Gone Baby Gone

So I’ve been gone awhile. Don’t really have any reason other than I kinda wasn’t feeling the blogging so much. Life just sped up there for awhile and I didn’t have time to catch up. So some goings on…

1.) Another rockband party:

Always funtimes.

2.) A new fav hangout – that I have no pics of (wait. Carolyn did. Rock.)– is the Prosperity Social Club.
Fantastic Gouda burger and games? Flawless. We seem to be defaulting to there lately as a group... And even though I suck at Scrabble it’s super fun to watch Matt and Jessica duke it out. Oh and you have try their sweet potato fries. Amazingly tasty.

3.) Speaking of Carolyn – she had us over to Andy’s place for fondue a few weeks ago. I’d never been to a fondue party before!
Very fun. And I got to prove that while I suck at Scrabble I am the Queen of Monopoly.
The dogs with Matt after he realized that the trade he just made me was a FAIL. Sorry, buddy.

4.) We went out for an extravagant sushi dinner for Andy and Matt’s birthdays:
Pacific East is amazing but pricy – worth it for good sushi but def. a special occasion type of a place for us. It's also way better than Sushi Rock in my opinion.

5.) A good friend of mine got engaged:

CONGRATS to Jill and Matt! Also this means that I’m in 2 weddings in the next year.

So I’ve been sucked into a complete Vortex of Tulle. And I just have to say that while wedding dress shopping is super fun it’s way funner when you’re not the one who has to get naked in front of strangers. WAY funner.

Also fun about wedding dress shopping? The 3 pitchers of margaritas.

a healthy amount of snark…
And a mariachi band with white shoes. Heh.
5.) Knitters fantasy was fun. I’ve been knitting charity hats for them for the past few weeks and ended up donating 5... and my mom donated a whole pile of them, too. I have nothing but crap for pictures b/c I forgot to take them until we were in the car on the way there.


And yes that is fun fur. And no it's not 2005. They're hats for kids. Someone will like it.

I took a class on knitting in the round on two circular needles from Queen Kahuna her self. It was a good class but I’m not totally sold on the technique – only because I knit socks because they are portable and knitting them 2 at a time doesn’t seem as portable. I'm a one at a time on double pointed needles kind of a girl. I may give it a try with my next pair, though!

I also took a class on a gansey sampler hat which was good… here’s a pic of the hat:

and of the twisted ribbing:

Wasn’t much instruction in the class b/c there wasn’t really much necessary. The pattern is nice, though!

Oh and I put on my evaluation form that I would be interested in possibly teaching a class next year… so we’ll see.

6.) I celebrated the end to Malabrigo March by immediately buying more malabrigo and starting a shrug:



What can I say. I had a gift certificate that was going to expire and no direction…

That and I can't seem to break the mmmalabrigo habit. But, really. Can you blame me?

I think that it will be a good spring layering piece, though. Oh yeah – this is the Two Tone Ribbed Shrug from Fitted Knits (Ravelry link). Very spring.

7.) Just for some random who else out there loved Sweet Valley High? C’mon. You know you did. Although the fashion updates make me sad inside (as does telling teenagers that they need to be a "perfect size 4" shudder.) if they also re-released the board game I’m not going to pretend I wouldn’t buy it. And they better not mess with the Babysitter’s Club. Claudia’s crazy outfits made those books. I’m just sayin’.

Edited to Add*******

I found the blog about the Babysitter’s Club!!! Holy crap! Thanks, Jacki for the link:

What Claudia Wore.

Best Idea Ever. Almost as good as a belt with feathers on it. Ouch.

So I think that’s about it. Hopefully I’ll get back into the blogging thing again soon!

Blue Monday

So yesterday, Monday, January 21 was officially the Most Depressing Day of the Year. No seriously. Psychologists have figured out that the combo of credit cards from Christmas being due, failed New Years Resolutions, and bad weather with no end in sight make this the saddest day possible.

So instead of being depressed how about a list of 11 things that are making me happy?

1.) Wearing handknits. Currently I have on both my Wicked and my Thuja almost knee socks. Nothing is more warming than handknits!

2.) This picture:

Dexter looks so very ferocious! But in truth he was just yawning between naps:

So not ferocious at all. The fun part here is that he is wearing the sweater I knit for him. He loves it now. No, really. I take it out and he gets all excited and he totally lets us put it on him w/o biting or complaining at all. I think he’s realized the association between sweater and warm. The poor little guy gets all shivery when it’s this cold out.

3.) I finished spinning the fire fiber - all that's left is to ply it. And yes I took eleven million photographs of it. But I think they deserve their own post.

