The Wonderful World of Teenuh

How did I get here?

2009-08-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

So wow, I'm 39 weeks, 3 days pregnant. I can't believe I've made it this far. I swear to you that I assumed all along my body being what it is was going to give in long before now. I thought I was a sure fire pre-eclampsia candidate, that bed rest was going to be assigned to me... you name it, I figured if anyone was going to get it, I was. (Okay, so I *did* get the swine flu but that's that bitch in the row behind me's fault) But no, I have gotten nothing. Ok, so I do have cankles and big round puffy feet but otherwise I'm healthy. I've had weekly doctor appointments (both in OB and endocrinology) for who knows how many weeks and ultimately weekly non-stress tests at labor & delivery that have all been completely flipping normal. I am more than thankful for the excellent care I've gotten, especially after the rocky beginning with getting my insulin dosages to where they needed to be.

But now here I am, four days before my official due date. Healthy and still very much pregnant. I've been getting checked for a couple of weeks for progress and there hasn't been any (no dilation at all of my cervix) and until like last Thursday, I didn't have any Braxton-Hicks contractions. So very boring! How the hell did I get to be so boring?! She's at least dropped so there's that, but I don't know that it's brought me any dilation since my last OB visit.

But life is good. I'm ready for Weenuh's arrival, well as much as any new parent can be. I'm actually scheduled for induction on Wednesday (yes, that is not very far away at all) and I'll go in tomorrow afternoon at 4pm for Cervidil to be applied, then Wednesday morning around 6:30am I'll call into L&D and make sure they can take me in for the Pitocin induction. Hopefully the induction will work, but yeah, I will be 39w 5d at induction and Weenuh's going to be a big girl. So I haven't given up on having a c-section, I still think the odds are high that I will have one. But really, I don't care how she comes into the world. I just want her here and healthy and whatever gets me to that point is all right by me.

And before I go, here I am in all my glory at 39 weeks. Such a sexy beast, no?

Nursery flooring done!

2009-07-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

New flooring for the nursery was installed yesterday while we were at one of our baby classes. Man do I love it so much. It is so beautiful. Now I want my entire house done in laminate flooring (thank you Costco!). Except I have a lot of shit to move around. Not so likely to happen with Weenuh's impending arrival but I'm motivated now for sure to get the rest of the house done.

As you can see in the photo, the room is now painted too though the moulding around the bottom needs to be re-attached. But with the walls painted and the carpet extracted, the nursery is now officially de-funked! There are no more smelly remnants of my father living in that room for what, 5 1/2 or 6 1/2 years? Hooray.

Next up besides re-hanging the closet doors and adding the trim back in the room is assembly of the crib and the purchasing of the rest of the nursery furniture (i.e. a glider and dresser at least)! Oh and hanging a curtain over the window since we trashed the mini-blind that was hanging in there (god was it filthy).

Still Percolating

2009-07-09T05:45:00.001-07:00

Ok so I've apparently lost all sense of time passing. I haven't blogged for nearly 3 months, I've considered it but haven't been moved enough to do it apparently. Everything is going well, my blood sugar issues have leveled off thankfully. The DMV let me keep my license, I just have to submit an update in the next two weeks and given that I haven't had any episodes since like early April, it should just be a matter of signoffs on the paperwork.

Things have definitely been changing in my world. Besides my fat belly becoming a round baby belly, I can happily say that after 7 1/2 years my father FINALLY has moved out of my house. And most of his funk has been removed from the house, though we need to rip up the carpet, paint and re-floor his former room. It is finally OUR HOUSE. I can't stop saying it to hubby. We're over the moon we're alone at last. The little things have been so pleasant. Having a room for a nursery is so so exciting.

While I have been enjoying the miracle of being pregnant, I think I have still been holding back my true comprehension that the odds are looking really good now that we will come home with a healthy baby girl. With my dad leaving, it has really finally been able to sink in somewhat that we're about to have our own little lovely family. And holy crap, in under 60 days I'M GOING TO BE A MOMMY. Crazy. I have so many medical appointments it's making me crazy. But they are all for the greater good so I can't complain. And it is reassuring to get constant checks that Weenuh is healthy and everything is progressing as it should.

I have boatloads of photos to upload and all that but it's way too early to do that now. Just thought I'd take a moment between trips to the bathroom to say everything is good, still pregnant, still able to work (after Friday I have just 4 weeks of work left in 2009!), enjoying my vacant house. About to celebrate 10 years of marriage to my hubby. (Yes, that's right. 75% of our marriage has been spent with my asshole father living in our house. Hubby is a saint.)

More will come later, perhaps even with pictures!

It's a.....

2009-04-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

So today was the magic day. The big level 2 ultrasound. In the end, I wasn't terribly nervous but I was very relieved when they said they saw nothing wrong with Weenuh. Huge relief. I have all the fancy measurements they did but they are in my car right now (yeah, still at work ugh) and I'm not going to go out to get them because I'm lazy and if I walk out the door now I'm sure as hell not walking back in again. They didn't get a good view of the heart but that's alright because I'm already going on Monday for a fetal echocardiogram. And I'll go back there in 4-6 weeks for a follow up ultrasound to just verify the growth curve.

And the ultrasound technician thinks Weenuh's a girl. :)

Where the hell did March go?

2009-04-18T03:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, I totally didn't blog in March did I? Sheesh, I didn't realize it's been 2 months. I knew it had been a while, but not necessarily that it's been this long. Been busy growing a human, yunno? Oh, and working too.

Well, there is some knitting going on, a lot of which was done while I was dealing with my dad's most recent health issues. He had three trips to the VA Hospital in two weeks, two of which were in ambulances after 911 calls and two hospital stays. Nothing really came of it, they aren't going to do anything proactive about his cardiac issues because of the state of his kidneys. Which is really annoying, seems like they are just waiting for him to have a massive episode before they do anything for him. Lame.

And I've been having quite the time with Weenuh. My blood sugars have been quite the crazy ride. Mostly low, which is good for Weenuh but not so good to me when they get into the 20's. Unf. My dad's final trip to the VA ended with me in the bed he'd vacated after I basically passed out in the hall outside the ER because my blood sugar was down to 24. (I also got my first black eye. It is SO SEXY being pregnant with a black eye, just in case you were curious.) And then like 10 days later hubby had to revive me in the morning with a Glucagon shot because he noticed I was excessively sweating in my sleep. And then two days later we went to dinner and as we were about to pull into the parking lot I realized I wasn't feeling good, tested and discovered my blood sugar was 27 (which if it said 27 on my meter it probably means it was lower but I don't really know how low it actually was). I ate a pack of my glucose tablets and sucked down a glass of OJ in the restaurant and then proceeded into loopy land and instead of enjoying my entree and dessert, I was visited by an ambulance. (Why yes, it IS terribly embarrasing to be treated in the middle of Coco's.) I realized as I was coming around and looked at my vomit covered t-shirt that it was the SAME shirt that I was wearing the night of the incident at the VA. Needless to say I came home and promptly threw that one away. Which was sad, I really loved the fabric that shirt was made out of and it was a maternity shirt, something of which I can't get enough of these days. But that's not enough for me to dig it out of the trash and give it a third try. Two is enough, thanks.

I had my driver re-examination hearing yesterday in regards to my January accident. It went okay, they didn't suspend my license yet because they hadn't received my doctor's response that I gave to her a few weeks ago. Not sure what is up with that, she's usually really good about processing stuff like that. I kept a copy of the form at least so I faxed that to her nurse today and hopefully she can fill it out on Tuesday when she's back in the office. If the DMV doesn't get her response by next Friday, my license will be suspended for the rest of the pregnancy automatically. Though honestly, I don't know that I *should* be driving with the way my blood sugar levels have been. Thursday night I tested myself at 5:10pm and my reading was 134 (which is a little on the high side for how long it had been since I ate) but then when I tested before dinner at 7:20 it was 46. Yeah. Awesome. That was the first real documentation I've had that I'm going off these "cliffs". It's seemed like I have been but I haven't had numbers like that show up in my testing.

Sorry, a lot of blah blah blah. I did go to Linda's 40th birthday party 2 weeks ago. I have some great pics to post, but that would require me getting my camera cable out and downloading the pics from my camera. And dudes, that is a lot of effort. Maybe Sunday. We'll see.

Big day coming up next week. Wednesday is my level 2 ultrasound where we will finally get to learn if Weenuh is a boy or a girl. I am SO excited. Though I am nervous too since they will be looking in great detail at how Weenuh is developing. I want to know that Weenuh is healthy and doing well, but I'm terrified that they will find something that shows there's something wrong. I know, I know that's normal. But it's still scary. I haven't knit anything for Weenuh yet (though I have bought some patterns and kits for stuff to knit), not that I think it is bad luck or anything, I'm just still scared that there won't be a happy ever after. But provided there's a good outcome at the Level 2 ultrasound, I'll feel better about the likelihood that I'll actually wind up with Weenuh at home in my arms.

And on Thursday I'm off to St. Louis to attend The Loopy Ewe Spring Fling. I'm looking forward to the trip. I think it will be tons of fun AND I will get to meet an online friend that I've known for what, like 8 years now? Something like that anyways. She lives a couple hours away from St. Louis and is driving down to hook up with me. Yay. I'm so excited about that!

I became a great aunt again on April 3rd. My niece had her third baby, another boy (yes, all 3 are boys, yikes!). She sent a picture of him last weekend and he is beautiful. I totally need to still send her a gift but I'm lame and haven't yet. I have a couple of ideas, I think I'll make a few cute things out of some dishcloth cotton. At least I don't have to go shopping for that! teehee

Anyways, that's about all I can yammer on about for now. Sometime I'll stop being lame and post pictures again. I will post for sure on Wednesday afternoon/evening after the big appointment!

Holy crap, there's a baby in there!

2009-02-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

So today was OB visit #2. And everything looked awesome! The heartbeat looked strong and I even got to see a HAND! Weenuh was very wriggly so we didn't get a super awesome shot (the hand was only briefly on screen while she was getting the magic wand situated) but I thought this one looked pretty baby like. (The head is on the left.)

So effing cool. Here's to staying knocked up! Woohoo! Go Weenuh!

Introducing Weenuh!

2009-02-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

So in the past couple of months I haven't been knitting too much. I've been spending the majority of my free time either reading my Kindle (I've purchased like 87 books on it, so my total read book count is like 111 since early September!) or napping. Napping? Yeah, it's been a new hobby of mine. I loooove the naps. Lame, huh? Well, I'm sure I can be forgiven since I've been busy growing another human. :)

I'd like to introduce to y'all my latest project, introducing baby Weenuh (props to Abigail for the nickname, I love it)!

That's the picture from my 8 week scan (yeah, it's kind of a crappy image but hey I took a picture with my iPhone, I am that lazy. Isn't it cute how it looks like a smiley face though?!), but I'm now 12 weeks pregnant and I am finally coming out of the first trimester fog. I'm not entirely immune to naps yet, but I am definitely improving the number of hours I'm spending awake on the weekend. I even did ALL my laundry this weekend, something I haven't done in like 2 months. (I've been doing just enough to have enough to wear for work, mostly stuff that can be tossed in the dryer!) The scan was pretty awesome though, I can't gush enough about how exciting it was to get to see the heartbeat on the ultrasound machine. That was really amazing.

I've had a few losses in the past and I am definitely a high risk pregnancy, so I am still cautiously optimistic about this but not enough to keep quiet about it. (Really, it was all I could do to wait until now) This is definitely the longest I have been pregnant by probably ~4 weeks. I think the major difference with this time is that I've got some hormonal support since I've not had that in my previous 2 attempts via IUI.

I am still knitting, just not too much. I'm mainly knitting my February Lady Sweater from the yarn I got at Jeni's going away party before she moved to Nebraska. I'm nearly done with the increases (damn there are a lot of them for my fat size, I am not likely to become a mass sweater knitter any time soon lol) and I am happy with the way the Knit Picks Merino Style feels. I think it will be a very comfortable sweater, though it will be a pain in the ass to wash since it's not superwash. I really don't mind though. I really love the February sweater's lace pattern and I know I will be proud of my accomplishment when I'm done with it. I just need to be awake for more than a couple of hours during a weekend! Soon, there will be more time. Soon.

Anyways, the pregnancy is the cause of my changing insulin dosages and with the fluctuations in hormones and growth of the baby, my needs are changing and I am working very closely with a nurse practicioner and my endocrinologist to keep things in line. I'm definitely struggling but I haven't been having nearly as many lows as I had been having when I had my accident. I am still amazed that nothing happened to me or Weenuh or anyone else. And the new PT is a dream to drive. I still miss my old car, but the new version is pretty freaking awesome. Plus it has the new car smell! And built in satellite radio! Yay, no more radio clipped to my vent! (Yes, I have ditched terrestrial radio. The local Bay Area radio station options are pretty dismal.)

I have my second OB visit tomorrow and I suspect there will be more pics. I think that with this being a high risk pregnancy I will have lots of opportunities for scans. Which is good, because I am so scared that I am screwing this kid up. At least this time I ought to see more of a baby instead of just a blob with a heartbeat. Fingers crossed, I should have new images tomorrow of Weenuh. Yay! Weenuh!

Oh and I am 12 weeks from my IUI date, though my due date after the first scan is September 4th, which is 4 days later than the due date based on my IUI date. I won't go past September 4th, and it isn't highly likely that I will go a full 40 weeks but hopefully it will be close to 40.

Back in the saddle again

2009-02-06T15:40:00.001-08:00

The Story

2009-01-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry to post the photo (I swear I posted the damn thing, I guess I have to edit the post and link the image from Flickr since Picasa seems to not want to load it) and no story. I was out running errands with my husband and it's kind of a pain in the ass to type a bunch of text on my iPhone.

