Tuesday, May 31, 2005

So Frustrated?!?!?!?!

You know how sometimes you should just stop? When you and your knitting are not getting along? That's how my weekend went with knitting. Everything got to a point where I just had to stop or what I tried didn't work so well. The sad truth of the matter is that I'm good with the knitting, but the finishing and I don't get along so well.

Readers, you should be impressed (or maybe not) that I did finish the one day poncho (kind of hard not to as it's on size 19 needles), I didn't finish it in one day, but I cast on Friday night, did a major portion of it and then finished up on Sunday. However, I have yet to put it all together. I also got to a stopping point on Donna. I'm not picking up the short-row concept very well, but I don't want to have to get another reference book to understand this. I will probably have to search on the web to see if I can find better explanations for it. Uggh.

I decided on Sunday that yesterday should be my finishing day. I have the tank I finished a couple of weeks ago, as well as a hat for dbf's son that just needs a pompon on top and this pinche tank! So I begin attempting to cut and knot the ends for the poncho and lost patience after about two of them! Not very good. So I kept knitting on Donna and then stopped there at the short rows and went on over to Tempting and cast on for a sleeve and am halfway through the first sleeve.

I think I will block the pieces for the tank first, not that I think they need them, but the bottoms of both pieces have seed stitch instead of ribbing, so I do need to make them lie down. I'll try that and then attempt to seam the shoulders and sides. I think I can mattress seam those together. However, I really hate weaving in ends. It's very lazy of me, but I'm fortunate that my LYS does finishing and at reasonable rates. But I'm going to try to finish something on my own, or at least ask for a little help, but do it myself. I'll work on that this week. If I do one project at a time, perhaps I won't feel so overwhelmed.

I rushed out this weekend to buy a ball of black Cotton-Ease to make the One Skein Wonder, ala Glampyre, but I didn't start it this weekend after all. I think I was becoming again overwhelmed with all the projects I have going and that are in various stages of finished or still working, so I would like to get some of this other stuff out of the way first.

This past Friday, we had another MHC meetup at Chez Cathi who is as always a fabulous host. She feted us with melon sangria (yum yummy!) and melted cheese, who doesn't love melted cheese? And cute cupcakes made to look like California sushi rolls! Very cute. I also got yarn from Mz. Cathi, some Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in the Candy Blue, which is destined for a Sitcom Chic. I'll have pics tomorrow.

I was supposed to meet up with Joanne and others on Saturday morning at Colorful Yarns, however due to dbf's son being grounded the day before, said son stayed with me and while he's good to hang out at book store, at a yarn store, not so much. So we stayed at home and I got to put all of my fall clothes away and break out the summer clothes, which was good to get them all out.

The rest of the weekend was hanging out with some friends for a bbq later Saturday night and Sunday I had to work at part-time job for a floorset early in the a.m., then I came home and crashed. Not much was done except watching movies and then more of the same yesterday. The weather was pretty crappy anyway, so it was a nice day to stay inside yesterday.

Oh, and I forgot to mention a huge shout-out to Miz Jenifer (aka Senora Farrell) for gifting me with a mixed CD! Thank you very much. Thus far I've been enjoying listening to it. Such a cool and unexpected surprise.

I also received an email from my Secret Pal yesterday and I will have to get my answers up to the questionnaire a little later on today or tomorrow. Need to update my Amazon wish list, it's so out-of-date!

Happy knitting to all!

Thursday, May 26, 2005

15 inches!

That's how far I am on this Tempting. It's moving right along now, finally. I am now at a point where I can start working on the sleeves, not that it's all that much different. Just more ribbing in a different area. I'm a bit concerned about joining the sleeves to the body, but we'll cross that road when we get to it. I don't want to go out and buy more dpns, but that might have to happen. Oh well, more things to worry about later.

I've been so busy lately at work and in my personal life, that when I come home, I barely look at the computer, as well at work I have no time to blog lately! Ack, what is the world coming too? I guess that's a good thing, but since I came back from New York, it seems I can barely keep my head on straight. Must be the price you pay to take a vacation.

