Promising morning

I gained 6.6 lbs since October. It was shocking to find myself getting a muffin top, but the icing on the cake so to speak was NOT being able to button my work pants. What's a girl to do? No, not eat chocolate or drown my depression in wine (perhaps that's how I got in this condition, ya know!) Anyhoo, I was not going to take this lying down. Sorry beckoning couch. I needed to do some serious life overhaul and fast. I started cooking again instead of eating out. I've learned to stuff mini sweet peppers with brown rice and thinly sliced grain feed steak. I started eating fresh raw veggies with organic Greek yogurt dip. I made water, tea, and minimally sweetened (local organic honey from a friend) coffee my drinks of choice. Basically if it's close to it's natural form in nature, very colorful, and sufficiently seasoned I am trying it. I had stopped exercising outside of working like a mad woman back in September. That had to change. Sunday morning was sunny and decently warm so I put on the running gear and hit the beach. I ran for 1.5mi and walked 1.5mi for a total of 3mi of sweaty butt busting bliss. Everyone and his dog was out since it was so gorgeous. (Can you believe we actually had a snow day last week from school??) Then came two cold rainy days. That's why I quilted. This morning I awoke to warmish temps and the sun trying to peak through the fog and clouds. Good girl that I am, I hit the beach for another run. God is good. What should accompany my otherwise solitary outing? A pod of dolphins feeding just off the shore. They surfaced up all along the shoreline just in my sight line during the run. Very inspiring. I will be doing a weekly Monday weigh in to see how I progress. Sometimes it's a bitch nearing the mid-forties. And sometimes, you just stop and realize that that's life and I can still do something about my life choices.

New Year. New Crafts.

Happy New Year! Been busy with work, knitting, organizing the house. I bought some fat quarters at City Quilter when I was up to NYC in October. Finally found the right project that used up 8 out of 9 I purchased. It's a pair of pillow shams in King Solomon's Temple pattern. This is a top in progress as of this afternoon...another shot, as well as one of my match points. I spent two hours yesterday arranging and rearranging the squares, second guessing myself all the way. Like it much better after a good sleep and sewing up. Waiting on my order of white fabric for my half triangle border. Will post as I progress. This will be my third ever small quilting project. Hope to venture up to a full sized bed quilt in the near future. This is two afternoon's worth of work so far, from prepping to sewing.

Slanting Gretel Part 2

Excuse the non-blocked item with nasty lighting photos (not a helper to be found at home today!) Couldn't wait to show Gretel off the needles. I still need to pick up the sleeve stitches, cast them back off, and work in my ends. The second ball of Solo Silk was nothing but tied ends...20 to be exact. Very irritating to say the least. So my upper yoke has lots of yarn to weave in, but I'll deal with it.





This is the smallest size with an added an extra inch to the body length before beginning the armholes. I wish I'd done another 1/2", but it will probably grow in the blocking process any way. I don't like how wide the neck-line is on me. I have a narrow shoulder area & it is gaping a bit. That means redoing the cast-off to tighten it up or even undoing the seed stitch rows and continuing the decrease rows, me thinks! The purple pooling/striping is not my fave thing either, but I love the overall rose/terracotta color so I won't over-dye (though I was tempted!).

Slanting Gretel

I started Slanting Gretel on 1/28/10 using a Rhinebeck purchase. I'm 29 rows away from completion. Another day of knitting! Originally I was going to knit this in a peacock blue Sheldridge Farm Soft Touch DK wool yarn (also bought at Rinebeck '09 for the intent of knitting Gretel), but this Solo Silk was a better choice for the pattern at hand. I fell in love with the 50/50 wool/silk blend at the Brooks Farm booth. Had no clue what I'd make it up into, but couldn't resist the sale and scoffed up the last two skeins knowing the perfect pattern would eventually appear. And so it did. (Not to worry, the Sheldridge was way to many yards for this top, & will become a nice Nordique Swing cardi! See IWK Fall 09, pg. 44)


My hubby took me to Charleston, SC for our 20 year anniversary (March 17th, St. Patrick's Day.) It was the best three days I've had in a long time. We walked at least 8 miles each day sight-seeing, shopped til we dropped, ate great food, & even took a Carriage Ride tour. What fun! He "allowed" me to sneak a stop at my favorite lys, Knit of Charleston, where I made this purchase. I couldn't deny the lure of Louisa Harding's brand new pattern booklet Bijoux (call it the French Quarter of Charleston influence!) and bought the Merletto yarn to do the Moonstone tunic (the right-hand pattern pictured.) The shoulder straps are silk ribbon and the upper back closes with 7 small buttons. I'll make a day trip to buy the buttons when I'm finished as the shop has a great selection to pick from. (Yippee another expedition to Knit!) I also purchased two skeins of Nashua Creative Focus Linen to knit up a summer tank-top. As a side note, I thought I was getting a very unique color for the linen, but you can see this color was compelling to me once before, LOL!

Knitting '09 Recap

I'm ba-a-ack! Jeepers it's been too long since my last post. I went back to work full-time last August and just lost touch with everything that felt like more work. I needed time away from pressuring myself to produce knitted items in order to have a blog entry.

