2007 Blog Year in Review

Sorry for the long hiatus but that's how it goes at this time of year. Today I'm going to do one of the year end reviews that I did last year. As I recall I stole this from Vicki last year, she did it again and since I liked it so much I'm stealing it again.

The first sentence of each first post of the month for 2006, each sentence is a link to the actual post:


January - I managed to complete 30 projects this year which is an improvement over last year's 25.

February - In honor of the Blogger's (Silent) Poetry Reading :

March - When people call you and ask why you've been so quiet you know you haven't blogged enough.

April - Carla had this meme yesterday and it brought up a fact about me that is only hinted at on the blog, I live to be obsessed.

May - This is what was waiting at the post office for me on Monday:

June - I thought I'd give you a progress shot on Anastasia:

July- Inventory knocked me out.

August - My good buddy Carla tagged me:

September - ...yup a finished Dalek:

October - I end my contest as I began it. Dani has bestowed on me the title of:

November - I'm in the homestretch on Cherie. I even had Amanda take a picture of me trying it on, see:

December - Here we are on d-day.

Tomorrow the year end project wrap up.

Have a great New Year's everyone!

Nancy the Ipod killer...

I love Ipods, I mean I really love them. I use mine so much that they seem to wear out. I've been having some problems with the 60 gig video Rinaldo got for me on Mother's Day 2006. He suggested I restore it. I did so on Saturday. It seems to have been a fatal mistake. Thankfully the Computer Store is right across the street and there was a special on 80 gigs so I'm back in business or I will be once I get it loaded tonight. Not to be foolish again I bought it with AppleCare as I have yet to have one last longer than 18 months.

Here is the picture I owed you of the multidirectional scarf:




Ian, Avery and I hung out with Chante and Jamaal this weekend. We went to the Holiday Train Show at the Botanical Gardens. Avery was our official photographer. The kids go for the trains, I love the buildings. This is my favorite, Ellis Island:



Since this is a Bronx blog I should show you this one as well, Yankee Stadium:



Here we all are freezing but happy:



I sat on my ass the rest of the weekend but while I was doing so I managed to finish...wait for it...

...the Charade socks!!!

...aren't you impressed, Rinaldo was;)

I tried to start the playground mittens yesterday but between my Ipod grief, gauge issues and the fact that I couldn't find any size 8 needles anywhere of any kind in my house I didn't get started until this morning on the train:



They are going to greatly resemble the target mittens except that I hopefully won't despise knitting them so much. I'm completely off the pattern. I had to use my Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns but I'll use her instructions to create the slit.

Damn is it 1:09 already I guess I should get some work done...happy Monday!

TCIF

I meant to take a picture of the completed multidirectional scarf but somehow it never happened. You will just have to take my word for it, it's done. I'm trying to finish Rinaldo's damn sock. Hopefully tonight.

If anyone is home today and bored turn on The View at 11. Tisha and I went to the taping on Wednesday and today the show airs. I don't know if we made it on camera but you might catch a glimpse of us. Tisha's been trying to get me to go with her for ages, NYU gets blocks of tickets every 6 weeks or so, but I never found the time. This week seems to have been the right time to go. They give away tons of stuff! We felt like we just saw Santa Claus walking through the streets with our sacks of stuff.

Since I got nothing else for ya here's yet another meme. Stole this from Bron, who never does memes;)

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

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

opening credits:

To Be Free - Emiliana Torrini


waking up:

How Do I Make You - Linda Ronstadt


first day at school:

Hammer to Fall - Queen


falling in love:

Hot Thing - Prince


breaking up:

Knowing Me Knowing You - ABBA (damn it doesn't get more appropriate than that)


prom:

Come on and Dance - Motley Crue


life’s okay:

My Name is Ali - Sony Nigam /Dhoom 2 Soundtrack


mental breakdown:

Go Where You Wanna Go - The Mamas & The Papas

driving:

Just Like a Pill - Pink


flashback:

Road Runner USA - Joan Jett


getting back together:

Going Out - The Perishers


wedding:

Live to Tell - Madonna


birth of child:

Roxanne - The Police (that's a bad omen, lol)


final battle:


Justify My Thug - Jay Z


death scene:

The Rain Song - The Bangles


end credits:

Welcome to the Jungle - Guns & Roses


You're tagged if you want to be...

