Wordless Wednesday - Kinda Ghoulish

A Tale of Two Tattoos

I have wanted a tattoo for YEARS. Well, two. No, three. Um, four, but that's pushing it. I've always, always wanted the Rolling Stones Tongue tattooed on my arse. Never was a huge fan of the Rolling Stones, but when I was in High School I had a patch of that sewn to the butt of a pair of my jeans, which drew more than a few suggestions. I don't think that one will ever happen, but it's funny.

I also want a band like my son-in-law Tony's, which has very medieval-looking tendrils and a sun in the center. But his has a broken rock in the center of the sun, & I want a smiley face with round purple glasses like I wear. That's another maybe.

Wanted Richard's name in fancy tiny script like Emma got on her arse in The Importance of Being Ernest, only on my upper thigh near the pantie line, but I don't think I'm going to do that anytime soon.

A few years ago my dh suggested I should have an ice cream cone just above my breast, for reasons all his own. But then he said, it doesn't matter, because he doesn't want me to have a tattoo at all. Ever.

Then on Valentine's day he changed his mind. Might have had a little to do with the fact that a while back I told him that when he dies, I'm gonna step over his corpse, go get a tattoo, and *then* call 911. So on Monday the 15th I went, took my art to the tattoo parlor, & on Tuesday the 16th I got inked.

The place I went is Alter Ego Tattoos in Knoxville, on Kingston Pike. Cleanest place I have EVER seen! Jon is the owner there, and has done tattoos for my daughter Des & her dh Tony. They said my artist would be Boyd. Here is my outline...

And hereon the left Boyd is, mopping up some extra ink. He has very WARM hands, by the way! Don't look at my face, didn't get a chance to put any makeup on! Arrggh!


Over there on the right, Brand new!


and here on the left, two days old. Healing nicely. Never did even get pink around the edges.

Alright, on to the next one! My ds#2 Artemas recently turned 18. When he was about 10 years old, he said, "Mom, you know that lizard like on the Sobe bottle? When I'm old enough, I'm gonna have a tattoo of that!"

I was like, "Sure you will." Everybody knows that between 10 years old and majority, little boys change their minds a bazillion times.

But he never did, and after I got my tattoo, he was like, when can I get one? He earned money this past year on Etsy, so I told him to get a pic he liked, we'd draw something up, & he could get it done.

So we took his drawing, along with my interpretation of it and a few notations, on over to Alter Ego and would you know, Boyd had an opening on Monday Feb. 22!

Artemas just about worked himself up into a state over whether it was going to hurt or not, so that by the time Boyd got started, he was beside himself. About 5 minutes in, he got to feeling light-headed. Didn't help that he only had a Mtn. Dew that morning.
Boyd gave him a glass of water & some skittles, took a short breather & got started again. Artemas handled it fine after that.


Here (above, right) he is getting the work done. There's also a video on Youtube called The Awesomest Lizard Tattoo, in which I am talking in the background. Maybe I was kidding, heh heh.

Here it is in the first hour, covered (& bleeding a little).


And here it is about an hour old, washed & dressed with chapstick. Great job! I love it, and Artemas does too!

Not Much To Report, But Why Not

Diantha got a convo today from someone who bought this lovely, gray corriedale fiber from Fluff4Ewe.etsy.com. The lady spun it up fine and plied it with a grayish black mohair, to get this gorgeous yarn. She said she is going to knit a hat for her daughter for winter!




In among Diantha's renewal listings, she also has listed this gorgeous superwash merino batt, hand-dyed and carded here at the house (shown left) ...

and on the right, this beautiful, even, handspun superwash merino sock weight in pale honeydew...

We went to Des' house on Wed. and Friday to help her finish packing. Got just about everything packed up too. Knowing she would need to use a little bit of food yet for meals, and a few utensils/pans/etc, what I did is pack them, but leave them in open boxes set on her kitchen countertops so she could get to stuff if she needed it. Then the mortgage company did NOT call them with a confirmation of the closing date this Tuesday. So there they are, all packed, and waiting... eating out of cardboard boxes. Sigh. So much for being a help. LOL!

I have been working for a couple days now on some new yarns for my My7kids Recycled Yarn Shop. I have several now dyed and just about ready to list, and another 16 (?) planned for the series. Just have to see if I can get some decent pics tomorrow in the daylight.

