off to :)
Need some ideas for fun knits for gifts? Well, whether you're knitting for a kid or a teddy bear afficionado, this book may be right up your alley. is a great book for making a variety of softies and includes patterns for six styles of bear (small, medium and large of varying complexity) along with outfits and accessories for each (a total of 18 different costumes). The bears' costumes/themes include the hula bear cover model, a bear ready for a safari adventure, a princess, a ballerina, a wizard, a dashing pirate, a cowboy and more. While the outfits in the book are designed to fit the knitted bears, there's no reason you couldn't knit these costumes up for a like-sized doll.
I'm doing the more girly thing of late (if only on my hands) - the most recent manicure was chipped to heck so I decided I'd try my hand at free-hand application of french tips - the white polish I had isn't terribly opaque, so I dug up some polish I use for marking gear and used that for the tips over the white base...a little bold, but not bad :)
Gmail has been crashing my Chrome of late...apparently it's a new bug. I've since upgraded to the Beta version (Chrome 2.0) and it's been much happier ever since. It just kinda cracked me up since both of them are Google products. Happy monday ;)
Ever wonder how folks perceive colors in different ways? Perhaps its simply because they have difficulty discriminating between certain colors - this online hue test was quick and easy to take - and it showed me where I have some difficulty telling the difference between certain colors - I forgot to grab a screenshot of my finished "test" and test results, but I think I was probably about average with a score of 11. Different monitors may make it more challenging since the test is web based.
We've finally upgraded one of the computers in the house - it's been a minorly traumatic event, what with getting accustomed to Vista (we couldn't wait for Windows 7) and reinstalling all our apps (not to mention the appearance of the infamous BSOD (blue screen of death) within 24 hours of play). Now that it's all configured and happy, the new machine is much faster than the old P4 that it replaced - no surprise considering it's got a Quad Core Extreme processor inside, more RAM and a significantly better graphics card too.
This was our first foray into a non-branded OEM build - and I'm pretty happy with the results - we ordered the system fully customized - we weren't anticipating the see-through window case but apparently the graphics card is a bit of a monster, forcing us into a wider case to accomodate it. 
I'm not sure where the time has gone - one moment it was May and the next thing I know it, 100 degree temps are here and June is upon me. Blogging last month was a bit of a disaster, due primarily due to lack of things to discuss - the day to day goings on have been a bit crazy, and the daily grind has well...been grinding on. The good news is I'm engaged and submerged in work, but it's generally left me a bit wrung out. So. Thanks to those of you who pop by :) I appreciate your looking in on my small corner of the internet. While I haven't been doing much in the way of dye-work I have brought in a new designer's portfolio over in the shop. I've also got some pending orders, hoping to beat the TNNA rush in June...stay tuned. 