So last night I had dinner plans with a former coworker that I haven't seen in quite some time. I was really looking forward to seeing her, we've been trying for a few months to get together but our plans kept getting scrapped for one reason or another. So finally last night was the night and I was eager to get out of work and meet her for dinner at 6pm.

So, for those that are familiar with the area, my work is at 237 and 101 in Sunnyvale and I was heading to Menlo Park to meet my friend for dinner at Su Hong. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? Yeah, not so much.

Well, normally it's an easy thing, though possibly filled with cars and traffic at 5:30pm but I can't really tell you what traffic was like last night. I'm not really sure what happened between my office and El Camino Real at Roosevelt in Redwood City. Except some really bad shit that ended with my very very beloved 2002 PT Cruiser being totaled today by my insurance company.

So at 1:30pm yesterday, I had an appointment with a nurse practicioner in the Endocrinology department at my medical clinic. My regular doctor is on vacation but because of a current, um, medical condition she wanted me to see the nurse practicioner while she is out. So I've been having some problems lately with my insulin dosages. I had to double my intake and now I need something considerably less than that, so we worked on the dosages and then we talked about the need to incorporate some snacks in my day to keep my blood sugar in a range where I'm a sane person with good judgement. But the appointment was after lunch and since I was leaving early to go to dinner at 6pm (yes, that is a sad statement I know. 5:30pm should not be leaving work "early".), I didn't really want to take the time to run to the Lucky that is across the street from my clinic to get some fruit or whatever to snack on in the afternoon. I figured that it was just something that I'd take care of over the weekend when I had more time. Yes, I know I'm a dumb ass.

Anyways, I was working at the end of the day with one of the other employees in my department trying to train him how to process cash receipts so that he can take over posting them instead of me. I was pretty punchy because even though I'd self-reduced my lunch insulin dosage downward, I apparently didn't reduce it enough nor did I eat enough carbs at lunch to use the insulin that I did take. One of the gals that sits next to the guy I was training made a comment to me that I sounded weird (I think she recognized a change in my voice from previous low blood sugar incidents at work) and I said that no I was fine, I needed to go to dinner with my friend. She got me to eat a couple of candies that were at her desk, but I didn't eat nearly enough of them to do anything to my levels. I didn't test my blood sugar level either, but I wasn't exactly thinking straight before I left. So I went back to my desk, sent a quick email to a friend (wow, that email was REALLY special English too. I should paste the text of it. It's really bad.) and then shut down my computer and headed out the door. I then proceeded to get behind the wheel of my car and headed towards Menlo Park.

So yeah, I don't REALLY know what happened between my office and, oh, about Woodside Road in Redwood City. (Yeah, I totally missed my exit.) I remember a few vague things. My glasses came off at some point, though I don't know if that was because I took them off or if they fell off. I remember vaguely some sort of impact though I don't know what I had hit. I remember the squishiness of my brakes (because as you can see in the photo the entire left front tire is GONE) as I was at the light at Whipple from the exit ramp. I had a hard time seeing out the front because of the damage to the windshield and I somehow made out that I was at Woodside Road so I knew I needed to exit at the next exit and head back down El Camino to get back to Menlo Park. So I made the exit, drove across Whipple and stopped at a few red lights there. Turned left on El Camino and made it down El Camino past Sequoia Station and finally came to a stop just before Roosevelt on El Camino in front of this auto dealer that sells specialty cars when I saw the lights of a police car in my side mirror. So I pulled over and rolled down my window to talk to the officer.

He asked me what happened and I told him I didn't know because I had really low blood sugar and I didn't remember anything. He asked me who I hit (he suspected at first that I had hit a person) and I told him no one, then I think he must have summoned paramedics for me and we talked some more about what happened. The officer that pulled me over was a Redwood City police man I think, because later on I was dealing with a CHP officer. Anyways, the police officer had me move over to the passenger seat because the drivers side door wouldn't open and when the paramedics arrived they tested my blood sugar and it was... 30. Which is super low. SUPER low. Like it should be more up between 70 and 90. Ugh. So the paramedics couldn't let me leave the scene without my blood sugar being over 80. So I had to drink this nasty orange soda-esque sugar drink. They tested again and I was only around like 42 so I had to drink another bottle. Ugh. Talk about nasty. The next time they tested I was at like 86 so I was free to go. They recommended that I go get checked out but I denied being transported in the ambulance, I was able to get my friend to come pick me up and she took me first to dinner and then she brought me home to my hubby who took me to the ER.

The officers explained to me that I went from the far right lane across 101 and hit the center divide (where this was, I have no idea) and apparently I wasn't pulling over for officers on the freeway (though why they would stop pursuing me I have no idea). I don't remember that at all, I don't remember seeing any lights until the officer that got me to stop on El Camino. They suspect that possibly a sign on the freeway (like a carpool lane sign) must have fallen down when I hit the barrier and that's what made the sharp indentation in the windshield and dented the roof (and made the little pod that had the overhead light/compass/thermometer pop out of the roof). I don't believe that I hit any cars (the body damage doesn't look that way either) thankfully and I checked out alright at the hospital. I feel fine today, I stayed home with hubby today to take care of everything. I called the insurance company and they got my car towed over to the body shop where it was later totaled. So I'm getting a piddly amount of money for my car and now I have to figure out what I want to get. The photo I posted was the one I took at the body shop, I have some other photos on my camera that my friend took before the tow truck took my car away last night. I don't know if I'll upload those, I'm sad enough already.

Anyways, that's the sordid tale of my stupidity. Like I said, I'm alright. Everything is okay and I am working with my new insulin dosages. Hopefully I will get that sorted out soon and I can put this all behind me. I'll see what the DMV does to me, I'm not sure that I'll get away without a license suspension but we'll see. Ugh. Makes me not want to get a new car if I will have to look at it sitting on my driveway. My work is on the way to my husband's office, so he might just drive me to work and I'll have to brown bag my lunches. We'll see. I could rent a car too but I dunno. I'll have to figure it all out.

Bye bye Teenuh mobile

2009-01-30T16:57:00.001-08:00

I'm going to miss you. :'( Thanks for keeping my stupid ass safe.

Reentry

2008-12-31T06:13:00.000-08:00

Man, what a bad blogger I have been for the past three months. Between my vacations and my subsequent Kindle obsession, I've really been out of blogging commission. And my camera has been groaning at the ever growing volume of photos to be downloaded!

So ordinarily, I would post about all my adventures and upload the photos about the trips. But since I have a whole metric assload of photos to discuss, I'm so not going to torment y'all with a ginormous post. Though I will show a few things, because a blog post without photos is no bueno.

So I went to Vegas first with my husband and a few of our friends for Vegas Fantasy Football drafts that the boys were entering. I neglected to really take photos of our traveling companions, though I did get some nice photos of the Flamingo Hotel's birds and fish they have in the center of the hotel. (My Vegas photo set is here) I did manage to have some quiet time in Vegas, enough that I made another chicken potholder:

So once we were back from Vegas (the day before Labor Day), we had 4 days to cool our jets before we hopped on a jet for Minneapolis to go to my cousin Angela's wedding. On my way to Minnesota, I started another chicken potholder to go along with the one I finished in Vegas that I could give to my cousin as a wedding present. This was the partner to the Vegas chicken:

And here's the two chickens together:

They were LOVED by my cousin and her new husband. (To date, these are still the only chickens I've actually managed to give away. They all have destinations, they just haven't reached their destinations yet.)

Speaking of the bride and groom, here they are in all their glory.

So flipping cute they are. The set of photos from my Minnesota trip is here.

Besides finishing the chicken there, I managed to knit a garterlac dishcloth. I've wanted to do an actual entrelac project since I first learned the concept of entrelac (it was at a chaotic class at Knitting Arts. I apparently grasped enough of the concept to get the pattern but I barely escaped that session with my sanity.) This ended up being gifted to one of my coworkers:

So we got back from Minnesota on Monday the 8th of September and again we were home for a whopping 4 days and took off again on Saturday the 13th for Orlando for a trip with two of our friends to go to Disneyworld! My Mickey loving self was so very excited. At least this trip was longer than 4 days, we were in Orlando until Sunday the 21st. And since we were there such a long time, not only did we manage to use our entire 5 day Disneyworld pass, I also got to get my mom up to Orlando from Lantana that Friday and Saturday (her days off work). One of our friends that moved from San Francisco to Orlando caught up with us on Friday with his mom who used to work for Disneyworld and got both our friend in free and my mom in free, so my mom finally got to see a Disney property at the grand age of 78! Here we are in front of the castle:
It was so nice to see her.

We managed to get to all the properties at Disneyworld, which was hecka fun. The coolest thing we did though while we were at Disneyworld though? We got to ride in the front of the tram into the Magic Kingdom!

(I have a co-pilot's license but I failed at taking a picture of it. Maybe soon. Maybe not.)

Now this was my maiden voyage on my Kindle. Oh yes, Orlando is where the madness began. I managed to read the entire Twilight Saga twice while I was there. Somehow, I also managed to knit a ballband dishcloth (well, most of it anyways, I finished it after I got home) though it took me until last weekend to actually weave in the stinking ends:

So sunny! So easy too, I may very well be like Hakucho and make some appliance covers. The ballband pattern is simple and fast. Making covers would be a good use of my plentiful dishcloth cotton stash. (No, I'm not going to fess up to how much I have still. I'm sure there are people out there that have more, but dudes I have a LOT of dishcloth cotton. A lot.)

Anyways, my Florida photo set is here.

So what have I done since then? Not a whole lot, though I have managed to crank out a few things...

Three chickens...

I cranked out a Turn a Square hat for my Secret Santa partner:

And, no, the world hasn't stopped turning. Yes, I have cast on a sweater for me. I'm knitting the February Lady Sweater. Holy hell are there a lot of stitches and I'm only halfway through the main increases:

I went to the Commuknity closing sale and scored these fab buttons that are EXACTLY what I wanted for this sweater.

Lovely, aren't they?

I also finished a pair of Poseidon Socks which I made out of some yummy Sundara sock yarn in the Deliphinium colorway.

(Not a perfect representation of the colors but close enough. It's gorgeous.) I appear to be unable to get it together enough to take a picture of them, but trust me, they're gorgeous. And the Sundara yarn is very nice. These are some seriously comfortable socks.

Oh, I never did talk about the Twilight movie did I? Well, I have to say I was entertained by it. I think it does a good job of staying true to the story though with there being SO MUCH content that they put into the movie, I didn't feel as sucked into Bella and Edward's love story. You don't really get the depth of their relationship. RPattz is definitely hot. I like the casting they did for the most part (though Rosalie isn't near beautiful enough). I laughed a lot, every time Jasper came on screen and had a deer in headlights expression I cracked up (he's one of several actors in the movie that went blonde for their role and let me just say he is SO MUCH HOTTER with brown hair), flipping Rosalie at the baseball game "That's my monkey man!", umm I'm sure there's more that is escaping me at this early hour. And HOLY HELL ARE THE BELLA/EDWARD KISSES HOT. The kiss on the bed where Bella's in her underpants is sexy as hell but dear god does the prom kiss set me on fire. Rawr. Oh, and here's a cute Edward necklace I picked up on Etsy:

Seriously cute, isn't it?? I did get some Twilight gear from my Secret Santa this year, though I haven't taken pics of it yet. I'll do that soon. It's hilarious stuff.

So if anyone is still reading this, I hope y'all had a great holiday season and I wish you all a very happy New Year. Here's to a great 2009!

Yes I need to blog about Twilight but omg did this make me giggle

2008-12-06T13:40:00.001-08:00

OME 48 HOURS TO GO!!!

2008-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

Dudes. 48 hours to go. I have my ticket. I am SO EXCITED.

56 Books in 63 Days

2008-11-11T17:32:00.001-08:00

Wow. I just quantified how many books I've read since I received my Kindle on September 9th.

I've read:

The Twilight Saga (4 books - all books 5 times)
The Southern Vampire Mysteries (8 books - all books 2 times)
The Anita Blake Series by Laurell K Hamilton(16 books)
The Merry Gentry Series also by Laurell K Hamilton (I'm on book 4)

That's 20 + 16 + 16 + 4 = 56.

Plus I read the partial draft of Midnight Sun twice. So that might count as a book in total.

I think I'm in love!!

Hook 'em Horns!!

2008-10-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

My boys did it! Woohoo! Yeah baby, my burnt orange blood is SO EXCITED.

Now to just live through the next three weekends!! >.<

NEW Official Twilight Trailer

2008-10-09T18:07:00.001-07:00

I have died and gone to heaven. Freaking awesome. Is it November 21st yet?!

Which Cullen Heroine Are You?

2008-10-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

Hi, my name is Teenuh and I am a Twilight addict

2008-10-06T17:06:00.001-07:00

I need help. I really do.

Twilight: 5 readings
New Moon: 4 readings
Eclipse: 4 readings
Breaking Dawn: 5 readings
Midnight Sun: 2 readings

I purposely left my Kindle at home today to try to stop the insanity (though I finished my 5th reading of Twilight this morning before work..). I even brought an actual book to read (The Yarn Harlot's latest book, Free Range Knitter).

I've not been Twilight free however. I've been reading the Outtakes/Extras from Stephenie Meyer's site. Sadly, it doesn't totally stop my desire to read the books again. Just sort of stokes the fire.

But hey, I have a date for November 21st... the ebil friend that introduced the Twilight Saga to hubby & me asked if we were going with him since he knew no one else would go with him. Hubby hopes to read Twilight by then, but he's gonna borrow Mr Ebil's copy of the books since he'll have to pry the Kindle from my cold, dead hands before he can read my copy!!

(Busted widget got deleted. Damnable thing.)

9 books in 13 days

2008-09-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, my Kindle is everything I hoped for and more. It kept me occupied during my trip to Orlando in our non-park hours.

I've now read nine books in the past 13 days.

"What nine books?", you might ask.

"The Twilight series", I might reply.

