5.5.2010

Baby DMC's first time @ the Elbow Room, our local hangout of choice.



Matt & I at Sissy's wedding


Please ignore the fact that I desperately need some lipstick!!!

Baby items are taking over our house and our lives!


Zen Knitting with Eco wool and garter stitch:


Pre-Natal Vitamins are doing AMAZING things for my fingernails


And quiet nights at home with Katy

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34 Weeks. Less than 6 weeks to go. O. M. G.

The Schuyler Blanket Project

I am so ridiculously behind on this blog, and for no good reason. It seems I always get the 'blogging blahs' in September - it's probably my busiest time at work, but other than that I have no explanation.

But what motivated me here today was to talk about a wonderful group I've gotten involved with over on Ravelry called the The Schuyler Blanket Project. I've long been a much better blog READER than a blog COMMENTER, and I read a lot of people's blogs that don't know I read them. However, when I read about the ordeal that Tammany at Opera Yarns went through, it left a very dull, empty feeling inside of me. Matt and I are really hoping to start a family soon and I couldn't even imagine going through what she and her husband have dealt with over the last couple months.

She's now spearheading the efforts over at The Schuyler Blanket Project, which "creates blankets for other bereaved families and to provide them with comfort and love". I've been lagging in my knitting motivation, but I've found great joy in working on squares for this wonderful project.

If you are on Ravelry, check it out.

An Embarssasingly Long-Overdue FO

That title says it all.



According to Ravelry, I started this thing in May 2008. In other words, it took me 14 months to knit 590 yards of yarn. That's ridiculous, really.

Ballet Camisole by Alexandra Virgiel
Size
38 inch bust
Needle
US 5 / 3.75 mm
US 7 / 4.5 mm
Yarn
Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
How much?
5.5 skeins = 599.5 yards (548.2m)



As you may remember the knitting on this was pretty quick, it was the finishing that defeated me. Since I was being stubborn, I threw this in a basket for over a year, refusing to try again. Well finally I got my head out of my a*s and finished it.

TA-DA!

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So check out my nice little setup for our dinner party on Saturday. That black&white cloth is from the bargain bin at Forever 21. I bought it as a neckerchief but it was too big, so now it protects my table from that big silver bowl.



One of the perks to being married to a farmer (at least in his youth) is the abundance of fresh fruit we get from his parents this time of year.



Grilled peaches are my new favorite.

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.

In Which I Never Thought I Would Wear "I LOVE LA" Attire...

We were up at our cabin this weekend, with much to celebrate. First off, my DH landed a big account at work that he had been going after pretty aggressively. I am so happy for him, considering I haven't seen him that giddy since, oh, our wedding day.



And to top that, the Lakers won AND he got me to wear my very own "We love LA" shirt (PS - this still feels like cheating on SF to me!)



I even broke out the Manresa Leg Warmers.



Alas, there was a crazy thunderstorm on Saturday so we couldn't go outside and enjoy the view (it's actually been storm central around here. Check out these AMAZING photos that a local photographer caught. The bottom photo was actually taken at night!)

We did, however, manage to change out of our PJ's and actually shower so we could head to a nice dinner at the Narrow Gauge Inn (Highly recommended if you are ever in the Yosemite Area - A little over-priced but the food and service was great)

Lots of knitting was accomplished, but only one FO to share.


Click for bigger

Claudia by MJ Kim
Elsebeth Lavold Silky Cashmere, 3 hanks
Size 4&6 needles
Raveled

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Katy loves Fish Camp!

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PS - To Answer Lisa's question from the last post, here's the tat:


My foot on the right

My friend Kaci came up with it, based on a Hopi symbol. We refer to these matching tattoos as the "Tequila Laced with Pride Incident of 2006"

5.7.09

Noro Shawl:



Cashmere Claudia:



This is for M's grandma. Those cables are killing my hands, but I know she will really appreciate it. I was trying to get it done by Mother's Day, but last night I had to rip out back to the ribbing and start over (I changed needle size too soon). I WOULD have been 50% done as of this morning, but now I'm back to 25%.

Both of these should be farther along, but I've been feeling like crap all this week. Pretty sure both me and the hubby are getting sick, given the fact that our alarm went off this morning at the usual time and we both agreed we could have used about another 6 hours.

