Sunday, October 31, 2010

Late to the party...


Here is Cirton, finished all but for the end-tying-in, my obvious favorite part.... It was knitted between the 19th and 30th of January, but just blocked last Thursday. So, this was either the first shawl for 10 in 2010 OR the 9th, depending on how you look at it! One more to go...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Belated shawl FO

I finished this one on the 14th, IMMEDIATELY blocked it, wore it the next day....


Then totally neglected to take any pictures or put it online for the next two weeks.... This is shawl number 9 in the 10 Shawls in 2010 Challenge!! I am going to make it!! It is Saroyan, and I totally love it. I made it in Cascade 22o. The color here is slightly darker and less green than it should be. Love the actual color! Love making a shawl in five days out of worsted weight yarn! Love the relaxed, casual look of the finished object. Love, love, love!


The only thing that I did change was that I seamed the width of the ends to themselves so that it made a point rather than a wide, blunt end. You started with about three inches of width to the ends, and I didn't like that. It seemed awkward and sawed-off to me, so I did something about it. It made the ends rather more 3D than I would have chosen, but for me, it was a more elegant solution....

Overall, total love and TOTALLY will make this one again! I am considering one for Meredith for Christmas. It is a modular pattern, so easily customized. My vision for the Meredith version is knitting it longer in a finer weight yarn, to be worn looped around the neck with long, trailing ends.

As for the challenge, shawl number one is blocking! I made it in January and also failed to blog about or post on Ravelry. Citron will be ready to go for a post this weekend!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Driving home today...

So, I picked up my "fancy work" from the fair today! (I love that it is called Fancy Work! I have a tag that says that I make fancy work!) Here is the extent of my nerdiness.... I drove back from Columbia to Florence with the air conditioner on so that I could wear my Aeolian shawl. And despite the fact that it was 82 degrees when I got to work, I wore it all day. I suffer for my art....

Monday, October 25, 2010

Embracing the Fair experience.

Which is not hard considering... I WON!!


The yellow ribbon that I am pointing to in the top picture is for my Aeolian, second place overall knitting sweepstakes award!! It also won a blue ribbon for shawls. I am so proud!! And Lizard Ridge won second place afghan! I am a winner! Nerd and award winning knitter!

My mom and I went on to embrace the fair experience. Here is the Cinnamon and Sugar Fried Butter. Yum. Seriously! Tasted like a crispy, buttery doughnut!! And that is to say nothing of the fried dill pickles, the corn dog, the cotton candy....


There were animals.... I am sparing you pictures of llamas, a zebra, pig races, etc. I took LOTS of pictures. Fun, fun, fun!



All in all, we had the best day at the fair, ever! I can't believe I never went before!!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

I realized earlier...

That I was listening to music, reading a book on Steve (my nook), AND knitting lace from a pattern I had not memorized. All at the same time. Holy cow. I am a woman of many talents!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Look what I wore to work today!!

Reading my blog is so exciting, isn't it??


Anyway, I wore a shawl for the first time today!! I am so pleased.... It felt so good to show off something I have made. And by now, people know enough about me to ask if I made it, so I strutted around like a peacock all day, saying, "Yes! I made this!" And because I love it so much, here is another picture in the bright sunshine!! You can tell it is bright from the crevice I seem to be carving between my eyebrows and the desperate tinge to the smile....


Not ONLY did I wear a shawl to work for the first time, I wore socks made by me for the first time!! Here are the Mockery Socks I worked from the toe up. Shhhh, don't tell anyone that the ends are just tucked under the cuff. Have I mentioned how I hate tying in ends??



What a fabulous picture of my foot....

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The disadvantage of being first....


It is done! Done!! Complete!! Finito! I have spent the last 18 hours feeling very amazed and disbelieving.... But indeed, I finished the holy grail of knitting projects (for me, anyway!) last night, the evening before I had to take it to Columbia. The icord edging, almost invisible here, was done Saturday. I have spent practically every minute since, through multiple episodes of Fringe Season 1 and this season's Amazing Race, tying in ends.


The above picture is SOME of the ends, not even all of them! I could needle-felt a cat out of the remaining ends! There are so many it seems like a shame not to make something out of them.... Who knows? Anyway, as long as you out there in knit-blog land understand what a mountain of ends I had to tie in!


This morning, I officially entered the fair! Above, find a picture of dubious quality as proof of that fact! I am so embarrassed taking blog pictures in situations that other people find, well, goofy that this is all I got! Had I been an intrepid, brave blogger, I would have asked her permission and gotten a good shot. However, I am not brave.

The disadvantage of being the very first person in my line at 7:30 this morning, an hour and a half from my home (besides the obvious wake-up time) is that you don't get to see anyone else's projects! Gotta wait for the fair, I guess.... I am so excited. What a nerd!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

My dog is a drama queen....

Even when she is not trying!! She feels like a princess in her sparkly collar, obviously....

As promised, here is the saga of the Tuesday night vet visit! (We have already established that when I say "tomorrow", I don't necessarily mean the very next day, so hush.) That night when I got home, Maggie was not her usual hysterical self when I got home, but I thought that it could be attributed to her being asleep when I arrived. Sometimes if you catch her truly asleep you are spared the full-on, wiggle-butted, yodeling assault of a greeting that is her usual.... But she normally goes bananas when Matt gets home, and instead she just moped over and stood next to him. When he reached down to touch her, she yelped in pain. We couldn't get her to come to a treat. And then, in the move that worried me the most, she climbed in my lap and shook all over like she was afraid.

Since she is like our child that can't talk to tell us what is wrong, we decided that it must be serious if she was acting so wrong, and we called the emergency vet number. The vet, who was very young and perky, agreed to meet us at the office. This was all around 8PM. We get there and there were two cars in the parking lot, one with the vet and her husband and one with a man and a dog. Turns out he was the husband of one of the cleaning ladies who were working inside. The very nice vet had counted on there being a key in a secret hiding place so she could let herself in, but it wasn't there.... So there we stand in the parking lot. She tried calling the cleaning lady on the number provided by her husband, but no answer. The husband said, "Just beat on the door and they will come see who is there." Instead the cleaning ladies CALLED 911. Seriously. A few minutes later, there we are with FOUR deputy sheriff cruisers, big guys in bullet-proof vests and their hands on their guns! The cleaning lady CRIED when she opened the door and found out she was safe from Maggie, the miscellaneous terrier and my mom, the only person they could see from where they were hiding. Obviously, my mom would bring her twenty pound terrier when she tried to trick the cleaning crew of a vets office into opening the door so she could kill them and steal animal tranquilizers, right??

Anyway, vet visually identified we were allowed to enter! There were exams, rectal thermometer temperatures, and x-rays.... Then the vet brings the images in to show us. Show us that our dog was absolutely full of crap. No kidding. It looked like she hadn't pooped in two weeks. We took our dog to the emergency vet and braved terrified cleaning ladies and deputy sheriffs to find out that our dog was constipated. Not embarrassing at all....

I have to say, though, that she was absolutely miserable and even if we had known what was wrong, we would have taken her to the vet anyway.... We couldn't let her just suffer. A doggie enema later, she danced back into the exam room like her old wiggle-butted self! I have never seen such immediate relief! Happy dog... However, when the vet tried to give her a treat, she wouldn't go NEAR her. Every time she got close, the woman stuck something up her butt, and she wasn't having any more of THAT! She tried to get the treat by stretching her neck as faaaarrrr as it would go, all turtle-esque..... Even butt-protecting isn't worth treat-forgoing!!

We have spent a couple of days here pretty obsessed with dog poop, but things seem to be back to normal... Silly mutt-mutt!