It is a week now since we have returned from Minneapolis. I am back at work (though blessedly, not today) and we are returning to our normal routine. I still feel like bursting into tears at weird random moments, but I figure that is healthy considering. This week was rather emotionally draining, and I am glad I finally have a day of rest.

We aren't actually home a lot, my husband and I. We work late on Monday nights, Tuesdays and Thursdays we are at our friend/writing partner Sarah's house working on scripts, Thursday nights my husband has a standing dinner date with an elderly friend. Fridays we usually go out for dinner to celebrate the end of the work week. And during tourist season (January - Easter down here) one or the other of us is usually working on Saturday. Yesterday that would have been me.. So Sundays are generally for relaxing and thinking about all the housework we should be doing. I am in charge of the laundry and I think there is a mutiny forming in the closet. How can two people dirty so many clothes?

Sunday mornings we usually make breakfast and a large pot of coffee, then read. Kosta is a nut for Greek history and usually surrounds himself with the book he is reading plus all of the other resources he needs to check foot notes. He is a huge nerd and I love him for it. I will most likely be found reading either historical or young adult fiction. I am thisclose to finishing Fire by Kristin Cashore. So good.


I have been working on a birthday present for my good friend Beth, which I finished and would love to post a picture here, but it will have to wait until after her birthday on the 15th. After I finished this present, I whipped up this cute little dishcloth I found the pattern for amongst my friend April's Ravelry projects. It knits up so fast, and it is totally useful, even here in Florida. I think I might make a bazillion of these. I bet they will make great stocking stuffer. (I know it is February. Shut up.)


I also finally have pictures of the teapot hot pad and coaster set I finally finished. I actually finished it before I got sick, but I never got around to taking a picture of it until this morning. I really set up the shot too. I photographed it outdoors on our lanai (that's Floridian for patio) because the light was good. I brought out a nice tablecloth and set up the set with the teapot and coasters. Well, you be the judge.

I mostly like it, but it was my first foray into felting. I did  the felting in the washing machine, and it took two runs through before it looked like it had shrunk enough. But I didn't think about weaving in the ends before I did it. I don't know why I didn't. I can't imagine weaving them in post felt. Silly me. Anyway, the loose ends got all tangled together and made the coasters pull out of shape a little. Most of them were able to be fixed, but some of them I think will have permanent over-pointy corners. Lesson learned.

Still, I am more or less pleased with the effort. Now let's see if I will ever use them. (My suspicion in the hotpad will be, but the coasters will go to the cupboard to die a slow death of neglect. Shh... don't tell them!)

I also took a picture of another project I made a few years ago. It was a scarf I was making for a friend who moved to Montana, but I lost touch with her before the scarf was ever completed. (Obviously we weren't too close -  I think it was more of an excuse to knit than anything else.) I found the scarf when I pulled out my knitting things in December. All I had left to do was put on the fringe and block it, which I did. Here is the finished product:

It was a simple basket weave scarf made out of purple yarn that if I remember correctly that half merino, half alpaca. It is lovely and soft with an almost magenta sheen to it when it hits the light. Well, it is something I can keep in my gift arsenal. (By the way, I just created my gift arsenal. There will be many dishcloths forthcoming to add to it.)

I didn't go back to Gabriella's Yarn Shop last week for the group knit. I was just too tired. (Still coughing a bit and all that.) I just sat on the couch, watched Bones and knit. I really hope to get back there next week. Lily the Maltese puppy must be photographed for your edification before she gets any bigger. Not that she will, being a Maltese, but she will lose her puppy cuteness. Weeks make a difference in Puppyland.

Getting off the Couch

Seriously. It is harder than you think.

This cold has kicked my ass. Finally today (that's SIX DAYS after I initially got sick) I am starting to feel better. I only made it through half a day of work yesterday and slept most of the afternoon. No one talks about it, but it is really hard to come back to 8 hours a day at work from being prone for 5 days. I slept all yesterday afternoon. Then I finished the apple turned orange, turned back into apple because I found some appropriate red yarn hat.

I was so pleased with it, that I am going to make a pumpkin hat to go with it, and send them off next week!

I have also discovered Ravelry. (I sound like I am a pioneer who has made a breakthrough here, but no...I am a bit late to the game.) Ravelry is a knitting social networking website. Let's just heap another one on the pile, shall we? I'm already on facebook, twitter, and have an old, decaying page on MySpace. I also have an account on Good Reads, where I keep track of the books I read, and now I have Ravelry. I don't use MySpace anymore, and I have decided just this week that I am decidedly OVER twitter. I don't need to know what you are doing right now, and my life is so boring that I would be completely vain if I thought you wanted to know what song I have running through my head. I used to follow a bunch of people, but my phone was dinging every time a text came  through, and 99 times out of 100 it was something so inane, that I started wondering... do others feel the same about my clever little snippets of life? Surely not! Well... um, maybe... But I digress.

Ravelry is cool because it isn't just a social network, it is an organizational tool too. I am able to keep track of all of my knitting needles, stash yarn (which has almost outgrown it's container, thank you very much), and keep track of projects. I can post pictures, and keep track of details. It is pretty nifty.

I am wondering what I am going to do next. I think I might make something for myself. I desperately need a knitting needle case, and I thought I would make one. There is a neat pattern in Fabulous Felted Hand Knits that I thought I would try. Right now my needles are in an untidy pile in my craft room. A jumble, more like. Also, I need a better way to store my circulars. There is a pattern in Stitch N' Bitch, but I don't know if I like the idea yet.

I still have to felt the hotpad and coaster set. They lie there, limp and languishing. I am waffling over how to do them, by hand or in the machine? Having never felted before, I don't know which one would be more suited. The book recommends the machine, so I'll probably do that.

