Wascally Wabbit

Last night after Spanish class (where by the way, I love my new teacher -- He is completely AWESOME) instead of blocking my Manos Sweater, I decided to cast on for the Lovable Toys Rabbit from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I'm not sure what I love more, the yarn Jessica helped me pick out for this project or the project itself! The yarn is from Cottage Industry and is Pure Luxury Organic Peruvian Alpaca which translates to scrumptious!



Now I can’t wait to get home tonight and finish up this little guy. He’s so cute!

This morning Terri Schiavo died after a grueling 15 year legal battle over her well-being. I won't use this place to voice my opinion on the situation but I will use it to encourage others to set up a Health Care Directive. I've had one drawn up along with a Power of Attorney which provides appropriate family members with my wishes. This is a fairly simple thing to do and one I think is vitally necessary, no matter what age you are. In the end you will be providing your love ones with guidance should the unthinkable happen.

Running out of good titles this week!

Last night after working out hard core (HARD CORE!), I met a friend for coffee at Starbucks and then headed home to watch the two hour Amazing Race. I love that show! I just love it and I am so cheering for Rob and Amber. In many ways, Rob reminds me of my brother so I like him and his devious ways!

The two hour show also provided me with the opportunity to finish knitting my Manos Sweater. The hardest part was matching up the two sides of the V-neck.



Once I got them even, with many recounts of rows and many re-measurements, I bound off and sat back to admire my work.



Here is a close-up of the matching V-neck sides (please do not burst my bubble and point out if they are uneven, I'm happy right now)



So while I know I still need to block and seam this sweater, I'm so very pleased to have the knitting complete! Tonight, after Spanish class, the blocking it will begin!

P.S. Shout out to my Aunt! Hi Lorraine :)

Serafina Knitting

Each March, Seattle restaurants take part in a "25 for $25" promotion. The prix-fix menu allows people throughout the Seattle area to visit restaurants they might not otherwise be able to afford. Last night a group of us met up at Serafina. The food was delicious! I started with a goat cheese appetizer which was wrapped in grape leaves. Meg had never tried goat cheese so I introduced her to this wonderful cheese. She liked it! I then had the pork entrée and finished with a huckleberry torta. All of it was wonderful! The waiter wasn't my favorite but the company was delightful and more than made up for the waiter. It was a fun evening bringing together friends from all avenues of my life (though to be honest, the idea was Mot's!) and even more wonderful was that they are all now becoming fast friends.

After filling my belly with wonderful food, I headed home to work on the Manos sweater. It was then that I discovered that I am an IDIOT! I was happily knitting along on the front of the sweater BUT I was following the wrong directions. I was following the directions for the back of the sweater! So I ripped back six inches and started the V-neck shaping on the front of the sweater.



In light of this new set-back, I have revised my knitting goals and now expect to have this sweater completed by the end of the week. The V-neck shaping is going well but will take me a little bit longer than a few rows of St St. I just need to keep up the great knitting time.

I must take the time now to rave about this pattern! Taken from the "Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits", the Weekend Hooded Sweatshirt has clear, concise directions. My only complaint would be the sizing for this pattern! Their large appears to be about a size 10 which isn't very large. I upsized the pattern and so far it appears to be on track. I’m using one of my favorite sweaters as a guide line.

P.S. I've had to be smarter than Blogger today! I created this post in Word and have cut and pasted until it posted. Frustrating!

Sweater Accomplishment

It appears I'm on a finishing frenzy! I'm THIS (fingers pressed together) close to finishing my Manos Sweater.



I hope to finish knitting up the last 5 inches tonight and let the blocking fun begin! I only see one potential issue:



There appears to be some areas of the sleeves that are lighter than the other parts of the sweater. I'm going to block the sweater and then re-assess the situation before I make any changes. Comments and suggestions are welcome though!

In a twist of irony, it rained all weekend but this morning the sun appeared, brightly shining and clear. *HISS*

Book Club



Last night my book club meet at the Hi-Life in Ballard for a discussion of "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck. I also love meeting up with these ladies and as usual the discussion was wonderful.

The meal was also wonderful. I had the Winter Vegetables plate which included roasted carrots, turnips, fingerlings (these are potatoes and not fingers as I tried to convince everyone!), polenta and a whole artichoke! Emily was nice enough to show me how to properly eat an artichoke since I haven't had a whole one in years!

