Wow! It's been a while. How about I play a little catch-up? Real quick-like. First of all, this is the city where I now live:

Bordeaux, baby! I took that photo with my mobile almost as soon as we moved here from Lyon, in August of 2011. (To see some more photos I took at that time, you can go to mybluehouse.com.) I do miss Lyon (a lot), but Bordeaux is a fabulous city and I've made lots of great friends.

Also, Captain Destructo is very big now. Taller than me, and is still as thin and lanky as ever. He no longer wears my hand knit sweaters because I have no time to knit and finish them before he grows out of them, but he does spend a lot of time taking part in competitions doing this:

[Sidenote: He recently took part in a competition where Sanson Boris, French gold medalist at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, gave out the medals and autographed Captain Destructo's glove. Suffice it to say that the Captain's day was made.]

And! He's no longer an only child. A little over a year ago, I had this view of my shoes:

Which is why I made this:

This, too:

And this:

Of which I think Leeloo the Bichon approves:

More catching up soon, so that I can share more about the family and write individual entries for these projects (and others) including patterns and yarns I used. Isn't it awful of me to keep you hanging like that?

I don't know about you, but when I look at this box I think "DONUTS!" That's all that ran through my mind as I snapped the shot. My sweet tooth rules over my yarn fetishes.

[Plain are my favorite. No chocolate, no sprinkles, no glaze EVER...just plain. Followed by powdered. Mmmm, boy.]

Anyway, I'll be swatching one of these donuts tonight.

P.S. In other crafty news, those who follow me on twitter may have seen my tweet with a link to photos of Captain Destructo in his Mardi Gras costume that I made on the day before the carnival. For those who missed it, here's one of the photos.

This morning as I'm doing some more of my pre-spring cleaning [we're talking major stash cleanse, peoples] I pull a cloth dust bag out from the depths of the closet. When I open it, these little guys pop out:



I'm like, "Castel? Don't even remember buying that. Alright, up in the eBay you go."

Then as I pull the last skein out of the cloth dust bag, I see the edge of what I initially thought was a swatch. I pull it out, and the swatch magically turned into a sleeve! As I pull him out I ask him, "Dude! Where'd you come from?" And he's all like, "Ask questions later...my brother is right behind me and he's all smooshed up. Pull him out, quick." And I reach back in the bag and pull out another sleeve. It was like magic, only instead of pulling a rabbit out of hat I was pulling two fully knit sleeves who were kinda teed off that I had stuffed them in a bag a few years ago and left them to sit in a dark closet.



At first I couldn't place the sleeves, and then I remembered the Cabled Jacket that I started when I was still in fashion school. I was really chugging away during that time, studying all day and often staying up all night to finish collections. I must have put the whole thing in the cloth bag and stuffed it on the top shelf of a closet, which made me promptly forget about it.

I can't possibly put the yarn up on eBay. I mean: Two. Whole. Sleeves. I have to finish that jacket! Even if I do it at a snail's pace, and it takes me all summer. Now, if only I can remember what size I started knitting...

*Thank you, Pixies. That song came on right as I started writing this entry, and oh how aprops!

Well, hello there! Come on in. Have some of Captain Destructo's cake. He picked the recipe out of a dessert book, noted the ingredients, got them when we went grocery shopping and then made the cake himself (with some help from Monsieur Le Hubby).



The boy is growing so fast I can't knit anything for him. He now fits into my shoes and the other day I mistook a pair of his jeans for my own. I had a mini heart attack when I couldn't pull them over my hips, thinking I had gained three sizes overnight (can chocolate cake really do that???) before I realized they were his. Phew.

In case you're wondering, I still knit things. Little things, that I can carry around with me easily. Like this lace in bamboo:



Don't ask me what it is, because I'm not quite sure yet what it wants to be. I loved the fiber so much that I just cast on and started knitting a lace pattern. It's getting hot over here so that's pretty much all I want to make in terms of knitting. Wool + my fingers on a hot day do not a happy couple make.

