Ahead

So right now I’m at a wedding in North Carolina but thanks to the genius of the new Blogger Draft’s “schedule” feature I can blog while not around to blog! Super fun.

Anyways remember when I said I was in a vortex of tulle? Right now I’m at a wedding, and last weekend I was at a bachelorette party for a different wedding. And can I just say a big thank you to all of my bridesmaids for not forcing me to do anything that involved peni in any form? No straws or hats or slippers or..... piñatas:

Yup.

The party bus/dancing was ridiculously fun, though:

I made good friends with the band after a random dude at the bar “so is the band any good or am I going to have to gouge my eyes out? Because I cannot handle any more crap music tonight after whatever that was on the bus.” His response? “I hope so, I’m in it.” Oops. But then we became buddies when I explained that the bus party mix included such awful as “Party all the Time” which really should never be mentioned unless in a clip show mocking it. He was right, thought - the band was awesome. They even played the Save Ferris version of "Come on Eileen" and noone can tear up the dance floor to that song like Jill and I. Also there was drunken swing dancing that might have been a FAIL due to neither of us knowing the “guy part”. Uh huh.

Funtimes.

As for knitting content… I’ve decided that the only way to finish up some of my unfinished projects was to lock myself in a room with them. Or take only them on a weekend trip. So the only knitting I have with me is this:

Sahara, modified to be knit out of bamboo (on rav here).

I stopped knitting this when I tried it on and realized that there were some serious issues with the sleeve sizing and I was going to have to rip and reknit. That was a year ago.

And just to leave you with some pretties – my roses are all in bloom:

So pretty!


Enjoy your weekend!

Dirty little secrets and my knitting spot.

So my plan is simple. While I’m blogging Peru and before I can touch the yarn I bought in Peru (you’ll see it in the next post which is taking for-ev-er to put together. We took a crazy amount of pictures in Cusco.), I’ve decided that I must clean out the Basket.

See the knitting at used to take over our house. Ok honestly it still does take over… but Matt used to get really annoyed about finding it everywhere (mainly on his side of the couch. He’s very territorial about the couch). But you all know how it is. The knitting does not want to be contained. It wants to roam free and multiply… But to keep my husband happy and our house organized I solved the problem with this:

The deal is that if Matt finds the knitting anywhere it’s not supposed to be (his side of the couch, kitchen table, on the stairs, all over the coffee table, on top of the microwave, on the computer chair, on the keyboard, etc.), or anywhere he doesn’t want it to be he can put it in the Basket. Totally a fair deal. I’ve also somewhat trained myself to put things I’m not working on at that moment into the Basket. Things I’m currently knitting (current is relative. The Basket is technically all “current”) usually live here:

On top of the couch cushion next to my couch spot. It’s not super neat but at least that way there is no threat of sitting on a needle and I don’t have to get up to reach my current/current project. Anyways the combo of the Basket overflowing onto the floor, not having anywhere to put my new pretty, and the thought that I should probably finish things before I start something new… well…

Let the excavation begin!

The top bag was filled with this:

Which is just yarn for knitting charity hats. That’s a totally acceptable thing to have in the Basket and doesn’t really count as something to finish up since it’s just ongoing (don’t really even usually blog about those). But in the bottom of that bag I also found a

Steelers Newborn Hat:

I completely and totally forgot about this. I knit this in an afternoon a few months ago for my husband’s childhood friend who is currently pregnant (actually, by now, she might have already had the baby). I just need to buy a card and send it.

Details Sock:

Ok this one is so very close to being done I’m not sure what my problem is. I finished it the first day we got back, but couldn’t sew up the toe b/c my tapestry needle was taken away from me in the Lima airport (Seriously. Like I’m going to cause any damage with a tapestry needle). Well I stole a needle from my mom and went to sew up the toe and realized that somehow it wasn’t centered…probably b/c I was half asleep and jetlagged while I was knitting it. So I need to rip it out the toe and reknit it. Not that big of a deal and yet it’s over 2 weeks later and I haven’t touched it.

Sahara:



Boo. Boooooo. I love the body of sweater. It fits great and is so pretty and shiny. But the arms… Booo. I have to figure out how to knit the sleeve so that it doesn’t gape at the armhole, knit it, and then rip out and reknit the bad sleeve. It’s probably not all of that much work but it just sounds so unfun.

