I went to look at Gloriana’s new Lush and Lacy cardigan today. (Isn’t it lovely? I want one too.)

From there, I found fingers and toes, and after looking at her Lush and Lacy cardigan, I found the following meme:

“First you need a wikipedia random article . The article title is your band name.

Second, go here. The last four words of the last quotation on the page is your debut album title.

Thirdly, go here. The third picture on the page is your album cover.”

I wasn’t really meaning to put anything together, but I so liked the combination of the adorable hedgehog and the album title that I just had to go stick something together in Picnik.

Here’s Tim Bricheno.

The happy hedgehog image belongs to Apple and Eve, whose adorable embroidered plush animals are for sale at http://appleandeve.etsy.com/).
And, as it turns out–this is what I liked most about the results of the meme–the joyful Learning to Love You More-type title comes not from a Sarky exhortation to live every moment to the fullest, but rather from from the bitingly sarcastic Dorothy Parker’s famous quip, “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

I was going to say I didn’t do anything special for Chinese New Year this year, but I did realize I’ve had a pretty happy couple of days. I went to knitting night last night, where sheepdream kindly surprised me with a Ziploc baggie of BFL lambswool, wonderfully crimpy, raw, and sheepy, and I saw Nicole’s famed Giant Monster Twinkle Skirt in action (cute, in its own chunky, high-fashion way!), and I met some new folks; got the hem of the Hourglass Pullover knitted up without any provisional-cast-on mishaps; went to the gym and felt very virtuous; talked to my family (my dad sounded stressed because my grandma was supervising the cooking of the New Year’s dinner, but my grandma at least sounded pretty happy about it all); and got a ton of wonderful crap in the mail.

I hope to have some pictures up later, but in the meantime, I’ll just list some of the goodies I’ve gotten in the past few days:

  • some skeins of Noro Kureyon from a swap,
  • two skeins of Malabrigo worsted in Red Mahogany–I’ve never tried Malabrigo before!–because Whitknits had a sale and I had no self-control (I want to go all Gaughan and make a Sunflower Tam and Here and There Cables as a scarf-hat set),
  • zero stitch markers from the free shipping sale–I picked out a surprise set, and not only are they lovely (pink pearls), but Aija was a sweetie and included a couple of freebies sized for lace or sock knitting, and a whole sheaf of Etsy coupons for other vendors,
  • three separate packages from my mom, including, among other things, a sheep necklace , various silky scarves and pashminas she picked up for me on her recent trip to Korea, and a long, warm Calvin Klein down coat,
  • a sweet thank-you note for the February Baby Sweater,
  • a bunch of tax documents. OK, that part is not so exciting, but at least the other stuff made up for it.

And after a brief moment of malaise, I suddenly feel overcome with project ADD and want to cast on for a million things all at once.

  • Flicca, because the yarn takes up so much goddamn room in my closet, and I would much rather have it in the form of a sweater; it would go a long way towards 2 lbs. of yarn for the Sonny and Shear stashbusting coupon, and would be excellent for cuddling up in while I work at home;
  • The Half Circle Cardigan, because my natural inclination is apparently to take a LIFO/stack approach to my knitting and the yarn (Shibui Sock in mulberry) and pattern are newly acquired, hence burning a hole in my pocket; however, it will be useful later in the year, unlike the bulky, woolly knits I want to make, so perhaps I should hold off;
  • A Giant February Baby Sweater like Jenny’s, I’m thinking in organic cotton–it’s February and so of course it seems like the natural time to make one; but again, I should wait until the appropriate season…
  • The aforementioned Sunflower Tam and/or Here and There Cables;
  • Backyard Leaves. I really want to knit one of these, but I have more than enough scarves;
  • The Tangled Yoke cardigan, because it’s just so gorgeous, and I just found my long-lost size 3 Addi circular, which I suspect would get me gauge and would be long enough for the infinite loop cables;
  • Squares for a baby blanket for my friend who’s having a baby in the next month;
  • A lobster for my friend who’s having a baby in July;
  • A Baby Surprise Jacket for my friend who’s having a baby in approximately one week (I found out two days ago; wouldn’t the name be appropriate?);
  • a bearded hat for my darling for Valentine’s Day–he wears a ski mask when riding his bike to school in the cold, and I think he would appreciate a beardy hat with interchangeable mustaches instead;
  • I want to finish up the Dashing mitts I was making for my friend–they just need the thumbs and the ends woven in;
  • and on top of all this, I have about five patterns in a half-written state that really need to be tidied up and test-knitted and/or released into the wild. Codenames Helen, Slow Wave, Red, Botany, and Esmeralda, for my own personal reference. It’s frustrating for me–very easy to push these ultimately more fulfilling projects aside in favor of picking up other people’s patterns because I can crank those out mindlessly. I think I just need to set aside time to devote to thinking about designs and writing up patterns, and then just approach the patterns I’ve written like they were someone else’s; good for TV knitting, or knitting while reading. And I need to focus. I keep working on one for a while, then another, then going back and completely redoing the first, then losing patience with the knitting and re-knitting and starting something new.

So–that’s a lot of stuff. Perhaps I’ll have another Giftblitz weekend and try to at least take care of some or all of: the hat, the squares and jacket for the imminent babies, and the mitts. Then reassess priorities and try to make my project stack more of a queue like it should be.

I should also try to destash some more soon. I did a few destashes/swaps in the past couple of weeks and except for having to pay shipping (boo!) it felt great to get rid of things I wasn’t using.

Anyway, other goodness: I’m going to have a nice dinner with my boyfriend and some friends in about half an hour, I’m going to a training session for my moonlighting job tomorrow morning, the weekend should be reasonably warm and sunny, and I’m getting a cost-subsidized manicure and pedicure on Monday night. There’s a new quilt exhibit at the anthropology museum and I want to go see it.

Time to go eat some country-fried seitan now. Starving!