knit and tonic

The Smell of Fear

I was running like a madwoman today behind a gal who was sweating quarts and quarts of sweat. Here, I was knocking down a few miles at a fast pace and a high incline, and there she was, strolling at a mere 3.2 miles per hour.

What does she have that I don't have? Am I just a dried up prune or something? Shoot: I can drink water and more water and crank up the volume and I'll drip maybe a little here and there, but work up a sweat that makes you gloriously glossy all over? The kind that convinces you you must be shedding all sorts of pounds? (Never.)

Sheesh. And to think today I was working on my latest project, noted a change in the air, sniffed here and there and realized that funky nasty sweat-smell was coming from me and had nothing at all to do with The Bunny's cat box.

I tell you what, I sniffed and sniffed and looked everywhere before I figured out where it was coming from. At first, I thought it was the homespun (not the Lion Brand kind). Nope, not the handspun.

Then I thought it might be the project that was laying over there on the floor drying ever so slowly.

(No.)

And then, with a start, I realized that the funk was coming from me and it can only mean one thing.

I was scared. I was scared and squeezing my project and tightening my gauge so horribly that nothing was going right. Every time I approached that special section, I'd hyperventilate and re-check the reference books.

Friends. It was the Short-Rows that did it to me. The Short-Rows. The good ol' Wrap and Turn.

I've done them. I've done them a lot; I've done them all. But every time I do, I have to look up "Short Rows" or "Wrap and Turn" in every single one of my yarn and knitting reference books and the only thing I can do is wonder how the heck people can come up with so many different ways to perform a Short Row or a stupid ol' Wrap and Turn.

There's the Japanese kind that I didn't know existed until today (stay far away from them friends, because they involve these clippy thingys and honestly, if you're not from the region or have that nifty zen-like attitude about lots of steps; skip it). There's also the regular kind you find on About.com but doesn't really explain how to hide those nasty wraps. And then there's every Tom, Dick and Harry on the Internet who explains the whole thing away as if it were equivalent to riding in a horse-drawn carriage sipping champagne on a starry night, sans horse poop.

And since I'm doing Short Rows on something for the "book," the particular sweat that I sweated while struggling with these was dry and smelled of fear.

My sweat for the Short Rows smelled of fear.

You know what I'm talking about. There's plain old B.O. But then there is something entirely different when it comes to sweating and your general body smells. We're talking adrenaline, folks. The stink that can only come from sheer despair, agony and high anxiety.

It's a good thing I have an assistant to take pics of my latest passions. I don't know how he did it, but he managed to climb on top of our pergola for these. Reminds me of Santa Ynez (our nearest wine country). You'd think that with all the fear-stink about me the poor grape vines would die.

BTW: Thank you to my knitting friend for the lovely basket and sock yarn. (You do know how I love sock yarn. Maybe I'll wise up and display these hanks while I attack the project again tomorrow with all the Short Rows. Whenever the agitation starts to rise, I'll look up at these and become a the best kind of yarn zen creature.)

Farmer's Market

I guess the reason I never liked the country from which my husband came is because it's so sterile. And even though the weather there is a bit dramatic--very hot and humid all year long--people there use air conditioners excessively so you pretty much have a way to stay cool unless you're like me and want the bathroom to be air conditioned, too (because, in this particular country they don't bother to air condition the bathrooms).

Let's face it: there's nothing worse than showering and then trying to apply makeup while you continue to sweat with all those geckos sneaking in through the bars. Plus, that drain in the center of the bathroom is sort of off-putting. You wonder what it is there for, especially with that fancy toilet and shower in the room along with you. Did they put that drain there for you to sweat into?

...or maybe it is there just in case you, while blow-drying your hair and standing in about an inch of sweat, happen to electrocute yourself so badly that you liquify there, and make a big puddle on the floor. In that case, you'd pretty much need a big drain in the middle of the room.

I guess I've been thinking about this because California has been unusually humid. I grew up in Houston, Texas, where they have about three thousand words for "humid" (like the Eskimos have for "snow"), and even though what we're experiencing doesn't come close to the likes of that place from which HWWV came or Houston, Texas, this stuff we're experiencing lately is uncomfortable for me and for the rest of the people in the city; the tourists don't seem to like it, either.

But it won't stop me from knitting. Even though these socks I'm carrying around are made of cashmere, they're small enough that I can lay them on the table and not on anything else that will sweat.