Once we were done eating, we began discussing what our next book would be. Cathy was the one selected to choose the book this month and she selected "The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad. I've heard wonderful things about this book and am very excited about this selection.

Something to FINALLY show for my efforts!



On Monday night, I went to the Purlygirls meeting and knit to my heart's content. There was some sadness when Jessica ripped out part of her Retro Prep but otherwise I got some good knittin' in! Then I left and picked Mot up at the airport before returning home to knit some more before bed. That is when I saw the saddness -- there was a HUGE hole in the sweater about 3 inches back. HOW was this possible!?! I checked to see if there was a dropped stitch. No dropped stitch. Was there a yarn over? Nope, negative to that. Then I noticed the hole had two yarn ends around it. Had the yarn broken? I remembered that there had been a "knot" in the yarn when I was knitting but that I decided to ignore it. Well the "knot" decided that it wanted attention and came apart! So I too had to rip on Monday night.

Last night I knit though and now I have about 7 inches of the front of my Manos Sweater done.



In 7 more inches, I start the armholes. Then I finish the front! Block all the pieces and sew it up! Yep, SEW it up and wear this thing everywear until my sweat from wearing a wool sweater in the summer months begins to felt the sweater. Yep, that's my plan!

Last night I also worked a tiny bit on my Mariah sleeves.



Must finish Manos sweater before working on more Mariah....I also need to start Rogue so that Kim doesn't hunt me down!

Peeving

When I woke up this morning, I had great plans for this post! I was going to show you a picture of my Dulaan Mitten.



And talk about how one is pink with black stripes while the other will be black with pink stripes and how that is not necessarily due to my great designing skills but instead due to the amount of yarn I had for this project.

BUT then the daily commute hit. Every morning I check the local TV station for "point to point" drive times. This information is provided to the broadcast stations by the Department of Transportation and can also be found on their website. So today I checked it right before I left and my commute time was supposedly 18 minutes. GREAT! I'll take the freeway then, I thought. I have two routes I can take to work, one is the freeway and it can be quicker if traffic isn't a snarl. The other route is a consistent 32 minutes, rain or shine, traffic or no traffic. It is always 32 minutes. BUT then I entered the freeway where there is another "point to point" travel time sign above the road. This one had a vastly different travel time! It said 28 MINUTES! Needless to say my planned 20 minute commute turned into a 45 minute commute. Humphhh!

Commuting is one of my peeves! That and people who don't know how to properly park in parking spaces but that can be left for another day.

Instead, let's move back to happier subjects, the Dulaan Mitten. I think it looks pretty darn cool (no, now is not the time to disagree with me!) and I can't wait to see what it's faternal twin will look like.

In other happier subjects, please take note of the right sidebar where I have updated Destiny's photo. I took this one with my fancy new camera phone and caught her in the perfect yawn! Now I'm just waiting to catch her in a hiss which shouldn't be hard since she hisses every other second.

Berry-ness



After much adu, I finally finished the Baby Tart Hat and matching booties. I made modifications though. I *just* couldn't do the bobbles, they slowly became the damn bobbles so therefore, I changed the main hat pattern to seed stitch. This meant I quickly finished the hat, therefore no longer calling it the Damn Bobble Hat. It is now known as the Cutest Berry Hat EVER!

And as a side note, Momma M strikes again! I picked up Mot from the airport last night and I found her on the curb with this sign!



I only wish I had been quick enough to have my camera with me! I was laughing so hard! The best and most ironic part was that I had just come from my PurlyGirls meeting!

Ahhhh, knitting.....

Dulaan Knits

This weekend in Seattle was rainy and stormy but a spot of sunshine was provided by Ryan and Mary. Saturday was the Dulaan Knit-In at Mary's house. Fun was had by all and TMK's Chocolate Tofu pie was all that Ryan bragged about and more.

The amount of items donated by knitters was astounding! In fact, words can not describe what I saw spread out on Mary's table when I arrived to knit.



By the end of the day, I had personally donated 3 (two were pre-knitted) items and started a pair of mittens. Last night I bound off the first mitten and immediately cast on for the second!

Mary has made a personal goal of donating 25 knitted items. She's already knit 15 items and one of them is a SWEATER! Now I'm a competitive person but I fear Mary has me beat on this one! Maybe if I knit 24 hours a day until June, I can close to her total!