"But there are only four books in the series."

"Very true, but it's nine books if you read books one, two and three twice and book four three times that adds up to nine."

Also, this is a conversation that I just had with my hubby:

[16:52] me: I finished book 4 again
[16:53] hubby: Ah good
[16:54] hubby: Are you sated or do you need another lance?
[16:54] me: I might have read the first couple of pages of book 1...
[16:58] hubby: PUT DOWN THE CRACK PIPE!

I might need an intervention before long. I have a benchmark though! Our friend that introduced us to the series sent me this email after I sent him one complaining to him that I blamed him for my need to read the series multiple times:

I've read the entire series three times.

Please burn this email after reading.

As if I'd burn it!! I've only read book 4 three times...

Yes a car can run for four hours without running out of gas

2008-09-25T09:53:00.001-07:00

Hey, next time any of you see/talk to Lisa, be sure to ask her if she has her car keys.

'Cause she might not have them...

Wish you were here

2008-09-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

So much to say, so little time to say it in!

2008-09-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic time in Minnesota last weekend. My cousin's wedding was wonderful and she looked so beautiful. I have bunches of pictures from the day but I haven't had the time this week to upload them.

I also finished a metric assload of projects, another chicken, a garterlac cloth, a miniature sweater, a baby blanket... but I haven't had a chance to sit down and write anything about them.

I delivered the baby blanket this morning, that is another post to write as well!

The Kindle is fantastic. Again, I haven't had bunches of time to spend poking around it, but I sent myself some preview chapters (you can download chapter 1 of any Kindle book for free to see if you want to buy the whole book) and I actually managed to read a couple of them. I might actually buy one full book tonight so that I have more than just one chapter to read during the long ass flight(s) between San Jose and Orlando.

Yes, I'm off into the wild blue yonder again. Next stop Mickey and my Mom! (Hubby and I and two friends are going to cavort with Mickey for 5 days and then I have 2 days with my mom, hooray). I'm likely going to be paying for internet access while I'm in Florida but I make no guarantees I'll be posting until I'm back from VACATION.

Be good, internets. I'll miss you.

It's here!!

2008-09-08T22:44:00.001-07:00

Happy chickens to you!

2008-09-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

On the Road Again...

2008-09-04T22:34:00.001-07:00

I'm off in 8 hours again to Minneapolis, Minnesota (that's when my flight leaves SFO, so no, I'm not getting much sleep tonight). I'm going to attend my cousin's wedding there, so I will get to see the bunches of relatives I have living in the Twin Cities area. I'm renting a car, and I have hopes of being able to show hubby my bumpkin roots in rural Wisconsin but I'm not sure when I would wheedle that in. It's about a 90 minute drive from Minneapolis, but I think it would be kind of fun to see the area after so many years. We'll see what we can see!

Anyways, I'm off to pack and sleep. Hopefully with more sleeping than packing. I'm back on Monday night when I'll hopefully have my Kindle I ordered today (that shipped today too!) waiting for me.

Yes, the chicken pattern is going with me. The bride is getting two (she'll get the Vegas chicken plus the new one in progress) as a side gift, her real wedding present is going to be a Best Buy gift card.

Toodles~!

What happens in Vegas...

2008-08-30T01:10:00.000-07:00

Ravthlete

2008-08-25T22:22:00.001-07:00

What a fun way to spend the Olympics this year, knitting along to the amazing athletic feats that were going on. I had so much fun watching the different events, and thank god for DVR technology to power through the odd events.

Today BobicusMaximus bestowed the official Ravatar boquet:

And my medal for completing an FO in the WIPs Wrestling event

I had considered whipping up another chicken or cranking out my first ballband dishcloth for the Olympics, but I just didn't have the time. And I thought I should wait to finish another UFO until I start another chicken. Hopefully I can do that before I head to Vegas this Thursday! I may say to hell with it and take chicken material for the plane ride from SJ to Vegas.

Not that anyone has been losing sleep over my "missing" needles, but I re-looked in my Loopy's Red Canvas Sock Bag and this time my mystery shawl decided to let me find my needles this time. So if I don't get time this week to cast on, I should be able to do so on my way to Vegas.

I've got quite the Olympic hangover, I'm currently watching the closing ceremonies from last night's broadcast with hubby. It feels really odd to not have any new events to watch! At least I won't be tempted to stay up until 1am yelling at the TV "WHO WON THE GOLD OMG!!!!!!!11!11!"

Ok, time for bed. Happy knitting!!

Crossing the Finish Line

2008-08-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

Huzzah! I made it! These poor poor beautiful Hederas are FINALLY done!! Of all the projects I entered into the Ravelympics, these are definitely the ones that deserved to cross the finish line. I have no idea why I mercilessly have shoved these to the back of the bus these past 4 months and 23 days (yes dudes, your math is correct. I cast the first sock on April 1, and that's no April Fool's joke).

Clearly I did not knit these as written. Basically the lace pattern for Hedera fit perfectly into my basic sock pattern, so that's what I did. These were done toe up with a short row heel. The yarn is Lorna's Laces in the Devon colorway, which while it did pool in the legs mostly, I will forgive. The colorway is simply enchanting and I love it with all my heart.

I can't wait to wear these socks!!

Stay back ladies, he's all mine!!

2008-08-23T09:44:00.001-07:00

So I nearly died from laughing when I opened my email the other night and found this picture from my hubby. He's wearing a hat from his boss that she got him on her vacation to Mexico and he was bringing it home from the office because they're about to move to a new location. For whatever reason, he was motivated to send this picture to me!

I am attempting to finish one project for the Ravelympics. Sadly, my Vesper striped socks will probably not be one of them, I'm trying to figure out where the needles went. I may finish my Hedera socks, I have just a couple of repeats left. Ok, so I've had those couple of repeats left for like a month but I could finish them. Really, I could.

I got my Bobicus Ravelympics pin last night. Omg it is cute. I want to tack it on the front of my Ravelry bag with my other pins, but it is so much larger than my other ones I'm afraid it's going to get snagged on something and fall off. I'll have to see what I can rig up with it. I'd hate to lose it.

I'm possibly heading to Sonoma today for a birthday party so I'd better get going! Happy knitting everyone.

Let the games begin!

2008-08-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the good fortune of getting to watch the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics with several of the lovely ladies of BobaKnit (Jeni, Juls, Julia, Jill, (popular J name night!) Lisa, Linda, Sheetal, and Margit) at the Firehouse Grill in Sunnyvale.

We had such a good time watching the dazzling opening ceremonies followed by the parade of nations.

Lisa, Jill and Linda knitting away

Sheetal, Julia and Jeni

As well as watching Lisa enjoy her Cosmopolitans

Lisa and Cosmo #2

Or Jeni fixing her increases/decreases on her baby surprise jacket. Or Lisa's cup of cream with a little bit of coffee.

Our waiter had a great sense of humor.

Me? I was able to cast on my new project for the Ravelympics, a pair of basic socks out of my Vesper sock yarn in the Aqua Melon colorway. Pretty bright stuff, but I think they'll be gorgeous. I've made really good progress on them, I'm hoping to be to the heel by the time I go to sleep (I had a reaaaally long nap this afternoon, the price I pay for getting up early this morning to head to the Scrapbook Expo by 9am).

Current state of my Olympic sock.

I keep imagining a chevron type pattern being really good for this yarn, but I figured there was really no way I was going to have time to do the WIP wrestling I need to do and bust out a pair of socks in anything but a vanilla sock pattern. Hell, I've been knitting my flipping Hedera socks since April 1st but I've been putting them aside quite frequently for new and shiny things, like my Froot Loop socks (damn, still need to blog about them), chicken potholders (dudes it's been 4 days and no more chickens, be proud of my will power), baptism gift (did I blog this? I doubt it. Another thing to toss on the to-do pile), Goddess Knits Mystery Shawl (I'm finally over halfway through with clue 3. I should put it on a bigger needle/two circulars so that I can take a progress photo of it. I have yet to take any photos of this project. I think it would be a great motivation for myself to keep going, because right now it feels like a black hole of lace. I kind of want to finish this for my cousin's wedding, but that's September 6th and I'm already WIP wrestling another project(s) that I need to finish soon. Damn work getting in the way of crafting time.)... I love the Hedera pattern though, it's simple and damn gorgeous. And I love the Devon colorway from Lorna's Laces. But I had to limit my goals for the Olympics knowing how much I work.

Ah well, it was a fun evening and I'm making progress. Go team USA! Go team BobaKnit!

Knit on!

I think I might be the crazy chicken lady now

2008-08-05T23:31:00.001-07:00

I might have finished another chicken potholder.

So stinking cute. My favorite color of variegated Sugar n Cream yarn.

I might have finished two.

I forgot the loop in the middle of the back. Oops.

I swear there are no more of them on the hook.

You try and resist their allure.

Yet.

How can you say no to those eyes?!

The chicken potholder book is at Michaels

2008-08-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

I couldn't stop myself I swear...

2008-07-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

Somebody Stop Me!!!

2008-07-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Dude. These are fast, easy and ridonkulously cute! Halp!

Hi, I'm little yellow chicken. I'm cuter than whitey, but don't tell her!

Hopefully I'll have the fortitude to get these in the mail!

Hallo. We are cute.

I'm still knitting, don't worry. I'm just being distracted by the cute.

A Quickie Chickie

2008-07-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me over the weekend that my sister's birthday was coming up next weekend (August 2nd to be precise). So I realized I should probably do something fast to crank something out for her for a gift! I was enlightened on what to make when I found some booklets I'd purchased a few months ago when I had found a cute pattern on Ravelry.

I made this chicken potholder from the Annie's Attic book "Ultimate Book of Pot Holders" #873151. It isn't available on the Annie's Attic site that I could see, but I was able to find it on another site. Cute stuff in it, but I think this is the cutest pattern. I might be biased though.

The first of many more to come

I am really pleased with how this turned out. I was a crocheter when I was a kid, but I don't think that I ever did very well with making things from patterns. I think I tended to end up free forming the stuff I made for the most part, because I sure don't remember coming up with something as cute as this potholder. I love how cute this turned out, I know that I am totally going to be making this again, possibly even a second one for my sister's birthday, though it won't be a white one. I think one is enough of the white.

The thing that is amusing me a great deal about this pattern is that as the day has gone on and the beak and the wattle have rubbed against the surfaces in my purse, they've curled up off the face a little more which is making this look even more fab.

At least I'm easily amused.

Happy 9th Anniversary!

2008-07-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful day my wedding was. It's still wonderful after 9 years, I hope it never stops being wonderful.

Batter Batter Batter Swiiiiing Batter!

2008-07-23T23:34:00.001-07:00

So thanks to the lovely Lisa, I was able to attend the Giants game last night against the Nationals (Yes, the previous photo was blogged from my iPhone). It happened to be the Stitch n Pitch game, but we were in the club level seats thanks to season tickets from Lisa's employer.

The adventure began when Lisa and I hopped on the train in Mountain View (yes, we made the train we intended on making. There was drama, including racing down Evelyn to the Mt View train station and me doing a face plant hurting my knee something awful), Karol joined us in Palo Alto and we rode up to SF where we met Jill at the Willie Mays statue outside the park.

Lisa and Karol on the train

We got our garlic fries and first drinks and took our seats.

Lisa is VERY happy to have her beer

Our seats had a fab view of the bay and the ballpark. Really though, there isn't a bad seat in the house. I love ~~PacBell~~ AT&T Park. It's gorgeous.

A beautiful night for baseball

So the game started, Barry Zito was pitching.

The $126 million dollar man

The weather was actually decent for a night game. It wasn't freezing amazingly enough considering it wasn't very warm at all during the day. I had come prepared however. I knit a Calorimetry head wrap thingy the night before.

Malabrigo is sex in the form of yarn. It really is.

(I was just looking for a good excuse to knit with my Malabrigo yarn in July.) So it did get cool enough to wear it. I made my Calorimetry with the 120 stitches the pattern calls for, I probably should have knit it in a slightly tighter gauge and possibly fewer stitches (this would have made it even faster to knit!). As it is though, it fits my ginormous head and will be very nice for cooler weather.

We were amused by Aaron Rowand's batting stance. He looks like a crab!

*skitter* *skitter*

There were a couple of relief pitchers that were put in, but it was Brian Wilson that brought us home.

The *hot* beach boy!

In the end, the Giants won!

The water cannons are so neat when they go off.

It was a fun filled evening to say the least. I even have my own photographic evidence I was in attendance and my Calorimetry got worn!

Me and my knee are so ready to get the heck out of there!

It was neat to get to go to the Stitch n Pitch game even if we weren't in the SnP section, we got to ride the same train up with the Purlescence crew and after the game we ran into Mary (Spinnity) and her hubby and mom. Still, it was nice to be heading home.

Hooray for escalators!

We caught the first train out of there and were back in Mountain View just after 11pm. It was a long day but very fun filled.

I tried capturing my owchie knee but apparently the sight of my blazing white fat leg scared my camera into taking a clear photo, but you get the idea here. It's puffy. It's got what looks like rug burn. And damn if it doesn't hurt.

Ouchie.

At least I got a decent amount of knitting done. I'm on the last row of the main part of the first Fetching mitt I cast on during the train ride to SF. Just have to cast off and knit up the thumb. Yippee.

Thanks for the ticket, Lisa. And thanks to all three ladies for the wonderful company. I had a great time!!

Take me out to the ballgame!

2008-07-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

One year at home

2008-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

And one year ago, my two furry angels came into my life. Xi Xi and Saylor are great to have around, they've been such sweet girls. It was truly our destiny to bring them home into our lives, had we just gone home for the day after leaving the Humane Society or had we not stuck around to meet some of the kittens we'd seen online or had we just walked in and left, who knows if our paths would have crossed. They are by no means Bratty or Chubbo, but their angel selves have stuck around and whispered in their ears. Xi Xi is a voracious watermelon eater, Saylor a vigilant supervisor of the house. They helped fill our hearts with joy again, after our hearts were ripped from our chests in those horrible 6 days last year.