Book Review: Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee


Okay, so I finished it late last week, but I've been siiiiick. (Yes, that was indeed a whine.) Anyway, I chose this book over most other knitting books that we have because Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is none other than the Yarn Harlot. Yes, that Yarn Harlot. I started reading her blog way back from the beginning, She has been doing this online blogging thing for going on six years now, and I think she's a stitch to read. (Horrible pun intended.) I know she has published several books, and this was the first one I could get my hands on, though not the first one she wrote.

I didn't know what to expect with this book, other than I knew it would be funny. And funny it was. Stephanie has a self-deprecating humor that has almost made me snort Diet Coke out of my nose on more than one occasion. If you are a knitter and you haven't read anything by her, go to her blog. Now. You're welcome.

The book is broken down into chapters about categories of knitted things, or knitting knowledge you must have. There is a chapter on hats, socks, scarves, and one chapter just about swatching, and its importance. I have already learned my lesson. The first hat I knit I did without swatching my yarn and checking my gauge. My first hat is lovely, pink, and would fit a watermelon. A jumbo watermelon.

Stephanie also talks about easy in-your-head patterns for things like hats and socks. I will make a pair of socks, but I think I will hold that off for this month. But it is nice to know that there are things you can make without any set pattern. I like that. It's like the brownie recipe I have in my head. I've made it so many times that it is indelibly engraved on my brain.

Thank you, Yarn Harlot, oh wise and wonderful knitting goddess, for bestowing your words of wisdom down upon lowly beginners like me. It is all good to know for the future.

Stay tuned for my forthcoming review of Knitting Lessons by Lela Nargi.

Another kind of cold

Uch. Thursday night I came down with a cold. I spent all day in bed yesterday with aches and chills. I feel better today, but still like I've been hammered into a new shape. And I don't think it is a very attractive shape.

Anyway, this week I worked on my felted hotpad and coaster set. I have finished all the pieces, I just have to felt them now. If I have the energy, I'll do it tomorrow. Here is what they look like pre-feltiing:

I also finished Kosta's pair of hand warmers. I took some awesome goofy pictures of him wearing them, but he didn't want me to post them on the blog (for someone so unabashedly weird, I find that surprising). So here are just his hands:

Why he looks like he his clutching the sofa arm for dear life I cannot say. At least now that I have finished these hand warmers, the weather is guaranteed to promptly hit the 80s again, and render them quite useless and unnecessary. So that will be nice.

In other news I went to a wine tasting/Stitch n' Bitch on Thursday night. Gabriella (of Gabriella's Yarn Shop) doesn't call it that per se, but that is definitely what it was.  There were about a dozen of us grouped around the big center table in the room. Gabriella's Maltese puppy, Lily, made the rounds, being adorable and snatching balls of wool off the lower shelves. I'll be sure to bring my camera next time to capture the little munchkin. So was so dang cute I wanted to put her in my pocket and take him home.

The wine tasting was an unexpected surprise. We had tastes of five wines, I think. There were some really good Chilean reds, and there was a kick-ass Sauvignon Blanc that we sampled.

I was a little timid walking in the room, but the ladies made me feel welcome right away. (The wine also helped.) I sat next to a very nice lady name Mary Pat who was from the Chicago area, and another lady (whose name I shamefully can't remember) from the Milwaukee area. That's the thing about living in vacationland - everyone is from somewhere else.

After we had wrapped up, I asked Gabriella  to help me pick out yarn for my next project. One of my really good friends in high school just had her first baby one week ago today. I am going to make this for her her little baby Jude:

She didn't have the right yarn in a good red, so I got orange and I am going to make an orange instead of an apple. If I feel ambitious and lucky after I finish the hat, I might try booties to go with it.

Otherwise, I am still pretty pooped from being sick. I don't feel I have made a very witty or interesting blog entry, but I wanted to keep up to date with things here.

Tomorrow I will write about the book I finished: Stephanie Pearl McPhee's Knitting Rules! I am currently reading Knitting Lessons  by Lela Nargi.

Crap...here's a dilemma

So I went to the yarn store tonight. I drove up to Gabriella's Yarn Shop. It is a good half an hour from my house, but I got good vibes from the website, and I had emailed Gabriella herself earlier in the week to see if she was offering any classes soon.

So when I pulled up tonight I was a little surprised to see an ambulance and police car in front of the store. There didn't seem to be anything going on inside (I could see in the windows and saw two women talking), so I went in. It turns out the husband of Gabriella had an allergic reaction to some kind of food and wasn't doing so well. They were all in the back room with the paramedics. I felt instantly awkward and made to leave. But Jill (one of the ladies I saw in the window) told me that he was doing all right and that I should look around. So I did while they were finishing up with Mr. Gabriella (can't remember his name, or their last name at the moment). I picked out some yarn, and Gabriella herself came out and talked to me for a few minutes. She was really sweet and encouraged me to come back next Thursday night for the group knit.

The store had lots of beautiful stuff, and a I bought a few things. Here is what I am going to make my hand warmers with:

Pretty, huh? This is Noro Silk Garden Light, color #2027. It is beautiful with blues, greens, purples and browns. I am starting on them tomorrow morning.

And then I bought some other stuff too. I don't have any definite plans for it yet, but the colors are so pretty, I might make a ribbed scarf out of it.

This is Galway Pure Wool, worsted weight in 149 (turquoise), 145 (lime), and 15 (dark periwinkle). My mother would call the last color blue, and I would call it purple. We always disagree about blues and purples.

And finally, here is a picture of the teapot hot pad I am currently working on:

And herein lies my dilemma. What on earth do knitters do when they are in the middle of a project and they buy new shiny yarn that is begging to be used?

Tomorrow morning: The Keys!