Work in Progress Wednesday v.121

Greetings from the land of Brrrrrrrr!  Winter weather has finally arrived around these parts and it has gone from unusually pleasant to freakishly cold in very short order.  I'm having trouble adjusting.  As I type, I'm huddled up to the fireplace (Mr. Right is traveling on business tonight, or I'd be snuggled up to him), and wearing ALL THE CLOTHES.

I'm also knitting.  True facts, people.  When last we met, I was just about finished with sock #1.  And now, just two short weeks later, I'm just about to turn the heel on sock #2. 

Not bad considering that in between I hosted Mr. Right's parents for 5 days and cooked a ginormous Thanksgiving dinner for 8 people.  Well actually, I cooked dinner for 20-ish people, but there were 8 folks in attendance.  Leftovers, anyone?

I'm hoping I can crank through the rest of sock #2 and make it back here for FO Friday, but that might be cutting it just a little bit close.  We'll see.

Now, it's true confession time.  And boy is it embarrassing.  Remember that Austin Hoodie that I'd just barely started a couple of weeks ago?  I had to put it aside.  Why, you ask?  Well, it calls for a knitted hem.  And it's been sooooooooo long since I've done one that I have to take the time to consult the tutorial.  That I wrote.  Seriously.  I have to go read a tutorial that I wrote 2 years ago to remember how to construct a knitted hem.  That is all kinds of pathetic, my friends.  I don't even have children yet, so I have no excuse for the fact that my brain seems to have liquefied and trickled out my left ear.  I plan on pulling it out tomorrow, and will give it a shot.  I hear it's a pretty good tutorial.
 
Oh, and remember how I was all excited about making homemade mozzarella?  Well.  It was a spectacular failure.  I've no idea what went awry, but when all was said and done and I'd followed very carefully all of the detailed directions, I had slightly sour milk.  Undeterred, I've signed up to take a cheesemaking class on December 9.  I'm hoping for actual cheese this time, but you never know.

In other news, we decorated for Christmas:

Yay! 

ps.  Go check out all the cool craftiness that's happening over at WIPW this week. 

Work in Progress Wednesday v.119

Excellent news, peeps!  The Ugliest Sock Ever has grown on me, and now that it's almost grown up I actually kind of like it.  It's still umm... vivid? But it's kind of fun I think.  Proof:

And once it has a mate, I think they'll brighten things up considerably this winter.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

More excellent news, too!  I actually managed to start a second project.  It's SO nice to have the knitting mojo back and to have stuff to work on these days.  I'm loving it.  This...

...is the very beginning of an Austin Hoodie.  I've had this pattern in my queue for aaaaaaages, and last year at Stitches West, in a frenzy of It's-my-birthday-there-is-no-budget shopping, I picked up 5 skeins of madelinetosh's Tosh Sock in the Calligraphy colorway so that I could finally start knitting it.

Unfortunately, the yarn was so pretty and so expensive that I was a little paralyzed by fear:  What if I knit the wrong size?  What if I screw it up?  What if it's too small?  Too big?  In the end, I realized that none of these things would be anything near the end of the world, so I dove in.  So far?  It's lovely to knit with, though as you can see it's still very early.  It's also kind of a big pain in the bum to alternate skeins, but I really want to avoid obvious changes from skein to skein, so I'll deal.  I can't wait to wear it!

That's what's cooking around these parts these days.  At least on the needles.  In other news, I've finally managed to gather the elusive ingredients required and am going to make CHEESE this week.  Crazy, no?  I'll let you know how it goes, and whether I end up witha tasty pizza or a burnt out shell of a kitchen.  Fingers crossed on that one!

See you all over at WIPW!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.117

The knitting is back, baby!  I'm so excited that I was finally able to get a project started, I can't stand it.  After weeks (months?) of having not the right yarn (some times) or not the right needles (almost always) for anything I wanted to knit, I *finally* managed to push through and get a pair of socks started.  They're nothing fancy by a loooooong stretch, just 3 x 1 ribbing, but they're knitting -- and at this point, I'll take it.

