Procrastination

So last night we both decided that it was waaaay too nice out to paint. So Matt went to the Bier Market with the boys and I had a wonderful dinner of wine and a new Rachel Ray recipe with the girls… and even a little knitting! Check it out:

Yes that would be yet another new project. And I still have both the purple bag and the adamas shawl on the needls….It’s spring. I can’t help it. This is just a little preemie hat for Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital – I think I’m going to try to crank out a bunch of these – they’re the perfect mindless bus knitting and I have the baby yarn and well… it's nice to knit for charity.

The downside to our wonderful night out is that in exactly 7 days bunch of our ‘nati friends are coming up for a weekend visit…. And our guest room looks like this:

And our living room still pretty much looks like this only now the ceiling is painted (yeah I know, BFD). We have 7 days to get it all painted and put back together! Riiiiight… it’s gonna be a busy weekend!

It’s too nice out to work….

Days like today really, really make me miss college…because back in the day on a beautiful spring day like this one we would all declare "it’s too nice out to work." Leave studio and spend the day on the porch of the APX house… there would probably be some frozen yummy drinks involved, perhaps a little frisbee, and by evening there would be a whole pile of friends coming over because we had the grill going…

Instead I need to let the little dog out and then go to work. Sigh.

Red things for Project Spectrum March

So I took pictures of all of these things before we decided to tear our house apart but didn’t get around to doing anything with them until now… aren't quick photoshop essays fun?

Other than that I really have nothing to report – a lot of painting – a little knitting – but nothing finished or blog worthy as of yet… but next week there will be much to show…

No knitting

Sorry for the complete lack of knitting content… it’s just that right now my house looks like this:

Everything is primed and ready to be painted but we still have a ton of work to do! I'll keep updating but I can't promise any good knitting content until next week when (hopefully) our house is back together.

Drunk blog!

EDIT: Right. Sorry about all the drunken rambling last night… I was just happy and well… drunk… We’ll just take most of that post down and pretend it never happened ‘k?

K so this is my first time ever posting while drunk! I’m buzzed and happy so i wanna share. We had a little meeting tonight for our rowing team. Yup I’m on a rowing team. It’s way sweet. Last year it was a ball even though I missed most of the season… and this year we’re getting our own team together – yeah if you’re reading this and wanna be on a sweet summer rowing team holler back ‘cause really the more the merrier. Holy shit I just said holler back. HA! Anyways we filled out all the forms and such and then decided that we need to go to KanZaman (on west 25) and smoke a hooka. I"ve never done that before. if youre even gonna smoke a hooka do it with Osam 'cause it's waaaay fun 'cause he chats up the owners in their language and translates all of the music for us..... Hi Osam! and KanZaman has the best hummus ever. oooh and tabooli. mmmmm. taboooli....mmmmmm....

so my head is all cloudy from the hooka smoke.... it was apple or some shit like that... i'm not a smoker at all in any way so i'm not very good at it but it's pretty cool...hookas are these big bubbly colorful things.... mmmmmm.

our boat is gonna go so fast.

i'm so embarassed...

Blog Scavanger Hunt

Nothing much to post today...stilll working on Adamas and the bag.... so I’ll just go ahead and do JenLa's Blog Scavenger Hunt that I found on Stuck on Socks and include a random dog pic.

A blog which you think people have not discovered.
Pens and Needles – I’m not sure if this blog has yet to be discovered but her writing cracks me up – especially the post about everyone having babies. And she’s knitting the adamas shawl now, too!

A blog whose author lives close to you physically:
Jillybean! She doesn’t update often :-P but she is my neigh-boor

An unusual or weird animal picture:
Stuck on Socks has the cutest picture of three dogs sitting together – I’m not sure how she got them to sit that close together and wait so happily and patiently for her to take the pic! Also Knitting and Law School? Has a great shot of her dogs relaxing together

An entry that made you laugh and got you strange looks from family or co-workers
Pretty much any entry by the Yarn Harlot is good but this one about her daughter knitting really cracked me up. I've also recently discovered Crazy Aunt Purl and she's hilarious.

An idea you wish you’d thought of:
Um… not sure… I guess I’d have to say that the Who Wouldn’t Love a Handknitted Gift knit along was a GREAT idea – I found lots of inspiration there.

