I've been winning up a storm, over here. All I did was recommend a Washington D.C. area inn for Mini at Minestrone Soup, and she sent me a skein of yummy butter pecan Online sock yarn! In case you're curious, the inn in question was the Woodley Park Guest House. I've never stayed there, but I discovered it when I was looking for D.C. lodging last summer. Thanks again, Mini!

Why is it that I keep having weird shopping experiences at J. Crew? Just a few days ago I was shopping for some new jeans, and had an interesting experience in the dressing room. I've noticed that some stores are moving away from Muzak and are starting to play Music instead. You know, that noise that comes on the radio between the Adam Carolla show and commercials for Wild Waves. So I'm in the dressing room, one leg in a pair of deeply discounted dark wash jeans, when I notice the soundtrack. Hall & Oates. Sweet. ...You can't escape my Private eyes They're watching you They see your every move Private eyes They're watching you Private eyes They're watching you watching you watching you watching you... So I nervously looked over my shoulder for the unblinking eye of a closed-circuit TV camera, and thanked Jeebus I wasn't shopping for swimwear. What's next? Every Breath You Take? The Thong Song? Baby Got Back? Well, thanks for noticing!

Yeah, yeah, me and everyone else are making the monkey socks. I'm not following the pattern exactly - I didn't like the look of the 1x1 twisted rib, so I changed it to a 2x2 regular rib. And when I got to the heel, I didn't trust the plain stockinette heel, so I switched to the more familiar (Sl1, K1) across and Sl1, P to end heel that we all know and love. It seems like plain stockinette would make a rather baggy heel, does anyone have experience with this? In any case, here is a WIP pic: I like this pattern well enough, but the 11-row repeat is a little taxing on my memory. I'm not a great multitasker, so it's difficult for me to knit these and watch TV at the same time, or to knit and carry on a conversation. I think I'll stick to 2 or 4 row repeat socks in the future. I am, however, LOVING this yarn, STR in Puck's Mischief. This yarn was a gift from two of my lovely schoolmates who felt sorry for me having to miss a yarn festival. This is my first time knitting with STR, and I really love its stitch definition and overall silkyness. The colors are great as well. If you're going to take the effort to knit the Monkey socks, you might as well have a crisp yarn that can really show off your mistakes. Er, I mean, fancy stitchwork.

Lucky me won a prize from Big Sister a few weeks ago - w00t! A skein of lovely Fearless Fibers sock yarn in a great berry-purple colorway, and a cute matching Zero Markers stitch marker! Thanks again, Nicole!

I finally fixed my picture posting problem, so I'll be going back to update previous entries with the explanatory illustrations. To start, here are so pictures from my patio garden. We just got these stripey chair pads, and I love them. Now I can spend hours sitting on the deck, with no fear of the dreaded NBS (numb butt syndrome).

My living quarters are too small to have stairs, but if and when I upgrade to a 2-story abode, you can bet your flip-flops that I'll get some of these installed - stair drawers (via Charles & Hudson)! I hate wasted space, so I just love the idea of stashing stuff like shoes and tools in secret drawer spaces. This also strikes me as a good place to hide my burgeoning yarn stash.

Oh, thank goodness for Seattle in the summer! It hardly ever gets too hot. Of course, it's only June, and I may be eating my words by August, but in general, Seattle weather is pretty pleasant. I do have a vacation to a hotter clime coming up, so I decided to deal with the temperature change by CRAFTING! How else, really? You've probably seen those polymer-filled water cooled neckbands for sale at REI, but did you know that you can buy the polymer in bulk? The kind folks at Watersorb are a non-profit agency selling all sorts of water-absorbing pellets for Cool Ties and gardening. They even have instructions on sewing up Cool Ties to send to the troops in the Middle East. Each Tie takes about a tablespoon of polymer, and the minimum order was 2 pounds. Which I think is enough to make about a gajillion Ties. So I'll sew myself up some Cool Ties for vacation, and then perhaps I'll make a few to send overseas. I'm not a great seamstress, so my Cool Ties might actually decrease morale. It could happen. And if you're wondering where all my pictures are, there's something a little phoofie with my file transfer thingamajig but I'll get it straightened out ASAP and share all the pics I've been saving up straightaway.

I've been nurturing my sourdough starter for quite a while now, and I've come up with a pretty good routine that involves feeding the starter, forgetting about it, feeding it again, and forgetting about it. After about a week I peel back the saran wrap from the incubation bowl and get a strong whiff of hooch. There's usually a good half-inch of sourdough sake floating on top of the starter, which means it's time to bake. Today I made up a recipe that looks promising. Here are the instructions, as I recall them: Sourdough Loavettes with Herbs and Garlic Ingredients 1/4 C olive oil 3 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 C assorted fresh herbs, minced (I used rosemary, oregano, thyme, and chives) 1 C warm water 1 T dry yeast 1 t sugar 2 t salt 2-3 C sourdough starter 5-6 C flour (all purpose or a combination of AP and whole wheat - no more than 50% WW) Method 1. Heat the oil and garlic in a small saucepan until the garlic starts to sizzle. Take pan off heat and cool. 2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand 5 minutes. 3. Add starter, oil and garlic, herbs, salt, and 3 C flour to yeast mixture and beat on low speed. The dough should be thick, but not form a ball. I like to let the mixer run for about 10 minutes before adding the rest of the flour, just to give the gluten time to develop without straining the motor too much. The dough should form strong ropy strands after about 10 minutes, then you're ready to proceed. 4. Add enough flour so that the dough comes together in a soft ball that cleans the sides of the bowl. Add as little flour as possible - too much flour inhibits the rising process. Mix for about 1-2 minutes. 5. Cover workbowl with a cloth and let rise 1 hour, until doubled. 6. Turn on mixer briefly to release trapped air, then turn out dough onto a floured counter. 7. Divide dough into 8 pieces, roll into squatty baguettes and place on an oiled and floured baking sheet. Cover with a cloth and let rise 1 hour. 8. Preheat oven to 400. 9. Place breads in oven, spray the inside of the oven and the bread about a dozen times with a water sprayer, and close the door quickly! 10. After 10 minutes, open oven and spray with water again. 11. Bake for a total of 35 minutes, or until toasty brown. Let cool completely (yeah right!) and enjoy! I created these to be sandwich rolls, but they may be a trifle big for that. They're about the same size as the loaves of bread that they serve at the Spaghetti Factory, that grand bastion of Italian cuisine. I like their spaghetti with Mizithra cheese - so sue me! Wow, these are starting to smell really good.

Being the hip, with-it folks you are, you've certainly already heard of the Envirosax bags. I read about them on Not Martha, and I immediately impulse-bought myself a set of five. It didn't really register with me that these bags fold up into little bag nuggets, so they're easy to stash in a small purse, backpack, even a jacket pocket. I've used these constantly for about a month, and they are fabulous. I do a lot of shopping on the way home from school, so it's just not practical to carry around one of those big, non-collapsible tote bags all the grocery stores were hawking around Earth Day. And now they're available in cool retro colors! I think these would make an awesome gift, because they are so darn usable! No excuses. And if you haven't discovered I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGER? yet, you haven't really lived.

I was just catching up on a little daytime TV, and saw a new Metamucil commercial of dubious taste. "Clean up your inside with new Metamucil Berry Burst!" I know eating lots of fiber is good for you, but the word "burst" has no place in a fiber supplement advertisement. None. It reminds me of that old SNL commercial for Colon Blow cereal. "It would take over two and a half million bowls of your oat bran cereal to equal the fiber content of one bowl of Super Colon Blow." Ewwww.