I did finish the nursing shawl earlier this week. I have yet to actually wash it, but I will do that this weekend and then get it shipped out. Here's a picture:


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My little nephew Chason is almost 2 weeks old and is headed with my mother and sister (his mother) to my mom's house in Louisiana and rest there for a couple of weeks. I hope my sister will be happy with her nursing shawl. I was ever so pleased to be done with it.

I cast on for the front of Donna. I have decided that I want shorter sleeves, as I can't imagine even having 1/2-length sleeves in the heat that we have begun calling summer here.

Not as much knitting was done over last weekend as I would have liked, except for getting together at Borders this past weekend. I saw Michelle in her fabulous summer poncho that is supposed to take one day according to the owner of
Knitty Cat, who wrote a quick-knit poncho pattern using bulky-weight cotton yarn. It calls for 3 solid colors and one variegated. I bought the yarn last year, but never made it.

Here's Michelle in her poncho, looking lovely as usual.


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So of course, since I want to be just like Michelle, I want to make one too. Actually I bought the yarn last year and it was listed in my summer lineup of knits.
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I am planning to cast on for it this weekend! Michelle said it took her only 8 hours, and Stacey said it took her 2 days, so I will give it a try.

Although, after seeing Shelby post about Glampyre's teeny weeny shrug that only uses one skein, I think I might have to get the pattern and get started on it. I'm ready to do it, like right now. It's so cute and doesn't use a lot of yarn, so we'll see how the weekend progresses.

Just to show you how I spent most of my day last Sunday, which was spent shopping, but mostly for M's son, who will be spending 3 weeks with his grandparents in NYC. There were a few goodies for me, though:


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Cute summer shoes! Yay!

That's all for now. Hopefully I can post again between now and the weekend.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

A little of this, a lot of that

Since I've been back some knitting has been happening, but not that much. Now that I'm back home, it's back to work and regular life. I'm also working 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. this week and that me all off. I like going into work later, but I also don't want to get up and leave after I've been home that long in the day. In the evenings I've just come home and crashed or stayed up a bit to talk with M and then ready for bed. I have been working on the nursing shawl for my sister and it's gotten even bigger since this picture and I'm getting close to being done.

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I didn't ever post the finished back of Donna or the tank, so here are those pics:
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and the tank still needs to be sewn together as well as do the crochet loops to give a "dropped stitches" look on the front V-neck, but the knitting part is done!
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And I've been ever so painfully cranking on my poor little Tempting. I can't wait to be done with the nursing shawl so I can work some more on Tempting and Donna and get these puppies finished. Although I guess I shouldn't complain so much, it just seems like Tempting is taking it's slow sweet time. 2x2 ribbing just gets boring after awhile. Not like stockinette is so exciting, but I like it better I guess. And when I was working on the stockinette portion of Donna, it just flew. Tempting is moving at a snail's pace and maybe it's the yarn, although I do really like the color, nah, I think it's just the ribbing. Ah, well, enough of the complaints. Here's a pic of Tempting at it current 12 inch status.

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The pattern calls for me to go to 13 inches and then begin putting stitches on waste yarn for the sleeves. But since I don't want this to be a cropped sweater, but not too long either, I decided that I want this top to be 22" long, so I need to knit to at least 15 inches, before doing anything else, so I will keep going.

And in baby news, should you wish to see a couple pics of my nephew, here's Chason:
sleepy Chason
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and chillin' on his Boppy (look at those long fingers!)

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and lastly, one of my mother (the proud Grandmother), Chason and Daddy
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Tonight I'm going over to Stacey's to watch the ER finale and get some knitting in. Talk to you folks later.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

The Trip that Was New York

And North Carolina and ATL too. Oh, my goodness, I had such a good time, I almost didn't want to come back. I headed out to New York really excited, but not sure what to expect. I've never been there and I was meeting all of M's family too. I wasn't nervous about meeting his family as I'd met his mother and one of his brothers last year. It's just meeting all of them, well that's a lot. M had 4 brothers and 3 sisters, so we're talking huge family here. No problems though. His family was really great and very accepting and I was happy to be in their company.

