Work in Progress Wednesday v.95

Okay, guilty as charged.  Y'all were right when you laughed (albeit very kindly and gently) at me when I said something silly like, "Now that we're engaged (!), I'll have plenty of time to get back to stuff like knitting and blogging."  Yeah, right.

Over the last two weeks, we've set a date (Yay!), had it bashed (Boo!), then set another (Yay!) and again struck down (Boo!), followed closely by 3 more dates (Yay, Boo, Yay, Boo, Yay, Boo, respectively).  Now we're trying on another.  Sixth time's a charm, right?  If we could just find a pastor who has time to marry us, we'd be all set.  And then I'll have time for stuff like knitting and blogging.  Heh.  Not even I believe that this time around.  But this, I've decided, is a happy sort of problem.  Much happier than Will-we-ever-get-sob!-married???  ... which brings us back to Yay!

And really, I totally managed a teeny bit of knitting.  I finished Narragansett, who I really hope to show you on Friday once I add a slip stitch to my currently Flashdance-friendly neckline, and get 'er blocked.  It's lovely, though.  So soft, and so comfy.

Since I found myself suddenly project-less, and since I had a shiny new pattern from the lovely and talented Eskimimi, I fished a skein of Malabrigo sock (in the Aguas colorway) out of the stash, and cast on for a Nympheas, a light and summery lace scarf.  Here's how it's looking so far...

The pattern is great, really well written and simple, but just complicated enough to keep things interesting.  I'm having a blast knitting it, even though I can only cobble together an hour or two of knitting time a week.

In other news, the invitations are nearly done (or will be as soon as we have a date and venue to put on them), the cake and flowers are sorted, and the guest list is iron-clad.  Sort of.  The current plan is to have a small wedding in the next month or two here in Colorado, then hopefully a bigger party in California this fall.  Fingers crossed!

For more crafty goodness and less wedding angst, head over to Tami's to see what everyone else has been up to in the last week or so.  I'm betting it's something fun.

Cheers!

The Big Reveal

Today's post is what I like to think of as a multi-media extravaganza.  And, if you'll just bear with me, I think it will certainly enhance your post-reading experience.  Please note the youtube video embedded below.

Trust me on this one... Click play, then wait for the video to start to scroll down and read the rest of this entry.  Don't worry, I'll wait.









Is it playing yet?









Okay.  Ready?









We're ENGAGED!  It's a long story, but the main points are these:  On Sunday night, Mr. Right got down on one knee, pulled out the most beautiful ring I've ever seen and asked me to be his wife.  I said yes.  I can honestly say I've never been happier in my life.

The long and detailed version is this:  We've been working on this for a while, but Mr. Right's family wasn't happy about his decision to marry me and he's been trying hard to get them on board.  This has resulted in a whole lotta life stress for all of us, especially him.

Last week everything boiled over, and after discussing things with our pastor, Mr. Right agreed to go away for 48 hours to decide whether we should get finally get married or go our separate ways.  He left on Thursday night.  Needless to say, I was a bit of a basket case.  I knew that at the end of the weekend we would either be engaged or apart for good. No pressure, right?  He planned to come back on Saturday night and let me know his decision.

I muddled through work on Friday, spent some time with some really good (and very patient) friends that evening, then curled up in bed with my laptop and watched the entire first season of Downton Abbey on Saturday.  (Just as an aside -- Love. That. Show.)

Around 5 on Saturday afternoon, he called to tell me he was going to stay where he was for another night.  I was pretty sure this meant we were through, but tried to keep an open mind.  At 7 am on Sunday, while I was getting ready for church, Mr. right turned up in my bathroom and said this:  "You're my one."  I may have swooned just a little bit.

We spent a really fun day together, and while I was cooking dinner, Mr. Right called me over to come look at the view of the mountains with him (to his credit, he did wait until I'd washed the raw chicken gunk off my hands).  When I got there, he said the most wonderful, romantic, sweetest words I'd ever heard and while I was staring at him,  he got down on one knee, produced a jawdroppingly beautiful ring...

(Proof)

And asked me to be his wife.  Contrary to all my best efforts, I immediately burst into tears, then pulled myself together and said yes.  I couldn't have asked for a better proposal, a more perfect ring or a more wonderful guy.

Now comes the part where we live happily ever after.  I can't wait.


ps.  Now also comes the part where life begins to return to normal and I have time for things like knitting and blogging every so often.  Awesome!

pps. I'm also linking up to WIPW today, even though there's not a stitch of knitting in this post, because that's where all my friends hang out.  And Frontier Dreams, too.  Forgive me?