Here's the sock in question:

They might possibly end up being the ugliest socks I've ever seen, but I totally don't care.  Well, I care a little bit, but enough to stop.  I've had this skein of self-striping yarn in my stash for ages. Before I tore into it, it looked like this:

A little loud, but not bad.  I've never knit with self-striping yarn before, and really wanted to give it a try.  Now I'm just confused.  Red!  Green!  Yellow!  Rasta socks!  With... pink and blue?  And peach?  For serious?  I'm unimpressed.  But I am beyond happy to be knitting again so I will not complain.  Very much.

In other news, the sale of Mr. Right's house closes in about an hour, and we're mostly unpacked and settled here, so I get to squeeze in a little blogging now and again, and hopefully catch up on my bloggy reading and see what y'all have been up to while I've been moving house.  Yay!  I also managed to squeeze in my first Zumba class this morning, and wow.  The only way I could manage to look any dorkier is if I were to be wearing those socks.  It's definitely time to work on the coordination a bit. 

So while I'm over here practicing my salsa moves, you go check out all the rest of the WIPW entries over at Tami's.  I'll see you there!

FO Friday - Lotsa Lace Edition

How sad is it that I couldn't post on Wednesday because I still haven't managed to start any sort of meaningful knitting project?  Slightly distressing, I must admit.  I'm getting closer, and we're finishing up the Big Move on Sunday, so there's light at the end of the tunnel, peeps.  It's about time!

No matter, what I do have is an actual finished piece of knitting.  Exciting, no?  I think so.  I started the Nympheas scarf waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in June, knit tons of it while I was stuck in a hotel room nursing Mr. Right and his Exploding Appendix, then put it aside for all manner of wedding knitting, and wedding stuff, then picked it up again on our honeymoon only to have my needles ripped from it and confiscated by a VERY ANGRY Costa Rican TSA guy.  This little scarf has had quite a journey!

I was a little worried since I bought the yarn in a Ravelry destash and the skein arrived in all sorts of tangled disarray.  It seemed a bit lighter than the prescribed yardage, and I was afraid I'd come up short.  My finished scarf, once I'd used up all of it, was only about 47" long so I pinned (no pun intneded, but Ha!) a lot of hope on the magic of blocking. 

I took a deep breath and threaded my borrowed blocking wires (never used those before) through the edges.  And then...

It totally worked!  Finished and blocked, my Nympheas is about 64" long.  Pretty close to what I was hoping for, actually.  Win!

It's warm and cozy, but not too heavy...

And it looks pretty good hanging from a tree in an artsy Fall photo:

Yay!  And now I'm diving back into the packing-and-moving-and-unpacking black hole, but I promise to come up for air now and again over the weekend to visit y'all over at FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  Happy weekend, guys!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.114

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnd... we're back!  Hi.  Me again.  Still trying to work out how to fit regular blogging into my new life schedule and mostly failing miserably.  But I'm trying, so I get an E for effort at least.

Mr. Right's house went on the market and sold in 4 (FOUR!) days, so when he totters off to work in the morning, I've been spending my days packing up stuff at his house, moving it over to my (our! squee!) house and unpacking it.  It's working out pretty well, but it's sucking up a TON of time. 

We still haven't sent out our wedding thank yous yet, or even managed to finish opening our gifts, which is getting a little bit ridiculous.  This week.  Really.  I hope.

On the knitting front, we are in uncharted waters, folks.  I finally finished Nympheas, which is all blocked and totally lovely, and which you'll get to see on Friday.  And I don't have anything. on. the. needles.  Shocking.  It's not for lack of trying though, I promise.

I took the plunge and swatch for Idlewood. I'm always spot on for gauge (with the exception of the fancy new tube top described below), but this thing looked like swiss cheese. I don't have needles in the next size down, so it's on hold until (if?) last year's Christmas present shows up.

Undeterred, I bought a lovely skein of Blue Sky Alpacas Suri Merino to knit Ptarmigan.  No swatch since it's just a cowl, right?  Yeah.  About 4 rows in, I discovered it was twisted, so pulled it off the needles and realized that the circumference was 38".  So.  You know, more slightly large tube top than cowl at that point.  I ripped.  I started again with smaller needles.  Smaller tube top this time, but still.  This yarn does not want to play with this pattern, and that makes me just a tiny bit sad.


