Sleeves!

My little blob now has a couple of wing-a-lings! See?

In the future we will call them "sleeves."
Here, I've helped you find them since I know it's hard.

I also shaved my legs today, made dinner and made lunch for tomorrow. Please ignore that my apartment still looks like a war zone. It's snowing outside, distract yourselves with that. If it's not snowing where you are, please come visit me :)

Baked Potatoes & Bagel Sandwiches

... and Christmas and knitting. Since I got home from my parents' house for Christmas I've been trying to avoid grocery shopping and realized that I've got bagels and potatoes, so I'm eating those before going to the store. Though I will need some laundry money soon...
Christmas was a great time being virtually snowed in with the family and getting to see a couple of really good old friends. I received many amazing gifts from family such as a Victoria's Secret robe from the brother & SIL which I practically refuse to take off. Damn working AT work. If I worked from home I would live in this thing. But then again if I worked from home I would never work. Ok, moving on. Grandpa sent up a scale model of the table he's building for me! It's 1/4 scale, so will be a big, beefy, craftsman-esque table when done. See, pictures with some items for size.


My parents gave me a really pretty cake stand. My mom said she bought it last year, but since I was sharing a duplex and had a tiny kitchen that I hated cooking in she saved it for this year. Of course now I have no place to put it because my kitchen is considerably smaller... Ah well, it's beautiful!

My cousin Tessa gave me some nice bathroom things and a couple of stuffies that I believe her sister, Rachel, made. One is an owl and the other is a racoon. I may have requested them... :)

In other news I did not get to see Kate or Kerry while home due to psycho snow. I DID get to see my 2 best friends from many years earlier. Kayte and I realized that we've never gone out together when we've even been able to DRIVE, let alone drink! So we took care of both Saturday night. Then Sunday I went to lunch w/ Kris and we discovered that we're both crazy fanatical knitters. I am still in shock over it, but she said it correctly when she said we were meant to be soulmates. It couldn't be more true! Yay. Mostly I'm glad to know that my old besties are still there and despite a few years of not seeing each other we still have plenty in common. :)

I've been knitting on Amused. Kate put me up to it and she's nearly done! Mine currently looks like a blob w/ some cables. It's nice to work on something w/ big needles. I'm also bus knitting the waffle socks. One is done and due to the magic and bendiness of wire coat hangers it does not look like a blob.

I <3 Winter!

It snowed finally! It started just over a week ago and is snowing steadily right now. After unburying my car and driving a bit yesterday and today, it's now buried again! It's also been extremely cold - the predicted low for tonight is 11°, but last week that was practically a heat wave! Nights were in the single digits and days not above 20°. In light of cold and snow I've had nothing to do but knit :)
The Christmas knitting is all done except for something for Drew.
I'll talk about those things later...
I just finished the button band for the purple sweater and the collar is up for tonight or tomorrow depending on how I feel. My wrists and elbows are a little tired from feverish knitting for the last several hours! I knit solid while watching Doctor Zhivago with only 1 bathroom break and intermission when I made hot chocolate. It was good and I was surprised I sat through it all as I often get bored in 2 hour movies, let alone one over 3 hours! Anyway I don't know that I paid close enough attention to fully understand it, but knitting happened and that's important, too.
I'm hoping to finalize Christmas shopping tomorrow; hopefully my car won't be frozen! I at least need to drive it Monday morning so I can take it in for a few last repairs.
Currently on the Needles:
German Waffle Socks

Pop Up Mittens

The Purple Sweater

Up Next:
Amused
First Dying Experiment
Kate and I plan to do Amused as a KAL. She bought us the supplies for dying for my birthday, so I'm excited to do that! We will spend at least a full day together after Christmas knitting and making our own yarn :)

