Hay, hay, hay!!

(You’re supposed to follow this up with “it’s Faaaaaaaat Albert…and I’m gonna sing a song to you-hoo…”) Anyone?  Anyone?  My childhood, people!  The 70’s!!! 

Today has been a busy day.  I went to the gym.  I stopped at Target on the way home to get another bin for…gulp…my new yarn purchases.  I’ve been getting some good deals off of ravelry.  Sometime I’ll take pictures.  Though I must admit that from a few sarcastic comments my sister made to me this past summer about my yarn purchases, I have been hesitant to take pictures of these yarn STEALS.  Hesitant because maybe some of you think that I’m a bit, um….out of control?  Honestly, though, if you’re a knitter (and no, I’m not trying to justify this) —- you get it.  My stash is not nearly as bad as some.  And I am knitting with it.  You know, I figure life is short, I don’t buy tschotkes, I don’t have 6 zillion pairs of shoes or a ton of makeup.  I stopped buying books.  And cards and stationary.  So yarn’s my splurge.

But I digress.  After Target, I came home and got some packages ready for shipping.  I finally got around to sending that hat to Robyn in Canada, a skirt to my friend Connie who’s going to make me a fabulous tote bag from it, a check to my friend, Kristin for some hand dyed yarn and clothes to my mom.  I packed Lainie up in the radio flyer wagon we have, and we set off on foot for the afternoon.  We walked to the post office (it had to be at least a mile), got McDonald’s for Lainie, ate at the rotunda near the tracks in dowtown DeKalb, went to the library, the DeKalb Confectionary, the Yarn Exchange and then Huntley Park.  We looked at 10 different “Huskies on Parade” (the Husky dog is NIU’s mascot.  DeKalb has sold these ceramic dogs to businesses who have them painted with a theme and then they are put outside of their businesses.)  We saw 10 different ones today:  The City of DeKalb (firedog/policedog), Carpenter Real Estate (picasso/aborigine dog with Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz shoes), Stage Coach Players (pulling a stage coach), Mike Mooney Chevrolet (vintage cars), the DeKalb Public Library – my favorite (It’s Always Time to Read), National Bank & Trust Company (NIU Football), 2 wild ones between Second & Third Street, DeKalb Chamber of Commerce (a butt ugly shopping dog that carries a bag in its mouth and says “I Love DeKalb”), and a tuxedo’ed dog on the corner of First and Lincoln Highway.  I chose not to take Lainie by the three close by – Tom Doherty’s office, Hearing Help Express and Castle Bank, but only because of the traffic and because Huntley Park was the opposite direction.

So, basically, I walked a lot and pulled Lainie in the wagon the entire time.  It was a nice day, though, so it was good to get out.

I have a new love.  A new infatuation.  A new “I can’t stop thinking about this”:

What did you think it was going to be?  Please.  This is a knitting blog, folks!!!  But lookee, lookee – my first feather and fan baby blanket!  Craig’s cousin got married last year and he and his wife Christy are having their first baby together!  (Keith has a lovely daughter from another relationship).  Christy is due in January and it’s a girl!  I’ve had this beautimous Cascade Cherub Collection Kaleidoscope Aran for a good 6 years, just waiting for the perfect baby blanket.  And now I have it!  I had a bit of a rough start – with the counting on the YO and K2 tog row, and have already made some mistakes.  But Christy is a nonknitter, so hopefully she won’t see my mistakes.  This yarn is acrylic, but sooooo soft and pretty.  And I am getting a chance to use all of my markers from my friend, Jen and another shop on Etsy:  Pedra’s.

I am up to the thumb on the second mitten:

And finally, I’ve been working on the Log Cabin Blanket.  I decided to rip out the mistakes I made, which meant I took out most of the turquoise stripe.  I’m about halfway done with the stripe now:

But I forgot the most important news of all!!!!    I FINISHED THE SECOND SOCK!  IT’S DONE!  I HAVE NOW KNIT A PAIR OF SOCKS!!! (Back to normal tone)  I’ll have to post pictures another time.  I at least got the direction correct at the top of the toes when I did the kitchener stitch, though there are still mistakes.

Well, folks, I’m back to my hot chocolate and knitting.   Sorry that my usual witty self has taken a powder, but it’s been a looooooooooong (but fun) day.

Have a good night!

The Sandwich Fair, Pt. 2 – My Favorite Cake

The Sandwich Fair has baking contests, of course.  And one of my faves has to be the cake decorating contest.  This, believe it or not, was in the “non-professional” contest.  Amazing!!!

I’d like to give a shout out…

…to my father, who is recovering from rotator cuff surgery.  It went well, though the tear was worse than expected and his recovery time has been slower than normal.  Since my dad is confined to wearing this contraption that keeps his arm at an angle and resting on this pseudo pillow, he can’t do much….other than surf the internet.  And low and behold, he has found my blog.  Dad, you must be pretty bored!  But welcome anyways, and I’m always up for some constructive comments.

I haven’t blogged in ages and I have to admit that September was a busy month and I got bogged down.  Work has been busy (what else is new), Cole started back to school, so there’s homework every night and nagging to be done.  We went to the Sandwich Fair.  My brother-in-law got married and Craig was a groomsman and Lainie was the flower girl, so we had fittings in the suburbs and the rehearsal and wedding and recovery the next day (it was quite the party!).  Plus I had two full days (16 hours, folks) of sales training.  (I just gave a big sigh, I don’t think I need to say anything else), book club, etc.  So, it’s been either knit or surf the computer or make stitch markers or read or pick up my house.  There’s not enough time after the kids go to bed to do more than one thing.  So my poor blog fell by the wayside.  But I have been knitting!

Two hats for Lainie.

One mitten por moi.

Green stripe finished!  New turquoise stripe f-ed up! 

And I have some fabulous news!  My friend, Beth, of defaceReconstruct, took my markers to Yarn Con in Chicago this past Saturday to sell with her awesome recycled yarn.  She sold about half of my markers…that’s 20+ pairs!!!  And I got some very nice comments on the markers (whoo hoo!) and some good feedback about packaging, etc.  Thanks so much, Beth!  That really made my whole weekend!

Knitting while drunk…and in the dark.

Yeah, I said it.  I was knitting in the car….it was dark…and I had been drinking.  Mind you, we had gone to the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner for my younger brother-in-law.  Lots of beer flowing that  night.  And here I am on the way home, just sitting there.  My judgment (impaired), “hey!  I can do this in the car!  I don’t have to see what I’m doing!!!”  

Hmmm….looks like I turned it around and knit backwards in the middle of the row, creating A GIANT HOLE.

One big yarn over!  Another hole!!!!

BTW, this picture highlights the entire problem with my digital camera…NO MACRO MODE, WHICH RESULTS IN FUZZY PICTURES UP CLOSE. 

So, I continued to knit away even after I saw these “issues” the next day.  But the longer I look at it, the less sure I am that I can hide those holes with some woven-in yarn.  My perfectionist side is leaning toward ripping it back, only I’ll end up ripping out the entire section.  Damn!