Stephieface

Last night, I went late night shopping at Walmart. I own one bra that isn’t a maternity/breastfeeding bra so I thought it was about time to get another. Shopping for said bra was when I discovered the conspiracy by the IBTC….. The Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Now here I have included a schematic of the bra section and my path through it….

Now I will include the places where they had bras in my size. The X’s that are red are ones that are my size and not a Cross My Heart or Just my Size bra… the CMH and the JMS bras will be marked in purple……

Now to understand just what exactly the issue is……How many x’s do you see in the ENTIRE bra section? Last night I discovered that Walmart’s bra section is 90% IBTC friendly and 10% Big Busty Gals friendly…. surely there is a conspiracy underfoot. Don’t believe me? The proof! (by the way the Genetically Altered Persons Store [GAP] is the very same way except their sizes do not go above 38C).

1. If there was a cute print, lacey, inexpensive bra (inexpensive here meaning under $10) the biggest size available was a 34C….. UNLESS it was an ugly grandma bra then I could find like 10 or so naturally if I wanted to wear a bra with a billion hooks in back and 17 in wide shoulder straps.

2. All BBG bras were hidden in the backs of rows like braligical pariahs in tiny numbers of 1-3. If the style of bra had 2-5 colors available (for example white, black, tan, pink, and blue)only one color would have one sad BBG bra… the rest were devoted to perky and small 36Bs and 32AAs.

3. If you wear a BBG sized bra (38D-40C and above) you will pay on average 3 dollars more than the IBTC bras because the cheap cute bras are not in your size and not available to you.

4. Just My Size, Cross My Heart, and Queen Latifah’s Curvations have BBG sizes….BUT the JMS/CMH bras can cost about $20+… and as someone who think that Vicky Secrets prices are insane for just thongs…. this is still too much. QLC were not as expensive, but were more than I was willing to spend last night and was only half a teensy weensy end cap (end of aisle display) which is like 8 or so hooks. Good luck finding your size if there are other women who wear it.

5. Now… the weather right now is… as we say…. getting warm so pretty soon people will be blasting their ACs. I don’t know why people insist on setting their ACs on artic frost… but when they do there is nothing finer than the classic “Hot Outside, Cold AC Inside” high beam. High beam is defined as sticky outty nips…. nubs…. buttons…. and of course “hey, I’m pointing North”. So to avoid this I like to buy the… for lack of a better term… push up bras since they have padding that will quash and hide the above phenomenon. Good Luck finding one…. apparently women who must eternally defy Mean Mr Gravity have no need for bras that push up. We apparently only require bras that allow you to hang low.
Do your boobs hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you throw them over your shoulder
And can they touch your toes?
Do your boobs… hang… low?
Apparently BBGs like high beaming…. because the answer “No its just cold in here” will totally be believed by guys.

6. If hanging low isn’t torture enough… 90% of the BBG bras have underwire. I hate underwire… I think it is the devil. I think its secretly doing this to me:1A: its seperating parts of my boob down into my ribcage so I have rib rolls…. which is dead sexy if you ask me
1B: it has razor blades at the top of the curve located in my arm pit so it can slash me and poke me constantly when I least expect it. That’s when its not making ominous creaking noises as I move.

I did finally find a bra I could wear after 45 minutes of searching the backwoods of the bra section… I think I left there with a machete and unknown yet to be discovered bug bites.

God Damn you IBTC…. I WILL get my revenge.

While I anxiously wait for Millik to receive her Swap package for the Terry Pratchett Discworld Swap II, I decided I would post what else I have made.

So after reading this post on Craftster I totally coveted some peasant tops for myself. So I started looking around for the pattern that Shakespear lists in her post, Simplicity 8741. Know now that I checked 3 JoAnn’s and 4 Walmarts and not one had it. So I checked the Simplicity website and the pattern is no longer listed as a current pattern, nor is it in the discontinued patterns section.

EEK

So being stubbourn as hell, I took a look around and was able to find it on Ebay in my size and uncut (which is a good thing btw) for a whopping 99centolas. Nice.

So, I got a sewing and voila`:



Totally dig on that gratuitous shot of peasant topped boobage…. Nice.

I really needed summery female shirts that weren’t t-shirts. For the love of all that is holy I own more t-shirts than any woman I know and most of them are men’s shirts- they aren’t very flattering or pretty, I’ll totally admit that. So I have these new additions to my wardrobe that are summery and pretty. I may make more as I totally love peasant tops, most likely a fetish garnered from too many years LARPing.

There is another pattern in the envelope for a sleeveless like peasant top that I may try today.

So if you can find the pattern, its an easy sew and it churns out a really pretty addition to your wardrobe.

Oh yeah, I forgot…. Arrrrrrrrr

Today is my younger sister’s birthday. It pains me that she is younger than me, or most like it pains me that I am 30 and she is not. She has reached that year. The year at which she will never age anything older than 29. Enjoy your endless 29, sis…. sadly I admitted to being older than that and now its too late to go back. Don’t make the same mistake!