I arrived there on a Thursday quite bewildered after two short flights of 2.5 hrs each arriving relatively early Thursday morning with very little sleep. After M picked me up and took me to his parents' house, I started to relax, took a little nap and then had some vittles. Then we headed out to a Mets game and watched a little baseball and I napped a little!(Quel horror!) But that's what happens when you take a girl with little sleep to a game that she would rather sleep through and a little sun, I was out. Later on, we hung out with some of M's friends for a couple of drinks and then we began packing for our short jaunt to North Carolina. One of M's nieces was graduating from NCA&T. I met two more of the sisters and all of their families. Tiffany, the graduate, was such a sweet and thoughtful young lady, it was truly a pleasure meeting her, I know she will go far in life. A graduation party was held in her honor and we hung out in NC for Saturday and then Sunday afternoon we headed back to NY. Unfortunately one very sweet baby, one of M's nephews kept getting sick on the way back, but you couldn't help but smile at him,he's such a sweetie. See for yourself:
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We made it back to NY very early Monday morning. We woke up later that day and decided to go to the Staten Island Ferry. M mentioned that would be by the Seaport area and one of my friends advised of a yarn store named Seaport Yarn. Yes, you guessed it dear readers, I bought yarn. Really, not so much, but I did go to a yarn store while in New York. Only one and I really wanted to do more damage, but I restrained myself and trust me when I say it was very difficult. I had to call information to get the exact address and the lady there told me where it was located, but it was a bit difficult to find. It's not a store you can just see, it looks like an office or apartment building, you ride the elevator up to the 5th floor and then they buzz you in. But once inside, one of the ladies said to me," You've been here before, right?" And this is a nice-size store, so I'm very happy to reply, "No, I'm from out-of-town." Then she gave me a quick tour of all the yarns and what was where and then left me to my own devices. I was in HEAVEN! I almost went for it and just bought this alpaca tweed yarn that was all natural chocolate brown with black twisted together. Just beautiful, a 600-yd hank for only $28 and I'd probably need 3 of them and it just felt right to buy them, but then reality sunk in. This place doesn't take credit cards, only checks or cash and I didn't want to kill the budget right there. I only went in there to buy a needle (Yea, right! ;-), but founds lots of goodies to tempt me. In the end, I did find some Fiesta Yarns La Boheme so I could join the Triada-along hosted by Senora Farrell. I'd been debating it, but since the yarn was there, I took it as a sign. I only bought the one hank of La Boheme, but it was $29 and a pair of addis so I could continue knitting on the nursing shawl. Here's the lovely hank of yarn in all of its loveliness. The colorway is Taos, which is a beautiful turquoise, turning into a teal into rusty brown to a copper color. I just love it. It's also not that practical, but then how practical is a little shoulder scarf? Still doesn't stop me from wanting it.


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After that we headed on to Staten Island Ferry and while waiting for the next ferry, one of M's friends called and we went to meet up with him by Ground Zero. That was very sobering.
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And then off to more shopping b/c someone, namely me, was not smart enough to bring any tennis shoes (and yes I know people out East say sneakers, but I'm a southern girl, so what do you want from me?!) so we went to
Century21 a great department store that has lots of fashionable clothing for a discounted price. I got some cute white w/a pink stripe Pumas for under $30 and a pair of socks and we were on our way to then hit TGIF and happy hour. Staten Island Ferry never saw us make it back as we were quite tipsy, thank goodness for the subway.

Tuesday evening we went to Central Park, just walking all along through it and it was such a beautiful day. Lots of people outside walking around, having lunch, sunbathing, kids out. It was great. And we were pretty tired, so we took a slow, leisurely pace through the park, but ended up walking over 25 city blocks! Yikes! My feet were hurting the next day, but I did enjoy my relaxing knit-in in Central Park.