That's not all. Just because you're still reading this, I'm inviting you over to my other site for a chance to win something that I've made. Some of you might find it useful for carrying around all the things you're knitting and that I wish I had the time to knit. It's an original design of mine, a soft French lace tote. Head on over to tortillagirl.com to enter to win this tote!

Psst...I still have a load of yarn in my stash. I may have a giveaway here as well to kick off the summer. Dude! The party will never end chez skinnyrabbit.

Remember those opera-length armwarmers I knit for myself a few years ago? The ones that made me feel all Joan Jett and rock and roll? I still wear those armwarmers. As a matter of fact, I've worn them every single winter since I've knit them. They've held up pretty well but I figured that it was time that I knit myself some more in other colors so that people won't start thinking that I've got those first armwarmers I knit permanently attached to my arms. So that's what I'm knitting in the car. Thanks to my new shorter dpns [Brittany, purchased in Austin!] I've been carrying my armwarmers around as a portable project and it's my new favorite mindless knitting.




Of course, knitting in the car means that I have car knitting snapshots*. Taken while driving along the Saone river.




P.S. I've still got photos of Austin to show you. I took sooooo many photos during my summer vacation that I'm still going through them and trying to decide which ones to show. Soon!

*Again, the rules for my car knitting snapshots are as follows: All snapshots must be taken while knitting, or with knitting on one's lap, IN THE CAR. Further, the car must be in motion, temporarily stopped at a traffic light, intersection, in traffic or similar with engine always running. In no event may the car be parked, halted for more than 30 seconds or deliberately stopped for purposes of taking a photo. The seatbelt must remain on at all times, but the hand may be carefully stuck out of the window in order to obtain a good shot provided it doesn't cause any traffic accidents and even though it makes one look like a wacky camera-happy tourist.

Leeloo, our new family member as of September 6, 2008! She was a birthday present for the Captain, who hasn't stopped asking for a dog since our dear Lucy passed away. We didn't plan on getting one, or any dog for that matter. Getting a dog in this country isn't as easy as driving to your local Pet Smart; you won't find shops like that over here. You need to go to a friend who breeds their pet, the animal rescue or a licensed dog breeder if you want a puppy or a kitty. What you can find in some shops here is small pets, like fish, gerbils and sometimes turtles. And that is the kind of pet that we told the Captain we'd get him!

So on the day before the Captain's birthday, we went out for pizza (his choice) and then drove to our local Botanic plant shop and pet supply with the intention of looking at the fish, gerbils and (hopefully) turtles so the Captain could pick one out as a pet.

Before we could even get inside the Botanic, fate smiled on the Captain because - for that weekend only - a breeders puppy and kitty exhibition was going on in the salon right next door. Breeders from all over Rhone had come in just to sell their puppies and kitties, for those two days only.

Yes, we bought tickets.

"Just to look around. Promise!" (That's what I told Monsieur Le Hubby.)

We ambled around, casually looking at Siamese kittens and Terrier pups. Then we saw the Bichon Frise breeder with her small litter of pups. I stuck my hand inside the open pen and Leeloo immediately came stumbling over to me. [Heart tightens up at the cuteness.]




In other news, I have two things to share because people have been asking:

Yes, I finished my design school studies (among the best in the class; why yes, I'm bragging) and am happy to have some fantastic new knowledge under my belt. Even though I've finished school I'm still really busy because I'm working away, and a few of the things I design and make *independently* are available online. I talk about them at tortillagirl.com, and if you're interested in learning about them you can drop in there as I like to keep skinnyrabbit.com for other things. Similarly, I have a photoblog at my trusty old mybluehouse.com where I occasionally post photos of places I've visited and things that interest me. I'm mentioning this because if you see me being quiet here, you can go there if you'd like to know what else I'm looking at besides my sewing machine and knitting needles.

What else? I've been on ravelry for a while. Username "skinnyrabbit". I am very bad about logging in there, though. I do try to do it at least once a month.

Okay, next entry I'll chat a little bit about my trip to Austin. I looooved Austin. I'd love to go live there. For reals.