irish walking hat...gifted!

here's the thing about me: when i have a gift for someone, i am always so anxious to give it to them! i made this irish walking hat for a friend of mine and my plan was to wait until the weather turned cold before giving it to him. when i stepped out of the house this morning it was like 50 degrees and as far as i was concerned, it was cold enough! i got to work a little early this morning and put it on his desk so he'd see it when he got in. the verdict is in...he likes it! i made it with plymouth encore which is easy to care for ... it's machine washable. it's navy blue which is very much a "boy" color, and every time i see fdh he's wearing some shade of blue so i thought it was a safe guess that he likes blue. notice i snapped a pic of the hat in the car on the way to work this morning. don't worry ... i was stuck at a red light!

london bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...

i found this quiz on the net and had to take it. london is absotively, posilutely my FAVORITE city in the whole wide world! can't wait to go back there -sigh-

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern. A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock. A unique soul like you needs a city that offers everything. No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

Blogthings: 100's of Fun, Free Quizzes and 3 Stupid Ones

clapotis: gifted

i was so happy to gift clapotis yesterday. my dear friend and her newest munchkin came to visit and we had a great time eating ice cream and watching one of our favorite shows (L&O:SVU). she absolutely loves clapotis and i'm thrilled!


"im ready for my closeup, mz!"

i would like to start another clapotis for me, but i'm thinking about doing it in such a way that each of the dropped stitches have a bead. i know it would be hella tedious to string yarn with beads, but i think it would be -so- worth it in the end. if anyone has done this and has any pics to show me...please do! i need some incentive and inspiration!

rip it, baby!

recently someone on one of the many lists i'm on, realized she made a mistake in a sweater she was knitting and was debating whether she should rip out several inches and reknit. i sent my patented 5-step program to the list, but thought i would share it here as well:

1 - put your knitting down and go get drink of your choice. my personal favorites: beer with squeeze of lime, white wine or a hot toddy (with plenty of liquor!).

2 - take a deep breath and sip or gulp as you see fit. feel free to get another drink as you deem necessary and appropriate.

3 - take more deep breaths. deep, cleasing breaths. for a while just focus on your breathing. don't even -think- about knitting. you'll feel better i promise.

4 - pick up your knitting again when you're calmer and more
clear-headed,

then...

5 - "rip it baby, rip it right ... (let it rip) ... rip it baby, rip it all night ..." make sure you dance and sing while ripping!! :-)

of course ripping may not be the best solution in every case, but if you ever -do- need to rip, don't agonize over it, and don't cry about it. follow my program and re-knit as soon as possible. you'll catch up quicker'n you think and you'll be well on your way to an FO!

flying fingers

here's a pic of the lovely irish walking hat i'm making for a friend of mine. i started this on tuesday morning and this is the progress i've made between then and late last night. i estimate i'm about 40% finished. i hope to finish it and gift it very soon!

isn't he sweet?

look at this little bundle of cuteness:



my brother got a boxer puppy over the weekend. this little guy's name is tyson. another brother has a boxer named frasier. i think i will get a boxer and name him ali. or maybe i'll get a kitty and name him ali (you know i gotta be a little different!).

look at the paws on that pup. he's gonna be a big 'un!

whippin' out the FOs!!!!

y'all will notice that i have had quite a few FOs in the past few days. i've been knitting like a madwoman. that's what happens when you spend the whole weekend watching football and knitting...things get DONE!

check out the baby fern stitch cloth:



this is the first of a bunch i'm making for my momma for her christmas present. i got another one about half finished while watching my STEELERS whip up on the titans.

well now i guess i better go fold some laundry and get myself ready for bed. i'll do a little crocheting before i go off to dreamland...ciao!

whew!

after 7 months of off-and-on knitting, i finished clapotis just a few moments ago.

all it took was several mostly-uninterrupted hours of knitting while watching football and drinking beer.

life is good.

she will be gifted tomorrow and i will certainly take pictures and post them here, so stay tuned. meantime, i'm going to go to sleep and think about tomorrow, which will be another day of knitting and watching football with my brother. maybe i'll start another clapotis. life's goodness will continue.

i know i shouldn't have

....but i started another project. a sweater. my first. please be gentle. i'm a sweater virgin...