Knitting has been grueling for me. Mostly I'm not in the mood to focus or else too durn exhausted to hold the needles. I finished Ursa and you all saw me wear that at Rhinebeck. I finished the Heathered Hoodie Vest from Knit Scene Fall 2009 while on my vacation in NYC. I wore it to the Natural History Museum. Deb took finished photos of it for me while we walked about sightseeing that I'll have to track down and post later. Right before Christmas, I finished a pair of Rick socks from Cookie A's Sock Innovation book.




Deb gave me the STR Rare Gems from Rhinebeck '08. (I've got two more gift skeins from then to knit up yet.) These are such squishy, heavy, comfy socks. Challenging pattern to knit, but fun to perk the mind up a bit.

I also started a pair of kai-mei socks (same book as above) and completed the right sock a few days ago. It's done up in Dream in Color Smooshy in the colorway Punky Fuschia. I bought the yarn on a yarn crawl with Deb the summer of '08. A wee bit behind in the knitting of yarn purchases. (I am knitting from my stash again this year & plan on saving my yarn buying for Rhinebeck!) If you click on the link you'll see a skein of turquoise Jaggerspun. I'm currently knitting it into a Lacey Accent Scarf from Glamknits. The lace Baby is also in progress for Icarus. Only the orange stuff is still balled up with no project in mind. Started & unraveled a few attempts. Not ideal patterns for the stuff. It's homeless at the moment.



Well, hopefully I'll be more consistent with the blog this year. I do so enjoy reading everyone's blogs. You'd think I'd blog more for everyone else to enjoy too, huh?

12 Weeks Til Rhinebeck-NYC Trip

My Rockin' Bandit scarf made from STR Deck the Halls. I need to block it, but here's a sneak peek at its wearability and beauty.

Remember Tuscany from the book No Sheep for You? (Click on the Tuscany label to see orginal posts on this.) It should have been a quickie knit but I think it took me over a year to make this puppy. I lost patience with it every few rows. Nothing wrong with the finished product, it's huge and luscious even without blocking; I just got frustrated with the huge number of stitches after a while. Super soft warmth coming my way this fall! (Upper photo is color accurate.)

The final shawl that is off the needles but needs blocking is Charlotte's Easy Shawl. Remember this yarn from Rhinebeck '08, gifted to me by my sister? It used all 250 yards of yarn in one skein of Potluck yarn. It will block at least twice as big and will be a cozy shoulder warmer.

Finally we have Ursa. The Back & Front panels are off the needles. I will seam the shoulders & pick up the neck stitches this afternoon. This is a fast, fun pattern that I'd make again in heavier yarn. Can't wait for Rhinebeck so I can sport this cardigan!

14 Weeks til NYC-Rhinebeck Trip

What have I accomplished in the past two weeks toward my festival wear you ask? Well...Plenty! End of Week 16 found Ursa's backside off the needles and the two fronts half done. I'm doing the fronts at the same time so that they'll be the same size. (Uniformity is the ticket!) This pattern is fast, fast, fast, and super duper easy. 'Cept of course when you get to the instructions that tell you to reverse the shaping of the Left Front to make the Right Front. Clear as a mudslide, I tell ya. After some visualizing and decision making on how I want to even do the decreases (as that is also totally up to you, the knitter), I was good to go. Love the fabric the yarn is making. Soft, drapey, but with just enough body to hold its shape. Yum-my! Oh, and a shout out goes to The Yarn and Fiber Co for having 4 skeins of my last year's dyelot in stock for the Berroco UltraAlpaca Light. I won't have to do any creative matching of the yarns.Who-hoo!

End of Week 15 found two wips in my basket pulled out, cast-off, and ends woven. I have a large basket filled with "So freakin' close to FO" wips that I felt guilty. Guilt, as well as needing the size 6 needles for a New Project, is a wonderful motivator. Now I just need to find a motivator to block all those new FO's accumulating in another basket. Sigh.

I was "Sleepless in Surfside" yesterday at 5am and not in the mood to knit on Ursa. STR's Deck the Halls (possibly misnamed, unless they weren't thinking of Christmas, but some other decorated halls) was lying in wait to grab me, already balled and on the coffee table. Who could resist the bright magenta/orange/purples??? I cast on for my New Project, Rockin' Bandit, otherwise known as Springtime Bandit. I blew through the entire Set-Up chart, found a pattern errata (details on my Raverly page - you'd only find it if you're into counting your end stitches each row - not a crucial problem), notified the designer, and kept on knitting. I've finished all the Body Chart, discovered that I seem to still have a lot of yarn, and decided to knit at least one more repeat set of 12 rows. I want to use as much of the yarn as I can, while still being able to finish the Edging Chart. I've never knit with Blue Moon's Socks That Rock until now. It's a sproingy yarn that showcases the stitches in their very best light. Thanks Misa for this gift from NYSW '08! You'll see it on me at Rhinebeck.

I've been drudging along on a pair of plain vanilla toe-up socks for the last couple months. I finished sock #1 three weeks ago, but only got motivated last week to start sock #2. I'm half done on it. It was supposed to be done for July 4th, so I could take a picture of me in them for you all to chuckle at. (They are Fortissima Color 1776 Stars & Stripes and practically knee highs. This yarn is like the Energizer Bunny. 450yds makes a big a** sock!) You'll have to wait a bit longer for the hilarity of wool socks with shorts at the beach in summer.

I was mojo-less all spring on the knitting front, but with the plans gelling on the NYC trip, I found the mojo lying in wait all along. I'm still mojo-less for camera shots. Look for photos on Ravelry later.