The shy one even joined the festivities and we loved her! I'm not sure that her newly dyed yarn did though as it bled all over her hands!


Now that is a yarn attack!



Mary's kitty asks, "HOW much are you going to knit for the Dulaan Project?

And not to disappoint Leanne, I've updated my Finished Knitting Gallery with a photo of me wearing Lara.

Found OUT!

Yesterday afternoon, I was reading some of the comments from my last entry on the Guinea Pig sweater and laughing. I noticed that Matya had commented and her entry was funny! So on my way home from work, I called her and told her that I was on my way to the knitting store to acquire some yarn for a Guinea Pig sweater. Her response was confusion and horror. She wondered what I was talking about and I shouted, "But you commented on the blog about it!" She then said, I haven't been near a computer for days, I've been taking finals. After a second or two, we realized who the culprit was! It was Momma M! MOMMA M! Your wiley ways have been discovered!

Now I must figure out what yarn would be best for a hairless Guinea Pig....

HA! Momma M! Just joking....that would be just a bit too much for one to actually construct!

BUT when I told Mot I was on the way to the knitting store, I really was. I headed over to Fiber Gallery for another skein of Manos for my sweater and some needles. I got to chat with Jessica and then headed over to Weaving Works to pick up the Jaeger JB34 booklet because I want to make this:



Look at that neckline, the colors, the entire sweater! It's so lovely! Now I just need to find some Jaeger Aqua yarn in which to make this lovely garment and oh some yarn for that hairless sweater!

Fashionable Guinea Pigs

What the hell is this? is a feature of Jessica's that I must comment about today. Another Rebecca from PurlyGirls was kind enough to send us this.

If ONLY Louise still had King Bob, then I would make this for him but unfortunately he passed on about a year ago. But really!?! What the hell is this? Are Guinea Pigs cold? Do they need sweaters?

Have...NO....Words....for....this!

Mariah



This weekend in a fit of excitement, I started Mariah but I've already ripped back so many times that I'm about to scream and THEN I noticed last night that while I was doing the cables in the middle part of the sleeve, I wasn't doing them on the sides! I don't know if I can handle ripping back. It is such a beautiful pattern but I may need a break to get myself back on track!

This past weekend was full of fun and frolicking though. Megan from the Purlygirls joined my friends and I along with her boyfriend, Matt and their friends, Jason and Monica for the Annual St. Patrick's Day Pub Crawl. Jason and Matt were a bit apprehensive about the crawl since they had visions of mad knitters drinking and knitting as they went from pub to pub. Megan and I left the knitting at home. Pub crawling is serious work and one must be very devoted to it. I look a little cheesy here but I have evidence that knitters can go on a pub crawl and only drink!



Sunday was my monthly photo day with Kim, Stephanie and Krista. Krista took our photo inside the Suzzalo library at the University of Washington.



And I grabbed a shot of her over by Lake Union --



The weekend was gorgeous full of fun! Now when is the next one coming up?

Happy Belated Blog Birthday!



March 6th was my SECOND Blog Birthday! SECOND! I remember I started this blog on a whim before a trip to Amsterdam. Whoa! That blows my mind, I was in Amsterdam only TWO years ago! Life has changed so much in the past two years and it is nice to have the blog as a chronicle.

So join me now, "Happy Birthday DEAR BLOG! Happy Birthday to you!"

Running and Seaming

Last night, Mot met me at Zubin’s house for a run. It was one of the best runs I’ve had in a very long time. The 36 minutes flew past and if the HOAH* hadn’t been in our way, I could have run forever! Zubin thought it was fantastic too and really enjoyed charging up that hill! I haven’t run that fast in a very long time and it felt so very good! Mot is fantastic at getting me to really push myself and makes no qualms about telling me to work harder. Everyone needs a friend like Mot!

I also received my Elann yarn order for Mariah** and while I love one of the colors I ordered, the other wasn’t quite what I expected. In fact, I believe I described it to Mot as being closer to the color of baby poop than I feel comfortable with! So back to Elann this yarn goes and a replacement will be ordered. Hmmm the possibilities!

Last night after the best run, I sat down and worked on Lara. I promised LeAnne of Curious George Knits that I would get my act in gear to provide her with inspiration on her Lara. I said that I would seam a bit of Lara every night this week but instead I got the seaming bug last night and finished up the ENTIRE sweater!