I like to keep my desktop clean (the virtual one at least)

Carla tagged me for this meme and it was an easy one so here it is. My desktop at work:

I told you I loved Kara Thrace.

My wallpaper changes with my obsession of the moment. Wallpapers that I have had over the past year or so:

The Tenth Doctor:



The amazing and god-like Hrithik Roshan as Krrish:


The hottest. Mob. Enforcer. Ever.

And this fantastic shot of Iceland that my cousin once sent me:


Work can be very boring I need to spice it up anyway I can...

You know how I roll when it comes to meme's. If you're interested consider yourself tagged.

Is it Tuesday already?

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts this week. I worked on Saturday and that tends to throw me off the following week. I was thrilled this weekend however to get my prize from Nancy, unfortunately I won by default since I was the only one who contributed to her walk but I love my yarn just the same:


I'm not sure about the pattern but I think I may commandeer the yarn for Ice Queen. I still have millions of beads from Odessa so I'm set. Of course we'll see when I actually get to it!

I'm nearly finished with the multidirectional scarf. I just have the final section to do. Sadly I actually have to break into another ball of yarn to finish it. I'm a little ticked about that but c'est la vie. Here is where it stands this morning:


Once I finish I have to get to some mittens for Ian. He lost one of his target mittens and now we seem to have misplaced the ones I made for him two years ago. He has Spongebob gloves but he's not a huge fan of them. I was thinking of making another target mitten for him but damn I hated making them. Then I spotted this yesterday on Risa's Ravelry queue, Playground Mittens. I really wanted to make him some convertible mittens this year but I was feeling pretty lazy about it. These are the perfect compromise.

A few weeks back Shelly e-mailed me to say she had put my Wubbzy pattern up on her blog. What a cool blog it is, Children's Lit 'n' Knit. She posts projects that can accompany children's books. Some are really cute. There are some crochet projects as well as knit. Go look.

Oh well back to work...I might actually get to the gym today, amazing!

Hilarious Holiday IT Video

A co-worker sent this to me. If it's knitting related it always gets sent to me;) It's pretty funny though.

I want to be Kara Thrace when I grow up...

I am a geek. I know, I know it shocks many of you. I try to keep it under wraps fairly well but I started with Star Trek, moved on to Dr. Who, went full out on Buffy and I've never looked back. Now I had been told that I should be watching Battlestar Galactica by many a person but I had tried the miniseries and was bored to tears in the first 30 minutes. Mind you I was a huge fan of the campy old series so I figured I could never give the new one a shot. A few months ago ITunes had a sale on complete seasons of certain shows. I picked up season 1 of Battlestar for a song (well 18 of them by ITunes standards). There it sat on my hard drive until Rinaldo put it on his IPhone (don't even go there I won't discuss it). After two episodes he admitted that the show "owned him". My husband is not easily owned so I gave it a shot last week. One week later I am Battlestar's bitch and happy about it. I'm already into the second season and I am seriously considering giving up my job to sit home and watch it all day.

Why do you care? Well you see BSG is kind of exciting so on my train ride I often pull my knitting out with the best of intentions but I get caught up in the show and not a stitch is knit. Therefore I haven't finished my multidirectional scarf. Though it is turning out nicely:

I did have to leave it home on Wednesday since I was on a school trip with Ian but Rinaldo's sock got some much needed attention there since it would have been rude to watch BSG in the middle of a puppet show, right?

Fear not, knitters are resourceful creatures. You see thanks to Ravelry I have found the perfect way to bring my new obsession into line with my old the Kara Thrace and her Sweater Destiny.

Rinaldo has already put in his order...

Happy Friday!

Yoo hoo Bloglines...I posted last night, were you sleeping?

Gina Watch 2007 - D-Day

Here we are on d-day. Gina should be happily back home by now, relaxing and not going on the internet. Where do I stand? Well see for yourselves:

Two wrist warmers for the speech teacher? Done:

finishing work doesn't count

One Calio-thingy? Done:



I love the colors on it.

Finally the start at least of a multidirectional scarf:



Not too bad for a week's work. I would like to have more of the scarf done but tomorrow is a good knitting day for me since Ian has his playgroup. I can usually finish a section on a train trip so this should go fairly quickly.

