Project Me (6) - Atonnement spoilers.

WOW!  My last project me post was 10.04.10 that was just about a month ago.   So to try to recap.  The book I read from the 1001 list took me all month.  Part 1 was really hard to get into.  But, Angie liked the book - I have mentioned she's really smart right?  It was literally over half the book!  Once  again an over indulged spoiled little girl is the main character.  Her naivete/fantasy/assumptions change her sister,  her cousin, her father's protege and her brother's friends lives and destinies.   Part 2 was seen through the eyes of a soldier retreating across France, wounded with a fever and only partially lucid, but a great improvement over the first part.  I guess it was the triumph of love, and the determination and will to live to reach the true love made this short section necessary, as well as letting the reader catch up on what happened since Part 1 ended. Part 3 was interesting, the whole girl grows up, realizes her mistake and tries to redeem herself.  Dealing with the casualties of war also forces her to grow up in one long day as a probationary nurse.  IF it had ended there, the reader could imagine that her sister and her lover, after finding each other again live happily ever after, that perhaps while never achieving the lost closeness of sisters, there are repairs made to the relationship.  But in the final section "1999"  the girl, now an old woman, facing slow dementia due to micro-strokes is wrapping up her life's business.  You would be led to believe that the first three parts are the result of her lifelong project - a book.  But as she takes stock, we discover that the soldier - her sister's true love- dies of a blood infection, probably from his wound in France, a few weeks after she sees him and her sister.  Her sister only survives a couple of months, dying in the German bombing of London.  Her cousin, who has married her rapist, now the couple is Lord and Lady, and dedicated to charitable works.  And as the narrator heads to her own birthday party, a full circle is made, as the grand and great-grandchildren of her brother and cousins, stage the play she herself wrote at 13, that she was trying to stage with her cousins for her brother at the beginning of the book.  I don't know, it just wasn't a satisfying ending.

I also checked out Gregory Maguires new book The Next Queen of Heaven  I loved his wicked series (also just got a Lion among Men) and his fairy tale books - Mirror, Mirror and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, are 2.  But this book, happens in upstate New York, with an exceptionally obnoxious teenage girl, who just needs some sense smacked into her.  I got about 50 pages in and decided that live was just too short to deal with another book with an obnoxious girl. So I closed the book and returned it to the library.

I was going to go for my semi-annual hair cut (annual this time, I missed the spring and then it was getting too close to summer - I live in fear  of not being able to put my hair in a ponytail/bun)  but some things came up and now I have to reschedule.   If and when I finally get around to it, don't worry you'll get to see it.  It is tough, because I hate blowdrying - and let's face it I leave my house at 330 am- so it really isn't happening  well - ever!  So the cut has to work with the way my hair wants to fall.  

I did find a new nail polish - I am totally in love!!  It is red ( painted a streak on a piece of paper towel because it was hard to tell) but so dark red that it just about looks black.  And there is a ton of glitter in it so it almost glows in the sunlight.  Of course when I went to take a picture it was hard to find the right light, but here's the best I could do:





They look almost brown here, sigh maybe I'll get a better picture this week!


I went to grace's daughter's a couple Saturday night's ago, to a Lia Sophia jewelry party.  I did get Angie something which for obvious reasons I can't tell you about until after Christmas.  It was kind of fun - haven't seen her husband Tom for a long time (he installs carpet,so when we agree and she doesn't, we chalk it up to carpet fumes)  and I only briefly met her daughter once.   And it was just kind of different from my usual Sat night, with my usual suspects.

I went to lunch at Mara's (local coffee roaster, dessert shop, cafe) with Grace last week.  I picked her up/ broke her out!  LOL!  We had the best pumpkin spinach quiches ever!  She was good and had a salad ( she's lost over 40 pounds since last spring - way to go Gracie!)  Me, I indulged and had a New England Clam Chowder and spiced hot caramel cider.  It was fun catching up. (and she listens to me whine about work, and about Braun's not sending C etc without complaint, and I think she's actually able to follow my jerky, disconnected, ADD  random trains of thought!

