Fabric Hoarding

Last week I got the most awful fabric assortment in the mail. There were lots of random scraps, some neon yellow with turtles on it, and tons of orange floral print. Lots of greens and blues that I can add to my quilt. Best of all, though, there was just enough neon pink zebra-striped cotton to make a miniskirt. I added some white eyelet trim for flounce, and a simple elastic waistband (which I have to take in because dammit, I always make them too loose).

I also got a ton of clothes from a friend who was cleaning out their closet in preparation for moving. Some of it is too small or not my style, and some of it needs to be fixed up, but it's all nice fabric. I think I have a fabric hoarding problem.

It's going to be a good week for sewing.

~Mizu

Quilting

I think I officially have too many crafts, because I've started a quilt.

Marvel at its wonkiness.

It's actually a couple rows wider right now, but you get the idea. The fabric was sourced from several different places, including my old projects, some worn out pajamas, a friend who does SCA garb, part of a pillowcase, and the brocade-like fabric came from my little sister in Ohio. Some of the squares are decorated with trim from garage sales and a scrapbook kit. Hopefully I'll have more unusually-sourced fabrics to add to it soon!

~Mizu

Curtains.

Even if you think that sewing a straight line is no big deal, try to find curtains that are at least close to your window size. Trying to iron a pair of curtains that are taller than you, on a tabletop ironing board perched on a cluttered desk, is not very fun or rewarding. Neither is trying to cut or mark the hems, even though they included some fusible webbing to help with just such a task.

 But the good news is that they look way nicer than the scrap fabric that had been tacked to the window.

~Mizu

Knitty Knitty Knitty

I feel like I am up to my ears in yarn this week, and it just won't end! Lately I've been on a stash-busting binge, so I've been attempting to finish old projects and starting a bunch of new ones. Unfortunately, it's sort of given me knitter's ADD. I have three projects in front of me, and I can't decide which one to work on.

A couple weeks ago, I started some yoga socks, because I wanted to use up some of the sock yarn remnants I got from Sam. One is mostly finished, the other suffered from second sock syndrome about halfway through. Now I'm contemplating scrapping it and making a sock yarn quilt instead, after seeing a gorgeous pattern on Ravelry for one.

Last week, I started a pair of fingerless gloves for the boyfriend. I have one finished, and it still has a million ends to be woven in.

This week, my friend Alex gave me a bunch of eyelash yarn, in bright, terrible colors. I've been on a scarf-making kick, because this allows me to use up some of my other stashed yarns. So far I have a bright yellow scarf that I used some baby yarn for, and right now I'm working on a teal blue scarf with some generic acrylic something. I still have red and indigo blue left, and my friends keep asking how many Muppets I had to kill for all that yarn.

I also have a bulky cabled scarf on the needles that I started about three or four months ago.

Of course, there is almost always a Jayne hat on my needles. I just can't escape the fact that I'll be knitting these for the rest of my life. Thankfully, this is a baby hat so the pain will be over sooner.

I'm addicted to Lily Sugar'n Cream yarn now, because it's cheap and has various household uses. I have matching kitchen towels and dishcloths in a couple different color combinations now, and I'm working on another set. Maybe I'll make this one for the bathroom. Maybe more washcloths, or a soap scrubby thing.

Then, probably most ambitiously, I decided I needed to make a blanket out of my excessive pile of acrylic yarns. Alex has been crocheting a huge blanket out of her scrap yarns, and using everything in her stash. It's hideously ugly, and I am insanely jealous of it. I thought about knitting one for myself since I don't crochet, but the idea of keeping an entire blanket on the needles, or knitting pieces and stitching them together was a huge turn-off.

After contemplating it for a while, I realized I had the perfect solution. A few months ago, I taught myself a couple of simple nalbinding stitches. Nalbinding uses shorter lengths of yarn because the entire working yarn must be passed through the current stitch, so it seemed like a great stash-busting project. It's a bit time-consuming with all the yarn changes and there are a ton of loose ends to weave in, but it's progressing a lot faster than any of my knitting. It's also appropriately hideous, being made primarily of  various orange, yellow, green, purple, pink and gray shades right now.