Now I did buy a card, I signed it, I enclosed that sucker in an envelope and added a stamp…. hell I even put your address on it and stuck it in my mailbox. I put it down there Friday. Here is my mailbox as of five minutes ago:

See that splendiforous neon green envelope? That is your card, still in my mailbox. I think my postperson is appalled by its color and refuses to take it. Seriously. I even called Mom yesterday to check that I got your address right (though I already had by the time she returned it). So there is a card that should be on its way, or there is a postperson who shall feel the wrath of the monkeys tomorrow should it not be. (don’t you love the ghetto mailbox with dirty Pittsburgh siding picture? Nice)

So, dear sister, Happy Birthday……
Try to forget that you ever wore a “C is for Cookie” dress

Try to forgive our mom that she dressed us like so and cut our hair like this….

Or like this….

(God what was she thinking?! PINK and FRILLY [insert gagging here])

And totally remember that regardless of how many times I may make fun of you (like older sisters are supposed to) there is only one person in the world that I would wear a polyester maternity bridesmaid gown for in August while 9 months pregnant for….

And that chicky, my dear sister, is you.

Happy Birthday Sweetie! Loves You!

I swear I do, and when I’m not watching a L&O varient I’m watching a CSI:Somewhere episode….AND if its Friday I’m watching Numb3rs (though I’m totally watching numb3rs for the ever adorable David Krumholtz). In any case, aside from marking me as a possible couch potato… I mention this because I think it has effected the way I think. It may be in a good way, maybe bad- I shall explain and let you decide (possibly).

See, I love the stories they tell on these shows, and the crimes… I like watching how they figure it all out (I forgot to mention I watch Crossing Jordan too) to ultimately catch the bad guy. But this is why I think I watch them way too much………

This morning I was awakened by the phone ringing… well not so much as the phone ringing but the phone ringing followed by someone leaving a message. So, I lay there groggily hearing the phone ring in the tune of ‘Love Me Tender’ (it says its a differently named song, but it lies), and I waited until it cycled through the rings to the machine (hey it was warm and comfy in my bed). I heard the machine turn on and start recording. After a brief pause of silence, a man said “Help” and it was immediately hung up.

Now this phone call of course awakened the monkeys so I trudged downstairs with the monkeys in tow, still thinking about the message. So I decided to listen to it again to see if it was someone I know, like possibly Ben calling to awaken one of us to play a computer game with him wether it be WoW with Chris or Puzzle Pirates with me. But, there is no message on my machine. Thinking I may have dreamed it all I *69 to get the last number since I know the last person to call last night was Ben…….. *69 and it tells me the number is unavailable (when Ben’s has always registered before). Immediately I begin thinking about the episodes of these shows where the victim is trapped in a car trunk or in a closet or someplace else small and cramped, and try to use their cell phones to call for help…. only to get some stranger on the phone and suddenly the stranger knows this is a for real call and gets the cops then cue the show intro.

Though I seriously have no proof that anyone actually called…. I wonder if I should tell somebody? Like Vincent D’Onofrio perhaps?

On the yarn and sticks front…… After finally drying out the yarn from the stripey Goodwill sweater… this is what I got (shown here with a can of veggies for scale)

Actually, I was missing a bunch of the navy/black as a few of the mini skeins fell behind the desk… otherwise though not a bad haul. Now on to the cotton sweater:

I know the pic is dark, but its a very stripey yarn or its a black yarn and grey/brown yarn spun together making it stripey. I like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I do love wool…

Just sometimes it can be a little masochistic and submissive, it wants me to do things to it and take pictures… my yarn can be a floozy like that. So as mentioned I think yesterday or so, I came home with some sweatery goodness. I attacked the stripey sweater first because I wanted to get it out of the way… it was a 100% Lambswool GAP sweater in Blue/Navy/Tan. Here is the the sweater before

You see here a nice GAP sweater. I would have spared it had it not had those tan stripes. So with some patience I ended up with this later:

Missing from the second shot is the two skeins of blue I did first and were pretty much dry. Such a pretty way to hang up your shoes, right? What actually bothers me is the amount of shoes we own and never wear, as evidenced in the photo.

Once again its an operation that my children try to entangle themselves in constantly. It might be better had I a swift or something. Right now when I pull apart a sweater , the yarn gets wrapped around two nails hammered into a piece of wood, that was for whatever reason just sitting around my house, into skeins and tied off. Then this next part is when I yearn for a ball winder as I wind the yarn around my impromptu nostepinne made from a piece of PVC. Classy.

More sweater torture to follow.

Curse you Stephanie! You lured me to your blog with promises of knitting content… and though you delivered you had a test on there that I had yet to take which will inevitably cause me to post the results here. See my virtual fist shaking?

Severina should be doing homework, but was doing this instead.

Crazy Aunt Purl dishes on a new book she was sent to peruse.