I finished a project I have been knitting, with this yarn that was sent in the box of yarns last spring from Japan. So a portion of the profits equal to the amount the yarn would have brought on its own, will got to the youth center when I list the item. Hopefully the pics of the finished item will happen tomorrow too. For now, here is a sneak peek...

One last. A few years ago, I was sitting out in the sun one afternoon, when my then-4-yos Josiah came out and very busily started lining up on a railroad tie, a bunch of springs from an old mattress my dh tore up to take to the dump. When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "You can look at this, and not be afraid." So I took a picture of his art, and thought I would share it.

A Knitter's Day at the Biker Boneyard

Well you know you can make anything relate to anything if you are interested in both. LoL.

Yesterday we went to what we refer to as the Biker Boneyard in Morristown, TN. I have been there before. It looks from the outside to be some innocuous brick building. Inside, it is like nothing you have ever seen, or imagined. It goes back (and back, and back) into the bowels of some of the filthiest "rooms" you have ever seen. There are leaks in the roof (because it doesn't matter if there are), so there are puddles of greasy sludge everywhere.

The rooms are "arranged" into rough categories... Large Kawasakis, 3 wheelers, rims, pipes (above left) , Hondas, Suzukis, Yamahas, scooters. Bike skeletons everywhere, in various stages of decay or pilferage. And EVERYWHERE, hanging from the ceiling like so many bats, are tanks. Every size, color, make, year, and stage of damage you can think of. Some of them are burned. Some are so scarred, you shudder to wonder if that biker walked away or ended up in a pine box.

You wander around, searching skeletons for the parts you need, hoping to find ones that will actually fit or at least Frankenstein on to your bike. If you find parts you think will work, you go and find one of the Biker Wizards who works there, who will follow you into the lightless depths with a super flashlight and toolbox. Or, you can take the parts off yourself and save!

I took a picture of one of the Wizards' shirts. A guy (possibly a manager? hard to tell) asked if I wanted a shirt. I told him I was going to spend enough money in here today, he could probably part with one for me. Off he went, to some mysterious cleaner place, and returned with THREE shirts. Pay dirt. I passed a woman (obviously a Boneyard Virgin) vigorously hurrying her husband out of there. She had a white shirt on. I didn't offer her one of mine. LOL.

You can find art anywhere you want to. There was a hole in the roof, where the bright outside sun was shining in and down on a particular wreck like a beacon. My daughter Des and I both looked at it, held our hands up and sang, "Ahhhh!" like a choir. Turns out that wreck didn't have the parts I needed, but I had to go look. When God speaks... at least check it out. LoL. She named this picture, "Yes, Lord."

There was one piece of brick wall, next to a doorway to an even danker room (I didn't go in), with a grim reminder. Shame it isn't always true.

People in cars who have never ridden a motorcycle don't realize at all what it is like to have to ride like at any moment, someone may not see you... may cut you off or maim you or deprive your kids of a parent.

I wish every motorist took our sport seriously and every motorcyclist rode with prudence and enjoyment of the sport to last a lifetime, not just a few possibly fatal thrills.

While Tony took off the parts we needed, I was kind of like a second set of thumbs. So Des and I set up some silly art and took the pics.

This first one is a 4-cylinder engine head. I stuck Mountain Dew bottles in it (they fit perfectly). Sorry about the lousy quality, I took the pic with a cell phone. Fueled by Dew. Doesn't get any better than that.

This ONE purple rim in a pile 6 feet (almost 2 meters) high of all other rims was too good to pass up. Purple is my favorite color, and it felt just like me, being different in a pile of sameness.

We found a wreck where the headlamp had been duct-taped on... had to have been BEFORE the wreck. Notice the headlamp then lasted better than the rest of the bike. The funny thing about this is that about 4 years ago a cycle shop sold us the wrong size headlamp. It wouldn't fit in the ring that holds it in place, so my dh taped around and around it with clear packing tape, which held the light in place for over a year. ROFLOL.

One bike seems to have had one of its guages mysteriously and oddly replaced by a Pirates of the Caribbean compass. Hmmm....

And, we hung around long enough to begin hallucinating Super Heroes dwelling in the nearly silent, still atmosphere of the warehouses. In fact, we caught glimpses of Spidey himself wrestling an instrument cluster off a particularly reticent bike...

And at another point, performing the grueling task of moving a larger-than-life Yahama tank off what must have been a subway train full of suffering humanity...


And his Alter Ego, Swinging ominously through the warehouse.

