I’ve changed the theme on the blog so that more than one blog post shows up at a time. For right now, the last years worth of blog posts are formatted for the last theme so all the pictures are wonky. That last theme was pretty in theory but a horrible pain in the butt to get to work with pattern pages, the shop or even just simply writing a blog post with pictures in it. I will go back and reformat the old posts later, and there will be a new theme coming soon once tech support (read: Mike) is finished creating it. But for now we’re reverting to old school Danido.com because I at least know how to work this theme format.

Also, in fiber related news: be sure to check out the details for my upcoming sock yarn club “Rock Your Socks Off” that link will take you to the information I have for it so far, and there is a form in the left hand sidebar that will let you sign up for the newsletter so that when I have pricing and exact date information I will send out an email to everyone interested. It’s going to be fun. Also, there’s a poll on that page about which sub-theme you’d like to see featured first. Be sure to take the poll.

As for my recent musings on where to brain dump; the answer was staring me in the face the whole time. That right there is exactly why we created Loud and Mouthy , so look for rants about politics, music, movies and my girl crush on Rachel Maddow coming soon there. Right now there is a brilliant ode to the Back Street Boys written by dear friend Laura Marie.

So, this is danido.com. It’s mostly a knitting blog, as we can probably all tell. But it started as simply a Dani blog.

First let me explain the name itself; for a long time my mother has referred to me as Dani Do. (as in Dani do the dishes, Dani do the laundry…) so naturally when I was looking for a blog name at 2 a.m. after not sleeping and simply needing a place to brain dump “Dani do” just jumped to mind.

Initially I had grand plans for this blog. This was when I was just crocheting a little bit every once in awhile. So I thought I’d put the occasional crochet project up, I thought I’d review concerts I went to and books I read. (Which I did do at one point.)

Then I fell in love with knitting. I fell hard. It took over my entire life. I quit my ‘real’ job to knit full time. I worked for a designer, and I wrote patterns, and then I started teaching knitting at a yarn shop, and then I started just working at the yarn shop. Then there was the selling stuff in an online shop, and then naturally I came to dying and stitch marker crafting. This all happened over the last 2 years.

Grand plans aside, this became a knitting blog.

The problem is this; because this has become a knitting blog and not anything else, I have no place else to talk about all the other stuff that happens that moves me, or makes me angry, or makes me sad, or happy or just sort of tilt my head and look puzzled.

There are a lot of other things that make my world spin. Gay rights, music, penguins, animals in general, my boyfriend who is a wonderful human being, my family, feminism, politics, Subarus, being anti-corporation (ask me how I feel about Starbucks or Wal-Mart sometime. Make sure you have a few hours.)

I have nowhere to talk about those things because I feel that it’d be weird to talk about how frustrating it is that Prop 8 passed in California last month, or how I’m worried about the polar bears running out of food in the Arctic, when I know you came here to read about yarn/yarn related things.

So what to do? Do I create a category on this blog? Or do I just create a whole new blog? I have some intense shit to talk about, but where do I put it?

Knit bloggers of the world: do you have more than one blog? Or do you  only blog about knitting and call it good? Do you just throw it all in the same pot and hope you don’t alienate people from wanting to knit your pattens simply because you’re a bleeding heart liberal who has a big straight girl crush on Rachel Maddow and wants Keith Oberman to officiate their wedding?  I want to talk about how much I love the new Jenny Lewis album, but how it took me almost two weeks of solid listening to get into it. I want to talk about having to break up with Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins after their lackluster performance at the Pearl last year. WHERE DO I PUT THAT STUFF! My brain is full, and twitter only gives me 140 characters to work with.

What do I do?

All four of these yarns are for sale in my Etsy Shop. They’re meant to be used together because the variegated and the solid come from the same dye bath. However, taking the advice of one of the commenters  I decided to break up the sets for individual sale. That way if you only want one you can just get the one. They’re a really nice merino base, not superwash but very soft. The yarn has a real nice sheen to it too.

Also, I’ve got some ads running on Ravelry right now. If you dig my stuff and wanted to add a link to my shop on  your blog or page feel free to grab one of these.

Among the knitted items I’ve managed to accomplish lately are these tiny finished objects. Since it’s finals week and I’ve had a few knit for hire projects on the needles I haven’t got a whole lot of ‘fun’ knitting done. But this is what I have.

