Insert-Title-Here

I have lost my witty-title-making ability for the moment.

I do believe I need to admit to something. I'm pretty sure that I'm more of a process knitter than a product knitter. Yes, I have finished some things, but I just can't seem to resist starting more and more projects. So I'm a process knitter with severe startitis. (Process knitter = knitting to be knitting. Product knitter = knitting to have finished items.)

What do I have on the needles right now....

• Tank top buddy kal
• Kiri shawl
• cuffs
• swatch/tapestry

And I'm starting another project. It looks fairly easy, and is in a thicker yarn, and I'm optimistic that I will be able to finish it and not get bored halfway through the pattern (as I tend to do quite often) and ignore it in favor of chocolate. I honestly should weigh a lot more than I do if I truly consume as much chocolate as I say I do....

The tomato plants are still alive! There's even one turning red (a good thing). Unfortunately, it's the one I'm not sure I want to eat as there are some holes in it (from bugs, I guess). But, there's 3 or 4 others that are perfectly healthy looking (at the moment) that I'm waiting for the colors to start changing. Go me!

I've this nifty new keyboard that's addicting to type on. It's very slim, like a laptop keyboard. And it lights up! So I can type in the dark now without squinting to see the keys! My only difficulty with it is that, occasionally, certain keys stick so I have to pay more attention to what I'm typing so that I don't end up typing 'lie his' (like this).

Now, where did I leave those darned sarcasm pills?

The Pratchgan 2008

Ramblings of a yarn junkie: The Pratchgan 2008 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!

See my previous post for more info. Not much more that I can add to this, honestly. I'm still in awe of what we did!

Pratchgan 2008 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Way back in December, I joined in with a group of fiber-artsy people over on Ravelry to make an afghan for none other than Mr. Terry Pratchett.

Well, earlier today our wonderful organizer, Shirley, had the privilege of presenting the Pratchgan to Mr. Pratchett in person. She's posted about it, with photos! over on her blog.

She also wrote a letter explaining what it was and why we did it. Here's what the letter says:

Dear Mr Pratchett,

The Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild is a group on the fibre arts website ravelry.com where fans can come together to indulge our passion for all things crafty as well as all things Discworld.

At the end of last year we were trying to think of a way to show our support following the news of your Alzheimer’s diagnosis and being a bunch of knitters and crocheters (not to mention spinners, weavers and dyers) we decided a Discworld-inspired afghan blanket was the way to go.

Since 26th December 2007 ninety-nine people from all over Roundworld have contributed a square or two, causing my postman to start giving me some very strange looks. The project thread on ravelry has been a joy as people suggested themes, egged each other on or just had a rant when a brilliant idea turned out not to be so brilliant after all. Somewhere along the way the project became known as The Pratchgan 2008 and the name has now firmly stuck.

We send you this gift and the accompanying letters with all our love, to let you know that a bunch of strangers are thinking of you and also with our thanks for all the years of laughter that your books have brought us. If you ever manage to find the time to join ravelry (a wee birdie has told us that you spin and weave so it’s not entirely outwith the realms of possibility that you might feel the urge to join some day) we’d be honoured to have you as a member of the Guild.

We hope you enjoy The Pratchgan and that it brings you as much pleasure as we’ve had creating it.

Warmest wishes,

Shirley (ravelry name cherryred)
On behalf of the Ankh-Morpork Knitter’s Guild

I feel truly honored to have been a part of this. And yes, I did get a little bit teary-eyed at all of it.

Never too old, I guess.

We had our "Employee Appreciation Day" on Wednesday. Festivities included free food and drink (non-alcoholic, it was during working hours) and a 'Modified Monster Trike' Race.

I was able to sweet-talk my SPOH, as well as Ames, into coming and being cheerleaders for me. They didn't wear the cute little outfits, but they did show up! And Ames even sweet-talked another yarny friend into coming as well. It was great! But I feel kind of bad that I didn't get to spend much time chatting with any of them. SPOH was kind enough to take race photos for me, while Ames got some with her phone.

Here's a photo of me practicing last Friday. I didn't touch a trike again until Wednesday at race time.









Here's me and my team, Ghost Riders. Believe it or not, I was the oldest member of my team.







My leg of the race was from those teeny tiny orange cones in the background all the way around the corner. Trying to keep up the speed and turn were pretty interesting...





You can see my teammate urging me to get the lead out so she could ride her leg.





Gee, can you tell I was thrilled to make a complete idiot of myself? I was mainly just pleased to not wreck or fall on my face during the trade-off.





See the girls on the far left? The one in the pink is a fellow team leader. She and I have loads of friendly competition. What's funny about it is that she talked loads more smack than I did. And guess who didn't get first place *grins*.


This is one of my bosses. (I have two.) It's nice to know we can get management to make fools of themselves willingly. Kind of gives the rest of us a break.







Woohoo! Ghost Riders won 1st place for our shift with a time of 2 mins. 15 secs. We got 2nd place factory-wide.

The fastest team of the whole factory only beat us by 12 seconds. Although it is just a tad embarrassing to be beat by the I.T. people. They get to sit in the a/c all day while we're out on the floor sweating our butts off. Oh, well. We still kicked some ass!

*cue victory music*