Silver Lining

My grand return to blogging!

2011-07-26T21:19:00.000-05:00

Well hi there! If anyone is even listening....(echo, echo, echo).

I haven't blogged in over two years. You could say my life has changed a bit in the past two years.

I have a lot to share about this new addition to my life and how it's changed my outlook on everything from "free time" to crafting. (What knitting??)

I AM still crafting...but most of my crafts are kid-friendly, either stuff he can do with me or stuff I make for him, and sewing. I can't even tell you the last time I picked up knitting needles.

I mostly am restarting the blog as a way to chronicle Barrett's early years and share my favorite moments, frustrations and craftiness with the blogging world. Facebook status updates just don't carry the same weight, you know?

And who knows...maybe I will abandon this project yet again like my several attempts to get it back on track in the past. BUT I have one important weapon I have lacked in the past....INTERNET ACCESS! (Gotta love living in the boonies!)

So...if anyone is still out there, leave me some love and let me know you're there. And if I just blog solo for a while that's ok too!

Here I am!

2009-01-07T13:11:00.004-05:00

I'm thinking that I should just officially declare a vacation from blogging as my current post rate is about once every two months. :)

If there is anyone left reading this, I'm here to report that all is well.

Just a few quick photos to share

This was taken on my birthday, Nov 15th when I was 16 weeks along.

This one was taken at 20 weeks.

I am now 24 weeks and it's time for another photo! I'll probably get Doug to take one tonight, but I'm much rounder than that last one.

On Dec 23rd we had an U/S and discovered that we are expecting a little BOY on May 2nd (or thereabouts). I don't have any u/s pics to share though, forgot those. That night my husband decided to celebrate by totalling his car.

No, he wasn't drinking and driving or anything like that. He swerved a deer that ran out in front of him and drove through a fence. He's totally fine, but the car is obviously not. Ugh. It turns out that the day his mom found out she was expecting a boy his dad drove his car into the side of a mountain by falling asleep at the wheel. He is fine now too, but was pretty badly injured back then.

Anyhoo, all is well and hopefully I'll get a few more posts published before I have pictures of a real live baby to show you! In the meantime you can probably find me at my parents' house playing with my little brother's awesome Christmas present....Guitar Hero World Tour. SOOOO much fun!

Mystery Solved

2008-11-10T09:06:00.003-05:00

Over a month with no post! I know, I know....last time I promised a fun post and then radio silence for almost two months. Well, a few months ago.....

I must have taken about 6 tests over the course of a week just to "be sure". We decided to wait for the three-month mark to tell anyone at all, including friends and family. We just wanted to be sure that this time was going to be different than what happened last time. I had an initial doctor's appointment around 5 weeks to determine the approximate due date, then another appointment at 13 weeks for our first ultrasound.

(*Note: I have tried about a dozen different ways to get these u/s pics to show up better, but finally I had to resort to just taking pictures of the u/s papers. The scanned pictures wouldn't load properly into blogger. As if that wasn't headache enough, the darn things keep coming up sideways....I give up! Tilt your head to the right and enjoy!)

So that should about sum up by absence. I didn't trust myself to blog without slipping up about our HUGE secret. Not to mention the first few months were a little trying. I was nauseous mostly in the evenings, so dragging the laptop to Panera, the land of a million smells, was pretty much out of the question. Add to that the intense fatigue that comes with the first trimester, and well, there you go. I am feeling MUCH better now. I have just outgrown all my regular pants and I'm starting to show a bit, but only if you already know what to look for. My baby bump isn't quite noticeable as a baby bump, just a little extra weight around the middle right now. As of Wednesday I will be 16 weeks along, due date of May 2nd, 2009!

Now that my secret is out I'm sure I will be posting more regularly, so feel free to stop by and say hi!

Anyone still there?

2008-09-19T09:39:00.003-05:00

Holy moly! I can't believe it's been more than a month since I last posted! There hasn't been a whole lot going on over in my world. I haven't really knit anything. (I opted out of doing the Knitting Ravelympics that I posted about last. Too much pressure.) Doug got a new job and I've been adjusting to his very weird schedule. By weird I mean, he is working a M-F 9-5 job. He is home EVERY evening and weekend. That is so bizarre by our standards. It's been a real treat to have him home in the evenings, but werid to not have any weekdays with him. That used to be our errand-running time, and it's been an adjustment to do all that stuff on my own.
No pictures for this post, sorry. I hate posts without pictures, but I just happened to be near a computer when I realized how neglectful of the blog I've been lately, so I had nothing planned. The reason for my long-awaited (ha!) return to blogging? I just got an email that notified me that my SITS day in the sun was coming next Wednesday! I need to do some blogging between now and then so I will be back with pictures and all later this week/weekend. Hopefully.
I have a really super-cool post planned, but probably not until sometime late next week. (That should keep you clicking back, right?)
See you soon!

Link-o-licious

2008-08-09T22:40:00.004-05:00

Most of you have at least heard of the Knitting Olympics that are hosted by the Yarn Harlot. They coincide with the winter olympics and only happen every four years. I participated two years ago and didn't quite finish my project. (Although I did FINISH it eventually, a rareity round these parts.) For the summer olympics another group (Ravelry) is hosting the Ravelympics. Same idea....cast on a project during the opening ceremonies and finish before the closing ceremonies. No fair using already cast-on projects, it must be brand spanking new. So I had debated about joining in with this round and I intended on it, but I let life catch up with me a bit and now it's already been two days and I haven't cast on yet. I'm torn. I'd really like to start a project but I have done none of the legwork, ie. picking out a pattern/yarn, etc. I have plenty of yarn to choose from at home and books and books worth of patterns, so that's not the issue. But I'd need to figure out what is actually knit-able in 15 days. So what should it be?

A sweater? I have three of four that I'd really like to make that I already have yarn for, like the
Tangled yoke Cardigan, or the Hourglass Sweater (rav link), or Buttony, or Rusted Root. But I don't think knitting a whole sweater in 15 days is really that reasonable. I mean, maybe, if I had nothing else going on and it was a slow time of year at work. But I am going out of town, celebrating my hubby's bday, and work is c-r-a-z-y right now. I guess Rusted Root could be forced off the needles fast enough, but it would be a huge stretch of my abilites.

So maybe some socks?
There are so many choices. How am I supposed to choose from all those wonderful patterns? Plus there is the problem that all my sock needles are a little tied up at the moment.

Maybe I will just sit this one out. Hmm. I'll have to decide today if I'm going to so I actually have time to knit something. ::scratching head:: Tough decision.

Thank you all for your supportive comments about my jewelry! I really appreciate the advice. I think I will give Etsy the ol' college try, but it will take me a bit to get some stuff together and get the store up and running. I'm sure I will plan some big post to celebrate when I open my Etsy store for real. So keep your eyes peeled for a big party!

Not knitting!

2008-08-05T07:51:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago a friend of mine came over to make dinner with me. We went down to the downtown mall before shopping for the ingredients and happened to wander into a bead store. They had a cute display set up with ready-made pendants. I took one look and thought "I can make those!", so we each picked out a few cute focal beads and some leather and brought it home to be crafty. (Sorry for the blurry pics...not sure why my camera wouldn't cooperate.)

We mostly used accent beads that I had in my *ahem* sizeable bead stash. I don't know why I don't make jewelry more often. I think I lose my patience with all the tiny beads, but I have soooo many beads I really should do stuff like this more.

I wonder if I could post stuff like this in my Etsy store (if I ever get around to setting it up properly). What do you think? Would someone buy these? How much do you think I could ask without over or under selling? This is why I don't have an Etsy store....I wouldn't have a clue how much to charge for things.

I know that the cost of the materials should be some sort of factor in the price, but some things, like jewelry, are hard to calculate the cost. For instance, if you buy something in bulk, like a string of beads, how do you know exactly what the cost was in making one necklace?I really like the way this round green one came out, it's a shame there isn't a better picture of it. The stone is that cat's eye kind of stone, where the light hits it and makes little rings and lines in the stone. This brown one is one that my friend made. I really like her design. The flower is made of shell and the brown round beads are wood. Very beachy

So what do you think, do I have a promising future in jewelry-making? (Assuming I can learn to take better pictures, of course.) It certainly has a higher finished object ratio than my knitting does.

Birthday Boy

2008-08-04T07:40:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we did a little celebrating around here.

We were in a bit of a hurry to have cake and ice cream before a certain wokaholic had to take off for one of his many jobs, so we may have iced the cake a bit soon, what do you think?

Galen didn't seem to mind though, as it was just as yummy with the icing all over the place as it would have been if it stayed put.

(Yes, I am doing bunny-ears in the background. It's fun to act like a kid sometimes!)

During every spare second my sister Morgan was doing that familiar knitting dance, the "Just a few more rows and your present will be done!" dance.

She didn't quite make it happen, but she got really, really close.

After dinner we went outside to play with one of Galen's new birthday toys. Water balloons! We started by playing the classic toss-and-catch-and-try-not-to-get-soaked game, which quickly dissolved into an all-out water balloon war in which Galen and I pretty much ganged up on Mom. She was completely drenched from the shoulders down! I managed to pop a big one right over Galen's head when he wasn't looking. I, however, managed to stay relatively dry. I got hit with a few stray balloons here and there, but none of them did very much damage.

Lots of fun had by all! Happy Birthday Galen!

Trying something new

2008-08-02T21:02:00.003-05:00

Hello :)

My computer is still out of commission, but I managed to get ahold of some internet access. I've heard of other bloggers setting publish times for later so they can write a bunch at once and have it last them through the week. So I have decided to give it a whirl. So the blogs I line up for this week will NOT BE LIVE BLOGS. I am just letting you know so you don't get upset if I don't respond to comments right away. I am still computer-less (hopefully for not very much longer) but until I get my 'puter back it is very hard to find internet. Bear with me!

So while my computer is out of commission I have been a very busy bee, but in a very non-productive way.

I have lost track of everything I have read, but a few faves:

My Sister's Keeper- I'm actually not quite done with this one yet, but it's been an intriguing page-turner.

The Wednesday Letters-So heartwarming! Definitely a tear-jerker! The bonus is it is set in my region so I recognized a lot of the landmarks and settings.

Firefly Lane-an absolutely amazing story about two girls who become best friends and then grow up and go through life together. A must-read!

I've been going to the library at least once a week, sometimes two times. I could spend hours and hours in there, browsing through the stacks and stacks of books. I love to read. It used to be a joke when my husband and I first started dating , that I could devour a book faster than most people can parallel park a car. I do read fast, especially when I get involved in the story. I can sit down with the intention to read "just a few pages" and suddenly I'm halfway through the book and haven't noticed that the sun set, or that hours of passed. I'm also a very active reader. What I mean by that is, if something is funny, I laugh out loud. If something is sad, I cry. If something in the book starts to get scary I pull the covers up to my chin and keep my dog close by. My husband thinks I'm a nut when I am doing these things while reading. I will be laughing hysterically at something in my book and he comes into the room confused at what could possibly be so funny when the tv isn't on and I'm in the room alone.

So that's what I've been up to since I can't comment on your blogs or post on my own. Anyone have any other good book recommendations? Please post them in the comments!

So much to say....

2008-07-26T21:36:00.002-05:00

My computer is sick. Sick meaning the hard drive went kablooey. Nothing survived. No pictures, patterns that I'd saved, music, nothing. Ugh. Most of the pictures were saved elsewhere. Not all, but most. The patterns....well, I can always download them again. Although some of them cost a few dollars, but I'll get them eventually. Really it's not so much the losing stuff as all the time it will take to accumulate all of it again. It's so completely overwhelming to think of all the time I would need to invest just to get everything back. And remember that it's not idle time spent in front of the TV or the few minutes while the oven preheats. Nope, no internet for me at home folks. For me to get online requires a hop, skip, and a jump over to Panera or some other WiFi hotspot.

I have composed many a blog post in my head, taken pictures specifically for the blog, and thought up nice comments to each of your posts. The only reason I'm typing this right now is I came to my parent's house for the afternoon and I'm stealing time on their internet. (Hence no pictures.) I have been able to keep up with my blog-reading on my cell phone, though it is one-sided. (My phone doesn't allow me to post comments for whatever reason.) I hate lurking. It makes me feel a little creepy, like I'm watching you all from outside the house, sneaking glances in a window. I'd much rather read the post and then happily comment about whatever struck me or things we have in common, or just whatever. Just know that if I usually comment on your blog and I've been curiously absent lately, I'm still here reading. I'm just on the other side of the glass. I miss my computer!!

Off-topic...wouldn't you all just love for me to be the new recipient of an ipod Nano? Don't you think after all this laptop drama I deserve a new gadget to make me feel all better? Don't you think if I have to re-download a bunch of music anyway I should get a shiny new ipod to put it all on? Thought so! SITS is having a giveaway this week for a new ipod nano. I don't know if signing up at SITS gets me any extra entries, but if you haven't already checked this website out you totally should. It's a great way to up your reader count and get lots of fun comments, and most importantly meet lots of wonderful bloggers. Of course the whole point of SITS is to comment, comment, comment and share the love and as of late I can not do that, but I love SITS anyway. Despite my lack of comment-ability I have been reading all the featured bloggers and their posts on my one-way phone and laughing my head off all the time. So, SITS mommas, if you are reading this....I'm still here! Just temporarilty disabled! Bench me for now, but I will be back around soon :)

To the rest of you, I will resume regular posting soon. I am slowly building up the blog fodder so I'm sure I will be super-chatty upon my return.

Happy 4th!

2008-07-04T21:09:00.002-05:00

Happy Fourth of July!!

Not exactly....

2008-06-24T23:25:00.002-05:00

...what I had in mind when I set out to capture a picture of a hay bale, but it'll do.

I've unsuccessfully tried to get a hay picture about a half dozen times in the past few days. We must have drove past about 5 fields full of them on my little road trip, but again...not quick enough on the draw. So when I saw this at a stop light I made sure to position myself nearby and snapped this picture just as the light turned green. Note: do not attempt! Taking pictures while driving is DEFINITELY not safe.

So may I vent to you, lovely blog readers, for just a moment? Thanks. I'll just lay down on the couch. Do you have your yellow legal notepad ready? Ok....I just want to go on record saying that my husband's work schedule sucks! I know that there are many, many women out there whose husbands are overseas and they don't get to see them at all, so I feel a little guilty for complaining, but this is really tough. Doug is literally working ALL the time. He picks up shifts as much as he can, most of which are overnight. When he is not working he is sleeping, so even if he is home I don't get to spend any time with him at all. This just sucks on so many levels. The most obvious being that I don't get to spend any time with him. But the thing I didn't think about when he started all this was how much his funky sleep habits would mess with mine. When he comes home at 4am to go to sleep I inevitably wake up, then I find it hard to go back to sleep. Then when it's time to get up to go to work 3 hours later it's very difficult to get up because my sleep was interrupted. I am tired all-the-time now. If I am home when he is sleeping I have to be careful not to wake him, which means I am very limited in what I can do. He is doing all this because we are struggling a bit financially right now and it's incredible what he is putting himself through so we can catch up. He is being so incredibly selfless so we can get on better footing. I know I couldn't do it. That makes me feel even more guilty for complaining, so I try not to complain to him because I know there is really nothing he can do about it. Summer is "our time". In the summers we enjoy every day to it's fullest, whether we are kayaking, going for a motorcycle ride, or just enjoying the outdoors. We haven't been able to do any of those things so far. Yesterday he came across an amazing opportunity that would allow him to quit one, maybe both, jobs and it would be in the direction he wants to develop his career. There are some hoops to jump through to make it happen, so we will see....but I am praying this all works out because we need some relief. So cross your fingers for me! Ok, selfish rant over. I feel better, thanks for listening!

Next post....a fun giveaway!

Road Trip

2008-06-20T22:13:00.002-05:00

Just a quickie post. I'm out of town on a work trip, but I have a funny little story for you about our road trip on the way here. We came around one corner and right in front of us was the largest, orange moon I have ever seen. There were four of us in the car and we were all impressed. I started rumaging around in my bag for my camera so I could take a picture, but of course by the time I came up with it the road had curved and it was buried in the trees. So for the next twenty minutes I played hide and seek with the moon through the trees.

The longer it took me to take a picture, the higher the moon rose. As it rose it lost its color and eventually it wasn't worth photographing anymore. I reall wish I had been able to get a good picture to share because it was gorgeous.

It was pretty comical in the car though because I got everyone in the car in on the need to get a good picture for my blog. Melissa, who was driving, was slowing up and speeding down accordingly wih the gaps in the trees trying to give me a good shot. Tony took the camera for a few minutes when the moon was on his side of the car and Wanda was on moon lookout telling us when a good opportunity to take a good picture was coming. At one point I temporarily blinded Melissa with the red light on my camera that flashes when it is being focused. (No I didn't use flash.) Not good to blind the driver.

Fun times. Hope you all have a super weekend!

I won!

2008-06-17T22:34:00.002-05:00

Has anyone else noticed that there are SOO many contests on the blogs lately?
Well, I won something! Kate hosted a fabulous giveaway on her blog and I won! Yay! I will take pictures when it gets here. I think I will pass along the Karma and have a little contest of my own, but I am going out of town for a few days so it will have to be next week. Check back!

The Best Laid Plans

2008-06-13T18:56:00.003-05:00

Do you have moments that just inspire you? Yesterday Doug and I went on a long bike ride through the country. There was a field near my house where they were cutting down the long grass and making bales of hay. Something about the sweet smell of fresh hay and the bales sitting out in the field inspired me to write a nice post about summer and all the things about it I love. So I started composing a bit of a post in my head yesterday. Usually my blogging is random and very little preparation goes into it, so I felt like SuperBlogger acutally planning a post out ahead of time. Fast forward to this afternoon. This post wasn't going to be complete without a picture of the bale-laiden field that inspired the whole thing to begin with. The field is about 2 miles from my house, but I figured the short drive in the opposite direction was worth it for the picture. I arrived to find...no bales. I guess they picked them up. Those farmers are too efficient! I remembered another field a few more miles down the road where they had been cutting the grass down and were about to make bales. I thought maybe it was worth the short (now becoming a long) trip on the off chance that there would be a field full of bales to show you. Nope. So now you get a shorter post about summer and my failed attempts to bring you a pretty picture. So, indulge me and imagine an artistic shot of a hilly field with randomly placed bales of hay with the sun setting in the background. Got it? Ok....

Some other things I like about summer (other than sweet-smelling bales of hay):

Ok, I know that technically these are considered weeds, but do you remember how much fun it was to see if you could blow all the fluff off in one breath when you were a kid? I still can't do it all at once...it takes at least two tries.

I have three of these in front of my house. Doug thinks they look a little tacky, but I think they look whimical. I love the bright colors and the way the wind makes them spin. We agreed that the pinwheels could stay as long as they were joined by any pink flamingos or cardboard figures of a large lady's rear end. (Although I secretly think that pink flamingos in the yard would be tacky to the point of being super-cool.)

One great lazy-day activity? Hitting golf balls into the woods behind my house. Don't worry no one lives close enough to get hurt, besides I don't hit them very far and they sometimes end up like this one lodged in a tree. Every few times we do it we go hunting in the woods for the balls to do it again. Great fun!

There are so many other things that I love about summer, way too many to list here. What are your favorite things about summer? Have a good weekend! I'll be off doing another of my favorite summer Saturday activities....yard sale-ing!

Stick it to me

2008-06-10T13:34:00.004-05:00

Last month I participated in a Handmade Pincushion Swap. Yesterday I got the pincushion from my pal, well actually TWO pincushions!

Isn't that clever? (Sorry for the blurry pic) You should see the details on the smaller one, too...it looks like a cherry blossom tree. Thanks so much Kim, these will get lots of use!

Here's a pic of the one I sent her:

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the centers of the flowers are actually little clusters of seed beads. All in all, it wasn't difficult to make the pincushion, but that kind of fiddly sewing really isn't my cup of tea.

Last week Chance finally met our next door neighbor dog, Jada. She is a pit bull too, but very very shy. We cautiously introduced them (Chance doesn't always like other dogs). They seemed to like each other just fine, although Jada was just a little bit nervous. Every day since then when I take Chance out he is constantly looking over at her house wondering if she's outside.