Now I'm swatching for my Austin Hoodie.  Swatch with recommended needles was waaaaaaaaaaaay off (are we sensing a theme here?), so I went down a size and am not-so-patiently waiting for it to dry.  Proof:

Since I can't manage to knit a freaking thing these days, I turned my precious knitting minutes and all my pent up energy toward assembling a present Mr. Right bought me a few weeks before our wedding.  Behold, The Storage:

Isn't it purty (silly flash glare aside)?  It's so solid and wooden and organize-y that I'm completely in love.  Sock yarn in one bin, sweater quantities in a couple of others, cotton, laceweight, mini skeins... it all has a shiny new home.  My husband rocks.  It's not knitting, but it will definitely tide me over for a while.  At least a day or two.

See you all over at Tami's for WIPW!  Cheers!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.112

*Glub*  That, my friends, is the sound of me coming up for air.  I really thought I'd have so much more time to blog and knit and do fun things when I wasn't working a full time job and commuting back and forth from the big city.  Not so much, I'm afraid.

Mr. Right was away for a week again, and I was running around like a crazy person getting his house ready to go on the market (So we can actually live together!  A month after we got married!). Once that was done, we decided to take an impromptu camping trip to the mountains to see the fall colors, Colorado style.  We haven't done that before, and well... wow.  Behold:

and

and

See?

Really, we had a blast and got to explore part of the state we hadn't seen much of before.  Sorry blog, it was totally worth being away for a week.

Speaking of sorry...  I'm *still* knitting that little lace scarf.  This is how much yarn I have left (it's about the size of a quarter):

(Apologies for the crap pics, it's late on Tuesday night and the light just isn't.)

Don't be fooled, the stupid ball of yarn has been this size for a week and refuses to shrink.  It's like an everlasting gobstopper or something.

This is the scarf as it stands:

I borrowed a set of blocking wires from a knit night buddy and hopefully I'll get it off the needles and onto the pins and wires tomorrow.  There's a teensy chance of an FO Friday appearance this week, but don't get your hopes up too high.

In other news, I finally caved in to the urge and started swatching for Idlewood.  My swatch:

Yeah, it didn't go too well.  I got 2 or so inches into the swatch and realized that the fabric on the suggested needles looked like honeycomb.  Boo.  Going down a needle size will throw my gauge off, and so I find myself in the market for a fun-but-simple (style, not necessarily construction) sweater pattern that I can knit in a size 38 with 1100 or so yards of this pretty brown Cascade 220.  I'm open to suggestions, so take your best shot in the comments. 

S'all I got for today.  For newer and more exciting projects, check out all the other WIP Wednesday entries over at Tami's.  See you there!

FO Friday -- Bulky Baby Blankie Edition

Great news, y'all!  I finished the baby blanket I'd been working on at breakneck speed last week!  And only 5 days after the baby shower!  Oops.  I tried.  I really, really did.  But apparently I brought some sort of exotic cold back from Costa Rica with me, and then had to ship Mr. Right back off on the Business Trip That Never Ends (...it goes on and on, my friends!) and all of it slowed me down just a smidge.

But!  All flimsy excuses aside, here it is:

I loved knitting this blanket.  For reals.  It was fast and easy, and the pattern was both well-written and very intuitive.  After a bit, I only had to glance at it occasionally.  And that doesn't happen for me very often.

If you're interested, I modified an afghan pattern to shrink it down to baby-size, and knit it in Knit Picks Brava (acrylic!) Bulky.  Details on my mods are here.  And I gotta say, the yarn was surprisingly soft and squishy.  I'm not a fan of acrylic at all, and I'd totally use this again for something like a baby blanket that needs to be both washable and generally mistreat-able.

It's an all-around Woot! project, I'd say.

In other news, I'm still waiting on the rest of the wedding pictures so I can write up a proper post or two.  Soon!  Promise!  I did find one picture I wanted to share with you all:

Remember Wendell?  He's my ridiculously adorable and incredibly reliable wedding assistant, sent by Kathleen to help me wrangle all the details.  He totally came to the chapel with me and hung out in the dressing room while I was getting ready.  He stood watch over the bridesmaids bouquets and just generally made me smile.  Wendell rocks.

Speaking of things that rock... (smooth transition, no?) Go check out FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday for lots more yarny goodness.  They're all kinds of awesome.