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Can life be any better than that? :-) And didja check out my sweet pink and white Pumas? I love these shoes. Later on we met up with a couple of M's friends and one of mine and her husband for dinner at UKNewYork, an interesting restaurant of English food meeting American. Hmm, can't really recommend this restaurant, but the food was excellent! However, we didn't order from the menu as one of M's friends is a chef there and just prepared food for our palate, so I have no idea of what other foods they serve. We had a potato leek soup for starters, something called Yorkies, which I imagine are on the regular menu (roast beef cut into thin slices in a puff pastry-type thing with a little sauce), for the vegetarian among us (M), he made Yorkies with beets, goat cheese and roasted tomatoes and they were awesome. I had a yummy ribeye steak and shrimp with a side of Caesar salad, and roasted potatoes and a pear-almond tart to finish. M and a couple of the others had some sort of monkfish with tomato and pasta dish that smelled yummy and no one left a morsel of food on their plates and another offering of dessert was chocolate souffle. I think I should have had the chocolate, wait, let me take that back, you should always have the chocolate, but it was a great meal.

Wednesday was spent on Long Island visiting two more of M's brothers, one lived way out in Middle Island (what, these people can't come up with more descriptive names?) and then on to IKEA! What a great store, I really enjoyed it there, didn't buy anything but if we ever do, we've looked at most of it in person. Then on to the other brother, who should just be a comedian, he was so funny. He lived in Freeport, very near the water. I wanted to just uproot myself and move in. A great area to live in, that would be cause to move to NY. Everything else, maybe not. We hung out there all day and night and eventually headed back to M's parents' house.

I will have to finish the recap tomorrow b/c it's time for me to get to work.


And one more pic in Central Park
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Keep the stitches alive! Peace out.

Monday, May 16, 2005

It's a Boy!

First things first, yes I have returned from my vacation to NYC. I had a blast, even though I didn't see most of the places and things I'd hoped to, but had a great time meeting M's friends and family. Most importantly though, my sister had her baby on Saturday, May 14th at 2:58 a.m. He was 6 lbs. 15 oz. If we'd stayed in Atlanta another night, I would have gotten to meet him, but I did get to see my sister in our brief stayover in Atlanta. I'm an auntie and my nephew's name is Chason Nathaniel. I'm so happy for her. And I can't wait to meet the newest member of our family. Gotta get cranking on that nursing shawl. More later, but that's the breaking news!

Updated at 7:31 p.m. No baby pics just yet. My sister should be getting out of the hospital sometime tomorrow and she promised she would send me some pics of little Chason. I was able to go to the hospital website, but alas, I cannot gank the pic to post here. But here's a pic of my sister just a few hours before giving birth.
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Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Leaving on a Jet Plane . .

Yep, I am leaving, actually tomorrow morning to NY at midnight. I can't wait. Pretty excited to go see the Big Apple as I've never been. I still don't have any real plans of what to see and do. I initially wanted to do a lot of yarn shopping, but the funds do not allow for it, so I may hit one yarn shop, but that's it and that's fine with me. I also will not have that much time for sightseeing. I mean, I will have 3-4 days to do some things, but I have 2-3 friends that I want to visit with while I'm there, as well as visit with the bf's friends and family, so I'm not going to worry about what I don't see, because there will be more visits there, I'm sure. :-)

Thanks to those who left me kind notes from my last post, they are appreciated. After the weekend, I was much better, probably because I left the house and had human contact. And I think the initial separation was tough, but then I began to deal with it better. I got a lot of knitting done from the time cooped up in the house too.

I finished the second half of my red-orange tank, and the back is already done. I will still have to seam it back together, but otherwise the knitting portion is all done. Yay! I also finished the back for Donna.

However, my projects to take to NYC will be a nursing shawl I already cast on for my sister, made out of Encore in an oatmeal color. I just cast on for it on Monday evening and it's just a simple garter stitch one row and a yo after the first stitch of the next row and before the last stitch. I plan to also take along Tempting as it has been neglected for a bit. I worked on it last night for the first time in almost two weeks and added another 2.5 inches to it, but it's only up to 8.25 inches. The 2x2 ribbing gets old quickly, but I do want to finish it, so I plan to work on this one alot. I think I will also take yarn for Donna, but just for the sleeves, in case I get too bored with Tempting, but I would like to get up to 12-13 inches on this thing, so I can start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here.