Temple annoyed me, they said they didn't receive a tuition payment, and weren't going to let Angie register for next semester, and for some reason we couldn't pull up the image on the computer so Curt had to go to the bank and straighten everything out.  Angie is doing well so far in her classes, she's feeling the work load, but all the time management skills she has from her HS days are serving her well and she's staying on top of everything.  She had a bad cold and since a lot of people in her dorm were coming down with strep, she got checked out, but no strep thank goodness. I sent her a care package with microwave chicken soup cups, zinc/ecchinacea drops, airborne, a lot of hand sanitizer (she did start out with   several large bottles in August, but just to be safe) and I made her some homemade chocolate chip scones with red/white colored sugar on top ( Temple's colors).

She has been keeping up with politics on campus.  She went to MSNBCs Chris Matthew's show broadcasting from the Temple campus, a few days later Bill Clinton was there, and Saturday she gave up the football game (the Owls won without her) to see President Obama on campus.

Quick Knitting Updates

I finally finished sock 1 of my Kaffe fasset ribbed socks. They look kind of funny w/o a foot in them. Kind of like clown socks long and skinny. They look better with a foot in them, but I don't want to take a pic with a foot and stretch it out, this way I can make sure the socks end up matching. So for now here is the pic:



I don't think I will get to start sock 2 until the end of the month or beginning of July. The "bonus points" deadline for my next VJGC afghan is 6.22, Monday. Not really sure if this is going to happen. I need 12 squares. I have 7 finished squares, 1 partial. So I need 4 1/2 squares. I need to crochet a border around all the squares and then seam them together. I'm not sure if I'll be able to accomplish this, but for now, I'm going to try. I'm going to bring the partial square to work tomorrow to work on at lunch. I have to hit the laundromat after work so I'll get some in there. Tomorrow night is my daughter's spring track banquet. I don't think I'll get anything done there. Wednesday, if I get my carpet truck early enough, is knit group at Mara's, so if I'm not sure if I'll bring a mindless square or a hook to work on the borders.

Once I get this 'ghan either mailed off or come to the realization that it won't happen , I am in a swap on Ravelry. It is the beach square swap I mentioned last week. I have to make a beach bag and 3 beach themed squares to mail out by June 30th. SO starting Monday, i'll bring the bag to work, to work on during lunch because it's quick and mindless. Then I can knock out the squares, 2 nites per square and have plenty of time.

Until these 2 get sent out, I won't be casting on my second sock. I am also waiting for my stuff to start my rain drop (blood drop) shawl. I'm really excited about that, but thatis it's own post

here's 4 more squares:

Rough Week!

Ok, I'm having a rather rough week this week. I finally finished the thumbs on my short fingerless mitts - no pics. I got halfway through Grace's Irish Tea Cozy and realized that I either knit with a deathgrip or she knits so loose I'm surprised her needles don't fall out. ( not insulting you Gracie just amazed we are so off guage wise) So I see that my cozy isn't even close to the size of her cozy, and after trying it on the pot - it may have fit my cup! So I frogged out up to the end of the ribbbing - I decided a tighter ribbing around the bottom was a good thing, since I was knitting a handle openning and spout hole into my cozy ( I don't see why you should take the cozy off everytime you want to pour a cup). I went up to size 9dpn's still kinda tight on the pot after two cable repeats. So I ended up with size 10 dpn's ( her pattern calls for a 16"cable which I don't have in 10's and I could work a longer cable by pulling the excess through but that was too much work. AnywAy, the actual cozy is done working on shamrocks now, but it still is 1/2 the size - srsly, her's would work as a hat I think. mine I don't think will fit an 8 cup pot. I am thinking about makng 2 shamrocks, seaming them together and stuffing them and attaching it instead of the pompom on top of the cozy. Not sure yet. I am also looking through my doodads - I am pretty sure I have a shamrock button somewhere. I may make a little loop and sew a button on to hold the 2 pieces by the handle together. no pics yet.


I haven't touched my socks since Friday and I forget to mark where I was on the pattern- so we'll see if I can figure it out. I want to do ruth's scarf - but I'm still not 100% on which yarn I want to ball up. I was torn between abby and ice queen for my silky merino cowl/smoke ring. After careful consideration and the fact that ice queen is written for lace weight , I think I will be doing the abby.

I missed knitting group today :( my carpet truck's 9am appt didn't START unloading him until 10:30 because they had the only guy with a license to the carpet boom in the office for 2 hours!! And they had 3 deliveries worth of carpet rolls!! He still had 2 mom and pops. he was so late to the next store the guy who unloads him there went to lunch. Sigh. he got to my store over 2 hours late ( which technically is 1/2 an hour early, but kills my day) So I worked 11 1/2 hours! So now I HAVE OVER 5 HOURS OF OVERTIME! So I guess I'll leave early tomorrow, go in late on Friday ... I was really looking forward to knitting too! I wanted to ask Grace about my tea cozy also.