Now off to e-mail Gina so she knows the fun I've been having without her. I had to do something to pass the time when she was away right;)?

Gina Watch 2007

Look an FO (yes you are reading the right blog, don't be funny), my handspun mitts are done:

The picture of course doesn't do them much justice but I love them and I'm feeling quite full of myself as a spinner/knitter at the moment. They have tons of flaws but last year when I got my wheel I never really believed I could spin a yarn that could be used. Yet here we are. I'm very proud.

Now gather closely because we are about to discuss some secret knitting. Here's the deal, last year my dear friend Gina swore to me that she would pull the needles from my hand if I even whispered of gift knitting this holiday season, but Ian's teachers are so wonderful this year that I really want to do something special for them. This translates into, you guessed it, gift knitting. Now Gina is away at her parents' house until Sunday and she has no internet access. I have three projects to complete. My plan is to try to finish at least 2 and have the third nearly completed by the time she gets back to blogdom. What can she say if it's already done, right?

I've already completed one fingerless mitt for his speech teacher:
I'm hoping to do the other tonight at knitting group. Then a calio-thingy for the para and finally a multidirectional scarf for the teacher. All of the projects will be in Soy Wool Stripes because it's my new all terrain yarn. I love to knit with it and the colors are so amazing.

What do you think can I pull it off? Start placing your bets...

Mondays are for spinning...

Well actually weekends seem to be for spinning but I post about it on Mondays. I was enjoying spinning up by Spunky Club fiber so much I decided to just finish it up and try to actually do something with it. I finished spinning it Friday night then worked on the soaking, beating, drying and winding of it Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday night I had this:



Whoo hoo! It's rough but I gather that's typical of Romney and it's more than a bit uneven but frankly it just reminds me of Kureyon so I am perfectly happy with it. I was enjoying my spinning a little too much to work on poor Cherie but I did get some work in on Rinaldo's sock. I am finally in the heel flap. Hopefully I can get the dam thing done before Thanksgiving.

For those of you waiting with baited breath Ian's parent teacher conference went very well. His teacher said he's doing beautifully and she adores him. His speech teacher says she is amazed and happy with how much he is willing to talk now. He has no problem asking or answering questions. I'm very happy as is he. The thing I found funny with both kids is when we went to Avery's school everyone was thrilled to meet Ian because Avery's talks about him so much and in Ian's school when we looked at his drawings and his stories Avery was in the majority of them. With a 6 year age difference I always felt that weren't that involved with each other aside from living in the same house. It's nice to see how attached they are too each other.

Best get to work. I got in early to get a head start on the day since Mondays I have to leave early.

Since I'm a geek girl at heart so I am supporting the writers in their strike. Joss Whedon the creater of Buffy and Serenity blogged yesterday about a way to show the networks that fans support the writers. Here is the site that explains the Pencils2MediaMogels Campaign.

Have a great Monday!

Temptation, frustration so bad it makes her cry...

The temptation of course is Cherie Amour, sadly the frustration is as well. I finished the body, connected the shoulders and seamed the sleeves. Here is the problem. I suffer from the dreaded tight bind off disease. Now I am aware of this problem and typically seek to offset it's results by binding off loosely or going up a needle size or two when I bind off. If you had asked me I would have said that I had done it loosely, obviously I would have been deluding myself. Now you know what happens when I get frustrated with a project right? Cherie was unceremoniously dumped on the computer desk. Perhaps I will have the patience to do surgery this weekend but I don't even want to look at her at the moment. Here's a look at her before it all went to hell:



You can see I was just living in denial since I had put the sleeve in the hole to see if it would fit. Ha!

I grabbed a sock for comfort. It's as though socks are the husband I always come running back to when my love affairs go awry. Hell I may even cast on for the lady detective hat, hats are comforting too. I need some comfort this week. Rinaldo left for a conference yesterday and I have two parent teacher conferences this week. Last night was Avery's which was excellent but odd. Most of his teachers told me, "well I gave him a 90 but he's really a 95 student. High schools like to see improvement over the year. It shows he's a hard worker." Huh? So we're dumbing down the grades on the first marking period to make his record look like he worked hard at improving rather than that he worked hard at maintaining? Whatever. The grades were excellent regardless. Ian's is tonight. I'm anxious due to my phobia of parent teacher conferences (I was anxious about Avery's last night too) but I talk to his teacher at least once a week and she tells me he's doing very well so I'm sure it will be fine.

