Yarn Bath.

I have finished plying the Fire Fiber. Just in time for Project Spectrum’s fire month, actually! Funny that. So yesterday to really finish it nicely I gave it all a bath:


Which worked really well to floof it out (yes that is a technical term).


I don’t have any good pictures of the finished yarn yet – it was swaying around too much to get a decent shot:

But stay tuned because it’s frickin’ beautiful. I’m sure an obscene amount of pictures will follow once it’s dry.

Also? Don’t soak yarn that you’re not completely sure is colorfast in your tub:

Uh huh. I was able to scrub all of the pink out eventually but still… using the tub in our bathroom and not the utility sink in our basement was not my brightest of moments. Eh.

In other knitting related news – I finished Juilet!

I just need to block it and decide on the button situation…


Other than that there hasn’t been much knitting going around over here. Lots of Life happening at the moment. We’re back in the mode of either going out of town or having out of town guests every single weekend. Add to that a lot of work crazy and there’s not much room for anything else… It’s all good though. The knitting will still be there when things calm down!

Congrats to Mark and Sarah!

So last weekend we went down to Cincinnati to throw an engagement party for our friends Sarah and Mark:

the happy couple.

I wanted to take a walk around UC’s campus and photograph some of the new stuff that’s gone on since I graduated waaaaay back in 2004 but sadly there was no time. I did, however, remember to bring my camera to the party because I wanted to get some nice group shots of my friends. Right. One martini in and I relinquished control of the camera to Osam. Which means instead I have pictures like this:




Heh. There are even more over on the flickr site.

We did manage to get at least one group shot of one of the tables:

Starting in the center going around - Lori Beth, Amy, Matt, Brian, Jason, Osam, Mike, Sarah (the bride!), Alyson, Me.

So that’s nice.

It was a really fun weekend. Great to see everyone again. And I’m so happy for Sarah – she was one of my bridesmaids and my roommate for about 90% of the time that we were engaged. She listened, agonized over swatches, gave me her honest opinion when I needed it, and helped to throw us a beautiful shower. But most importantly she was completely supportive and just ridiculously happy for us and thrilled to be a part of it all.

In short she was everything a bridesmaid should be:

If you're looking for crafting content - I made the necklace she's wearing.

I’m so very thrilled that I get to return the favor! Even if it means wearing bright pink taffeta. Actually I believe my exact (possibly martini fueled) thoughts were “I’ll wear a $900 neon green garbage bag if you want me to!” Let’s hope she doesn’t hold me to that.

(although I completely deserve it if she makes me wear dyed shoes)

Glass and Snow

So this weekend we took a little mini-vaca to our rival to the east to visit my husband’s brother. Don’t get me wrong – I like Pittsburgh. I even supported Matt’s team and wore black and gold when they were in the superbowl. But I’m still a Cleveland girl and they are still our rival.

One of the main reasons for this trip was to see the Chihuly exhibit at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. I’ve wanted to go for months now. He is one of my absolute favorite artists and not just because I have a thing for the Bellagio. I also happen to have a thing for Venice.

We decided to go Friday night so that we could see Chihuly Nights (same exhibit, different lighting).

It was so interesting


And beautiful


And surprising


And so very worth every second of the 2 and a half hour drive.

I love how the sculptures fit with the plantings and mimic the shapes around them:


And become a part of them as well:


The free standing pieces were spectacular:



As well as the full room instillations.


Each area has a completely different feel:

From the glowing tumbleweeds – which are visible from pretty far outside of the conservatory:


To the glass spheres and boat:


To the floating chandiliers:


I think my favorite pieces, though were these:

They are outside in the Japanese tea garden and appear to be jumping out of the icy koi pond:

Simply breathtaking.

After we took a few goofy pictures


And a posed picture:

I had a little time to play with my 50mm lens:



Experimenting with framing, and depth of field.

If you are anywhere within driving distance of this exhibit I highly recommend going – and going soon. It only runs through Feb. 24th. But if you can’t see it in person there are even more pictures (believe it or not) here on my flickr site.