Fill-in's stolen from Grace

Stole this from Grace's Blog today:

Friday Fill-Ins And...here we go!

1. I'm __ cute___, I'm __annoying___, I ___flirt a lot__.

2. Why do I have __brains___ and not __beauty___.

3. How does this _ life____ work, anyway?

4. Every morning, I put __deodorant__ on my __armpits___.

5. I consider myself lucky because __I was born in the USA___.

6. One day we’ll see _a Republican Female President____.


Rainy evening. Was really nice out this moring. met with my knitting friends this afternoon. We have decided that we need a name. grace suggested knaughty knitters. hee hee hee. well we know that would describe me anyway!

DaNGERS OF RAVELRY

I realized a couple of months ago that Ravelry ( the knitting site/community) was cutting seriously into my actual knitting time. As I have over 5000 posts in just over a year, that averaged out to about 360 a month. The most dangerous were the word games ( word association, scrabble etc) So I ignored those threads and in the last 30 days I posted 218 times. I'm good with that - everything in moderation after all. You can really tell that the race season is starting up can't you? 156 of my posts 71% are in the three race groups I'm in. I haven't quite figured out what that actually says about me. Or that most of the 19 posts in the MCNJK group revolve around us working out the date of our next knitting group meeting at Mara's - which gives me my caffeine fix as well. Sigh.

Knitted Flower Project

So here are my finished flowers for The Knitted Flower Project.  I made them all out of my scrap bag of cotton yarn ( Peaches N Creme, Sugar N Creme, Lion Cotton etc)  mostly leftovers from various dishcloth projects.  I did notice in a few of the pictures that had been posted that the flowers were kinda floppy like and I wanted mine to be more structured and shaped.  So I used size 4 needles (metal yeah really) as I am a tight knitter to begin with ( I almost always have to go up a needle size to achieve gauge) I created a very stiff fabric that stands up.  The orange/yellow, yellow white/green, pink/white center were created because I ran out of the little bit I was using and added another piece.  I think my favorite is the yellow, white and green.  I like the green where it would attach to a stem. I have to stop by Mara's this week  to pick up a package of coffee to complete my valentine's day swap which is supposed to be mailed out by Thursday, so I will mail out my flowers at the same time.  

Happy Knitting!

Two Thousand and Mine!

Ok, not that kind of mine! Here it is the middle of January already and I have never explained my two thousand and mine theme. It was inspired by my friend Grace who was calling January - Meuary. ( By the way grace if you are reading this - let me know how that is coming) She was going to work on knit projects for her to actually use, and projects that she wanted to make, not just because she should or someone asked for something. The problem with that is shwe can knock out a killer shawl ( designing a killer shawl I should say) and have a sweater done in a couple of days. Me, not so fast. And not just because I chase my daughter around and work 45 hours a week. I'm just a slow knitter, with some form of ADD that bounces me between way to many projects to finish anything quickly. So Meuary won't work. I do have to go back to the joy/zen of knitting though. In the fall (2008) I found myself with way to many ongoing projects with deadlines. And knitting became work - guilt crept in - I should be working on x right now.

So, after a lot of thought ( if you guys haven't figured it out by now I do way, way , way too much thinking) I came up with Two Thousand and Mine. It ties in closely with my " BE THE BEAR" theme. Be the Bear is a lot harder than it seems. I come home some days and tell my husband that I lost the bear by 430 am. Other days are a "Fozzie" day! Back to 2000mine. I want to enjoy this year. It is the last full calander year before Angie goes to college, and I want to enjoy her. Too many things have become "work" and "must do's" and "shoulds".

Starting with knitting. I am going to knit things for me. I have a bunch of sock yarn just waiting to become socks. I love having handmade socks on my feet. I made a stole for me. I made 2 felted bags. I am currently making nightinggale gloves for me. I am working on an off-season afghan for VJGC. but not exclusively. it should be done in time, but if it isn't it's not going to be the end of the world. I am going to make more for the regular season, but only one at a time and not to the point of only being able to work on them. I am not going to knit with yarn that I don't like or that annoys me. ( no more boucle) And if I don't like the pattern, I am going to frog without remorse. I am not saying I won't be knitting for anyone else. (I don't actually wear a lot of knits) But only if I love the yarn, love the pattern and knitting it makes me happy.

