As American as Peach Pie

The planets have finally aligned so that I will be attending one of Bran's family picnics today. And as I prepared to meet his people I decided that bringing a pie ought to be a good way to impress people and encourage them to like me. 

And me being me of course I decided that I wanted to go all out. Never mind that I've only made one homemade pie crust before in my life (and that it didn't actually quite work out so well). I will be making a 100% from scratch awesome Peach Pie down to a what I'm sure will be beautiful lattice crust.

Somewhat unfortunately my designated pie baking time coincides with watching the TdF. This could be interesting.

Pie baking:

Tour de Fleece

Given as I am already planning on devoting obscene amouts of my non-working life to following the Tour de France I decided to join in the Tour de Fleece hosted on Ravelry. According to the group site: "The concept is simple, They spin, we spin. A real spinning themed spin-along." Combining two of my loves: Priceless.

Alas I am cheap and so not only do I not have a spinning wheel, but in fact I have only one spindle. It's pretty lame. But I shall aim to spin every day of the tour never-the-less. And obviously I shall be shooting to watch as many stages of the tour as I can manage. However it may come about that I miss some stages. And in those instances I'll try to do a bit of spinning outside of my biker watching, just to keep up with the Tour de Fleece goal.

I'll be starting with some awesome white alpaca. Purchased as a part of the "learn to spin" kit which I purchased when I first began my spinning at first I didn't want to touch the fleece because I thought it was too beautiful to waste on learning. And then it just kinda got set off to the side while I did other things. Somewhat randomly I picked it up not too long ago and started spinning it into some very nice lace weight which is what I'll be aiming for. There will be a bit of getting used to as the carded batt of fleece is quite different from my regular self taught hand carded "rolags", and so far I also noticed a number of second cuts that are yucky. But it should be a good learning experiance and yield some pretty yarn.

After that I want to keep going on the dyed wool I picked up over a year ago when I visited Pittsburgh. Sometime in the spring I spun up a batch of it but there is still more to go - must get on that.

If I still have tour days after those projects I'll be back to my raw alpaca. So that will obviously require hand carding, which for my own purposes I consider to meet my TdF obligations, although I may try to spin at least a bit each day as well. I would really like to spin up a good bit of lace weight to use for a pretty scarf that I can give to Bran's sister for Christmas. Somewhat random, but I think it could be a pretty cool gift and I enjoy being random like that.

Wish me luck.

Many blue squares

Progress on Bran's Mario blanket has been in full swing since I started it mid June. I've made a few good observations on the project.

1. One skein of Caron Simply Soft (6 oz, 315 yds) = 20 blocks. Approximately 16 skeins will be needed to complete the blanket.
2. One block takes me approximately 17 minutes to crochet without interruption while watching TV. Therefore the project will likely involve 3 days worth of time for the crocheting alone (who knows about the piecing together) unless I get faster.

Originally I was making good use of coupons and the fact that the craft store is right next to the grocery store to load up on skeins one at a time at a 40% or 50% discount. But then this past week they went on sale, which isn't as good as the coupon price, so I couldn't use my coupon and somehow I managed to remove myself from the store without then using the coupon for any superfilous spending. But when they sent me a coupon for 15% off of your total purchase including sale on Wednesday, I couldn't resist going on Wednesday and buying $20 of yarn (9 skeins). It was like a dollar more expensive than it would have been using the one skein system so I'm willing to eat that cost.

I committed myself to making 2 squares a day from the get go, and then if I could work beyond that I did. So I'm already sitting on 45 squares (I think) and given the concerts tonight and tomorrow that I'll be attending for work I anticipate being over 50 by Saturday. Holy awesome progress.

So I considered switching it from Christmas to Birthday (8/31) present, but I think instead I'm going to put it on the back burner and devote July to participating in the Tour de Fleece. I'm sure I'll still churn out a few more squares, they are an awesomely easy project that I can take pretty much anywhere, but no where near the volume.

I've considered trying out how I'll be attaching them together, but I kinda want to keep them in original square form until I have all 252 squares and take a picture :-)

Le Tour

This morning I realized that it is very nearly that time of year again....The 2010 Tour de France.

Last year I think I stumbled into the Tour somewhere in the middle, but I was fast addicted. I have never considered myself much of a sports person at all but sometimes things just manage to suck me in and I find myself wanting to devote my life to them.

The Tour is a particularly difficult challenge because if I actually watch the whole thing (which I really do want to do) it would be hours and hours and hours of just sitting and watching. The first hurdle against this is work. Being in the office 8:30-4:30 Monday through Friday will rob me of the majority of the live tour coverage. Now this can be more or less compensated by watching the daily prime time coverage re-caps which happen later in the evening. Unfortunately this plan will likely collide with any kind of a life that I am trying to have for myself including but not limited to rehearsals and my boyfriend.