They are rambunctious, naughty, yarn chomping beasts and I wouldn't trade them for the world.

One year gone, part 2

2008-07-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

One year gone

2008-07-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

She might not be posting it...

2008-07-09T17:24:00.001-07:00

But that doesn't mean I won't!

Crisis Averted!

2008-06-29T00:56:00.001-07:00

Woot. CPE is done. I get to be a CPA for two more years. Yippee. (I finished ~7 hours ago but I've been at home knitting since then and only now took a break to look something up on the internet.)

Knit on!

OH MY GOD IT'S JUNE 22ND

2008-06-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

T-minus uh, 7 days, for the completion of ~32 hours of continuing professional education to renew my CPA license. WHY THE HELL DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF. Third renewal in a row I've had to cram. Thank goodness I only renew once every two years.

Argh.

Hey Mo, does this remind you of us?!

2008-06-20T12:19:00.001-07:00

I am a poor 1930s wife

2008-06-20T08:37:00.001-07:00

As a 1930s wife, I am
Poor

Take the test!

Birthday Fun

2008-06-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

So last Friday, the inevitable happened and I turned yet another year older. Sigh. I really do hate that I'm not 21 anymore dammit!

Anyways, for not really looking forward to turning a year older (does anyone really look forward to turning to 36?), I have to say what a freaking AWESOME birthday I managed to have this year. I'm not quite sure what I expected to go on on my birthday, but apparently I either had really low expectations or it was just that awesome. I'll try to go with it was just that awesome.

So I got a little early treat from my hubby, he went to Costco on Tuesday and picked up a gorgeous bouquet of mixed color roses that smelled divine (yeah, I'm smart. I didn't manage to take any pics of them when they first made it home. They're actually not dead yet 11 days later but they aren't nearly as fresh and lovely as they were when they first came home).

On my actual birthday, I got in to work and was greeted with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from one of my employees. They smelled so great, I could smell them as I would walk back to my desk.

I was surprised a little later on when my desk was swarmed by the entire Finance team (minus my co-birthday boss who was away on a business trip)

who came with a lovely cake from Goldilocks that was sort of a sampler of 4 different cakes (mango, strawberry, rocky road and chocolate).

Yes, I did try all of the flavors. It was my birthday, how could I not!

So that was a fun way to start out my day. I got to have lunch with my hubby at Hobee's, which was delish as always. I managed to get out at a reasonable hour (ok, it was because I made a nail appointment at 5pm but hey, I had to go before I left for Denver!) and my day ended with dinner at Claim Jumpers (omg so full) and packing for my trip.

The fun continued when at ass o'clock the next morning (dudes, the hell was I thinking taking the 6:40AM flight to Denver) I got up and made my way to the San Jose airport. I'll talk more about my Denver trip in my next post. There is much to tell! In summary, it was muy awesome and I'm so glad I visited. (Wait until you see the pics of DebbieO's stash. You're going to plotz.)

Monday morning, my boss returned (she and I have the same birthday) and left me... a cake!

And I was greeted with a dozen long stem pink roses that were arranged my employee Arthur. How beautiful are these?

(On Friday, they are still in beautiful shape and I haven't even changed the water once! Only one of the roses started to sag in the 5 days, pretty awesome job he did.)

The rest of our Finance team got together and got my boss two cakes for her birthday, so since I already had my embarrassment on Friday, it was her turn on Monday!

There was soooo much cake!

On Thursday at Bobaknit, Abigail surprised me with an awesome arrangement of gifts. I got a Peet's gift card (omg I looooove Peet's! yay for Peet's!) and a cat mug (that I wanted, I'm so excited I have this!) and a Della Q sack that I can use for socks!

Besides all the goodies and cakes and flowers, there were also lots of birthday greetings given. So all in all, an awesome birthday was had. I know it's definitely been a few years since I can remember having this excellent a birthday, and I have to say thanks for the cheer that was spread. I love love love birthdays and celebrating them so it is a real treat for me to be the recipient of a really great one.

Happy Raviversary to me!

2008-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

Woot. Today is one year since I got my invite into the awesomeness that is Ravelry. Yeah, I might spend a little too much time there instead of knitting or whatever thing I am trying to avoid *koff*, but it's still an amazing place, I'm glad I hopped on the bandwagon when I did.

This pic was left as a comment on my myspace page by the OCK's hubby. I think he's jealous of how much attention we give to Ravelry and all that is Ravelry, what do you think?

Back to no photo postings

2008-06-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

I swear to you, I keep telling myself that it will get better at work. That just after this next crunch it will be more in control.

Eventually, someday, this may come true. But today is not that day.

Great googly moogly. So Saturday, I was SUPPOSED to be the designated driver for some of my lovely lush Bobaknit friends. Did I get to do this? Nooooooo I did not. Why? Did you guess that I was at work for 9 hours? If you did, you'd be right. Bleargh. At least I wasn't alone this time, the entire finance team (well, excluding the 3 guys that make up our financial planning & analysis team) was there pulling together the first selection of documents our auditors requested. So it wasn't as lonely as my solitary hours I put in a few weeks ago.

And now the auditors are actually IN our office. So I get to mostly be the lead on the audit since my boss is bogged down with another project, which could, of course, lead to a pretty sizable amount of work later on this month. Besides it being quarter end. A messy, nasty, quarter end. Oh, plus it's time for the month end close. Which I have to crank out in 5 days AND provide results to auditor requests for information. While I'm closing. Yes, it is awesome to be me. You know you want to be me!

Plus I'm having trouble with one of my staff. Again. Argh.

Plus I'm about to turn another year older. I mean, it's not so bad. Not yet anyways. But bleh. I got my new driver's license today in the mail. Compared to my old photo which was taken when I changed my name a few days after I got back from my honeymoon. I look older. And definitely fatter. Although, to be fair to myself, I was unhealthy when the last photo was taken. But damn I weighed a hell of a lot less.

Sorry, apparently today is whiny day.

I will stop whining now and say that I have finished the repeats on the leg of my second Froot Loop sock. The spiraling pooling is continuing and I am still loving it. I am amused by the fact that if I lay down the second sock next to the first sock, there are points where it looks like the pooling goes right from one sock into the other one. I am to the point now where I am ready to start the heel flap. I realized when I was, oh, like 2/3 of the way down the foot, that I had done something to goof up the position of where the heel flap is on the leg, and now I know why. I think I have come to the conclusion that I goofed up the last bit of the leg where the set up is done for the heel flap by not doing half of the round in the regular pattern, I think I jumped the heel flap gun and started doing the heel flap with needle 1 instead of on needle, uh, 2 1/2? I think that is what I have done anyways. So now I am slightly stumped what to do, if I say screw it and do the sock the same (slightly wrong) way or actually do the pattern as written and have a slightly different sock on the foot. I think I am this close to just doing it the same (slightly wrong) way, just to have matching feet. It's not like it is the end of the world that it is slightly different than the pattern is written. And it sort of justifies my desire to knit this pattern again in the future. Although hopefully I will finish my second Hedera sock before I get all crazy and do another pair of Froot Loops. We will see though, I have been rather nuts lately. Working lots will do that to a girl.

I also need to get off my tookus and finish my mom's Brighton bag. I have all the materials, I just need to flipping sew the lining. And pronto, it's been a while since Mother's Day already. Ugh.

I might be turning another year older on Friday, but at least I get to have some fun in Denver this weekend. I swear. I will NOT let work prevent me from hopping on that plane to see Kristi. Well, not again anyways. Once is enough!

Ok, my whining is done. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

FO Catch Up

2008-05-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

I've so been slacking on blogging my knitted objects. Time for a little catch up!

So back in March, I went on a little get away weekend with the OCK and some other friends to the Pleasanton Scrapbook Expo. We stayed in a hotel up in Livermore and had some girl time together, which gave us time to finish the Loopy Ewe Woolpets kit that I bought for us to make together as part of the OCK's Christmas present. So we needlefelted our little Loopys together and man, did they turn out cute. Here's mine:

I also have been knitting Cookie's Hedera socks toe-up, though these got first put on hold for my mom's Brighton bag after I finished the first one.

I love the lace pattern on these:

I'm knitting these using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Devon colorway. It is so beautiful, I really love it and it thankfully isn't doing any of the wicked pooling my Lorna's usually does.

Now that I have finished knitting Brighton, the second sock is on hold while I knit my Froot Loop socks.
The yarn is Zen String Loopy Legends in the Michelle's Pretty Pink Cactus colorway. I thought it was very froot loopy and I still think so, though it also is a very watermelony colorway. The yarn is nice to knit though, and the colors are beauuuutiful. These will be an awesome pair of socks to wear I think.

I'm kind of proud of myself for knitting the pattern as written. Ordinarily I would have flipped the sock and done them toe up with a short row heel, but I actually have knit them top down and with the heel flap:

I don't mind the pooling that much, it did make kind of an interesting stripe around the leg. And I just think they are beautiful socks.

I can hardly wait to finish the second sock! I'll cast on for the second sock when I wake up later this morning! (I napped a bit, so I'm up rather... late.)

I haven't quite finished the Brighton bag, though I did find some perfect fabric for the lining. I have to see if my sewing machine is in working order. The bobbin was behaving badly the last time the machine was used, and I've been dragging my feet with looking at it to see what is up with it.

That's all that I have photos of at the moment! Happy knitting.

La Droguerie

2008-05-24T23:31:00.000-07:00

So I have finally downloaded my photos from my visit to La Droguerie in Paris. Dude do I love this shop.

So when you first come in the door, their yarns are hanging from poles:

You get to see all the colors in that line as well as some swatches of the yarn knit up.

As you get into the store a little more, there start to be the boards above the yarns with projects knit out of their yarns.

I love the snails on the pants and jacket pockets on the display above.

Plus they have samples of kits they sell:

The cute kid patterns are just endless in this place:

After walking in the store a ways, there is a door that leads you to the second store front room that makes up their shop. That's where awesome overload goes into full overdrive.

There are embellishments like patches and other decorations:

And ribbons. Oh the ribbons:

On the left side of the wall across from the ribbons are flowers (below more awesomely cute kid patterns):

The flowers are directly in front of a little counter that seems to have been for sorting out button and bead purchases:

And then there is the bead supply (with samples of their jewelry projects from their jewelry book they are publishing):

Buttons of every color and style:

I think I mentioned this before, but how you shop in this store is you go to the main counter in the back with the pattern you want to make and you tell them what size/color/yarn you want to make your project and they go downstairs, gather your yarn and come back up with your balls of yarn. They sell their patterns individually as well as in their awesome pattern books they publish themselves. (I think all the adult clothes are sold individually, the books contain baby/children's clothing and they have a book of jewelry patterns.)

I was really, really in love with one of their pattern books before I went to Paris but when I asked for the book that had the pattern I wanted, I was shocked with the news that they have now published one of their books in English! I so totally bought it:

What pattern did I love so much? Why the Ah La Fraise pattern:

In the shop I also saw a cute cat pattern that is also in the book:

Let's be honest though, there is nothing in this book that isn't ridonkulously cute!

I only made two purchases in La Droguerie, the second being one of their project kits:

So cute! I totally need to make this one, it's so adorable. They do a lot of kit sales, they had some sweater kits from La Droguerie when I was in Le Bon Marche.

Sorry for some blurry shots, I wanted to take photos of every inch of the store but I didn't want to look like some kind of freak with my camera flash going off repeatedly so I Kinneared my photos and took them with my iPhone. Some worked, some didn't but they definitely captured the magic that was La Droguerie.

Paris, Finally

2008-05-18T22:40:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know. I KNOW. I've been home from Paris nearly a month now. Sorry dudes, life majorly got in the way. But now, I have finally downloaded all the pics from my camera (though there are a few on my camera that I need to grab too) and they are in my Paris album on Flickr now. All 259 of them from my camera (plus the 4 I emailed from my phone). Man did that take a while to upload!

So I really need to give highlights of my trip, I'd be here for hours typing if I went into much detail!

So we landed in Paris on April 16th. We went to our hotel, I showered and changed, and we proceeded to walk to the Arc de Triomphe from our hotel.

(I think it was day 3 before my mil dared to brave the Metro. Ugh.) We didn't do a whole lot, we were crazy tired from the trip and basically we ate lunch and dinner and walked a lot and went to bed.

Day two was back to the Arc de Triomphe (this time we took the bus, woo)

and the Champs Elysee, then to the Eiffel Tower (yes, we walked),

then onto the Batobus boat tour down the Seine (thank god, no walking),

then to Notre Dame (beautiful but walking involved)

and back onto the Batobus before a taxi ride back to our hotel for dinner.

Day three was the Louvre. Wow. The Louvre.

I don't have nearly enough photos of this place. My stupid self didn't think to check and make sure my battery was actually charged before going there so I didn't take as many pictures of the museum as I wanted to. Thank goodness I was able to take a picture of this statue:

This one I want to remember always. This is Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss. It took my breath away. I love everything about it, and normally I'm not a huge sculpture fan. Not anymore. This was simply amazing. (I wish I had snapped some photos in the Louvre of the Napoleon III Apartments, these were beyond ostentatious to say the least.) I got a pic of the Lacemaker painting and Madonna of the Rocks (yes, I got all Da Vinci code geeky).

Of course, I saw the Mona Lisa (as I said to my mil, you don't go to the Louvre and NOT see the Mona Lisa):

I was in the Louvre the entire day (most of it by myself, hooray), and I loved every walking minute of it. I would give anything to go again!