Adding to the stash is comforting as well and my Knit Picks shipment came with the yarn for Mirepoix:



I did some color substitutions but I'm happy with my choices. We'll see how they knit up. I know I said I was going to start this in January but I may have to swatch it up sooner. I'm dying to see how they look.

Finally I picked this up over at Yarmando's:



...there now don't you all feel really good about yourselves!

Happy Wednesday all, we're halfway to the weekend...

It came, I saw, I spun...

I joined the Spunky Fiber Club. I decided it was a great way to try different fibers that I would be too intimidated to pick up by choice.

October's was called Goblin Eyes, it's Romney wool. I actually started spinning it last night:




I'm thinking I can actually knit this into some fingerless gloves. What do you think?

A bit of progress to show

I'm in the homestretch on Cherie. I even had Amanda take a picture of me trying it on, see:



I have a few more layers on than I would normally have underneath it. but overall I'm happy with the fit. I'm hoping the bottom opens up a bit more when I block it and it gains some length. Of course I could just lose some weight but whatever...

I ordered the yarn for Mirepoix for some bizarre reason. Well ok it was because I had a gift certificate from KnitPicks to spend. I don't imagine even looking at it until January though. I also bought one of the Harmony needles points to replace my MIA 9 for my set. I figured it was as good an excuse as any.

Nothing much going on overall so I think it's time for a bunch of pointless links:

Damn those Bushs, they seem to think that Knitters
are part of the Axis of Evil.

If you're a geek like me you may actually be interested in what exactly the writer's are striking about here's a blog post by one of my favorite comic book writers who is also a writer/producer for Lost.

This granny blogs but she doesn't seem to knit so I suppose that helps that stereotype.

Finally the news I've been waiting for. I always said I preferred to weigh about 20lbs more than the doctors say I should. Of course I have a bit to lose before I get there;)

Happy Wednesday!

I seem to have a seriously busy life, who knew? Last week seemed to fly by. I didn't even finish Cherie which I was sure I would. I nearly finished the second sleeve on the train going and coming from Long Island on Monday only to realize that in fact I had never done the first row of increases, all the way back on row 8. So a'froggin' I went. You know how frustrated I get by things like that so no more was done on the sleeve until much later in the week. I did finish it finally and I'm now into the neckline on the body piece. I'm probably going to block the sleeve tonight. I can't deny I haven't been in too much of a rush to finish it since I realized neither Tisha nor Amanda are here this week at work so there is no one to show it off to:(

Ian's birthday festivities were a hit. We brought cupcakes to his class on Friday. It's amazing, he's in special ed this year and the teacher and the para stand around in awe because we actually do things. We go on trips, we help when we go on trips, we brought cupcakes. The para said she hasn't had a "normal parent" in so long she doesn't know how to handle it. They said they are going to be spoiled by us. It makes me sad I mean I've always been a presence in the school (Rinaldo as well) when Avery was there and now for Ian. It would seem odd to me that just because he's in special ed that I would act differently somehow.

As for this school year it's going beautifully for Ian. The teacher knows him from last year and she can't get over how much more social he is. He participates in class and does beautiful work she says. When Rinaldo mentioned recently that his teacher last year said he learned fine by rote but he didn't grasp concepts his currently teacher looked at him like he had grown two heads. She then preceded to show him all the concepts Ian not only grasps but usually grasps before anyone else in the class. He's enjoying his homework and he seems to have regained his love of learning. I'm very happy. The only problem we have is most days he cries when we leave him at school. It's not school that's the problem but the fact that his grandmother is picking him up. He doesn't want her to take care of him anymore. Since that is currently not an option we're not sure what to do. His teacher says he shakes it off when he gets to class so she's not worried about it. As I recall this was around the age when Avery wasn't fond of his grandmother either but then we had Ian so it eased up a bit. We'll just see how it plays out.

It's my favorite day of the year so as Margene said go hug a witch today...



...and get lots of candy...



Happy halloween!!

Late to the party...