09.02.08

What a freaking weekend. It was nice and long, oh yes, but with very much packed in. Friday night Matt and I had a nice little date night, complete with mucho vino. Saturday we bummed around and did little jobs here and there around the house - then ate Gyros and Yogurt Salad on TV trays while watching this awesome Rock Doc on VH1. I stayed true to my word to try and finish up these loooooooong overdue projects and made significant progress on my used-to-be-Marilyns-NSSC.

I've abandoned the pattern and am going for a longer, swingy-er version.

Then on Sunday we got up super early and headed down to Santa Monica for a friend's wedding.

I've never been to a Chinese wedding before, and I was super impressed by this:

Coolness.

So through a series of events, we wound up meeting my sister at the Four Seasons, which completed the LA Experience. I drank ridiculously expenive wine while Matt drank Scotch and smoked a cigar. And rocked the aviators. Till 3am.

What a smokin' hot husband I have.

FINALLY, on Monday we dragged ourselves out of the SUPER comfy bed at 8:00am so we could get back to the 'No and watch the Bulldogs take on Rutgers on our home turf. Luckily we won so we didn't have to regret speeding down the 99 fwy at 11am for nothing.

So now it's Tuesday, I have a million things going on at work, Aunt Flo decided to visit today, and I am EX-HAUST-ED. Someone send the pity police.

The end.

Summer Retreat

My new favorite knitting spot. Those zero-gravity chairs are AWESOMELY comfortable. (My only complaint is I have to wait until about 7pm for it to be comfortable outside, even WITH the misters going full blast. )

Perfect with a glass of wine and Tom Petty on the radio.


AHHHHHHH......

PS - How the EFF is it July already????

6.4.08

First off, regarding the Ballet Bashing, I pretty much know what I need to do but I am being whiny about it. The increases and decreases I did on the front are what the problem are, so I need to rip them out and re-do them with cast-off/cast on so it's cleaner when I do the single crochet. Someday, but for now:



The work continues on the baby cardi for my husbands friends.



Loving on the macro feature. Yummy, yummy Blue Sky Organic Cotton.

I also found some new yarn that looked interesting at Joann's yesterday: NaturallyCaron.Com Spa, an acrylic-bamboo blend.



I bought 8 balls for 35$. It's also more of a grey (or gray? I can never remember) color than these photos represent.



It's super-soft and has a cabled texture to it. I'm thinking maybe BPT Cardigan or the Central Park Hoodie. I'm too lazy to link those but a quick Google search should suffice.

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Finally, I only took like three photos from our SF trip this weekend, and one this is one of them:



Way to go Delia, take a photo of the scoreboard when your team is getting their as*es handed to them (it's 4-NADA if you can't see it in the photo).

Peace out and Happy Hump Day!

5.29.08

It's Thursday and I'm still on my 3-day weekend hangover. Not a literal hangover from too much wine (although there was a fair amount consumed, none-the-less), but the joy of sleeping and lounging and house fixer-upping that makes coming back to work HARD. But yes, there was celebrating because nothing says "Memorial Day" like:



Yes, the BBQ was on Sunday night, but this was at 1am. And yes, our husbands are 30 (or almost there). Beer pong apparently isn't age discriminant.

In other news that doesn't involve drinking: I am currently LOATHING my Ballet Cami

All the knitting and seaming is done, and it fits, but I can't find an edging that I like AT ALL. Single Crochet looks messy. Pick-up and Bind-off gives a weird seam. I've seriously tried about 15 times and finally just threw it across the room before stamping off to bed. It has defeated me.

However, the hubby asked me to start a project, and how can you say no to that? A good friend of his just had a baby, and he said I should make a little cardi. DUH. I'm obviously a little slow here because I ALWAYS seize the opportunity to make Baby Cardis!



Basic top-down seamless based on f. pea's Super Natural Stripes pattern, with Blue Sky Organic Cotton. I love kiddo sweaters because of the instant gratification. I started it yesterday while I was monitoring the Hole-in-One competition at the Faculty-Staff golf tourney, and am already plugging through the body. Awesome.

So April Showers bring May Heatwaves?

Today is our first day of summer hours at the U [we move from 8-5 to 7-3:30 so all the power generators don't burn up in the summer trying to keep this place cool], and MAN am I not happy to be awake this early. On top of that, it is hot as SIN here in F-No, with tempatures over 100 degrees for FOUR straight days in a row. I think it's like 75 degrees right now. In May. What the EFF is going on here?!?

Yesterday we had a record high (103), and we may do it again today (I've heard as high as 106 is predicted). Oye.