Something you’d like to knit:
Well, I’d like to eventually combine loves and try knitting with beads – seeing the Odessa hat on In Knitting News is what really inspired me to want to do this.

A picture of something you consider beautiful:
Definitely the buds on Craving Cleveland or the flowers in the snow on Rundpinne.

A blog whose author you’d one day like to meet in person:

I think I’d like to meet all of the authors on my sidebar in person, actually! But I’ll single out Affiknitty –because she's just so supportive of other knitters.

A blog of someone you have already met in person:
Knit Wit Girly – hopefully I’ll be running into her a lot – at the gym gettin' physical!
And just to add a little spice to this post I’ll also link to Jay’s Blog and Joe’s Blog – I know these crazy guys from college – we were in a fraternity together. They don’t post very often anymore, though.

Indecision 2006

Ok first off – the random thin mints box was put there because "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus I wanted to see how long it would take you to notice it." I’m glad that amused everyone so much!

You can see from that photo, actually, what we’re working with as far as paint colors go. The people who used to live in our house were in med school and it’s apparent in their color choices. Very sterile and well… institutional. The green in our kitchen (in the thin mints photo) has been dubbed "puke mint" and our livingroom/diningroom is "grade school blue". Both of which are extremely depressing. And most of the rest of the house is just a shoddy, one coat of beige over everything – walls, ceiling, trim – everything. Luckily we were able to paint over the dark blue sponge paint fiasco before we moved in.

So right now we’re on a mission to eradicate the "grade school blue" and finish up repainting all of the beige areas…. Last night we put some test colors on the wall, which of course made us completely rethink everything. Ugh. We’re going to buy a couple more test cans tonight and see where that leaves us….I do love the test colors, though… for $5 you can really, really be sure of what the paint will look like on the wall in the right lighting, in a much bigger swatch than a 2" paint chip. And I suppose it’s much better to spend the time and money on it now and end up with a room that we both love – like our bedroom – than rush it and hate it.

So I’m facing Indecision 2006.

But we’re a both little OCD like that.

Here’s pics of the living room and dining room before we moved in….and yes it’s really that color in person.



And if you’re really into this redecorating thing there are more before photos on the photoblog and a whole bunch of after shots of things we’ve already re-done on this post.

Why It's Fun to Live With Matt

This morning on the way to work I noticed this:
Your guess is as good as mine....but I found it really funny and had to share.

The Calm Before the Storm

So yeah…. St. Pats was a ball but I took no pictures b/c Jill was taking lots – hopefully soon I’ll either have copies or she’ll put them up on her blog…

Then on Sat. and Sun. we just kindof hung out and relaxed. It was nice… but it’s the calm before the storm because we finally picked paint colors for our living room! What a process that was… it’s such an important space… and there are so many options… and it’s tricky because our foyer, living room, dining room, and hall are all essentially the same connected room….but I think we’re finally there…. The last step is for me to stop by Sherwin Williams tonight and pick up test cans of our final colors. Probably best to put some of the color on the wall before we invest in gallons and gallons of it! But next weekend and the weekend after that are going to be spent in a flurry of painting activity. No more grade-school blue walls for us! I’ll have lots of pictures once we get going on it…

I also made some progress on the Adamas Shawl:

That’s four pattern repeats. So yeah. I thought this bad-boy started at the point and was knit up. Um.. riiiight. Somehow it starts in the center of the back and becomes a triangle. I have no idea how this works (magic?) but wow is it cool.

Then in the spirit of being a true ADD knitter I also cast on for a felted bag… I needed something mindless to knit during It’s Not TV It’s HBO Sunday. I’ll probably add in some stripes out of the wool I dyed while in Florida. That should be nice.

But really what really needs to be blogged about during lunch on Monday is clearly the Sopranos. OHMYGOD. They can’t kill Tony!!! They just can’t! Matt is convinced he’s a goner because the Sopranos isn’t exactly the type of show to have miracles – I believe his words were "you didn’t see that guy last week hang and then Jack comes and miraculously saves him with no brain-damage or anything after being w/o oxygen for 10 min." He’s got a point. This isn’t LOST. He also thinks that this season is going to be about AJ stepping up to take the reins… but he’s only seen the first season and a half. And I can’t imagine the whiny little mamma’s boy that is AJ stepping up to do anything. But you never know… and where is Melfi? I miss Melfi. The Janice part was amazing – Matt kept saying "ok make this about yourself, c’mon really make us believe that this is about you…" And he hasn’t even seen the episode where the whole Janice/Ritchie thing works itself out in season 2! I can’t wait for him to see that episode.