So cute!

One more thing...everyone should click on over to Eight Crazy Designs. She is having a great contest until Thursday where you can win won of her customer banners or predesigned blog layouts. If you haven't already checked out her blog layouts you must go look now! She is amazing!

Wind-up

2008-06-08T15:59:00.003-05:00

Today my sister Morgan paid me a visit for some yarny goodness time. She brought a duffel bag full of un-wound sock yarns that she wanted to wine into cakes using my swift and ballwinder. So we spent all afternoon doing this
And all our hard work produced this end result:
Left to right that's three skeins of Blue Sky Alpaca Silk,two skeins Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock, two skeins Knitpicks Gloss, Socks that Rock (!!), Fly-dyed Monarch (this yarn was a pain in the patootie to wind...lots of knots), Peace Fleece, more Lorna's Lace and some Tess Designer Super Sock. This was not all of the yarn she brought to wind, but we ran out of time because the world's cutest nephew was delivered to my doorstep.

Adorable right? I know! He likes to "help" wind the yarn. I let him help wind one skein and he decided suddenly to wind it really fast and the whole thing literally flew off the ball winder across the room. Huge mess! So we decided that was the last skein we were going to wind.

Chance was a little bored with our chosen activity for the afternooon. He had his heart set on playing fetch in the backyard. Sorry buddy!

Blog Love

2008-06-03T11:27:00.002-05:00

Do you love to leave comments? Do you wish you had more comments to read? If you are looking to up your blog readership and check out some awesome blogs at the same time, go check out The Secret is in the Sauce. If you send them links to three of your posts then you will be added to their list of blogs that they feature each day. Every day (M-F) they pick a different blog to feature and on their blog they tell everyone to go there and leave a comment! Yay for blog love all around.

PLUS, they are having a super-duper contest right now. They are soooo generous and giving away all kinds of bloggy goodies, so what are you waiting for? Go check it out! Click on the link in this post or the button that I added to my sidebar (at the bottom, scroll down). And if you win, you must share the chocolate with me. Mmmm.....

Weird.

2008-06-01T17:49:00.002-05:00

So apparently Panera hates Blogger. Every site I tried to browse today while there that was hosted by blogger was blocked. “Content not authorized for viewing.” What exactly about a knitting blog is threatening? Could it be the pointy sticks? Ug. I was able to read most of my faves through bloglines, but couldn’t post to my own blog at all, and I couldn’t post any comments anywhere either. Frowny face.

But, what I wanted to post about was my recent obsession with socks. Here it is in photos:

The sock wars socks were the ones that kicked it off. I actually FINISHED a project. (It’s been a while.) (I did weave in all those nasty ends and graft the toes before I sent them!) I had forgotten how exhilarating that can be. So I immediately cast on for another pair of socks.

These are intended for my grandmother, who had an accident on Mother’s Day. She and my grandfather live in a mobile home and travel the country. They find parks where they can do short term jobs in exchange for hookup fees, etc. So this summer they have been at an amusement park/campground in Iowa. On Mother’s Day Gma was working a ride called the G-Force, checking to see that passengers were safely fastened. The operator of the ride started it before she was clear of the gears and she was…well…squished. She suffered a fractured pelvis bone and lots of bruising, but otherwise she is OK. She was released from the hospital yesterday and is happily back at home, taking it slow and easy. I know that she will have some difficulties moving around as she is using a walker while she is recovering and the trailer is v-e-r-y small. My sisters and I have sent her cards and some knitting/crochet stuff to keep her hands busy, but I thought these socks would warm her spirits (and her feet!). Send some good wishes her way, would ya? Thanks!

This past week I worked a couple of overnight shifts. The night before I started them I decided to try to stay up as late as possible to try and alter my sleep schedule in preparation. What could possibly keep my interest enough to keep me up until 3am? New socks! (Grandma’s socks were at the heel flap which is my least favorite part of a sock other than picking up stitches for the gusset. I hate picking up stitches.) So I cast on for a pair of Monkeys. I just had to see what all the fuss was about. The last time a sock knitting craze (rav link) of this magnitude swept the blogisphere I tried the pattern and was just not impressed. Don’t get me wrong-lovely pattern, love what some people have done with it, just not for me. The monkeys? Well….three repeats in and I must say…all these bloggers are onto something. Monkeys rock!

Last thing, before this blog post gets out of control. Ever have one of those weeks? You know…where NOTHING goes your way? I had one of those this past week. It started out with me being broker than broke. Like, ramen noodle broke. Doug is thankfully now employed, but went about 5 weeks without a job and we just hit that point where his last few paychecks had floated us about as far as they could. No worries, everything is under control now, but it was a tight squeeze this past week. S-t-r-e-s-s-f-u-l. Then things just got plain comical. Thursday morning we got a call from my sister who was worried because her husband hadn’t yet arrived at work but had left with plenty of time to get there on time. So we went on the search for him. Turns out he had ridden his new motorcycle to work and it broke down. Doug went with him to figure out the problem and it turned out to be….he ran out of gas. The funny part is he actually “broke down” at a gas station and it never occurred to him that that cold be the problem, so he pushed the bike about a quarter of a mile up 29 before giving up and walking the rest of the way home (no cell phone). We laughed it up for a bit and then Doug and I took my sis to the dump. We haul our trash to the dump because it isn’t far and a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for pick up. Well, Doug’s old beatup truck had a quarter tank of gas in it. Enough to get to the dump and back, right? Think again. We were about a mile from a gas station and we….ran out of gas. Ha! Serves us right for laughing about Chad’s little motorcycle incident. So we walked to a gas station, found a nice guy to give Doug a ride to the truck with a gallon of gas while Heather and I waited at the gas station, filled up, went home. So now we are even keel right? Two incidents is enough! But wait, there’s more….! Friday afternoon I got a call from Doug who was supposedly on his way to Richmond. Keep in mind that now I have done TWO consecutive overnights and been woken up one of those days to go husband-hunting for my sister, walked a mile in the sweltering heat for gas, not slept, etc. Doug had ran out of gas on mile marker 152 of I-64. For those of you that don’t live locally, we are off exit 124 by about 8 miles, give or take. Yeah…thirty miles. He could potentially walk to a gas station, but see the aforementioned broke as a joke statement. So I got the gas tank that we keep on hand for the mower and went to bail him out, turned around, drove the thirty miles home with exactly enough time to change clothes and go to work. That’s the kind of week where you just have to stop and laugh at yourself because otherwise you would go completely crazy. Ugh.
Novel-length post over. I’m going to go to sleep now. Well, maybe after I knit just a little bit more on my socks…..

Win Something!

2008-05-19T17:13:00.006-05:00

Random stuff:

1. My blog's reading level is apparently High School. Eh. I guess that's a good thing because it's not boring and it's not something embarrassing like pre-K?

Movie Reviews

2. To my victim...if you read this. Stop worrying. No socks have been mailed yet. You still have time. You can thank Target for ruling much of my time for the past few days, but I have a day off coming and intend on wearing out my needles then.

3. Everyone should go here and leave a comment so you can be entered to win a $50 gift certificate to Shabby Apple . Once you leave a comment there copy and paste it to a comment here so I can learn all about you too! (Although I don't have a prize to offer, just thought it would be fun!)

4. I really, really, really need to get internet at home. Mobile blogging sucks.

5. I don't do enough self-promotion. I sell album-making supplies (as well as digital stuff and framing) through a company called Creative Memories. I really need to ruffle up a few orders in the next few days so I will do a contest. If you place an order (any amount) on my website by midnight on Saturday I will enter you in a drawing for free photo organizing software. Even if you don't scrapbook, this software is awesome to organize all those digital photos you take and upload to your computer. C'mon, click the link...you know you want to.

5. I love knitting on my back porch on days like today. Nice cool breeze, warm sun, Chance curled up at my feet. Mmmmm.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Blustery Day

2008-05-17T09:53:00.003-05:00

(anyone get the Winnie the Pooh reference? One of my favorite stories when I was younger.)

Yesterday day was an extremely windy day. Hubby and I went out to the Downtown Mall for Friday's After Five and this is what we came home to:

Not cool.

He had just changed out our storm door insert from the glass one to the screen one for summer and hadn't yet put the glass one in storage. Boo.

I guess this just means we'll have to get the fancy new storm door I've been wanting sometime before it gets cold. Darn! ;-)

Sock Wars

2008-05-15T20:13:00.000-05:00

What have I been doing for the past 5 days? I will tell you. I have been working on creating a deadly weapon.

This may or may not be a picture that is recent. Just in case my victim happens across my blog I will keep it a secret as to whether or not I am finished making my weapon.

Ok, so for those of you scratching your head, let me explain. I am talking about Sock Wars. Basically it is modeled after the game "Assassin". It's a little difficult to explain, but everyone who signed up was given a "target" to knit socks for. The person you are knitting socks for is knitting them for someone else, not you...it's a circle. When you receive your socks, you have been "killed". You then send your socks in progress to your assassin along with your Target's info. Your assassin then picks up where you left off and your Target becomes their new Target. Make sense? I know...totally confusing. I'm not even sure I totally understand it, but I am having fun. My hands and shoulders are sore from all the knitting. I am just hoping that my assassin is knitting VERY slowly so I can stay in the game for a while! The winner (last one left standing) will receive 60 balls of sock yarn (Tofutsies) from Southwest Trading Company . People. 60 balls! What in the world would I do with 60 balls? I don't think I could knit 60 pairs of socks in this lifetime!

Speaking of SWTC, let me relate to you a wonderful tale of excellent customer service. I encountered four knots in my yarn while making my socks. There was a discussion on Ravelry about similar situations so I commented that I really liked the yarn, but the knots were a little frustrating. Within TEN MINUTES of posting that I received a message from the co-owner of SWTC asking for my mailing address so they could send me a replacement ball, totally on them!! I was blown away, I mean...to offer a replacement ball is outstanding enough, not to mention that I was simply posting to a discussion, not complaining to the company or anything! WOW!

As if that wasn't enough for one day, I wrote a quick email to Lantern Moon about a set of needles that I bought last summer. It was a set of ebony sock needles that I splurged on, and on the very first sock I ever knit I broke two of the DPNs. I was bummed but figured I could exchange them without a problem. Uh-uh. No receipt, no exchange. Period. I will not mention the store that gave me such an issue, but if you knit and live in Charlottesville you can probably guess. I didn't think much about it again until the other day when I saw the remaining three lonely needles. I decided to write the company and see if they would be able to do anything for me. The same day I got an email back and they are going to send me two replacement needles for the two that snapped. :)

Lots of good vibes in the universe for me today!

Scarring movie moments

2008-05-10T14:25:00.002-05:00

I saw this meme on Jennifer's blog a while back and thought I'd share my own movie moments that scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid:

1. Ghostbusters- the scene where Slimer is chasing the librarian through the stacks. My parents took me to see this in the theater and on the way home I was convinced there was a ghost in the floorboard of the car that was going to steal my new sandals right off my feet.

2. E.T.-this was the movie we watched at my 9th birthday party. Don't know what exactly scared me, but something about the scenes when they quarantined the house. I had to leave the room.

3. Watcher in the Woods-the main character was named Karen and when she went through the mirror and got trapped she wrote "Nerak" on the mirror. Ok, so this memory might be a little foggy...but I remember something about "nerak" and being scared.

4. Beetlejuice-my parents were watching this one night after my bed time and I sneaked peaks through a crack in the door. I was totally terrified of my soup after watching the scene where they have the seance and they try to scare them away. "Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me bananas!"

These are all very "vanilla" on the horror-scale, but what can I say? I scare easily...I still don't like horror movies very much.

P.S. Everyone should go check out this post about comments. I really agree with her!

Of Sheep and Wool

2008-05-10T13:47:00.006-05:00

Ok, so I have been a HIGHLY negligent blogger, but it's not all my fault. As I've said several times before on this blog I have no internet connection at home. Well, I live across the street from an elementary school and managed to pick up on their internet connection so I've been happily clicking away on Ravelry for the past three weeks. Problem is, their connection has a bunch of firewalls so anything with "blog" in the URL is blocked. So, no blogging for me. (Also no reading a lot of your blogs....I've been missing out!) Anyhoo....last week I lost the signal. I don't know if they found me out and privatized the signal or what, but I'm back to being a mobile blogger. I know, it serves me right for being a moocher, but they didn't password protect their wireless signal either, so....

Ok, so lots of catching up to do. I acutally took a lot of pictures in the last few weeks with the intention of specific blog posts, so bear with me. This will be a long one.

A few weeks back I went to visit my sister in Farmville. I took a fantastic "Saturday Sky" picture to share.

The next Saturday that I had off I went to the Jeopardy auditions.

Sadly, I didn't make it through the first pre-test. My dad did make it through, and went on to take the 50 Q test, but didn't make it past that. Great fun though!

By the way, I just want to share....I *heart* my Garmin GPS. Does anyone else have one of these? I've been doing a lot of traveling lately and haven't gotten lost once. Great, great invention!

Last weekend I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with my sister Morgan and my friend Jessica. We had such a blast! Morgan got her first spindle and learned to spin

...we made some felted flowers, just like last year.......went to the Ravelry meet-up and saw some fab bloggers.........and drank some homemade soda (veeeery sweet, couldn't drink the whole thing).........and of course, bought yarn! Here's my haul:That's two skeins of 100% wool (greens) intended for some felting, the blue on the left is intended for a small lace stole, the purple/blue is sock yarn, the brownish-green next to it is a frogged Eddie Bauer sweater that I am undecided what to do with, and the blue/green at the bottom is for a lace shawl.

I have a question for any knit-bloggers out there...how do you feel about meeting bloggers in real life? I find it to be a very awkward situation. Especially if I don't comment very often, but always read the blog. I feel a little like a stalker. What do you say when you go to a blog meetup at a festival? "Hello, I read your blog and know all about your life, but you have no idea who I am?" Even if I comment now and then I feel like an intruder if they don't know me. If we read each other's blogs and know that we are both going to the festival and have even mentioned meeting up, that's one thing. But what if you see a blogger that you read a lot? Do you say hello? Maybe it's just me. Any thoughts? I would love to see if anyone else feels this way.

Whew! If anyone needs me, I will be doing this on my back porch for the rest of the weekend.

Late Night JoAnn's trips....

2008-04-12T14:39:00.003-05:00

....are the best. There is hardly anyone there and look at what I scored!

The bright floral is almost a whole yard. I'm not sure about this, but I think I might be able to squeeze a skirt out of it. And the blue...that is a lovely jacquard print that I'm thinking will be a pretty coin purse

And this purchase was an amazing find.

This was in the clearance bin in the back-the only one like it. I got it for a mere dollar. (Originally priced 10.99) It's a hard case for storing knitting notions such as stitch markers, tape measure, etc. This particular model is specifically designed to be the right size to hold DPN's as well. I might hold onto this to send in a swap or as a gifty item.

I am in Farmville at my sister's today for a visit. I *sorta* taught her to knit...as best as a righty can teach a lefty to knit. She learned the rest from a book specially designed for lefty knitting. I took a few unfinished projects with me with the hope that a solid day of knitting might turn out some finished objects. My nephew immediately started digging through my bag in search of presents. I did bring him a coloring book and a box of crayons, but he was most interested in this project.

I told him it was a skiing headband and he immediately yanked it onto his head. He is a very good poser of pictures. I asked him to tilt his head down so I could see the pattern.I think it looks much prettier on him that it would on me, what do you think? He was super cute-when I snapped the pictures he said "Pleeease!" instead of cheese.

We then headed out to Charley's for lunch- a local restaurant with an amazing menu and wonderful scenery. It is set right on the bend of the river and has a great atmosphere. I learned that if you are going to feed a toddler chocolate sauce you might want to forego the yellow shirt. But that's why they invented Tide-to-Go pens, right?

Got to go....hopefully I will get some knitting done today :)

Spring!!

2008-04-10T19:48:00.003-05:00

Today when I left work I had a pleasant surprise! Spring has finally arrived at long last. Let's just hope it sticks around for a while.

I received my spring swap package from my pal Petra yesterday. Thanks Petra! I loved it!
Check out that super-cool bag! It is from Old Navy....I wonder if it is "green"? It feels a little rough like burlap (but not that rough). There are two skeins of TLC Essentials and a coaster-making kit. That ought to be fun to play with.
Check out the cute light-catcher/wall-hanging she sent. I haven't decided where to hang it yet. I'm thinking maybe my kitchen window...
Then there were these crafty cards. Petra, did you make these yourself? You crafty girl...I'm impressed. I will definitely use these :) Thanks again Petra, and I hope you like your goody bag when it gets there!

In knitting news... I cast on for something else. I know what you're thinking, but this is totally different. This isn't a case of neglect of my current project (which I can prove, see below) but planning ahead for Christmas. See, my mother-in-law LOVES my handknit dishcloths. It's all she uses to wash her dishes and she goes through them pretty quickly. She asks for them for every holiday. I found this great group on Ravelry (still addicted by the way) that is a weekly *free* dishcloth pattern. I probably won't make every single pattern, but this one was too cute to pass up. Right now it looks like a sock, but it is a dishcloth knit in the round and when it is off the needles it will lay flat and hopefully look like a big fancy circle.

I am still knitting on my Incan Pullover. I had to completely rip the whole thing back and start over so I had a bit of a setback but I am making mad progress now. Especially this afternoon. After work I set up camp on my front porch swing and just swung (swang?) and knit and watched the traffic go by.

Chance is so funny when I bring him outside while I sit on the swing. He usually wants to curl up right at my feet but since my feet move he can't figure out where to lay down. He will pace and circle until he thinks he's found the perfect spot-close enough to my feet but far enough from the strange moving seat. Then as soon as he settles in for a snooze he gets wonked by the swing and he starts the whole process over again. Eventually he gives up, settles for a seat far from me and the swing and glares at me from he too-far-away seat. It's really quite entertaining.

Lightbulb

2008-04-07T20:04:00.003-05:00

Today I made an astounding discovery.

Hand-knit socks are the best thing ever!

Ok, ok...I've known for a while how comfy handknit socks are. I have knit a few pairs (3 and half to be exact) and I wear them occasionally around the house. However today, I wore some with shoes to work for the very first time. I've never done it before because I thought they would be too thick to be wearing when I am on my feet all day. Plus, I worried about the rough wear and tear on my precious handknits. Call me crazy but after all the time invested in a handknit piece I only want to wear it for a special occasion.

Wrong! They were wonderful! I want to only wear handknit socks forever!

I knit these socks last summer. The yarn weight is actually more like a lightweight DK than the usual sock-weight yarn I prefer, but I couldn't resist the colors. I love the way the yellow transitions from a sunshine yellow, to a creamy yellow, to a buttery yellow. I love yellow. I believe the yarn is Artyarns Supermerino 6. They make a lighter weight yarn that is probably more suitable to socks, but this worked out just fine for me. I believe I used a US 4 on these socks.

I have discovered a network near my house that I can get on if I sit on my bed at a certain angle with the computer slightly tilted on my lap as long as I am patient with the signal coming and going. So for the past two days I have been absorbed in Ravelry, blogging, and general internet surfing. I know I am overusing the internet at this point, but I am so deprived! It's so nice to be able to check my email without driving all the way to Panera!! Ok, back to ravelry.

BTW....if anyone who reads this happens to be on ravelry, come say hello. My username is knittykaren.

Bits and Pieces

2008-04-01T10:56:00.003-05:00

It's time for a random post...

This past weekend I went with my sister to the Downtown Mall. We were in search of another skein of the light purple yarn for my Incan pullover, but both yarn stores in town don't have the right color. I guess that means I will turn to the internet, but silly me threw the ball band out so I don't know the color number and the colors on my computer aren't always accurate.

While we were downtown we paid a visit to the McGuffy Art Center. I had never actually been inside. It is an old school that they have turned into part studio, part gallery. There are about a dozen individual studios that artists can rent (I guess?) to have space to make their art. Some of the studios are open so you can actually see the art-in-progress, some are closed. They even offer art classes every so often. There is a round of classes starting now that I would love to take one or two, but they are a little pricey and it just isn't in the budget right now. Anyway, we went there specifically to see this:

That is a sculpture of my sister, when she was 10. A friend of our mom's was a sculptor and was looking for a child to pose for her and Heather fit the bill. I had never seen the statue in person and it had been years since Heather had so we decided to drop in. (She did wear a leotard when she posed.)