BTW: I have been thinking about blogging and commenting lately. Although I have been lucky and haven't drawn too much along the lines of negative comments, some other bloggers do. I'm not for making public statements on things like this because I understand that the blog is personal, and you can only really show so much. Otherwise, people who don't agree with whatever you say feel comfortable enough to criticize or whatnot. I don't censor comments. But like I said, I don't get many bad ones, either. But some others, some other bloggers who share their strong feelings openly, get some nasty comments and I can only imagine that they wonder why someone they don't even know would feel so comfortable and be nasty or critical or just plain mean. I don't know. This blogging thing: It's a weird activity and I wonder. Sometimes I wonder what compels me to keep laying out my life there on that big plate called the Internet.

Some days it makes me sad: As I write this, behind me sits one window that faces a house full of three lovely people we only see on work day mornings. There's a dad, a mom and a young boy. In the old days, when we first moved in, we used to walk across the street to say hello and maybe bring cookies or some fruit for them to try. I wonder why I don't cross the street these days to say hello and have a chat. On the other side, there's this restaurateur who is rarely at home. But his pool in the backyard is to die for and he's asked us to swim a few times and we never go. The gal on the other side, well, she's not nice at all but I can live with that.

And then, on other days, I'm ecstatic that we have this thing we call Blogland or the Internet. A place where we hold hands. Yet we don't know each other. We don't know each other at all.

Edited to add: HWWV tells me the drain in the bathroom is so "they" can hose it down. Oy.

Watch Out for Falling Pots and Pans

I have a question: Why is it, those cute little packets of Kleenex, the ones printed with santas, miscellaneous doo-dads and doggies, why is it they don't feel half as good on the nose as the ones that come in that big square box?

Is it because those prints, the santas, miscellaneous doo-dads and doggies make us think that there's something more in the package other than kleenex? That maybe the fancy prints make them extra soft and are all of a sudden more efficient than their plain, white, in-the-box counterparts?

It's like today: I had the wonderful babysitter at home with Girlfriend on my one day, the one three-hour span of carefree kid-free livin' that I have during the week and what do I do? I grab my yarn and latest project--one that actually matters (because if I ever finish it, I'll get paid)--and I drive aimlessly, wondering where the heck I could go and knit without interruption. So I drive and I drive and think, while driving, about what I could do during these three glorious, kid-free, carefree hours.

So I end up at the trusty LYS.

I say hello to the Thursday group, take out my needles and my freshly printed pattern notes and get down to business. I figure, in my three-hour kid-free, carefree span of time I should finish at least three inches.

So I put on my game face and on my first row, I: Gloriously knit, knit and knit!

Next row, a gal looks up from her knitting and says to the group: "You know, last night I had this huge flashback. I could swear I had my gallbladder back. Yeah, you all know I had that sucker removed two years ago, but lastnight I bolted out of bed with a wild pain in my gut. Oy. You'd think the surgeon left some of it in and it grew back to haunt me."

Next row, I: Semi-gloriously knit, knit and knit. Then, I stop and start counting stitches.

And just as I start to frog my last row, another gal chimes in: "...I had a new lens implanted in my right eye two days ago....TWO DAYS! Can you believe it? It went so simply and easily; I was up and out of there in a matter of hours. They didn't even have to put stitches in my eyeball! And here, the night before I lay in bed all night dreaming of big needles punching through my eyeball!"

Me: Ripping out a fresh row (the one I just re-knitted), and the gall bladder gal says: "Stitches?...Stitches in your eyeball? It's a good thing you didn't have to endure that! But listen to this: I had a fancy hysterectomy--the one they do through your vagina--and I tell you what: I'm a nurse, and while I was in the recovery room laying there after my surgery, the attending nurse asked me to help her with the patient laying next to me! That other patient was practially coding! It's a good thing I had one of those fancy vagina-type hysterctomies, because otherwise, I'd never be able to get out of bed to help her re-program that other gal's morphine drip!

Heck it could just be me. But I'm thinking that's how the gals at the LYS talk and I should know better.

I came home with minus-two rows finished. In my three glorious kid-free, fancy, printed-with-santas, doggies and miscellaneous doo-dad hours.