Such a good show.

New Improved Sidebar for St. Pat's

So in the spirit of giving back to the blogging community I’m finally going to link to the blogs that I read on a somewhat regular basis. I’ve been meaning to do this for months now….So if you’re bored or looking for some new knitting blogs to read check out my new, improved sidebar! There are definitely more blogs that I could/should/will include so keep checking ‘cause I’ll be adding more….

Ok. I'm off to drink some whiskey and celebrate being 1/8 Irish!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY!!!

Lace Jumping

I did it. I started a lace shawl. I’m so scared and going so slowly…but I’m doing it. I’m working on the Adamas Shawl from Knitpicks – my secret pal sent me all the stuff to make it so why not. I actually started to cast on for Birch but then got distracted, read a few blogs on lace knitting, and decided that I really need to learn how to knit from a chart. And, well, with the Adamas shawl there is no choice – the directions are ONLY in chart form. So I can’t even look back at the directions for "reference". And you know what? It kind-of is starting to make sense. I understand what the chart means so far. Ok yeah I’ve had a few screw-ups… and I’m only through the first chart (20 rows)… but nothing is perfect the first time you try it….and well… I’m doing it!


Ok… I want to use lifelines – I’ve read they are the way to go with lace… so what I did was I ran a doubled up string of sewing thread through the stitches after the first chart and then just kept knitting from there. You can see it in the picture – it’s the black thread… That’s what a lifeline is right? Just an extra place to find your stitches? I hope the thread I used isn’t too skinny… but I didn’t want to use anything big or I was afraid it would make my stitches wonky… is that really a problem? I don’t really know what I’m doing here at all…. but it's fun!

***Edit: Duh. I meant to say the ADAMAS shawl not the Adams shawl. Oops... Also it was designed by Miriam Felton and you can visit her blog here.

Project Spectrum

I’ve officially joined Project Spectrum, which is a craft-along where each month of the next 6 months is devoted to a color group. So I’m going to try to knit something out of each of the colors.... Hopefully that will get me out of the habit I’m in of knitting out of the same colors over and over again. Here’s the colors:

• March - Red and Pink
• April - Orange and Yellow
• May - Green
• June - Blue
• July - Violet / Purple
• August - Neutrals / Black & White

So in honor of March here's some recent red and pink projects…..

I finished the Airy Scarf (finally)! It was really short and kind of tight. The yarn I used must have been much thicker than what the pattern calls for b/c it didn’t really look lacy at all. So I blocked it. A lot. Here’s before and after blocking:



and a close-up of it after blocking:


I also finally finished and felted this bag I made awhile ago… It’s knit out of some leftover Cascade 220 (the black) and some Patons Classic Merino that I dyed with kool-aid awhile back. It was really just an experiment – I wanted to see how dying worked… and then I really liked it so I knit a bag. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The Patons felts like a dream – even when dyed!

Before & After Felting:

I think I need to add a sparkly button or broach or something to finish it off….

Spring!!!

Check out what I found when I came home from work today:
I have crocus! I have blooms!!! I have color!!!!!

These are in my back yard… the spring bulbs that are growing in my side yard still haven’t bloomed but I’m beginning to think they are daffodils.

I also saw not one but two robins in my back yard this morning and isn’t that a sign of spring?

Bar Crawl

So this weekend Matt, Osam, Rebecca, and I took off for the ‘nati and a pre-St. Patrick’s Day bar crawl in Covington, KY. It was sooo fun because, really, drinking a ’40 in a Shell gas station parking lot is always a good idea.... as is a drunken skyline run.

It was so good to see everyone - Sarah and Alison did a great job hosting us…I miss them! And we even made some new friends with people who were also from Cleveland… goodtimes... Anyways here’s some pictures. More photos can be found on the photoblog.


The girls all dolled-up and yes, that is a fun fur scarf I'm wearing.


Riiiigh. We don’t look drunk in this pic at all.


What is Brian doing to her?


Makin’ new friends


The boys

Ok I promise I will post some actual knitting content tomorrow....