4.) Recreational Basketball leagues:


Well really that’s something that’s making Matt happy but if he’s happy I’m happy, right?

5.) Crockpot dinners. I made a full chicken with veggies and potatoes and all sorts of good stuff on Sunday. The leftovers are just awesome (and are heating up for dinner right now!).

6.) I found this on YouTube:


Man I loved this show. Sadly I couldn’t find the Hunting for Muppets sketch. But $240 of Pudding? Goodstuff.

7.) Friends who also knit and will reasuure me that yes, Juilet looks good, and yes, I should finish it. Even if Matt was laughing at me when I tried it on.

8.) New Yarn. I’ll post pics of what I bought on Saturday soon - I may have to bust out the ghetto lightbox tonight to make that happen, though... how long until the sun comes back?

9.) The most relaxing weekend ever. We did nothing. No really. NOTHING. It was so great. We haven’t done nothing in for-ev-er. Literally every night (not just every weekend but every night) in December was booked solid. I think we had out of town guest something like 5 out of 7 weekends? And that bled into January. It was so nice to have a weekend to just hang out and not worry about being anywhere/doing anything/getting ready for anything.

10.) Stranded Mittens. The one thing I did this weekend was knit alot of this:

So very amusing.

And pretty.

Also? Those would be in progress pictures - meaning I'm keeping resolution #5.

11.) Surviving the most Depressing Day of the Year. Because if yesterday was the worst than 2008 can only get better from here, right!

Ghetto Lightbox Fun

So I don’t usually so Work in Progress Wednesday but while I had the “lightbox” set up I took some pics of what was handy… here’s what I’ve been working on lately:

Mmmmmmalabrigo Irish Hiking Scarf:

About half way done. Love it.

Back to School U-neck:

So not done in time for Thanksgiving. Not even close. The front has been re-done, though and it fits. I love me some short row bust darts – those plus the vertical ones incorporated in the pattern and my boobs have a very custom made home.

Swirl Socks:


These have been my traveling sock for a while now. I cast on for them back on our mini-vaca to Detroit in July. Since we (finally) have no travel plans for awhile – until January at least – I’ve bumped them up to my daily bus knitting.

In other knitting related news - tonight I’m teaching my brother’s girlfriend how to knit! I don’t think he’s super-thrilled about it but we don’t care. He’ll realize how awesome it is to have a knitter for a significant other once she bribes him with some new handknits. Andy really appreciates the handknits:


I reused that photo from this post waaaaay back in Dec. 2005.

And also - I just wanted to give a shout out to Detroit. It rules. And not just because Kristin lives there. Like Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Milwaukee and many others it's a wonderful and interesting city with an unnecessarily bad rap. I hate it when people (or "studies") judge a city by reputation and not by actually going there and experiencing it. Yeah for the Rust Belt!!!

D’oh.

Yup. I got distracted by the Malabrigo:


See I ‘effed up the short rows on the Back to School U-Neck and I’m going to have to rip some of it out... which I obviously couldn’t do while watching the premier of Project Runway (how come I didn’t know about that show until this season? It’s awesome!) So I did a little sketching and figuring and hopefully these will match my Mod Cables Hat perfectly.

Oh and since someone asked … yes, the hat is on Ravelry – Here’s the link. And can I just tell you guys how very, very excited I am that I’m now listed as a designer on Ravelry?

Ok if I put the mitten down now I totally could still have a cute new vest to wear to Thanksgiving dinner….It’s still possible… unlikely but possible...

Fast as fast can be

So last Thursday I cast on for the Back to School U-Neck (or on Ravelry) I’ve wanted to make for awhile:


Super-fast knit! I’m already to the waffle stitch part!



And it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing but work on this… To sum up or weekend: furniture shop, clear out the yard for winter, housewarming party, hangover, Panini’s for the big game (serious bummer right there - good thing my fantasy team won - that takes the edge off of it a little bit), grandparents for Sunday dinner. It was super-busy with not much of the knitting.

And yet somehow I’m already halfway done:



I think this proves that if I concentrate on one project and don’t let the malabrigio distract me I can make noticeable progress. Funny that.

Anyways now that I’ve said it’s a quick knit I have a feeling the rest of it is going to take for-ev-er… especially since I plan on adding short row bust shaping in addition to the vertical darts in the front. I have no idea how this is going to work with the waffle pattern but can’t be that hard to work around b/c 2 of the 3 rows are just knit. There’s got to be a way to do it…

Think there is any chance of me finishing by Thanksgiving?