Textileophile

 What a thing to write in :checks calendar: August.  Welp! School has started once again and it feels like the beginning.  All my phone alarms are set and I'm up in the early mornings again to get the kiddos off to their schools. A few bits of admin first. - my cat passed away while we were in Hawaii.  really rather sad, she wasn't that old, but she was struggling for a little while there.  No more kitty sneaking into FO shots all the time.  we might get a new cat in the next little while, but not yet. - just a general name change thing. I might have obliquely referenced Toby as 'she' on here previously, but officially she's out as trans and she's changed her name to Millie.  I'll be referring to her as Millie from now on.  If you have anything negative to say about it, kindly keep it to yourself. thanks. and that's it for admin. We had a fantastic trip to Maui and Kaua'i.  Two weeks of relaxation and fun.  It was so nice to see my in-la...

 hi friends! It's, again, been almost a month since I last posted.  bad blogger, bad blogger! I've been up to things, making stuff, reading, playing video games.  The usual.  The Tour de Fleece started yesterday! V. hype! I suppose I'll start where I left off last time?  I was making a hexie bag for my friend, Amara.  Welp, I finished it and sent it off and she loves it! I'm.. I won't say that I'm done making these things, cause they're fantastic, but I was sort of making it to get through it, rather than enjoying the process particularly. The temporary aida cloth that I bought for the cross stitching was a pain in the ass to remove from the fabric.  It was painful and difficult.  If I do this again, which you know me, I probably will, I'm going to look up a better removable cloth. There was some knitting, and in fact I went to the local yarn store in Sacramento with Zac last weekend.  The shop is called Rumpelstiltskin's and it was fantastic...

 It's been a few weeks. My LASIK surgery was a success! I can see! :O  Now what I got is actually called mono vision, which is a neat trick where they make one eye especially good at far and the other especially good at near.  And amazingly, both are fairly good at both now.  Incredible.  I haven't been able to read without the aid of glasses in.. decades.  If ever.  far sighted, yo.  I got some cute sunglasses for wearing out of doors, and it's been good. I've been dealing with a little bit of dry eyes though, which does affect my far sightedness out of doors, but I've been using eye drops.  It's steadily improving.  It was absolutely worth it.  If you're on the fence, don't be, do the thing! Now the things you're here for.  Crafting! I don't even really remember where I left off last time.  I know there was a chocobo happening and some socks.  Spinning and cross stitch.  I kind of did a little bit of all of tho...

 It's been a few weeks and I've been doing a lot of good stuff!  There's reading, cross stitching, some knitting and spinning. So, without further ado, I suppose I'll start where I left off last time. Pokemoning Progress! I finished page 2!  Woohoo! At this rate I'll be done.. uh, in awhile.  It's OK though.  No one is expecting me to finish this any time soon.  I keep thinking that I wished I worked on it more, but then again, I have a lot of fun things I've been doing and I like the idea of spreading my fixations around. I finished the first sock: The great fitting experiment is turning out to be a great success! I am well into the second sock, but Zac's on nights, so my knitting time is being usurped by youtube crafting. A few weeks ago I won a prize from one of my thread families.  It was a stuffed moogle! I immediately put her on my bookshelf next to the tonberry and Vivi: And then I ordered yarn for making a chocobo.  Had to be done.  H...

You all remember the last pair of socks I knit?  yes, yes?  It was the reknit of the pink and white from January.  I reknit them on double zero needles (that's 1.75 mm for the international folk). I finished them:   And they are lovely and soft and have a much better gauge than they did from the first knitting. But alas, they didn't fit that well.  WOMP WOMP.  I had a sinking feeling they wouldn't.  but! Do not fret!  I've gifted them to Hazel who wears size 7 shoe.  They fit her great! Win/win! I did start some new socks, for myself this time.  I decided to stick with the 00 needles, because the gauge really was good on the pink and white. They're just a touch tighter than the 0s were when I originally started knitting socks on 0s quite a few years ago. Anyway, all that to say, the great sock fitting experiment has continued.  This time the adjustments I made were two-fold.  I upped the stitch count from 64 to 68 stitches, and...