And Wendy over at Knit and Tonic discusses many things…. but of you scroll down her useful discussion on Man Rules and her Dream Swatch pattern are awesome.

Here is the test that Stephanie caused me to take. (has anyone else noticed the insane amounts of knitting bloggers named Stephanie?)

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You’re the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl… or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

Ha! I’m so Irish that I can’t even fool the online quizzes anymore!

In other news I just returned from a very wet excursion into the wild unknown streets of Southside Pittsburgh (insert forboding thunderclap and bad organ music here). Southside on any average day is awesome…. Southside on a rainy day is a bit surreal. In any case, after a few errands… I totally avoided the used book store because…well… its small and I had both little boys with me and really if you do the math, that just spells disaster… though I really wanted to see if they had a used knitting stitch encyclopedia or something. Instead I went to Goodwill.

Oh Goodwill, you trollop of deals and secret finds…. you floozy that you not only deliver your bounty to me but to others as well…..
Goodwill had no knitting books, but should I desire to crosstitch something for or create innumerable amounts of Christmas crafts from junk I know right where to go.
I did however, negotiate happily their sweater sections, of yes… that’s right…. sectionS…. meaning more than one (insert evil maniacal crafty laugh here). And came home with a secret stash of sweaters.
There is an all cotton GAP raglan sweater that will be spared as I love raglan tshirts (otherwise known as baseball jerseys to other people) so this light sweater with its light blue and contrasting navy blue sleeves and collar will actually join my wardrobe as is. The others however are not so lucky.
I don’t know, there is something overtly satisfying about going to Goodwill, going through the sweaters and checking seams, buying one, taking it home, cutting the seams, unravelling the sweater’s pieces and balling up the yarn to knit into something else. I don’t know what it is. Its kinda weird. Its like extreme recycling. Maybe its the high I receive from acquring mad amounts of silk or merino for $4.00 total rather than $40. Even buying from KnitPicks is not as affordable as ripping apart a Goodwill sweater. Considering I never knit anything bigger than my head… I’m set. Sure, there are tons of Acrylic sweaters there… but let’s face it, if I want Acrylic I can just go to Walmart. Today I came home with:
100% Lambswool GAP sweater in Blue/Navy/Tan
100% Lambswool Perry Ellis Sweater in a Maroony/Grey
100% Shetland Structure Sweater in Charcoal
100% Cotton Craft&Barrow Sweater in a Greyish/Brownish/Backish varigated yarn

Pictures to follow when I’ve decimated their sweater integrity.

If you hate when I let a random generator write my post for me, know this…. I had a perfectly good excuse this time……...really. Seriously, I do.

As I posted before I am once again signed up for a Craftster Swap… Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Swap II.

Now, why I haven’t posted anything crafty….welllll…….

You see my partner Milik is awesome… I also found out that she is a post stalker- which is to say that once given my name as her partner she immediately looked me and my posts up. This is not a bad thing, I post stalk people all the time. However, if she is the crafty sort (crafty used here as in devious and not creative) she would have seen that I have a blog and may just happen to ‘accidently’ click the link to this here blog and if I had happened to post what I have been working on which is stuff for her it would be the Craftster Swap equivalent of finding your parent’s Christmas present stash closet hidey space.

Hence why no pictures and hencehence why I let a random generator write my post for me. See? I told you I had a good excuse.

But if she is peeking then she might start getting excited to know that I have already finished 2 things that are being sent to her and am 1/2 the way done with a third thing. My intent is to send early this go round instead of last minute. Though I’m comtemplating starting the fourth thing, but the third thing is giving me the finger and flinging threats….. hmmmm what to do, what to do?

I took this test….. and somehow I always knew:

You Are Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“We saved the world. I say we have to party.”

I mean… damn… I spend all night (after a hard day of stay at home mommying) slaying vampires and demons and they only just now made a test for it?…. sheesh

So… if you haven’t checked out Craftster yet, there’s a neato little link to the right that will get you there. Its an awesome site to peruse and be a part of. Its so chocked full of creativity its nutty.
Aside from tutorials and bragging rights you can also join swaps. Some people do nothing but swap… I think I would go stress crazy as I usually freak out about those kinds of things. However, the payoff can be huge by getting awesome stuff. Here are some things I have got in the past… though mind you the pics aren’t always good.

From Writer78 I got a neato Renn Faire favor to wear with my costuming and a pouch

From the Unconditional Swap (where you craft for others without expecting any return) I received hairsticks

And from quack, who was an awesome first time swapping partner in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Swap (round one) I got 1) 2 booksmarks one of death and the other the city watch shield, 2)magnets one of Sam Vimes and one of Greebo, 3) the very awesome nanny Ogg tote bag that gave quack a hell of time in making, and 4)The Luggage (seen here battling Darth Vader.

So, I joined the Terry Pratchett discworld Swap round 2 and I’m very excited not to mention at least a little bit nervous with Swapper’s Anxiety. I have some ideas in the works and hopefully my partner will like em.