You know, whenever I take an extended break from blogging, I always come back and say that it wasn't intended. This time however, I rather purposely avoided the blog. Maybe my blogging steam has run out.. or maybe it hasn't since I'm back here today blogging. But, I have seriously thought about giving it up. And just when I do, I think of all the time I've invested into it and reconsider. So since I'm sitting here right now tapping out an entry, you could come to the conclusion that I have indeed reconsidered - I'm just not sure how much time I'll be devoting to the blog in the next few months.

Ok, now that the "business" is out of the way, on to a few photos and a little bit of a catch up..

Do you remember the We Call Them Pirates hat I was making? Well, it has been gifted..

Meet Steve (or depending on who is reading this - you may already know him!)

Steve is a former co-worker and an excellent friend of Richard's. Steve has ventured all the way to the other side of the country for a change of scenery. And since where he moved sees way more snow and cold than upstate New York, I figured he'd need a warm hat. It really warms a knitter's heart to hear her gift called "kick ass".

We'll miss you Steve! And we can't wait to see you again around Christmas time!

And while I'm not knitting a whole lot lately, I do have a few things going - I'm just not in any sort of rush to finish..

This would be the very popular Boing! by Anne at Knitspot.

And here it is pinned out just a teensy bit to see the lace. I'm using Celestial Alpaca/Merino that I picked up at Mission Rose sometime last year. The yarn is meant to be sock yarn, but when I started socks with it, I just couldn't stand the feel of the fabric it created. It makes for much better lace knitting - nice, halo-y and soft.

This is the Celtic Tote from Interweave Knits Fall 2007. I was going to wait until Boing! was finished to cast it on, but startitis got the better of me. I'm almost finished with the back portion after using it as TV knitting for a night or two. I'm using of course, my favorite cheap felting wool, Patons Classic Merino.

Other than the knitting..

So, I had an urge to play with manic panic. And I was totally urged on by Ravelry friend Bethoff who recently did some purple streaks. I originally planned to go with a bright pink but Alex talked me into Rockout Red. For my first time, I bought the demi permanent Hot Topic brand, so in other words, its not at all permanent, and will likely be totally faded out in a few weeks time. I didn't bleach out where I wanted the red dye either - this was just the test run. I do like it however, so next time I'll be bleaching out some strands before adding a more permanent dye. Should I go with red again? Or my original inclination towards pink? Hmm!
For reference, the image on the left is the night I dyed it. The image on the right is the next day after washing a few times to tone it down just a bit.

Now it just occurred to me that this blog entry has a red theme - Hmm.

Lastly, since I missed Music Monday, two weeks in a row, today you get a youtube - sort of new, but sort of not!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huuuuge Journey fan - When I was a teen, my bedroom walls were plastered with Journey posters and I wore out at least 4 copies of Journey Captured on cassette. So if you missed CBS Sunday Morning last week, where they told the story of Journey's new lead singer Arnel Pineda, then you need to see this video.

Journey is playing the State Fair this year (and Beth already has tickets! Whine!) But instead I think we'll try to see them down home at Montage. Jill? Tracy? Want to babysit? Please?