This is BTU - both his initials AND the cutest nickname for a kid-of-a-Tech-grad - EVAH! Props to my dearest friend Amy for this award-winning picture of her amazing little boy. Well, I guess Senor Noodle had something to do with him too. Heh.
Here's the Branching Out scarf in a cashmere I bought on a trip to NYC. Is this the best yarn with which to do this project? No. Was this the best project to start having only knit for 6 months prior? No. But I love how it's turning out, major mistakes and all. And it's sooooo soft. One more skein to go.
Joe's 2nd sock. For some reason this sock's coloring isn't as random as the first one - more blue/purple in big chunks. Oh, well. At least I started Sock #2 - now it's just a matter of finishing the dang thing.
A simple checkered scarf for me. I started this project (a) because I got this great superwash yarn on sale and (b) I wanted something I didn't really have to pay attention to. This is my knit-while-watching-Lost project, since I don't have to look at the needles much. It helps when there's a heavy Sun-and-Jin episode with lots of captions. Like last night - egads!
Okay - that's about it. I gave up on Joe's illusion scarf, because after doing the trial B of BEER! I realized I don't like illusion knitting - on a scarf, at least. Didn't like how the wrong side looked. And to me, scarves shouldn't have a wrong side. So I'm going to make him a HP PofA scarf - but I have to buy the miles of yarn first, and that's not in the budget at the moment.
Also starting up Cigar for Joe's Christmas present (it's not a surprise - he's picking out the colors). And maybe a tank for myself. You know - just to get over that first hurdle of making actual clothes.
Better go - boss is coming. Man, I'm going to get fired for this one of these days.
On a day like this, most of the cons of NY (higher cost of living, NY attitudes) seem to fade away. Sometimes I just can't believe we live in a place so beautiful.
The tasting tent on the Little League field. Notice the Clouds of Doom in the upper left. They threatened, but they never followed through.
The only drawback was that we were held inside this beer-vs-wine prison. You could have fine local beer, but you couldn't be near the food. So we kept circling back around to the beer area, eventually just having the guy pour the beer into our wine glass then sneaking back to the food area. Sucky NY liquor laws. I shouldn't complain. I can buy booze on Sundays.
The edges of the storm, hours after it hit Montgomery. It seemed to hover in the east all day, but our Sunday afternoon was bright and even a bit warm. You can barely see our house peeking out through the trees over the middle of the long building.
The weekend we had reinforced my love for this area. I'll post more pictures in our gallery soon *Edited to add: They're HERE*, but I just don't have the brain power right now. Plus I need to think of my SP9 answers. Augh! Plus, no WW update right now - had a gain of a week, but couldn't get to the meeting due to work. We'll see if I can get it back down before my makeup meeting.
Goodnight!
I thought it turned out pretty cute - she wanted an all-yellow one, but I couldn't find yellow-only Fun Fur. So I had to get a little creative. And since this is my 4th one, I feel I can really make some rules for myself in the future.
First of all, I'm not crazy about how Cascade 220 felts. I've made a felted bag and two hedgies out of it, and it's not my favorite. It doesn't felt wacky or anything, but as you can see in the picture above you can still see the rows of the pattern, and I'm just not fond of that. The other hedgies were made from Patons Classic Wool, which is pretty inexpensive and can be found in Michael's and A. C. Moore - an advantage, since that's where I get the Fun Fur too and can match colors directly. And it felts perfectly, seamlessly.
Secondly, I need to pay better attention to the Fun Fur packages. Some multi-colors are all over the place, and some are, well, striped...
From the back he looks like a big fuzzy Easter egg. Don't get me wrong - he's still cute as a button. But when I'd gotten a few rows of the back done and realized it was striping Fun Fur, I was a bit disappointed. But not enough to stop, since I think this color scheme went better with yellow than most of the others I found.
Again, I'm not disappointed - this is a spot-on fail-proof pattern that's easy for even quasi-beginners like myself. And it's such fun to see the little guys go from spongy oven mitts to cute felted hedgies. I'm just taking a few mental notes for the future.
Off to a fun-filled weekend that will involve crafts (pottery!!!), Broadway tunes, and food. Certainly there will be interesting pictures to come.
A certain someone told me that E's birthday was earlier this week. Since he's one of the, oh, three people that read this hokey blog, I thought he deserved some props.
This was left on my desk Monday by my dear coworker Larry. It's hard to take a picture of a shot glass without glare, but it says, "Let's Get Loopy." He says he saw it and thought of me. So I did what any smart person would do and christened it with some good ol' JD. Several times. Ouch.
Finished Joe's Sock #1. Fits him pretty well - fits me better. We'll see when he gets the second one. It ended up being the perfect length - I had about 2 yards left of the Lorna's Laces skein (of course, I did have a bit more than that, but it was sacrificed into a smaller ball as a result of the Great Untangling when I started this project - I was hoping not to have to use it and potentially screw up the color pattern).
As a reward for finishing that damn sock, I started Hedgehog #4 for niece Megan. Here it is after just finishing the body. I love this stage - looks kind of like a hieroglyphic with one big boob. The shaping is done with short rows - a bit daunting at first, but easy-peasy. His "please don't shoot!" stance won't be permanent - the arms and legs wrap around once his little paws are knitted. I'm not a fast knitter (at all), but I knit this up in the time it took me to watch Before Sunrise for the umpteenth time.
CJ from the sawmill came by and started working on The Mighty Maple Logs. This kid looks 17, might weigh a buck fifty, and he plowed right through all by himself. He worked 9-6 and got through all but one log. CJ is awesome.
This is the usable wood - you can see the scraps in the background. This might not look like a lot, but each board is over 2" thick, 5-6' long, and weighs about 100lbs. Each board (other than the top middle ones) could be a table top by itself. Our next task is to get a temporary shelter up and dry these puppies for about a year.
Well, that's about it. Better get to work. Happy Tuesday!
First, let me preface this post by saying that I have only made 2 other pairs of socks before. One in worsted (full socks), one not much smaller than that (ankle socks). This is my first time with tiny-ass yarn and tiny-ass needles on a long-ass sock.
3pm on a Saturday of a holiday weekend, in the cold rain - and this is what the Wonderful Mr. Chambers does - he freakin' hauls ALL of the logs up our hill to where they can be sawn easily. Please forgive the bad pic - I felt it would be in poor taste to take photos of them in the rain while he was doing a great favor. So I hid in the house, poking the camera around corners without flash. Kind of a reverse Peeping Tom.
There are certainly bad sides to small towns. This ain't one of them. Mr. Chambers rocks. A very special Georgia-pecan-pie is coming his way. I only hope he isn't diabetic.
...even without a face, he's a cutie-pie...
