Crafty Kitty

When she sends you Gap underwear in the mail (and tells you to enjoy them with the boy) as a thank you for paying for drinks when she came down for your birthday celebration.

And the weird part, to me since I've never given underwear as a gift or thank you, is this isn't the first time I've gotten underwear from her. Nor the second or third. This girl has given me lots of underwear! She is an underwear freak!!! And that's OK because underwear is usually the last thing I think about buying and I have lots of cute pairs now thanks to her.

It's just funny opening up a package from a friend and then two pairs of panties fall out. Not what I was expecting her to mail me when she called me on Friday asking for my address.

On the crafting front: Progress has been made on the Fear & Loathing stencil. However, I need to get a smaller paint brush to do the detail around the words. I also am in the process of making a purse. I am about 90% done. Just need to sew the strap and then put it all together. Hopefully I will get it done tonight and there will be pictures in the morning!

I did indeed have a busy weekend of running around and while I didn't get as much crafting in as I would have liked to, I did get a lot of supplies and started on a few projects.

On Friday night, the boy and our co-worker went to go see Howl's Moving Castle. Since I've never really seen any anime before the boy made me watch some before we went. It was actually a really good movie. However, anime doesn't really stick to plots too well, so I was certainly confused about a few things. The boy explained to me that it is perfectly normal to walk away from an anime movie not knowing what the fuck went on. But I really liked Calcifer, the little fire dude, and I so want to make a little Calcifer plush out of some felt.

Saturday morning I had a bunch of errands I planned on running and I managed to get them all in. I woke up, worked out and then went to Target, which was surprisingly busy at 10:30 on a Saturday. I attributed it to the fact that it was kind of gray and hazy out and it looked like it was going to rain at any minute (although it didn't until much later in the day, but we'll get back to that).

After Target I went to the JoAnn Superstore which is just a huge mistake on my part because I usually end up spending way too much time and money in there. I didn't do too badly this time around. I got yarn to make baby booties for Stucco's new baby and I promised my Mom I would make her co-worker some baby booties and a baby hat (but the co-worker is not due until August, thank God, so I've got time). I also got embroidery hoops and some fabric ink so I can make my Fear & Loathing t-shirt.

I also stopped off at Lakeside Fiber to get some yarn to make the newsboy hat for Deanna, Melissa and Christen. I also got yarn to finish my mother's shawl that I've been working on since the beginning of April. I'm about 85% done with it. I was supposed to have it done a month and a half ago for Mother's Day. I am such a bad daughter. That's my goal for this next holiday weekend. Get the friggin' shawl done! Then I can REALLY move on to other things without feeling guilty.

When I got home, I popped in some Everwood episodes and knit the baby booties from SnBN for Stucco. Since he's a network engineer, I got little computer buttons and I think they turned out pretty cute. Here they are:

After I finished up the booties I called the boy and we ventured off to the zoo, where the boy learned I am easily amused. Seriously, the animals were funny, and I kept laughing - at everything. And best of all, the zoo in Madison is free. The only thing they were missing were elephants. And sadly, all the bears were not around except for the black bear. Who was pacing and seemed like he wanted to eat me (or maybe I just made that up).

Since it was right before dinner and the boy and I didn't want to go back to our houses, we moseyed on down to State St. The boy wanted to get some nerdy posters for his computer room. We did not find any. We went to Ragstock and I got the coolest pink and blue vintage blazer. The boy doesn't think I will wear it. But I will, oh I will. Then the boy convinced me to go to the Essen Haus and I was up for it because he bribed me with beer. Except he didn't really know KNOW where it was and we were walking far and I was getting tired AND more hungry with each step and we all know when I get tired and hungry I get CRANKY. The boy also learned the way to get me less cranky is to get beer in me right away.

After dinner, we stopped at Coldstone and just as we sat done on a bench to enjoy our delcious custard treats, it started to rain. We headed under an awning and then it poured. And poured, and poured, and poured. We waited forever for it to let up. And then it didn't. We even tried to distract ourselves from the rain by kissing, and while that was very nice, the creepy old store owner who was watching us wasn't making me very comfortable. We ran down to the seedy pub where we proceeded to play two of the most horrible pool games I have ever played in my entire life. I am so much more of a darts kind of girl. And then we went home. And had some fun. Ahem.

