FO Friday -- Free Yarn Edition

Okay, so I'm kinda cheating.  I don't actually have an FO to share with you all today, but (But!) I don't think you'll mind...

So, Stitches West was awesome this year (as always), and my trip to California was a blast.  I got to hang out with some of my favorite people, shop at my favorite grocery store, and eat my favorite tacos.  It doesn't get much better than that.

On Thursday night, we got our times muddled for the market preview, and showed up about an hour before it closed.  Despite a brief panic attack, we were able to get nearly all of our shopping done before the market closed.  Apparently, we're just very efficient. 

On Saturday, we took a class called "Switch to Continental".  The instructor was quite a character and there was quite a lot of eye-rolling going on, but by the time we left, I could purl in continental style.  I'm hoping to switch back and forth between Continental and English between projects for the sake of good ergonomics.  Plus which, it just looks kinda cool.

You know what's crazy?  I completely forgot to pull my camera from my bag at any point while we were at Stitches.  Sorry about that.  I did remember to take pictures of our field trip to the San Francisco Zoo, though! 

 

Oh, and the other thing I remembered to do while I was there was to buy some gorgeous yarn for y'all:

This is Alpenglow Yarn Sockerino in the English Lavender colorway.  It's just a tiny bit more muted than it looks in this picture, and it is awesome!  It's made in the US from 100% organic merino, and you all should consider yourselves very lucky that I have such epic self control that I didn't squirrel it away for myself when I got home.  If you'd like it to go home with *you*, just leave a comment on this entry between now and let's say 8pm (US Mountain Time) on March 14.  I'll use the trusty ol' random number generator and announce the winner in next week's FO Friday post.  Fair enough?  Oh, and leave a way for me to contact you in case you're the Winner!  

While you're waiting for my big announcement, go check out all the awesome entries over at FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  Then go have a fantastic weekend!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.125

Surprise!  Also, Happy New Year!  It seems I took a bit of an unintentional holiday while I adjusted to married life and working from home these last few months.  Sorry 'bout the radio silence, but I think I'm finally in a place where I can comfortably get back to blogging.  Yippee!

And what better place to start than my beloved Work in Progress Wednesday.  And I have work!  In progress, even!  I think the last time I popped in, I mentioned that I'd finally cast on for the Austin Hoodie I'd been dreaming about for ages.  It's still plugging along, but it's not terribly photogenic yet.  Exhibit A:

Really though, it's much farther along than it was.  There's about 6" of body there and I'm busily working the waist decreases at the moment.

It'd be bigger, but I got some crazy idea that I wanted to make a pair of fingerless mitts for my shiny new sister-in-law for Christmas.  And that meant I should probably also make a hat for her husband.  Totally reasonable if not for the fact that I had this revelation right around December 10 while I was finishing up a pair of socks.  But I pulled it off.  All of it.  For a minute there, I felt like Super Knitter.  It was exciting since the socks fit like a dream and both of the gifts were well received.  It was also exciting because I have material for lots of upcoming FO Fridays.  Bonus!

Anyway, while I was busily not blogging, I was doing other fun stuff.  We got some snow!!

Then Mr. Right had a birthday which prompted a weekend trip up north to Moose Country, resulting in lots of this:

And a pleasant amount of this:

And then Christmas appeared, and brought this with it:

*insert Kermit flail here*

I've been wanting a food processor for ages, and am so excited to finally have it.  Now I feel like I need the perfect recipe to test it out.  I've been perusing my new Smitten Kitchen cookbook, but haven't settled on anything yet.  So I'm open to suggestions.  What should I make with my fancy shmancy food processor?  Feel free to leave ideas in the comments -- I'm terribly impressionable.

With that, I'll say "See you Friday!"  And really, I will.  Promise.  I'll also be around more this year and will get back to blogging about other stuff some times too. Good times will be had by all.  Hmm... This sounds suspiciously like a list of New Year's resolutions, but let's just call them plans, shall we?

Edit:  Confession:  I wrote this post on Tuesday night and scheduled it to post on Wednesday morning.  It went ahead and posted it anyway.  I guess Blogger figured it'd been long enough between posts or something.  At any rate, if you read this on Tuesday night, be a sport and pretend it's Wednesday.  Mmmmkay?

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: 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.92

Hey y'all!  I haven't forgotten about you, promise.  I do feel like it's been ages since I've managed a post, though.  Apologies for that.  The truth is, things around here are incredibly stressful at the moment and I haven't had the time or concentration skills to get much knitting done at all.  Boo.

As such, I'm *still* puttering along on Narragansett.  I realized, when I started sleeve 2, that I had done some seriously wonky decreases on sleeve 1 (See distraction and stress, above).  Now I'm having to work hard to match the wonkiness on sleeve 2.

No small feat, but it's coming along.  At this rate, I'll be finished just in time to wear it for the Fall.

Since I have nothing of interest to share knittingwise, I'll attempt to distract you with pretty pictures.  It turns out that there's a place in northeastern Colorado called the Wild Animal Sanctuary.  They take in and care for loads of exotic animals who've been abused and mistreated in some way or another, fix them up and give them cushy lives.  It is, all in all, a totally awesome place.