Well I did it! I spent all evening seaming up this sweater and now all that is left is some blocking which will have to be done once I’m back at my own house. Zubin would leave his hairy imprint if I tried to block it here. Of course, I am the one who put the poor dog in the sweater already! He was not pleased with me!



Also inspired by LeAnne, my goals for the week!

1. Knit front of Manos Sweater
2. Restart green socks on two circulars
3. Knit on Berry Baby Hat
4. Cardio Workout 6x (2 down, 4 to go!)
5. Strength Workout 4x
6. Do all of Spanish Homework without panicking at the last minute!


*Hell of a Hill
**Interestingly enough, my cousin is named Mariah!

Wiped Out!



I've been dogsitting Zubin this weekend and I think we are both worn out from it! On Saturday, we completed a 7.5 mile run (and survived getting a little bit lost) and had doggie friends over for playtime. Phoenix and Roux came over to Zubin's house for fun. I heard from a source that Roux was WORN OUT but I believe that Phoenix is still running around like a banshee. Oh the vigors of youth! Zubin was spent from his day of fun and fell asleep on his special green chair quite early. In fact, he was so tired that he wasn't bothered when I left for a friend's birthday party.

On Sunday though, he had regained his strength and began pacing early. We headed out to Disovery Park where I had visions of us running along the beach. Unfortunately Seattle Law had other plans for us!



After looking forlorn for a bit, we hiked around the park for about two hours before running a few errands, which included a stop at Trader Joe's for dog cookies. We then headed home where I quickly knit up TWO Dulan hats.


Can you spot Zubin in the background waiting to go back outside?

I used the yarn that I had won from
Gidget to make these hats using the Yarn Harlot's pattern. I decided to use Gidget's yarn for this project to continue the cycle of giving. Now I need to find the right yarn to make up more hats using Norma's pattern.

I also experienced some sleeve issues with my Manos Sweater. After knitting the sleeve cap on one and binding off, I measured it to discover that I had made a sleeve for an ape. Yep, it was WAAAAYYYYY to long. I called Mot. She said, "Well you can rip back, it is not that horrible. At least you found this out before you sewed all the pieces together!" Humpph!

So I decided to ignore sleeve number one and set off to finish sleeve number two. I did that one right. Then I went to work on sleeve number one and I made it match sleeve number two. I guess Mot was right, it wasn't THAT hard.

Here are my sleeves resting with the Dulaans and the start of the sweater front. Once the front is done, I'm done knitting and will need to face the seaming. But that is a bridge I will cross when I get there.



Yes, I still need to seam Lara. I plan to work on her tonight. Seaming is soooooo not as much fun as knitting BUT I want to wear the sweater so I need to get my act in gear.

It's Here!



I went to my mailbox this morning. I've been waiting for a very, very long time for a special delivery.



I noticed the box was packed full of interesting-ness. I tore through the mail. Nope, not looking for that. Not interested in Pottery Barn today. Wait! What do I spy?



Yes! Yes! Yes!

My Rowan Magazine has arrived!

Self Portrait Star

I'm a star today! Well, one of many...I'm featured on

How frickin' COOL is that?

Go check out the other stars, I'm sharing my fame with today!

P.S. You can check out my other photos here!

Knittin' and Swimmin'

Mondays are great nights. Mondays are when I get the opportunity to meet up with the Purlygirls for some knitting and then I have the chance for swimming at the local pool.



Last night was no different. I arrive at El Diablo and worked for awhile on my Manos sweater. I'm about 4 inches from being done with the back. This means that I am almost 3/4 of the way done with my sweater!

After knitting with the PurlyGirls, I headed over to the pool to swim some laps with a friend. We warmed up in the sauna, negotiated the number of laps we'd be swimming and jumped into the pool. After about 4 laps, the lifeguard stopped me and asked if I had a left shoulder injury. He made me laugh when he said that I was flinging my left arm about while putting my right arm perfectly in the water. He also voiced concern about me swimming in circles in open water (has he seen me swimming before!?!). He offered me some great tips and told me to swim as if I flying like Superman. That clicked, I remembered that I am Supergirl and so the last 16 laps were spend swimming as if I were Supergirl with my arms out straight and no arm flinging to be seen! I was very tired after swimming last night since I put all of me in it, both mentally and physically. Now I just need to remember not to FLING!