Afterward we walked the mall for a bit and there was this cute little guy who hung around us for a bit.

I don't think I've ever posted a picture of these to the blog. A friend of mine made these for me a few years ago.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the charms are actually shrinky-dinks. Does anyone remember those? She printed pictures from her computer onto shrinky-dink stuff and then did the magic baking. I don't use them too often because they are a little big. They work best with large needle knits and I prefer to use sizes 8 and below, but I love to look at them.

Music is my boyfriend

2008-03-28T19:29:00.004-05:00

I saw this meme a while back and thought it was pretty cool so I am passing it on....

If your life were a soundtrack, what would the music be?

Here’s how it works:
1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
2. put it on shuffle
3. press play
4. for every question, type the song that’s playing
5. new question — press the next button
6. don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

opening credits: "Ask Myself"- Robin Thicke

waking up: "Lightning Crashes" - Live

first day at school: "Free Your Mind" - En Vogue

falling in love: "Vogue" - Madonna

breaking up: "Vision Of Love" - Mariah Carey

prom: "Crush" - Mandy Moore (I know....I have Mandy Moore music in my playlist.....)

life’s okay: "Yardie Bone" - Sean Paul

mental breakdown: "Angels Fall Sometimes" - Josh Turner

driving: "The Jump Off"- Lil' Kim (this is actually a fantastic driving song!)

flashback: "Humble Me" - Norah Jones

getting back together: "Everybody Needs Someone Sometime" - Jewel

wedding: "Smile"- One Blood (funny that band popped up...that is actually a group that is local to Negril, Jamaica where Doug and I got married...you will never hear their music on the radio but we bought every cd they had when we were there because we loved them)

birth of child: "Always Be My Baby" - Mariah Carey

final battle: "Lonestar" - Norah Jones

death scene: "Porcelain" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

end credits: "Cool to be a Fool" - Joe Nichols

Wow. I swear I didn't plan those in a specific order or anything, but some of those are just extremely appropriate. The fact that Mariah Carey came up twice is totally a coincidence. Of the 625 songs I currently have on my ipod, only about 8 of them are Mariah songs.

Ok, your turn! I tag Crystal, Morgan, Kim, Colleen, and anyone else who wants it!

Cast On

2008-03-27T20:03:00.004-05:00

When I need cheering up there are several things I turn to aside from my fabulous support system of friends and family. I go browse knitting books at Barnes and Noble, pick up a couple sheets of scrapbooking paper at Michael's, look through the remnants at JoAnn's...basic retail therapy. The other thing that usually cheers me up is indulging is some good old startitis. We already know that this is a personal ailment for me, but there is nothing like starting a new project. Peeling the ball band off the skein, winding it and imagining the possibilites. I love the first cast on. That's when the yarn officially goes from being just a piece of string to an actual fabric. So when I needed some cheering up earlier this week what did I do?

I cast on.

Apologies for the mega dark picture but it was super cloudy yesterday. This is going to be the Incan Pullover from the spring/summer Knit Simple. The lavendar will be the contrast collar and sleeve edge and the darker purple is the body.

Thank you all so much for your kind words and emails. I appreciate your thoughts and prayers tremendously.

P.S. Like the new blog look? I can't take any credit...this is all the handiwork of Crystal who has improved my bloggy style by 110%. Thanks Crystal!

....

2008-03-24T19:40:00.002-05:00

::warning-this post contains material that could be considered graphic::

I guess it's best to start at the beginning. At the end of January I received a positive test result from not one, not two, but three pregnancy tests. Doug and I were ecstatic. We had been trying for a few months, though not too seriously, just sort of a "see-what-happens" mentality. We told our immediate family right away, but decided to wait a while to tell our friends and coworkers to make sure everything was ok. Fast forward to today. I started out this morning having some light cramping, but the doctor had told me that was relatively normal during the first trimester so I wasn't worried. Then I noticed some spotting. Again, nothing to cause major alarm but I started trying to get through to the doctor's office just in case. The phones at the doctor's office were constantly busy all morning (turns out they were having a phone issue) as my spotting got heavier and could hardly be described as spotting anymore. I decided to leave work and just go in to the doctor's office to be on the safe side. They decided to order an ultrasound to see what was going on. When they did the ultrasound they found no evidence of pregnancy-at all. If a miscarriage was in progress they would have seen something, even if it was incomplete. So they ordered bloodwork so they could check the pregnancy hormone levels in my blood because they were concerned it could be an ectopic pregnancy. The bloodwork came back negative for the hormone. Ok, by this point I was not only upset but extremely confused. After much discussion and hypothesising my doctor concluded that most likely when I tested postitive in January that I was pregnant (one of the tests was done in my primary physician's office so it's hard to dispute) and that it was detected very early. This we already knew...we had determined that we detected the pregnancy within a week or so of conception. Most people don't realize they are pregnant until more like 4-6 weeks along. The doctor said that it is very common for women to miscarry extremely early in their pregnancies, some before they even realize they are pregnant, and that sometimes the miscarriages themselves go undetected. I had some very light spotting right around the time that I detected the pregnancy and I also got the flu right around then and had an extremely high fever for 2 days. These things combined increase the likelihood that I miscarried then and didn't even know it. I haven't had a pregnancy test since then...the pregnancy had already been confirmed so there was no reason to do more tests. So that's why I have gone so long without knowing that I wasn't actually pregnant. I'm not really sure how to feel about this. Of course I am disappointed....that goes without saying. But am I devastated? No. I feel a little betrayed by my own body for not giving me any clues that I was masquerading as pregnant, not actually pregnant. It does make sense though....the past two months I have been especially "tuned in" looking for the traditional signs of pregnancy-tender breasts, morning, sickness, cravings, food aversions, etc. and I have told my husband repeatedly that I just didn't feel pregnant. I convinced myself that I was having a lucky smooth pregnancy with none of the bad things. I guess in a way I sorta knew, but didn't. That doesn't make any sense....I know. The bad part of all this is that as the pregnancy (or lack thereof) progressed Doug and I felt more confident in it and had begun telling a few select friends in extreme secrecy. So now we have to explain that I'm not pregnant after all...oops? I know everyone will be very understanding and concerned and everything...it's just....I don't know.
I'm not really sure how to end this post. I'm fine, really. I guess I just need some time to process.

BTW, my apologies to any family or friends that knew about the pregnancy and find out about our bad news through this post. I'm sure you will understand that I am just not up to making a lot of phone calls tonight, but writing about it helps me deal with it a bit better.

Spring Swap Time!

2008-03-21T17:58:00.002-05:00

For my pal, Petra: here are the answers to the questions for the swap!

Favorite vacation place? I love the outer banks....it is my favorite beach in North America. No matter how many people are there or how crowded it gets it still manages to seem peaceful. But favorite vacation spot ever? Jamaica! My hubby and I got married there and is one of the most beautiful and exotic places I have ever seen.

What is your most favorite memory you have from your childhood?

Do you have an Etsy shop and/or blog? I do have an Etsy shop, but there is nothing listed there. I have these big dreams to become an accomplished Etsy seller, the kind that is featured on blogs across the country and whose whole family income comes from the sales of her Etsy shop. But in order to do that you have to make the things to sell, and in order to do that you have to make the time to create things. At the end of the day I can barely muster up enough energy to take care of the household chores and make dinner, much less churn out crafts by the truckload. But one day.....

What's your favorite color? Yellow! I'm also found of pinks and aquas but I love the happy warm feeling associated with yellow.

What's your favorite color combination? That depends on my mood.....I like mellow blues and browns for relaxing and bright yellow pinks to liven things up.

What magazines do you subscribe to or buy at the newsstand? Um.... I am a serious magazine junkie! I buy UsWeekly occasionally, I buy KnitOne, Knit Simple, Vogue Knits, and Interweave Knits every quarter as soon as they hit the newsstand. I also subscribe to a plethera of random magazines. About two years ago I subscribed to a "blanket" subscription through some offer. Basically they give you subscriptions to magazines that you really want for a good price, but the catch is they also subsribe you (for free) to other magazines whose subscription rates are down. So I get some random mags like Fortune, Money, Sound & Vision, Hot Rod (for my hubby), and then some ones I actually read like Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Woman's Day, Parents, Home, and Glamour.

What is your absolute favorite song? I am currently enamoured with that new song "Love Song" by Sarah ? The chorus goes "I'm not going to write you a love song...cuz you asked me to...cuz you need one...etc." I have also been singing an old Journey song a lot lately..."Don't Stop Believin' Hold onto that feeeeeeling!!" I love all kinds of music and have a new favorite song just about every day.

What is your favorite candy or snack? If I am in a gas station faced with a junk food conundrum I will usually go for the skittles or the combos (cheddar/pretzel). I love ribbon candy, but you can usually only find it at Christmas-time.

Sorry for the run-on answers....hope this is helpful!

Where is spring?

2008-03-20T18:39:00.005-05:00

If it's the first day of spring, then why is it so flippin' windy outside

Today is my dad's 55th birthday! Happy birthday Daddy!! We took him some cake (German Chocolate, his favorite) and balloons in the hospital to celebrate.

Dad has been in the hospital since early yesterday morning. He went into the hospital because he had chest pains and passed out. When he arrived at the hospital the tests determined that he didn't have a heart attack, but they did want to put in another stent. While he was on the table getting the stent put in, he had his third heart attack in seven months. His first one was back in August, the day after my youngest sister's wedding. Since then he has had three heart attacks and six stents put in. We are all worried about him but trying to stay positive.

I babysat my little brother (he's 8) last night so Mom could stay with Dad in the hospital and Galen wouldn't stuck in a boring hospital room. Galen and Doug worked in the garage for a while and then played video games while I cleaned and did a little knitting. I hadn't knit in a while so it was very relaxing, which was just what I needed.

My people-eater still doesn't have wings...I started to cut them out yesterday and decided I'd rather do something less precise, hence the knitting. I think my next stuffie will be a ladybug with buttons for spots :)

Blog Love

2008-03-15T09:49:00.004-05:00

I love sharing lesser-known but fabulous blogs with people who might not have come across them otherwise. I'm not sure if anyone ever follows these links (or if anyone even reads this!) but here aer some great blogs I'd like to pass along.

First up, Crystal's blog. Crystal has an shop that you should totally check out. Cute cards, gift tags, stuffed critters and so much more. Her blog features things about her every day life as well as all of her craftiness. Head over there before the 19th and participate in her Spring Swap she is hosting!

Next up, my sister just started posting again to her blog after a long blogless absence. Morgan's blog is mix of knitting and her ongoing games in World of Warcraft peppered with musings on life in general.

One of my favorite places to get recipes and sewing ideas is at One More Moore. Morgan is super creative with her recipes and makes the kinds of things you would see at upscale bakeries. I also love her aprons and other sewing things. She also has a shop that you should check out.

Lastly, this blog is pretty popular and you've probably come across it if you surf the knitblogs regularly. January One is a knitting blog with the most beautiful photography I've ever seen on a knitting blog. It probably helps that Cara is a professional photographer, but her pictures are amazing. Even if you don't knit or care about knitting blogs, you should check this blog out just for the pictures. Cara also just gave birth to her first little one, Meli, so pop over and wish her some good baby vibes.

I have a favor to ask of my readers...delurk! I'm just curious if anyone reads this, enjoys it, or has any suggestions for improvement. Please leave me a comment on this post even if it's just to let me know you are out there reading. I write this blog for myself, mostly, but I've been wondering latley if anyone else is reading. Let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement too, as I'd love to change things around a bit. So...leave a comment!

I have been sewing a bit the past few days. It's slow progress because I have to find stolen moments here and there, but here's what I have so far:

He is the One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying, Paisley People Eater. Except that right now he isn't flying because he is still waiting on his wings. He also needs some stuffing, but I'll do that last. I love the eye-I used a new stitch, I think it's called the blanket stitch. I'm not sure about the mouth...truth be told, I almost left him without a mouth but then he wouldn't be a people-eater, now would he?

Uninventive Title

2008-03-11T10:22:00.003-05:00

I always feel like I need to come up with a cute/witty title to my posts. I open up blogger to post and there it is, the subject box just leering at me. Why is that?

Can anyone recommend a good knitting podcast? I am just foraying into the world of podcasts and when I searched on itunes there are about a million of them. Any ideas?

I spent a good chunk of last week getting my yarn room reorganized and cleaned up. This is the new work area.

I moved the craft table across the room and I just love where it is now. Lots of natural light, easy access to most of my storage plus it overlooks my front yard and the road and I can watch the cars go by. I have been toying around with some ribbon and buttons...I don't really have anything in mind, but I have tons of both and thought I could make something with them.

I did pick up a fun fabric to play around with yesterday at JoAnn's.

I am going to attempt to make my very first stuffed creature. I'm not following any kind of pattern, just going to wing it. Wish me luck! I am going for a one-eyed, one-horned, flying pasiley people eater. :) If it comes out well maybe there will be more self-designed stuffies.

I also want to make more of these:

I made this felted flower from cut up strips of old sweaters that had been felted. It was super-easy and a lot of fun to make. I actually made it at a min-workshop at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last year. I've got lots of ideas for more felted flowers....I sewed a pin to the back of this one so I could attatch it to the purse of the moment or the outside of a plain coat to dress it up.

Speaking of Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival...it's coming up soon (first weekend of May). Is anyone out there going or interested in going? I'm planning on going up for just Saturday. I'd love to plan to meetup with anyone who will be there or carpool with anyone local going!

Sew and Tell

2008-03-07T10:34:00.004-05:00

Ok, time for full disclosure. I currently have four sewing machines in my yarn room. Now to be fair, one of them belongs to my mother-in-law but it has been at my house for almost a year and she only uses it when we quilt together, so it might as well be considered part of my collection. So, without further ado...my own little version of show and tell:

First up we have my very first sewing machine. I picked this up at a yard sale about 6 years ago for twenty dollars. I had to have it serviced which cost about 30 bucks, but I'd still say I got a deal. I'm not sure how old it is, but it still works. Although it does take a little patience to get the thing threaded and the bobbin tends to be a bit tempermental, but it's not my primary sewing machine so it doesn't bother me.

Next up, my primary machine. Now I say primary, but this thing only sees action every few weeks when the mood strikes. It is the one that sits out on the sewing table most of the time, but it is usually wearing it's dust cover.

Next up, my mother-in-law's machine. Like I said, this one might as well be considered part of my collection. I think she has used it once on her own, but she doesn't really know much about sewing so she relys on me to show her how to use it. (Which is funny because I only barely know how to sew anyway!)

Finally, my most recent addition to the collection. This is one of my most proud bargain-shopping finds ever.

(Thanks to Chance for making the shot more interesting.) I know what you are thinking, that's not a sewing machine-that's just a table (and a pit bull). Where's the sewin machine? Well, I'm glad you asked....

It's one of those tables that folds up all neat but is secretly concealing a machine underneath! I found this at Goodwill for $10!!! I was so excited to find it just to have a relic like that in my yarn room, but I was convinced that when I got it home it wouldn't work. Nope, runs like a dream. I haven't used it though, because there is a spot on the cord where the wires are showing so I am looking for a replacement cord just to be on the safe side.

So there you go....my collection. It's a little weird to have that many when I hardly ever sew at all, right? My scrapbooking and knitting are by far the much more actively practiced crafts, yet...I can't pass up a sewing machine at a good price. I really really want an antique one. You know, the kind that you use a manual foot pedal and they are black and really heavy. Wow. That would be like the holy grail of sewing machines.

In other news...I went to my sister's last weekend for my nephew's birthday. My other sister brought her nephews from her husband's side with her which resulted in 4 kids there all under the age of 9. (Three of them were under the age of 5!) This little guy stole my heart...

That's Caden. He's 2 yrs old and is sooo adorable. He invented this fun game where he would throw his arms in the air and run at me and I would swoop him up. Then he would do it again and again.

So the hit of the party wasn't the presents or the cake. It was a simple cardboard box that my sister and nephew had turned into a pirate ship the day before. We spent a good ten minutes singing "A Pirate's Life for Me" and saying "Ahoy!" and "Arrrr, Matey!". The three youngest boys managed to all fit in the pirate's ship while Galen was the caboose.

Fun times! Morgan has some new knitting, but I forgot to take pictures to show here. I did however remember to take a picture of my only completed quilt.

This is hanging in my living room. (on my boring white walls...I want to paint them SO bad!) I made this in a class that I took at Cottonwood a few yeas ago. I think I completed the whole thing in less than a month. I don't think you can see the prints that well, but it had a sort of "Americana" theme to it.

My blog needs some major updating. I haven't changed anything in the sidebar in a long time. Look for some changes coming soon....

Blah.

2008-02-29T18:09:00.002-05:00

Do you ever have one of those days? Nothing noteworthy happened to put me in a bad mood. But I'm just not really feeling all that right with the world, if that makes sense. I saw a woman run a stop sign today and I got unreasonably upset about it. As in, the thought crossed my mind to pull her over and give her a toungue-lashing for being so careless in an area where there are so many pedestrians, many of them children. So, not one of my more rational moments. How could I have I really pulled her over, anyway? Not to mention I hate confrontation, so where would this well of sudden courage come from?

I have no new pictures to share. I have been working on reorganizing the yarn room though. I got some more shelving to keep things a little more in order and a new TV (Thanks hubby!) to hang on the wall. I really want to make some curtains for that room...I just can't seem to find the right fabric to match the theme and colors of the room.

I'm going to my sister's house tomorrow...she has new knitting to share, maybe I will post some pictures here when I get back since I have nothing new to report.

Like I said....blah.

New Horizons

2008-02-17T17:55:00.005-05:00

Does anyone out there use bloglines? I personally love it because instead of littering up my favorites page and having to search through the list each day to see who has posted I can go to one website and read all the latest blogs from my favorite bloggers. Problem is, my bloglines feed list is horribly outdated. There are blogs on there I haven't read in months, and I need some new inspirations. I have several favorites that I am loyal to and still read every day, but my sights have changed a bit since I created my blog list and I could use some new inspiration. That being said, I have an idea....anyone who reads this blog (if anyone does) and used bloglines, post a link to your bloglines list in the comments. That way we can all surf each other's faves and come up with some new links to add. I am going to post my list as is. You will be able to tell which ones I have stopped reading because of the amount of unread posts. Most of the ones with no new posts are ones I read daily, or people who have stopped blogging that I haven't removed. Alright, ready...share!

My List

ETA: The link works now...thanks Sarah!

A different kind of stitching...

2008-02-17T11:57:00.004-05:00

Is it just me or is quilting taking over a lot of knitting blogs as of late? Some of my favorite blogs have started featuring sewing on their blogs, some more than others. I have dabbled in quilting a little here and there, but have no finished projects to show for it. (Unless you count my modest wall hanging I completed in a class...I'll try to remember to take a pic sometime.) A few years ago I picked up some Block of the Month kits from a chain fabric store. I love these because the pieces are all pre-cut. I hate cutting...I'm not an exact person by any means and having to be exact to the 1/16th of an inch isn't my cup of tea. I'm more of the if it doesn't work go with it variety...you can tell it in my seams. So these blocks are all from those kits...I've only gotten three months' worth done, nine to go plus sewing them all together and then the actual "quilting" process.

Here is my only finished quilt top. There's a secret to this one...see if you can spot it.See the center panel? Looks like I spent an awfully long time piecing little nine-patch blocks and mixing them up with preprinted blocks, right? Nope...the whole center thing is one panel of fabric. All I did was add a small inner border and then a large outer border. Simple, quick, easy, functional: the names of the game. This just has to be basted and quilted. I am going to try to get it basted today, and I want to try hand quilting this one. It's not quite twin-sized...it's more like a lap/couch sized.