Quick Post

Can I post in 15 minutes? Taking pictures and all?
Lately I've been knitting quite a bit, but have been fickle; work on this for 2 days, that for 5 days, and oh ya! pick up that sweater that's been laying around...
I started some Cashmere mitts recently which I can't reach at the moment so there are no pictures. I'm using Ann Budd's Handy Guide to Knitting patterns and melding the gloves w/ the mittens to make convertible mitts. The fingers inside are all 11 rows tall and knit in 1x1 rib on a size larger needle than the rest of the mitt (mitt on 2's, fingers on 3's). I improvised the 1x1 thing and I'm not sure it was necessary or even a good idea, but it's done on both and I'm not turning back. I also added the mitten top too high on the back of the hand. At this point there are sort of 2 camps - 1. meh! this was an experiment and they are totally wearable, be proud of your accomplishment and learn from it; 2. this is really really nice yarn and you know you can do better. Start over maybe from the other end of the ball so you don't have extra yarn tails to weave in in obscure places. I think I'm going to let them age a bit and decide which camp is best. Now that I've gotten them written down, though, I must admit I'm leaning toward #2.
After getting most of the way through the mitts my mom and I did some post-Thanksgiving shopping and I got a Hiya Hiya size 1US 9" circ. I thought, "those look almost evil!" followed almost immediately by, "I HAVE to try them and find out. I'm using mystery yarn that my friend bought for me in Germany. There is potential that it is some line from Opal or that it is something very similar. Nevertheless since the needles are like slippery toothpicks glued to each other I opted for a simple pattern - waffle rib from Vogue Stitchionary I. I'm about 75% done with the heel now, but would be done if I'd just started w/ the short row heel. I don't especially like short row heels, so I try to avoid them, but when I tried to work a heel flap... well... slippery toothpicks.



Finally on the knitting front: I picked up the 178 stitches for the wasteband of the purple sideways sweater! I've never had issues w/ picking up stiches before. But then I don't think I've picked up 178 stitches along the side of lace before either. That may have been more painful than knitting the entire sweater twice. And now those 178 stitches of 80/20 Cotton/Merino want to slide right off of the aluminum needles they're on making it very difficult to knit them. Oh, I am so close to victory on this thing, I can taste it!! I just want to finish it. Grrr to you aluminum needles. If you weren't called "Diana" I wouldn't even keep you!
Awe. I love you, too sweater.

Dang. 30 minutes.

Um, YUM!

Yes, this is more not-knitting. But it's delicious and worth showing off!

Crust:
2 crust for 10" pan from Betty Crocker's Old Fashioned Desserts book. I'm not one of those people that "uses their great great grandmother's recipe that she almost lost on the boat ride from Yorkshire." Instead I use whatever - sometimes I get it from one of my cookbooks, sometimes I get it from the internet. This one uses Crisco, but I've used butter before, too. I don't really have a preference (yet?) or a favorite recipe. I haven't even ruled any out as bad ones. So there.
Filling:
Apple Pie from the Betty Crocker Best Loved Recipes cookbook. Generally one would use tart apples like Granny Smiths, but all I had were Galas (or Fugis?) which are really sweet. So I burried them in sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. They aren't as crisp, but I can say that they don't taste bad.

It's getting all foggy and they say it will most likely rain tomorrow afternoon. Cross your fingers that it turns to snow very soon! Then I'll have a really good excuse to run the oven all the time :)

Hyku: Natural Light

O! Natural light*
I saw you in sunny CA
But now I am home.
*I just realized that you might mistake this for the beer... I'm talking about natural SUN light.

I was in San Diego over the weekend visiting my brother & sister-in-law. We had a blast and it was all perfect. Here is the trip:
This is Paradise. It says she might bite... she definitely bites.

Shout House w/ Laurel - dueling piano bar. It was hilarious, everyone needs to go!

Breaker Beach on Coronado Amphibious Base.

Sandpipers at the beach. They are so fun to watch!

We went on a ghost tour.

Mik looking for ghosts on the Spirit of India.

Is there a ghost man, other woman, child, baby, etc in the picture? I didn't think so...

Is Kate Morgan here? We tried to find the famed ghost of the Del Coronado Hotel, but all that was around was the most beautiful place to stay I've ever been.

Mik looking for orbs. Or is that dust?

Got to hang out w/ the youngest Brandon.

