Monday, October 18, 2010
Other avenues
Friday, September 17, 2010
Wordless Friday?
Friday, August 27, 2010
It's not all knitting...
As I mentioned in passing, I was coerced into joining a "NewBee" via Twitter friends. The first month's blocks are complete and mailed out...
They may not look square, but trust me, they are. 12.5x12.5 inches! I'm no quilting expert, but I think I did okay!
Speaking of quilting and fabric (whoo boy, my fabric stash may soon outpace my yarn one...don't tell the Tall Guy!), I just discovered Spoonflower.com yesterday (in time for free swatch day). If you have any great fabric websites you'd like to share, please feel free!
In the meantime, I'm continuing to churn out the baby knits as friends are coming up on their due dates...
Technically, you're spose' to turn down the cuff, but I like the full length look myself!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday adventure
The reason for our trip was to go to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art for a special exhibit of Tiffany Glass. We realized at the last minute that it was leaving on Sunday, so we made quick plans and headed down.
The museum itself was quite nice and I'm pretty much in love with most pieces that came out of the Tiffany collection (I'm a glass medium fan in general).
Here's one of my favorites:
(Photo credit noted: from the VMFA website, saved to my server)
After we finished at the museum, we wandered down the street and found ourselves in Carytown. We had a nice lunch at an Italian Deli, did some window shopping, found a yarn shop(while shopping around a bit, I didn't actually buy anything!)
And the Tall Guy bought me a new necklace! Pretty cute, huh?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Stormy morning
I don't know about you, but early morning thunder storms are always a funny way to start the day. You would think with the crazy summer we were having, we would be ready for anything! Earthquakes, tornadoes, snowstorms...we've had it all this year!
I was going through my photos this morning and ran into the below video... Yes. Our dog is insane. Especially when you've just put her "Frontline" flea and tick repellent on her. Never a dull moment around here, folks!
Happy Thursday!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Babies, sewing and a special guest hello...
Okay, that's not quite true. I should say, it would seem that a majority of my female friends that live in my neighborhood are expecting. As in, four in five months! The first one in a few weeks and downhill from there!
As a result, I'm doing a lot of baby knitting. At this point, it's sort of scattered, a pair of booties here, a hat there, but it's coming together so that all of my friends will be getting nice little bundles of handknits in bright, cheery, gender neutral colors. So much fun!
In my spare time (ha!), I've started playing with sewing again and have even joined a "New Bee" Quilting group. I sewed this bag a few weeks ago to test out my skills.
The verdict? I need to practice more, but that's okay!
And... Annie says hello.
This is her "New Hampshire" bandanna. My sister wears a lot of tie dye and I make fun of her for this alllll the time. She retaliated by putting some of her style on my poor dog. Annie seems to like it a bit more than the Harley Davidson one my dad bought for her. Bright orange isn't really her color.
Friday, August 6, 2010
A few more Midwest comments
The Tall Guy's uncle, upon hearing my lack of frozen custard knowledge brought us straight to Kopp's.
It comes out of machines like this: I love it.
And, finally, my last comment about my Midwest adventure:
After passing through security at the Milwaukee Airport, you see this sign where there are a number of benches etc. At that moment, I fell deep in love with Wisconsin. Not only do they have an area for you to put your belt and shoes back on, but they made up a name for it. LOVE.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Playing tourist
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Midwest adventures
Mostly, the trip was about visiting family, but I must say I have the best husband and Mother-in-Law around because guess where this girl got to go? You got it....
I must say, if you're ever in the neighborhood, you need to stop in to The Fold...what a great yarn shop! Though, truth be told, I'm not sure how anyone would be in the neighborhood, the shop is in the middle of a corn field and is miles from the nearest town. But, it's still worth the drive out of your way. I came way with a variety of good stuff and a canvas tote bag to boot!
After The Fold, we drove up to Lake Geneva and stopped in Williams Bay for lunch at this place.
After growing up on the Maine border my entire life, I have never seen such a contraption. I had to go to Wisconsin. Bizarre, no? Yes, it's a claw game where you catch a lobster that they'll cook for you. In Wisconsin. I'm still perplexed.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Our niece...she never.stops.moving. Except while sleeping. I adore her.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The world's fastest sock and a recipe
Strange angle, I know, but that's what you get when I take a picture at work with my phone... I'll try harder in the future... if you're looking closely you'll notice that I'm using a Knitpicks harmony needle (birthday gift). My first time using one and so far, so good! I like how sharp the needle is and the join is smooth! Thanks Kim!
I'll share all the details when the socks are complete, but I must say, my friend Woolarina hit this color/base combo out of the park! I love it!