FO Friday - Wedding Puffs Edition

Happy almost-weekend, guys!  I'm still digging out from all the wedding debris around here, and knitting my fingers off on the baby blankie for *gulp* tomorrow night, but I wanted to take a quick minute to share a fun pre-wedding FO. 

I mentioned once or twice that I wanted to knit some hexipuffs in our wedding colors to hang in the apple tree for decoration, and then eventually work into my beekeeper's quilt.  Sentimentality and all that mooshy stuff.  I showed you a pile that looked like this:

And then like this:

And then things got super crazy, as they tend to do in the week before a wedding, and I didn't manage to knit the puffs with our initials on them like I wanted.  Fortunately for me, I had 6 (!) good friends staying at my house with me during the wedding weekend, one of whom is my bestest knitting buddy (Hi, BB!).  Bless her heart, she spent a semi-frantic 15 minutes on the night before our wedding embroidering our initials onto two of my wedding puffs, and then stringing them all together into a happy little garland.

On the big day, they hung on the gate leading to the reception:

And they looked pretty freaking awesome, if you ask me.  I'm SO happy with the way it all turned out, and with the helping hand I got in getting them all finished. 

The other wedding FO was the groom's socks, which I posted about before, but here's a shot of them in action on the Big Day:

That's a wrap on the wedding knitting, stay tuned for something new and exciting coming soon to a blog near you -- just as soon as I figure out what it is.  Meanwhile, go check out all the fun stuff happening at the other FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday blogs.  They're pretty much guaranteed awesomesauce.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.109

Dudes!  I'm totally home. And totally MARRIED! (Eep!)  I have oodles of stories to tell about the last couple of weeks, but we're only just back from our honeymoon and haven't even managed to put our houses back together or open our wedding presents yet.  Scandalous, no?

Anyway, I wanted to pop in to say Hi!  I SO missed y'all!  (really), and share the little bit of knitting that I managed to do on planes over the last couple of weeks.  Behold, the Bulky Baby Blankie:

I'm 2+ repeats in now and it's about 15" long.  Baby shower is this Saturday and I need it to be about 36" long, so hold your breath for me.  It's knitting up pretty quickly, and the pattern is actually sort of fun so I think I have a decent shot.

My Nympheas scarf is still hanging around too, but the only action it saw while I was away was to have its Addi Turbo needles angrily ripped from it by a VERY unhappy Costa Rican security agent.(More on my career as an international criminal later.) Yikes.  I'm hoping I'll be able to salvage it, but haven't been brave enough to take a  peek at it yet.  We'll see.

I promise to be back in the next few days with lots of posts about the rehearsal, the wedding and the honeymoon.  Pics, too!  Until then, I'm going to concentrate on growing my little blankie and catching up on all my blog reading -- especially with my WIPW peeps.  See you there!

To help tide you over until then, here's my favorite picture of our ceremony...

And one of my incredibly handsome groom...

*sigh* 

FO Friday -- Goin' to the Chapel Edition

Hey y'all!

It's here!  It's here!  It's here!!  Today's FO is the wait for my wedding day!  This time tomorrow, we'll be saying vows surrounded by some of our favorite people, promising to be in this forever and ever, amen.  Then it's off to Costa Rica (!) for a week.  So it'll be quiet around here for a bit, but I promise loads of pictures and stories to tell.  Until then, here's a sneak peak at one of the table arrangements for tomorrow's reception:

Check out some more legitimate FOs over at Tami's, and then have an amazing weekend.  Ok?

See you on the flip side!

FO Friday -- Here Comes the Groom Edition

Happy Friday, y'all!  I'm super excited on this particular Friday for lots of reasons:

First, if you're reading this it means I've finally put in the last hours at my terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad job.  What a relief.  I'm SO excited to start a whole new life in the next couple of weeks, and only a little bit sad about the whole affair.

Next, I finished the Wedding Socks!  And I did it in plenty of time to meet that whole Olympic knitting deadline.  Awesome.  They fit Mr. Right's feet perfectly, and I love the way they turned out:

Not bad, eh?  Bonus:  Despite more than a year transpiring between sock 1 and sock 2, they're almost exactly the same size.  No idea how I managed that, but pretty happy that I did.