It makes you wonder. It makes you wonder why you want to say good bye to your lovely gal or boy, or family or homestead even though she or he or they climb on you when you knit and yet you keep thinking to yourself that you need a break from all this mom-, wife-, person-at-home- stuff. (Because, let's face it, even at the LYS it's impossible to get anything done. If it isn't listening to gore or stuff you don't want to know, the yarn or new project bags would be calling out to you anyway.)

Oh, if I only had some fun stuff to show you. Instead, I'll leave you with a pic of what I think will be falling on my head during the next earthquake. HWWV tells me he secured the thing well enough, but the way things have been going, well, I don't know.

Maybe I should just stay out the kitchen (and the LYS) until the coast is clear.

The Club

There's this thing about being in a club that I don't understand. And I am not sure if it is me or The Club in question, but I've never been "in it" and wonder how it all feels.

All the preteens with their joyful outbursts. The holding of hands or the linking of arms. Last time I felt like I belonged to some special club was last week at the LYS when we all sat around and chatted--young and old--about how our finished items never look as good as they do in the magazines (And more importantly, how a good bra does wondrous things and whether or not a Victoria's Secret sales person can truly fit you with a bra that "works." . . . Should we call a bra specialist? Why does all that flab fall out here and there? Do we really need to spend so much on a bra? These gals, well, I could go camping with them. And I won't camp unless HWWV will come with me. But he won't camp unless there are lots of electrical outlets here and there [and a martini shaker, or so he says. He says his aversion to the idea comes from too many months serving in a certain Army in the Southeast of Asia with all the Malaria pills and the swamps and stuff like that, but I want to say, "Hey! Camping is Fun!"]).

But I tell you what: with all that I've been through, all the pregnancies and the births. All that "going through the motions" stuff that us women have to go through whether or not we want to, I still don't feel like I belong to The Club.

Shoot, last time I sat in a room full of moms and just starting to feel that special feeling of belonging to The Club, just when we all started comparing notes, complaining about the birthing pains and what not. Just when I felt the Club-Feeling deliciously creeping up my spine, one gal, the one whose daughter loves my daughter like a preteen best-friend took me aside and said, in a conspiring tone:

"Do you wanna come over and swim, just the four of us?

"I didn't know you had a pool..." (I say.)

"Oh, It's not like I have a pool or anything, but we do have a blow-up pool. It's a perfect size for the girls. . . I originally wanted to use it to birth my son, but, well, heh, he came too quickly for hubby to fill it in time."

So much for belonging.

Anyway. On the sly, I knitted a Farmer's Market-type bag from Ariane at Wicked Stitches. She designed this neat bag that's just perfect for taking along with you on trips to the outdoor market or whatnot. She used Debbie Bliss' Cathay (only 2 balls) and I used GGH Safari (only 2, too). It's a fun pattern, and if you have a penchant for heading out to the Farmer's Market on a Thursday, or a Tuesday or whatever-day afternoons, she has a free pattern for you and trust me, it's a fun one. I just wish I belonged to the Farmer's Market Club.

Knitting Faces

I don't know where I heard it, but now that I'm getting a little older, it has hit me. You know, the angles. You gotta think about all the angles when you're in front of a camera, or reaching for something in front of a VIP or perhaps even knitting for a blog post picture. Even while reaching for that last bit of french bread at the bakery when someone you suspect might be an ex-boyfriend from highschool is standing there in line--you have to think about the angles. And you could be 89 percent certain that it must be your fading eyesight and he's just someone who reminds you of him, but honestly, wouldn't you secretly hope it isn't him because, really, what would you say? What would you say, anyway?

Someone once said (and I'm thinking it was Blanche on Golden Girls) that if you happen to be leaning over in front of or above someone (while he's laying down or underneath you somehow or maybe at a lower elevation, heh heh): Just. Don't. Do. It. And don't be thinking I'm trying to give you an example with this photo. This is the best one we took today. The faces I made: I tell you what: you'd think I was tasting warm, soft cheeses and day-old raw tuna while soaking my feet in yogurt.

I never understood it until now. Take my word for it and if you don't believe me, place a mirror on the table and lean down over it and take a quick look. You can thank me after a good friend or relative--and hopefully not your significant other--revives you from your trauma or great faint of the century or perhaps a stroke if you happen to have a weak constitution.

And you should also know this: You know that show, Knitty Gritty? My theory is, that that show isn't all it could be or should be because of one fact, and one fact alone: "Knitting Faces."

