Scissorina: January 2007 Archives

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January 25, 2007

Wii Are in Love

His name is Zazz and he completes me. *sigh*

More intelligent and entertaining than any man could ever be, I'd like to publicly declare my love for Zazz. Never has there been a game system which stole my heart the way that you have, baby. You rock my world.

And with Mary & Scott bringing one home... as well as Todd & Michelle, and Carl (and more on the way! Heather's on the waiting list...) all getting Wii's, the fun is truly endless. Now when I work at home, this is how I spend my lunch break.

I highly recommend saving your pennies for one, fair readers! I have never ever ever had this much fun with video games. The way the controls work blow my mind daily. This is the way I wanted video games to be like since I was a kid. It's like I am living in the future. THE FUTURE.

Not to mention now I get to say things like "I'm going home to play with my Wii." or "My wrists are tired from playing with my Wii all day". Let's be real - that will never get old.

If any of you out there are rockin a Wii, do let me know! I'll add you to my Wii addy book. (I mean, this thing is making me go nuts. Like, the fact that I can send messages to my sister down the street is blowing my mind. Umm, it's basically just email. Somehow it is waaaay more fun!)

One of my favorite pastimes now is to sit around designing Mii's and sending them to everyone I know. We have an unspoken competition going on to see who can come up with the best ones. Of those I've made, my favorites so far would have to be Jacko, Shaft and my little sister Caitlin. Of my competitors? Michelle's Paris Hilton is pretty funny and nothing beats Carl's Dr. Puny.

I love to play with my Wii.

Posted by Sarah at 3:33 PM | Comments (6)

January 22, 2007

Irish Hiking Scarf

Remember that scarf I finished for the Squad's favorite barkeep?

Well, here it is.

Ah. My mis-adventures in self portraitography continue....

And a close up peek.

Irish Hiking Scarf
Pattern: Of Hello Yarn fame. It can be found here.
Yarn: Berrocco Ulta Alpaca in Heathered Green, about 1 and a half skeins.
Needles: US8 metal circulars
Recipient: Alan, the kind gent who slings the booze we heart so dear.

Of course, I failed to get a pic of Alan wearing it. He was swamped at the bar, so I didn't want to burden him. 'Tis a shame, really - for he's a dashing silver haired fellow whom we all adore. I'm glad to say the gift went over well! We've been promising that guy a scarf for months. It was about time we delivered. :)

In other news, the Squad has new online digs! I'm still working on setting up a gallery and the bio page, but feel free to take a peek! We can now be found at www.scissorsquad.com. How hot is that? Very.

Oh! And I updated zee shop with some new rovings. The silk is almost gone (oh, how I wanted to keep it all to myself. drool.....) but there are some other lovelies still available. I love it when stuff sells right away! I needed the encouragement after being so laaaaaaazy about poor Fiberfly the last two months!

Posted by Sarah at 8:59 PM | Comments (4)

January 16, 2007

Tax Time - A Plea for Help

I thought I'd throw out a little question your way, you fabulously talented and knowledgeable readers, you!

It's coming up on tax time and while my Etsy endeavor hasn't rocketed me into the ranks of the self employed (yet), I did make a tiny bit o' cash and I want to make sure all my i's are dotted, t's crossed and the like so that Uncle Sam doesn't march up to my door, slam a pair of cuffs on top of my handknit wristlets and put me away.

I looked into getting my taxes done professionally and they want like 200 bucks! Um, I'm poor. That is mucho dinero for this little gringa!

Any of you entrepreneurs out there know if this should be a fairly simple process? I usually handle my own taxes, but I do NOT want to screw up! Just wondering if anyone's been through this already and might have some advice to lend and/or some resources they could recommend.

PS - I finished up a gift for my favorite barkeep! The Irish Hiking Scarf is finit - I'll try to convince him to let me click his pic when I present him with it. :) (MH is in charge of the scarf for the other bartender - if all goes well, maybe we can give them both tonight - yippee!)

Posted by Sarah at 2:24 PM | Comments (5)

January 10, 2007

FINALLY....

I interrupt this postless blog to bring you this breaking story...

IT'S SNOWING.

Halle-frackin-lujah! Take that Global Warming! (Sarah quietly sobs to herself as her joke makes her so, so sad inside)

Speaking of global warming... (how's that for a segway?) my friend Amy the Environmental Scientist was in town last week and came to hang out with the Squad for knitting and beer. She lives in Cali, so I never get to see this girl. It was awesome to see her and she is fantastic as ever.