More pics to come after the Big Day, promise.  My little sock blockers don't quite do a great job of showing off the pattern since boy socks are so. freaking. big.
And... I have another FO this week!  Largely because someone else made it.  Behold, wedding jam:

These cute little things are our wedding favors.  Homemade peach jam, courtesy of my awesome matron of honor, and spectacular jam labels courtesy of my equally awesome art director friend.  I'm kind of smitten with them and hope our guests are, too.  They still need a ribbon or a bit of twine around the lid, but that should be pretty painless.

Now, just 2 1/2 more puffs to go, and the wedding knitting will be finito.  Phew!  Then, I just have 11 million and 3 things left to get done before the wedding.  Next week.  Eep!  Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit.  Really, we're in great shape as far as stuff coming together.   I know this because I still have time to knit.  Baby blanket!  Woot!

And now I'm off to wash the dog.  Oh, the glamorous life of a bride!  But then I'll check out all the cool stuff that's happening at FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday, because both of them are way more fun than stinky, wet dog.

Work in Progress Wednesday v.105

By the Numbers:

Wedding Countdown:  17 days (!)
# of wedding socks to go:  .3
# of puffs remaining: 12
# of wedding showers given in my honor recently: 1
# of old friends who've come to town on book tours promoting their first novel:  1
# of creeping crud colds I've caught from friends who've recently returned from Bulgaria: 1
Gallons of snot my body is currently producing: Many
# of Kleenex pressed into battle fighting said creeping crud:  Untold hundreds
Amount of energy I have for writing fun blog posts with cool pictures: Zero

*sniffle*

I really do have lots of fun knitting and shower and book tour stories and pics to share, and promise to try and reign in the snot in time for a more interesting (and slightly less pathetic) FO Friday.  Meanwhile, go check out the other WIPW entries which are guaranteed to be more visually interesting and less germ-filled.

*sniffle*

See you soon!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.104

Sometimes, I think, "I really have this whole wedding planning thing under control.  I could totally take on another project or two and be just fine."  Then I go volunteer for something fun and cool.  Then I come to my senses and feel an overwhelming urge to go smack my over-confident self upside the head.  You ever do that?

Such is the case with the whole Ravel-whatever Games.  What a fun idea!  And so many really awesome events that I have no time to complete.  Guess what?  I signed up.  Yep.  And not for just one event.  Two.  (See head-smacking, above) 

Ah well, there are worse things, right?  At least these are both wedding knitting and have to be done anyway.  First up are Mr. Right's wedding socks.  Last Friday after work, sock #2 looked like this:

And today, it looks like this:

 (Top pic is closest to actual color) Given all the working and planning and commuting that's going on 'round these parts, I'm pretty darn proud of myself for knocking out so much sock.  Almost done with the gusset decreases now, then a mile or two of foot (why do boys have such ginormous feet???), and then it's Toe City baby.  I'm really hoping to be done before the weekend.

The other event I signed up for is the Modular Relay, in a half-hearted attempt to knit another dozen puffs for the wedding.  At the moment, I have 12:

Apologies for the wonky photo, but it's stormy here today and there's no good light to be had.  Really, they're light blue.  Promise.

So if I can knock out another 12 in the next 2 weeks, I should be all set.  They're not bad to do and go pretty quickly, but my favorite thing about puff knitting is seeing all my fun sock yarns turn into a puff or two.   And let's face it.  By now, all the mystery's pretty much gone from the red and blue puffs.  At least they'll be cute on the tree.

And, since I have *cough* so much spare time on my hands, I have a baby blanket to knit.  Yarn just arrived this week:

I'm planning on modifying the Bas-relief Blanket pattern down to baby size, so it should go pretty quickly.  I'm really excited to get started on this, mainly because it's bulky yarn on biggish needles instead of fingering weight on size 1s.  The shower is scheduled for something like 4 days after we get back from our honeymoon, so I'll be hauling this baby to Costa Rica.  I don't expect to have much time to knit while we're there, but I figure I'll have plenty of hours where I'm freezing to death on the plane and so a blankie to keep my lap warm will be nice.  I hope.