Day four was a bus tour aboard the Open Tour line(I think that was the name of it, I'm lazy and don't want to look this up atm, and I didn't take a picture of it but I took plenty aboard it) and Sacre Coeur:

Day 5 (Sunday) started off with the Rodin museum (this was about the only time we had to break out our umbrellas, we really lucked out with the weather):

(I look annoyed here because I was amazed at the lack of knowledge by my mil that cameras can be turned sideways to include tall objects in a photo. And that shoes are not a requirement to be included in all photos.)

It was interesting, but I'm not an art aficionado by any means and it wasn't as moving for me as the Louvre was. Interesting, but not as breath taking for me.

We also saw Musee de Cluny, the medieval art museum:

(This was outside the entrance to the museum. There wasn't really an easy way to take a photo of the front of the museum that would have been recognizable.)

I don't recall why I took this picture of Jesus on a donkey. It amused us at the time. It's sort of campy compared to how he's represented most of the time. I was probably delirious from the 5th day of thousands of miles walked in Paris. Who knows. Anyways, the most interesting artwork for me in the museum was the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Beautiful art and very amazing for all 6 tapestries to still be together (the 6th is not in that photo as it is on a wall behind the curved one.

Day 6 was our final day in Paris and I spent it alone shopping. (woot!) I hit up some street merchants and got some fabric for the OCK as a birthday present as well as some trinkets for the people at work in my department. I hit up Le Bon Marche's craft department on the third floor (yes! crafts! in a department store! I was so amused. It was fantastic, though I did not have the nerve to Kinnear any photos. Ah well. It was a lovely selection of beads and buttons and fabric and yarn and stitchery kits and quilting supplies oh my!)

And I made my way to La Droguerie. Dude. I died and went to heaven here. I have only the front of the store to show right now as the rest of my photos are on my phone. I'll have to upload them and tell you more about La Droguerie.

Besides having the cutest store front, it is an AMAZING store inside. I totally Kinneared the interior photos. And it shows. But I have photographic evidence of the cutest and most wonderful yarn store. And that is good.

I had such a great time in Paris. What an amazing city. Around every corner there was something amazing, whether it was a lamp post:

a bridge:

a garden:

a fountain:
There was so much beauty to be had. I had a fantastic time and I sincerely hope I can go again some day. Preferably sooner rather than later.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that my Paris socks I knit for my mil actually made it to Paris. I took this photo as we sat in the garden that is behind Notre Dame:

Sorry for the image heavy post! I hope you enjoy a peek into my trip. More photos are here on Flickr. As I have time, I'll edit them to have descriptions.

Guess who will get to see her house again?

2008-05-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

ME! Woot. My April financials are done. I'm consolidated through to December but I have a technical issue that I am waiting to hear from our consultants before I can go forward. But technically, I am done. (This weekend until this morning has been sheer hell. But I made it.)

Yay, I get to knit again! I get to sleep again! Hooray!

Who knows, maybe I will even get to upload my Paris pictures...

Yes, I am still at work

2008-05-07T22:50:00.001-07:00

Still going strong on my project. I'm winding down now, I have to consolidate my company's financial results in our new accounting system through December 2007 and I'm now working on October 2007. (When I started pounding all of this in, I was in July 2006.) I am HOPING I can both finish this tomorrow AND make it to Bobaknit tomorrow night AND do my April 2008 close (well, at least a good majority of it) before I hop on a plane to visit Kristi on Saturday. I've considered rescheduling my trip to Denver but it won't really work for either of our schedules for, like, forever, so I am going to suck it up and try to slog this stuff out ASAP. My deadline to produce April 2008 financials is Monday, and I REALLY don't want to have to sit at Kristi's house and finish my financials. So on I grind. Ugh.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go...

Happy Birthday Wishes!!

2008-05-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish my dear friend the OCK a very very happy birthday. I am thankful to have a friend that makes me laugh as much as you do, gets me into as many creative things as you do and loves me for who I am. My world is definitely a better place because you're in it!

Happy birthday!

P.S. Happy birthday to my monsters too! Xi Xi and Saylor also came into this world on May 2nd last year. Yay for May 2nd birthdays!!

RIP Little Hamster Dudes

2008-04-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

I know I said I was going away to work on my project due Friday, but I am really sad right now.

A little while ago my hubby found one of the Robo boys caught on their water bottle in the 3 boy cage. He died with his teeth caught on the metal piece that slips over the plastic tube at the bottom of their water bottle, apparently he had some really ginormous teeth on him. As a result of that hammy dying, the two boys left couldn't access the water bottle and while one of the boys in the cage is a ginormous fat robo, the other boy left was the runt. I think he probably died of thirst because he was tinier and couldn't sustain himself as long.

I feel so bad, these two little guys suffering so. Hubby buried them behind the shed where Hammy and Rocket are buried. Hopefully Hammy and Rocket will take care of the little boys.

I always toss the little wood blocks in the cages for the hamhams to gnaw on but apparently hubby wasn't as diligent so the teeth overgrew. Argh.

Poor babies. Rest in peace. I'm so sorry. :'(

Home Again

2008-04-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

So I really have made it home again. I have pictures and stories to share, but unfortunately I have a work deadline that is looming very heavily over me right now. So until my project is finished (and it's going to take likely every waking minute of my time this week, ugh), I'm afraid I don't have time to upload my photos or blog about how fantastic Paris is.

I'll see you at the end of the week. I hope. *fingers crossed*

Gone to Paris

2008-04-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Teenuh and I live in a state of denial. Somehow, I figured that I would be able to work a full day, finish packing, watch Dancing with the Stars, download photos from my digital camera (including a photo filled blog post), and update songs on my MP3 player while getting to bed at a reasonable hour. It is now after 10pm and I have done the work thing, have packed my clothes but need to get to the toiletry packing, watched most of DWTS but have yet to do a thing with either my camera or my MP3 player. Yeah. This is working out well.

Anyways, I'm gone to Paris in the AM. I'll be back on the 23rd. Miss me, I'll miss you my Internets.

*kisses*
Teenuh

P.S. I am taking my iPhone and I got an international data plan, so you can keep an eye out on my Flickr for photos on the go!

5 Days!

2008-04-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

In just five days (FIVE!), the population of knitters that make up the Ravelry community (over 105,000 strong!) dug deep into their pockets and Ravelraised over THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

The original goal was a mere $7,000 so the Code Monkey could buy another server. When that passed by so smashingly, the new "lofty" goal of $30K was established so that we could help put Ravelry in the black. And we did it, woohoo!

Hooray for knitters. Hooray for Casey and Jess. Long live Ravelry!!

Ravelraiser!

2008-04-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a Ravelraiser, don't you want to be one too??

Hand Knit Friday

2008-04-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

Janice asks, what hand knits do I have on today? I have on my newly finished Coupling socks (ok I finished them on Sunday, still I haven't worn them yet..). And my shiny new Skechers Surfer shoes in the clear color! Woot, sock modeling shoes!

I swear to you this thought crossed my mind

2008-04-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

It would be just like my monsters to do this.

Knitting is for Giving

2008-03-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

So I have been doing several projects lately that have been gifts. I have managed to not start/finish a couple, but I'm trying to get to those.

I have, however, managed to finish some and actually give them away! Well, I guess it's really two but who's counting?

So a few people have blogged about this already, but 12 Bobaknitters put forth an effort to knit a blanket for the lovely Anabel who is about to have her second baby girl. (Yay! Babies!) Abigail somehow managed to get all of us yarn without the secret getting out! I am so tickled that I got to be a part of making something for Anabel, she is a lovely person who I enjoy spending time with.

Anyways, I managed to remember to take a picture of my square before I delivered it to Abigail. I also remembered not to upload it to my Flickr account until AFTER we gave Anabel the blanket!

Here's my square:

Pakucho is a very nice cotton yarn to knit with. I know it gets mentioned a lot that it is splitty, but I guess I didn't mind it so much since I had to deal with splitty cotton yarn when I knit my Adara rainbow shawl.

Anyways, Abigail got kind of crazy and thought we could sew up the blanket and give it to Anabel while Kristi was here the weekend before Easter. No one told Abigail she had just purchased a ticket on the "are you flipping crazy?" train, so we got together on Friday afternoon/evening and sewed it up. It wasn't bad sewing up the squares with lovely company (Lisa D and Karen and Abigail, of course). Here is the blanket in the state I left it at 11pm:
So she managed, somehow, to crochet a border around it, wash it again and wrapped it in time for our 11am meeting with Kristi!

I got several cute photos from our quick little get together, you can see them in my Anabel's Baby Blanket set on Flickr.

The next day was Easter and hubby and I had some friends over, one of whom was the recipient of Mr Hedgie. I failed at taking a photo of the recipient WITH Mr Hedgie, but I did get some silly pictures of the recipient:

Her brother:

And the zombie crew:
It was a really nice Easter. We haven't done much for a few years now for Easter, but this one was a lot of fun.

But man, it was nearly impossible to give away Mr Hedgie. I mean, look at this face:

Actual Knitting Content Ahead!

2008-03-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

Yo! I knit! Who'd have thunk it based on recent content here?!

Anyhoo, a couple of weeks ago I finished my Clapotis that I made out of Misti Alpaca Worsted weight yarn. Yum, this stuff was nice to knit with. I had purchased 8 balls and I ended up using just over 6.

Not long after I finished, I went to the Pleasanton Scrapbook Expo and took it along with me as well as my Knitters Block and my box of quilting pins I use for everything. My little demons won't leave the pins alone at home, so I figured in the confines of a hotel room (we actually stayed at the Residence Inn in Livermore for the weekend after the expo) I could block the wrap without disturbance. And block I did!

I know that Kate Gilbert says she prefers it unblocked, but I seemed to get a little loosy goosy in the decrease section and it wasn't exactly rectangular. And as I knit it exactly as the pattern was written, it was a wee bit smaller than I had wanted for it to be. So I went ahead and wet blocked the hell out of it. The dye ran a little in the sink (I let it sit in Soak for ~15 mins) and it smelled a bit like wet dog. I was damned if that was going to stop my Clapotis enjoyment (I was finally a member of the Clapotis Clan, wahoo) so I tossed two bath towels on the floor and started blocking (ok, so first of all I set down the Knitters Block mats.. and quickly determined I should have bought two sets if I ever wanted to block something larger than a child's sweater).

While I was in the process of pinning it, I discovered that I neglected to finish dropping one of the stitches. After it was wet. Alpaca isn't fun to drop stitches with to begin with let alone when it is a WET alpaca stitch to drop. Ugh.

But, I showed it who was boss and managed to get it dropped. Really it was only the first stitch that was really sticky (I had to snip the fibers slightly), the rest of the rows seemed to drop much easier.

It got to sit for 24 hours on our hotel room floor unmolested:

I am SO happy I blocked it. The drape is so much nicer and it expanded slightly (blocked dimensions are 24" x 78". I think it is 24" wide. I knew I would regret not writing that number down). Thankfully it didn't become enormous, but it did get to be a size that was very comfortable for me. I have worn it multiple times since then, I am so in love with it!

Name Analysis Thingy

2008-03-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

This is mostly true, though I'm not quite sure about being overbearing. (I hope I'm not!) I also don't quite know about the paranoia/jealousy bit being true. Or the inability to finish projects, I finish what I start for the most part. I'm so not Hannah! ;) (Love you Hannah, *mwah*!) Also not quite sure I'm a type A. Maybe in some respects. But I think that's more OCD than being a type A personality!!

What Christina Means

You are very open. You communicate well, and you connect with other people easily.

You are a naturally creative person. Ideas just flow from your mind.

A true chameleon, you are many things at different points in your life. You are very adaptable.

You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out.

Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia.

Some people find you to be selfish and a bit overbearing. You're a strong person.

You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something.

You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense.

You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.

You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.

You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.

You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life.

You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home.

You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.

You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.

You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.

You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.

You have the classic "Type A" personality.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

At least I get along the best with the OCK

2008-03-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

You Are An Exclamation Point

You are a bundle of... well, something.

You're often a bundle of joy, passion, or drama.

You're loud, brash, and outgoing. If you think it, you say it.

Definitely not the quiet type, you really don't keep a lot to yourself.

You're lively and inspiring. People love to be around your energy.

(But they do secretly worry that you'll spill their secrets without even realizing it.)

You excel in: Public speaking

You get along best with: the Dash

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Yes, you were right. Stinker.

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Mr Hedgie would like to wish you all a very happy Easter!

(Pattern is from Fiber Trends, wool is Lion Wool and the fun fur is Schachenmayr nomotta Salsa that I picked up at Stitches last year in the Knitter's Studio booth on clearance. I have enough to make another and thank god I do or OMG I would never give this dude away.)

I'll eventually have more photos up of him, but this one is from my iPhone and I am feeling supremely lazy! What can I say, cleaning my house until the wee hours is wearing me down.

Stitches Loots

2008-03-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

Yeah, this is a week late but I will blame my lack of posting on the toxic plague that decided to move in as Stitches started. (Damnable germs!!)

Anyways, like I said before it was awesome to go again this year and see so many people I knew. And the shopping was awesome too.

My first stop of the day on Thursday was the Ravelry booth. I totally NEEDED to get a Bob pin. And I wanted to pick up my Ravelry passport. And pick up I did!

I didn't really buy much more that night, though I did purchase the Knitter's Block from Article Pract.

So when I say I didn't buy more that night, it doesn't mean I didn't get FREE STUFF. Yeah baby, Malabrigo lace samples!

And Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn samples!

(Ok, so maaaaaaaaaybe I might have returned a time or two...)

So Friday I returned, again with the OCK and her mom and a few other friends (and an enemy, my stupid cold that decided to take over). We had taken the day off to devote it to shopping. And a shopping we did go!

So my payment for knitting Ruby was a skein of yarn from the Fiber Fiend booth! I picked out this lovely Merino/Tencel yarn (yes Lisa, I know it isn't as stretchy as the merino I knit with. No I don't care, it's shiny. I can't help myself.) that Margit is calling Shiny Sock:

Mmm. Shiny.