Just for your enjoyment: Last night I went out karaoke-singing with some friends. My friend Stacy and I pretty much dominated the stage, we were up there about every third song or so...I sang "Suds in the Bucket"-Sara Evans; "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under"-Shania Twain; "Shoop"-Salt'n'Pepa (that one was a lot of fun...it's the picture below of the four of us-we got the whole bar dancing and on their feet!); "Baby, Now That I've Found You"-Allison Krauss; "Don't Stop Believin"-Journey; "Whiskey Lullaby"-Allison Krauss and Brad Paisley (photo below); and "I Think We're Alone Now"-Tiffany. I know, quite the mix, right? Karaoke is my new favorite thing to do...I'm always a little nervous at first then you realize you probably won't see any of these people again and who cares what they think anyway? Plus, there is always the teensy chance that I'll get "discovered" one night by some megawatt talent scout, right?

If you live locally you should come check it out one night....Lazy Parrot every Saturday night (up in Pantops Center near the Food Lion). We are going again on Mar 1...come sing!

Sniff.

2008-02-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

I had intended on posting today. A good hearty post with knitting content and everything. Then I caught whatever ugly virus has been floating around work the past few weeks. And when I say I caught it, I mean I caught it. I hardly ever get sick, so when I do not only am I a giant baby about it, but it is crippling. This is no slight case of the sniffles or some mild coughing. This is lay in an ice bath to bring your temperature down from 103.2 kind of crippling. This is can't take two steps without getting so dizzy you think you might pass out crippling. I left work early both yesterday and today, which I can't stand because we are so short, but I literally had no other choice. I went to a doctor today and all they were able to offer me was Tylenol to keep my fever down and the tried and true "plenty of fluids and rest" line. Ugh.
Well, back to my warm spot on the couch....I'm dizzy.

I spy....

2008-01-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

...with my little eye, someone crocheting! I am sitting here at Panera trying my best to focus on my online class forum, but people-watching too and I just glanced over to see a high school (maybe jr. college) aged guy crocheting in public. He is sitting with his family and showing off his latest WIP. I am trying to see what it is without being too obvious, but it is brown and blue stripes and rather wide....maybe the start of a sweater? I think it is so cool that not only is this young guy doing something that when I was that age would have been socially unacceptable. He is doing it unabashedly, in public, and proudly displaying his work. Awesome!

Speaking of show and tell....

I have a few older projects that I made before I discovered blog-land that I thought I'd share with you. I had a brief love affair with ponchos and fun fur scarfs...I'll spare you the photos of those. But these are two projects I am particularly proud of.

The first is one of my own designs. I saw these really cute cell phone cozies at a little store on the downtown mall. They were handknit and sooo cute, but also outrageously priced. I thought to myself, I can do that! So I went home and looked through my yarn stash and came up with this. It's not nearly as professional as the ones in the store, nor is it as complex, but it works for me and more importantly I didn't follow any kind of pattern. That's 100% me!

The second project is probably the one I am most proud of to date. I only have three finished sweaters under my belt, and the two adult-sized ones were pretty simple knit-in-the-round dealies with little to no finishing. This project incorporated intarsia, weaving in countless ends, finishing, and other little things I had to learn for it.

This is from Family Circle Easy Baby Knits. (I totally recommend this book if you have kids...the patterns are all super cute and pretty simple.) I made this about 2 1/2 years ago, just after I learned to knit. It was a super-addictive knit. I'm not sure what made is so addictive....maybe learning a new technique? It was a pretty quick knit too...only took me about 3 weeks including finishing. I remember trying to crank out a few rows on my lunch break. A few notes about this one...I made this before I discovered "real" yarn stores, so it's entirely acrylic. I suppose that is great for easy-care for a baby, but also dangerously flammable for a little one. It also means that I can't block it all, since synthetic fibers don't block. I also modified the neck a little bit....you knit it back and forth with an open seam on one side. I seamed up the side because I thought it looked funny, only too-late realizing that there is no way you will ever fit a baby's head through it. I just need to take out the side seam on the neck, though and it would be perfect.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the ears are sewn onto the sweater so they stick out, and the sheep is made from a different yarn. I used a boucle to give him a fuzzy sheep-like feel to him.

One more note....the guy that is crocheting that I am sneaking peaks of is now teaching his grandmother how to do it. Cute!

The Solution

2008-01-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

Every year around Christmas-time my blood pressure shoots through the roof. Granted, I work in retail and that would be enough to drive anyone crazy at that time of year, but it's also the crafty-crazy that circulates the blogs in December.
It usually goes a little something like this:
"Ok, nothing huge this year....just a pair of socks for mom and maybe some washcloths for my MIL."
click...click...click.....
"wow, that's cute and it would be perfect for my sister..."
click....click....click....
"Hm....my grandmother would absolutely love that one..."
click...click...click....
"I love that sweater....I wonder if I could memorize that cable pattern..."
click....click...click...
"Yes! I could totally spin my own yarn, dye it, design my own pattern, and knit a gorgeous shawl for each of my female relatives!"

Yet I repeat the pattern each year. Even if I have sworn to tone it down, or even do no handknits I find things that people would just *love*. Like this past year I played it all high and mighty with the "no handknits" attitude, but secretly I was lusting after making matching sweaters, socks, and hats for each family member and their dogs.

This year, though....this year will be different. Why? Why when year after year of failures I believe I can make it work this time?

Because it's still January!

I just found this awesome website knit-a-long so I won't end up with the same problems this year. (Thanks for the link Jennifer!) You write a craft list each month for the gifts you want to complete that month and then it holds you accountable for them by offering prizes to those who complete their lists, etc. They are still accepting sign-ups and it's totally worth checking out.

Now, because any post with pictures is boring....

These mittens are now on the back burner but I am loving fair isle!

Crop, crop, crop

2008-01-20T11:14:00.000-05:00

This weekend was the long-awaited annual scrapbooking retreat! I look forward to this all year long. It is a three day, two night crop held at a local hotel. You can go to any one part of the crop (Sat day, Fri eve, etc.) or go all out and stay the whole weekend. This is my first year doing the whole weekend. I've only done one overnight in the past.

I had three guests join me yesterday for the daytime portion of the crop. The ballroom was open to scrapbookers until 2am. Maybe I'm insane, but I stayed up and cropping (mostly) until 2 with Shining (in the blue). I then had to be back in the ballroom this morning at 7am because I was in charge of unlocking it and opening up.

Amazingly this starvation of sleep has done little to slow me down. If anything I have more creativity this morning than I did last night. Of course that could have been due to all the antics, dancing, and conga lines last night, but that's another story.

I did solve the knitting mojo issue from my last post. I got a mitten kit for the cuteset striped mittens with embroidered swirlys on it. I'm about halfway done with the first one. Pictures soon!

oh where oh where...

2008-01-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

...has my mojo gone?

Something terrible has happened. I haven't knit anything since before Christmas and I have no desire to either. I have about a million things I could work on, but nothing interests me. Help! Can anyone recommend a quick mojo fix project?

Ugh.

And....scene!

2007-12-28T21:22:00.000-05:00

What a Christmas! It was sooo nice to have a day off. Doug and I spent Christmas Eve with each other. We went to a candlelight service and then drove around looking at Christmas Lights, as is our annual tradition. We enjoy going out to the country where people are more liberal with their decorations and electric bills. Christmas morning we went to mom's to see what Santa had brought to us. My youngest sister and her husband came too and the four of us squished on the couch.

Heather and Chad....did you have a good Christmas?

After some fun family time and watching my youngest brother rip through the presents (his new toys are the envy of the family...we've all spent the past few days playing Guitar Hero III and the wii) we went back to our house to meet up with Doug's parents.

We enjoyed some more low-key unwrapping and then dinner. After dinner we moved the Christmas presents into the kitchen to be assembled. I have my own little cafe now!

Isn't that cute? The table has leaves on both sides that pull out so you could (squishily) accomodate six, but since it's just me and Doug, folds down to have a small cafe table for two. The new hutch is sooo awesome. I have been longing for some more counter and cabinent space since we remodeled the kitchen this summer. Now my kitchen is *almost* 100 percent done. We just have to finish painting the cabinents and install the new nobs and get a curtain rod. Then...it's on to the living room.

Some of you may remember this past April we lost our beloved dog King. Doug got the most wonderful Christmas present from his boss this year that has been a work in progress since April....he had a local artist do a colored pencil drawing of our dog.

I don't think the picture does it justice. It is absolutely breathtaking how lifelike it is. There is a bit of a funny story behind it though....the artist needed a picture to base the drawing on, but Bart didn't want to call me because he wanted it to be a surprise for me too. So he got in contact with Doug's mom who broke into my house one day and stole some pictures out of my scrapbook. She was telling me the story on Christmas morning about how she didn't know where I was or when I was coming home and she was sweating trying to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

It was a great Christmas all around.....now I get to relax. (as soon as i get the Christmas decorations taken down).

PS. I saved my sanity this year by only knitting two teensy weeny gifts this year....two dishcloths for my mother-in-law. I had momentary delusions of grandeur wherein I imagined giving handknit socks to my mother, grandmother, father-in-law, sister and hubby. Mittens for my other sister and her son....etc, the list goes on. Then I remembered last year and the embarrassment of giving half-finished knits still on the needles and the teasing I still get about the state of mom's other sock and decided I'd rather spend a few dollars at the mall than stress that much about anything. Maybe one day I won't work in retail at Christmas time and I can pull something like that off. Yeah.....right after I grow extra appendages to hold all those needles!

SP Thank you!

2007-12-12T15:24:00.000-05:00

Thank you, thank you to my Secret Pal Kristan . She sent me the BEST stuff over the past few months. Here are the pics from my last package.

She sent me two balls of the cutest twist yarn...the color is really hard to pick up on camera correctly...it's mostly purple and green with other colors twisted in as well. She also sent a neat-o knitting book, about the history of knitting. There was a sock yarn pattern to match the yarn she sent, swedish fish (yum!), a "K" shaped ornament which we hung on the tree when we decorated it last week, a tape measure, and a pack of tissues. Then there are the two things that were my favorites of all the goodies I have received over the past few months. The first was the needle roll that will fit my circs. It's sooooo cute. It actually matches one that I made for my DPN's. The other item that was the most thoughtful thing I've ever received in a package was a small package of gourmet doggie treats for my dog, Chance. Thanks sooo much Kristan! I have loved opening up the packages the past few months, and I have loved every single thing you've sent. Thank you sooo much :)

In other news, this past Saturday my mom, Beth, and I had the bake-o-rama.

These cookies are "Spritz" cookies that I made using a cookie press. I had never used a cookie press before. It took some getting used to but I loved it once I got the hang of it. My least favorite part of making cookies is rolling them into balls and shaping them, so I lean toward drop style cookies or other things I don't have to mess with. That makes the press perfect...just stuff the dough in and poof! cookies in cute shapes. I didn't opt to ice these, just leaving them plain, but I think they came out really cute. All-in-all we made five different kinds of cookies, several dozen each. We ended up baking for about 8 hours....that's a long time to spend preparing dough and washing dishes. There is still one dough prepared and in my fridge that I will bake up tonight. I'll post pictures of that one when it's done....I got the recipe out of a magazine and the cookies should end up being really cute. It's just a basic sugar cookie recipe with peppermint extract that you form into uniform size balls. Once the cookies are cooled you brush them with melted white chocolate and then dip them in crushed candy canes. Yum!

I also owe you a picture of the aprons and the crazy story behind how the aprons came to be...but that's for next time.

Coming soon.....

2007-12-07T20:14:00.000-05:00

.....the official thank you for my SP. I was all set to do a big post with pictures and all but I left the info with her blog addy at home. :-( Sorry, SP!!! I did LOOOVVVVEEEE all the goodies though. You really know me well! I don't want to post the pics without a proper introduction to the person who's been spoiling me for the past few months, so next time. I'll try to get it up this weekend.

As we get closer to Christmas the store is getting busier and busier. It's good because it makes the days go by so quick, but bad because it can be so stressful. I'm ahead of the game though, all my Christmas shopping is done. (Notice I didn't say Christmas knitting. I'm good, but not that good.) Hubby and I put the tree up on Wednesday.

(Doug insisted that Chance help decorate and put the star on the top.) Now my house is filled with the wonderful aroma of pine needles. I am so happy to be done with the shopping so I can enjoy the rest of the season. I love putting on Christmas music while I knit, or watching the holiday specials on tv. Tomorrow my mom, Beth, and I are having bake-o-rama. We are going to bake tons of Christmas cookies all day long (or until we keel over from the sugar). I have a few recipes I want to try out from some magazines so I'm looking forward to that. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to share. In true "I'm-so-crafty-I-must-be-sick" form Mom and I are making some cutesy holiday aprons for all the women in our family. We bought generic red aprons and are sewing Christmas trees to them using yo-yo's (the gathered circles of fabric). I am also writing down all the cookie recipes we are using and tying them up with a cute ribbon and a cookie cutter. Then we are sending those crafty things along with a tin of cookies out to the women in the family that live far away like both Grandmothers and my middle sister. Whew! I'd better get back to work on the aprons.....

...pictures when they are done.

Shop till you drop....

2007-11-24T13:11:00.000-05:00

...and then work till you drop. That's how my day-after-Thanksgiving was. My mom, sisters, and I always wake up uber-early to hit the sales. I don't know how I've managed to be so lucky, but the last three years working at Target I've always closed or worked a mid-shift. This year we split up at the beginning, some of going to stand in line at Sears and some of at Wal-Mart. We all got in our lines at 4:30am and then joined up in line at Target at 5:45am. I always get weird looks from my unfortunate coworkers who are dealing with the crowds when they see me among the psycho shoppers. My dad calls this phenomenon "sports shopping". We aren't the gung-ho groups you see running down small children or anything, and we mostly go just for fun, although some of the deals are so incredible you'd have to be crazy not to get them. I love the fact that I can get all my Christmas shopping done in just about one day and then spend the rest of the season decorating, baking, and enjoying time with family. After we finished up with all the crazy shopping I had just enough time to change clothes and grab lunch before I had to go to work to clean up the madness.

Anyway....Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone! The past two weeks have been extremely crazy for me. My dad had a minor heart attack on Tues, Nov. 13th. He's fine now, taking it easy and resting a lot, trying to ease back into things. My sister came home from boot camp on emergency leave to be with the family, which was a blessing in disguise b/c that meant she got to spend Thanksgiving with us. Then my birthday was that Thursday, the 15th. Then we went into pre-Thanksgiving crazy-time with all the preparations. I always host Thanksgiving at my house for my whole family and Doug's parents. Usually it results in anywhere from 9-15 people eating. This year we only had 9, but still that's a lot of food to prepare. Suffice it to say I've been a mess the past two weeks.

Shortly after my birthday my friend Beth took me to see the Lipizzaner Stallions.

They were so elegant and regal. I'd never been to see them, but I recommend it to anyone who likes horses. Very entertaining!

Names, names

2007-11-10T13:50:00.000-05:00

Just for fun....

YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) = Shadow Civic
YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav. ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) = Cookie Snickerdoodle (I abbreviated Cookie for my two fave flavors of Cookies and Cream and Choc Chip Cookie Dough)
YOUR "FLY GIRL" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of last name) = KSny...which I have been called before as a nickname at work, believe it or not
YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) = Blue Dog
YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) = Ann Louisiana
YOUR STAR WASH NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) = Snyka
SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink, put "The" first) = The Green Margarita
STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy) = Romance Skittles
WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names) = Jean Alan
PORN STAR NAME (name of first pet and name of first street you lived on): Shadow Lamb (I used the earliest street address I can remember....which was in fourth grade. I must have lived a million places before that but I can't remember the addresses.)

Knitting again

2007-11-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

I have been knitting again finally. I recently went through a spell where it was difficult to get my hands motivated to knit. It happens every once in a while...usually on the heels of a particularly productive knitting spell. So I cast on for some socks....a little late for Soctoberfest, but what the hey.
These have no intended recipient as of yet, but Christmas is a-coming so we'll see. I'm trying to trick myself into some Christmas knitting this year. When I put a deadline on things they tend to fall to the bottom of the basket, so this year I am "just knitting" and if stuff is done by christmas, then Yay! If not, then oh well.

I did pick up a really really cool Denise Schmidt quilt book on Friday with some cute gift ideas in it. I love these "Dis-Cards". They are really simple and relatively quick to make. I think I will make a few sets of them for stocking stuffers or swaps or something. In case you can't tell, that's fabric quilted onto cardstock.

And, finally, pictures of my spinning attempts.

The ladies that taught me called this stuff "beast" because it's cheap and readily available. I kept thinking of Milwaukee's Best, which we called "Beast" in college for the same reason. Anyway, I'm still pretty rocky at this. My yarn is very "thick and thin" in quality and very fuzzy too, as you can see. But I like the way sometimes the yarn is all white, sometimes all black, and sometimes a twist of both. I have a bunch of roving in pretty blues and purples I will spin when I get more consistent. I think I have enough of the blues/purples to make a hat. Let's just hope I can spin it all before it gets warm again!

Bad Little Blogger

2007-11-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

I have been such a bad blogger lately. I know I neglected to post 4 times in the month of October. Plus, I haven't updated my Ravelry notebook in about 40 billion years. There are projects on there that have been ripped out, projects that have been completed (ok, so not completed, but closer to being completed) and I still have not added my stash of yarn and books. Ugh. Not having internet at home really sucks. It takes a considerable amount of motivation to drag my laptop out to go sit in a crowded restaurant in an uncomfortable chair and relax. I really really really want to get internet at home again. I'm trying to convince my hubby. His thought on the subject is if I can get it for free at Panera and other local hot spots, why bother to pay for it? The end result is me not blogging regularly and not getting my email until three days after someone sent it. Snail mail would reach me faster people!

So....enough about me griping. This week was pretty good. On Tuesday I got a lovely surprise at work.

Everyone at work kept asking if it was my birthday, anniversary, etc. Nope, I just have a great husband. :) They were "just because" flowers. Now, I can hear you all groaning in that "that's so sweet it makes me sick" kind of way. This is an out of the ordinary occurance. I actually had people at work ask me what he did, or if we had a fight. First of all, way to put a negative spin on the highlight of my week, thanks, and second of all, how is it any of your business??

That night when I got home the good surprises kept on going when I opened my mailbox to find this:

Thanks Secret Pal! She sent me two skeins of some yummy Crystal Palace yarn in colors that just scream my name. A pair of super-cute knitting needles. I don't know if you can read them, but they say "I *heart* Knitting" with a cute little cat on them. She also sent a cute notepad, some stickers, a candle, and a yummy bath fizzy. Thanks so much SP! I can't wait to cast on for my hat! It's so funny that you suggested that's what I do with the yarn because I was just searching my stash yesterday for some suitable hat yarn. Thanks :)

Celebration

2007-10-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post this time. I'm super-busy this week, training for my new position at work.

Last week my sister left for boot camp, take 2. Before she left we decided to do a big joint birthday party. Mom's bday was Oct 15, Heather's (my sis) is Nov 5 and mine is Nov 15. So we cooked a nice dinner and had a yummy ice cream cake.

It was a blast and it was nice to be able to celebrate with Heather before she left.

Sorry this is such a measly post, lots to do, lots to do.

Tour de Quilt

2007-10-22T19:26:00.001-05:00

I know, I know...what a bad blogger I've been. Over a week and a half with no updates. Well. Now I'm getting my payback and I have sooo much to update on and not enough patience/time to get it all in one post.

This past weekend my mom, brother, and I went on the Tour de Quilt, an event put on by central Va quilt shops. It's really an ingenious idea, increases their business and makes us feel spoiled all at once. I actually stumbled upon this year's Tour by mistake. My sister Heather was getting ready to leave for Boot Camp, part 2 and we drove past my local quilt store (LQS?). I decided to stop in and browse and wow....it was hoppin'. The Tour consists of 10 shops and their is a central theme or challenge to the tour. This year the challenge was involving a new fabric line of 30 different fabrics. Each shop had to design a quilt using a central medallion and the new fabrics. Each shop also offered three of the fabrics cut into 1/3 yard pieces in a little bundle, so if you went to all 10 shops you would have all thirty fabrics, and supposedly enough to do one of the quilt tops. Each shop also gave a free black and white rough copy of the pattern to each person. There were door prizes and snacks at each shop. I figured that my sis would be bored by all the crafty humdrum because she usually starts complaining the moment I get within sniffing distance of any yarn fumes, but much to my surprise she said she was inspired. When she returns from BCT we are going to take a quilting class together. I was caught off guard at the first store so I don't have a picture of their quilt, but it was quite lovely.