And now it's back to work, because I've procrastinated long enough under the guise of doing something else important..

~Mizu

Banned Dinner Ideas

After my boyfriend went through a 24-hour lesson in the meaning of the phrase "violently ill", our roommate has decided we're not allowed to have antique mayo night or chicken sushi night, or even our best leftovers of the year celebration! He has just completely ruined my plans for dinner tomorrow.

Seriously though, viral gastroenteritis is a bitch, and you will puke so much and so violently that you will eat just for the pleasure of having something in your stomach to throw up, rather than dry heave again. Don't try it at home. Or anywhere else.

~Mizu

High Speed Lies

You know, it is really ridiculously hard to run a business, or do much of anything, when your ISP suddenly decides to throttle the hell out of your connection.

At least, that's what I'm assuming is happening, because it's hard to believe one could live in the middle of Silicon Valley and experience such terrible service on accident. It's painfully slow, and likes to randomly drop the connection for no good reason. Here's a screenshot of a recent speed test I ran:

I had flakier cable internet once, but that was the fault of whoever wired my apartment with a million cable splitters,

Yes, that says 0.08Mbps downstream. If that was our ISP's blood alcohol content, it could have its license suspended for driving under the influence. Barely. I think the highest downstream speed I've recorded is about equal to the upstream speed shown in that screenshot. A whole whopping 0.3Mbps, while we're paying for broadband. We've actually started scanning the neighborhood for open wifi networks.

To add insult to injury, this test is hosted by our ISP, and yes, that's an ad for other services they offer. Right now you couldn't pay me to stay with them. They used to provide amazing service, but things seem to have gone downhill since they were bought out. Reading reviews of their services online isn't very encouraging, either. Seems like they have a lot of issues with actually providing what they promise, and if you cancel and they owe you a refund, they'll make you jump through flaming hoops for it.

I think we're switching ISPs next week.

Paypal Hates Kids, Poor People

Alright, I'm about to rage about some things. This post is going to be so link-heavy, you might mistake it for a neutron star.

The Consumerist has this handy list of phone numbers and email addresses for Paypal. Drop them a friendly line and let them know how fucked up this all is! Send an email, give them a call, hell, send them a Christmas card!


Recently, the fat jealous losers at Regretsy decided to do something nice, and donate money to buy toys for children that wouldn't be getting anything otherwise this holiday season. They raised thousands of dollars in just a few hours, meaning 200 children would be receiving gifts, and their families might get something extra to pay the bills. Thankfully, most of the gifts have already been purchased, because what happened next will make anyone with a fraction of a soul sick.


The Grinches at Paypal decided to bring everything to a halt, because someone "used the wrong button" when accepting donations. Apparently, only non-profit organizations can use the "donate" button, even though the instructions say "worthy causes" are also permitted.


It turns out, "worthy causes" include sick cats, but not poor people. Yes, you read that right. A Paypal representative told Regretsy that they could raise money for sick cats, but not the less fortunate. Well, what if the only cure for my sick cat is helping poor people?


From Regretsy:

YOU CAN ONLY HELP CATS
PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button.
ME: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.”
PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity.
ME: What’s the difference?
PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.

To add insult to injury, Paypal is making a fortune off the fees associated with all of these transactions. Each initial donation had a fee, each refund had a fee, and when Regretsy attempted to use another method to collect donations via Paypal, they were charged more fees. Now they're being forced to refund those donations and.. yep, you guessed it, more fees. I wanted to send a small donation this afternoon, but decided to wait, since I only had a few dollars in my Paypal account. This is probably the only time I'll ever be able to say I'm glad I didn't donate to charity, because it's less money Paypal gets to charge fees on.

The story is being repeated all over the internet now. For a while, Paypal was taking down the angry messages flooding its Facebook wall, but they can't keep up and have resorted to banning people from posting instead. Twitter is exploding, and several celebrities have taken up the cause, including Wil Wheaton, who has jokingly asked Regretsy for a sick cat this Christmas.

