Eye Candy Friday -- the Fiber Edition

Nothing like a little silk and wool to distract you on a blah Friday.

Birthday Treats

Yesterday was a pretty low key day for me, but I did have some neat treats...

I finally wore my red socks. So comfy...

They don't really match, but the differences aren't that extreme (as compared with the third, much lighter sock).

Lunch was one of my favorite guilty pleasure lunches--Macaroni and Cheese with Beef from Hale and Hearty Soups.

A yummy cupcake from Eleni's.

And the biggest treat of all--a new MP3 player.


Of course I've loaded it up with Buffett music and knitting podcasts. I'm going to have to knit it a little case to hold it.

Oh--and those red socks... You know, I washed those socks at least three times to get the dye out. Well, when I took them off last night, the bottoms of my feet were reddish.


Some of dye transferred to my white socks today, but they're still a little on the red side. Maybe in another 50 washes or so...

Another November Birthday

Posted by guest blogger for the day, fiance Jim

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETTY!

May you have many more and with God’s good grace may I be there with you for each of them. You are my confidant, my mentor, my co-conspirator in all of life’s challenges. You do not complete me, but rather you add to and accentuate every aspect of my being. You are the response to all my wise cracks and devilish ways. You are the wisdom added to each idea. You are the reality of every situation, plied with love rather than a harsh criticism. You are all the tender moments in my life. You are my lover, my friend and my greatest pal. You are the one I miss on our long times apart. “You are the one I struggle with for most of the bed on our short times together.” But most often, our struggles are forged in our own togetherness against the challenges that surround us. AND, it is often that I worry more about you than I do myself. It is my greatest hope that each birthday from now to the end of our lives will be just a little bit better than the one before it. I know, I work for that with every thought of our lives together. So happy birthday sweetie and may we have many more.

Love ya.
Jim

Random Tuesday

Just some random items today...

• One of my editors left this past June, and now today another one gave notice. I'm not happy. It's a good opportunity for him, but it sucks for me because he was one of the really good ones. I just hope they let me replace him.
• I had a gift project that I started on this morning. I thought I had until the end of December to finish it. I've only got until the 7th. And I've also got a final writing project to finish. And a final exam on the 16th. Kind of a lot on my plate.
• Since I started the whole NaBloPoMo thing (two days late, since I wasn't aware of it until November 4th), I've managed to post every single day. Every. Single. Day. That's from me, the writing challenged. But while readership on this blog appears to be up, commenting has been surprisingly sparse. Lots of lurkers out there. Like Jessalu says, "de-lurking is delightful." Come on out, y'all!
• I still haven't figured out how to download the pictures off my phone. I usually grasp the technology stuff very quickly. Not so much here.
• Need to get new glasses soon. My distance vision hasn't changed. My reading vision has gotten worse. Getting old is a bitch. I've been playing around wih Pearle Vision's website tool that let's you try frames on but uploading a mugshot picture of yourself. Very cool--the website, not my mug shot.
• Need sleep. Generally, and like, now. Good night all!

Back on Long Island

I'm back home on Long Island now. It never feels like I spend enough time with Jim, but I still need to be down here--at least for the time being--so for now, at least, I'm here. Oh well...

One of the things I did over the weekend was inventory some of my yarn stash. A while back I created an Excel spreadsheet so the I could inventory what I had and where it was stored. I brought some of the yarn up to Vermont to put in my fiber room, and as I was resorting some of it I thought, "geez, this seems to be an obscene amount of yarn."

It's not like I have dozens of potential sweaters in my stash, but a couple of skeins here and there really do seem to add up. So I have to ask the question--how much stash is too much stash?

Just some innocent sock yarn.

A little knitting

OK, I still haven't gotten the pictures off the cell phone, but I do have a couple of pictures of my latest wristwarmers.

This is Dashing, the followup to Fetching. I'm using Lamb's Pride Super Wash in Dark Grey. These will be for Jim.

Being modeled by Jim

Not totally frozen...