Here and There Cables Scarf:


Oooh. This one is baaaad. It’s been in The Basket untouched since… (checks the blog)… March 1st. I love this scarf I just got bored of it. And I also want to knit a hat that matches.


Ok the next thing I can see is the Britt killing sweater and I’m not quite ready to unearth that yet…



Apparently I have issues with follow through….

Bets on if I can hold off and actually finish something without casting on for something new? Especially since there has been talk of a Thrummed Mittens Knit Along?

I wouldn’t take that bet if I were you.

Another list? Really?

K so here we go again with the long lists:

1.) This past weekend was the Feast:

One of my fav Cleveland events by far!

2.) Thank you for all of your input way back when on the Sahara Bling! I decided to go with the silvery gray bling:


But then the whole P3tog through the back loop thing derailed me for awhile. And I was totally distracted by my new boyfriend… but I finally finished knitting the neckline and blocked it out:


All that’s left now is one sleeve and to sew the neckline together!

3.) I’ve spun an entire bobbin full of the Fire:


And it’s every bit as awesome as I expected it to be.


Now I really want to ply it but I should probably spin another full bobbin before I do that…. We’ll see if that actually happens or if I just dive right into the plying.

4.) On Sunday my mom and I spent many hours turning this:




Into this:

And then finally into this:

40 jars of homegrown/homemade salsa!


I was going to try to write out a recipe – sortof like the fresh garden salsa one – but there is no point to that considering we just threw in whatever was ripe (lots of roma tomatoes and jalapeno peppers this year), tasted it until it seemed right, cooked it and canned it. Man is it good!

5.) We leave for Peru one week from today. I’m starting to go a little nutty with all of the preparation…. And I’m getting more than a little terrified about this:

That would be a section through the Inca Trail – the 4 day / 28 mile trek up to Machu Picchu. It’s going to be the hardest, most challenging, most interesting thing that we’ve ever done. On the second day of hiking we reach something called “Dead Woman’s Pass”. We will hike up to 13, 828 feet (4,215 meters) – which is only 677 feet less than the highest point in the contiguous 48 states. And I’ve had problems with altitude sickness before…. And I’m thinking it’s called “Dead Woman” for a reason… I hope I can make it!

6.) I should be able to make it because I really have been training quite a bit:

Sat. we hiked something like 6 miles with loaded packs on… Cleveland has some really beautiful and interesting natural spots - and Hinckley Reservation is one of those places:

Whipps Ledges


Matt went rock scrambling

Which really concerned Dexter.


Graffiti from 1878!

7.) And Finally… our last race of the season is this weekend – and we’re racing the best team in the entire organization – who are basically competitive rowers and not just doing the summer bar league. So if you want to see us get our asses handed to us come down to the boathouse at 10:00 tomorrow morning!

More cowbell?

Ok so I need your opinions on something…

Remember this?

(Sorry for the sucky picture... it's very gray out right now. here's a slightly better close-up:)

That would be my Sahara that I was pretty convinced was headed for disaster. Well then I Ravelry’d it and decided that if the armholes are a little large it will just come out with more of a dropped shoulder look. I can live with that. Especially since I plan on wearing a cami under this anyways. So I kept up with the knitting and now I’m at a point where I have to make a decision.
To bling or not to bling.

I knit this swatch of the ribbing for the bottom, neckline, and armholes to check out the bling/no bling situation. I knit two repeats of the pattern w/o bling, then I slipped a bead onto the knitting at the center of each pattern for two repeats:


At first I thought: Needs more cowbell. I mean you can barely even see the bling! But I was pretty married to the plan of centering the beads on the diamonds… I’m picturing neat little rows of sparkle accentuating the v of the neckline. So I think rather than adding more beads I should just use different beads.

Because really when given the choice you always gotta go with the bling.

So ok then. I know how many/where I want them… but which beads should I use?

The Original Red bling:

I think this one may be too subtle.

Shiny Gray Bling:

Getting closer…

White Bling:

I think this might be too… white…

Black Bling:

Don’t know if this is shiny enough but it could work.

Or Silvery Gray Bling:

Also getting closer…

What do you guys think?