Jet Setter

I spent most of last weekend in Orange County after working two days in our Carson office. I brought along plenty of yarn anticipating that I could only play so many games of Uno with cousin Andrew while I planned to stay with them on Thursday and Friday nights. I didn't need to escape to knitting on Thursday because cousin had to go to bed early and I enjoyed some grown-up conversation with Aunt and Uncle before falling asleep. I was glad for my knitting on Friday though, when I decided spur-of-the-moment to fly to Seattle for Luke and Kristen's Christmas party. I started a new project in the airport while being delayed for an hour (power outages all over the Seattle area caused back-up at SeaTac) and also for the entire two hour flight. I almost completed one Fetching in that time (one glove, not one whole pair). I was also very grateful for my new head-warming Calorimetry ... it was dang cold in Washington!!

Especially when I had to wait for Luke to pick me up after falling asleep in the cell phone waiting lot. Flying home Saturday morning my fingers needed a rest, so I borrowed a book from Kristen then spent the rest of the weekend running around trying to catch up with everyone I wanted to see - so no more knitting! Last night after a quick jog with Tia, I came home to my empty house (boo!) and put Elf on again ... I started on my last present that I should be able to finish knitting tonight, then will add some special embroidery touches. In my head this is going to be the cutest thing ever, so I will be sure to post pictures if it turns out well. I also need to line one other bag I made a long time ago, and have been putting off lining because I don't really know how.
p.s. my baby brother has a very heavy hand when it comes to pouring booze! this is obvious because in this picture I am TOUCHING a DOG. ew. I would never have done that if I had stuck to plain old diet Coke. ha ha.

SG#2 completed!

Don't want to show the whole thing, but here is a little taste of SG#2 ... I learned a lot of new skills with this project, how to use double-pointed needles, a new bind-off method called the Picot Bind-Off that resulted in the scalloped edges. I also worked with waste yarn for the first time and figured out what the pattern meant by "six stitches above and seven stitches below" ... I really really like this little project and might actually keep it for myself, depending on how my other holiday knitting goes. The person I had originally meant this to be for, I have found something else that suits her a little better. It is a little more challenging, so if I can't get it done, I know she will like this as well. I finished these off last night in between walking off the effects of yesterday's insane Muddy Buddy and cooking dinner. I'm planning to go to AFY on my lunch break today to get some new needles so I can start on SG#4 ... I bought the yarn for it last week and thought I had the right size needles, but got home to discover that I was mistaken.

moving right along

SG#2 has two parts ... I had done all I knew how to do on the first part so stopped by AFY on my way home from work last night to review the next couple of steps with Lois. It really helped to talk through them with her and do some quick review of skills I hadn't used since the class in May. I didn't think I would have time to put my relearned lessons to the test, but after a late birthday dinner for TJ, we got home and I was a little hyper from the diet pepsi, so while Wes fell asleep in front of this week's episode of Studio 60, I kept knitting and even watched the results show for Dancing With the Stars (hurray TiVo!) and then went to bed and read a whole bunch of Flags of our Fathers (so far ... AMAZING ... don't know if I even want to see the movie). I was a little worried when I turned out the light at midnight because I had felt a cold coming on yesterday, but this morning when I woke up I felt great, so I am not sorry I stayed up late to finish part one of SG#2. Wes is working an overtime shift tonight, so I am hoping to make good progress on the second half of SG#2. I probably won't get much knitting in this weekend between the Halloween party tomorrow night, the Muddy Buddy and Halloween snack baking, but I still have almost two months to go ...

how many needles does it take to make SG#2?

hit a rough patch

last night Tia and I had a fast run (loooooove my new shoes) and Wes was playing basketball so I had a couple hours to myself when I got home. I was prepared to take full advantage of my time and hoped to get to the armhole shaping on the back of my brown hoodie. However, yesterday at lunch I miscounted my rows and knit two extra rows before cabling which threw off the pattern. It probably wouldn't have been noticeable to anyone but me, so I was tempted to leave it, until I realized that my row count would be off for the front of the sweater as well. I started to un-knit the rows and got through the two I had done last night before I decided to go backwards, but had some trouble taking out the row with the cabling. So after fighting with it for a while, I laid it aside with plans to visit AFY this afternoon and hope Lois can make more sense out of what I did. I still had some time before Wes was due home so I pulled out a new project that I had wanted to start, but haven't because I have been a little preoccupied with the hoodie. The new project uses double-pointed needles which I haven't ever used before. I had hoped to take a class a few weeks ago to help me get started, but it got canceled so I am on my own! I started doing 2x2 ribbing on accident instead of the 4x1 the pattern calls for so I will have to pull this out and start over, which is fine because I am still getting used to keeping track of all these needles!! The beginning of the round is a little loose, but the rest looks okay, I think. I will do a few more rows of practice before I start on these cute gloves for real. (also, I feel like these needles look like something from the Blair Witch Project ... lets hurry up and get my hoodie back to normal!)