Mom and Galen (my bro) came with me to the other shops on Saturday and Sunday. Galen was put in charge of the scavenger hunt that was part of the Tour and really got into it, racing around the shops looking for clues. The first shop we visited was That Little Quilt Shop in Madison.

That is their entry in the cometition. And this is my new project that I must. make. right. now.

I just bought the pattern for it, not the fabric, because I do have some restraint. Never mind the fact that I bought a bundle of the new fabrics at each shop we went too. And never mind that I got completely caught up in yo-yo makers and Christmas projects at another shop. But that's neither here nor there, right? So, anyway.....

After Madison we went to Patchwork Plus in Dayton, Va which is just outside of Harrisonburg.

Next up was Rachel's Quilt Patch in Staunton, Va. If you live in Staunton, I have nothing but respect for you. Every time I go to Staunton I get miserably lost. The fact that 250 snakes through the city and changes street names about a dozen time is ridiculous. Add that to the fact that downtown Staunton is nothing but one way streets, and whew. What a nightmare. This shop is built in an old railroad station. The whole atmosphere just screams quaint and is everything a quilt shop should be. Mom actually won a prize here but she didn't get in touch with the shop today before they closed so we don't know yet what she actually won. After stopping at Wright's for some yummy drive-in we went home.

On Day 2 we started in Midlothian, just southwest of Richmond.

After that we drove into Richmond to Quilting Adventures.

This shop has the whole "get the consumer at their weakest moment" thing down to a T. They actually had a table set up where someone was doing demo's of all their "make your life easier" products. Plus, they have a rewards program. You know, those little scanny things that you put on your keys that all grocery stores use now? They have one FOR THEIR QUILTING STORE! If that's not genius I don't know what is. (You hear that LYS? Rewards program!) It's not like a punch card that you will use or will expire. It goes on your keys and you never have to think about it again except to have the cashier scan your keys that are already on the counter as you try to exit the store without any more fabric making its way into your hands. Needless to say, Mom and I left that store with our pocketbooks significantly lighter.

Last on the stop was The Quilt Man in Ashland (just north of Richmond)

We only made it to seven of the ten stores, but next year we will plan better to make it to all of them. At each store you got your passport stamped and you could be entered into certain drawings based on the number of stores you visited. It was so neat to see how each shop turned the fabrics into totally different quilts.

2007-10-07T15:55:00.001-05:00

Has anyone else seen this trailer ? This looks to be equal parts horrifying and funny. It's probably one of those movies that will have you laughing through your tears, if you know what I mean. It kinda makes me think about where my yarn is coming from though.

For those of you who play on Ravelry, check out the new marching band group I started. I went to the annual Charlottesville Cavalcade this weekend, which is a marching band competition for local high schools. I was involved in my HS's marching band all four years and love to go see them compete. They did very well, took home a couple of second places.

In Knitting news....
I picked up a bad habit today. I haven't had a chance to take any pictures yet, but I bought a drop spindle and some roving today. Yikes! This is so addicting. My yarn is so thick and thin and slubby and wonderful.

I also caught some sort of virus last week and the sudden desire to....SEAM!

Before everyone starts sending me unfinished projects to seam up, let me say. I suck at seaming. I only seamed one square before I gave up. It is such tedious work. So then I knit a few more squares.I have done zero knitting on the things that matter, like Christmas presents and charity projects, but have been whipping out miters like my life depends on it. Figures, huh?

SP Contest #3

2007-09-24T16:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, shameless flashing....

I have the best yarn storage ever. When we moved into our house last year Doug built me this neat-o shelving thing that I helped him design. I separated my yarn by color in each cubby, the only exception being sock yarn...that gets its own.

This picture is a wee bit old. Some of the yarn here has actually been used or traded and more has been added to the collection. But for the most part, this is the stash. You'd think that with all this yarn I have I wouldn't need to buy any more, right?

Nope. Bought more sock yarn just today, and going to a yarn sale next Thursday.

Ugh.

I have a problem.

Back from vacay!

2007-09-24T15:51:00.000-05:00

::Yawn:: What a relaxing week of laying on the beach and sunning myself with gentle breezes and palm trees.

Just kidding!

Doug and I took the week off to work on the kitchen. We discovered a *ahem* small water issue under the sink and set to fixing it. First we had to tear up all the damaged and moldy cabinents, walls, and floor. On day two of our vacation my kitchen looked like this:

Throughout the week we have installed floors, drywall, fixed the leak, and painted. Still to go....installing the cabinents and counters and then moving all my kitchen things back into the kitchen and out of the living room. Seriously, even my fridge is in the living room.

I say "we" but I didn't do that much. It was mostly Doug and his dad doing all the work, while my mom, Doug's mom and I went upstairs to the yarn room to craft and be yarny.

Kathy (my MIL) and I worked on our ongoing quilt for a while before my mom made me own up to all my WIPs. I guiltily pulled each item one by one out of the basket offering meek explanations on whe each one was still unfinished. Mom was ruthless and gave me goals and even took home items that were a lot cause to frog herself because I couldn't bear to do it, namely my lone jaywalker sock in my own hand-dyed yarn that is just a hair too tight to fit over my instep. She also took to frogging a tank top that I had started before I knew better than to knit with yucky acrylic and a blanket square in an intarsia pattern that wasn't ment to be. We decided that I must finish my Fetching mitts for my sister for a Christmas present and the lone fair isle mitten that is almost done but too small for anyone will be a wall decoration/Christmas ornament.

So....since I have all these WIP dredged up again and now they have intended recipients and deadlines (Christmas mostly) do I work on them? Nope. I have rediscovered mitered squares. Over the course of my vacation I knit 5 individual miters. First I finished the brown background ones.

Then I started some with a navy background.

(Not pictured is a navy/light pink I finished on the last day)

Then, I apparently got a wild hair up my you-know-what and went on a breif seaming streak.

Seriously, who gets the desire to seam?? Now, before I start getting tons of parcels from you all with pieces needing to get seamed, hold your horses. I suck at seaming. I guess as I seam up all these miters I will get better. I think I will practice some more though, because I just have the two fronts left to knit of Central Park and it's looking like the most wearable knit ever. I would hate to screw that all up with some wonky seams.

100th Post

2007-09-11T10:51:00.000-05:00

Yay for me...this is my 100th post. I am so happy to be a part of this community. :)

I got my first Secret Pal package in the mail yeseterday, and it was sooooo goodie-licious!

There was a wonderful scent eminating from the package and when I opened it I found out why...there was a wonderful-smelling Yankee Candle Co. Macintosh and Peach candle (Yum!!), a travel pack of ginger peach tea that I can't wait to try and some yummy lip gloss. There was also all kinds of cute stationary stuff. Some cute notecards featuring a monkey wearing a scarf and a little notepad with a sheep complete with cute pens and pencils. I'm always on the look out for new stationary to write to my sister who is in boot camp. I've been writing about 2-3 letters a week. Top all that off with two skeins of SWTC Bamboo!

Thanks SP!

Does anyone have any project ideas for this yarn? I have always wanted to try it but I'm fresh out of ideas.

No new knitting around here. I have been pretty lethargic in the knitting arena. I just got a new porch swing and the weather is starting to cool down from the beastly hot temps it has been so I've been thinking tweedy sweaters, cables, and turtlenecks. I still haven't finished my Central Park Hoodie from last winter, but I'm close. That is top of the list. I'm going to make my "want" list soon. I really hope to turn out at least 3-4 new sweaters this year and I have some pretty specific ideas. (Have you seen the twisted yoke cardigan from Eunny in the latest Interweave Knits? Wow.)

In the meantime, we've been trying to squeak the last little bit of summer activities around here. Last week Doug and I took Chad (my sis's new husband) camping and kayaking.

I like that pic a lot. The colors are so neat. After camping we decided to go shooting. Doug is a true-blooded country boy. Guns, hunting, trucks, country music....that's his stuff. When we moved in together there was a great debate about guns in the house. We ended up compromising. They could stay if they were contained...so we got a gun cabinent. All of Doug's friends have always been a little apalled that I have never shot a gun before. So last Wednesday I finally gave in. The guys were shooting clay pigeons with shotguns. I gave that a try and ouch....the recoil gave me a bruise the size of a half dollar. Will not be doing that againg. But Doug also brought along his handguns.I actually have pretty decent aim, apparently. Doug was very proud and showed off my target sheet to everyone.I, of course, will be scrapbooking the target if I can figure out how to make it fit in my 12x12. :)

random knits

2007-09-03T12:53:00.000-05:00

I don't have the energy for a real post so I'll just give you a little sneak peak at what I've been working on... my first fair isle! It's a mitten-in-progress although it's turning out to be too small for me! AACK! I'm NOT ripping it back....it's too pretty. I might just use it as a decoration or something, you never know. It's from the Knit Mittens! book and I'm using Knitpicks Palette.

Also, blast from the past....

Somehow my Pomatamus sock jumped back on my neeles. I haven't gotten too much further on it, but the yarn is so extra-squishy and wonderful I might just finish it this go-round!

Tagged!

2007-08-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged by Kim for the 8 Random Things meme. Here are the rules:

- Players write a post describing eight random facts about themselves.

- They then “tag” eight bloggers to write similar posts, including the rules.

- The players then leave a comment on blogs they've tagged to tell them about the meme.

1) I don't have internet at home. I love to blog and read blogs and play on ravelry and order yarn online and bank online, and yet I do all this remotely. FYI-lots of local fast food restaurants are starting to offere free WiFi but you would not believe the weird looks you get when you set up camp in a McDonald's.

2)I must be one of the few knitters out there that is not productive while watching tv or movies. I never sit down to watch tv without my knitting in hand, but unless my husband is playing video games I don't get anything done. I'm too easily distracted. I will knit one or two rows and get totally obsorbed in the tv until the commercials.

3)I am deathly afraid of anything that flies and buzzes like bees, wasps, hornets, etc. I realize that this isn't that odd, but my fear is totally irrational. We have a problem with hornets buzzing around our porch light at night and if I see them out there I will not leave the house. Period. There is no amount of consoling, rationalizing, or sweet talking that will get me out of the house if I see a buzzing thing.

4)I'm not that fond of spiders either. When Doug and I first moved in together we lived in a tiny cabin way out in the woods. There were spiders galore. I hate them, but I don't like to kill them either. Yet I can't stand the thought of letting them get away because then they are just somewhere around me. I used to turn coffee cups upside down over them so they couldn't go anywhere but I didn't have to kill them. When Doug came home he'd have to pick up lots of little coffee cups. Our living room looked like a war zone.

*halfway there! It's so hard to think of things about yourself that others might think are unusual...to me they are just normal, me.

5)I have really blonde moments all the time, but I am a generally intelligent person. Like the other day I was eating fruits and cheese snacks with my mom and sister. There were strawberries and a container that I read as "whipped cream". Yum, right? So I eagerly dipped my strawberry in the creamy white substance while my mom and sis exchanged a strange look. Yuck. Not whipped cream....whipped cream cheese. Not at all the same thing. I do stuff like that all the time.

6)I wear the same jewelry every day, despite the fact I have a pretty extensive collection of stuff. I very very very rarely switch it up, only if there is some sort of occasion. So what do I wear everyday? Simple silver hoops, my fossil watch with a little bit of bling, my wedding band and engagement ring (of course!), a few hair elastics on my wrist, and my Tiffany knock-off necklace (it looks like their popular bracelet with the exaggerated chain and heart pendant).

7)I am an avid list maker. I make lists of everything. Lists of things to do, grocery store lists, etc, the ususal, but also lists of things I want to do, make, see. I have a Christmas card list, a birthday card list, lists of my cds and my yarn, lists of things that I should do around the house, lists of bills. I buy a 4" spiral notebook to keep in my purse with all my lists and I go through one about monthly. Sick, right? I think my husband has always held out hope that I'd grow out of this phase, but recently I discovered an old scrapbook I had from the first grade. On the back cover, in my first grader sprawl was a list of babysitters and a list of friends. I think he was a little disappointed.

8)I go through chick lit books like candy. The really good intelligent books take me a little longer to get through, but you give me a Nora Roberts novel or something by the Little Red Dress Press and I'll be handing it back to you the next day commenting on the ending. It doesn't matter how many pages it is, I can't put the damn things down. I go through spells where I read a lot and then I just don't for a very long time. I'm in a spell right now. I've already read three this week. It's actually very detrimental to everything else that I'm supposed to do, like housework, sleep and knit. Nothing gets done.

So there you have it, my "weird" 8 things.

I think this one has been around blogland a few times. So if you are reading my blog and you have not been tagged yet, consider yourself tagged! Leave me a comment if you are now tagged so I can read your 8 things, or however many you come up with!

Christmas in August and Secret Pal Stuff

2007-08-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

I have begun the laborous task of picking out my Christmas knitting projects for this year. Based on the low success rate of last year I am trying not to go overboard. I also picked out a project for the side....a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. No pics today, so I will do an update later with some teasers. For now though, more questionnaires!

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?
Hmm... I've recently become addicted to my chart keeper from Knitpicks, I don't know what I did without it. Other than that...I have a little sock bag from Trek that I carry around with my smaller projects like my socks. It's getting a little worn, but I love it.
2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? If so, how much and what type of project?
Of course! I tend to take several projects. I have a problem packing for trips anyway, always take way too much clothes. I try to take smaller projects, like socks or mitered squares, but I take a few different ones in case I get bored. Also, I always take all the yarn I have for the project b/c I always overestimate the amount I will get done.
3. Where have you travelled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?
Jamaica, baby! Negril is a small fishing village on the western most tip of the island. It is the most peaceful, romantic spot I have ever come across.
4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?
I can't pick just one. I love all the "Yarn Girls'" books and I want to get their newest one, Knits for all Seasons. I have also picked up Favorite Knitted Socks several times and can't bring myself to get it just yet. I think I'm going to acquire that one soon though b/c I want to make the Embossed Leaves Socks.
5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favorite(s)?
No, I'd like to.
6. If you could only knit with 1 color for the rest of your life, what color would that be?
Geez. I guess it would be blue? I like that blue can be so many different shades and remind you of so many different things-the sky, the ocean, etc.
7. If you were far into a project and then noticed a mistake near the beginning what would you do?
It depends on how much interest I have in the project. If it's something that is fun to knit and I wouldn't mind doing it again I would rip back, but more than likely I would try to find a way to mask it and live with it. Call it a "design feature".
8. Where is the most unsual spot you've ever knit?
In a barber shop? In a church? I don't think knitting anywhere is really that unusual. At least not for me, my knitting goes Everywhere with me.

Ketchup

2007-08-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

Even though it's only been five days since my last post there has been a lot of stuff going on.

First the knitting. My sockapalooza pal received her socks last week safe and sound and they fit perfectly! I was so nervous the entire time that they wouldn't fit properly and she would have to work miracles to them or something like that. But apparently I am a genius sock-knitter and can knit socks for feet that are not present! Woo-hoo! So glad you liked them, Deb ! My socks have not arrived yet, but I have faith they will be here soon.

Next, the big family news. For those of you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that a few months back I announced my sisters engagement and posted some pics of potential wedding and bridesmaid dresses. What I didn't announce was last month they decided to postpone the wedding until spring for financial reasons. Then, two weeks ago she decided to join the Army Reserves. She leaves for boot camp on Wednesday, Aug 15. This past Monday I got a phone call from my sister asking what I was doing on Saturday. "Nothing," I replied. "Good," she said, "because I have some plans for you." Turns out that this is what she had planned.

It was a beautiful wedding and you never would have been able to tell we threw it together in four days. We had a flower girl, a ring bearer, matching dresses, a cake, a church, the works. Heather looked absolutely beautiful in her dress and Chad was just as handsome in his tux. We even had time to throw together a bachelorette party. It just so happened that the Chippendales were in town the night before the wedding so my mom, the other bridesmaid, and my other sister all took her out for a "Last Night Out". Of course, me being so crafty had to make these shirts for the wedding party. Iron-on letters from Jo Ann's. They were even on clearance!

It was such a great weekend. I'm just so sad to see her go on Wednesday. She won't be back until January 10th-ish. Good luck Heather!

SP11 Questionaire

2007-08-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like? I really don't like the novelty yarns or acrylic. I am currently enamored with squishy merinos such as Aurora 8, etc.
2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in? I have two handmade needle rolls, one for straights and one for DPN's, but I just keep my circs in their original bags in a stack.
3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I taught myself to knit using a do-it-yourself knitting instruction book about three years ago. I would consider myself to be intermediate, but a little towards the advanced side of it.
4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list? nope, sorry
5. What's your favorite scent?6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy? I have a huge sweet tooth. I like skittles and other chewey fruity candies like that, like Dots and Jujyfruits.
7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin? My biggest hobby other than knitting is scrapbooking, but I've also recently gotten into sewing. Just little things though, like purses and aprons, etc.
8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD) I like all kinds of music, and I also like discovering new music. I know everyone says that, but seriously I'm all over the board. I'm listening to my ipod now and I have country next to reggae next to pop next to hip hop next to bluegrass.
9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand? I don't think there are any colors I don't like, just ones I don't use as often, but I think every color has it's place. Like I wouldn't expect to see a fair isle winter hat in bright carribean colors, you know?
10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets? I have one loving pit bull, who is 5 years old and is my baby. I am also married and we will be celebrating our second wedding anniversary in September.
11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos? yes to all but the ponchos. I did the whole poncho thing a few years ago when they were all the craze, but I'm over it.
12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit? I really like to knit in general. I hardly ever finish projects...I'm more of a process knitter, but I do get such a rush when I do finish a project. I like to knit socks and small things like mitered squares.
13. What are you knitting right now? I have a mitered square afghan in progress (from mason dixon knitting), a few different pairs of socks, a felted bag, and the central park hoodie that is soooo close to being done, among other things.
14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts? I don't think you can find a knitter who doesn't!
15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic? No to plastic, yuck. I go back and forth on the straights/circs debate, it depends on if I want the knitting to be portable or not. I really like the slickness of metal needles, particularly the addis and the knitpicks needles. There is a case to be made for bamboo as well though....
16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift? yes i do
17. How old is your oldest UFO? Can I plead the fifth here? It's too embarrasing.
18. What is your favorite holiday? I love Thanksgiving. Our whole family gets together for a big feast, and it's usually at my house so I get to play hostess. It's also the last day of normalness before all the crazy retail shopping starts, and since I work at Target it's the last day to act like a human being until after Christmas.
19. Is there anything that you collect? Umm....I have a pretty huge movie collection. I used to collect shot glasses, but my collection got too big and now it's just in boxes. Yarn, needles, patterns, books, the norm.
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have? The new "Yarn Girls" book, Patterns for All Seasons looks really good, and I love their other books. I don't subscribe to any mags, but I love Interweave and Vougue Kntting.
21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn? YES! I am dying to try a fair isle kit. I've been toying around with a mitten with a snowflake motif, but I'm not terribly happy with it. The guage is off, I'm not too excited about the pattern, and the yarn I picked is a little splitty. I am really loving the process though, and I'd like try something a little more involved like a hat. I also really love the mitten pattern that Eunny has on her blog that is so popular. I can't remember the name of it, but it's really cute.
22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements? Yep. I likey the socks. I'm a size 6 1/2 shoe. My foot is pretty normal, not too high arches or anything like that.
23. When is your birthday? November 15
24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID? Just got my invite today!! My ID is "knittykaren".

Yay! Let the spoiling begin!

Argh...

2007-07-19T16:41:00.000-05:00

So there is good news and there is bad. The good is that I have finished sock number one of my sockapalooza socks!

The bad news is.....