Happy 26th Birthday, Matt!!!

So yesterday was Matt’s 26th birthday. My parents took us, my brother, my grandma, her boyfriend, and Osam all out to dinner at Sakura to celebrate. We’d never been to a hibachi place before – how fun! perfect for a big group – we had our own table with our own chef… And sooo frickin’ good. Their sushi was amazing, too. We so need to go back there and just eat sushi for dinner…. Good to find a place that’s close by. Although I do love Sushi Rock it’s such an ordeal to go there anymore.

Anyways then we went back to my ‘rents for cake and presents… I had stashed his gift at the ‘rents b/c I didn’t want him to find out what I was doing for him– he’s been very suspicious since I drove to work a couple of times last week (I rarely do that) and I have been very secretive about what I’ve been doing on the internet lately. Although I made up some crap about having to go to Kmart – so he was convinced that he was getting something from Kmart…. But had no clue what it was. I also made sure that the gift was in a box so he wouldn’t know what it was right away…. And all of this totally worked. He was completely surprised. Definitely didn’t see this coming…


What could it be?


Seriously, Jeanne I have no idea what this is.


Wow.

Yup. I got him skis! Three trips to Geigers, getting on a first name basis with the sales guys, and lots and lots of internet research later Matt is the proud owner of a new pair of Nordica Hot Rod Nitrous skis and bindings. They are awesome. Really top of the line. I was soooo worried he wouldn’t like them because they are short…. A lot shorter than the 180’s he was lusting over last time we were in a ski shop together. But everything that I’ve read says that short and wide is the new way to go for all mountain skiing.. hell even atomic’s new catchphrase is something like "the next big thing is small". So I took a chance and that’s what I went with… and he loooooves them. We’re going to go get the bindings put on and stuff next week so he’ll have a chance to see what else is out there if he wants to exchange them… but I doubt he will.


So now we just have to wait 39 days until vail….

Overwhelmed Garden?

Ok so yesterday afternoon at lunch I ran over to the library to grab a quick book on lace knitting so that when I start all of these projects I have something to reference… and while I was there I thought I’d pick up a book or two on how to start a garden because I am a researcher – I like to read a lot about a project before jumping in. Um..... Ok there are like a billion books on gardening. No seriously. A Billion. On every subject related to gardening that you could possibly think of – color, flowers, roses, heirloom tomatoes, companion growing, water gardening, container gardening, guerilla gardening (WTF?), soil conditions, etc etc. Completely Overwhelmed.

So ok all I really want is these two things:

1. For my yard to look good (and by "good" I mean "not the worst one on the street")
   
2. To be able to cook and eat things I’ve grown myself (and if we’re being completely honest here I have dreams of making my own salsa straight from the garden b/c I love me some fresh salsa)

So I just grabbed Vegetable Gardening for Dummies and went on my way. Do any of you have any suggestions for any good resources that would help me out? Simple books on getting started? Basic reference for the new (a.k.a. clueless) homeowner? I would greatly appreciate it because I get the feeling I’m getting in way over my head here and I haven’t even started yet!

Best SP Ever!

Ok so I’m starting to get into the potential of this lace knitting thing… and check out what I got from my Secret Pal last night! Way to be paying attention to my blog, SP!!!


The package had in it the pattern for the Adams Shawl from Knitpicks and two skeins of Knitpicks Shadow in Sunset to make it with! How fun! She also sent me notecards that have a picture of what looks exactly like my little dog on them, some chocolates, and a great book called "Chocolate treats, Simple Sumptuous Recipes for Every Chocolate Lover." Can’t wait to try the recipe for the chocolate and amaretto cheesecake!


Thanks SP!!!!

Chili

Ok I always make chili and then love it and then wonder the next time what I did. Rather than have the “how many of this did I put in?” debate with myself I’m going to write up the recipe (or at least exactly what I just put into it this time) and post it so I always know where it is…

This is a pretty standard chili recipe though… no secret ingredients or anything interesting like that!