Possibly the worst part, is that this isn't the first time Paypal has screwed over people trying to be charitable. The Paypal page on Wikipedia has a nice list of notable offenses, and has been edited to include this most recent one. One that I'm familiar with occurred in 2005, when Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka of Something Awful attempted to collect donations for victims of Hurricane Katrina. His account was frozen, after nearly $30k had been collected. Rich ended up refunding all of the donations, but Paypal still kept their fees. I recall jumping at the opportunity and donating what I could to help out. Getting the refund was disappointing, to say the least.



So, in short, fuck you, Paypal.

~Mizu

Black Friday/Cyber Monday Etsy sale!

I've been adding a bunch of new jewelry to my Etsy shop, and all of it is on sale this weekend! Use the coupon code BLACKMONDAY for 20% off your order. Be sure to mention you saw this sale on my blog, and I'll throw in a free pair of earrings for orders of $15 or more!

Ornamental Red Glass and Metal Beaded Earrings - $7

Honey Bee Charm Earrings with Amber Seed Beads - $5

Dainty Pink Beaded Earrings with Silver Keys - $5

Most of my earrings are under $10, and I currently have a bunch that are only $5 a pair! These make great stocking stuffers for anyone that enjoys jewelry and has pierced ears!

~Mizu

Nalbinding and Craft Overload

Reading craft blogs and tutorials is dangerous. I can't finish or even start half of my projects because there are just so many things I want to do, and I can't decide which one to do first!

Last night I discovered nalbinding while browsing One Pretty Thing, which is a site that gathers links to other craft tutorials. It's very handy when you're lacking inspiration, but I always end up bookmarking a bunch of sites and never doing the projects.

The article they linked to didn't actually have any information on how it was done, but the pictures were interesting enough that I looked it up, and I've been itching to try it ever since. Nalbinding is a yarncraft that predates both knitting and crochet, and tends to form very dense, warm fabric. It can easily be worked in the round, and the only tool required is a large yarn needle, which has earned it the monicker "single needle knitting". I've been thinking of starting with the York stitch, since it looks pretty easy!

My boyfriend had been wanting a hat like Finland from Scandinavia and the World wears, and since the craft is still popular there I'm going to see if I can nalbind one instead of knitting. I just need to find the right yarn now.. Nalbinding requires the entire length of the working yarn to pass through each stitch, so it uses short lengths of yarn that must be spliced together. Wool is great for this, but my stash of acrylics isn't very well suited to the project.

There's some links to get you started on Ask the Bellwether, and there's also a Ravelry group for people interested in it (login required).

..And I'm off to the yarn shop as soon as it opens!

~Mizu

Twitter Rants

This has nothing to do with anything that I normally talk about, but it was too long for Facebook and LiveJournal was being an uncooperative ho. That being said, here is a rant about internet etiquette, or "netiquette" if you're an idiot.

Things I don't get:

1. Tweeting about a tv program you're currently broadcasting. The people watching it already know what's going on and don't need a play-by-play, and the people that aren't watching won't get it. A tweet a minute with 3 or 4 words about whatever is on screen isn't a worthwhile tweet. If you're that desperate to connect with your fans, why not just set up a chat room? "Cats are cool" isn't really a newsworthy comment.
   
2. Adding a tag to every one of your tweets, which consists or your Twitter name and "rawks". We know who you are, you don't need to add that. You fans don't even need to add that. We know they're addressing you, because they tweeted at you and it shows up in your feed. You're just wasting characters and sounding like a vapid airhead. Plus, this isn't the 90s, it's expected now that you spell properly on the internet, unless perhaps you are a lolcat. Even that is debatable.
   
3. Trying to make fun of your followers because they didn't "get with the program" when they tweet at you to find out why you're blabbering on constantly. I was thinking of unfollowing you a minute ago, you just made up my mind.
   

Also, I was going to call you all "Twitards" but I realized that name is already reserved for creepy Twilight fans. God damn it.

#firstworldproblems