...but I am totally exhausted. I'm not used to that much frozen fresh air. Must get some sleep. Too exhausted to blog tonight, but I'm not about to blow my NaBloPoMo consecutive posting streak. (I haven't missed a day since November 3rd (which was my official start date)!) I'll figure out how to download the parade pictures from my new cell phone tomorrow--once I can see straight. Nighty-night!

Just plain crazy

A quickie post here...

If you happen to be Malden, Massachusetts tomorrow morning, I'll be there marching in their annual Thanksgiving parade as part of the Living History Association's Time Line contingent. I'll be the frozen civil war babe in the red cape. (Tomorrow's high down there is supposed to be 35 degrees. We're marching at 10 am.)

I am so glad that my Forester has heated seats. I'll need it to thaw out my butt when we're done.

Am I crazy or what???

Eye Candy Friday -- the Foliage Edition

These were taken on Long Island last Sunday while driving to and from school. Mile after mile along the parkways and highways there was such beautiful foliage around me. Working the hours that I do I rarely get to see much of this, so it was such a treat!

Unfortunately most of these were shot through my windshield, so the colors don't appear quite as vivid as they were, but I think you get the idea.

These are giving me all sorts of ideas for possible colorsways for sock yarn.

So pretty, even through the crack in the windshield. (Yes, I'm getting that fixed soon.)

Thanksgiving

It's been a low-key day here at Moose Manor. We had a quiet supper down at Jim's parent's house, and then he had to go off to work. I just laid low. Reorganized some of my yarn stash, did a little laundry, and thought about all of the things I'm thankful for in my life...

• I'm thankful for having my health. Without that, everything else would be impossible.


• I'm thankful for my family--my mother, my sisters, my nieces... everyone. I'm thankful for the time I had with my late father, and not a day goes by that I don't think about him.


• I'm thankful for my friends, who have managed to put up with me in spite of everything all these years.


• I'm thankful for this blog and for the world that blogging has opened up to me.

There are lots of other things I am thankful for, but most importantly, I'm thankful for having Jim in my life. He's been my best friend, my love, my shoulder to lean on, and sometimes a royal pain in the ass. Nevertheless, I wouldn't trade him for anything or anyone.

I love you, honey!

I hope all of you had a blessed and happy Thanksgiving!

Blogging under the influence

Howdy. My name’s Elizzabetty. I’m back home in Vermont. I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. (Cline Zinfandel. Mmmmmm….) This is what happens when you blog under the influence.

Jim finally got the satellite dish fixed so we can get the Vermont local channels. (Last winter a load of snow coming off the roof took out one of the satellite dishes, so we lost the some of the local channels.) I was anxiously awaiting the Burlington newscast. We put on Channel 3, and the Powerball guy came on. Jim went to get our ticket so we could check our numbers as they drew them. Guess what? Due to “technical difficulties” they weren’t gonna do a live drawing. He went on for the entire duration of what should have been the live drawing repeatedly saying “we’re not doing a live drawing.” Dude—I heard ya the first time. No need to give me a dozen variations on the theme. Fix ya freakin’ problem, why don’t ya. (Yeah, I’m so not ever gonna be a Vermonter, am I…)

After that I took a couple of more pictures. Of course, being a tinsy bit loopy right now, I forgot to zoom out to take a picture of me and Jim.

How do ya like that door?


Zoom.Out.Now!


Oh, that’s better. Sort of.

Honey, can you get me a little more wine? Please???

Next time I’ve got some knitting content for you. I stopped at Webs today. Duh. Of course I bought some yarn. (Is the Pope Catholic???)

A UFO Sighting

A rare sighting around here. A UFO--that's Unexpected Finished Object! (I bet you thought that I never finish knitting anything, didn't you.)

The Fetchings! They are all done!!!

Details

Yarn: Valley Yarns Sheffield in colorway 23 (Chianti) -- less than 1 ball
Pattern: Fetching from Knitty, Summer 2006
Needles: KnitPicks Options, US Size 6, length 40” (Magic Loop)
Started: November 1, 2007
Finished: November 20, 2007

I wanted to weigh the leftover yarn to see how much I used, but the scales here don't go down that low. My food scale in Vermont does, so I'll update this post with that information later.