Sunday was a, "I'll say I'm going work on my mother's shawl but instead I'll watch Gilmore Girls and drink vodka and then end up sewing a wallet because I really don't want to work on my mother's shawl" kind of day. So yeah. I made a really cool wallet Sunday night out of some recycled cordury and some cute calico from Joann's. I used this tutorial from Craftster.org. It was super easy and fun to make and I am definitely going to make one for all my friends.

Here's the wallet:









Phew. What a weekend!

I have a routine I like to follow when I get home from work. I get home, feed the cats, work out for 45 minutes. Then I fix myself a drink and resign myself to whatever project I feel like working on. Well, for the past three days I have been working on the marsupial bag from SnB for my brother's girlfriend. I finally finished it last night at around 9:30 and I knew all I had to do was felt it.

Now, I live in an apartment complex but I do have washers and dryers right down the hall from me. However, they do not have all the lovely settings that REAL washers and dryers have. I knew I should wait until I could get to a real washer to do the felting, but I couldn't hold out. The bag was just staring at me last night, shouting "FELT ME, FELT ME." I couldn't resist it's pleading. I felted it.

This is a picture of the bag before I felted it:

And here's the picture of the bag after the felting process:



It really didn't turn out that bad. However, I think I'm going to run it through the washer at my parents house, just because I have a feeling the agitation in that machine will be better than the one in my apartment. I want to get it a little tighter. I had some jeans in there with it, but that just didn't seem to do the trick. Oh well. I still think my brother's girlfriend will like it, even if I don't felt it again.

Next up on my list:
One hour baby booties for Stucco, who just had a baby

Not much new and exciting has happened that warrants me posting anything. My car hasn't gotten broken into lately. That's a bonus.

Let's see, Friday night the boyfriend and I went to get our fishing licenses. Then we stopped at Barnes & Noble, and while the boy looked at geeky computer books, I browsed the knitting books. I got the Stitch 'N Bitch Knitter's Journal. I resisted the other knitting books pull though, since I have 8,000 other projects I want to work on in the books I already have, and didn't need to add any more to the pile. I did, however, clean up in the bargain aisle. I got three fiction books that all cost under $5.00. Plus, I'm a Reader's Advantage member so I got an additonal 10% off. It was awesome.

Friday night also included a venture to the movie theater to see Batman Begins. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Man, that Christian Bale is one fine male specimen.

Our trip to O-town was a success. I caught a walleye because I am the best fisherperson out there. My dad forced me into taking a picture, so I obliged him. Here it is:

Then there was an evening of drunken debauchery at all my old time hangouts. The boy and I kicked ass at cricket early on in the night, but both sucked ass at 501 later on. All in all, it was a very good weekend.

On the crafting front, I just started the marsupial bag from Stitch 'N Bitch for my brother's girlfriend. I also have big plans to make a Fear & Loathing stencil for a t-shirt. For the first time in a month and half I have nothing planned for this weekend, so I'm looking forward to crafting my ass off. We'll see what the results are.

I thought today would be wonderful. It's a Friday, my boss is up North, I have exciting weekend plans. But of course, something had to happen to put a damper on my day.

This morning, I decided to sleep in a little since my boss wouldn't be at work and nobody cares if I come in late. And really, I was only going to be about 15 minutes late which is nothing. I took my time getting ready. I even had a bowl of cereal and got some grapes and vegetables together to have as snacks at work. I then proceeded to walk out to my car.

When I first got to my car, I noticed that the empty orange juice bottle that was in my center console was now sitting on the drivers seat. I thought to myself, eh, you could have knocked that over when you were grabbing your purse yesterday when you got home. I then noticed that there were some napkins on the passenger side floor that I know I had not put there. This was when my eyes were drawn to the open glove box and then directly to the spot where my CD player had been nicely installed before someone STOLE it. At my luxury apartment complex. Where I pay an inordinate amount of money to live because it's on the ritzy, what I thought was safe, west side of Madison. My dash was all fucked up. But, and I guess I can be thankful for this, they left my big book of CDs on the floor. Maybe they didn't like my taste in music.