I'm more than a little mifed about this. These are (were) my brand new fancy-pants ebony sock needles from Lantern Moon (? I think ?). They are called Sox Stix and come in a fancy silk drawstring bag. I paid a hefty price for these sleek little needles. When I first starting using them I immediately didn't care for them. I think they aren't pointy enough...it's hard to get into the stitches on my ssk, and other stitches. But....they sure did show off my sock yarn beautifully. It made it super easy to see the light colored yarn compared to how it looks against my old standby bamboo needles. Plus, they just felt nicer against my hands. Sleeker, smoother, finer. Yet, I wasn't even done with the ribbing of sock #2 before one of them snapped in half. Now, admittedly I hold my needles pretty tightly and usually all of my bamboo needles warp eventually. But c'mon....they can't even make it through a whole pair of socks? Not worth the money! I am going to try to return them this weekend, but the store where I bought them is one of those stores. You know the ones....they probably will turn their noses up at me when I show them the broken DPN.

Sigh....

All is well though, I've got my trusty bamboo needles.

2007-07-17T16:06:00.001-05:00

Just for fun....a high school meme.

1. Who was your best friend? Depended on the day.....

2. What sports did you play? Only the ones they made us play in gym

3. What kind of car did you drive? Acura Integra Hatchback

4. It’s Friday night, where were you? Either at a football game or a movie theater

5. Were you a party animal? not really

6. Were you considered a flirt? Lil' bit.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Marching band all four years, choir for two years

8. Were you a nerd? welll....I was in band for four years...so what do you think?

9. Did you get suspended/expelled? nope

10. Can you sing the fight song? only hum the melody, but I still remember the flag routine

11. Who was your favorite teacher? Mr. Thomas (band) and Mr. Parks (science)

12. School mascot? a patriot

13. Did you go to Prom? yes

14. If you could go back and do it over, would you? why would I want to revisit that?

15. What do you remember most about graduation? people not being given their diplomas becasue they tossed beach balls

16. Where were you on senior skip day? I can't remember....probably working or chilling with my friends somewhere

17. Did you have a job your senior year? yep, in a coffee shop

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? subway

19. Have you gained weight since then? yep

20. What did you do after graduation? went to college

21. Who was your Senior prom date? Niall

22. Are you going / did you go to your 10 year reunion? it's next year so we will see

23. Who was your home room teacher? Mrs. Hunt

24. Who will repost this after you? anyone who wants to

Ha....that was kinda fun to do. I haven't thought about some of those people in ages.

This past weekend I traveled to Baltimore to visit my husband who was there on business. My sister went with me and we also met up with hubby's cousin who was coincidentally also there on business. I, of course, dragged the whole crew to a local yarn shop.

They had the cutest open/closed sign.

I didn't buy anything, but I did get a business card so I can go online and order a kit for a super cute top they are putting on the web in August. This shop is a teaching shop, so they have very little inventory but what they do have is delicious.

After the brief yarn quest we all went to the Baltimore Aquarium. I'd been once before in grade school, but they have remodeled quite a bit since then. Hubby and his cousin had never been so it was good times for all. We missed the dolphin show, but did actually get to see the dolphins through their viewing window in the tank.

They were so cute. They swam around in pairs, like little lovebirds. My favorite of all the critters? This one. I wouldn't want him for a pet, but the way he was just perched in the tree watching us was hard to resist.

He is a "Waxy Monkey Frog". I'm not making that up.

Beware of this one....

We had a blast. It's time to get my nose to the grindstone though. I have a whole second sock to cast on and finish to get in the mail by Aug 3rd!! Wish me luck!

July is for outdoors!

2007-07-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Belated 4th of July everyone! We had a big time here in VA. My grandparents are in the state for the summer so they came out to celebrate the 4th with us. A whole bunch of us (Doug's parents, my Mom and brother, another couple we are friends with, and my grandparents to be exact) went to James River State Park to go kayaking and have a picnic.

That's post-picnic when we were in a hot-dog and hamburger-induced haze. There was bocce ball, football tossing, and of course the kayaking.

Afterwards, people started to trail off and head home for their own fireworks displays (fireworks are not allowed at the park and Doug and I were making it an overnight camping trip). Grandpa and Galen settled down to get to the real deal-fishing.

They hadn't been set up for more than a few minutes than we heard excited yelping and hollering. We hurried over to the river bank to see what all the fuss was about and lo and behold....

That's one proud fisherman. It was a great day.

In knitting news I am plugging away at my sockapalooza socks. I am a little worried. They are supposed to be mailed out by Aug 2nd and I'm still finishing up the first one. I never have been that good at deadline knitting....

Unrelated: A pit bull can do a lot of damage to your home in a few hours, even if you pick everything up you think he can possibly get into. This is what my ceiling looked like when I cam home from yard sales on Saturday morning. I'd only been gone about 2 hours.

That substance covering my very hard-to-clean textured ceiling is soda. Dark sticky non-diet soda. Apparently I failed to pick up the 2L of Dr. Pepper and it became a soccer ball for him. I can only imagine that he rolled it all around the floor and attacked it and had a blast until it started attacking him back. It must have scared the crap out of him because he had no soda on him at all, indicating he must have hid from the spitting soccer ball that doused my entire living room with soda. No lie....it was covering 2 entire walls, the back of the door, the tv, and as you can see, the ceiling. Whew! That was one looong clean-up job. Yuck.

Goodness

2007-06-28T15:42:00.000-05:00

There's this reggae song I like called "Badness" by One Blood, a no-has-heard-of-them band that Doug and I found when we were in Jamaica. I love the rhythm and melody of the song, and they lyrics are "badness is madness" for the chorus, which always leaves me wondering, what does that make goodness? It probably is surprises like packages in the mail and big things showing up on your back deck.....allow me to explain.....

Last week there was a lot of hush, hush phone calls and secret errands going on around my house. I was in the know enough to realize that I wasn't allowed to know. Monday I found my deck in the process of being stained.

Hmmm...I though. Yes it badly needed it, but why wasn't I hearing about it?

Tuesday night I came home to find a monstrosity of an object in the corner. What's that?

I lifted the cover to find.....

My very own hot tub! Turns out Doug's boss was getting rid of it and the timing was right. It was apparently quite an ordeal to get to our house though. It involved the use of a crane to remove it from it's prior resting spot, borrowing a flatbed trailer from a friendly mechanic and a late night ride out to the country to get a truck big enough to pull the trailer. All that and about nine guys to lift it onto my back deck, and they could have used more. I am so surprised and will spend a lot of time soaking in it, I'm sure. I just have to figure out how I can sit it in and knit without the knitting getting wet.

I had to go out of town last week as well, so I wasn't home when my last SP package arrived. I loooooved it! Thanks so much SP! My spoiler this round was Pennie. This time she sent me a little bit of wool for needle felting (are you reading my mind? I have been wanting to try that.) some super pretty cotton and a cute keychain that she made. I loved this round of SP, and my pal was so awesome. In each package she sent there was always something handmade! Thanks Pennie!

Sockapalooza

2007-06-18T08:49:00.001-05:00

So, I'm late to the party, as usual. But I finally made the signups for Sockapalooza this go-round. I have had the hardest time picking out a pattern that I deemed good enough for these socks. They will only be my fourth finished pair ever and the recipient is a somewhat more experienced sock knitter than me. This is how far I've gotten:

It doesn't look like much yet, but they will be Fabulous when I'm done. I'm also finally getting to use my ebony needles. I picked them up a few months back as a little luxury for myself and hadn't used them until now. They are soooooo nice. They also happen to show off the yarn I am using fantastically.

One other thing...apparently motorcycle fever is contagious.

This is my sister's new ride. I'm a little jealous because mine is in the shop. No worries, I didn't wreck it, just maitenance junk.

Coming next time, the Birthday Meme!

Yikes

2007-06-07T16:17:00.000-05:00

I think I really need to focus on posting more often! It's so hard in the summer to sit down in front of the computer when I all I want to do is be outside!! It's been so nice here lately, a little on the hot side, but I'm fine with that. That just means I spend a lot of time at the pool! I have very little knitting to report on. It's been that kind of week. Just lots of other things going on. I haven't finished any new miters lately. I have been working on a Noni Bag though.....

I have a thing for yellows. It just symbolizes spring and summer and sunny weather.

One other random fact, I saw some Knitting In Public today. I drove past Harris Teeter and saw a woman outside on one of the benches on her break, counting stitches. She looked like she was really concentrating. Maybe she's just learning? If I hadn't been in a hurry I would have stopped to chat. Next time...

Mason Dixon Madness

2007-05-23T17:49:00.000-05:00

I have been completely smitten with knitting again. I go through these phases where I all I can think about is knitting all the time, and I'm smack in the middle of one again. I can NOT stop knitting miters!

This it the latest completed mega-square. I am working on a more neutral mega-square now. I'm not sure if all these opposite colors are going to make sense when I get them into blanket form later on, but only time will tell.

I got an SP package today in the mail! Thanks SP!

My SP is super-crafty. Last package she made me a gorgeous bracelet and a clipboard, and this go-round she sent me a needle holder. I hope she is getting spoiled as much as I am!

She also included four skeins of a gorgeous pink bamboo yarn. I've always wanted to try bamboo for knitting, thanks SP!

That's it for now. I may or may not have been temporarily broken from my miter spell to try out a Noni bag pattern.....more next time.

Back from Vacation

2007-05-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

I'm back!! We just got back from Myrtle Beach for Bike Week. Here is the mandatory beach shot from the balcony. We had such a great time. There will be more pictues later, just a few to get you started though....
Doug got this tattoo while we were down there. Does it look like someone familiar? That's my King! Doug got this tattoo sort of as a tribute to our baby. He had been thinking about getting it before he died, and then that kind of sealed the deal. I am so impressed with how well it turned out, as is Doug.

Randomness: I made some mother's day necklaces for my mom and mother-in-law right before we left for the beach.

More pictures, and a less random post to come as soon as I'm done sorting out all the dirty laundry.

Modest

2007-05-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

This is my vey modest yarn haul form this past weekend's Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I went with a very specific budget and I religiously stuck to it. Well.....maybe not too religiously. I think my food consumption was also supposed to stay within the budget, but we just won't speak of that. I forgot my camera in the car so I have no MDSW pics to offer you, only one of the stash aquisition. I did run into Lolly in line at the Tess booth. I went on Sunday, day 2, so I know I missed a lot of bloggers and a lot of crowds. I was less interested in waiting in line for the "good" yarns, and more about the experience of going, so I'm glad I went on Sunday instead of Saturday. I'm not even sure if there was any kind of blogger meet-up this year though. I didn't hear it mentioned on any blogs prior to the Festival.

The yarn is a skein of "Spectrum Colors Yarn" (appropriate, no?) in a beautiful autumn leaves color. Okay, so maybe I'm crazy but I am planning a pair of socks with this yarn. The weight is about right, the yardage is about right, it's just the fiber content I'm worried about. It is 100% silk. Has anyone made socks with silk before? I swear I'm crazy but I looooove the colorway. I was thinking of making the embossed leaves pattern from Interweave.

The book is an older Rowan magazine with some cute summer knits in it. I was especially drawn to the lace beaded slip dress on the cover. We'll see how that turns out. I've only knit one lace item in my life and I've never done anything with beads. Besides all that, my finishing rate for wearable items is low, especially a full body garment. But, think positive, right? It will have to be on the back burner for a while since I am currently so taken with miters! I just finished my sixth square today (sorry no pic) and need to run out tomorrow for some more purple yarn to make square number seven.

Random

2007-04-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

Lots of stuff going on in the world and in my life, so in no particular order, here it is:

Thanks to all of you who wished me well on the passing of my sweet boy, King. We are all doing better. We still miss him a lot, and we will, but it helps so much to be able to speak out about it here. Thanks again.

Virginia Tech. I don't even know what I can say. I live in Charlottesville, VA, home to UVA, longstanding rival of Tech. When I graduated from high school about 30% of my graduating class went to Tech, and another 25% to UVA. As I've worked in C'ville over the years I've employed countless kids who have gone off to Tech. Virginia Tech is my extended home, even though I've never attended classes or lived there. This tragedy hit so close to home. It's not even just that though, all around me the world is falling apart. Last week in my supposedly quiet hometown there have been a string of robberies. The latest one took place at a local restaurant where the owner, a woman, was robbed. Her husband tried to intervene to help her and when he did, he was beaten to death with a baseball bat. This senseless violence is horrible. I can't even wrap my head around it. I feel like I need to do something, but what can I do? I put together some ribbons for my co-workers to wear on National Maroon and Orange Day (last friday, in case you missed it). It's small, but it's something.

Random thing number two: Maryland Sheep and Wool....who's going? My wool buddy bailed on me last minute and I'm not sure I really want to go by myself. Is anyone else going that wants to be my replacement wool buddy? I had a really good time last year but I don't really know too many people that knit with the same obsession that I do. I'd hate to miss it, but it's such a long drive to make to go alone.

Random thing number three: Knitting. I have been doing some. It's been good therapy with all the crap going on. I caught miter madness from Cara. My first square has been all about the blue tone-on-tone stripes. I had originally started this project to be a baby blanket for a friend that's due in June, but I think I've changed my mind. I was knitting the first miter the night King died, and it's what I've worked on these past few weeks as I've sat at home missing him. I think it will be my new security blanket, so to speak. I will knit miters until I don't need to anymore, and when I'm done it will be my tribute to him, in an obscure way.

I feel kind of strange, mourning for a dog this way. I feel like people were sensitive at first, but now may be thinking, get over it, he's a dog! I hope that's not how people are looking at it, but if it is they just don't understand. That dog was an everyday part of my life for the past several years. He went to bed with me every night. He was always there when I came home. There is a very distinctive hole in my life now that I need to fill. I am filling it with miters.

In Memorium

2007-04-19T16:44:00.000-05:00

Dear King,

It has taken me some time to put down into words how I feel. The simple truth is that I miss you terribly. I miss you so much it physically hurts.

Doug (Daddy) misses you so much also, King. You know you were "his boy" and it's terrible for him. It's so sad when he comes home and you aren't there waiting with your nose pressed to the crack of the door to play. Chance, your brother, misses you too. He can't stand to be alone in the kennel anymore. We've been leaving him loose in the house when we are gone and he seems to being doing ok with that.

I wish we had seen that cat hiding under the bush. I wish we could have anticipated it running into the road. I wish the car hadn't been going to fast. I wish he would have seen you before it was too late. I wish we would have brought you in from the kennel earlier or later, just not that moment. I wish we could have changed everything about that night. I still remember every detail. It will be burned into my mind forever.

You were such a good companion, protector, and friend. You always made sure I was safe when I was home alone even though it sometimes annoyed me how you growled at every little noise, I know you were just trying to protect me. I miss the way you used to cuddle your head up in my lap when I would sit to watch tv and knit. I miss the way you were always happy to see us, even if you had done something bad and knew you would get in trouble. I miss watching you and your brother play, jumping and dancing all over each other. I'm glad we were able to provide you with such a loving home. I still remember the first day we met you at the shelter. You were so docile and playful and we knew immediately we had to bring you home.

We buried you under the dogwood tree in the backyard. We did that so you would always be a part of what you loved. You could get into your share of trouble, certainly. We loved you for it, even if it didn't seem like it at the time. Our life would have been so boring if you weren't there to fill it up. The house seems so empty now without your personality to fill it up. You brought such life and energy to every day, things seem dull without you. You and Chance were the first members of our family. We made a home together. You could diffuse an argument by being playful and making us laugh. You were there to comfort us when tragedies happened all around us. You kept us warm when we couldn't afford the heat. You were there through the good and the bad, King.

You were such an important part of lives and you will be missed terribly for the rest of our lives. Not a moment goes by that I don't think of you and miss you. I wish I could change what happened to you, but I wouldn't trade the five years I was blessed to know you for anything.

King, I will always think of you and I will always love you.

Love,

Karen (Mommy)

Secret Pal Package

2007-04-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

Thank you Secret Pal! I got my package Tuesday and wowee.
This package could not have had better timing. My husband and I suffered a tremendous loss Sunday night and it's been a very hard week. I will be speaking about that in a future post. I'm just not quite ready to talk about it openly yet. Without further ado, before pictures:
See how she wrapped everything up so pretty? Yummy skittles! Look at that clipboard!! I think that is probably the coolest thing I've ever gotten in the mail....so original and made especially for me!

It might be difficult to see, but look at that pretty bracelet and matching stitch marker. The stitch marker even has a little charm that is a ball of yarn and needles. All kinds of yummy cucumber melon bath stuff, mmmmm. Also, some hand-dyed lace weight- 800+ yards. What should I make with that? And a skein of Crystal Palace cotton chenille. Yay! Thanks Secret Pal! I've already worn the bracelet a few times and have clipped my current pattern to the board.

Thanks!

Welcome Spring

2007-03-30T09:10:00.001-05:00

Warning: Extremely photo-heavy post ahead!

Spring has got to be one of my absolute favorite times of year. I love that every time I step outside I will see a new flower blooming, something that wasn't there before. We bought this house at the end of spring last year, which means that the flowers that exist here that bloom in early Spring I didn't even know we had. I'm not very agricultural at all. In fact I pretty much have a black thumb when it comes to plants (which is ironic because my grandmother was a florist). So imagine my surprise when I found all these things in my yard and I didn't even have to do anything!

Aren't they beatiful?! The only thing I hate about spring is the more flowers there are, the more bees there are. I am allergic but I am unsure how severe my allergy is so I am extremely careful (read: terrified) around bees. I actually had a huge panic attack last spring when one flew down my shirt. Amazingly, I didn't get stung. I did rip the shirt over my head and ran about 110 mph in the opposite direction. Don't worry, I was in my own house, not somewhere public.

Project Spectrum blue/grey/white sector will be over tomorrow, so I figure I should probably post something in that color spectrum before it's over. I didn't really have any crafty things planned in that color spectrum, and I haven't knit in almost a week (spring fever big time). I did decide to paint my bathroom this past weekend to surprise my hubby. I picked a pale greyish blue to match my shower curtain which is several shades of blues and greys.

These pictures don't actually do the color any justice, but you get the idea.

I have Secret Pal Homework! I am supposed to post about my favorite and least favorite yarns. I feel very strongly about novelty eyelash yarn. I absoultely can't stand working with it anymore. When I first learned to knit I fell into the craft store yarn vortex. Can we say Lion Brand? Now, I do feel that there are some LB yarns (even some acrylic blends) that are worth working with for the money. I have no desire to make an afghan out of $10/ball yarn. But Fun Fur, yikes! My first dozen or so projects were long skinny LB Fun Fur scarfs. I would hold one strand of Fun Fur with a strand of skinny ribbon to give the scarf a little more substance. I made about a half dozen for my mother who was going to Italy right after Thanksgiving with her church for a mission trip. While there my mom gave each of her scarfs away to the Italians she worked with, who absolutely loved them. I am glad they found happy homes, but since then Mom has wanted at least one replacement for the scarfs. I have attempted to try to make her another one, but alas I can't bring myself to work with the junk ever again. So, my least favorite yarn is Fun Fur. As for favorite yarn, I'm not sure. I'm currently working with Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in one of the heathered varieties and I love the fabric it's making. However, I think some of their non-heathered colors are a little bright. I really like Aurora 8, although I have never worked with it. My friend has a scarf on the needles using it and I am really jealous of the sproinginess and squishiness of the fabric. I'm really loving the basic yarns that make a really nice fabric. In theory, I like alpaca blend yarns, but I find that when it's knit into a fabric, it's too itchy for my sensitive skin. Picky, I know.

One more thing.....
Just evidence that I am learning how to ride my new bike. I am headed to the DMV now to try to get my learner's permit!

Have a great weekend!

Welcome Spring

2007-03-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

Defy the Stereotype

2007-03-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

Guess what I bought this weekend!!.......

A motorcycle of my very own! Hubby owns three if you count the dirt bike and I am very comfortable on the back of his. One of his friends was selling this one and it's just my size. I can actually touch my feet to the ground while sitting on it! It's a 250cc (that's the smallest motor for a street bike) and pretty light to hold up. I've never driven one before, so I will be spending every spare moment learning how this spring! Wish me luck :)
How many fanatic knitters out there are also biker chicks? We should have a biker/knitter blog or something. This is so exciting!

Secret knitting

2007-03-22T19:56:00.000-05:00

I've been extremely negligent in posting pictures of my latest big project. Mostly because I feel a little guilty working on it when I have unfinished gifts still on the needles. But, since I have gotten so much done I will finally reveal what I am working on.