So I'm a bit behind the times in posting about Rhinebeck but I blame the fact that I'm on vacation. Sunday was spent recovering, Monday was spent in LI visiting my BFF Kathleen (oh and Ann too;)). Tuesday was spend apple picking with Ian's class.

Here is my photo essay on Rhinebeck:

Favorite thing # 3 - The Fall colors:



Favorite thing # 2 - the haul

Briar Rose Fourth of July (with Shrug pattern)

Aussi Sock

Socks that Rock (yes Tisha one of them is yours...)

Fiber from Blue Moon

Merino Top from Ellen's Half Pint Farm

finally, a swift!

Favorite thing # 1 - the people
Carla

Maribel, Chante and Shameka wearing her Central Park Hoodie!

Ann, Ricki, Maribel (her again;)), Vicki

Of course I missed a ton of people. I never caught up with my favorite displaced Bronxite, Regina (sadly blogless), or Cassie and her houseguest Sigga Sif, but fun was had just the same.

A quick post over breakfast with one of my best buds Leslie (she of the cancer walk contest). Leslie is the only thing I love about these conferences.

Gina posted about her UFOs I decided to take stock myself. It's not too bad if I do say so myself:

Bob the Builder - Which will never be finished as Ian is long passed this phase.

Shapely Tank -which I really would like to finish at some point in this lifetime

Rogue - a bit of the sleeve done, that's it

Cherie Amour - we know where that is...

charade socks- that's with me on my trip.

Enjoy the rest of the week everyone. Anybody going to Rhinebeck I'll see you there!

After a whirlwind weekend of shopping and spending quality time with my cousin I did actually make some progress in the knitting department. The first Charade sock she is done:

Rinaldo was tired and sick so I choose to blame him for it looking crooked in the picture. It looked fine when I finished it. He loves it so whatever.

I also made some Cherie Amour progress while Ian was at his playgroup yesterday:


I am finally at the ribbing. Honestly it went very quickly once I got into the rhythm of it but damn it took me awhile to get the hang of it for some reason.

Tomorrow I'm off to Cleveland for a conference. Tomorrow night they are taking us to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I'm actually really excited. Thursday is meetings all day, then back on a plane home on Friday. I'm going to try to do a few posts in advance to post while I'm away. I have some goodies to show. Not knitting stuff but fun nonetheless.

By the way you should all know I've been cheating on my blog. I've started doing reviews of the show Blood Ties over at Pink Raygun. Check it out if you're interested. I should have a new one up every Saturday.

The road to hell...

I had intended to show you some Cherie Amour progress. I brought my camera took some great shots and realized I didn't have the cable. So not helpful. I am nearly ready to admit defeat on having her ready to wear for Rhinebeck but I am plugging along as though there is still hope. I had to rip out the bottom 3 times because you know how I am when it comes to yarn overs. I just like to skip them whenever possible, lol. I actually have the whole damn thing marked with stitch markers for each and every repeat so I can count that I have 12 stitches when I finish each set of stitches. Now I've gotten into the rhythm though and it's going along well. This morning I realized I was further along than I thought. I kept thinking I had to do 31 repeats of the 4 rows when in actuality it's 31 rows of the pattern. Big difference. I am on row 16. The real problem is my business trip next week. I leave Wednesday and come back Friday. Even if I take it and finish it on the trip I can't exactly block it on the plane, can I?

My cousin arrives tonight, yay! Lots of shopping and fun this weekend. Then next week will be a bit crazed. Ingileif leaves on Monday so I am taking a half day then I work Tuesday but then Wednesday is my trip, Friday I'm back and Saturday Rhinebeck baby! Thankfully the week after will be vacation so I can recover.

Since I am cable-less I will share this picture that Rinaldo took on the train. He got the biggest kick out of it:



Have a great weekend everyone!

I was very productive this weekend but not really with the knitting. I cleaned my house from top to bottom since I was having company on Sunday but the cleaning continued on Monday since my cousin is coming to stay with us next weekend.

I did at least get the first sleeve for Cherie Amour blocked:



Size-wise it blocked perfectly but lengthwise is a bit of a problem. They're about 2 inches longer but I'm not too concerned since I thought the length was a bit short anyway.

