Knitamazoo(tm)

After a late night of partying with friends watching a hockey game and lying on the couch until the ball dropped, I woke up this morning to this. Lots and lots of snow. It looks like a fresh new start to the new year. They are calling for more snow today and it could snow in amounts only measurable by feet for all I care since I have nowhere to go today. The plan is to sit at home and work on this.

“This” is my Mystic Waters Lace Shawl, a mystery shawl KAL that started last year, October or November, and finished up just before Christmas. Since I had Christmas knitting and secret sock pal knitting that just had to be done, I had to wait to cast on for it. I am now up through row 122 and I’m loving it! I wanted to work on it during my Christmas holiday, but with the inlaws here (and their dog) it was nigh near impossible to get any knitting done. So, while I have a few days off for New Year’s, I’ve been working on it all I can.

It still seems like Christmas around here, even though the decorations came down on Sunday. Santa made one more stop at our house yesterday and dropped off this. We’ve needed a new refrigerator for years. We’ve been talking about a new refrigerator for years. Finally this year when my husband won his fantasy football league, he said that his winnings would go towards a brand new refrigerator. Off to the store we went and picked out this beauty (which was on sale I might add). We absolutely love it and I’m so happy to be rid of the creamy/yellow one that has been here since we moved in 10 years ago. Now all of our appliances match and the kitchen looks good. There was some question about whether or not it would fit though the archway that separates the hall from the kitchen. We measured it without the doors and it would fit. What we didn’t know was that once the doors were off there were still a couple of pieces of metal that stuck out and the guys finally had to remove them in order to get it in the kitchen. I had to hide with the cats as I was afraid that it would have to go back to the store. But the delivery guys were fantastic and they got it in for us. It cooled down quickly and I was able to load it up yesterday afternoon.

In other knitting news, I’ve been working on a pair of River Rapids socks from Sockbug for myself. I knit this pattern for my secret sock pal and loved it. It’s an easily memorized pattern that makes wonderfully stretchy socks. I’m working them in Koigu KPPPM in a lovely blue colorway. I’m using US size 2 needles and I switched to size 1 for the heel and sole. The first one is done and fits beautifully! I can’t wait to get the other one done.

Now that the guests have gone home, the decorations have been put away for another year, the cats have returned to a normal state (well, normal for them anyway) and the snow has fallen, it’s time to put on some tea, wrap up in a blanket and knit til my heart’s content. May 2008 be a year of peace, happiness and prosperity for you and yours. Happy New Year!

Well it’s been forever a really long time since I posted anything. Things got turned upside down at work and life hasn’t stopped since. All of a sudden they fired a bunch of people and we got really busy so that meant more work with less people to do it which equals STRESS!!! Plus they were rolling out a whole new desktop environment and we were spending most of our time running around fixing problems after people were upgraded. So now that is winding down and things are getting back to normal.

My father-in-law passed away right before Thanksgiving and we made a quick (read: 22 hours each way) trip to Florida for the funeral. He had been battling cancer so in a way this was a blessing.

For Christmas, we loaded up the car and drove to New Jersey to visit my family. At least that’s only a 12 hour drive each way and we stayed several days. My brother and sister-in-law were there as well and we had a really nice time being with family.

In September I took a spinning class at our local art institute and fell in love! Before our class was over I had ordered up a spinning wheel and couldn’t wait for it to arrive. This was my 10th anniversary gift and I just love my Ashford Traveller. I’ll have to upload some pictures of both the wheel and what I have spun.

In knitting news, I’ve completed several pairs of socks and not much else. I knit a tam and a pair of fuzzy feet for my mom for Christmas though. I have also been working on a few sweaters. I have Salt Peanuts on the needles in Malibrigo, a top-down raglan in some wool I picked up at Zeilinger’s, and the Mystery Sweater. I just finished up another pair of fuzzy feet for myself as well.

I continue to teach classes at my LYS. Monday I had a class of total beginners and they are working on a felted bag. They picked it up quickly and I am looking forward to the next class this coming Monday.

Well, I think that about covers what’s been happening. I’m going to try to update a little more often in the future. No. Really. I am.

Well Christmas has come and gone and my house is now empty. Mom and Dad were the last to leave and they left Thursday before New Year’s. I didn’t move from the couch for a couple of days and managed to finish these socks. (I know this isn’t a picture of the finished ones, but I haven’t gotten around to taking it yet.)

I had a wonderful time over the holidays. My Mom, brother, his fiance and I did a special musical program for church. We even remembered to take some pictures while we were still dressed up. I just now noticed that my hubby was the only one not wearing dark colors. Guess he didn’t get the memo. Anyway, you can see that we did have a white Christmas. It warmed up and rained after Christmas day so all the snow is gone but I’m sure it will be back very soon.

Santa was very good to us. I couldn’t believe the amount of gifts under our tree. I don’t know how we got them all under there but we did. Cosmo was the only kitty who was interested in Christmas at all this year and his interest was limited to this stupid pink troll head that was in the stocking of cat toys that we bought.