I’m sending these to my new friend at Osayin Holistics for her to try out and see if she likes how they work with her fabulous bath and body products. (I recommend the lip balm, if she doesn’t have it listed convo her, she has it. It’s fantastic.)

Also, we appear to be having some issues with some of the pattern pages. I’m getting mixed reviews from people: some say they’re getting errors when they go to the pattern pages and other say it’s fine. It’s fine on my end, so if you can’t get a pattern to load for you please email me at daniella@danido.com and let me know so I can try to fix it or at the very least send you the pattern in the meantime.

I just did forty five minute of yoga. While I watched the Americas Next Top Model on VH1. It was pretty awesome.

And now I’m about to have a steak for dinner…which I’m pretty sure completely negates the forty five minutes of yoga.

Other things I did today:

• Knitted on my sweater. It’s taking forever. I kind of hate it.
• Followed my dog around because something is wrong with her ear and I feel the need to check on her every five minutes.
• Pushed on her ear until she squeaked to find out where the hurt was
• Felt intensely guilty and then fed her half a bag of treats
• Painted my fingernails a deep purple
• Talked to Kaitlen for a little bit, wandered off, forgot I was talking to Kaitlen, then remembered and started talking to Kaitlen again.
• Needle felted the face onto the crocheted version of the My Ex bag. Which I will post a picture of after the bullet points end.
• Listened to my “You Can Never Go Home Again” mix on my iPod, which is a mix I made for myself last year when I had my little emotional break down and flew home for a week last July.
• Got incredibly home sick and then promptly turned off my iPod and started watching ANTM.

A picture of the Ex head I did:

Which because I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to model it after one of my own Ex’s I decided to make it look like myself. Only instead it kind of looks like more like…oh, I don’t know, the Wicked Witch of the West.  I even tried to make it look more like me by posing it with needles and yarn…no dice. Still looks creepy.

Now I need to go take a shower because I’m a bit smelly after the yoga and get ready to eat dinner (my yoga negating steak.) and watch some more reruns of CSI or Law and Order until it’s time to go to bed.

Tomorrow includes:

• Taking the dog to the vet and finding out what is wrong with her ear.
• Continuing work on converting some of the knit ADHD patterns to crochet, which I’m stoked about.
• New Knitter Night at Knit Las Vegas from 6-8 p.m.

My life looks so much less boring with bullet points.

Leg warmers. ARE. NOT. OKAY. They weren’t okay the first time, they are not okay now. It is 2008, we left leg warmers behind somewhere around 1988. It’s been 20 years, the scars still have not healed. Let it go.

I implore you, dear knitters, to stop this madness. Quit designing them, quit wearing them, quit knitting them. Do not give your children leg warmers, do not buy patterns for leg warmers. Just say no to leg warmers.

I bring this up because the spring issue of Knitty.com is up. Featured there among beautiful socks, lace and sweater patterns is this one glaring misstep in fashion judgement.

The pattern is called Mosey and friends, they need to mosey on outta here.

These would be completely awesome if they had feet and we could market them as slippers, or mukluks or something. They’re cute, I like the cable pattern, I even like the little swingy pom-poms hanging off the side. I fully appreciate the wonderful job the designer did in putting together excellent and interesting elements, I love the yarn choice, it looks lovely and soft and comfortable.

What I don’t like is the Flash Dance flashbacks I keep having, or the fact that these are being ‘rocked’ with a denim mini skirt.

Oh and we need to address this:

This was fun to knit and more fun to wear.  It’s great to pair these up with a skirt or shorts for the cooler days in spring.

Yeah, if it cold enough to require that you wear wool up to your knees, chances are you should have pants on. Not a skirt or shorts. If it’s warm enough for skirts and shorts, you don’t need a foot of wool insulation from your ankles to your knee caps.

I am by no means the most fashionable girl on the block. I have what I like to refer to as (however delusional it may be) ‘classic style’ working for me. By ‘classic’ I mean, I’ve worn the same thing since I was 16 and by ’style’ I mean anything I can find for less than $20 on the sale rack. Mostly this consists of black shirts and dark denim.

Regardless of my lack of fashion sense, I can at least say that leg warmers are persona non grata in my wardrobe.

Okay, enough poking fun at other people. I have work to do. If you haven’t yet, be sure ya’ll check out the ‘My Ex is Full of Knit’ contest over at the ADHD Knitting blog.