In the cleaning frenzy I decided to ball up some of my sock yarn to make it easier to store. Like my homemade swift:



I got a few done but I left the ball winder attached so I can do more, tonight.

I am nearly finished with the first Charade sock. I'm at the toe. It's odd that I didn't finish it last night since I usually can polish off a toe in an hour or so of tv watching but I was a bit out of it. Maribel's cousin died this weekend. The wake is tonight and the mass tomorrow. This was a very cool guy who was one of the first of the extended family to make me feel like I belonged. I already miss him...

I still don't really have any progress to show. I'm about to give up on my missing 9 point. I'll cast on tonight with my needlemaster 9s and switch to knitpicks when the cuff is done. I realized that time is short so my pride had to go out the window. Damned if I know what happened to it. I suspect it rolled off my desk into the garbage so that's that. I'm sure if it is still around I won't find it until I've finished the sweater so I might as well get on with it.

I am almost done with the first charade sock. I feel like I've been knitting it forever! Cara pointed out that it's taking so long because I'm not loving the pattern and she's right. I can't say why. It's a simple pattern. I like the way it's coming out. Although the yarn is quite dark so maybe it's just too boring. Who knows.

When there's nothing else to show, there's always a meme. I stole this one from Susan, because that's what she and I do, exchange memes, all the time.

Copy this list; leave in the bands you’ve seen perform live; delete the ones you haven’t, and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list. Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list. Three asterisks, etc.

I added plus signs for artists/groups I have seen multiple times.

1- Public Image Limited*
2- Motley Crue +
3- Kenny Loggins (judge not lest ye be judged it was my first concert ever)
4- Stevie Nicks +
5- Fleetwood Mac +
6- U2 +
7- Twisted Sister
8- Kiss +
9- Ratt +
10- Lita Ford
11- Poison
12- Menudo (see Kenny Loggins, Menudo was really the first, Kenny second but I don't admit that in mixed company)
13- Duran Duran +
14- Mandy Patinkin
15- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts +
16- David Lee Roth
17- Rod Stewart
18- Take 6
19- Melissa Etheridge
20- INXS +
21- Bangles
21- Ozzy Osbourne
22- Black Eyed Peas +
23- Maroon 5
24- Liz Phair
25- Whitesnake

Oddly enough I had a problem coming up with 25. The thing is I've been to a lot of concerts but I've seen my favorites over and over. There are tons of people I wished I'd seen but my tastes have always run a bit astray from my friends' so I didn't always have people to go with.

If you steal this meme, please leave a comment and let me know so I can go visit and see what you put for your 25 bands.

Have a great weekend all!

I end my contest as I began it. Dani has bestowed on me the title of:



Which I had just received from Carla back in August when I started my contest for my friend Leslie's 3 Day Walk. So here we are and I get the joy of bestowing it on 5 more people which is fantastic since it was so hard to limit it to 5 the first time around. Thanks Dani!

Being that this week was the Spin Out I think the first one is quite easy:

Cara - For spreading her enthusiasm and joy for things she loves like other people spread the common cold;) There's been Socks that Rock, Jaywalkers, miters and now she brought people together in their love of spinning. It was a fantastic event and I had a fantastic time.

Chante - I threaten to cut off our friendship constantly because I can't keep up with her creativity and productivity. Whether it's knitting two socks at once, spinning, dyeing or making stitch markers, she is a one woman creativity machine.

Risa - My co-moderator on the Knitting Blogs ring. She's also a dynamo who knocks out socks like there's no tomorrow (granted small feet help;) ). She's a great mom, talented web developer and spinner. Of course we all love lawyers who leave the dark side;)

Lisa - One of my first blog buddies. Another far more prolific knitter than I. She's a great mom and I always love the projects she makes and the colors she uses. Besides I have to love someone who has a hockey rink in her backyard in the winter. It doesn't get any better than that.

Saving the best for last because she thrives on that kind of attention:

Ann - One of the first bloggers I ever met in person and one of my dearest friends. She's raunchy and speaks her mind, obviously a kindred spirit. She also lets me hang out with the "cool kids", which is different for me! Pigs everywhere worship her as the goddess she is.

Now for the contest winner:

Amy! (who is sadly blogless)

Here is a horribly bad camera phone picture of my co-worker Andrew as he pulled her name from the bowl:

Obviously I do things in a strictly scientific fashion.