Immediately I try to call my parents to calm me down because in situations like this I revert to a little kid and I need my mommy and daddy to take care of me. The phone just rang and rang and the answering machine never picked up. Now, my mom pretty much always has every Friday off during the summer and my Dad is currently not employed so he's always home (and he's a light sleeper so he would have definitely woken up). Since they didn't answer and I didn't know what else to do, I proceeded to drive to work.

As I started my car, I wondered to myself, shit, was I the total idiot who left their door unlocked? I don't have power locks. I have the cheapest Saturn possible with power nothing, not even steering. I was going to kick myself if that was the case, because then I totally deserved to have my CD player lifted. But when I started driving and I heard the air rushing through the window, I realized they had jacked the window off the track and unlocked my car that way. I guess that's better than having the window completely smashed in, which happened to my friend, and is not cool.

I kept trying to call my parents all the way to work and they never picked up. When I got to work, I e-mailed my Dad with the subject line of MY CAR GOT BROKEN INTO and told him to call me at work. The man always checks his e-mail so I knew I would get a response that way. Luckily my boyfriend got to work shortly after I did and I vented to him and felt better. He told me I could pretend he was the person who stole it and punch him if it would make me feel better. I told him thanks for the offer, but it probably wouldn't really help.

I finally got a hold of my parents. My mom told me to call the cops and my apartment complex and she would call the insurance company for me. Since the damage was less then $2,500, the city of Madison requires that you fill out a self-reporting form that they mail to you. The apartment complex said they hadn't heard from anyone else, but they thanked me for calling and giving them a heads up.

The CD player was only $170. Some punk ass kid probably stole it (now, don't I sound like a crotchety old lady?). Oh well, I guess it's off to Best Buy I must go.

I did get to have Peanut Butter Silk Pie at lunch, and that brightened my day a little. That, and the bf and I are going to get our fishing licenses tonight so we can go to O-town to go fishing with my Dad. That will be awesome.

So today I thought that I would check out a new yarn store. I really like Lakeside Fibers but they switched to summer hours and now they close at 6 every day of the week. This makes it difficult for me to get over there because I like to avoid the beltline during peak traffic hours (i.e 5, right when I get done with work). So I thought I would check out Coyote Yarns.

Coyote Yarns does not have a website (well it does, but supposedly it is under construction). And I found multiple addresses for their store location. Since I'm new to Madison and I don't really know my way around very well, I thought both of the addresses were located sort of close to my work. I get done with work and head over to the first address. It was a no go. The store was empty with big FOR RENT signs in the window. The other address I had found was on University, in the 2000 block. So I get on University and I realize I'm in the 8000 block. I think to myself, that's no big deal, I've driven on University before. It's not that bad. I'll even get to stop at the Whole Foods if I drive on University.

Little did I know that there was some sort of shitty ass construction that caused me to be stuck on University for an inordinate amount of time. And this is when I thank God that I do not have to deal with traffic jams on a daily basis. Yes, the route I take to work gets a little clogged and we're only going 25 on a 45 mph road, but at least we're moving. This was insane and I was getting serious road rage. I have NO patience for traffic. And to make matters worse, I had this idiot chick in front me who kept turning around to seriously smack her two children who were fighting in the back seat. She wasn't keeping up with the flow of traffic and people kept going in front of her, but it was impossible for me to get in the other lane to get around her. I just kept laying on the horn. She probably wasn't happy with me. I didn't give a shit. The rage had taken me over.

I never did make it to Coyote Yarns. I turned too early because I thought I had gone too far. Then I was just fed up and said fuck it, went to Whole Foods, got the best tomato juice to make bloody marys with and fixed myself up a spicy one when I got home.

All I have to say is thank you alcohol!