And they let you come in and wander around on walkways that wind over the animal enclosures.  How cool is that?

So on Saturday, we took our stress-addled selves out to the boonies for an afternoon of predators on parade. 

They have loads of lions (who do lots of yawning on Saturday afternoons)...

And tigers...

And bears.  Oh my!  (Sorry, couldn't resist)

There's even a camel who hangs out with a couple of horses in a pasture.

And several packs of wolves...

But seriously, the grizzly bears had the most personality.  It was so much fun to watch them play and tussle and blow bubbles in their pool...

... without a care in the world.  There's a lesson for me in there somewhere.

Meanwhile, I'm sure some actual knitting has taken place this week over at WIPW.  Go see for yourselves.  For my part, I'll try hard to have something more interesting to show you all next week.

Cheers!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.89

Holy cow, people!  It's been two whole weeks since I've been here to post.  That's definitely some sort of record, and one I'm not anxious to break.  I missed you guys!

All is well here.  Mr. Right and I decided to host a bunch of friends for Easter dinner, which was awesome and lots of fun.  Unfortunately, a few days later we decided to go on a 4-wheeling expedition...



with a bunch of his friends trekking for 4 days through the wilderness from the Colorado border into Moab, Utah on the Kokopelli trail. 



Super fun, but the combination of preparing for both knocked me out of commission for doing anything else (even knitting) over the last couple of weeks.



But now we're back, and normal life can resume... at least a little bit.  I didn't want desert dust on my Narragansett, so I couldn't take it as a trail project.  Boo.  I've managed to almost finish sleeve #1, and moving on to sleeve #2 any minute now.  Weird, but the sleeves are taking longer than the entire rest of the sweater.  No matter, our weather is still springy enough that I'll be able to squeak out a wearing or two before it gets too warm.

I did manage to get a bit of knitting done on the road, though.  I dove into the Dishie stash and came up with some awesome orange kitchen cotton that seemed destined to become a Yoshi wash cloth.  It's about half done now, and would be altogether finished if I could knit in a moving vehicle without barfing all over the place.  As it is, the dramamine and I could only manage to knit when we were stopped on the trail.  Pretty decent progress, considering.

And now, a wash cloth story (exciting, no?)...  a million or so years ago, I knitted a Snoopy wash cloth and blogged about my plans to knit an army of them to curtail our paper towel use.  I wasn't sure how it would work out, but lots of folks chimed in with encouraging words, which was very cool.  I haven't managed to squeak another of these out until now, but I gotta say, I love the heck out of that thing and I use it ALL the time.  It scrubs tile and cleans baseboards and mops up messes in the fridge (not all simultaneously, mind you.  I promise it gets laundered in between), like a champ.  And it still looks pretty good:

The moral of the story is:  Knitted wash cloths = Awesome.  You should make some.  But first, you should check out all the WIPW entries over at Tami's this week.  There are bound to be a zillion cool things happening over there.

You should check back in here too from time to time.  I'll have some fun news to share in the next couple of weeks (teaser alert!!), and I promise to start blogging on a more regular basis again.  Who wants to miss that?  Didn't think so.  See you soon.

Cheers!

PS.  Thanks for all the fun comments about the tree pictures!  Turns out it's a crabapple tree.  Go figure!

The Blog Hub Swap -- Day 4

Hi again!  Wow, I can't remember the last time I've posted entries 4 days in a row!  It's exhausting being showered with thoughtful gifts.  This morning, after the usual stumble into the kitchen, I picked out a parcel with a pink ribbon.  It was just a pinkish sort of morning.

Can I just take a minute to tell you how glad I am to have picked a pink pack?  SO glad.  Look what I found inside...

It's merino roving in the most wonderful mix of ocean-y colors I've ever seen.  Chrissy's note said I'd mentioned that I want to learn how to needle felt, so she thought this would be good practice.  How awesome is that?  Really seriously awesome, if you must know.  I have a little needle felting penguin kit...



that I picked up at Fancy Tiger when Ysolda was in town, and I've been dying to try it.  Hopefully, I'll find the time to dig in once I get back from Stitches (just 2 more days!).  Then once I have a penguin, I can felt him a little blue iceberg to sit on.  How fun!

Also inside (I know!  Ridiculous.), was this little pack of button-shaped soaps.

Cute!  And my note said that the roving could also be used for wet felting, and that felted soaps might be a good idea.  Felted soaps are an epic idea!  They'd be great for backpacking, since they could be used for washing hands and dishes and pretty much everything else.  Awesome. 

Huge thanks to Chrissy for another amazing gift!!

Speaking of backpacking, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Mr. Right bought me a brand new, fancy schmancy pack for Valentine's day.  And even though it's still the dead of winter here in Colorado, we've been loading them up and taking them on hikes to practice for an actual overnight trip at some point when the weather is more reasonable. 

Today, we loaded 40 pounds and hiked 6.5 miles of mountain trail.  It was no joke, but it was incredibly beautiful.  So I'll leave you with a mess of hiking pictures and the promise of another fun gifty tomorrow. 

See you then!