My Mom did such an awesome job shopping for me! But really, how could she go wrong buying yarn and needles? It was so funny when I unwrapped the sock yarn. I bought the exact same color of Sockatta yarn earlier this year when we went to Frankenmuth. What was really strange was that the ball she bought was the same dye lot as the one I bought. Crazy! She also got me some Addi Turbos, some Inox (since I haven’t seen them around here), Fiddlesticks dpn’s in size 1 and Clover bamboo dpn’s in size 2. Now I can have both socks of a pair going at the same time.

My lovely future sister-in-law gave me a gift certificate to one of my LYS’s. Isn’t she just the sweetest? I spent that and some of my Christmas money on this yummy yarn. Three skeins of Noro Kureyon, a ball of Sockatta, 2 hanks of Koigu KPPPM, 1460 yds. of some yummy laceweight (and no I can’t tell you what it is as I’m at work and I can’t remember), and a 52″ (I think) Denise cable. The Monday after Christmas Mom, Dad, hubby and I went to Frankenmuth. While there we hit the outlets, Bronner’s Christmas store and I of course made them stop at Zeilinger’s Wool shop where I found the patterns for the Fibertrends Flower Basket shawl and the Sheep shawl. That laceweight is destined for one or both of these.

So vacation is over and I’m back at work. My new position at work keeps me fairly busy so I haven’t had as much time to update my blog or join chat which is a bummer. But my days are going by pretty quickly. And speaking of jobs, my hubby got a call yesterday and was offered a job that he had a phone interview for the day before. It’s a 6-month contract back where he was before. Even though it’s only a 6-month thing at least he’ll have his foot in the door and other projects are coming up all the time.

I almost forgot. Now that hubby is employed again, I signed up for my first ever knitting class at my LYS. I’m going to learn socks on 2 circs! I really want to be able to do them both at the same time and am really excited to be taking a class. It starts next Wednesday and I am about to burst!

Well that’s it for now. I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! And now I think I’m going to go join Cosmo.

Well I had a quiet but busy Thanksgiving holiday. Quiet as in we stayed home and made our own feast. No traveling. No fuss. No muss. Busy as in the day after, I decorated for Christmas. I have decked the halls and then some. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s back up to Thanksgiving day. I got up and was greeted by this view out my front window. Mother Nature was a little confused as to what holiday it was. And when she was done, she had dumped around 6 inches of the white stuff on us. I couldn’t resist singing that holiday favorite, I’m Dreaming of a White Thanksgiving.

After giving thanks that I wasn’t traveling in this horrid weather, I decided to make the pumpkin pie so it would be done before I had to put the bird in the oven. I made the crust and then started in on the filling. Now you must understand that I am a multi-tasker. I can’t just do one thing at a time. So while I’m making this pie I’m on the phone calling up my family and yelling “Gobble, gobble, gobble!” Suffice it to say that this is a very old (read: 20 years) family tradition. While on the phone with the Boo (that’s what we call my brother), I finished up the pie and put it in the oven. I then went to the pantry to start gathering up other things I would need for this feast and what do I spy on the shelf. The can of condensed milk I bought for the pumpkin pie. Now I realize that we don’t really need the pumpkin pie. Afterall it is only hubby and me and heaven knows we certainly don’t need the extra calories. But I wanted a pumpkin pie. What’s Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie? Hubby being the sweetheart that he is, drove me to the grocery store so I could buy another can of pumpkin. After triple checking to be sure I included all the ingredients this time, pumpkin pie take 2 went into the oven. It came out wonderful as did the rest of the meal. The kitties were very excited to be fed “bird” for dinner. They didn’t hang around the kitchen all day while it was cooking though. But they thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of my labor.

Friday was decorating day. Since I am hosting Christmas this year I went all out in my decorating. Lights in the front window, the tree is up and twinkling, Christmas villages abound all around the house, my lighted Bethlehem scene with nativity adorns the top of my piano, there are stockings and mistletoe and lighted garland all around. I had a lot of fun putting it all up. I just love Christmas and can’t wait for everyone to be here!

In knitting news, I didn’t do much knitting over the holiday weekend. But the last couple of days have been busy knitting days. I’m almost finished with Mom’s Christmas gift and then all I have to do is finish up the hat for hubby. So that is going well. I still need to figure out what to get my brother and his fiance. It’s hard because I haven’t met his fiance so I don’t know what she would like and everything I’ve suggested to my brother he’s shot down. Some help he is!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that the triptophan has left your systems so you can finish up your Christmas knitting!

P.S. A big shout out to my awesome Mom on her birthday today. Happy Birthday Mom!! I love you!

Just a quick post today. The only knitting I’ve done is on the booga bag so go look at the picture in the last post and imagine another few inches added on to that.

Last night when I came upstairs to go to bed, I was greeted by this view out my front window. My crazy neighbors across the street spelled Boo! out of orange lights in the bushes in front of their house. It’s not even October yet people! (Alright, it will be in what, four days.) They can’t even wait until the month of the holiday to decorate. I bet as soon as Halloween is over they will have their Christmas lights up and on. Now I’m all for putting the lights up early here in Michigan. My motto is do it while it’s still somewhat warm and you’re not freezing your fingers off but I won’t turn them on until at least December. Nothing like rushing the holidays. And poor Thanksgiving just gets lost there between Halloween and Christmas. At the rate we’re going, we’ll soon celebrate Halloween in June and Christmas in August.

Oh and before I forget, Happy New Year!