's already calalilies growing there, so I hope it'll be lovely. the first set of seeds spread a couple of weeks ago are starting to push through the ground in the front yard. I'm eager to see if their layout makes any sense, or just looks like rubbish.

Tonight is my beer bitch meetup, so I'll actually be doing some knitting on the log cabin blanket. I think I have Spring fever though. It seems like always around this time of year I slow down on the knitting. That and I have a few kettles on the stove as things to which I shall allude to in the future.

On the miniature top hat front, the Butcher, he is constructed, and awaiting accoutrement. Now if only I could find a small novelty butcher knife. Real knives preferred, but just a truly bad idea. But certainly preferred. I believe I may use the cutlery trim on this hat, even though I just used it. It seems to fit with the idea of the Butcher. That or something old and smelly and tattered. I'll investigate, and get back to you on that one.
Cheers till then.

It's St. Patrick's Day!

Oh my I nearly forgot to say it, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. That's the proper Irish Holiday right, oh all right commercials just don't translate to written word so well. But anywho, Happy St. Patrick's Day. Now go and eat some corned beef and cabbage. I know I already did last night for dinner, and we still have left over's for tonight. Woohoo.

This last week seems to have been a rough one for just about everyone around me. Co-workers, mother, friends, me, the stress levels are just off the tops. The worst thing is that just about all of it is something that is totally out of our hands. There's physically nothing any of us can do except allow the right amount of time to pass so that these things can right themselves. Hmmrph!
The silence on my part was because I really don't like to whine in public, it's just rude and no one really wants to see or hear my anger. But I will tell you the crap I've been dealing with, as I'm past the whining stage and now I just want things put back right.
So waaaay back on the 5th I took my truck to the dealer for it's 100,000 mile service. Just a little routine check up, drain fluids, replace fluids that kind of thing. Well I got my truck back 2 days later and it died on me as I got off the freeway. And mind you it died in a not so nice area of Oakland! I finally realized to start it back up I should put it in park, and vroom off I went. Until it died later that night on the way home from work.
Fast forward to the next morning when I take my truck in to see if there's an error code, none. A week later I had my truck back with a brand new shiny distributor, since the crank censor that needed replacing was in the distributor and they're a package deal for this veh. Guess what IT DIED AGAIN. Sorry to shout, but this is more of an emphatic shouting here. I couldn't believe it. I just paid $472 to fix a problem that wasn't a problem that needed fixing. Agh.
Now it's Monday, and I'm still waiting to hear back from the shop manager to, well not to tell him off, because I'm kinda past that. I believe I'm entitled to my money back, a rental vehicle, 1/4 tank of gas from when they "originally" fixed the problem (that wasn't there when I brought it in!), and my truck back to where it was before all this began.
Fun, huh!

Well anyway the husbeast and I had a great weekend anyways. We rearranged the living room on a whim. It's just easier to really clean when you have a fresh palette to work with. Then I cleaned the kitchen, and proceeded onto the bathroom. Some major spring cleaning was in order, and now I have a little nook in the living room where I can functionally hide all my hat making crap, and knitting projects. I love it.
You may think that with all that work I got nothing done, but that's not true. I've been working on a new hat, I reference it to the Butcher. It's a triptych of hats, I think I mentioned before, in homage to a particular local band. The design quasi works for me. It's not as skinny as I was thinking it should be, but the shape isn't too shabby either. The husbeast thinks I should turn the crown around and reference a German soldier's hat, but that just doesn't work for me. I tried it backwards and it screamed 'turn me right side again'. No literally it was screaming at me, I swear... it was just a very tiny voice.
On the knitting front, again I only knit a stitch back on Thursday at the Beer Bitch Meetup. And the night before then I had ripped out two squares of the log cabin, so I am indeed back to 5 squares! But I believe I am better off having done as much.

Almost forgot the title...

Let's begin this by saying it's Girl Scout cookie time, now go support your local troop. That's right freeze a box of thin mints and savor them throughout the year, to your hearts desire. I confess, I was a girl scout for 13 years. Little know fact, but true. That's where I first met my husbeast back when we were 17. Teaching Winter Awareness with his troop of Eagle Scouts at my old high school. how sweet... but onto the good stuff!
I've been busy and I've been sitting on my hands. It most certainly seems that I need an event or someone to focus my craft upon in order to do my craft. I find the same to be true on so many fronts in my life. It suppose it's my own way of having a little flame when I really need it.
This is a detail of the vintage Victorian button found at the stitches convention in the most lovely of lovely booths. The trim, ribbon, and button ladies! I miss them already, yet feel like I didn't get enough. I want more of these little darling buttons.
This miniature mad hatter has been delivered to it's new owner with much glee on both our parts. And just in time for the HoeDown this weekend. I was also rather lucky to finally find an appropriate hat box just perfectly suited for this to dwell in while not in use.
Speaking of the HoeDown, it was wonderful, and I was unbelievably under dressed! Me under dressed. All the ladies (ok a large handful) were dressed to the nines in bustles, long skirts, corsets and the whole works and the shoes! Hello Fluevog can I marry you. Just the kind of shoes I've been thinking of when it comes to that funny little gumdrop weird heel that looks like a melted Hershey's kiss. (I hear they have layaway) Even though a little odd at first, everyone is so sweet and weird that it really didn't matter. It's a party after all, right.