The only modifications I made to the pattern were one less row in the first cable repeat (an accident that I repeated with the second mitt), and I did a straight bind off instead of the picot bind off. I wanted a little snugger fit over my knuckles.

The only thing that I wish I had done differently would be to make the body of the mitts a little longer. But this is a minor complaint, and overall I'm very happy with them.

Next--I'd like to make some Dashings for Jim. Need some superwash wool for him. Guess I'll have to stop at Webs tomorrow. Hmmm...

More knitting progress

One thumb done and another to go!



And of course, I gotta weave in the ends. But I'm so close!

Fetching and Foliage

I promised you some pictures that show the true color of Sheffield...

Yes, I do intend to finish the thumbs.

I decided not to do the picot bind off this time around. I thought that it tended to curl out more than I wanted. Once the thumbs are done on this pair I'll know better, but I think I'm going to like the closer fit.

I just love how this tree is changing color...

Fetching progress

The nice thing about a small project is that it doesn't take a whole lot of knitting time in order to see a little progress. Three days ago this is what I had done.

As of this morning, I've got this.

All that's left are the thumbs and weaving in the ends. Can I get a WOO and a HOO? Unfortunately, I won't have the time to finish them before tomorrow's classes unless I can pull a couple of written assignments out of my butt, but I will have them for my Sunday class after the Thanksgiving break.

I have to say that the flash picture doesn't really do the yarn justice. The color is much lovelier in natural light, and the stitch definition--even lovelier! I'll take some proper pictures over the weekend.

Just one more thing before I get back to my books--I upgraded to a new cell phone this weekend. Nothing ultra fancy, but it does have a camera in it. And you know what that means--stealth photo ops! All I need is a USB cable, but then watch out world!

Eye Candy Friday

Temperatures today are in the 40s and there's a mighty nasty wind outside. I'm missing the warm weather...

This evening's commute...

...is refreshingly uneventful for a change. (Imagine arriving on schedule--not something the LIRR's been capable of lately.)

I'm on the train heading home... and to knit night at The Village Knitter. Punkin can't make it tonight, unfortunately, but it will be good to see Karin and the other ladies. Still working on the Fetchings between reading Supreme Court cases and the snooze fest known as my New York Practice text. I really ought to go home and work on my writing assignments, but what's one hour of knitting? (Any enablers out there want to encourage me?)

Oh well, we're coming into the station. Later...
---------------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Make it work!

Woo-hoo!!! The new season of Project Runway starts tonight! I'm so excited!!! If you've been reading my blog lately, you know that I'm something of a reality television whore viewer, but out of all the reality series out there, I this is my absolute favorite. The thing that makes it different from the other reality shows is that the contestants really do have talent, and you get to see that talent challenged every week. Sometimes they really rise to the occasion, other times, well... yikes! But you get to see the process they go through in creating their garments. Sure, there's drama in the background, but the focus is on the fashion.

And while I enjoy seeing what Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and Heidi have to say, I really [heart] Tim Gunn! Oh.My.God. I just love watching him give the designers feedback!

Of course, Santino's impression of Tim Gunn (as well as this one) and Tim's reaction to Santino just crack me up.

And just so that you don't think I've totally abandoned the whole knit blog thing, Season 1's winner, Jay McCarroll, is a knitter!

Carry on...

Cake as art

Is this not one of the most beautiful cakes you've ever seen? This was the birthday cake my friend Jayne brought to the restaurant on Saturday night. Half chocolate, half vanilla cake with a slightly lemony filling. Mmmmmmm...

Happy Birthday, Jayne!!!

Veteran's Day

To all who have served... thank you!

Another unlikely post

I bet you thought I wouldn't last a day taking part in NaBloMoPo, did you. HA! I've posted for eight consecutive days! And today makes nine! Double HA!!!

I had a couple of things to post about today, but I heard about this contest over on Norma's blog. So here's what I was working on a year ago today: the THIRD red sock.