Can anyone name this classic knit that is popping up all over blogland? That's right....it's the Central Park Hoodie! I have to make this short since the cafe is closing, but the sleeves are very close to finished, starting the fronts soon! I have had knitter's block lately though. Must be the warm weather but I can't bring myself to pick up my needles! I just ordered some knitting books the other day. Mason-Dixon Knitting was the first pick, I also pre-ordered The Yarn Harlot's newest. I am going yarn shopping this weekend, hoping to pick up some Cotton Classic to do some mitered squares with. I've never done a mitered square, but I am suddenly infatuated with them.

Sorry if this post is random...people are cleaning around me and sending me mental signals to GET. OUT. SO. THEY. CAN. LEAVE.

Gotta go!

Calling all knitters!

2007-03-14T18:40:00.000-05:00

Not a real post, just wanting a little knitty help. I need to find a hat pattern for a baby hat in the shape of a monkey. Does such a thing exist? Does anyone know where I can find it? I've found all kinds of strawberries, watermelons, frogs, etc. but no monkeys! Please help!

Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze

2007-03-05T18:49:00.000-05:00

I reeeeeally need to get into the habit of posting at least once a week. I signed up for Secret Pal 10, so unless I want to get kicked out, I'd better get with the program. I have done very little knitting since my last post that was embarrasingly long ago. I just started working an odd schedule at work and it will continue for a little bit, so knitting may fall by the wayside. Just so I at least have something to show you, I'll share with you an event I participated in at work last week.

Do you like Dr. Suess?

Do you know about the tweetle beetles? Don't those kids look enthralled? That's because at that moment in time I was trying to wrap my head around the tweetle beetles and when beetles battle beetles in a puddle paddle battle and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle....it's called a tweetle beetle puddle paddle battle muddle.

Every year Target celebrates "Read Across America" on Dr. Suess' birthday to promote literacy. We read to the children and hand out snacks and goodies. It's a lot of fun. This year we even had a little boy who got up in the big chair and read to us. That's what it's all about, people!

So, no new knitting, but lots of good things going on.

Junkie

2007-02-24T18:19:00.000-05:00

I am such a craft junkie. I switch crafts as easily as I change my nail polish and you never know when I will get the desire to craft. right. this. minute. So....it's no surprise that a Saturday off with no plan in mind and just aimless wandering would lead to this:

which hopefuly will be turning into this sometime this weekend. I have enough to do aprons. The milk print (second from the right) is what started it all. I think it is way too cute. The fabric store we went to is having an entire store 50% off sale the first week of April, so stay tuned for an expanding fabric stash in the near future. If you live anywhere near Charlotesville, check it out, they said they have people come from all over for their "famous" sale. Sounds like a party to me! (The store is called Valley Fabrics in Stuarts Draft.)

I know that this is really a knitting blog though, so lest you think I've abandoned the pointy sticks altogether....

One more completed Christmas knit! These are the legwarmers from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts". Now, I have a disclaimer about these legwarmers. They are in the two-hour to four-hour chapter. I definitely worked on these way longer than four hours. I'm not exactly a slow knitter, either. Has anyone else knit anything out of that book and have any comments on how long it took them to knit the item vs. how long the book said it should take? I was a little miffed and now I'm a little weary of trying anything else that is supposed to be a "quick knit".

PS. Mom, I swear I am almost done with your Christmas present...hang in there, you are such a good sport! You will be getting a little something extra to commend your patience!

Eight inches

2007-02-14T16:35:00.000-05:00

.....that's how much knitting you can get done on the drive to Snowshoe in these conditions. That is, your tires are z-rated for speed and balding at that and road is icy and curvy and you don't know where you are going but your husband is an experienced bad-weather driver, so you know you will be fine, but you can't help but be nervous anyway so you just knit as fast as you can. My husband and my honda are wonderful though, because somehow we got here in one piece. We are staying at a hotel at the bottom of the mountain, so whenever we want to go skiing we have to drive to the top. This morning when we went up the mountain to go skiing, the roads were even worse. People were passing us because we were going very slowly and spinning tires most of the way. There was a very nice Jeep behind us that followed us all the way to the top even though they could have easily passed us. I think they were worried that we wouldn't make it and were following us incase we needed help. It's nice to know that some people still have goodness in them. Here I am posing with the little car that could.

Anyway, we are having a great time. The wind here is unbelievable. The average wind speed is 20-30 mph with gusts up to 40-50 mph. We skiied for a while this morning before the wind got the better of us. We even watched the wind blow a guy completely off his feet. That's when we decided to take a break until dinner.

There is a cute store across the street that sells all kinds of homemade jams, jellies, and relishes that I can't wait to pick through and take some home.

That's it for now. I'm going to go hit the slopes again after I do some more knitting! Having a great time! Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

Odds and Ends

2007-02-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

This past week has been pretty busy, but filled with lots of fun stuff. Tuesday night it snowed a couple of inches. I'm still a little disappointed that we haven't gotten a MAJOR snow storm yet this year, but we had fun anyway. Both of my parents were sick with yucky colds and Doug and I both coincidentally had the day off so we went and picked up my brother for some snowy fun. First there was a snowball fight.....
I got completely nailed by the way. They ganged up on me as soon as I stepped outside and I got pelted by a million snowballs.
Then there was sledding.....

We live across the street from an elementary school with a fabulous hill down to a soccer field. There was no sled to be found, so we improvised with a tub that we used to mix cemente this summer. It actually worked quite nicely. After all the sledding we retreated to the warm house for hot chocolate and cartoons.

The next day was the long-awaited baby shower. Look at this cute cake that one of the guests made! It was a surprise shower for the mom-to-be (we had to get daddy in on the planning to get them out there) and she was very surprised! Here are the proud parents-to-be after the initial shock.

I knit them a hat from a Knit-Whits kit that I found at my LYS. I actually substituted colors from my stash to personalize it. I had to give it to them with the ends unwoven because I barely finished it in time, but after the gift-opening I wove them in while everyone else was socializing.Last, but not least. The first of the finished Christmas Knits. The others aren't too far off, I swear! This is the shadow-knit football scarf, modeled by its recipient, my father-in-law.

Time to return to painting! Doug and I are painting the interior of a house as a side job. This house is huge..4 bedrooms, three stories. Ugh! It's not too bad though, since it is only a half block away from my favorite Thai restaurant. We have a big trip planned this week to celebrate Valentine's Day. I'll post lots of pictures when I get back!

SP 10 Questionnaire

2007-02-03T18:17:00.000-05:00

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I am currently LOVING sproingy, squishy basic fibers like merino and such. I am not such a big fan of furry yarns like mohair or angora, but I love alpaca. Oh yeah, no acrylic please :)

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I have a two hand-made needle rolls, one for my straights, one for my dpns, and my circs are just kept in their plastic baggies.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I've been knitting for about three years. I taught myself using a "teach yourself to knit" kit I got at a craft store with cheapo acrylic yarn. I consider myself to be intermediate. I've made a couple of sweaters and know the basics of lace knitting, but have never ventured into the hard core colorwork stuff.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Not currently, but can create one if needed.

5. What's your favorite scent?
I love, love, love citrus smells. I find them energizing and invigorating. I also love the comfy, homey smells like pumpkin pie and cinnamon apple.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
Major sweet tooth. I'd have to say my favorite candy is probably skittles, but I love just about everything.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I haven't tried spinning yet, but would like to give it a whirl (ha ha). I also quilt, scrapbook, and do a little bit of beading.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I love all music, but if I have to be specific I'd say my two favorite genres are country and reggae (I know, opposite ends of the spectrum) Yes, I can listen to mp3s.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
I am currently loving yellows and oranges, but I like to experiment with color. I am a participant of Project Spectrum 2.0, so I will be following those color guidelines as much as I can. I can't really like of any colors I don't like.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
No kids yet, been married for a little over a year. I have two giant loving doggies.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes, yes, yes, and not anymore. I have a couple of ponchos from when I first started knitting, but I haven't worn them in a long time.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
I love socks, and that is usually my standby, but I'm also venturing out. I'd say I really like experimenting with classic style sweaters.

13. What are you knitting right now?
I am currently working on a baby hat, some leftover Christmas projects, and my Central Park Hoodie.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I switch around a lot between straight and circular, it depends on the project and if I intend on traveling with it. I use my circulars a lot more unless I'm making a scarf, then it's straights all the way. I never use plastic needles, can't stand them. I really really love wooden needles. Every once in a while I crave the slick addi turbos that everyone loves, but for the most part I love my basic bamboo and birch. I've never tried rosewood though, I hear it's divine.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
Yes, both thanks to my darling husband.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
It celebrated it's 10th birthday this year. It's a black crochet afghan from high school. My longest knit UFO is probably "Jesse's Flames" sweater that I'm making for my husband-its been lingering in the basket for about 2 years.

18. What is your favorite holiday?
Probably Thanksgiving, but I love summer picnics and barbeques too, so maybe the Fourth of July is a close second.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
I collect shot glasses, but currently don't have anywhere to display them.
20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
I currently don't subscribe to any magazines, but I love Interweave Knits. I've been trying to find a place that sells Rebecca, but no one around here seems to have it. I'm just curious what that magazine looks like, never seen it. I would like to try a simple stranded colorwork project, like maybe a hat kit. I'm also looking for a simple sweater pattern to use a beautiful purple Manos del Uruguay yarn I purchased recently. That's about all that's currently on my wish list, but I'm always seeing something that I'm dying to try next.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
As I mentioned earlier, I'd really like to try a stranded colorwork project. I think a hat might be a good beginner project. I was going to try mittens, but I don't know if that's a good first project.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
I am a sock knitter, and I'm a size 6 1/2 women's. I don't know my exact foot measurments but could provide them if needed.

23. When is your birthday? Nov 15

The Yarn Room

2007-02-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

I have been highly negligent in showing you pictures of the completed yarn room, so now since I am severely lacking in pictures of finished objects (because there are none) I will supplement with a photo show!

First up, my award-winning quilt. This quilt was hand-pieced by my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother in the 40s. It was then quilted by professionals in the 90s and won third place at the pike county fair in Missouri. For Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a quilt rack so I could dipslay it proudly in my crafty room.
It hangs proudly behind the two oferstuffed armchairs that is the primary seating in the yarn room. If you are sitting in these chairs, this is your view:

The custom-designed shelving unit that my husband made, and the boob tube where I watch endless episodes of Friends and Scrubs while I knit. Surrounding that area on the floor are the numerous plastic containers that house the overflow of my craft obsessions. To the left is the sewing nook:

This side of the room gets the most natural daylight and is where all the quilting and sewing takes place. Speaking of the quilt, this little lady perches over the room, keeping things peaceful.

She was a gift from my mother-in-law for Christmas, inspired by the main fabric of the quilt we are making. Last but not least, is the newest decoration.

Shelf provided by Beth, to hang and display the pretty pretty Manos del Uruguay I bought a few weeks ago. The folded items on top are two ponchos I made a long time ago and will probably never wear, but are too pretty to be confined to a closet.

So that's the yarn room, where all the magic happens.
Not much else going on here, but I did make a huge splurge purchase yesterday.

Size US 2 DPNs, for sock knitting. The splurge part? Ebony. Mmmmm..... I can not wait to cast on!
Also, something I shouldn't even admit to knitting here, because I will get a comment or email from mom asking about her socks.....Illegal Knitting. No, the Christmas presents aren't done. Yes, I feel really bad knitting something for myself while they loom in the knitting basket. I know it's wrong, but it feels s..o........g..o..o..d! I'm not telling what it is, but I bet you can guess since I've mentioned it before!

Quality

2007-01-25T19:21:00.000-05:00

Is it just me that judges the quality of a blogpost by the amount of pictures in the post? I have a few blogs that I read every word of every post, but the rest I browse the pictures and read the post if something catches my eye. Now, before anyone gets offended thinking I don't read their blog every day, let me clarify. I subscribe to about a zillion blogs via bloglines and if I read everyone everyday I would have to quit my job. Anyway, I assume other people do the same thing, and just browse the pictures. Since I have resolved to be a better blogger, I try not to post unless I have a decent amount of pictures, or at least one related to knitting. So, may I present, a blogpost of good "quality".....

Last time I mentioned a kitchen makeover, and now I have the pictures to prove it. For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a ton of red kitchen stuff. I secretly suspect she is redecorating my house one gift at a time, but I don't really mind. It's not like I would buy this stuff for myself unless I really need it.

Red items from left to right: coffee maker, water bottle, blender, food processor, stand mixer, pot holder and oven mitt

Red items from left to right: toaster oven (it's red, you just can't tell at that angle), spoon rest, pot holder, utensils in the caddy, toaster, sugar and flour holders, cookbook.

So we spent all day a few weeks ago going through my kitchen purging my old unmatched dishes and appliances and redecorating my kitchen. All that's left to make my kitchen completely MarthaStewart-ized is paint, retile the floor, and make some curtains. Whew! After all the redecorating, something amazing happened. I had this inexplainable urge to.....cook! I love all the new kitchen appliances and I wanted to use them. I am still in awe of the stand mixer. You can dump your ingredients in there and just.....walk away. When you come back they are all mixed up and you didn't have to DO anything! Technology is great. My hubby has been extremely pleased with my newfound love of the kitchen.

(I can't get that picture to rotate for some reason, sorry about the neck-straining.)

Just a sample of the dinners he's been treated to lately. The top (sideways) picture is spinach-stuffed shells, and the bottom picture is lime-pepper-garlic chicken with a salsa and lime garnish. I've also made coffee cake, cookies, egg salad, and lots of breakfast stuff. Cooking is fun! Who knew?

Lest you think I've abandoned knitting for the kitchen, don't be mistaken. It's just another excuse to knit dishrags.
My very first ball-band warshrag from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Love it, ove it, love it. I want to run out and buy cotton in every color and churn out these babies night and day!

I've also been getting paper-crafty. I mentioned that I was co-hosting a baby shower. I was in charge of the invitations.
It took me a little less than an hour to make one. Then I decided to get crazy and make this many.
After making eleven my hand got a little cramped so I store-bought the rest. The guests will never know! I am saving one for the mom-to-be that I'm going to put in a shadow box with some ribbon and other cutesy stuff. (By the way, Jackie I'd love to get the picture and instructions for the diaper cake-I couldn't figure out how to email you back from the comment.)
That's all for now. I am SOOO close to finishing the Christmas presents, but...not...quite....yet. I know I am now exactly one month overdue. I'm already planning for next year.

Inspiration

2007-01-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

Last weekend my friend Beth and I revived a tradition that’s been hibernating since spring. We went yarn shopping! The thought of knitting a single stitch on any of my Christmas knits (still not finished) was completely unappealing and we both needed a day out of town. We hit up a few yarn stores in the Harrisonburg area. The tone of the day was definitely “indulgence” as I went more than overboard with my purchases. I can justify it though: it’s been a while since I spent any money on myself and I was in need of some pampering. At the first store I stumbled onto a great deal-Manos del Uruguay at 20% off! So I got seven skeins of a variegated royal purple to make a sweater.

I also got a skein of Crystal Palace Baby Alpaca in a light lavender-blue color.

It came with a pattern for a hat that I promptly cast on for the next day. In fact, Beth and I each got a skein (in different colors) and had a race to see who could finish their hat first. Sadly, she won, and I owe her a batch of cookies. I don’t mind though, because I’ve recently discovered my love of cooking. (More on that later) Besides, I still ended up with a super-cute hat!

The best find of the day though, was a total shock. We stumbled across this store that was primarily a fabric store that also carried yarn. We went in, expecting to find an assortment of basic wool and acrylic. Imagine our surprise when there, on the 30% off shelf, was Blue Heron metallic/rayon blend, three shelves worth! I don’t know if any of you have ever had the pleasure of knitting with this yarn, but you should seek it out if you haven’t. I knit my Green Gable out of it over the summer. I got a skein of the Tulip color. Anyone have any ideas on what I should make? I’ve got 550 yards that’s about a DK weight. (I knit it on size US 6 for the Green Gable)

After I knit the hat I swatched a little with the purple Manos to see what patterns I like. I dragged out all my good sweater patterns I have and tried to match it with the yarn. Every pattern I’ve seen with Manos del Uruguay has been either a man’s sweater of something I wouldn’t wear. Any suggestions? I am really considering making the Central Park Hoodie (LINK to Carrioke) from Knitscene, but the varigations and the cables might be too much. Opinions?

Don’t worry, Christmas gift recipients. Knitting that hat and the yarn purchases was just the inspiration I needed to get cranking. I’ve made more progress on the gifts in the past few days than I have since Christmas. They’re coming! It won’t be much longer!

Also, before I forget. I picked a winner from the comments from the last blog post using a random number generator. So, congratulations JENNIFER! I will be contacting you to get your mailing address soon!

Next time....Kitchen Makeover and hopefully the big Christmas Knit reveal!

PS. I am co-hosting a baby shower in three weeks for a friend and need ideas. We already have the games planned out, but I'm specifically looking for instructions on how to build the diaper cake and some cute do-it-yourself invitations and decorations. Crafty friends....help! Oh, and a super-quick baby knit since I have very little time to knit and plan!

Happy Blogiversary!

2007-01-06T19:23:00.000-05:00

First of all, I’d like to say thank you for the kind comments and wishes of a happy new year. I really appreciate them and so does my family.

I told my husband earlier in the week that my blogiversary was coming up and he almost rolled on the floor, he was laughing so hard. After he regained his composure he said, "what's the custom gift for your 1 yr blogiversary, a hard drive?" No silly, it's yarn of course. I have a ball of lovely soft pink Anny Blatt angora to give away to one lucky commenter. I will pick the name at random, and announce it on my next post.

To celebrate one year of blogging, I decided to highlight some memorable things from the past year.

January
a blog was born, finished two objects, and experimented with dyeing yarn

February
the Knitting Olympics consumed most of my time, although I didn't finish.....

March
finsihed Tubey, started my first pair of socks

April
went to the DC Knit Meetup, bought a house

May
Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, signed up for Secret Pal 8

June
made yellow ankle socks, attended Soxperience 2006

July
organized the Flip Flop Swap, started an obsession with quilting, went wedding dress shopping with my youngest sister

August
not much knitting, but lots of home improvement

September
celebrated my one-year wedding anniversary

October, November, and December really didn't hold much knitting content, but I celebrated my birthday, learned to knit continental, and worked on Christmas gifts (still not done!)

Here's to a completed year of blogging, and another good year with more frequent posts and more finished knits! Happy New Year!

holiday whiplash

2006-12-29T20:23:00.000-05:00

The big holiday is finally over and thank heavens. Christmas is always hectic for me since both my husband and I work in retail, but this Christmas got sucked into some sort of insane vortex of christmas-crazy. The two weeks preceding Christmas were about as crazy at work as they could possibly be. We were incredible understaffed and I was grabbing as much overtime as I could handle. My hubby was working a lot of (unpaid-he's salaried) overtime as well and we barely saw each other. Add into that all the shopping that was left to do, decorating, and knitting. Whew!

Then my grandmother passed away on December 23rd. I wish I had a picture I could post of her here, but the most recent picture I posess of her was in my pre-digital age and I haven't scanned in any pictures from that era. She had been declining in health for quite some time so it was by no means a shock, but still heartbreaking, especially being so close to the holidays. Last minute plans had to get thrown together to either postpone, hasten, or shorten the Christmas celebrations and make travel arrangements. (She, and most of my extended family, lived in Missouri.) So halfway across the country we (my hubby, sister, and her fiance) trekked overnight on Christmas day. We drove 30 hours in the course of less than three days. It was, to say the least, rushed. In a way, it was also bittersweet. We got to see lots of family that we hadn't seen in years, but such a sad event to bring us all together.

As soon as we got back into town I took down my Christmas tree. I usually leave it up until New Years-ish, but not this year. I don't really feel like celebrating and it was almost dead anyway. I didn't really manage to finish many Christmas knits and in all the rush, the ones I did finish I forgot to take pictures of before wrapping. I don't mean to sound all woe-is-me or anything, but this Christmas was....well.....different. I don't want to say it was a bad Christmas because the abbreviated celebration we had was wonderful. Oh well.