My next hat, which I adoringly refer to as Lemon Parfait was rather well gazed upon while perched on my merry made coif. (What else you gonna call all these red curls pinned higher than a Texas hookers ankles?)
Et la, c'est la Lemon Parfait I enjoy the silver with the lemon of the fabric, paired with the warm brown and pinks in the feathers, and the periwinkle of the thistle. I've never been a huge fan of yellow, but I just love this color scheme, especially for this time of year.
Not too sure where or why this happened, but I look upon the mushrooms and tea strainer as a happy accident. And look at that wonderful cutlery. Isn't it just to die for? The veiling on this hat is vintage, soft brown toole with little pink dots of adorablilty. Did you know that adorability could be packaged in such a small quantity? Well it can. The mushrooms are vintage cotton mushrooms from Small Stump, and I'm stoked I could finally use them in something. You may also note that aside from just a comb, an elastic band has been sewn on for added stability. I believe I could have actually danced in this hat, even as heavy as it is.

And the coup de gras, just for true morbidity my found horse skull wearing the little hatter. I really need to find better models. Seriously!
So there you have it, a little mini mad hatter update, Where in I am truly beginning to realize how redundant all this same fabric but in other colors must be, but I'm still in love with the richness and texture and the absolute lines that it creates that I'm not quite ready to move on yet. But soon, I'll go find something else.
Cheers till then. Happy whatever'ing.

Copenhagen Really!

Out of some off the wall thing, my mum's friend in Florida needs someone to drop off a puppy, and pick up a puppy in Copenhagen Denmark next month. My mum being the wonderous being that she is at this point in time is attempting to facilitate me into being the transporter of said pooper. I know I shouldn't be writing about this since it could totally jinx the final out come, but it would be the most raddest honeymoon (that we yet have to take) and anniversary get away ever imagined. Especially since we haven't been able to agree upon where to go. Copenhagen for a week wow, how neat.
So I'm crossing my fingers and imaging all that lovely... whatever they have over there in Denmark!

In the lime light this weekend, the company Hoe Down, and yes this is 19th century gun slinger hoedown. I'm imagining something a little SteamPunk in style and attitude. Maybe I can finally get the husbeast to wear his wool pants, and make us some cute spats to go with our costumes. I'm currently starting a miniature bowler hat. I call it the lover. It's one of a triptych the other is the Butcher, and then there's Penelope. All taken after a song by the band Rube Waddell, local weirdo's here in SF Area.
Have a great and wonderous weekend all my little loverlies!

Adventure in Cayenne II

The Warning!

So the husbeast and I are making dinner last night, I had picked up a pork tenderloin, but had no idea what to do with it. I quickly turned to my favorite google request, and searched for what Aldon Brown would say. Low and behold he knew exactly what to do, Brown it!

I took the recommended seasonings, and added our delightful and ever interesting 90,000 btu African Cayenne from the Eureka Co-op (the last co-op in California I believe), and coated the tenderloin well. Brushed on a little olive oil and threw all that into my cast iron pan. My piping hot cast iron pan. Well the husbeast and I learned something very interesting last night. It becomes... mace! Our poor lungs, our poor house. There was cayenne smoke everywhere, and coughing and lung cheese, and opened doors and windows, and bandannas tied around faces.

Needless to say the browning was finished, and the meat laid to the side to rest. Here is where I snuck some dark brown sugar onto the poor little tenderloin. (I'm only thinking of my poor little lips here.)

Well about 45 min. later we had ourselves a sumptuous piece of meat. It was hot, but yummy from the brown sugar. And perfect with the mushroom ravioli.

On other fronts, the next log cabin comes along slowly.

But I have pretty much finished the yellow little mad hatter, and have started on a lovely brick red one. Oh and yes the trim for the yellow hatter, it is cutlery, precious cutlery on trim... wait till you see how prosh.

Cheers till then, tomorrow off to the new tax dude, then knitting in public.

A Letter

Dear Starpukes,

I believe you should know that your Ginger Chew cookies,

are well rather par under.

They're hard, and actually taste stale.

At times they even taste a bit like your chai tea,

which just to let you know is rather similar to the taste of soap.

There I've said it, and well if you could just make your ginger chews,

well more akin to their namesake I would certainly be content.

Thanks,

Bonnie Boheme

Enough said on that front. Oh and Peet's coffee, thanks for having squishy~soft, and filled w/ yummy ginger chews!

On the knitting front, I knit not a knot since Thursday, but instead I've very nearly finished the fabulous new little mad hatter in teal, it's been adorned but still needs some permanent staying ability.

Once I did that, I started a new yellow and silver hat for this weekend's hoedown! It's pretty cute, and not quite as Lemon Chiffon as I was hoping for, but it should work. That one's just about done. I was thinking of turning it into a bowler hat, but just couldn't find a good enough wooden knob to act as a hat block for me.

Speaking of hat blocks, guess what I found at Urban Ore in Berkeley on Sat, come on guess! Yep a nice rounded hat block in the exact hat size as my fat head, 23. Did I mention it's the shape I've wanted? It is!!!! I've very stoked as now I can make felt hats to my content. I even have some roving to start with, but first it needs a dye job. So cool though.

And I know I really shouldn't mention this so I'll write it very small:

the husbeast bought me a website in the cutest name for my birthday, which is at the end of the month. And he's the one that came up with the name and I reaallllly really adore it. Only problem is that he expects me to make it myself! The audacity. Me make a website. Oh, oh well.!!!!!

See I'm just really rather stoked. And yes I will keep all informed when it is out of construction.

Oh and this weekend I also weeded my ward, in preparation for seed planting, and my freesia are well into bloom, so yummy and pretty and Spring like.

Did I mention I love March? It's probably my favorite month, and not just because it's my birthday month.