I have also decided that I need to do things, for me, because I want to. I am not currently sure what those things are or if curt and angie can tag along. The only thing I do for just me right now is my Mara's knitting group. I have a lot of fun eating, having coffee, laughing, talking ( sometimes even actually knitting) The only other thing that is "just me" is my nail appt. every other thursday. (although angie tags along when she's not in school) I rarely if ever wear makeup, jewelry is really a hazard at work, I wear mostly jeans , t shirts or turtlenecks with sneakers boots or crocs, don't always have a purse with me and that's all good. Without my nails looking good I don't feel like a girl. I can't even flirt properly if one gets broken. (fortunately - knock on wood - in 18 3/4 years I've only broken 2 nails at work, both when someone else dropped something)

That's all I have for now, I will update randomly when the mood strikes ME!

Knitting updates

I have been hinting at Grace (blog) from Mara's knitting group (needles54 on Ravelry check her projects out) that her January tea cozy should be a snowman. She has designed a Halloween. and Christmas tree cozy as well. So when we got together on Thursday she had not only designed the cozy- she gave it to me as well!!! Is it not the cutest?? She also took my Noro stole to ask her husband Tom to block. Knitting group was great this week. All 4 of us were there. Sandy and Jacqui brought some knitting books and magazines to check out and just a lot of cathartic talking.

So here is the afghan square I worked up the 14 for Tony's new car number



And the checkered flag square



Today I have been working on the pink anklets I started before Christmas. Curt picked up some size 2 bamboo clovers from ac moore for me. I slammed one needle in the car door and stepped on one, so I needed enough for 2 socks. I use 4 plus the working needle so I need 10- I only had 8. I want to start on a pair of breeze cable anklets from knitty this week.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Felting updates

I needed a new bag in red - since Tony went from orange to red. So using the trusty Amanda's squatty bag from knitting daily I added in the black V.



I was going to use a black and white button, but when I was in Michael's today I saw some really beautiful red/black/white glass pendant beads. So I guess it depends on how big the loop felts up.


I also redid the dumpling bag from Fall 2008 Interweave knits. I didn't have the yarn called for, but I went with 2 stands of cascade 220 and one strand of lion wool. I also went up one needle size to 15. I used some thick shell rings that I really hope survive the felting process. To echo the 49er colors, I made the viney thing in goldenrod.



I was also going to through some white on as well, but while having coffee and dessert at Mara's with Grace this afternoon, I had expressed my concern that it would turn pink. She suggested I try the yarns in hot water together before felting. So I took the little snips of red and black out of the garbage and nuked them for 1 minute with some hot water and a piece of the white yarn




As you can see it did turn pink. A pretty shade of pink, but pink none the less. Pink - while appropriate on a Dallas Cowboy inspired bag, is not appropriate on a 49er bag. So I pulled out all the white, and will come back and make white french knots after the felting has dried.


Yes, I went to Mara's and had the most wonderful hazelnut mousse cake you can imagine. With what has quickly evolved into my favorite Mara's drink a large Cafe Dulce.. Yum. As usual I was late, and forgot to bring actual knitting. Grace was working on what I assumed would be a shawl in Noro sock. The way the colors were working together with 2 strands together was wonderful. i especially liked when the purple started lining up with the gold, gorgeous. I just love Noro's colorways, and Grace can make a gorgeous shawl out of twine I think.

Curt went out bowling, and Angel had been out with her fencing friends. I think after 7 days together ( ok Angie has been in and out with practice and a tournament and hanging with her friends) we just needed an afternoon away from each other! currently Angie is putting everything away in her room after "THE PAINT JOB" Before and after pictures will be posted probably this weekend.

Off to Shop Rite for ingredients for New Year's Eve. I'm looking at it as I survived 2008 yay! 2009 has just got to be better... right? ....... right?

More Knitting

Bulky mitt #1 - courtesy of grace's pattern - check out needles54 on Ravelry for it. The only issue I had was that when seeming the yarn pulled apart, so I had to start with another piece. Now I need to make another one. They are for my friend Denise, who works in receiving and is always freezing. I keep telling her fingerless gloves will keep her a bit warmer and she can still use her fingers. Of course she's freezing when it's in the 50's so I don't know how helpful they'll be.