I wrapped up half-finished knits because I have every intention of finishing them immediately. In fact, I am not allowing myself to start my fair isle mittens until they are done. I have half a scarf, one sock, and one and a half legwarmers to finish. Wish me luck.

I've been converted

2006-12-10T17:24:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right. I'm a changed knitter. I have just completed my very first lace project. I've dabbled in a bit of lace here and there, but never a project that was completely lace and that required actual blocking!

Note: I didn't actually intend for my scarf to match my carpet perfectly. That was an accident. So what does my beautiful new scarf look like when I'm wearing it, you ask? I am in fact wearing it right now, but here is a pic.

This knit was so quick that I didn't even get to post an "in-progress" picture. I started this knit on Thanksgiving Day to avoid spoiling any gift knitting surprises while all my family was in the same room. I finished it Wednesday evening, blocked on Thursday, so it took exactly three weeks from cast-on to blocking, during which time I did absolutely no gift knitting. I am soooo behind in all the knitting I am supposed to be doing, but that's usually the case when I set a deadline for myself. I'm going to end up wrapping up half-completed projects for Christmas. Sorry everybody!

I have been keeping crafty though. My mother-in-law and I have been working on a quilt off and on since the summer. You may remember when I first got on my quilting craze. I haven't been all-quilting-all-the-time since then, but the past few weeks have been pretty productive. Kathy (my MIL) found a fabric at a quilt shop and after a discussion abou quilts back in July she went out and bought a few yards of that and some other fabrics she liked. After that we looked through several quilting books and together designed a basic nine-patch quilt.

These are the three main blocks for our quilt. There will be some sashing, borders, and other things to break up all the small calico prints. All of these fabrics are vintage, circa 1940s. I love the country feel it's got to it.

So that's what I've been up to. Here's hoping I can get all my presents knit in the next FIFTEEN days!

Quickie

2006-11-29T18:04:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I'm really loving this laptop a lot. I still don't have any pictures today. I did get the programs worked out to put pics on the laptop, but I don't have any new pictures to show you. On Thanksgiving I did quite a bit of knitting on a non-gifty project since all my gift recipients were in the room and now I can't put it down. I've been feeling quite a bit of guilt about working on it instead of all the deadline stuff, but it is addictive. It's a project for a lacy leaf scarf that my Secret Pal sent me from SP7. I love the yarn, so soft! I wish I had a picture to show you...next time, I promise.

If you look in the sidebar you will notice a new button. I have joined the Stranded Colorwork Challenge. I recently learned to knit continental for the sole purpose of holding a strand in each hand (rhymes!) so I could do two-color fair isle. This KAL is the perfect challenge to make me get into high gear and try it. I'm thinking of doing mittens of some sort. I probably won't be able to start it right away (the start date is Friday) because I have to collect the supplies and decide on a project. This will be my very first fair isle project and I'm really looking forward to learning something new. Something else exciting happened when I signed up for this KAL! I finally learned how to save a button to my own computer and use it instead of "hotlinking" and stealing bandwidth. I'm a little embarrased to admit that I didn't "get" it before despite all the tutorials and that's why you don't see too many buttons in my sidebar. Now that I know how to do it without it being illegal I will save as many buttons as I can find! Maybe I can even make one of my own. I'm not sure I have the right program to get artsy. Is there anyone out there that wants to make a button and send it to me? (For free!)

Sorry for the two posts in a row with no pictures. I know those can get boring. Next time I will have lots of pictures, I promise!

Merry Christmas!

2006-11-26T14:00:00.000-05:00

I know it's a little early to start singing carols and giving gifts, but I got an early Christmas present from my hubby and I can't wait to post about it! He couldn't wait to give it to me because it was going to be too hard to hide from me, plus he figured I could go ahead and start getting use out of it now. What is it, you ask? A NEW LAPTOP COMPUTER! This would be the place where I would go ahead and post a picture of it, but I just broke it out of the packaging and haven't put any programs on it yet. So instead, in honor of the holidays you get this holiday-themed meme:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Depends...I like egg nog cold, not hot, so if I'm in the mood for hot stuff I'll go for the cocoa.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? The elves wrap the presents of course. Santa is just the delivery man.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White....it's more classy
4. Do you hang mistletoe? nope
5. When do you put up your decorations? Ideally around the first of December, but with me and hubby both in retail, whenever our hectic schedules allow us
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Sweet potatoes with marshmallows
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Baking cookies with mom for gifts and to set out for Santa
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? At the babysitter's when I was 9 yrs old.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? When I was a kid we used to open one gift on Christmas Eve....it was usually preselected by one of our grandparents and it was usually matching pajamas for me and my sisters to make for cute pics on Christmas morning
10. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas Tree? An assortment of cheap plain balls from the dollar store and some meaningful ones fro family and friends. My favorite ornament was a gift last year to celebrate my first Christmas with my husband
11. Snow! Love it or Dread? I love it when I have a day off and can go skiing and snowboarding. On the roads when I'm trying to get to work, not so much.
12. Can you ice skate? Sorta....but not well
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I was given a quilt two years ago by my grandmother that was hand-pieced by my great-grandmother and her mother in the 40's.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Time together with family and doing things for others
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Goop! (a family recipe that involves caramel and bananas)
16 What is your favorite holiday tradition? Baking cookies and watching all the holiday specials on tv
17. What tops your tree? A star cut out of cardboard and wrapped in aluminum foil. My parents had a star like that for years that my dad made so my first christmas with my hubby back when he was my boyfriend we made one just like it
18. What is your favourite holiday book? Twas the Night Before Christmas
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? O Come All Ye Faithful is one of my favorites because I can sing it in English and in Latin (Adeste Fidelis) but there is nothing like a full choir singing th Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah...it gives me chills when it's done correctly
20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yummy? Yummy, I especially like the "gourmet" flavors like blueberry

So, it may be early but Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

More birthday fun

2006-11-22T14:09:00.000-05:00

Technically my birthday was last Wednesday, but my family and I decided to wait until Friday to celebrate it. We started the day by having my friend Beth take our portrait for our Christmas cards.

Merry Christmas from the Snyders!

That evening we went to the local bowling alley for birthday fun! My little brother, Galen, especially enjoyed the bowling. He was so excited he actually delivered the bowling balls to people to encourage them to bowl faster so it could be his turn again.

I believe that picture was taken just before he bowled his first strike. He did quite well, actually. He even beat me in one game. Kind of embarrasing actually, considering I bowl in a league and he is only seven. Oh well, I never claimed to be good. This picture is just because it's funny. That's Galen, showing me how much he liked my cookie cake, with Mom and Dad in the background.

I got all kinds of awesome gifts from everyone (Thank You!). Mom and Dad got me the latest James Patterson novel that I am dying to read but haven't been able to start yet because of all the gift knitting going on at Chez Karen. It's just more motivation to keep knitting as fast as possible. Doug got me a pretty cool gift too. Want a hint?

Yep, he got me a ball winder and swift. He actually went to a yarn store and debated with the woman working if metal or wood was a better choice. After listening to her suggestions he went with the more compact metal swift. I immediately wound just about every skein I have when we got home. Whee! Center-pull balls! I can hardly control myself.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope the weather is good, the meal delicious, and the company excellent!

Happy Birthday to ME

2006-11-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for your birthday wishes. Yesterday I turned 26 years old and had a wonderful day. I started the day with bowling at my bowling league, then the girls took me to lunch and surprised me with this cookie cake! It's very yummy too, it will be gone very soon. (or maybe it is already.....details, details). I then went to work for just a few hours to fix up a few things for a big corporate visit. After work, my hubby cooked me the best dinner ever. He made Steak Marsala from scratch and I wish I could post a recipe here for you all (especially Kim, who I know would love to have the recipe), but he is a "wing it" cook. He used to cook professionally, so when he steps into the kitchen he usually knows what to put in it, but doesn't follow any measurements. He'll just put in ingredients until it "looks right". Must be nice, huh? When I do that, whatever I'm making is so bad the dogs turn those noses up at it. Anyway, here is a pic of the wonderful dinner
This is after a few bites as you can see and ohmigoodness. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The sauce was the perfect blend of mild, tangy, and sweet and the sauce made the meal. I'm sorry if some of you are vegetarians and may possibly be offended by me posting a picture of steak on my blog, but I can't help it. That was the best meal I have had in a long while and the fact that my hubby went out of his way to make it for me meant so much more. All in all, it was a pretty spectacular birthday. You know the best part? It's not even really over yet. Tomorrow evening I am having a small bowling party for my family and a few friends to celebrate so I get to have another day of birthday fun! Whee!

Gift knitting....

2006-11-14T11:37:00.000-05:00

....is fun, but makes for lousy blog posts. I can't show you any Finished Object pictures, because I'd have to black out the FO. I can't show you any WIP pictures, because I'd have to black out the WIP. Rest assured that I am knitting, I'm actually finishing things, and I'm almost on schedule for all my holiday knits. Money is a little tight this year so I am trying to make as many gifts as I can, and most of them have been started with yarn from the stash. Double bonus! Gifting and stash-busting at the same time :) Maybe for Christmas I will get cool new yarn to beef the stash back up. (hint, hint) So instead of pictures of all the cool knitting I've been doing, I can show you what I was up to last Sunday night.

Most of you know that I bought a new house in the spring so each time the season changes I have learned some new things about my new area. For instance, when school started, I learned to deal with the constant noise of traffic around 8am and 2:30 pm. (I live across the street from an elementary school). When it came time to turn on the heat I learned that diesel makes a good subsitute for oil when the local oil company won't deliver oil for your heat and it's 40 degrees outside. Last Sunday I learned that once hunting season starts, deer flock to my road. I see deer every morning and evening on my road, but this one I didn't see until we were on top of it. My apologies, little Bambi, and condolences to your family. Everyone that was in the car is fine, just a little shook up. The car and the deer, not so fine. The car has $3000 worth of damages and won't be going to the car doctor until the 27th.

The car is still drivable and I've been taking it to work and back everyday. Each day someone new will notice the damage to my car and ask me "what happened!?". I don't mind re-telling the story, but each time I feel a little more remorseful for Bambi. Drive carefully!

There is one knit I can show you, but regrettably it hasn't been touched in a few days so there is nothing interesting about it yet. Hmmm....the pic won't upload for whatever reason. Oh well, I guess there knitting is not meant to be shown in this post. Stay tuned for knitting next time.

"Catching up" or "this post is really picture-heavy"

2006-11-07T12:43:00.000-05:00

What have you all been up to? I've been away from blogs and blogging for a while and I have so much to catch up on, both in reports from my world, and reading what everyone else has been doing. I have been knitting during my blogless absence, though. This scarf is technically a Christmas present, but I feel reasonably safe in debuting it on the blog-I don't think the intended recipient surfs knitting blogs. This is for my father-in-law, who hails from Michigan. Simple striped scarf?
Nope! Check out the cool footballs that appear when you look at it from another angle! This is my first go-round with illusion/shadow knitting and it is so much fun to watch the designs appear from simple knitting and purling. This football design was charted by Jennifer, whose blog I can't find. Jennifer-please drop me a comment with a link to your blog so I can find you again!
On Halloween my hubby and I hosted a costume party that I would say was a huge success and loads of fun. Doug went as Speed Racer. The morning of the party he had nothing to wear as a costume, but one quick trip to JoAnn Fabrics and a quick trip to TJ Maxx and his costume was set.
And I went as my favorite 80's cartoon rocker....Jem! (Jem is excitement....glamour and glitter, fashion and fame....!)
The biggest challenge with my costume was making glowing star earrings. I found clear star earrings at Claire's and Doug found a way to wire LED lights with watch batteries to them. They were heavy, but very cool. I even found shoes that lit up when you walked. Definitely 80's!
Beth went as "Trashy Britney", aka pregnant Mrs. Federline in all her glory.
Speed Racer even had the Mach 5, although it was the wrong color. This is Doug's "knitting". He bought this '85 Fiat Bertone for $500 a couple years ago and has done tons of work on it to make it a hot little speedster. Everything from custom body work, to much-needed engine maitenance.
Top row (L-R):Trashy Britney, Speed Racer Next row (L-R): The priest, Brian Fantana, Little Bo Peep, Jem, the Bloody Surgeon, the guy in the tux, and the Boxer. Bottom row (L-R): The Office Scoundrel, Larry the Cable Guy, and the Border Patrol. (Not pictured: The Devil, Jesus, two cowgirls, "that kid", and an Army officer) It was a fantastic party, everyone had fun, and the costumes were spectacular!

This past Saturday, Beth and I went to Stitches East for the Marketplace Sessions. We signed up for Continental Knitting. The class was very well taught and I feel like I picked up a new skill, although it will take me a while to get used to holding the yarn differently and my guage is WAY off right now. I really wanted to learn to hold the yarn in my left hand so I could fair isle with a color in each hand. Fair isle is definitely the next skill I want to learn. I'd like to start with a small project, maybe a hat or mittens. I saw the most beautiful cashmere black and white folk fair isle mittens on display at Stitches...wow! I know that fair isle is starting to grace the blogs out there...does anyone have any specific recommendations for a starter project? Any certain patterns I should check out? I made one small purchase at Stitches East. The WEBS booth was a little overwhelming. I picked up a lot of yarn that I gently coaxed myself into putting back. All but 2 skeins of Valley Yarns Stockbridge, in a lovely heather grey. They had the cutest cable socks on display that I just had to make.
Not the best picture, but you get the idea. Only one problem. They are way way too small. The pattern only has three sizes: child, woman, man and it doesn't give too many specifics on the sizes the socks will be when they are complete. I made the woman's sock, and granted my guage isn't exactly right and I didn't (ahem) swatch first, but this sock will fit my 7-yr-old brother perfectly. I am debating if I should rip it out and try again or call it a Christmas present. I doubt he'd appreciate them though and the yarn is ::SO:: yummy. Hmmmm......

Finished Object!

2006-10-25T11:56:00.000-05:00

I have been working on these socks for a while, and they are finally finished! The first sock was started in early April, finished in early June. The second sock was started right away, but neglected for several months. I picked it back up at the beginning of October and they are finally done! I was going to hold onto them for Christmas, but Doug loved them so much he won't give them back. He actually slept in them the night I finished them. It's only the third pair of socks I've made, and the first for him. It'll be awhile before I decide to knit socks for him again-he's a 13W. I've been chugging away on a gift knit and I love-love-love the pattern. I can't wait to share with you what I've been working on!

Puter Blues

2006-10-22T16:31:00.000-05:00

My computer is sick. Sorta. I am displeased with my internet service so I have disconnected it and am shopping for new service. In the meantime, I have to remote blog, which results in less frequent blogging, blog-reading, and blog-commenting despite my last post resolving to do those things more. Oh well. There's not much I can report on the knitting front. Most of the knitting I have going on is either very little progress on projects you've already seen or secret projects that I'm hoping to have done by Christmas. I've learned over the last two Christmases that I can't plan to knit everyone a gift. In fact, I can't plan to knit anyone a gift. The best I can do is cast on for several gifts, knit until I tire of the project and hope that the cast off comes before my boredom with the project. In any case, I've got several gift knits tentatively planned. One of them has already bit the dust. The Branching Out scarf I posted a pic of recently has been frogged. I don't know if the lace chart was too much for me or I simply can't count but I kept finding extra stitches. I was trying to decrease them in a manner that made sense with the pattern, but this was my first lace attempt and it didn't go over well. I cast on for a different scarf with a similar yarn. I'd still like to make the Branching Out, but I'm a little burned out on lace and I don't think I have enough time until Christmas. Has anyone else noticed how quickly it became fall? Fall is my favorite time of year. I love summer....swimming, kayaking, camping, amusement parks, hiking, and sunny days, but nothing beats the crispness in the air of fall. Football games, the first day you can wear a sweater outside without being too hot, the smell of fires, apple pies, turkey dinners, my birthday...all things I love about fall. But the best thing about fall? The colors!

All of these pictures were taken of some spectacularly beautiful trees near my mom's house. Some people can't wait for spring when everything is green and flowers start to grow, but I love the warm colors of fall. The rich reds, oranges, yellows, and browns. YUM! It's reflected in my yarn stash too. I separated my stash by color and the yellow/orange cubby is stuffed full, while the other colors are about half-full. (If I'd thought ahead I could've shown you a picture....the follies of remote blogging.) Does anyone have any spectacular sock yarn in fall colors that you'd like to trade? I bought two skeins of Koigu in a very pretty bluish-green colorway that is very pretty but not very me. I was thinking of knitting it up as a gift but I'd really like some autumn leaves socks. The Koigu is already hand-wound into balls. I'm not sure if I still have the ball bands or not, I'll look. Again, I forgot to take a picture of the Koigu, but check out my post from June 21st (look in the archives). They are the two smallish balls in the center. If anyone is interested in swapping you can either leave a comment or shoot me an email (knittykarenAThotmailDOTcom). Please be patient, it might be awhile until I get back in touch with you. I've only been checking my email every few days. Have a great week everyone!

I resolve

2006-10-09T17:41:00.000-05:00

....to post more often! I just looked back through my archives and realized that I used to post on average 7-8 times per month, but during the months of August and September I only posted twice per month! I didn't knit very much during those months, and August is when we really started making some changes to our new home, but I certainly still read blogs and "lurked". I know I love to get comments on my blog, and you only get comments if you post regularly. So I resolve to post one or two times per week. I also resolve to comment on other people's blogs more regularly instead of lurking. How many lurkers do I have I wonder? Are you out there?

No pictures today, I'm still remote blogging. Something is wrong with my internet at home, so I'm at mom's again. It probably won't be repaired for about a week or two, but that won't stop me from posting. No new progress on the knitting front though, so no worries, you aren't missing anything. More posts coming soon!

Remote blogging

2006-10-07T17:01:00.000-05:00

I'm remote blogging from mom's today, so I should keep it pretty short. I still have no picture of the finished Green Gable, due to craptastic weather and poor lighting. We needed the rain, but I haven't seen sunshine in about three days.

Not much knitting has been going on due to a little injury I sustained at work last Friday.

This picture was actually taken a few days after the injury occured, but can you see it? On my middle finger, the skin is an alarming shade of pink compared to the normal skin around it. I burned myself pouring coffee. Ouch. They had to send me to prompt care and everything.

I was really bummed because that day I received this package from my Knitflix pal, Melanie. (Sorry no link Melanie, I left your blog addy on my desk at home.)

*Not pictured-the movie: Bell, Book, and Candle which was in my dvd player and the kettle corn that was in the microwave.* Check out those dishcloths! I love them both so much, I'm afraid to use them! And look at the cute scrapbooking goodies. The yarn she sent is Wool-Ease sportweight in a lovely heathered green intended to make Branching Out from knitting. I was so excited to try that pattern that I cast on, despite my injury. Has anyone had any experience with blocking this yarn? It's 20% wool, 80% acrylic.

I apologize for the picture quality. After I did a few repeats the drag of the yarn across my burn was a little too much to take. I'm really digging this pattern though, and can't wait to finish it. I think this might be a Christmas present for my mother-in-law (she doesn't read the blog).

I have been partaking in another activity that doesn't affect my burned hand. Three of my friends and I have joined a bowling league. None of us have ever bowled in a league before, and I had no idea that it lasts so long-33 weeks! We are having a blast though, and have already seen improvement in our game.

Just because.....

2006-10-02T19:27:00.000-05:00

....this is fun and too cute to pass up.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: ( pet and current street name) King Proffit

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your moms side, your favorite candy) Jean Skittles....sounds flaky

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of last name, first three letters of your middle name) S. Ann.....sounds too boring to be "fly"

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue Dog .....that is actually some kind of art, isn't it?

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Ann Louisiana (no, I didn't misread the instructions, it's an actual town in Missouri, look it up)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.) Snykasicha....I actually like that

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink) The Blue Sweet Tea

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of both your grandfathers) Walter Clarence

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite shoes) Romance Sketchers

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother/father's middle name ) Jean Alan

I promise there is a real post coming in the next few days. I have a package to brag about, a new project (I know!) to show off and a ::gasp:: finished object! Has it been that long? I think the last finished object I debuted on the blog was a pair of yellow ankle socks that I finished back in July! Also....do you know what started yesterday? hint....I'm looking for my size 2 dpns!