• Approx. 2 lbs ground beef (92% lean) (I think I used a little less than 2lbs)
• 4 small yellow onions
• A LOT of garlic (and I still didn’t use enough)
• 1 large green pepper - chopped
• 3 stalks of celery - chopped
• ½ large red pepper – chopped (first time I added this in and it was really, really good. Next time perhaps I’ll try some yellow pepper or perhaps even some jalapenos?)
• 1 can bush’s chili beans mild
• 1 can bush’s chili beans medium
• 1 can dark red kidney beans drained
• 1 can white cannonelli kidney beans drained - (I usually use light red kidney beans but they didn’t have any… the white ones tasted the same and added some color to the chili!)
• 2 cans diced tomatoes – onions and garlic flavor
• 1 can diced tomatoes – onions and green pepper flavor (I have used all varieties of canned tomatoes – I think I like using at least one can of the jalapeno ones best but this is what I happened to have on hand)
• Lots of Cumin
• Lots of Chili powder
• Lots of ground black pepper
• Little Chipolte seasoning
• Little Cayanne pepper seasoning
• Little salt

I browned the beef in one pan while sautéing the onions and garlic in olive oil in the big chili pot. Then when the beef was good and browned and the onions were nice and caramelized I added the beef to the big pot. Then I added everything else one can at a time and stirred… I kept seasoning it as it cooked b/c it takes awhile for all of the flavors to cook together. I let it simmer covered for around an hour or so… The recipe made enough for us for dinner (and Matt eats A LOT), A big tupperware to freeze (enough for dinner and leftovers for next time) and two big containers for lunches …. We’ll probably get at least 2 lunches each out of it. So yeah it serves a lot. We ate it with Kraft shredded “taco cheese mix” and crackers and tortilla chips. It's real good over rice too .

and yes I realize that chili isn't the prettiest of things to photograph but whatever...

What I've been up to.

Ok so after the fall I stopped knitting for a few days… during which time I decided that since I have a few weddings coming up I clearly need a fantabulous lace shawl to wear. Problem is that I have no clue how to knit lace… or what lace patterns are out there… or any of that. So I’m starting simple:

That would be the Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It’s knit out of the Plymouth Yarns Baby Alpaca Brush that my aunt gave me for Christmas. And I'm off to an iffy start... I screwed up immediately on the first eyelet row and tried to rip back. Riiiiight …. Apparantly fuzzy yarn likes to twist itself together as you knit making it nearly impossible to rip back because the strands are essentially spun together. So I just cut it. Whatever...I’m learning… Then on the second attempt at the eyelet row I screwed up again but didn’t notice that I had made a mistake until the next eyelet row. I forgot a Yarn Over – so I just added a stitch and moved on. I’m hoping that the difference in the width of it won’t be noticeable after blocking. You can block 80% Alpaca 20% Acrylic right?

Then I decided that I was bored of the Airy Scarf… and that it was perfect bus knitting – small, portable, and semi-mindless….. So I started this:


That would be the Branching Out scarf from Knitty. It’s described as being "easy lace". I’m knitting it out of some Andean Silk that I had and so far it’s going really well but very slow. I’m getting faster at it, though… and it is so much fun to knit… challenging enough to be very interesting. And it’s a scarf so I can’t screw up any arm joining or shaping or anything major like that. I can’t wait to finish and block it since right now it looks all bunched up:


I can totally see how lace could be addicting....

Last of the Olympic Posts

Here's what the Yarn Harlot had to say about those of us who didn't finish:

Finally, for my chosen knitters, those who did not finish... My deepest thanks and greatest satisfaction in the knitting olympics comes from you. Without trying there is no improvement or learning, without difficulty there is no striving. It was the sheer volume of knitters that gave this the incredible momentum, velocity and significance it has had for all knitters (and quite a few non-knitters who really were stunned. More than anything else this ended up being about an international community of knitters...and there are no losers at the Olympics. Even if you dropped the pattern in a puddle the first day...even if you grossly overestimated your available time, or if you got to rock a baby instead of knit...you still made the Olympics memorable. It takes a village to freak out non-knitters...and there is strength in numbers.

That makes me feel better. I'm glad I got to participate in this huge event and I am honored be a part of the international community of knitters - even if I didn't win gold.

Thanks Harlot.

I also stumbled onto the Knitting Olympics Blog and found that there are Silver and Bronze medals out there too. According to their site you need to have finished 2/3 of the project for a Silver. While I’m probably at that with the Tempting II I don’t think I deserve the Silver since I didn’t keep knitting after the fall – instead I put it away and basically just tried not to cry. So I think I’m a bronze medallist.