I started this square for my off-season Victory Junction Gang Camp afghan. It was coming out an 8 inch square, so I frogged it. i then started over a few times, but when I went up enough needle sizes, it seems to thin. So now I'm using size 10 needles and doubling the yarn - Red Heart Designer Sport in Lemon Zest. I am now a little over halfway on the new square, but no picture yet. My friend, BrenMichelle on Ravelry has designed squares with most of the NASCAR numbers on her blog woodhilldesignknits.blogger.com, check them out. This is the 43 for my daughter's favorite driver Bobby LaBonte (who of course, just announced he is leaving the 43 team) I pm'd her the other day to see if she is going to be making patterns for the 14 and the 39 ( Tony's teams) and she plans on having them up in January, so I can add them to the afghan. I am debating between the 11 and the 26 for my purple square, I'll do the 39(army) in green, the 14 (tony) in Red, a new Bobby square - 41 in red also (Target will be his new sponsor)



These are the favors Grace gave out at her get together on Monday. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Grace remembers watching me pick off the onions on my salad every week, since I always forget to say no onions, and she made her salad onion free! Such a sweetheart!

Swap

I am actually posting this forward, just in case Bex reads my blog. I'm in a Christmas exchange for my Go Fast Knit Left (Nascar) group on Ravelry. Now I know I said no more swaps until after the new year, but I didn't have to knit anything so I went for it. unfortunately, I think on purpose on Min's part (the person setting it up) I got a Jimmie Johnson fan! Ugghh- that meant I had to go and buy something Jimmie Johnson ish. So I ended up buying a Christmas Ornament with Johnson and the 48 hood. I also got her a pound of holiday blend from Mara's - the coffee/dessert/now food place where my knitting group meets. They roast their own coffees and they are delicious. My favorite is mandeling ( can't spell it but can drink it) but they had none so I went with the Holiday blend. I also sent a bar of Jersey Girl chocolate (dark - it has antioxidants so it's healthy right?) and a skein of Classic Elite yarns Alpaca Sox. The sending yarn part was hard - the woman owns a yarn store. Truthfully I was going to try to find some handdyed in blue/purple but I forgot and ran out of time. But it is blue/purple her favorite colors so hopefully she likes it.





I put everything in individual zip loc bags, then wrapped the box in wrapping paper, then wrapped that in shopping bags and put it in another box, wrapped that in a brown bag (there was all kinds of printing on the box I found) taped the address labels on and taped the entire box. this box can fall in the ocean and not get the insides wet! i was also really paranoid about the packaging being compromised, so even thought the address is taped on, inside the first box is a postcard with her address, and inside the wrapped box is a Christmas card with her address on the envelope.

A very gray, dreary rainy day. Blah. A good day to be at work ( can't do anything fun anyway) but would have been a better nap day! I'm so glad inventory is over i can't even tell you... but post inventory audits are going to take me over a week! it's funny all the rest of the people are all relaxed, its over etc. etc. The 5 of us are actually busier for the next 10 working days. (If you think I;m happy to see the carpet truck on a regular Wednesday you should have seen me today ;) On the bright side hardware is getting easier, I'm starting to figure things out.

Today, yes December 10th, my store manager finally signed off on my vacation for the end of the month. ( I only gave it to him in august - and the only thing seniority is good for in this company is if there is a vacation conflict, so i win HAA) So from DECEMBER 23 to JAN 5 I'll be on vacation!!! YAY!! ( I can never quit my job- I'm only a year and a half away from 5 weeks a year) Right now I have 4 weeks, I usually take the last week in dec. A week in Feb, a week in April and a week in July.

Due to the large number of hours I have already worked, I am only working from 4 am to 7am tomorrow, Yay! My plan is to take my mom out to breakfast, she lives a few miles from where i work. By the time we're done and I get back near home, the mall should be open for some Christmas shopping. Then in the afternoon, I'm meeting my knitting friends. ( I haven't knit at all in the last few days)

It's supposed to rain tomorrow also, as long as it doesn't get icy/sleety. I'd rather snow than sleet. quickly ducks to avoid everyone around here throwing stuff at me for mentioning the s word!

noro shawl

Ok, maybe if I had swatched I wouldn't have frogged 5 times - different needles, different number of stitches. Maybe if i had actually read the directions I wouldn't have had to frog it the 6th time.



