I woke up yesterday morning and found a simple brown paper bag on my desk with a simple note*.  Inside was a single skein of Colinette Jitterbug in Whirley, a soft tonal pink.  How sweet!  He did that all on his own.  Plus?  When he got home, he had flowers for me.  All this sweetness even though I gave him, in writing no less, an out of "Valentines is just another day this year.  I don't feel like doing anything, and I don't want anything,"  Still, how could I say no to yarn?  That he picked out all by himself!  So, I made him donuts.  Poor man's donuts**, but nevertheless. 

Mmmm....I glazed them with a powdered sugar/milk/maple flavoring mix, too.  They were good.

So, since I'm on about MathMan, and I don't think I've blogged this before, let me tell you about the Christmas present he made for me.  Yes, made.  Ever heard of detonography???  No?  Click the link, I'll wait. 

Ok, learned all about it?  There's really only one person that makes detonographs, and that was her site.  Aren't they pretty? However, when you work with things that go boom, like MathMan does, you get to play with lots of fun things like this.  MathMan even went to the school where Evelyn Rosenberg pioneered and practices the techniques.  Well, long story short, MathMan was running tests at work one day, and figured that since he was already detonating, why not make something pretty for me.  He put down a piece of copper, a few leaves, and the explosive.  He carved them up, mounted and framed them, too.  Isn't it pretty??

  I've been knitting, though not much.  Every few years, I decide I want to play a computer game, and I spend some time obsessing about character development and the best key controls, and I'm in that phase right now.  I tried to design a "Jaywalker-esque" chevron pattern for some self striping sock yarn, with the resulting sock to be gifted to my grandmother.  However, once I had the toe knit enough to check gauge (I was working with 0s instead of my usual 1.5s) I consulted a chart as to how many stitches I would need.  Luckily I only got about 2 inches done on the foot before I realized it would fit bigfoot, while my grandmother has dainty (for our family) size 7s.  So I ripped out, recalculated the number of stitches I need, and redesigned the chevron pattern.  I have yet to cast on, though, as most of my knitting is currently during "Loading" screens!

I took all these pictures last night after it was dark, so horrid lighting, but amazingly enough the colors on the sock came out fairly true to life, if only slightly washed out. 

I almost said sorry for all the pictures, but then I remembered my "BWO" promise to myself, and have now decided to simply say I was attempting to break a few dial-ups, if there are any anymore.  Off to see if I can finally sneak into that bandit camp!!  :)

* Yes, I see it too.  Hey, he's the math one, I'm the English one.  I let it slide!!!

** Poor man's donuts - open a can of exploding biscuit dough and fry it up.  If you want to get really fancy, you can poke a hole in the center, too!

I was winding a ball of Seasilk for the Clementine Shawlette (seems like good plane knitting) when something happened. I kept repeating something in my head, and realized it sounded very much like haiku. So, I give you - my first haiku:
my precious SeaSilk
why oh why did you tangle
in the gears like that
No, there are no pictures of that debacle. The skein survived, but it wasn't a pretty sight to behold.
I'm going to Phoenix tomorrow. Was going to go to the Renaissance Faire, but life and poor scheduling got in the way. So Ikea, yummy LYSs, and a trip to the zoo will have to suffice.
I finished Marvelous Mitt #1 - blocked and everything. It's so pretty! Also? The Log Cabin is growing. Slowly, though, as a certain little girl has hijacked it. I have to wait until she's asleep to work on it, otherwise she grabs it and starts saying "Mine. Soft. Have it." Several of the blocks had their sizes determined by that phrase. I just get a kick outta the fact that she likes it!
I've also finished one of the two Chevron Scarves I started so long ago - the purple-y one out of CTH. It's not my colors, so I don't know what I'll do with it, but someone will likely get it. Since the needles are now freed up, the happy colorful Koigu one is now on them. I also whipped up a quick pair of fingerless mitts for MathMan's co-worker. She gave us a computer (a nice one!) that only needed a hard drive (of which we had two we installed) just for MissV. Well, she's also a knitter, she works at a computer most of the day, and she's always complaining that she's cold, so fingerless mitts seemed the obvious choice. I used a little less than half the ball of Trekking XXL I've had around for over a year now. It's so nice to stash dive and finally find the perfect application for yarn that had been frogged one too many times to like anymore.