I forgot my camera on Saturday so I have to wait for Maribel to upload the pictures from her camera to get the ones I took. Hopefully I'll have them by Wednesday.

Have a great Monday everyone!

A "Duh" moment

I had two "duh" moments this week, which slowed me down considerably on my two current projects. The first one occurred on Tuesday. I'm in my office showing off my knit picks interchangeables to my co-worker. I screw off the 13 that I'm using for the sleeve of Cherie Amour and I screw on the 9 that I used for the cuff. Then I took the 9 off and put in my bag, or so I thought.

That evening at knitting group I cast off on the first sleeve and go to switch the needles so I can start the second one. Guess what? I only found one 9 tip. I haven't located the other one since. So Cherie Amour has been put on hold for the moment. It's not that I don't have other 9s, its simply the principle of it.

I picked up the charade socks so I could at least finish the first. I completed the heel flap and I started to turn the heel, when I realized that I had worked the heel flap for the original stitch count, not the up sized version that I'm making. That made me feel particularly stupid. So I ripped it out on the train last night and started again.

Since I have no progress to really show off I thought I would share some pictures. I was looking through some old pictures this morning and I found these. First up a shot of me wearing a hat and scarf my grandma made for me:


The next one is just for Susan. I know how she likes when I take a stroll down memory lane. When I was a kid my parents went to their school reunion every year. I loved it because it was a real campus (it was a boarding school for the blind)and my parents knew it like the back of their hands so I didn't have to guide them anywhere. I just roamed free. I also used to get to play with my parents' friends' seeing eye dogs. They enjoyed the freedom as much as I did. This is a shot of me with one of them:


Spin Out in Central Park tomorrow people! Hope to see you there...

I choose to blame Kathleen...

So I'm minding my own business. Scrolling through the latest issue of Knitty and IM'ing with Kathleen (yeah we're such teenagers)...and I see Cherie Amour. I literally went walking through my office to find someone to show it to. I find our new floor manager Amanda and I make her look at it, thank god I hired a knitter. I went back to my desk and continued my conversation with Kathleen. I had just lamented that Rogue was going nowhere fast when she said "it's bulky, you could get that done fast". I am usually not such a suggestible person but there I was later that night going on to Handpaintedyarn.com trying to find a color I liked and ordering it on the spot.

My trip to the post office was to pick up my package. Lookie, lookie:



The colors are far more muted than the picture appears. The flash made them almost neon but they're not even close to being that bright. I find them very autumnal.
I'm about halfway on the first sleeve. I can't lie, I'm a bit concerned that the recommended 5 skeins will not be enough and if it isn't I'm screwed since my colorway is completely gone. What can I say I was drunk with the idea of it so I foolishly didn't overbuy. My size is somewhere between a large and a 1x so if I adjust a bit that should help. Maybe, just maybe it will be ready for Rheinbeck.

I was home with Ian today since he was coughing, sneezing and his nose was running all over the place. I was inspired by Chante's makeover to do one myself, hence the new look for the blog. A nice, fresh look for autumn.

If you were my mail carrier would you know a knitter lived here?


...hey wait a minute where is this postcard from...

Do you think Old Navy hired a marketing firm to attract knitters to their stores?

LOL


Oh yeah and this came too:
I'm not always crazy about the Vogue books but I love the sock book. There are plenty of patterns that I will make and only a few I definitely won't. The history of sock knitting chapter is especially interesting.

Speaking of socks, here's where I am on the Charade socks for Rinaldo:


I started these on my new Lantern Moon Sox Stix. I really do like to knit with them. They are comforable and the fact that they are so short doesn't bother me at all. However, they are so blunt that it's a problem. This pattern requires me to pass a slip stitch over two stitches and then knit the two on the next round and it's been a bit of a chore. I think that's why they were going so slowly. I switched over to my Knit Picks metal dpns and I've picked up the pace quite a bit.

I'm hoping to go back to regular posting next week. Things are definitely dying down here. In fact I'm ditching out at 12 for lunch with Gina and then heading home to pick up Ian. We're taking a trip to the post office for a package whose contents I will share with you on Monday.

Have a great weekend!!!