limedragon :)

Return of the Sock Monkey

Thank you to everyone who has entered Contest #3, and for your compliments! : ) There’s still time left (deadline is October 21); leave a comment here for a chance to win some yummy sock yarn. Continue reading »

Q*bert

One good thing from the ’80s decade: Q*bert. If you played video console games or home video games (Atari, Colecovision, etc), you most likely played this game. I absolutely loved Q*bert, and it always pops into my mind whenever I see tumbling blocks, slanted squares, or cube-type patterns. It was also a colorful, maybe even psychedlic, game; you had to jump on each cube to change its color, completing the level when all cubes changed. As the levels got harder, sometimes you had to do it twice. If you made a wrong jump (eg: off the pyramid) Q*bert plonked to his death. There were also bad guys like a sproingy snake coil to avoid.

I took a break from my two sock projects on Friday and Saturday to knit a huge (to me anyway) washcloth with this cotton chenille. Because I chose a slanted square pattern, working on it constantly made me recall the funny-looking, adorable Q*bert creature. I used most of the cotton chenille hank and a US 6 needle to make a 10.5-inch square washcloth. I intended to machine wash and dry purposely to shrink the washcloth. (After all, the label says to handwash then dry flat.) None of the pictures I took turned out well, but the washcloth turned out great after a wash and tumble dry. It’s softer and fluffier. It hardly shrunk, though, but I’m happy with it.

While the Q*bert reminiscing was good, I had a not-so-good ’80s Fashion Nightmare Flashback at MOA while mall walking. In the Gap front window, there was an eerily familiar sight. There were thick-striped polo shirts accented with gray (eg: red gray red gray, or blue gray blue gray…). I managed to swallow my gasp of horror and not trip. I couldn’t believe it. You see, way back in the late ’80s, maybe 1 or 2 years before the Gap became what it is today (eg: it wasn’t yet cool), they had the exact same patterning on a bunch of mix-and-match shirts and shorts. The colors and styles appeared to be a strong match to the old versions. I couldn’t find an example at the Gap website, though. I remember back then, my friend bought one with red stripes, and mine was turquoise. (I hadn’t learned my colors yet, either, yuck! I don’t believe I wore any good outfits in the ’80s until I discovered Esprit and Generra. I freed myself from brand name dependency in the ’90s, thank goodness!)

Keen Overload

I got myself some new shoes this week!

This is my first time with Keen shoes. I read the reviews on Zappos and ordered a half-size up for the Newports. I’m glad I did that, even though the opening can be a squeeze when I put them on. Otherwise, they fit very well. The Antiguas are, on my opinion, on the wide side (but then, I have narrow feet). Mom tried them on, and I thought they looked great on her wide feet. But the top caps (which is why I got these sandals!) were too small for her. I might break them in for her. I didn’t order a half-size up in the Antiguas, because I had an inkling they would be otherwise too big.

I looked through the Stitches Midwest class listings. There were so many (this is the overload part). My first instinct was to cram my schedule full of classes in every possible slot, but I narrowed it down to one morning or afternoon class each day. There were four full-day classes that I would’ve loved, but they were all ON THE SAME DAY! Sigh. I contacted Knitting Universe beforehand about disability accommodations and received a positive answer, so I went ahead with registration. I hope I get my first-choice classes. Nevertheless, I’m still in a state of shock about the whole thing. I’M GOING! I have only 3 months to get used to the idea! :)

I’ve been working on my Sixth Sense socks, and have completed one garter short-row heel and am nearly in the middle of the second. I tried to snap some photos but they didn’t turn out very well, but here’s a (slightly bright) close-up.