Plus to add insult to injury Comcast is not being my friend right now and I was just about to take the hard line with them and cancel my cable TV package. Alas I'd still be paying like $40 for internet, but at least it saves me $10. However if I cancel cable then I'll loose the tour coverage and so far the only online streaming coverage that I've found is $30 for unlimited access. It would be sweet and ridiculously awesome in that I could watch whenever I wanted when I had time....but I'm trying to save for other things. Ugh.

Lastly I have just discovered a most grievous problem: I scheduled my camping trip to start on the final 2 days of the Tour. *cries* 

It's really not the end of the world because things will be pretty shored up by then with regards to the winner....but there's always that sneaky thought in the back of your head 'well the entire peloton could crash leaving a small breakaway who takes it home'.

Obviously my life is very stressful and crazy since I have such important concerns.

1 up

Back in early June I went on a bit of an Amigurumi binge thanks largely to the drug that is the Ravelry pattern browser.

Somehow or another I stumbled upon an awesome little 1 up pattern. So easy and simple but absolutely cute. Plus on occasion I feel the need to come up with something to give to Bran. You see he is a most excellent boyfriend. He does things like brings me flowers for no reason (aside from my undying love of flowers and those who give me them) on quite a regular basis. And I am all about reciprocity. But what is the male equivalent of flowers? I was a bit stumped.

He does however happen to be a good bit of a gamer with a soft spot for old school nostalgia, particularly Nintendo. Perfect! And while some men might think a little stuffed trinket to be too girly-cutesy my man is secure in his manhood (although he won't wear a pink shirt). He has what I'm thinking may be the exact perfect amount of soft sentimentality to him.

Needless to say he likes it (or fakes it quite well). And I have attached it to his key chain so that he can think of me often. I'm sneaky like that :-)

8-bit blanket

As a part of my June freedom I was perusing Ravelry for some good yarn projects. I had somehow gotten on the theme of video games. Certainly it had something to do with Bran's fascination.

When I turned up this pattern I got really excited. But knowing my own aptness to be a complete dork I figured I best confirm it's awesomeness. I sent the link to the ultimate dorky-cool connoisseur, Bran, and asked cool or lame? His response was "Totally awesome." Rock on.

Now I am seriously itching to make it for him. For some reason projects always seem way better when they are for someone. There are however a few hurdles.

The thing is a pretty ginormous project. So far in my lifetime I have completed one blanket (and it came out pretty wonky) and have one pretty awesome blanket where I completed like 2.5 feet 3 years ago and haven't picked it up since. But I'm thinking Christmas Present. And if I work with this very specific goal in mind I'll stand a chance right?

It also requires some pretty serious yarnage. The original designer used Red Heart super saver yarn and estimated $25 of materals. That's pretty freaking sweet. But alas the stuff is cheap for a reason. I may pony up and go with my standard Carron Simply Soft which isn't horribly expensive but still pretty nice. Methinks the best approach will be to drag Bran into the craft store again (last time we went we lost each other for quite sometime....oops) and have him pick out his colors. Then I shall be cheap and buy the stuff over a series of trips. They always have coupons available and the craft store is right next to the grocery store. Bwahahahaha.

This is going to be freaking amazing.

Do what you like.

Tonight is a somewhat rare occurrence: a free night. No scheduled obligations (work, ballet, band), no plans with anyone else (saw the family all last weekend, a friend on Tuesday, and Bran tomorrow). This is glorious.

When I first started thinking on what I could do I thought I would be stuck at the laundromat as it is my normal every other Thursday. But earlier this week I realized that with the advent of the nice summer weather my clothing habits have changed and when combined with the recent purchase of more underwear I can totally make it to next Thursday, no sweat.

Back to the amazingness of a sweet sweet free evening my immediate conclusion was a bike ride. I've not been out nearly so much as I should be and I'm still totally out of shape. I could even still be back in time to watch So You Think You Can Dance (yup I'm a dance show addict) at 8.

But as I was pondering all of the various other things I wanted to do and turning things around in my brain I came to a realization. I really didn't want to go biking. It was put in more like another obligation on my schedule, albeit with good reason, then anything else.

So instead I have decided to drop all of those things I think that I ought to be doing. And instead do what I like.

My plan is to cook myself a good dinner (for the second night in a row!). Make sure the house is tidy because that makes me happy and ought to be easy. And most importantly spend a good bit of quality time with my crafts (other than squares).

Somewhat obviously relaxation is not one of my strong suits. So for tonight it will be my goal to just sit back, stop worrying about what I could or should do, and enjoy the evening.

Do what you like. Like what you do.