First Fridays.

Tonight has yielded some pretty amazing experiences, probably contributing to the reason that it's almost 5am and I'm still alert and writing rather than crawling under my sheets and sleeping. It started out with an innocent plan to meet up with a Corcoran buddy for a movie. Bond was sold out for the entire night, so we ventured over to Dupont to grab some food and beverage. Fast forward to the part when we walked into a club a few hours later, and walked right into the wrapping up of a huge drag show. Unbeknownst to me, my tour guides had led me to one of the biggest gay clubs in DC. It was insane. I saw and experienced things that I'm still processing. Wow. That's kind of all I can say. Wow.

Fast forward to a few minutes ago when I (not Drunk, but that would have offered a better ring to this story) Dialed Dhaka to have a conversation with someone riding on a rickshaw in Bangladesh. It is so strange to talk into my computer, and on the other end I'm hearing the beeps and swooshes and yells of the streets of Dhaka as the rickshaw dips and dives through traffic. Weird.

Well anyway. I don't have any documentation of these events, so lets talk about stuff that I have pictures of.

Hateriffic.
First up is a hat that I'm in the process of making. It's actually a very simple hat, but I have not taken the time to work out the brim and strap to go along the front. So I started by casting on 60. Then I worked 4 cables of 6 stitches with 2 pearls inbetween in the front and then 4 strips of 5 stitches with 2 pearls inbetween in the back.

I guess that would translate to...
Rows 1 - 5: p2, k6, p2, k6, p2, k6, p2, k6, p2, k5, p2, k5, p2, k5, p2, k5
Row 6: p2, cable6, p2, cable6, p2, cable6, p2, cable6, p2, k5, p2, k5, p2, k5, p2, k5
Repeat Rows 1 - 6 two more times (for a total f 3 cable twists)
Begin decreasing at the pearl ribs (knit the 2 together), until you get to the top and have about 6 stitches left; string the yarn through the last 6 stitches and tie it off.

And this is what you get:

I used a bulky yarn - similar to malabrigo but it's a different brand. It's wool, varying weight, and in tints and shades of army green. I used size 8 circulars and it took about an hour to do the main hat. I'm not sure about the brim and strap just yet...more to come.

Twensday.
My Twensday tradition continues this week, and I think it's going to become a routine with Jon. When I do Twensday with him I get banana pancakes in the morning, and that's a pretty damn hard offer to turn down.

This week we began by finishing off an order for some belts. The first stage was some quality control that made us both tear up a bit when we heard the cracking of a few belts that were doomed for the "no" pile. Rest assured, when you get a belt from Jon Wye it has been thoroughly inspected. Then did the finishing of buckles and rivets and tags.

These are just some of the belts we did to fill an order on Twensday:

With the huge success of the VR belts (photographed on a previous Twensday), we tried to replicate that success with the new dog collars about to be released on FredFred. Unfortunately we were domeless (the UFO got the boot from the dining room) so we tried to mimic a lighting set up. Less than successful. If that was the first attempt at this, they photos might have been satisfactory. But after having experienced the dome, it was impossible to go back to lower standards.

So we got on the computer and worked on SEO junk and set up a facebook account. This is about 2am and Fred is pissed that we're still awake - obviously cutting into his beauty rest and more importantly his special cuddle time with Jon.

With the projects dwindling, I read a little of my book and then passed out on the couch while Jon finished off the belt reprints and began to make the morning treat: banana pancakes. YUM! Check out the sweet batter-pooper that Nikki got Jon. Pretty awesome in action.

Only one project to quickly talk about. It absolutely does not translate in photographs (particularly those taken in a pink room with awful incandescent lighting.) But here is the beginning study of my all white room.

Then I began to work on the final. When I got to the part of paining the outside I bombed. More specifically: the painters tape that I had used to section off the doorway allowed lots and lots of bush/tree paint to seep onto my pristine white walls. After I took off the tape to reveal this ruined mess, I decided that it was time to step back from the paintings.

OK. I've finally reached sleepy time.

But just to shed light on some other awesome firsts...Stetson elected it's first female president, to succeed Dr. Lee upon his retirement in May. Good job Stetson!! And I had my first bloody nose (in the form of spontaneous squirtage as I sneezed. It sprayed all across the paper in a surprisingly beautiful pattern.)


A wonderful weekend to all!

Happy first day of work, Keith!

Happy birthday, Jackie!