I also went to the Tess' Designer Yarn booth and picked up a skein of their new sock yarn, Peruvian Sock, which is 60% merino, 20% silk, 10% alpaca and 10% nylon as well as their baby sweater pattern I've seen Jill knit a couple of times that I've been wanting to make.

Yeah, it is that shiny. God this stuff feels good. I thought I was having trouble capturing the real color of this stuff so I took a couple of pics. I think this one, while blurrier than the other ones, is closer to the real color:

Pretty stuff, I can't wait to give it a try. I guess it must be really new because it isn't even listed on their site yet.

I was wearing my Adara Rainbow Shawl on Friday and I might have found the PERFECT shawl pin in the Gita Maria booth:

Good, no? I was very happy to find it. I think it looks great on this shawl and I think it will also be good with my Forest Canopy Shawl.

Because it was Stitches and my no-sock-yarn-buying-until-I-have-knitted-a-bajillion-socks fee was waived, I picked up this lovely Baywood Yarn in the Nine Rubies booth:

It is pretty yarn and it's dyed locally, just up the Peninsula in San Carlos.

Across the aisle from Nine Rubies was the Comuknity's booth, which is where I picked up two skeins of the Malacrackbrigo Laceweight yarn:

I managed to buy some bulkier yarn (I know! Isn't it amazing what Stitches can do to a gal?!) in the Brooks Farm Yarn booth. This is the Brooks Farm Acero yarn as well as the pattern for the items that were on display in the booth (an entrelac hat and scarf).

Yee haw.

So as the day was waning, we wandered into the Just Our Yarn booth and I fell head over heels with their Maple Tree Shawl and before I knew it, my money had fallen out of my pocket and into their hands. I ended up with the kit in their colorway TTT07-049 and clear rainbow beads:

So pretty! I love the beads. (Again, shiny) I had ~~assumed~~ thought was silk is actually 100% Tencel!

I am dying to make this! I have some deadline knitting projects to get out of the way, but then I think that I will make this shawl. We will not speak of the OTHER beaded shawl kit that is otn elsewhere in my house.

At some point on Friday, I bought one of these. Yes, I bought one. Shut up. Apparently I am such a lemming that I decided to ignore it and not take a picture of it. I got it with the intent of using it to hold my balled yarns (like the dishcloth cotton balls) that I love to re-ball with my ball winder. Yeah, I'm a nerd. I'm also tired of chasing the damn dishcloth cotton balls around my kitchen floor when they decide to hop out of the bag/box/whatever I have put them in while I am winding them. So now I can put them in a plastic prison and knit away on them.

So I returned again on Saturday to work in the Fiber Fiend booth. Which was fun, I got to spend most of my time stamping Ravelry passports as well as running over to the Purlescence Yarns booth to get change for Margit.

I don't think I actually bought anything on Saturday. I think I spent Saturday walking around shoping with Linda (I think her blog is busted, so don't blame me for bad link-y!) and Jill after my shift and watched them buy stuff. Oh, I did buy something! (Again, that I didn't take a picture of. Duh.) I got one of these from the Bella Knitting booth. So now my new purse doesn't have to touch the filthy floor at Tapioca Express on Thursday nights! Hooray! Oh, and the OCK had non-buying remorse so I returned to the Carolina Homespun booth and picked up a yummy little fiber sampler box:

I got it with the intent of using it to do some needle felting.

Overall Saturday was nice, even though I felt like dirt. I got to spend some time knitting with an assortment of Boba knitters and I got to meet the very lovely Rachael of Yarn-a-Go-Go fame (while she was looking divine in her Jeanie shawl, hmm maybe the beaded laceweight will have to wait a little longer). I was wishing very much that I could have gone to the event going on at Bobbin's Nest Studio in the evening but I went home and ~~died~~ slept for 12 or 14 hours.

Sunday I went back, I had a bajillion yellow tickets to enter in the grand prize drawing and I had neglected to turn in my Ravelry passport so I crawled back to the convention center. I had also skipped buying a couple of things that I went back and corrected before the show ended.

I had neglected to buy anything from Fiber Fiend (I didn't shop during my shift like Tina and Hannah did!) so I went back to correct that and picked up two of her larger sized project bags:

Hannah had bought the colorway of sock yarn that I wanted from Tactile Fiber Arts on Saturday, but when I got to thinking about it I decided that hell would freeze over before she knit a pair of socks out of this yarn so I went back to their booth and bought the same color she did:

There was also a wonderful booth that I am too lazy to get up and figure out their name, but it was the cute booth with all the buttons and ribbons and such in it. I got these cute girl buttons that I saw when I first entered the booth (I think on Thursday) but didn't buy until Sunday:

How could I not buy those? And of course, while I was waiting to pay for these, I was distracted by these beauties that ended up in my bag too before I knew what hit me:

I love them so much I had to take closeup pics of them:

Yes, shiny objects did me in again.

My final acquisition of the day was FREE. I went back to the coveted Malacrackbrigo booth and managed to wrangle their final sample of... sock yarn!

I cannot WAIT for this stuff to come out. This stuff is SOFT and yummy. The amount that I got is only enough for probably a pair of baby socks. Or one Teenuh sized sock that I will have to snuggle up to until this stuff is produced for sale. Or until I wrangle the other half of the skein from whomever got it. I had to work to get this stuff! I had to yammer on about it for a while until the dude finally admitted it existed.

So, anyways, that is my 2008 Stitches adventure. It was fun and snot filled. Not quite the mixture I had wanted but at least it was fun!

Days 2, 3 AND 4

2008-02-25T09:01:00.001-08:00

So I did make it to all 4 days of Stitches, for varying durations each day. I did manage to spend plenty on Friday, less on Saturday and a few parting purchases on Sunday. I would have blogged about my adventures after each day except I came down with a hella nasty cold. I am still sick today and I am losing my voice. Awesome way to spend the weekend, huh?

Anyways, when I am feeling less like the toxic avenger I will go into detail about my adventures at Stitches 2008!

Day 1

2008-02-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

Dudes. What fun I had tonight! I am so glad that I went today! I had a supah fun time last year when it was just me and the OCK. But this year? It was SO MUCH FUN to run into Bobaknitters as well as other knitters I've met at places like Purlescence Yarns or Full Thread Ahead.

And it was such a treat to get to run into wine-plied Kristi throughout the night. I knew I missed her bunches but it really hit me whenever I saw her and realized that we weren't just chatting over GTalk, she was really standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME! Tee hee.

But the highlight of the evening was getting to walk around with the pretty princess herself, the OCK! This shawl is pretty in the photos but it's got NOTHING on seeing it in person. I heard multiple people gasping when she went by with it on, and it was pretty hilarious to see how big people's eyes got when they were looking at it trying to figure out how she had dyed the yarn to get it to line up so perfectly. And how enlightened they looked when she told them that it was handpainted after it was knit up.

As far as purchases go, I managed to escape with NO YARN PURCHASED. That's not to say I went home empty handed, but I left with only two free samples of yarn, Malabrigo Lace (DUDES.. FREE MALABRIGO LACE YARN. HOLY BEJABBERS.) and Cherry Tree Hill Supersock. You know that I so am going to hit those booths up again! I did buy a couple of things, mainly Ravelry swag (I have a Bob pin! Yippee!) and The Knitters Block from from The Article Pract booth.

Fun day. And it's only just begun! Tomorrow, round 2! Woot. (And yes, there WILL be yarn!)

ETA: Oh yeah, I totally forgot. So after the Ravelry meetup had officially ended and we were all just sitting in the room waiting for it to be time for the market place to open, they brought in a parade of the teachers for Stitches classes. I was sort of half assedly working on my Clapotis, when one of the teachers ran out of line to compliment the OCK on her shawl. After the teacher had mooned properly over the shawl in all its glory, she scurried back into line. And that was when I actually SAW who it was who was complimenting the OCK... it was freaking Lily Chin! That was seriously cool!

Kristi doesn't owe me $5

2008-02-20T13:25:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've been a good girl and I have been resisting when I get my Loopy Groupie Heads Up emails. But hell, I had $5 banked and I've been good... so I was bad!

Earlier this week, I bought a skein of Scouts Swag (in the colorway Fruit Salad) from momsue84 on Ravelry (seriously, omg she has billions of skeins of sock yarn. This woman has been destashing for like 3 months? And still, she keeps posting yarn for sale!) so my "earned" yarn purchase was used up.

And then I got the heads up email and well, one thing led to another and before I knew it a skein of Loopy Legends sock yarn dyed by Zen String in the colorway Pretty Pink Cactus.

So, Kristi no longer "owes" me $5. I canceled her out!

But hey, in like, oh, 31 hours or so it will be time for Stitches. Mmm Stitches.

Ruby

2008-02-19T00:26:00.000-08:00

So on Sunday I managed to finish the sock I was test knitting for Fiber Fiend for a new pattern she's going to be selling at Stitches. I delivered it to her on Monday (hooray for holidays).

I love the lace pattern in this sock, it's a leafy pattern, and I am goofy for leafy lace.

My camera was hateful of the red in this sock. I don't know what the hell its problem was but I think you can get the idea of what it looks like. The yarn is much prettier than my camera wanted to show.

And for the record, this was my first top down sock I've knit. I don't know that I care for heel flaps still but I think the finished sock is lovely. And toe up socks are still #1 in my book!

I gots flowers!

2008-02-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

tee hee early Valentine's Day delivery! Woot!

Awesome Present!

2008-02-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

Today I finally received my final piece of my Christmas present from my niece and my sister. I am so completely excited by this basket! It is kind of silly how much I am loving it, but dudes, it is awesome.

They even bought me the top with my name embroidered on it.

I am so bringing this to Stitches!

The only thing is, they shipped the basket lid and the basket separately. The basket has been backordered since December and it finally shipped this month. And I totally got the lid before the basket. Though I did wonder what the hell kind of basket the lid went to!

They ordered it for me from the site Garnet Hill, here is the direct link to the basket. It doesn't say so on that site, but it is a reisenthel carrybag. (omg I was just looking at their site, I so want a carrycruiser now! Oh who am I kidding, I want like one of all of their baskets.)

Silent Poetry Reading

2008-02-02T23:42:00.000-08:00

In honor of the third annual Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading, I will post my favorite poem. I was introduced to this poem in college by my psycho roommate that moved out halfway through our lease term, but I really do love it despite who introduced the poem to me.

I have it on a plaque in my bathroom that I got in the Muir Woods gift shop. Fitting I suppose to get a lasting reminder of my favorite poem in my most favorite place to be.

I like to think that this is how I conduct myself in the world. I think I do an okay job at it.

Anyways, here is my poem:

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

Dudes! I am going to Paris!

2008-02-01T16:41:00.000-08:00

Holy cow! It's really happening! I'm going to Paris April 15-22! WOOT!

Would someone slow this thing down already?!

2008-01-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

Still on a lazy kick, so there will be no new pics in this post!

I can't seem to stop saying this, but what the hell, where did January go? I feel like time is just roaring by but nothing is getting done.

I have gotten a bit more knit on my Marigold socks. Yay. I can't wait to wear these, they are so beautiful. The Yarntini is lovely to knit with, both the Vintage colorway and the texture of the yarn itself. Yum. I have been pleased with myself for not going batshit crazy buying particular brands of yarn, but I could easily see myself sliding down the slippery slope of crazy and going hogwild with the Yarntini purchasing. Well, except that it would cost me an extra $5 to go crazy. I think the Yarntini would be worth it. Really, I do. Thankfully, it is difficult to find it in stock anywhere. I think the heel on this second sock was the fastest I've ever cranked a heel out, and I'm now almost halfway up the leg. I'm doing 7 repeats of the lace pattern (well, 7 1/2 before the cuff) and I have completed 3 repeats. So, soon! I will be done! (About time, too. Sheesh. I've been knitting these for a century.)

I haven't knit on the Clapotis for a couple of days. I got obsessed with the sock and I haven't had enough free time to spend on knitting. But tonight is Bobaknit and then I will have some knitting time this weekend, so I am hoping I will be able to finish my sock and then get on with the Clapotis. Oh and of course I will be starting another sock. I already know what I am going to knit, although I am still deciding on yarn. I might have it figured out but we will see.

The baby hamsters are omg cute. They are crawling on top of the bedding now periodically, not all of them at once though, just two or three at a time. There is so totally a runt of the litter, it is nearly half the size of the rest of them. I'm not sure that the runt's eyes are open, though everyone else's eyes are open now. They are really damn cute. I can see it being very hard to give any of them away!

Ok, it is hecka late now. Time to get to sleep and get ready for another ripping month end! Woo.

Hand Knit Friday!!

2008-01-25T23:57:00.000-08:00

My answer to Janice's question this Friday is that I wore my Broadripple Socks!

I have been happily knitting away on my Clapotis over the past 10 days or so. Totally easy, I am glad I have jumped on the bandwagon. I have been terribly lazy about taking pictures of stuff I am working on lately, I don't know what my problem has been! So I have no progress photos of the Clapotis, though I am about halfway done with it in theory. There are still many stitches to drop, but I am happy with it so far. I did manage to take a picture of the yummy Misti Alpaca Worsted yarn I am using for it. It is slightly sticky but it's not terrible to drop the stitches. And I am looking forward to the warmth of it so I'm not about to complain! Anyways, as I said no progress photos but here's one of the yarn:

I bought this probably 8 or 9 months ago, so I am happy to finally put it to use.

I never did blog about my Christmas gift I got from my lovely friend Amy (I love it, her site is titled "Knitting in the Slow Lane" but since she hasn't posted in, oh, nearly 2 years it's more like "Blogging in the Slow Lane"! teehee). We had a secret Santa gift exchange among our group of friends, and luckily, not only was she my secret Santa, she also saw my beggar post!

Holy lucky knitter, batman! I was bowled over that I got my yarn for Jeanie! Woot!