Brandons on swings. Go figure.

Ocean Beach (OB to the locals) was stormy, but pretty!


There are seagulls there, too

There are cactus and palm trees all over


My knitting from the weekend is on Ravelry. I've been internetting way too long to post any of that here now.

Winter is coming

I'm listening to some feel good Sublime and thought blogging might be a good idea! I finished Cruella DeVille and tested out my alter ego. Other than forgetting my cigarette holder (and to take any pictures) I was pretty damn good! I think we'll go out again this weekend, so I will post pictures later. Sufice it to say that no one had any idea who I really was. I also had a revelation - the dress I made will TOTALLY morph into a Mortisha costume next year! I just need to make a witchy coat and get a long black wig. Sweet.

Let us move back to the whole purpose of this blog: knitting. I'm motoring on through the Sideways Spencer for the 2nd time. I am finally completely sick of it, but I'm on the home stretch. Check it out:

I can try it on and it looks vaguely like it's supposed to :) The plethera of ends on the right arm will be woven in (OMG on closer inspection they are practically invisible!) - probably with a few glasse of wine. They are the result of tearing out version.1 and not puting it back together exactly the same way in version.2. And it's mostly cotton, so can't just felt the ends together. Bummer. It was going to be perfect for last month, but now I will have a cute little sweater to wear in the office or at home, but definitely won't cut it outside for much longer! I'd love to have it done by the end of the month, but that's a pretty steep request.

P.S. I love my hats!

I'm Late, I'm Late!

I'm sewing on my Halloween costume and have no time for blogging! See?

Jogging Along

Hurray! It's birthday month! Apparently this month will be the turning point for me when I can no longer say I am "young"... well according to Robin, anyway. I'm not sure I believe her :)
Christmas knitting is going well. I've finished 3 hedgehogs and 1.5 gloves. I found out that gloves are really simple! I always expected that doing all of those fingers would be complete agony. In fact, they are easier than socks since they are so much smaller and fingers are way easier and less intimidating than turning the heel.
On the sock front, I've finished my first full man version. I used Cat Bordhi's Upstream Master Pattern. I'm confident that her craziness will pay off, but truth be told, Drew hasn't tried it on yet. I've got my fingers crossed for good measure. The bad news on the man sock front is that I now know that I need about 200g of yarn for them. I had planned to make socks for Max, but I know now that I may not even be able to turn the heel with the yarn that I bought. I've only got 100g and he wears a size 13!! (Drew wears a 10.5 and using 150g of heavy sock yarn I only managed a 3" cuff) This really means that I've got yarn to make something for someone else. I'm thinking I'll use it to make some gloves or mitts.

Sewing
For Halloween I'm planning to be Cruella DeVille. Yesterday I got the rest of the supplies - black satin for her dress, white faux fur w/ red satin lining for her coat & purse, 2 tone wig, and (of utmost importance) the cigarette holder. I've already got some red shoes, but they're not terribly witchy, so I may keep my eyes open for the next few weeks.

Jewelry
Robin and I went to SunDog Bead Co. yesterday and made tree pendants. They are really fun and eventually I may have my own lifetime's supply of tree pendants! Be prepared that everyone may end up with one over the next few birthdays and Christmases :)

Blocking Sideways

After a feverish 2 weeks of knitting my Sideways Spencer Jacket is blocking! It's doing a very good job of holding the carpet down in the living room, for sure, but it won't be there for long.


And how does one cope w/ 2+ jobs, a boyfriend, an incredibly inspiring new sewing book, AND feverish knitting? Tarantula. Delicious.


Past Due; Please Remit
At the beginning of the month I entered 2 items in the Chelan County Fair and won 2 blue ribbons! I've since found out that our fair uses the Danish Judging System (or something very similar) where entries are awarded ribbons based on a points scale rather than simply choosing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. This way most entrants receive awards and everyone is happy... However, to allow for discretion and appearance of ribbon credibility rosettes for Best in Class, Grand Champion, etc are awarded for utmost excellence. I present Endpaper Mitts (which also won Viewer's Choice!!!! "Beatiful Beyond Measure") and Brambley Hedge Socks.