So when I got to around here I realized there is no way in heck I have enough yarn for this. This was all that was left at this point of the first skein



So that's when i read the label and realized there was only about 200yds to a skein,. I don't know why I thought it was 400ish. Of course I then also realized I didn't think it would be enough to do the shawl even if it was 400. So I had to pm grace (needles54) who is the most amazing shawl knitter, and ask. She says it is going to get bigger when wet blocking and I only need 2 more skeins, 3 if i want to do a crocheted border. I'm not sure yet. not that I don't trust her really, I'm waiting to get to the end of the skein. I figure since the 2 ends meet I'll use the same lot on the 2 ends and the 3 or 4 new ones in the middle. I really like how it seems to work out that every color change has it's own pattern repeat



Then - yes this is seriously masochistic of me, I was considering trying to line up the color breaks on the new skeins so the center part has wider stripes - like to end up 3 patterns per color, by knitting 3 skeins at once. (I'm trying to picture it in my head - boththe finished project and the difficulty in bringing 2 yarns up the side )

So my plan is to finish with the skein I'm on and then bring it in to Mara's with me on Friday so Grace can give me an in person opinion ( see it's not grace I don't trust it's my photo abilities)

Ria

Knitting updates

Over the weekend I finished the unpurled hat (will be making an unpurled cowl to match)



I also have been working on the hidden in my sock shoe



I met up with Grace at Mara's this afternoon. I am utterly exhausted, but
I just needed to get with someone who would listen to me whine.
(PS please say a prayer for her friend's daughter who has some serious issues) She brought the 3 hanks of yarn she wound into cakes for me. yay!

I wandered through the whole liquor store looking for wine to bring my sister in law for thanksgiving. I got Billy Goat Shiraz. It is really an inside joke for my father in law who keeps threatening to buy a bunch of goats to marry her off.

Feeling slightly more upbeat today at work, although not hugely motivated to do a lot. Had no trucks to play with, so had to do my actual job. I did have some overtime so I got to leave half an hour early, YAY! Two of my friends (both guys) finally were able to help me resolve my hurt feelings and make up with Curt ( and they say women are the complicated creatures!) so I am definitely happier on that front.

Went to meet with my Ravelry knitting friends in Denville. Had some yummy new england clam chowder ( a cold rainy day today) and a turtle cappucino. definitely had some fun although the "F" aura kicked in and Grace who just complimented a fellow customer on a sweater go the whole story of just about every sweater this lady ever owned, and a story about a scandanavian woman who used to fix them. Wish I could just veg tonight, but Angie has a fencing lessona half hour away (good thing me and curt are getting along again - he'll keep me company ant least) hopefully he'lldrive - I really want a nap!


Don't forget to come back tomorrow for the start of my ravelversary blog contest! (still trying to figure out the details)

Caffeine is my shepherd
I shall not doze
It maketh me to wake in green pastures
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses
It restoreth my buzz
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness
For its name’s sake Yea,
though I walk through the valley of
The shadow of addiction
I will fear no equal
For thou art with me
Thy milk and thy sugar
They comfort me
Thou preparest a carafe before me
In the presence of Thy Starbucks
Thou anointest my day with pep
My cup runneth over
Surely richness and taste
Shall follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the house of Mocha Forever
Amen


I am reprinting this from the caffeine addicts forum on Ravelry. She got it from a friends blog. (photo courtesy of flickr commons)

I've been terrible about posting this week - my apologies to everyone. I figure I'd put in the hymn of caffeine to commemorate my afternoon at Mara's with my Ravelry knitting group. Jacqui and Marygo missed it ( I swear we will one day get Jacqui and Grace together!) Sandy and Grace were there. I had the most amazing salad and soup for lunch while I was there. After debating a while I did decide to bring Curt some peach pie from Mara's.

Quick check in

First the most important news - Tony won! Tony won! Woo Hoo Tony Won!! A bit of controversy at the end but Tony won!!

Unfortunately, the 49ers gave away the game, especially 3rd quarter they were actively trying to lose.

Of course, the Cowboys won .... sigh.... Makes Carl and Moe way to happy ( Ok - haven't seen Carl this week :( yet so I'm just assuming...) And the fact that Jeff Gordon crashed early in the race will balance out some of their happiness ( why oh why do I keep making friends with Cowboy fans and Jeffie fans?)