Soooo pretty! I am so in love with it.

Amy also gave me a beautiful Della Q bag that I adore:
She also gave me a Louet Hand Dyed Sock Yarn kit in the blue color. I'm a goob and when I went to get my fabulous ear light she got me from Full Thread Ahead, I spazzed out and not only did I not take the photo of the ear light, I also didn't take a picture of the damnable sock kit.

One piece I have left out of the story so far, is the permission slip. Yes, a permission slip!

So, Amy being a Bobaknitter, knows my sock yarn sherriff Kristi. I didn't see this permission slip at first, I was too bowled over by getting six skeins of yarn (there was some serious sock yarn euphoria buzz going on) that I didn't really take a look at the contents of the page protectors. I was looking at the page protector containing the photo of my blog post again, taking the time to actually read her note on it, and it caught my eye that there was something on the back side of the page protector. That's when I found the permission slip. What an awesome addition to the gift!

And because I appear to be on a totally random blog post streak, I will finally post my pics of my hubby modeling his Dashing gloves I knit him for Christmas. They've come in very handy lately, it's been pretty chilly here lately.

I think they look better when they are worn rather than lying on a table.

Sorry ladies, he's all mine!

I took out a few rows in the pattern, it was just WAY too long. I think my yarn had slightly different row gauge, so if I had actually knit all the rows the pattern has, I think these would have gone up to his elbows. I am glad that he loves them, I am so happy to finally knit something useful for him!

So, I will wrap up my everlasting post with hamster pics! I finally have seen the babies! With fur! And open eyes!

They sure do make lots of little squeaks. It's very cute. OH! How exciting! More photos, and all 5 of them even! This viewing though, it doesn't really appear that their eyes are actually open yet. One of them might have open eyes, but it doesn't look like they are open fully yet.

This is so sweet, I'm so thrilled I caught a photo of it. The little teensy babies are nursing on their little teensy mama. It is so cute looking at these baby Roborovski hamsters!!

She started getting flustered when they broke out of the nest and started running amok in the cage.
She's still trying to corral them back with her.

I think I mentioned in my last post (lazy streak is coming up again) that we moved papa to some new digs, and again I finally uploaded the pics:

(Why yes, that is the dragon dishcloth I knitted for my hubby. Yes, great usage it's getting. Keeping papa hamham's sleeping digs dark.)

And here he is running in his ginormous wheel:

Ok, so since I started this post when it was still Friday and it's now Saturday, I think it is time for me to get a move on. I have a semi-formal event to attend tomorrow night that I have to shop for in the morning. Yes, I did not buy anything yet to wear to it. Yes, it won't stop fucking raining. Yes, it is going to be a beautiful hair night. Woo.

Oh, and I nearly forgot! I wanted to give a shout out to my lovely friend inside the computer, Hakucho (aka Deb!) who gave my my first ever award!

I will continue the circle, though I am going to make this fast because omg huge post. My friends, both in the computer and outside the computer, who make my day are:

The OCK - For being my creativity inspiration. All of my crafts I love to do, you reminded me of how much I loved doing them growing up and inspired me to do them again.
Kristi - For being my sock yarn conscience and for inspiring me to queue beautiful projects you link to me!
Kelli - Also my friend in the computer, you make my day because you took up knitting after my praising the glory of knitting chatting with you online. I'm so thrilled that you are having so much fun and have now not only found a group of people to knit with in your little town but have also inspired a couple of friends to take up knitting!
Mo - After so many years of being able to call you friend (dude, we hit 20 years.. wtf when did that happen), I'm so happy to still be connected to you. I hope your little girl gets to you soon. I can't wait to knit her something.
And last but not least, my BobaKnit pals (yeah, I'm just going to name the group, dude I will be here until 5am if I don't!) - I am so happy to have decided to swallow my shyness and hang out twice a week to knit with you all. I am having so much fun getting to know you all.

So I think at long last, that is all for now. Happy knitting all!

Five Bean Soup

2008-01-15T09:29:00.000-08:00

This morning there seems to be five pink beans. Mama is doing fine lying on top of them and Papa is climbing up the wire sides of their cage looking like he is saying GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE. It's quite amusing.

Apparently though they will be full size Robos in like 2 weeks. >.<

Edit: Ok, so I'm wrong. They'll be furry and their eyes will be open in 2 weeks. Around 6-8 weeks old is when they are able to be separated from their parents.

The Birds and the Bees

2008-01-15T00:07:00.000-08:00

Oh lord. No, that isn't a pink bean you're seeing, it's a baby Roborovski Hamster. I suppose we rolled the dice by getting two of them. But hey, the internet said that they live longer when they are kept in pairs.

Mama and Papa had a bit of escapee drama over the weekend with Papa being awol for around 18 hours. Guess he couldn't stand being around the pregnant lady anymore?

I discovered the pink bean as I was looking in their little tv house and I realized there was something pink and wriggling... and it wasn't either of the two "girls". I am so laughing right now.

Oh, and time to move Papa to some new digs. It seems that Mama can get knocked up again right away. I guess our computer room is too warm, hubby is reading a site that says that robos tend to breed in early spring/summer following the year of their birth.

Great googly moogly.

Half a Year

2008-01-12T11:36:00.000-08:00

My dearest Bratty,

Yesterday was 6 months that you left me and it is now 11 days past what would have been your 19th birthday. I still miss you, but the kittens you and the Chubbo sent to take care of us are wonderful. They are very naughty, but that is how kittens are. They pull toilet paper off the rolls (as you did, though they don't string it through my bedroom like you did), they chew on stuff (thankfully this is something neither you nor Chubbo put us through) and they play at all hours of the day and night. And they love, both us and each other. I am sorry I never had someone you could love, other than me. It is really sweet how Xi Xi and Saylor love each other. And play with each other. But you were a good girl, tolerating the Chubbo as you did.

I miss you and love you.

Kisses,
Me

P.S. I hope you're not peeing on too many things in heaven. You peed on enough stuff here.

You Look Simply Mahvelous, Dahling

2008-01-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

Oh. Em. Gee. I am squealing with delight! I got this picture in my email on Friday from my lovely friend of her beautiful one month old (yes, one month old) chunka-lunka baby girl! Wearing my sweater! I am so excited, this is totally the first picture I have ever gotten of a baby wearing the sweater I knit them. Isn't she gorgeous?? Such a cutie patootie. I have absolutely got to go visit her soon.

Mama also confirmed to me that although they aren't present in this photo, the booties also were worn on this day and they do fit her. I'm so relieved. I told mama that I keep making this stuff for people and I have no idea if it ever gets worn or if it even fits at any point in time.

Mama also said that there were a couple of people that commented on the beautiful sweater the baby was wearing and that she told them a friend made it for her. Tee hee. I'm so amused.

First FO of 2008

2008-01-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

Well, they're done. I'm not sure really what went wrong with the gauge. The only thing I can imagine is that somehow I picked the wrong needles when I increased needle size after the cuff. The finished left hand mitten is about an inch longer than the right mitten. And it's slightly wider. Sigh.
The insides are sure pretty:

They're blocking right now.

Hopefully they will be dry in the morning so I can ship them off to Oregon. My mother in law's birthday is Saturday. I am tempted to not put these in the box. I hate that they are so obviously handmade with their very different sizes. I mean the knitting is nice and the pattern is beautiful, but the size thing. Man. I am getting more embarrassed about sending these as I look at these photos.

I dunno, maybe my mil has a bigger left hand?

I clearly should have gone with worsted weight mittens.

Catching Up

2007-12-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

So it's been forever and a day since I have done any actual knitting blogging, so since there is nearly no time left in 2007 I will catch up so as to not enter 2008 behind in my blogging! (If there is such a thing, really.)

Anyways, a while back I made a comment about knitting time/space continuum issues that I had. See, I was knitting an Elizabeth Zimmerman February baby sweater and I somehow thought that I could bang it out in no time at all. Yeah right. I shouldn't have picked such thin yarn or I would have made it in time but I didn't so I was slightly late in delivering my gift, but that was ok because I got to rest before my mom arrived. Anyways, this is my EZ February baby sweater that I knit for my friends baby out of Spritely Goods Sylph in the Winter Lotus colorway:
I put in button holes at the recommended intervals, but since the yarn was so fine... I ended up with 9 freaking button holes. There were actually 10 but the first one I did wasn't in the right place so I just sewed it up.

But it worked out I think, I'm happy with how this looks. I even got a PM on Ravelry from the Spritely Goods dyer asking me if she could put one of my photos in her gallery!

For the same baby, I knit a pair of Saarjte's booties out of the same yarn.

I got the idea from Freecia who knit the same combination for one of her friends. I mean, it really is the perfect match for this sweater with the garter stitch top.

Love these! So cute. The buttons are white because, duh, 9 buttons for sweater and I had to go get more. Which of course at the different store I went to they didn't have the buttons in blue, they had them in white.

I tried getting Schweetheart to model the sweater and booties but, well, it didn't work as well as the last time:

Ah well, it worked out perfectly in the end. And I finished the project before the baby was born (all 10 lbs 2 oz of her!). Here is momma with my gift a few days before baby was born:

I nearly forgot to mention, the project details are on Ravelry, here and here.

So I also knit a baby genius burp cloth for the same baby, but I managed to forget this when we took over the sweater and booties. Whoops. I did remember it when hubby and I went to our Secret Santa gift exchange party (more about this later!). This is out of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in the Lavender Ice colorway:

Ravelry notes here.

Momma requested no pink for the baby, so that's why there's a whole mix of colors in the stuff I gave to her.

Oh, I finally managed to to take a picture of my "Scarf of Lies" as the OCK calls it. (Though mine isn't a scarf of lies like hers is, I managed to get a skein of the ribbon yarn that wasn't prepackaged so it wasn't shorted like hers appears to have been. Mine is a scarf of lies in how "easy" it is to do. Ok, the knitting is simple, but I have had major tangling issues. Everything tangled for me, the yarn AND the strings of beads. Yes, the beads too. Yippee.) Anyways, the damnable scarf is halfway done and waiting to be knit again. Had to stop for holiday knitting. Probably should have stopped sooner but everyone has to learn the hard way, right?

So pretty. I really do love how it looks. The colors are remarkably similar to the ones in the Spritely Goods yarn, which amuses me. I could possibly knit a pair of socks with my leftover yarn from the baby sweater. The skein of yarn was ginormous. I'd have to measure it, and I'm likely deluding myself but I could maybe crank out some ankle socks.

But here it is in its halfway-doneness glory:

I will get back to it... sometime.

I didn't queue too much up for Christmas knitting, though none of what I did queue up has been completed. I wanted to knit my mother-in-law some mittens. She was down here in September for hubby's birthday and she mentioned something about how she couldn't seem to find any mittens, all she could find in the shops were gloves. I think possibly she was doing it to see if she could get a pair of hand knit mittens out of me, but I'm not entirely positive she's that crafty. At any rate, I had been loving how Eunny Jang's Anemoi mitten pattern looked so instead of doing something basic out of The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns I already own, I decided to buy Eunny's pattern. Why knit worsted weight yarn mittens that I could crank out in a few hours like Emy did when I can spend an extended amount of time knitting fair isle (not intarsia, shit I knew that. Thanks Emy. >.<) for the first time! Ah well. It's been great. And I did stash busting for this! (Mwahaha no $5 owed for me yet thankyouverymuch!)

So this is the first finished mitten. Only took me three attempts to get to this point... Le sigh.

I started out using my Collinette Jitterbug in the Jay colorway and my second colorway of Koigu (KPM not KPPM this time, a bright pink #2120). I went with the Jay as the CC but I really should have made it the MC. I got to the row where you put the thumb gore stitches on waste yarn and decided I wasn't happy with how the pattern was coming out.

So I went back into my stash and I found two colorways of KnitPicks Essential Solid yarn, one in black (purchased to make the BMP socks) and one in burgundy (bought this before the BMP yarn, pretty sure I bought it to fill out my order for free shipping and to give the yarn a try). I figured these were good combinations because my hubby was buying my mil two jackets (one for Christmas and one for her Jan 5th birthday), both of which were black. So I started over again. So I did the cuff in size 0 needles as written in the pattern (first mitten I only used the 0's for the cast on row, went up to size 1's after that. I clearly did the cuff wrong too. The first attempt was nothing but special.) and went up to size 1's when I was starting the mitten. Holy frijole. That cuff was WAY too tight. Everyone I got to try on the mitten to see if they could get their hand in strugged with the mitten. No way was I going to go through all the work of making a pair of mittens only to have my mil not be able to get them on her hands! So, again, I was about to the point where you put the thumb gore stitches on waste yarn... and I frogged. Again.

So thankfully, the third time was the charm and I am finally on the second mitten. I did take a minor break while knitting the second mitten. I knew I wasn't going to make it for Christmas so I thought I would try to make a pair of Dashing fingerless gloves for hubby. That went as well as these mittens did. Well, almost. It only took me one frogging to get it right.

Anyways, no photos yet of the Dashing yet. One is done and the second is in the home stretch. But I put that down so that I can focus on the mitten again. Which is also nearing the home stretch. The thumb gore stitches are on waste yarn and I am about halfway with the mitten body. Hopefully I can finish it so that we can get it in the mail by Wednesday. They'll be late if I don't get them in the mail by then.

I'll blog about my Christmas yarn later. I'm fighting a cold so I'm going to go rest a bit. I have to take pictures of my goodies, so hopefully I will get to that later today!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

2007-12-25T09:06:00.000-08:00

Xi Xi Asks...

2007-12-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

"How cute am I??"

Letter to Santa

2007-12-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

Oh dudes, my great nephew Jake is a cutie patootie. Here is the email he sent to Santa:

Dear Santa,
Thank you for the reindeer and bringing presents on Christmas. I wish for a toy train and a toy car. I also wish for my daddy, mommy and baby Cade to have good health for a long time. My mommy says she wishes the same for me! Santa, please be safe and careful on Christmas Eve, because you have a long beard!!!
Love,
Jake

How cute is he?!