So, I finally carved out a bit of space to work. I cleared all the yarn and pattern books off of my drafting table from art school and viola! I have a desk! We added a little metal cubby thingy to hold all the yarn and to create a little bit of wall so there is separation between my work space and the sewing area that Carolyn occupies. I also went through all of my yarn. All of it. I have owned up to my own stash. I dug out all the random balls that were stuffed in baskets, I fished the hanks out from under the bed and behind the book case. I unloaded the various buckets and containers that I’ve been hiding stash in for the last year and I put it all in the cubby thingy next to my desk. Well, almost all of it, there is one other small cupboard on the other side of my desk that is holding sock yarn, and a basket under the desk that is holding odd balls. Mainly because not everything would fit in the cubby thing. I have discovered a few things:

• I have a lot of yarn
• I have a lot of cotton yarn
• I have a lot of yarn that is an ugly color
• I have a lot of yarn I don’t remember buying
• I have a lot of yarn that I shouldn’t have bought
• I will probably still buy more ugly, inappropriate yarn that I won’t ever knit.

So here’s my little work space.

You can see my little sock yarn book case to the left there. The official Protector Cat of the Stash is perched in her place on top of the shelving unit, just as she has been pretty much since we set up the shelving unit.

And there is my stash. Or most of my stash. I love it. The upper left corner is all cotton. The next three cubbies are other various natural fibers. Then I have one of acrylic (but decent acrylic.) and one of random other synthetic fibers like nylon and such. The bottom left is half finished projects that probably need to be frogged to salvage the yarn and the bottom right is the basket I keep my craft receipts in so I can claim them on next years taxes. It’s already pretty full and it’s only February.

Now, I have also finished knitting things in the last few weeks. I know it’s hard to believe I find time to knit in between all my bashing of poor defenseless punk rock writers from Philadelphia, but I do make the time for a few things.

I finished up this hat:

Which is the Pithy Hat pattern. It’s knit in Artyarns Super Merino in a color way that’s name is forever lost to me because I ripped the tag off immediately after it came in the mail. I ordered the yarn from Eat.Sleep.Knit which is an awesome little shop on the web that has great sales every once in awhile.

However, I found out today that Knit Las Vegas is now carrying Artyarns, so I have a local spot for that awesome yarn now!

I also knit these little cuties for baby Madison who is due in April. 

These were a test knit for the Oh My Baby! Booties which is a free pattern for, you guessed it, ADHD Knitting. These will be shipping out to Mom-to-Be, my good friend Alyssa here shortly as soon as I finish the other little things I’ve been knitting for baby Maddie. I’m also knitting the Eskimo Pie Hoodie (also an ADHD pattern) in some really pretty Rowan Romance yarn. I just need to finish the button band and the i-cord draw string and that one is ready to go.

I finished up the mitts I was knitting in the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino that I got the last time I visited Knit Las Vegas, and I even got to wear them once before I ended up giving them away. Christa was complaining of having a cold office, so I gave her the gloves off my  hands in order to show how much I love her.

There she is, enjoying her mittens and a cup of chai last Friday night at reJAVAnate, the new coffee house that Sin City Knits is meeting at on Wednesday nights. (And sometimes Fridays and occasionally Mondays….) For those of you who don’t know Christa, yes, I know she looks like she could be my sister. We were secretly separated at birth.

I made yet another tea cup wrap. This one in some green variegated wool and using a sort of textured pattern. It’s not adjustable, it just fits around most of my mugs and it’s way cooler than the first one. I love this one way more.

Also, some fun little things:

Dixie and I are hamming it up with my camera phone. (Because the camera in the new Blackberry Curve is AWESOME.) I  love how irritated she looks with me in this picture. It’s adorable.

And I FINALLY got a picture of the ‘Cortez’ in the El Cortez Hotel sign downtown. I’ve only lived in Vegas for four and a half years, but I finally went to the hotel AND took a picture. I tried to get a picture of me standing under it but it kind of sucked and you couldn’t see me at all. We’ll try again later. I’d really like to get a good one of me standing under it to send to my Dad, who is very proud of our Cortez name and sometimes even wears a hat with ‘Cortez’ on it just to show how Cortez-y he is. It’s even spelled right! No weird ’s’ version here!

Okay, it’s late and I should be getting rest so I can get up early tomorrow and continue expanding the ADHD Knitting Empire.