Spey Valley, Bird Boy

New sock on the needles (for my Sock Project):

Spey Valley - WIP

Spey Valley from Knitting on the Road, knit in Plymouth’s Happy Feet. I got this yarn at Rumplestiltskin in Sacramento. The Yarn Boutique has a ton of it right now (and they JUST got a huge shipment of Dream in Color Smooshy, y’all – if I wasn’t all sock yarned up the wazoo post-Stitches, I’d be all over that!). I don’t know that the pattern + yarn = perfect fit, but I like it so I’m going to roll with it. I think the pattern needs a non-variegated yarn, but whatever.

I also drew a picture:

Birdboy

It’s a bird boy. (Um, duh?) It was in the news this last week or so, that some poor kid in Russia was pretty much raised with birds by his mother, who never spoke to him or anything. These kids are generally known as “feral” or “wild” children. You know, like kids raised by wolves or bears or whatever. They almost never grow up and have normal lives, and are lucky if they even learn to speak. I was thinking about what a literal bird boy might look like and this is what popped out.

It’s funny because just before this news story came out, I finished a book called “Magic Hour” by Kristin Hannah that was about a feral child found up in Washington. A stupid name for a good book – not really a subject that you read about too often (or even come across), and there was romance and a minor murder mystery. A smidge contrived towards the end, but easily overlooked by the quality of the writing and story.

In conclusion: I drew a bird boy. I’m going to try to draw at least something once a week. Can’t let the ole degree wither, now can we?

Marching into Spring

Well, I must say that February blew in and out as quick as I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe it’s March already… Or that I’ve finished another pair of socks!

Monkey Socks - Finished!
Pattern: Monkey from Knitty
Yarn: Shibui Sock in “Anime”
Mods: Only five pattern repeats on the leg.

THEY ARE GREAT. I love the Monkey pattern and will probably make more!

March’s Sock Project sock is Spey Valley from Knitting on the Road. I cast on with Plymouth Happy Feet in a rich plum/mulberry color. No photos yet because I was busy pulling all these ones off my camera.

I was going to write about something else but now I forget.

A Very Nerdy Weekend

I went to Stitches West yesterday and dropped a fair bit of money on some delicious yarn:

The whole kit and kaboodle

(That’s not even all of it, there is a beautiful pink/red skein too). The Noro sock yarn perfectly matches my Noro scarf I made last month. I will be making socks until I die. Hurray!

Today I went to Wondercon with Sam and Mark. It’s fun to go, to reaffirm that I am not as nerdy as I think I am. Not even close.

Wondercon 2008

A Wondercon tradition is that I lose my swag bag given at the door. I got distracted by the Wacom booth – they were demonstrating the Cintiq, and I got to try it, it’s really cool. I have a pressure tablet that I use to draw on in Photoshop, and a Cintiq is like that, only you are drawing on the computer screen. It’s so effin’ awesome! Anyway, I am pretty sure I lost my bag there.

But I remembered to bring my camera, and while I didn’t document that much, I did meet my goal of documenting the existence of Boba Fett and Friends:

Boba and Friends

Good times, people, good times.

So, we sat in on two panels – the Disney panel, where they previewed Prince Caspian and Wall-E (new Pixar) – both look pretty good. Then, the Fox panel, which previewed Shutter (yawn – another Japanese horror remake a la The Ring or The Grudge) AND THE X-FILES MOVIE featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s first con appearance ever.

The X-Files fandom is beyond ridiculous, but I suppose all fandoms are. It was just a pretty cool panel with Mulder and Scully and Chris Carter eating a sandwich and discussing their favorite episodes. They didn’t really talk about the new movie except to say that it also starred Xhibit and Amanda Peet.

Next time I will actually make a Jayne hat and wear it like the nerd I think I am (but am not, not even close).