This $5 Thing...

2007-12-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

...is really going to kill me!

So I went to Purlescence Yarns today with my favorite friend the OCK and it was really a test of willpower! Sure, I was there last night for knitting night but I was happy to just enjoy the company of my fellow knitters and watch A Christmas Story.

The problem was I could wander around the shop and look at yarn!

Ok, so I resisted temptation last night but then I went and pushed my luck by going again today! See, I had seen a colorway of Dream in Color Smooshy that I thought perfect for Jeanie. Except I didn't look at the band to see what the hell color it was. So I wanted to go back and look at the colorway before they sold out.

It was soooo hard going back a second time! But I resisted! I have witnesses! I bought no yarn! I do not owe any *$5 "fees"!

Man, this is gonna be hard.

*Ok, so I would have owed $15 had they actually HAD three skeins of Deep Seaflower. But they had only two left. So I am still safe. For now. Hey, anyone feel like heading over to the Loopy Ewe and buy me 3 skeins for a Christmas present? I'm sure we can work something out. Come on, you know you want to!!

Christmas Knitting

2007-11-25T23:45:00.000-08:00

Now that there is just one month before Christmas, why the hell can I not remember what it was I wanted to knit for people so badly? It's no wonder I fail at the knitting time/space continuum thing.

Black Friday can bite my booty

2007-11-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

Good lord. It is just way too early for me to go out and shop. I was going to hit Purlescence and Knitting Arts this morning like I did last year, but I just cannot convince myself to go out in the cold weather, in my pajamas, after 5ish hours of sleep. I am clearly not lacking for sock yarn, though I am wanting to knit some Aenemoi Mittens for my mother in law and I would like some variegated Koigu KPPPM maybe to go along with my bright pink Koigu KPM I bought last year.

I'll just settle for a trip to SF later for a yarn crawl I think.

Back to bed I go!

Still alive, have not impaled myself on knitting needles... yet

2007-11-21T00:27:00.000-08:00

Mom's back home now (boo). We had a fantastic time together. It was a really good visit. Well, except for my asshole father not leaving my house when I asked him to so that my mom could come into my house for ONE FREAKING DAY. She got to meet the kittens, but I had to take them out to the car one at a time. I had wanted to show her Bratty and Chubbo's beautiful containers but I didn't take them out to her in the car. I had really hoped that my dad would pull through for me. Just once. Selfish jackass.

At any rate, I'm back to work now for just 3 days. I have my new-old employee (she worked for me 2 years ago) working for me at my employer (yippee!) and it is a dream to have her. She has a really great laugh and is getting along very well with the rest of the staff. I am so happy she wanted to come work with me again!

No Thanksgiving dinner cooking for me this year. We're going over to a friend's house. Even before last Saturday (the day I wanted my mom to come over) I wasn't feeling the cooking mojo for turkey day. I am a very very picky eater for Thanksgiving. I only really want all the foods that my mom cooked when I was growing up. I just didn't feel like cooking for the 3 of us (I couldn't get a response from our friends if he and his wife and their 2 kids wanted to come down for Thanksgiving). So I am letting go my particularity and going with the flow. I'm still having something that my mom cooked, the cauliflower in cheese puff that I cooked last year. Who knows, I may twist up so tightly because I didn't have my normal turkey day spread that I will end up cooking my usual foods by the weekend. (Probably not, there's Christmas knitting to be done!)

I haven't downloaded any of the pics from my mom's trip, I will have to do that over the holiday weekend.

Anyways, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everyone~!

On Vacation..

2007-11-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

I am on vacation this week! My mom is here with me in California for the first time in a few years (3, I think). We are doing lots of stuff together and having a good time. I have pictures and such, but I'll get to that another day!

The best part? Ok, the best part is that my mom is here.

The best part other than my mom being here?

I.am.not.working.this.week!

FYI...

2007-11-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

Leaving work at 10:30pm after arriving at 8:15am sucks.

Will post more later about knitting space/time continuum issues.

Another month gone.. I want a refund from 2007!!

2007-11-01T23:34:00.000-07:00

Again, another month has abso-friggin-lutely ripped on by. People keep asking me how work is, and I keep responding that I *think* I am on the downward slope, but there are sure times when I question that! I am enjoying what I am doing and I really like the people in my department a lot, we have a great time together and I laugh quite a bit working with them every day.

Not a lot of time for me to knit lately, I can hardly believe that I have been so slow at finishing sock projects. I'm still knitting, but I have been knitting far less than usual. But, I did manage to finish one of my Marigold socks.

This is Yarntini in the Vintage colorway in the self striping yarn:

I love the colors, I love the feel of the yarn, I love the pattern. I just freaking love these socks. I don't know if after I finish these, anyone will be able to pry them off my feet! The pattern is easy, it's very much like a feather & fan pattern with a purl ridge tossed in for flavor. Here's a closeup of the leg:
I can't wait to start the second sock! I am going to do my best to get the striping to match. The skein is rather large so I don't have to worry about yardage. I am JUST past the part I needed to start at for the toe, so I'm going to have to waste a full repeat less one color segment. Maybe I can knit it into a swatch that I can make out with while I'm sitting around working. Yeah, that's what I'll do. Have myself a little swatch lubbins.

I'm still working on my beaded scarf. I did have to cut the ribbon yarn and add more beads, I was WAY short on what I strung the first time. It was impossibly hard to tell how many strands I actually managed to get strung with the whole thread tangling issue I had. Argh. It is beautiful though, I am looking forward to finishing it.

Both projects are going to have to be patient with me though, I have to finish a baby sweater for a shower I'm going to on the 10th (coincidentally the same day my mom is coming to visit, hooray!).

Oh, and the alien that is sucking my brains in the last post is a pattern I found on Ravelry on Tuesday while I was surfing the pattern page. He's a brain slug from Futurama. I used dishcloth cotton from my stash! I knit the body and the tentacles and legs on size 6 needles and then the I-cord ties are knit on size 7 needles. I started the first tie on 6's and I was like, wtf this is a tie... it doesn't need to be a tight fabric, it just needs to freaking get done! So I ripped the few rows out that I had done and started cranking out the I-cord on the bigger needles. I took a few more pics than the self-portrait one.

I totally freaking love him. It's tempting to knit another just to have him sit around or rip out the I-cords on this one so he's just a stand alone stuffed toy. I struggled to find my bags of polyfil I know I have, so I was trying to decide what alternative products I would use to stuff him with. But then I managed to get enough brain cells together to realize that I had an old pillow taking up space in my closet that I was fairly certain used polyfil stuffing. So hubby ran to grab it for me and I ripped it open and walla! Polyfil! Woot. Now I have enough stuffing for 130598103985 brain slugs! (Or amigurumi projects... no excuses left to not make some of the patterns I've been buying!)

Xi Xi says, "Zzzzzzz."

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T04:48:00.000-07:00

FO Friday

2007-10-19T23:31:00.000-07:00

I so love that I have finally finished these socks. These are the Waving Lace socks from Favorite Socks. They are awesomely stretchy and I so love everything about the pattern. The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the colorway Ruby River. The subtle color transitions in the yarn are really beautiful. I can't say enough great things about these socks and I am looking very forward to wearing them.

I did my usual cast on but this time I did an increase round and then knit a round with no increases. I didn't really like how it looked on the doomed Grasshopper socks, but I started realizing that the pattern on some of my socks was starting really far down my toe, so I decided to try lengthening the toe and see how I like it, and I think I actually prefer how it looks. Not that I dislike my previous knitting work, I think I might just like this better.

Anyways, what is going otn next are the Marigold Socks in my precious skein of Yarntini in the Vintage colorway. Here is the skein awaiting cast on:

My yarn is the self striping variety, and I am absolutely DYING to see these socks cast on. I really loved Sandra's self striping socks, I cannot wait to see them in the Vintage colorway.

Slow Poke Blogging

2007-10-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Work has still been completely kicking my ass. I am dying to cut back my workdays but wow, so much to get done before that can happen. Although, I think I am finally over the hump so I'm hoping it will slow down in the next week.

I've somehow managed to finish a couple of projects, although it has taken me over a week to sit down at my computer and upload the stupid photos.

I finished my Koigu Monkey socks:

The yarn is beautiful and very nice to knit with, a lovely treat for the feet.

I know the yarn isn't as durable as some yarns, but I'm fine with however long these last me. I'll enjoy wearing them. The skeins are really small though. I knit these socks on size 2 needles and they are super stretchy and the leg is a little longer than I typically make them, but damn if I didn't use all my yarn. As in, I had maybe 24 inches of yarn left over. I had to use some of the remnant of the first sock to finish the second sock and I didn't even finish the cuff in quite the same way (I had made the first sock 6 rows of garter stitch and the second sock was only 3 rows of purls). But I was out of yarn! I had no choice! They look the same from afar, and I'd be shocked if anyone ever noticed while I was wearing them that the cuffs were slightly different. Although if anyone would, it would be the OCK. Stripey freak that she is!!

I also finished a dishcloth for my hubby's birthday. I was a little late getting it to him, but he likes it, lateness and all:

I started on my own bag of lies scarf, though mine isn't so much a bag of yardage lies as it is a bag of tangles. I spent multiple days unsnarling my ribbon yarn and then after measuring it so that I could get the yarn mostly divided in half, it proceeded to tangle itself up again. Though thankfully less tangled, I only spent a couple more hours unsnarling it before the bead transferring began. Which, again, there were tangles involved as my bead strands, despite my careful treatment of them, somehow got crossed so that I couldn't safely get even one strand away from the clump of other strands without losing half the string of beads. I had thought I got half of the beads, but it doesn't look to me like I'm going to finish the first half of the scarf without having to cut the yarn and add more beads. But no worries, I'm enchanted with the sparkles and I know in the end I'll be happy with the finished project. And there is definitely no chance in hell that I'll go into mass production of this kind of scarf. Ugh!

At any rate, it is late and my ass is kicked after a long work week so far and another fun night of Bunco. I think I'll definitely have sheepy dreams tonight!

Fetching, the second

2007-10-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

So on Tuesday night, when I was leaving work one of my staff inspired me to help her cold hands. The AC at the office is particularly miserable on most days, so we're often using space heaters year round. But when she was shivering at her desk, I was inspired to give her some warm hands. So I went home and knit her a pair of Fetching gloves!

I really love this pattern. I know I said it last time I made them, but it is really simple and I love how easy it is to do the cabling.

She really loved the gloves and the timing worked out perfectly as her birthday is coming up on the 10th.

Before I left for the night, I convinced her to let me take a picture of her wearing them. She was shy at first:

But then she relented and let me take a nice picture of her:

Saylor and Xi Xi say, "Aww, c'mon. We're cuter than she is!!"

Yummy

2007-10-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

So I am totally on a beautiful yarn high right now! A couple of months ago, the OCK and I decided that we would order some of the SockPixie yarn. I was totally in love with Jill's yarn that she was using one night at Bobaknit and I had decided to buy some for myself. I ordered the La Vie En Rose colorway along with her new colorway Ladybug. The socks that were posted on the site were totally cute in the Ladybug colorway so I got it. The OCK wanted the Poppies and the Stormy Seas colorways. When the order came, the La Vie En Rose and Stormy Seas were beautiful, but I was really not happy with the reds in the Ladybug and Poppies yarn. I was so heartbroken. I took time to think about contacting the dyer, it was so hard on me to write her because I know that hand dyed yarn is different with every run, but it just made my heart ache because the colorway was just not anything near what I had expected to receive. But now? Oh man, I TOTALLY have what I wanted. Feast your eyes on this:

Not this:

Look at this red!!!

So. very. happy.

The OCK's replacement yarn turned out beautiful as well:

I am so happy this is finally resolved!

The Saylor says, "I'm happy too. Now stop all that ruckus and let me get some sleep already!"

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

2007-10-01T23:56:00.000-07:00

Dudes. Where the hell did September go?! I am simply gobsmacked that it is October 1st. Still working tons. So much to do, not enough time to do it in. Ah well, at least the network at work will be shut down at 5pm on Thursday for our move. Yippee. I got to go to the TKGA show yesterday with the OCK. Her mom and my mother-in-law went along as well. We had a good time. It's a small show, it's got nothing on Stitches, but it was fun nevertheless. If you can believe it, I got more laceweight yarn than sock yarn! I'm branching out. *nods* At any rate, here's my booty from TKGA:

Schaefer Andrea in the colorway Mary Breckenridge (purchased from the Adela's Yarns booth):

Terilyn Needleart Zephyr Wool-Silk Laceweight in Violet:

Village Spinning & Weaving Spun Silk, colorway unnamed but very lovely:

A scarf kit with Interlacements New York ribbon yarn in colorway 113P:

And, Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in colorway 1820 Dusk:

I primarily got the Schaefer Andrea yarn because they had a sample of the Beaded Diamond Shawl on display in their booth and it was gorgeous. I couldn't resist getting a copy of it with the yarn. I think this is ooching very quickly to the top of my "to cast on" pile. Also towards the top of the heap is the beaded scarf. The shiny beads are gonna suck me in I think. If this first one goes well, I think I might get some more pre-strung beads and make another beaded scarf out of my Tess Designer Yarns ribbon yarn. The woman who sold me (and the OCK, we both got kits hah) the kit said that the Tess yarn was too rigid for the beads to slip on, but last night when she got home the OCK gave it a whirl and disproved our friendly booth vendor. I have some purple beads that I bought recently that I could possibly use for the shawl. Not sure I have enough as I only bought one tube of them, but I could go back to the store I picked them up in and grab another tube. It would be nice to give those beads a purpose, they are very pretty.

At any rate, it's late and I need to get to sleep!!