In other news, it's officially 25 (!) days til the wedding and this weekend one of my very best friends is flying in from California to throw me a wedding shower.  How cool is that?  I'm really looking forward to having a house full of girlfriends to hang out with.  Honestly, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.  Until then, I'm going to spend some time freaking out about the wedding, and when I'm not busy doing that I'll be checking out all the WIPW peeps over at Tami's.  See you there!

FO Friday: Proxy Edition

Man, it seems like it's been an age since I've managed to finish anything, let alone get it posted up for FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  Still wedding-ing full speed around these parts, especially since we're now officially at 30 days (*gulp*)!

I didn't get much knit time last week, because I was getting my SCUBA certification! (More on that below), so I was super surprised to have an FO to show you guys.  Wanna know the trick?  I totally didn't make it.  Someone else did.  How awesome is that???

A few months ago, I entered and won a little contest hosted by Kathleen over at A Surprise Every Time.  If you don't read this blog, you should.  Kathleen is all kinds of awesome.  Anyway, I won myself 2 little crocheted bookworms to use as bookmarks or to stick in worm-worthy books at the library for someone else to find.  All in all, very cool!

Time passed, and I completely forgot about the contest, until Kathleen left a comment here and let me know that she hadn't forgotten and that a package was on the way.  It was so far outta my head that it was like winning all over again.

Well.  The box arrived last night, and oh. my. gosh.  Seriously.  There were such treasures inside this unassuming little tea box:

First, book worms!  And not just 2.  Aren't they adorable?

There was even a fish!  And a star!

But the very bestest part was that Kathleen pays attention.  She put this in the box:

!!!!!!!

It's not only the cutest owl I've ever seen, it's Wendell.  And he's made in our wedding colors!  And he's holding a little clipboard that has wedding stuff checked off (flowers, music and happiness)!  Apparently, he's my new assistant, and will take on all the little stressful odds and ends of wedding planning that are left.  Best. Gift. Ever. And since I know you're wondering, Wendell is totally coming to the church with me on August 25, just in case.  Thank you, Kathleen!!

Also this week, while I was being showered with unexpected and undeserved pressies, I was also getting my scuba certification.  I gotta say, it was a little bit dicey at first.  I didn't expect to feel anxious underwater but I did.  I had an especially hard time taking my mask off down there and putting it back on.  And by "hard time", I mean I completely lost ALL of my marbles at the bottom of the pool, ripped my regulator out of my mouth, sucked in a giant lung-full of water, and shot like a (stupid, sputtering, choking) rocket to the surface of the pool.  Yikes.  This left me really scared for my open water dives the next day, but I went back.

It's important to note here that when you live in the Rocky Mountains, there are a limited number of places to do open water diving.  Here, one of the choices is the big tank at the Denver Aquarium.  So that's where I went.  And people, it was amazing!  I had no panic, no problems, and passed all my requirements.  With that out of the way, we had some time to swim around the tank.  So cool!  Proof:

There are 3 huge (12 feet long or so) nurse sharks in the tank, one of whom is particularly fond of people.  We'd been warned that she'd likely make contact with us, but didn't think much about it until we were all in a circle on our knees at the bottom of the tank and she came cruising in and plopped down in the middle of the circle, knocking 2 of us over in the process.  Too funny.

My next encounter with her came a few minutes later when I was swimming along and she came straight at me, aimed for a head on collision.  I waited to see what would happen and when she got about 6" from my mask, she dropped down and zoomed under me, close enough that I could feel her fins through my wet suit.

Finally, at the end of the dive, I was swimming along the floor of the tank and she came zooming up behind me and swam between me and the gravel.  That was enough of a surprise that I let out a little girl scream.  It sounds a bit scary, but really it was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had.  This isn't me, but you can see the shark with her friend at the bottom of the picture.

So there you have it.  Not much finished, not much fiber, but I'll take a Friday any way I can get it these days.  For less sharks and more yarn, check out FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  I'll see you out there!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.102

Hi again!  Still here.  Still utterly drowning in wedding prep at this point.  It's (already!) WIPW again, and I've been so busy this week that the sum total of my knitting progress amounts to a couple more puffs.  Not much exciting to see here.