Here we are being awesome and fantastic.

Now, bring on that snow, Mama Nature! It's high time for some skiing!

Posted by Sarah at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

January 7, 2007

Michelle's Macaw

I <3 navajo plying.

I recently gave this technique a whirl for the first time and I am HOOKED, folks! Below you'll see some New Zealand wool that I gifted Michelle for her birthday last year. She came over this summer and dyed the fluff herself and then I finally got the stuff spun in time for Ecksmas! (Two gifts in one!)

3 hunky skeins for my lady, Michelle

a snippy little close up

Michelle's Macaw (on accounta how much it looks like one of those purty parrots!)
Fiber: 8 oz, New Zealand wool
Technique: Navajo Ply
Weight: Worsted

I was a little intimidated at first - even after watching this fantastic instructional video. Three singles are plied in the same direction, by making a chain - very similar to crochet, in fact. At first, my brain could just not compute this idea - it turned out it was something that I had to learn by doing.

Now I am a convert and want to navajo ply the shiznit out of all the fiber in casa de Scissorina.

More Eckmas gifts to be shared as the pics come in! (you wouldn't have thought I actually remembered to take photos of all my hard work before passing it along to my loved ones, now would you?)

Posted by Sarah at 6:32 PM | Comments (0)

January 1, 2007

Umm... Hi!

SO... I've been MIA and I apologize. Since Thanksgiving, things got really out of control at work. Combine that with Eckmas madness? You get zero blog time.

Now, I have been on vacation since December 20th... but I abstained from computer use until today. I decided to take my vacation as an opportunity to reeeeeally relax. Not just pretend to relax like I normally do. :) Guess what? IT WAS AWESOME.

I spent a week in Florida with my family, slept in, ate well, made stuff (but held off on making stuff for Fiberfly - that's next weekend's project!), started a new knitting project (an Irish Hiking Scarf for the bartender at the pub where the Squad meets! He is awful nice to us after all.), and played with my Ecksmas prezzies.

I headed into the City this past Friday to meet up with the Spiders! I got there early so I could catch up with Kaitlyn and her little lady, Maia. (umm, I'm stating the obvious here, but that kid is C-U-T-E.)

I also got to see Sandra , about whom I'd like to make the following points:

1. Sandra always looks fabulous when I see her. I strongly suspect she has the most kickass wardrobe of anyone I know.
2. Sandra has knit more socks than anyone on this planet.

Steph was all aglow as one would expect of a soon to be mama! I also got to hang with Veronique, Virginia, Marie, and Carrie - what a fun gang to knit with! Thank Jeebus for the internets. Hee.

It was a great time and it was so easy getting in and out of NYC, that it made me realize that this was something I could and should do more often!

And NO I am not calling that a New Year's resolution nor will I subject you all to yet another Snippy list! Instead, I'm trying to juggle my little budget to afford myself a few new luxuries that will allow me to relax and feel good on a more regular basis. I'd like to be able to go shopping every now and then... I'd like to get a pedicure more than once a year. And my Mom introduced me to something called a MASSAGE (ok, by far one of the best Ecksmas gifts ever) and it turns out that it agreed with me. I just made my last car payment (yeeeeee haw!) so I am thinking that it might be nice to use a little of that money on some me-centric things. Like a Nintendo Wii for starters. Haha.

I have a ton of gifts I made that I need to share with my readership, but it will take me a little time to pull them all together. In the meantime, continue reading for some photographic highlights of my blog-less month... I'll be back soon.

Pinky swear.

Firstly, I had a biz-ness trip down in Orlando and stayed in a ritzy pad! (Yes, I am so new to this that I would take pictures of my room. Hee.)

I swung down to Melbourne Beach to see the fam for a few days since I was in the area... I even took the littlest McNally to DISNEY WORLD! Just her and me. It was super sweet, fer sure.

I even convinced her to go on her first pseudo-roller coaster! She rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and we rocked that shit. Woo! Now, let's see if we can go on something a little bigger next time. We both need to work up to that...

We rode the teacups...

wOOoooWooOOOOwoooooOooO!

We went to the beach and it was OK!

On to the latest trip to Florida... All the girls were together! Here you see us in the bathroom for beauty night. Mary made up an exfoliating fruit scrub and we used some yummy hair and face masks from Lush. Soooo nice.