Other things that are making me happy at the moment are the fruits of our "farm". The Tall Guy is most assuredly in charge, but I've been having fun cooking with the veggies that come out of our garden. The broccoli came from our neighbor's garden and the radishes and snap peas from ours.
I improvise recipes a lot... probably why I'm a better cook then baker, but here's the gist of what I did.
Summer Salad
Ingredients
Broccoli
Sugar snap peas
radishes
sliced almonds
I used about a full head of broccoli, 1/2 cup of snap peas, a reallllly big radish and about 1/2 cup of almonds... It was what I had on hand and I went with it!
Dressing
I'm guessing on the amounts here...so, like with any homemade dressing, taste as you go!
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I normally use olive oil, but sometimes the flavor is too overpowering and I wanted the focus to be on the veggies)
1/8 cup rice wine vinegar (I like how "bright" this vinegar tastes, you could also use apple cider vinegar)
1 teaspoon honey (Also locally sourced! This old guy down the street has bee hives! And yes, we do live in a city environment!)
Lawry's seasoning salt and garlic powder. I added these until I liked the taste.. a few shakes of the salt and about the same for the garlic. You can use fresh minced garlic too, but I was being lazy.
What to do...
*Boil some water, throw in the broccoli and peas until they turn bright green.. truly, no more then 30 seconds.
*Drain and rinse w/cold water or plunge into an ice bath to chill very quickly.
*Slice the radish thinly
*Toast the almonds until brown (I use our toaster oven for everything!)
*Toss all the veggies/almonds together and then whisk the dressing together, pour over and serve or chill until time to eat!
This is a pretty forgiving recipe which I think I'll be using a lot this summer as various veggies come up in the garden. Are you gardening this summer? Do you prefer flowers to veggies? I'm always curious what others are up to!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Nom nom nom
Redhook went and stopped making my favorite beer this year (Sun Rye). It's been replaced by Rope Swing. I'm not happy, but it's not stopping me from drinking it. (Pretty tasty)
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
And the summer begins...
Here's a photo of the Tall Guy and I from the rehearsal dinner. The light was amazing that evening and our new friend Brian was an amazing photographer!
I've knit another 5 or 6 rows since this photo.
The yarn is The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Cowkiller (I really don't like the name...) and let me tell you something. This is the first time I've knit with Bugga! and I can say that I understand the hype. Holy amazing yarn. I can't say I've ever understood what people meant when they said a yarn felt amazing to knit with until this shawl.
In the meantime, we have the Tall Guys's sister and her husband in town for a few days. I'm looking forward to good food, some tourist visiting and then this weekend? Nothing. A nice quiet weekend ahead and one of the few of this sort for a very, very long time. Hurray Summer!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Knit knit knit
Monday, April 12, 2010
Me? Obsess? Never....
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Exhausted, but in that good Sunday evening sort of way
Saturday, March 27, 2010
A year later...
A few weeks ago when digging around, looking for something else, I found a one completed sock and one at the heel turn. I had bought this wee skeins kit at last year's Homespun Yarn Party! I quickly recalled that about a year ago I had thrown down the second sock, completely annoyed by the short row heel.
Picking back up and taking my time, I found this to be a super easy issue to overcome and yes, they look crazy, but fun, right? Right?
I love our garden gnome! (Yes, he's riding a pig, no idea why)
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Gratuitous kid shot
Monday, March 15, 2010
Embracing the world in wool...
The point of my little ramble is this "shawl-ette".
As you may have noticed, I'm not really a purple person, but my best friend is and she lives in San Francisco. One of the great things about being a knitter is that that city is a place where you can always use a little light something around your neck, even in the "warmest" of months. Details:
Pattern: Citron
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Velvet Grapes. Took about 3/4 of a skein
Needles: Size 5
Mods: None.
Comments: This pattern went fairly fast when I put my mind to it, but the last repeat has a sort of out of control stitch count, so it took awhile to get through them!
So, HLP, here's a hug for you, and can't wait to see you soon-ish!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Embracing the pink
Over time I realize that my favorite sweater construction not just for its ease of knitting, but how it also fits me is the top-down raglan. It has everything I like in a sweater...clean, classic lines, easy knit and a million ways to customize it!
Details:
Pattern: Francis revisited
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca, about 3.9 skeins
Needles: Size 10.5
Modifications: I knit the body about 3 inches longer the the pattern called for and only one increase/decrease on the body. I knit the sleeves a bit longer as well. In addition, I didn't do any increasing on the sleeves and did a garter ridge on the sleeves, collar and hemline instead of seed stitch. The most obvious mod, of course is that I left the cowl neck off on this one.
I've already started another top down raglan again! This time, it will be a v-neck. What can I say, for my day-t0-day clothes I am nothing, if not a creature of habit.