Friday, January 2, 2009

New Year, New Projects

Happy New Year! Mine has been off to a (mostly) good start. It ended on a not-so-great note, having kissed a blind, 14-year old Pomeranian at the ball drop and then falling asleep shortly afterwards.
It started, however, with a sale at Stitches and Scones, made much better by a $50 gift certificate that I received for Christmas. See what it became? Okay...there was a little more than $50 in that pile, but it was so worth it. The row of red Cascade 220 will be a Central Park Hoodie knock-off, made top-down as I tend to do. I think some nice wooden buttons will work nicely (I have a thing for buttons) The second row has Happy Feet on each end, Brown for Nadia and red for Lucy. The greenish ones are for moi, the violently magenta and lime in the middle is for Louise, and that Dream in Color in purple is also for Nadia. The braid of roving on the bottom is also for me....I couldn't help myself. Besides- it was 20% off.

As Janet and I were leaving ( never go yarn shopping without someone there to talk you out of things like a life supply of Malabrigo, another spinning wheel or an entire alpaca, it's common sense) we ran into someone I hadn't seen in probably 6 years. She has recently taken up knitting and was trying to make a scarf for her daughter, Lauren, who I went to school with when I lived in Ohio. Good luck Connie!
After that I had some family stuff to deal with. It was my aunt's feonce's son's 20th birthday and there was lasagna and deserts to celebrate. It was awesome. Her cat attacked my hair and then I headed home to grab something to knit for the usual Thursday SnB (not going to let something like a new year get in the way of my knitting!) I doubted the ability of the white angora Koolhaas to occupy me for 4 hours of knitting, so I went home and grabbed the blue sweater, which my blog still hasn't seen. I also grabbed some turquoise Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted and the Christmas grey yarn and decided that they were going to become a hoodie. I think it needs Pewter Pirate buttons (told you I have a thing for buttons) and then I'll name it something Pirate related. I'll wait until I get past the hood before I make any rash decisions.

Back to my yesterday. Borders closed early and they kicked us knitters out at nine. So we decided that we were going to go to the Cheesecake factory for Cheesecake and foo-foo-girly drinks. I still have another 6 months to go before I'm legal in the American drinking age sense, but I figured I was wearing enough makeup and with a group of knitters, so I could probably pass for at least 21. I was shot down by the ID-Nazi waitress and had water. Sometimes, America, you really suck. I wrestled with my conscience over whether I needed Cheesecake #2 instead of dinner, but the darn thing got the best of me and I got Avocado Springrolls instead, which probably had just as many calories looking back at it. Oh well. They were good, but would have been much better served with a Passion Fruit mojito. 20 sucks big-time. I just love being humiliated in front of my knitting friends at the Cheesecake factory. I mean, seriously, I kissed a blind fluffmonster for new year's Eve. Can you give a girl a break, Cheesecake Factory?

Went home defeated, watched Indiana Jones, regretted doing so but worked more on Pirate sweater. Went to bed and read my book for a little bit. Woke up at noon, stepped on a scale, walked 2 miles on the treadmill. Thought about brownies the whole time.

Back to knitting. Here is the blue sweater that took up (and continues to do so) most of my Christmas break. It's a design by Stephanie Japel and I got it off of the Stitch Diva website for $7. The yarn, however, (it was stash so it doesn't REALLY count) was more like $100 but it's worth every penny. The fabric is delicious and I'm really enjoying it. I just need to put on my big girl panties and pick up the sleeve stitches and do another 6 inches of lace on size 4 needles, which I'm not thrilled about doing. I might take it back to England, I might not. If it goes to England, there's a good chance it will be (a) felted by accident (b) left due to lack of space on return trip or (c) worn to death to guard cold love handles from cold grey British weather. If it stays, there's a good chance it will be stolen by my mom so she can wear it to a Colt's game, and then felted by accident. Hmmm....decisions decisions.
As previously mentioned, I'm working on a second and much more luxurious Koolhaas in white. I hit the last repeat last night and and about to start decreasing for the crown. I may actually follow the instructions this time! Who knows?!
That's about it...I'm going to check out my super-healthy cookbook and see if there's something that won't taste like cardboard that I can make for dinner.

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