Those Knitting Faces. They really do cramp our style, don't they? That pursed lip while counting? That "be quiet!" "look" while purling and trying to read the next bit of the pattern? That nasty sideways glance at the almost run-out ball of yarn once you realize you need to go find that dang swift and ball winder or worse, figure out a way to wind another hank without the nifty helpers you usually find at the LYS?

It's no wonder our loved ones wonder what the heck thrills us so, what, with our Knitting Faces.

And I tell you what: It's a good thing I don't have a Haircutting Face. Otherwise, Girlfriend wouldn't let me near her with the shears.

Thinning the Herd?

On the Serengeti, when the tiger goes out for food, he runs after the gazelle and he'll most likely take down the slowest, the one who isn't paying attention, or the one who happens to be chatting it up with the new gal whose unlikely horns just sprouted.

When stuff like that happens--especially when we hear about the bank robber whose baggy pants fall down just as he's making his getaway--HWWV always says, "Yup...God: He's just thinning the herd."

Thinning the herd, heh heh. I have a philosophy about that Thinning the Herd Thing. It doesn't work often enough or as thoroughly as it should.

And hey, everyone is allowed a few dull moments for each hour lived. Because, otherwise and personally, I'd be suffocated by a huge tsunami of yarn by now. But honestly, don't you know at least one person who flies under the radar too many times for your taste?

Today, I brought Girlfriend for a play date with an old neighbor-friend's children. I arrive, and about two seconds later, the phone rings.

My host: "Hello! Oh hi honey! I have to tell you. I'm so worried about the goldfish..."

Me sitting at the kitchen table: Crunch crunch (I'm eating chips.)

Host: "...I was cleaning their vase...you know? The vase they swim around in? I was dumping the water into the sink and the poor big one, he slipped right into the trash disposal! And now I don't know if he'll make it!"

Me: Cruuuunch. (Looking out the window now.)

Host: "...You know I never ever put my hand down in that disposal without unplugging it first! And he was so slippery!...But I grabbed him by the tail and yanked him out of there--I hope his little body didn't get punctured by the blades--heh, and once I added enough tap water from the sink into the vase I plopped him back in!"

Me: Cruu... (Sneaking a look into the vase from across the room. The big fish is nose down, tail up. Barely moving.) "...Uhm, I'm not an expert," I mutter, "but he doesn't look so good..."

Host, speaking into the phone: "Huh?..Oh, that was Wendy talking...Say hi to Wendy!" (hands the phone to me; I wave it away). "You gotta go now? Okay! Byeeeee!"

Me: "I'm sort of concerned. That one, he's perpendicular. And there used to be two. Where's the other one?"

Host: "Oh, he's laying there on the rocks. See? When I was dumping the water out into the sink and the big one went down the disposal, I banged the vase back down onto the counter so hard that the poor little guy got buried by the rocks. But now that I look at the two of them, I think they're just in shock."

Me: "...and you put tap water in there? Don't they need some drops? You know, for the chlorine?"

Host: "...They've lived for two years this way!

Okay. Some days are good. But some days I feel so alone. I'm not sure how to explain this loneliness, but I honestly feel like I'm not meant for this play date stuff. I'm so tired. All that drama in a span of two or so hours. I can't take it. How can people take things so lightly? Is it just me?

Philosophical part of post: I guess in some ways, everyone has to have their "thing," you know? I get accused of "being good at crafts" and I can honestly say this gal isn't (she's the one who told me that writing a book was "so cute.") The universe sort of works that way, I think. Either you're good at crafts or knitting or whittling or Spanish or maybe Chinese brush painting, OR, the world comes easy, instead. Sounds mighty stupid and I could be wrong. But the next part of this story sort of sums it all up:

On our way out, I glance into the vase. Both fish are perked up and eating and basically doing what goldfish do.

...And to think just an hour earlier I was ready to suggest the old Flush Routine to put them out of their misery.

BTW: Long post; sorry. But hey, I can't pass up an opportunity to tell a story. You guys have been wondering why I don't wear my knitted goods. It's because it's hotter than you-know-what most of the year, or it's just balmy enough to wear a t-shirt (but one that isn't knitted) even on the coldest of days. I often consider moving toward the middle or eastern part of the U.S. just so I can test some of the knits. Thing is, HWWV works here and lives here and I don't know if I could ever say good bye.

