I think Jimmy Hoffa may have been hiding in my dryer...

...and thereby lies a cautionary tale.

Last night I began a crazed cleaning, reorganizing binge. Don't ask me where I got the energy because I have no clue. The Java Monster drink is still in the fridge so that didn't do it. Apparently the neat fairy smacked me upside the head when I wasn't looking and it worked. For starters, I popped into the local Publix last night and bought a large box of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, a two-quart jug of white vinegar, and a few bars of castile soap. This is to go along with the book I had just purchased at Borders, Green Clean by Linda Mason Hunter and Mikki Halpin. Armed with my natural cleaning supplies, I was ready to clean something...anything.

Of course, I went home, putzed around in the kitchen and rearranged a few things, then promptly got on the computer for a while, watched Battlestar Galactica, and went back to the computer to goof around on Facebook. Yep, I really got cleaning. I did, however, do a load of laundry and have started using my dryer balls. I can't tell if they are softening anything but there's no static so the jury is still out on that one.

Now, those of y'all who really know me can attest to the fact that I just get this urge to move furniture at, say, midnight or thereabouts. Yep, that's the night owl in me. The nocturnal wombat nature just emerges without warning. And, aha! I'm going to attack the kitchen! I'm talking really attacking it this time.

The kitchen now has real honest-to-goodness counter space. Everything is gone on the main countertop that separates the dining room from the actual cooking area. I moved the microwave into the corner, sitting kitty-corner and facing the cooking space and there is a small bowl for the bananas out. That's it. The box of vitamins is neatly in the cabinet under the silverware drawer. The breadmaker is under another cabinet. The two irons and the blender are in another cabinet. Everything is still neat in the cabinets - I didn't overload them - and I can see into the dining room now. Awesome. But, that's not all...(we'll send you a second set of Ginsu knives...no...wait...sorry about that) I also cleared off the other counter because I moved the microwave from that area. Now I only have two ceramic jars which hold tea bags and Sweet & Low, and the electric tea kettle. The pseudo-butcher block countertops are all scrubbed and pretty and the kitchen looks twice as large.


That was a pretty good accomplishment and I decided to let things go at that...for a while. Then, at about 3am, I got another burst of energy. I headed back to the dining room and started rearranging things. I moved two bookcases and the table. Once again, another room that looks so much larger than it did before. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and put them up. There are still a few boxes in the dining room but I will just have to attack them little by little and toss what I can, then probably store stuff over at Dad's if I really need to keep anything.
Well, tomorrow is another day - right, Scarlett? So, tomorrow being today (hope you followed that logic) I wasn't finished with my wacky cleaning extravaganza. I vacuumed the area where Heather's piggers had been living while they visited and moved all the crates with my knitting books back in here. That made me happy for a while and I finished the fingerless gloves I was working on just to accomplish one more thing. But that still wasn't enough for one day.

Aha! Let's check out the dryer. I had a sneaky suspicion that, although I am very good about cleaning out the lint filter, some of the more persistent lint may have fallen down below into no-man's-land. So, I thought I would just get the vacuum and attach the hose thingee (yes, that's the technical term) and have at it. So, yep, there was some lint...and there was some more lint...and then I got the flashlight. Holy crap! There was enough lint down there in the bowels under the dryer to make a small wombat! I plurked to my buddies that, for all I knew, Jimmy Hoffa could have been hiding down there. I must have spent about a half hour wiggling the vacuum hose down there and sucking up gobs of lint. It was disgusting. And I am just appalled that I never even knew that crap accumulated like that.

So, now I want everybody to run (don't walk) to your dryer, remove the lint filter, take a flashlight and check out what's lurking under there. That really has to be a fire hazard so I'm not kidding - please go check it out.

Now, some knitting content. I finished a pair of fingerless gloves that a friend had ordered so I can take them to him tomorrow and happily get paid! These gloves were really taking on an albatross factor in that I had to knit the left one three times. Yes, I had issues with the patterning so I took it apart. Then I was nearly finished and about to bind off the thumb when I discovered I had two right gloves. I had followed my lovely pattern in my steno book and I simply copied what I had done on the first glove - therefore ending up with the thumb in the same place. Duh! So, I took it apart again. Third time's a charm and, yes, I did finish it today after giving it an overnight break. Interestingly, I'll note here that the two photos of the gloves were taken with and without flash just for comparison's sake. The shot taken with natural light coming in from the window is not as true to the colour as the other shot with the flash. Shoots my theory all to hell because I figured I needed to get some nice sunlight to get decent colour. Oh well. I need to just leave the techie photo stuff to Steve.

I still have Heather's blanket in the works and one glove is finished for Michael but I have to head back to Joann's to get another skein of Woolease in order to make the second one. I haven't finished the chemo cap slouch hat I was designing because I needed to let the design sort of ferment whilst I thought about whether I liked it or not. I've decided I'm going to take the last few inches out and rework them because I changed the patterning and, although the pattern is very pretty and all cable-y, it doesn't really go with the first part of the hat so I'm probably going to make an entire hat with that pattern next. It just isn't making me happy for this one. Frankly, it looks like I took two different patterns and put them together. Which is what I did. Bad knitter - no cookie.

However, I really couldn't resist the idea of actually casting on something for me. I mean, I've knitted slouch hats for Caitlin, Mary, and Giuli this winter and I wanted one, too. I bought some lovely wool on sale a couple of weeks ago in a deep purple and a dark medium blue but I've been putting off starting a new project until I finished my orders for those fingerless gloves. So, after determining that Jimmy Hoffa was not hiding in my dryer, I wound the purple yarn, decided it was too dark to really show off the patterning in the hat, then wound the blue yarn, and just finished casting on for this project. Which brings me to something else I want to share my my knitting buds...

I have previously said how much I really love the Gretel pattern by Ysolda but I just have to rave about the fact that she has tutorials on her site, too. The cast-on for her hat is a tubular cast-on and, if you're like me and a visual learner, reading somebody's directions is not always enough to understand what's the what. However, the video on Ysolda's site is superb. And I noticed this evening that she has a tutorial on jogless stripes which looks pretty easy to follow. I didn't realize that these are also described as helix stripes. I've made a hat with several different colours using the helix stripe method and it's very cool. I'm thinking about just following Ysolda's tutorial and making the little bear hat that she has pictured so Mr. Teddy Bear can trade out his Jayne hat that's way too big for him.

OMG, that reminds me of something I saw late last night on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum. It's a Cylon Centurian hat! I am pretty sure I'm going to have to make several of these for Dragon*Con. Or, perhaps a Star Wars Stormtrooper knit hat by the same designer.

For those of y'all who are just geeking out over the knitted sci-fi stuff, check out this site - Geek Crafts. I leave you with that. Go - embrace the geekiness!

And, just so you can see the "library" area in the studio, here's another photo. Note that the two blue crates are schoolbooks but the rest is all knitting related. The fat notebooks are, of course, full of knitting and crocheting patterns. And the fishing tackle box - knitting supplies.