Luckily we were out of town and didn't have to deal with most of it, but it was still pretty toasty in SB. I was forced to abandoned all wool for this:


[Please excuse the less-than-stellar photograph]

The Ballet Camisole from the site formerly known as Magknits. In Cascade Pima Cotton, size 4 & 6 needles. This is my progress after 3 days - not too bad! I think it should be done by Memorial Day.

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Other stuff from the weekend:

Osyter Love, at Brophy Brothers SB:


Our Girls are FINALLY getting along:


AND

I'm bringing back the Sunday Dinner Party:

[oh how I enjoy my beloved fiestaware]



I can't begin to tell you how good this dish was. I started with the recipe Chili-Garlic Shrimp from Cooking Light. I made Bulgar Pilaf instead of Brown Rice, doubled the amount of lemon & bay leaf, and added an extra T. of butter (something I NEVER do, but oh man, did it make that sauce good). Served with a Crisp Chardonnay and Green Salad w/ Champagne Vinegarette. Yumminess.

Queued

These are the top 6 items in my Ravelry Queue:



I have the yarn for ALL of them (as soon as the tax-return shipment for some Cascade Pima Tencel and Eco-Wool arrives from webs.com) and I am having a MAJOR case of startitis. This is bad.

The Blouson and Ballet Tee are going to no-brainers as soon as it get hot as sin here in the Valley (about 1.5 months from now), but I need to resist those others. Currently I'm knitting as much as I can on the Watery Cardi (Sesame II) while I can still handle 100% wool. She is coming along pretty quick - I've got a front and almost 2 sleeves done thanks to the cabin weekend (more on that tomorrow). Marilyn's NSSC is to a point where it's become a couch-only knit, so progress on that is slow.

Knitting time has been hampered significantly because I'm on my yearly Spring diet, which blows. I make no effort to hide how much I despise depriving myself of anything, but I've just felt so tired and icky the last few months that it needed to be done.I always feel great after working out, but given how busy we are there's very little spare time and something has to go (since it's pretty challenging to knit on a stationary bike. I may have tried it once or twice). And right now, I've gotta ride this motivation for all it's worth.

Oh but don't worry, the nightly glass of wine is still a part of this diet. I realized a couple years ago there was no way in hell I could give it up.

Poetic

Oh Felted Tweed...



How do I love thee?

3.28.08

So the big day came and went a little more quickly than usual... to be honest, I was just a little overwhelmed of having so much attention on ME (with the wedding, and all). It was a quiet little evening filled with my favorite things: My husband, an awesome bottle of wine, a fabulous dinner, and knitting. Just perfect.

So here's to 28 years. No denying that I've definitely entered my "late twenties".

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As for the knitting, I am thisclose to finishing Cobblestone, but it's too big to lug around anymore and is saved for couch or car knitting only.

I needed a new project. I started Marilyn's NSS Cardigan, in some cursed Silky Tweed (seriously, I've started and ripped out about 3 cardigans with it). Hopefully the fact that I am following a pattern AND using the recommended yarn, this stuff will finally get off my shelf.

However, I realize it's going to be 85 degrees+ around here any day now, so I want something "summery". In some yarn that's very "drapey". I'm thinking the Ballet Camisole or Summertime Tunic. Any other pattern ideas?

3.17.08

LOVE WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

I highly recommend this show if you are in Vegas anytime soon. Made me fall in love with the boys all over again. Major kudos to my hubby for such a great birthday gift!

The rest of the trip was really fun - the weather was awesome, I did some shopping, Matt didn't lose too much money, and there was Patron.


I love Patron.

And didn't have too hard of a time getting out of bed this morning.

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I finished another sweater, but these photos aren't that great.


Black A-Line Jacket // DROPS Design
Size Large
Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, Doubled, in Coal - 14 balls
Size 11 + 9 needles.
Raveled

I love it, but it's hard to photograph black in the AM with no natural light, so my new Beatles Tee-Shirt got the honors. Will try for a better one later this week.

Cobblestone is plugging away - I didn't get as much done this weekend as I wanted to, but only because I wasn't taking the chance of doing math when mas tequila had been consumed. So here she sits:

I've got 12 days to finish this. Send some love, people.

The lack of Cobblestone knitting yielded this:

I started that when I got on the plane, and finished it on the car home from the airport. If you're doing the math, I did NOT finish this in 50 minutes, we just had that long of a delay sitting on the runway.


I just discovered my camera has a marco feature. Who knew.