I Want Some of That Back

For the first time in about a million years (well, actually about four), I went out wearing one of my knitted items and didn't feel like I must have a booger hanging off my nose or something and no one would tell me.

Now, it helped that I was mostly in the company of children, among them about five who were learning how to knit on a loom and two knitting their first scarves. I figured, as I dressed for the day, that they'd be the last to remind me of my so-so finishing technique or the fact that the garment rolled out a bit in the front neck area, exposing a couple knots. Or, that, if you looked real carefully and I didn't do a jig to distract you, that you could see my belly button through the lace.

And funny thing, the only one who asked me if I crocheted my top was a grown-up. All the kids knew it was knitted, right away. And not one gave me a sideways look.

If only more adults had that.

You know: that feeling of wonder without judgment. After just an hour, I had been showered with enough of that stuff to not care a whit about my lousy finishing technique or that someone might suspect I knitted the top myself. In fact, I forgot all about it and even ate lunch out in public.

In the spirit of the feeling of wonder without judgment, I won't say what I thought I was going to say today. With this blog, I've spent more than a year not picking on other magazines' patterns or things found on the Internet. I won't point out that bulky yarn makes bulky garments. I won't point out how it seems, more and more, that companies are more interested in selling you a dream that will never come true (but it'll knit up fast, that's for sure). I won't go into it.

I figure you know that stuff already.

Hobby PDA

So yesterday I got to thinking. And it's not like I don't do a whole lot of thinking too much of the time, but I actually recall thinking on the same, relatively benign, subject for a span of a few minutes or six, so I figure that particular span of that kind of deep thought on something other than whether or not the pain in my left breast might mean that I have a cancerous lesion may actually be worth mentioning. (Or, that the hiccups I had last night might mean there's something wrong with my brain, or that the fact that my hand shakes after a few cups of coffee means it is certainly Parkinson's.)

Because, thinking, it's something I do: Too much.

Anyway. And go ahead and send mind-darts through the Internet waves after you read this, but I was thinking: "Hey, when did it become OK to bring your knitting to a social or business gathering?"

(Pause for a second here before you heat up. And think really hard. Think about the other hobby-ish souls out there. Think about whether or not it'd be okay with you if they brought whatever it is that they love to do over to your house on a hot Sunday at your backyard pool when you served boiled shrimp, box wine, and what-not. Think about it for a few minutes or six before you really form an opinion.)

Consider all the options: Consider that husband of a friend of yours, the one who is always talking about golf and who manages a few swings between (food) courses with his imaginary club. Think about what it'd be like if he really brought a nine-iron to your informal drink's-after-whatever gathering. Would you move the furniture before he arrived? Would your original he's-a-geek feelings go away? Or would his prowress with the nine-iron be the one thing that sticks out in your mind--the one thing that you'll never forget and dream about late at night?

Oh and yeah, you might argue that at least, with knitting, you are creating something, and that you can be social at the same time. After all, it could be a nice warm hat for an orphan that's being knitted. But I would argue back that the fly fisherman, the type who likes to make those fly-thingy's--the ones the fish are attracted to--could very well join our KIP club, don't you think? Except for the fact that they have that big screw-on-the-table rig they use to tie those cute little fly-lures, not to mention the nifty-huge, sometimes lighted, magnifying glasses one would have to wear to see the threads and hooks. (But hey, he or she can catch a fish with the thing. A fish that could feed at least a family of three...as long as he's not fishing off Santa Monica Pier, heh heh.)

I just asked HWWV: "I wasn't too "too" bringing my knitting over to Liz's, yesterday, was I?"

"No, I guess not," he said, sipping his wine and thinking for a minute or three. "But I tell you what: You do sort of shut down when you knit."

"...Shut down?"

"....Yeah. It's like it becomes just the two of you. You know: You and your knitting. It's like the two of you are making out,..like you were teenagers or something."

BTW: Thanks for all the comments on my last post. The roses will grow (and grow and grow). If I could respond to all the comments by email, I would. Just know that they mean so much. And I've read them all at least three (or six) times over.

A New Purse

There was a day about 20 days after she died that I went shopping for roses. I thought, before I went back to work, that I'd better do something around the house and the garden that would change things, you know, sort of make things seem like I did something while off work all this time. All this time when it seemed--to the outside world--that not a whole heck of a lot happened inside these walls and around in the garden.