Last night I went to Carmen's son's 8 year old tackle football team. I forgot how small 8 year olds are. He was more amusing to watch than the kids. His Raiders won 13 - 0 . There were some good passes from the Hornets, but they never managed to make anything of it. One pass on the Raiders side, the ball hit the kids hands, bounced on his chest hit the facemask then fell to the ground. i thought Carmen was going to have a stroke. The littlest kid was the biggest nut.

Today, I met up with some of my knitting friends at Mara's. Grace had some suggestions for a possible shawl. I have to think about it. I had a great spinach and portabella quiche, but forgot to ask for no onions on the salad and had to pick them out, yes that is a way to impress people huh?

Tomorrow I have to meet with the executive board of the fencing boosters ( sounds impressive hee hee hee hee) at applebees since we screwed up and scheduled the last meeting for the first night of Rosh Hasshanah ( can't spell) so kind of coincidentally it's the night of Yom Kippur, but it's only the board and none of us are Jewish. Thursday, it's Lauren's to get my nails done and hopefully the farmers market. Some week, It will be a miracle if I get any knitting done at all.

Presents

Since Angie couldn't come to the race on Sunday with us, I bought her a t-shirt and got a bunch of drivers to sign it, including Dexter Bean, Ricky Stenthouse Jr, frank Kimmel, Andy Lally, J. Lofton, James Hilton etc.





On Tuesday, I went to Mara's to meet Grace for dessert. Angie came after she conducted her "business" at the bank - depositing her confirmation money. It was Grace's birthday, and I had remembered she said something about stitch markers on her blog a few weeks ago. So I looked in my boxes of beads ( beading just not happening with my nails, but stitch markers I can do) and made these up:

Tuesday

Noro Taiyo it was Noro Taiyo! I couldn't remember the name of this yarn I was telling Sandy and Grace about this afternoon! It's a bulky weight wool/silk/cotton yarn. I really hate that!! When I can actually see it all except for the name on the label.
So yes, I met up with Grace and Sandy at Mara's. The other 2 people who had expressed interest couldn't make it this week. We had fun. I had a slice of apple caramel cheesecake that was absolutely sinful. And a wonderful cafe latte. Grace was working on a gorgeous piece of lace. Sandy was working on a sweater that she is going to steek. I think there is a reason steek rhymes with EEEK! I am definitely not ready for that yet. But the colors she picked out look wonderful together. I worked more on the ripple 'ghan. I'm almost to the next white stripe. yay!

When I went to Ace over the weekend to get the webbing, I also picked up some more toggles in their craft section so stay tuned for more stitch markers. I have a bunch of alphabet beads so I am sort of vacillating between knitting words (knit, purl, ssk, don't think i have numbers for k2tog) or names ( angel, maria, etc) OR maybe I'll use red and black beads and make SMOKE!

Knitting Updates

It's been crazy but here are my knitting updates and promised pictures. Above is the pair of flip flop "fittens" (foot mittens) I made up the pattern because my daughter likes to wear flip flops even when there is snow on the ground. I'm still not really happy with the bindoff on the big toe, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied with how they came out. I have discovered that it is hard to take a decent picture of a sock that is on your own foot, so you really don't see the split well.
This is the start of the lace anklet that I'm making with the yarn Sandy from Ravelry gave me. It is my first attempt at a toe up sock and it is going well so far. Of course the proof will be in the heel but I have a ways to go yet.
This is the promised picture of the yarn Sandy gave me ( one skein of the blue is not in the picture as it is already in use on the anklet) I'm going to use black sock yarn on the toes and ankles so I can make a pair of anklets out of the yellow/black skein. And I'm not quite sure what my daughter wants out of the purpley roll, but she loves the colors. (If you're reading this thanks again Sandy!)
I posted a picture of the package I sent Sherry M from my MSN knitting and crochet group. This is the package I got from her in the exchange. 2 bags, 2 hang over a knob towelish things, and a granny square. As well as a postcard and magnet from Chicago.

I am in another exchange on the Caffeine Addicts group on Ravelry. I need to stop by Mara's to get some coffee. I also need to pick up some yarn to send. My partner likes green and black, not my normal colors so it will be a bit challenging to find a yarn to send. We are also supposed to send stitch markers and a small knit/crocheted item. I am going to send a market bag ( not green and black I just can't work with those colors!) and I am trying to make stitch markers. I have a bunch of beading supplies from my brief foray into beading and it will put them to good use. If I can't make them come out good, while I am shopping for yarn I will have to pick some up at the yarn store.