From there we went to Redbeard's Mountain Resort & Yacht Club – a little dive type bar up on Mount Washington – for dinner and a few drinks before calling it a night. And yes, I did make the bartender switch the TV to the X-games. Heh.

The next morning we left bright and early for Seven Springs to get our ski on.

The mountain is divided into a front face and a north face – the front being closest to the lodge… Yeah. It was super-crowded. Everyone must be taking advantage of all of this snow! So we hung out mainly on the North Face which has some nice views:

Joel and Ellen were experimenting with the whole snowboard thing (Joel is a skier, Ellen is new to both) so we only stayed with them for a couple of runs…

Matt “helped” Joel get down the hill faster.

Heh.

By the time the front faced closed and the lights were coming on for the night ski we were all pretty tired. So we headed back to Joel’s place where he made us a tasty taco dinner

And we spent the rest of the evening playing Guitar Hero III

The guys were really into it. Ellen and I both liked to play but weren’t nearly competitive about it. We figured out that “pride and joy” is the funnest thing to play ever and just rocked that like 3 times in a row – and one time this happened:

Our scores are one point apart. I don’t think we could do that if we tried.

And since I don’t think I’ve ever had a cat on the blog here’s a picture of Apollo:

She liked me because I talked to her. A lot.

All in all it was a very fun weekend!!!

Random.

I’m exhausted from a weekend trip and it’s Monday so I’m just going to post some random before I do the weekend recap.

1.) Although Dexter’s Twin on YouTube is pretty fun I thought this was hil-ar-ious:


2.) I’m sure everyone knows that Lost is coming back on Thursday. I swore that if they killed of Charlie the show was Dead To Me and we all know how that went down …. On the other hand Sawyer is still pretty hot. Might be worth it just to watch him.

3.) Today is the 50th anniversary of the best toy ever. I was able to visit the original Legoland in Denmark on my study abroad. Apparantly part of the interview process for getting to work at LEGO is that they lock you in a room with a pile of LEGO’s and see what you come up with. I would rock that portion of the interview.

4.) Who the hell let this happen:

New Kids On the Block Stage a Comeback

Yup. They are getting back together. And while I may have swooned over my life-sized poster of Joey while pledging to battle to the death in the who’s cuter Joey vs. Jordan battle showing my unending loyalty by writing “I heart Joey” all over my trapper keeper in hot pink pen I got over all of that once I moved up to the 6th grade. Also I don’t think New Kids on the Block is still an appropriate name…

5.) So I think that the dining scene in Cleveland is pretty outstanding. It's good to see Chicago has realized this fact. And can I just tell you how hip I feel that I was at the Velvet Tango Room - which is listed in that article as a "must for any visitor" last weekend?

6.) I have an obscene amount of the Xgames DVR’d from this weekend (ironic that I was actually out skiing instead of watching the skiing.) I love the X games. Love. And the coverage is just so refreshing – where else do announcers say things like “me likey!” or after a spectacular wipeout “give that dude a round of applause for even trying that!” Plus stuff like this happens:

That guy jumped over a 30' canyon. On skiis. Backwards. Everything about that is awesome. I'm going to go watch the highlights of this years games now...

Fire keeps me warm

So I’m finished spinning the fire fiber.

Well not completely. I still have to ply it all.

And yes, I took A LOT of pictures (believe it or not there are even more on flickr).

But it’s not every day I get to see this much handspun – 1lb 3oz - in one place!

Plus I’m pretty proud. This was my first big spinning project. When it’s done I should have quite a bit of yarn - I have no idea exactly how much but hopefully a lot.

It’s not the most perfect or even but plyed it’s around a worseted/aran weight.

Which leaves me lots of possibilities … Perhaps stripes in a sweater?

Perhaps a Clapotis?

Perhaps something a little more lacy?

Not sure what I’ll use it for yet but I’m sure I want a pattern that will show off the yarn!

(Because in case you can't tell I seriously love this yarn.)