and here, my friends, is 2 inches of ribbing that will eventually become the back of my sweater ("give the people what they want" cardi from "the yarn girl's guide to simple knits"). i'm so excited i can hardly stand it. looks too narrow to be part of any sweater that i'm gonna wear, but i have to remember that this is just ribbing and i'm told that ribbing makes everything look too small!

and another one's done....

yay! as promised i finished this one on the drive from stone lab. what a great day we had for driving! sunny and warm, although a bit hazy on the lake. most of the day was spent driving about 125 miles from columbus to catawba point, where we caught a ferry to put-in-bay, which is on south bass island...you didn't know ohio had islands, did ya? i have heard them referred to as "the buckeye riviera". from there we drove (yeah we took the car on the ferry!) to the other side of the island to get to the bayview office for the lab, where we got a ride (via boat of course) to gibraltar island, where the lab building is located (sorry i don't have a pic of that!).

the whole reason for the trip up there was to close the stone lab library for the winter. the library is essentially a 16'x20' room filled with bookshelves. our main job in the 1.5 hours we were actually there was to gather the books loaned to the library from other OSU libraries, and reshelve the books that actually belong to stone lab but didn't get reshelved. i won't bore you with details, but since there were two of us, we got everything done in record time and actually made an earlier ferry back to the mainland, and therefore was able to beat rush hour traffic. i got home and promptly readied myself for a nap, which i thought would last no more than a couple of hours. however i was not inclined to get up so i stayed in bed until it was time to get up for work. i wasn't feeling well (girl-stuff and all the malaise that comes with it) but this morning i took 800mg of ibuprofen and i'm feeling fiiiiiiine!

i'm a knitting fool

check this baby out! this is a pattern called "torsades" and it's fun to knit. i like cables and i'm using the cables without a cable needle method (wendy ROCKS!). i hope to finish this tomorrow on my way up to Stone Laboratory.

lily's all done

i really like this cloth. it was a quick knit and turned out beautifully. i already have another one on the needles!

i have to admit...

...i've never been much of an OSU fan. but today i attended my first OSU football game with my brother and we had so much fun! the game was good but boy that band was great. today was alumni band day, so in addition to the current band, there were a few hundred former band members, ranging in age from 21 to like, 90. there were even former drum majors there too. i think my favorite part was the Script Ohio formation. i think with the regular band there is just one formation on the field, but with the alumni members they make four of them. too bad i couldn't capture the entire field with my cell phone camera:


It's not called TBDBITL for nothing!

in knitting news, look at this cloth i started the other day. it's called "muguets" (lily):


pretty, huh?

i think i will go watch "the closer" from last week while i finish knitting this.

ciao, darlings!

first crisis of the month

it's never good to start the month with a "crisis," for heaven's sake. but i did. on my way out the door this morning i reached for my purse, my work bag, and my knitting bag, as i usually do. except this morning my knitting bag wasn't there. i thought maybe i left it in the car, except it wasn't there, either. then i tried to think back to the last time i specifically remember having it, which was tuesday night at wild oats. i ate dinner there, and after i ate, i worked on momma's dishcloth. ohmigod, did i leave it there??! luckily it's only a 2 minute drive to wild oats from work (with gas at $3.09/gallon i'm not going out of my way to get anywhere!). i went to work first, though, just to see whether i left it there on wednesday. lo and behold, my beloved knitting bag was there in my office in my spare chair. crisis over! i can't wait to get home tonight and knit my heart out. i'm in the decrease rows on clapotis but i think i mis-read the instructions for one of the rows several rows down so now i have to figure out how to make the rest of the pattern work without frogging because i don't exactly -know- where my mistake was and i'm SO close to being finished that i just can't bear starting over inches and inches below where i am now. boy was that a mouthful.

in other news, after a hellacious (is that a word?) time trying to get my car registration renewed yesterday, i decided to "treat" myself by stopping at one of my favorite yarn shops, which is in the same plaza as the license bureau. i ended up spending about $40, BUT all the stuff i bought was in the clearance bin (yay!). i got some nice plymouth yarn (colorspun and i forget what else) and a summer 2005 issue of IK, which is one of my new favorite knitting mags...i think i shall subscribe! anyway, i should be all set for a cozy winter of knitting, crocheting, spinning, sewing and ...?