So I went to Armstrong Nurseries and looked at the roses. It was a bit late in the season for bare-roots--it was May--but there were many still available. Most of them had been replanted in those black plastic pots and many had blooms. Even so, it was all pretty gloomy to me. The thought of hoisting one of those pots into the back of my car was almost more than I could bear. But I had to find a plant. How could I return to work empty handed and with nothing to show? I had to have at least planted something during all this time. Even if all I managed was roses.

Anyway. There it was. The prettiest rose I had ever seen. And it was attached to the loveliest and most stoic of stems. I had to take a closer look, turn over its tag and see what it was called. The rose, her name was Eden.

(I had named her Eden.)

Okay. So I'm being dramatic now. But it's a true story. I went looking for roses on that day and I found the perfect one and it happened to be named Eden. My daughter's name: Eden.  I planted her on the south side of the house and she went crazy. Roses, roses everywhere. Roses day and night. These white roses with pink tinged edges (no thorns) everywhere. All the time roses and a climbing plant that was so hearty and heady it was almost unbearable. The pest control guy couldn't even get around the other side of the house to do his business, that plant became so huge.

So HWWV tore it down.

Part of me feels guilty for not stopping him. But I have spent the better part of the last five years trying to forget her, so why not let him tear down that rose plant, too?

Funny: It keeps coming back And the roots are so deeply set into the soil that we can't possibly remove them without help...and many hands and many shovels and all sorts of things that overwhelm me so much, that I can't even think about what it would take to get that plant out of our garden.

So I'm letting her grow back.

On knitting news: Oh man. Girlfriend has been stealing my measuring tapes (I have had to resort to the industrial type from the junk drawer which isn't so enchanting as the long tapes that can become a scarf or a snake or a...) and HWWV, tonight, tried on my latest book-item in jest. Now, it's all stretched out and I'm angry and feeling lonely in the strangest of ways.

But, I did find a new purse by a wonderful artisan who uses vintage upholstery and neat-o vinyl for materials. I tell you what: there's nothing more "purifying" than changing purses, even if the new one is pretty much the same color as the old one and your dog decides to lick the insides before you get to stick in your wallet, lipsticks, and such.

It's all in a day, I figure.

The Importance of a Good Dye Job

When the boy at the gym counter who you used to think had a twinkle in his eye doesn't argue with you when you say you're getting on in years, things get pretty dismal, I say.

Worse, when you're checking into the fake tan booth and he mentions that spending a couple minutes in the UV tanning bed will boost your fake tan and you say, waving your forearm in his face, "Hey!...You think I want to darken these age spots? What are you talkin' about, laying in some tanning bed? You think I'm nuts?! You think I want more wrinkles? ... Some looser skin?!"

...Well, when you let the age-rage shine through like that, you pretty much want to grab your booties and hair nets (one for the face) and get your spray tan and get the heck out of the joint.

Where is that guy with the Afro wig and eyeglasses with no lenses when I need him? Why did they have to kick him out? And why did my gal, the one who'd drop her weights whenever a Britney Spears video came on and do the whole routine for us, leave? Did they change the bus routes? Am I the new Guy in the Afro Wig? Am I the new entertainment?

Worse, today, sitting in the knitting room at the preschool a well-meaning and older-than-me mom looks up from her knitting and asks, "...So, how old are you, anyway?"

"...Uh...Forty-two. I'll be forty-three in September..."

(Insert a minute's worth of needle-clicking noises here.)

"...Eh," she says, "give it another couple years and all hell will break loose."

(Sheesh. This, after finding fab new frames and finally touching up the roots. You'd think the two of them together, combined in one fabulously sensational glamour duo, would excuse me from age-related conversation, fury, or the type of angst that can only come with trying on bathing suits in bad lighting after eating a fried fish burger with a buttered bun and extra mayo.)

BTW: Brushed Chuck. I wonder if people actually do spin this stuff. I'd say, if you scooted around in my living room wearing a black pair of DKNY--or better, Gucci--trousers for about a half-second, you'd have enough for a sweater. A looooong sweater with yardage-eating cables and oodles of ribs.

Oh, and also, Elizabeth's shell is up on the Garter Belt.

...And if you want to see my New Frames and Dye Job Glamour Duo, here it is.