Breathing Life Into Dead Ambitions

A couple days ago I got this renewed commitment to finish all these half-completed projects taking up room in my WIP basket.

First up was Glorious Colors Afghan, which (for those of you non-ravelers... DAD) is a giant afghan, that I not-so-intelligently started in June. 2 years ago. And knit one of the three panels before saying ENOUGH to sitting under a blanket in the Fresno summer. I was home sick and had a serious case of the chills, so I figured it was a good as time as ever to start up again. I knit the entire 2nd panel in one day, and now it's 1,000 degrees again and I don't want to touch the 3rd one. At least it was progress.

Next up was the Ballet Camisole that I started last May, knit up in a few days, then through a hissy-fit because I couldn't do the finishing to my liking. It took me awhile, and I'm still not 100% happy, but at least I finished it.



I'm now working on a pair of socks that, thanks to about 30 minutes of searching my blog archive, have a start date sometime back in the fall of 2005. Luckily I remembered the needle size, but I don't know what pattern I used or any other nonsense like that. So I am eyeballing the finished sock and hoping for the best.



I'm also still working on Buttercup, AKA the apparent "it" pattern of Summer 2009.



I was unsure if the neckline was going to be too big so I did the finishing on it and it’s MUCH better. Be sure you pick up the cast on stitches, not the row below, or it will be too big.

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In cooking, I made a delish salad last night I wanted to share.

Marinated Shrimp and Scallop Salad with Capers



Per my usual changes, I cut the oil in half and added more vinegar (we like TANGY in this house), and added some blanched asparagus on the side. YUMMY.

Proof Positive the Needles are Still Moving

Glorious Colors ain't so glorious yet. I can work on this for exactly 1.6 minutes before my hands start to sweat. I have no one to blame but myself.

I also didn't get nearly as much done this weekend as I thought I would. Glee started like this:



and ended like this:



I'll spare you from squinting. The bottom is finished, as is one neck band, and the one sleeve is about 2 inches away. Stellar, I know.

Something Blue

Thank you ALL for the congrats. It's still not real - he surprised the freaking hell out of me. Wedding mania has gone into full swing because we are insane and going to try and plan a 350+ person wedding in 6 months (We are Armenian and Italian, so the guest list gets long, FAST). My previously-married friends have shared a wealth of knowledge (and books! My lord there are a lot of wedding publications out there!), so away we go. All we know so far is 1) it is going to be a traditional Armenian ceremony, 2) it will be in February.



I promise not to inudate this blog with wedding stuff but it is pretty darn exciting for the moment. Does anyone have a suggestion of "something blue" to knit? I was thinking a dainty little hanky knit w/ Alpaca Cloud on size 0 needles, that I can tuck into the dress and use during the day. Any others?

To distract myself, I started the Glorious Colors Afghan because it is huge and mindless. I also picked up the Summer version of Knit.1 @ Joanns after passing over it a few times, and I noticed some designs that I hadn't before (you have to keep refreshing the page to see new designs). The knit dress would ROCK in wool/alpaca for late fall, the little yellow cami is perfect for the beach this summer, and the short-sleeve blouson is just plain Kay-UTE!

Now I have to get into work mode. So hard right now!!!!

There's Hope For My Garden!

Look, I made a tomato!

I cannot tell you how awesome this is for me since I killed everything in my garden last year (well, so did the solid week of 110 degree weather, but I probably could have saved them).

It was very yummy. One tomato doesn't go very far on a salad, but it was a very ceremonious (is that a word?) experience.

So last night I dragged Matt to two different craft stores looking for the yarn to make this:

It is the Glorious Colors Afghan from a Lion Brand Catalog I got awhile back. I recently picked it up again and fell in mad, mad love. So much so that I basically designed the spare bedroom/craft room around it. The yarn is Jiffy, knit doubled on size 17 needles. The perfect project for a 100-degree F-No summer.

However I'd like to give Lion a swift kick in the gnads because apparently 1/2 the colors required are not available in store and I cannot take advantage of Joann's $1.99 sale.

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Speaking of the house, internal walls are up!