Interestingly my entries were both missing their critique sheets, so I was able to have a live critique from one of the judges. Her comments for the mitts mostly acknowledged that my stranding was tight in some places making some tiny stitches. And for the socks she wanted them to be entrelac, but in fact the lace just makes them look that way, so I told her and she recinded her compliment. Don't I make it sound terrible? It wasn't at all; in fact it was kind of fun to be able to talk to the judge. Her biggest comment for both was that the items have been worn and that in the future this point should be mentioned as it could have kept me from the Best in Class status. Good to know!
Here is a friend I found while at the fair. I probably could have spent all day in the animal barn! Although, I was sad that there were very few animals raised for the purpose of knitting. I believe only 1 sheep that I don't think was Merino, there were a few Alpacas, a few Angora bunnies, but no Cashmere goats. Nevertheless, they were adorable! I would have such a hard time raising an animal knowing that it's purpose in life was for me to eat it. I just get too attached; it's much better getting my meat at the grocery store and not knowing where it came from. Here is one of my little firends, a pigmy goat!

Oh yeah, argyles!

I haven't actually forgotten about my argyles that I was so excited about a few months ago. I finished the argyle part and then blocked them. They're not on the Christmas gift list, so I don't plan on doing much with them for a little while still, but they're pretty awesome looking :)


In other news, I'm watching "My House is Worth What?!" and this guy living in a 750 sq ft convertible studio just had it valued at THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS!!! It has NO LAND. My parents' house is worth approximately that much and it's 2400 sq ft on a half acre!!! I will never be able to own anything. Rich people suck. I have a hard time with a lot of conspiracy theory type politics, but the notion that the upper class is crushing the middle class is becoming abundantly apparent. I suppose if I had the job I have in NYC, though, I'd probably be making at least 3 times what I make now. That still wouldn't allow me to buy a studio, though.

I need to mention some more knitting now since I can't think about my life potentially meaning less for very long. So here is another sock :) Sockotta in a pink colorway. As I said I don't totally love it, so I'm planning to gift them away. They're on size 2 knit picks harmonies w/ 6" cuff and standard heel flap heel. I learned my lesson w/ the eye of partridge method last time and this time I had no trouble w/ it scrunching up too much. I'm right on track for my typical amount of time required for sock knitting of one week per sock.

*MMMMMMMMMMMMM my neighbors are bbqing. Time to go drool!

P.S. here is the gang at Stitch & Pitch last month. Fun times worth repeating.

It's still August

It's still August and I'm feeling prepared for September this time. I know it's coming and the weather is already turning a little toward fall. It's disappointing on one hand that fall is coming so fast since I'm not ready to be done with the summer, but on the other hand it means I'll be able to wear my sweater soon!! Oops, just kidding, it's September now! but I think the following still apply :)

Despite being fairly inactive lately, I've definitely not slowed the knitting at all since I'm still riding the bus with some regularity. I finished that baby blanket from a while ago and I love how it turned out! (Notice the length of yarn on the table, that's what I had left at the end; incredible!)

I also finished Maizy socks that look like powder blue camoflauge to me. Never worked w/ corn before and since it's like other Crystal Palace Sock yarn and super splitty I don't love it. I gave them to my mom for her birthday and that makes me happy :)

I've started more Sockotta in a pink colorway this time. I liked the others better because I liked the patterned bands better than wide solid bands. I'm thinking about giving these as a gift as well. No sense in keeping something for myself that I don't really like when I'm sure that someone else will love it!

Off the knitting topic, Drew and I finally went out camping and hiking again! It's been too #($*%&ing hot for the last month or so to do anything other than lay on the floor and eat ice cubes. We headed down to Roslyn (think Norther Exposure) and camped for 4 days and 3 nights. It was great - we cooked only in the dutch oven, buzzed around the lake and saw elk, had my parents for lunch one day, hiked to Pete's Lake (about 5 miles from the lake we were on), and had the most amazing boat-in-only campsite. It was a really nice break!