We will have a layover (stayover) in Atlanta for one night on the way back, so hopefully Chason (my nephew) would have made his way into the world. If not, I get to visit my sister and my bf will meet her for the first time as well as my mother. That's also another reason to crank out this nursing shawl, so I can deliver it to my sister. She doesn't know that I am making it for her. So super-cool! And then we head on back to Denver the following day.

I guess that's about all for now. I should be back on the 14th or 15th, but I might be off for a day or two before blogging. Gotta get back to reality first. And once I come back, I promise pictures too. My boyfriend has the digital camera with him currently. I will update pictures and take a few of NYC as well.

Take care all.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Missin' My Boy

That's what this weekend has been about. My bf flew out on Friday morning headed to NYC and since then I've been missing him. It was ok Friday night, some of the girls(Cynthia,Cathi, Jenifer, and Michelle) and that helped me keep my mind off it. We had a ball and Michelle gifted us with some beautiful stitch markers and a very sweet card. Thanks again Michelle, that was very nice of you and I appreciate it. Cyn even got some that were not matching (hehe!) sure to vex her OCD habit, but she loved them anyway. Cathi brought over a cookie in a sheep shape just for me. Yum. And they all got to pet my stash, but it was easy to get to, although Cathi kept mentioning that next time she would wear baggy clothes to spirit my yarn away! Nev-ah! Can't allow the yarn to leave the premises. Just can't happen. We had a good time sittin' and knittin' and I was glad to have them over. I will have to do that again. Believe it or not, it was the first time since I've been in my place of almost a year of having people over. I've had a friend stop in a time or two, but never had people over, you see?

But since then, kind of been in a funk. I did get up early (for me 8AM) to get my eyebrows waxed and then headed out to knitting at Borders Park Meadows. Ran a couple of errands and then came home. I felt bad b/c I kind of bailed on some friends I was supposed to see a movie and dinner with, but I just wanted to come home and veg and the weather was kind of crappy. I didn't want to be out. I've just been feeling kind of maudlin and I guess waiting for my phone calls with M, the bf.

Sounds pretty pathetic, I know. But really since I've met him, I'm the happiest I've ever been. I'm happy with myself and therefore able to be completely and totally happy in a relationship. After going through the divorce from hell, I never wanted to be involved with anyone again. Took time off from the dating scene for 1.5 years, dated someone briefly while I lived in Dallas (only lived there for 10 months, but that's a whole 'notha Oprah), and then moved back to Denver and a few months later met M.

It's so funny (bizarrely that it's normal, not funny ha-ha)to be with someone with whom you can be completely yourself. Not trying to be what you think you should be and knowing that person still loves you for you. It's a complete and radical shift from what I had with my ex. I think b/c we both went through difficult divorces (mine wasn't horrible filled with custody and property battles, just at one (of the many times we ended up breaking up, it was surprising, the request for a divorce that is)that when we ended up with each other, we clicked instantly and simultaneously. There was no game-playing and no drama.

Even though he sometimes gets on my nerves (I mean, really, who doesn't?) and I know I vex him sometimes (sorry, honey), we still love each other unconditionally. So even though it's a short period, I miss my other half. It's really hard to be separated from him, but I know I will see in a few days and I can't wait.

Whew. Sorry to be such a mushy girl today, but I guess I needed to get that out. All of that alone time has not been for naught though. The red-orange V-neck tank is almost finished now. I got my Katia book from Cynthia this weekend and I've been cranking it out. I may have it finished today, if not then by Tuesday evening when I have my hair appointment. And the back of Donna is done. I bound her off. And I've pulled out a snug tee to measure myself for the measurements to figure out how to do short-row bust shaping. I'm still just loving the color on this thing. Although I have been neglecting Tempting. I must correct that and put a few more inches on her so she doesn't feel completely abused.

At some point in my ahem! free time, I must cast on for a nursing shawl for my sis. Gotta do it soon, before I leave for NYC, b/c it looks like I'll get to see her for a brief bit when returning from NYC! Yay! Oh and my mom too.