Hoping that it would match one of the other two.

Fat chance. You know, I still haven't picked a definitive pair from the trio. The whole thing still makes me crazy.


I've got two more colorways of this yarn in my stash. What are the odds of all of them being a mismatch?

Busy Saturday

I've got a busy day ahead of me. I have to finish up my assignments for tomorrow's classes, and tonight I've got a birthday dinner in the city to go to. Plus, I've been having back spasms since yesterday, so I'm not feeling like doing any of it. (It happens to me periodically when I do something stupid. No fun.) So, I'll leave you with a picture these little guys who are hanging out in my office...

These guys are stuffed rare breed critters from Colonial Williamsburg. On the left is a Leicester Longwool sheep and is a Red Devon cow. I call them Mittens and Milkshake.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Eye Candy Friday

The New York skyline from Queens College in Flushing.

Chicagoland yarn crawl... circa 2006

This time last year I had a business trip to Chicago for an all-day meeting on a Monday. Since it was so conveniently scheduled next to a weekend, I decided to combine it with an all-weekend yarn crawl. But the schedule changed and I wound up staying out there so that I could be told about the restructuring. I never did post about the yarn crawl.

So here we are, a year later. The yarn crawl post has been sitting around in draft form for a year. It's time to share, so here goes Part 1 of my yarn crawl....

My goal--visit three, maybe four yarn shops west of Midway on my way to the hotel, and try to only buy yarn that I can't easily get back east. (I should say that the office is in the northern 'burbs, not the Chicago proper.) I plotted everything out with Mapquest, printed out all my directions, and after picking up my rental car and a PotBelly Sandwich (mmmmmm...), proceeded to my first stop...

Chix With Stix in Forest Park.

Sorry, but that's the only picture I took of the shop. (I got camera shy once I stepped inside, being a new blogger at the time.) Very nice shop, well organized, carrying all the basics plus a really nice selection of Malabrigo. (There was lots of Malabrigo in Chicagoland. You guys are sooooo lucky!) I stuck to my purchase plan and picked up this:

Three balls of Karabella Aurora 8 that were marked down, and a skein of hand dyed sock yarn from The Knitting Nimrod in these gorgeous spring colors.

I had no idea who the Knitting Nimrod was, so I did a little internet research that night. Turns out the woman had recently passed away about six months before that and that she had a yarn shop in Belleville, Ontario. So sad. I'll have to knit something special with this yarn.

My next stop was Knitche in Downers Grove. It was good size shop with a coffee bar, a separate area for classes (cool!) and a nice selection of yarns, but there was nothing that I couldn't find anywhere else. I didn't take any pictures there either, but if you look here you can see the shop for yourself.

My third and final stop for the day was Fringe in Aurora. Wow! What a shop! They arrange their yarns by color, not weight. A total feast for the eyes!

Again, tons of Malabrigo (I'm so jealous of you guys!), but I didn't buy any of it. Instead, I agonized over what I would buy. I wound up focusing on these skeins of Fleece Artist sock yarn...

...but eventually got my focus back and decided that I could probably find these in New York, so ultimately these weren't part of the stash enhancement plan. But this did...

A gorgeous subtle plummy-burgundy subtle solid dyed exclusively for Fringe. But I have to ask--was this the predecessor to Dream In Color???

Next time... a pilgrimage to Marengo!

Reading, Writing, and Wristwarmers

Yeah, despite the time I'm spending with the CPLR, I'm still able to eek out a little knitting on my latest Fetchings.

Valley Yarns Sheffield is really yummy, with just the tiniest bit of angora fuzz. I can't wait to get these done and see how this yarn wears, but I'm already trying to think of other things I could use this for. Maybe some bed socks? Mmmmmmmmm...

Train buddies

Look who I got to commute with this morning...

Punkin and her DS!

And did you notice--she's knitting! I was knitting too this morning (the Sheffield Fetchings), but she didn't bring her camera to capture it. Punkin can vouch for me. Really.

By the way, did you vote today? I did.