I'm totally consumed at the moment by studying for my scuba diving class this weekend.  I'm about 80% of the way through section 4 of 6 on the study and have tomorrow night and Thursday night to go.  It's gonna be a close one, folks.  We really want to dive on our honeymoon, and I'm super excited to learn how to do it.  I just wish I had 30 or so hours in a day for the next few weeks.  Can anyone swing that for me?  I'd be eternally grateful, and would probably even bake you some cookies with all my extra time.  Pretty good offer, no?

Since I have nothing of interest to show you knitting-wise, I'll attempt to distract you with pretty pictures of wedding stuff.  Smoke and mirrors, guys.  That's what I've got to offer this week.

Look! Our cake topper finally arrived!  It's even better than I could've hoped for!

It all started with a pretty box with a few amazingly cute postcards...

And inside...

White paper fluffy stuff!  Awesome!

And underneath the fluffy stuff, these guys!

I know.  I about died from the cute myself.  The lovely and talented Ann Wood made them just for us, using exactly our wedding colors that I sent to her via a couple of web links.  And they're perfect!

Check out the boutonniere on his lapel!

And the flower on her fascinator (which isn't blurry at all in real life -- sorry)!

I'm smitten.  This was my one big splurge for the wedding, where I just flat out bought what I wanted with no regard for the price.  I'm so glad I did.  It was worth every penny, and Ann is an absolute dream to work with.  I can't recommend her enough.  Love.

In other news, I want to make a bunting for the wedding.  I didn't know it was called a bunting until recently, but there you go.  In case you're like me, a bunting is a string of those little triangle-shaped flags you hang up for party decorations.  They're even on our invitations.  Like so...

So, ignoring the fact that I have no idea how to make one of these, and also the fact that I have no idea how to sew, I went out last week and bought the most adorable fabrics in red and blue to make a bunting! 

Later, I'll worry about how to turn this pile into something decorative and useful.  For now, I'm just going to stare fondly at it because it's so pretty.  And I'm going to memorize dive tables.  They're less pretty, but lots more urgent at the moment.

What are you going to do?

FO Friday - Temporary Amnesia Edition

Hey you guys!  How the heck are ya?  In case you missed the update, I was all set to write a WIPW post this week, and then got an email on Wednesday morning from a blog friend (Hi, Nikki!)  asking if I was okay since I'd missed posting two weeks in a row.  I was really, really confused for a minute as I'd been totally convinced that it was Tuesday.  Yeah, not so much. 

The upshot is, I'm alive and well, and utterly unable to keep track of the days of the week any longer.  Ah well, there are worse things, right?

So here's a tiny update for you:  When last we spoke, I was still in California, taking care of my newly surgerized fiance in his business-trip hotel room.  I ended up flying home on Thursday, and happily they sent him home with me to heal up for a few days.  He did, and is now back in California (sans appendix) working away.  Phew!  It's a bummer to be apart again, but I'm happy to have him healthy and be back for normal pre-wedding stress levels. 

And now for the FO Friday/ Fiber Arts Friday portion of the festivities:  I'm still knitting away on the wedding puffs, and despite having some serious trauma with the heart puffs (yeah, I know, there's nothing much "hexi" about them), they're coming along.  Here are the first 8:

Pretty cute, no?  I'm definitely getting faster at them and have high hopes for at least a couple of dozen of them hanging from the apple tree at the reception.

My other FO for this week is wedding shoes!  Sounds silly, I know... but it took 5 phone calls, 1 store visit, 2 internet orders and 1 rather painful mail order return to get them done.  I'd say that cements their FO status, don't you think?  Anyway, here they are:



I don't love them on their own, but they're really pretty spectacular with the dress, which you'll have to wait a bit to see since Mr. Right some times reads my blog (Hi, love!).  So take my word for it and I promise to share lots of pics when the time comes (44 days -- eep!)

I'd show you the invitations too, but I can't figure out how to blur the details and I don't really want to invite the whole of the internets to the wedding.  Ooh!  But I can maybe crop it so you can just see the design my friend made for us...

There's not really a black outline around the edges, but it got a bit lost on the background without.  Aren't they so cute?  And in case you haven't guessed it yet, my next wedding DIY is making flag bunting to hang on the fence at the reception.  Stay tuned for pics of that progress next Wednesday, provided I can figure out what day it is.  Until then, have a spectacular weekend!