When all was said and done, I got the front triple tree, front forks, an instrument cluster (both guages and indicator lights), a set of handlebars, a clutch assembly, 2 clutch connector screws, and 2 clutch handles, for $200 cash. Well worth the trip.

We ate at Taco John's and by the time I came home, went to church, and got back home, I was nearly catatonic. But happy. We had a good time, a ROAD TRIP (always a thrill), and the bikes will BOTH ride again. Not to mention enjoyed some off-the-beaten-path art.

Blogged and Tweeted

Someone blogged me today! Thanks so much to EssieWB for featuring me on her blog, http://essiewb.wordpress.com.

Diantha's Darling Nikki in the Rain yarn got Tweeted today, at Lizet Frijters. Thank you!

One last thing. Not an exciting day today. I had a terrible headache and only got a load of laundry done and all the floors in the main living area. Oh and cleaned the back hallway. And shopped for groceries for 8 people for 2 weeks. And made lunch and dinner and took care of a sick kid. And spun some laceweight yarn... but other than that, nothing. But Josiah, my 8 yos, made a playdoh sculpture a couple days ago and I have been reminded that I didn't post a picture of it. Sorry. So here is his x-box console, controller, and the "TV set" that his sister helped him make.

Another artist in the making. LOL.

Stuff We Gave

Well we had a good Christmas. Not materially huge, but we had a nice time and managed not to have any family shouting matches at my sister's house, which is a rare gift in itself. We really did try to keep to the theme of "Buy Handmade" or "Give Handmade." I thought I would post some pics of stuff we gave for Christmas.

I had made a quilt top for a Weird and Ugly fabric Challenge that I called "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Points" because my tree points were TERRIBLE and my star points were PERFECT. LoL.
My mom admired it so I had a notion to finish it for her for Christmas. Des says, hey mom, instead of backing it plain, why don't I throw together a simple quilt of squares and put the kids' handprints in them? Mom's favorite color is red, so this gave us a chance to throw in something just for her. We put the handprints of all the grandbabies (and Tony, LoL) and the 2 great-grandbabies, and left space for more to come. Beautiful!

Next up, I made my BIL two earwarmers... one from a Shenandoah batt that I handspun and knitted (pic to the right is inside and outside), and one from some handspun, hand dyed Falkland wool from FeltStudiosUK at Etsy. He likes to keep a window open in his office. It keeps the computers there from overheating. But in cold weather, it can get a little chilly in there!

I knitted some fingerless gloves for Jade, which are in another post. Some friends of ours have a little boy, Riley, and a baby girl, Michah. We got Riley a Firehouse Dog stuffed animal with a fireman outfit. For Micah, my daughter Desiree knitted a pointy stocking cap with a BIG pompom, and I knitted two little Jester bootees with bows on the toes and ties around the ankle to keep them from kicking off! Too cute!

While we were at it, we gave Tara (the mama) a Water Bottle Coozy made out of the same felted sweater as these fingerless mitts (sold on Etsy, sorry!) and Brandon this knitted ear warmer. He works outside, so he was happy to have something warm but not restricting to wear. It is knitted out of the same Falkland wool as the one I made for my BIL, but I overdyed my BIL's with denim blue.

A while back, I posted some handspun yarn I had made from a Happy Begonia Batt that I bought off Etsy. I used some of that yarn, some lime green Cascade 220, some lime and pink fun fur, and fabric "yarn" that I cut from a cotton batik fabric, to make "The 'Oh Look, Key Lime Pie!' ADD Scarf" for our music pastor at church. They are always teasing her about being ADD, and her favorite color is lime. This scarf was very freeing to make, because if I got bored, I just changed stitches or yarns.

Oh and we gave my BIL some "man art", a framed collage of robots and dollar signs. I bought the robots from Jessica Pierce off Etsy too. And some pin-back buttons, a card case, some T shirts from Juror2.

I also made my quilting Secret Pal and her dh matching quilted stockings, and a stocking for my baby Beverly. It has a cuff that is little gold swirlies on cream. She loves RED so it had to have red batik prairie points and a bow on it, and there are little curly-haired sheepies on the stocking that she says go "bah."

And lastly (well really not lastly, but the last of the handmade stuff), I made this scarf for my 13yod Diantha. She is a Fashion Plate... always has been! So this trendy, narrow, long scarf is just right for her! It is about 3" wide (spreads out to about 5") and 10 feet long! I made it from a bamboo batt I bought from KittyGrrlz at Etsy
Not bad for a bunch of amateurs! LOL!