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.90

Welcome to the latest installment of Work in Progress Wednesday, where this week's theme is Knit it Again, Sam.  Seriously, I thought I'd be done with Narragansett by now, but alas.  I finished sleeve 1 according to the measurements on the pattern, tried it on, then promptly sat down and ripped out the ribbing on the sleeve so that I could extend the pattern 2 more inches. For a quick refresher, here's how it looked last week:

Sigh.  I'm not sure what happened exactly, but somehow my 3/4 length sleeve stopped just past my elbow.  Not a good look.  And it's not like I have monkey arms or anything...  Ah well, better to have it right than done and wrong, yes?  Here's how it looks now (with diminishing sunlight):

 It's all fixed up, and I've just picked up the stitches for sleeve #2.  Again.  Stay tuned for happier results next week.

Discouraged by ripping out a huge sleeve chunk, I turned to the simple little washcloth that I started on our camping expedition last week.  Nothing like some good, mindless TV knitting to boost the spirits, right?  Umm.

Here's how it looked last week:

Somewhere around row 49 (of 60), I realized my stitches weren't quite lining up.  I tinked a row.  Still wrong.  Repeat.  Still.  In all, I tinked 5 rows, then pulled out the needle and frogged 7 more.  I realized somewhere along the way that I was working the wrong side rows on the right side.  How is this possible?  (*hint:  it's not).  I had ripped out the whole blinking thing by the time I read the instructions again and remembered that this chart started on the bottom left with a wrong side row, instead of in the usual way.  More sigh.

Here's how it looked Friday afternoon:

(*Note: This is merely a re-enactment.  I didn't have enough wits about me at the time to capture the carnage with the camera)

And so.  I cast on again and knitted like a fiend until I finished, just to make a point.  To who?  Not sure, but I'm certain I taught that pattern a thing or two.  Regardless, it's done and cute.  And you'll get to see it on Friday.

To say I've been distracted of late seems like a bit of an understatement.  Hopefully things around here will smooth out soon, or else I'll have to give up knitting in favor of napping in the fetal position.

If you're in the mood for some actual forward motion, I suggest heading over to WIPW for some more coherent crafty goodness.

See you Friday, hopefully not from the fetal position!

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!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.87

Welcome back to Narragansett-land, everybody!  I swear, I'm going to get this sweater finished soon, just not soon enough.  It might still make the Easter deadline, though!

This week, despite having almost no time to knit, I managed to finish and bind off the waistband.  Now I'm slowly (and with much hatred for knitting sleeves on dpns), working my way through sleeve #1.  I would totally magic loop these if only I had a cable long enough to make it work, but alas.  Some day, I'll get my Christmas present from Mr. Right (ETA September -- ugh), and this will stop being an issue.  Until that magical day, I'll keep fiddling with these things.

Can't complain too much, though.  It really is going pretty quickly.  If only I could figure out how to avoid all this weird gappy business in the underarm (sorry about the blur!).

Thoughts, anyone?  Barring any flashes of brilliance that might show up in the comments, I'll just stitch up the holes with the tail when I'm done.  Worse things could happen, right?

Since that's all I have to report on the knitting front (soon people, I promise!), I thought I'd share some pictures of my favorite tree which spent last weekend bursting out with springtime.

I LOVE this tree.  I have no idea what it is, but it puts on this amazing show for a few weeks every year and it's all kinds of awesome.  It's also filled to the brim with bees to such an extent that you can actually hear the hum from 10 or so feet away.  The whole thing is very cool.

And fleeting, since we went from sunny and 84 on Sunday to 34 and snowing like crazy today.  It makes me extra glad I managed to snap a few pictures before all the blossoms get snowed off.

That's it for me this week, now I'm off to check out the rest of the WIPW entries.  See you there!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.86

True confession time:  I really, really love knitting sweaters.  And when I'm knitting them I get all sorts of obsess-y and become very knitting monogamous until I'm done with whatever sweater I'm feeling obsess-y about.  And that, my friends, makes for a whole string of really boring WIPW posts that are all about the same thing. 

Sorry.

But not sorry enough to cast on something else to stir up the pot a bit.  So this week, you get Narragansett.  Again.



It's longer now.  I'm just starting the ribbing tonight.  Two or so inches of that and then it's sleeve city, baby.  It's all very exciting, at least for me.

In other news, we're burning up around here.  A wildfire broke out yesterday about 10 miles away in the midst of sustained 50 mph winds with gusts up to 90 mph.  Within a few hours, it was about 5 miles away.  Here's what our sky looked like last night...



It's still burning uncontrolled, but not moving closer so far today.  We've got all the important papers and the sentimental stuff that can't be replaced gathered up and ready to go, just in case.  But we're really, really hoping it doesn't come to that.  I'll let y'all know if things get really squirrelly, but until then, assume we're fine and I'm still sleeve-obsessed.

Now, go visit all the other WIPW entries for lots more yarn and hopefully less peril.  :)

ps.  Also linking to Keep Calm Craft On today since it seems appropriate somehow.  Check them out too, if you're so inclined.