Collage

Collage

Friday, September 30, 2011

Finishing more than knitting

For once this whole post isn't going to be about knitting (although there is just a little). I finished a book over the weekend and thought i would share it. If you remember back I had started the Faerie Wars series by Herbie Brennan. I just finished the second book and since I took the third out from the library (for whatever reason they offer number 1, 2, 4, and 5 digitally but not 3) it is still holding my interest. Overall I give this series a 3.5 out of 5. Its not stellar, but it is fairly interesting, the characters are likable, and the plot is believable while still interesting. I'm hoping to start the third book soon!

I also finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with me read-along group, so I'll be moving on to Prisoner of Azkaban in a few weeks. While I wait I'm going to finish the Katie Couric book I had started a while ago.

And (since it wouldn't be a post without some knitting) I finished another mini sock! I've been trying to crank out these bad boys right fast and in a hurry since I'm a little behind. This is number five our of thirty, and with any luck number six will be finished tonight.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Finishing up a storm

With all the homework hubby has had this week, we've spent the past few nights up in our office, him working away on homework, leaving me to do whatever I wish. His only request is that I hang out with him in there. So I've been knitting, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, and reading. Here are the fruits of my labor:


This is a terrible picture, but on top of the rainy weather we're having a hat is a hard thing to photograph without a head to put it on. You'll just have to use your imagination!


If your keeping track this is number 4 of 30 mini socks. Yes, I'm a bit behind schedule. I plan to spend today and tomorrow knitting nothing but the mini socks to try and get to 6 by the end of the month.

I've been thinking a lot of Christmas and gift knitting. I totally blame BJs because they had a Christmas decorations aisle already when I was there last weekend. Anyway, I have 1-2 medium sized gifts I'm planning to make and give for Christmas this year. But I got this crazy idea to make mini sweaters with initials on them for people this year. They would work great as decorations for my nieces gifts and equally as well for gift cards to my siblings in law who live out of state. This could mean between 14-24 mini sweaters. Is this crazy? Or ingenious? I have yet to figure it out :)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Dreaming

Every once in a while (probably a few times a year) I go on a big pattern browsing kick and favorite several projects. Some of these make it into my queue, others stay in my favorites for a while, and some may never get made, but I keep them any way because I either like them or plan to use them for inspiration for something else.

The last two nights hubby has had a lot of homework to do, so I sit up in the office with him and knit, catch up on Ravelry, listen to podcasts, etc. Last night my chair in the office was getting pretty uncomfortable, so I took my computer to bed with me and started browsing patterns. I thought I would share some of the ones I found last night with you.

 
Hampton Cardigan by Cecily Glowik MacDonald

  SnoBuddy Family by Chris de Longpré

 Acadian Shawl by Melisa McCurley

Button Up your Cup by Julie Tarsha

Oink by Susan B. Anderson

Clutter Control: Stash Baskets by Bernat Design Studio

 


Monday, September 26, 2011

Weekend Wrap up

This weekend was awesome! Saturday I packed an overnight bag and headed to Rochester to hang out with some family. I got a pedicure (my first one this year!) and got to Skype with my cousin who is studying abroad in Italy. We had good food and a fun time. Then Sunday I stopped to see my brother and his girlfriend at college on my way home. It was nice to hang out and catch up with them. Then last night we celebrated a friend's birthday and watched some Leverage. It was pretty close to a perfect weekend! If only all these people lived closer to me.

I have photos of our meals from over the weekend... it was all pretty yummy! First, our salad an entree. This is a mixed greens salad with red onion, celery, apple slices, dries cranberries, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing. I'm not normally a fan of fruit in my salad, but this was FANTASTIC! My favorite part of the meal. Our main entree was a breaded chicken. The interesting thing was that this was breaded with Doritos!


The other thing we made was an Apple Crumble Coffee Cake. I got to take most of it home with me! It is very dense and flavorful.


Friday, September 23, 2011

Gillyweed

I have a finished object to share! This is a Mitered Hanging Towel I finished this week out of some doshcloth cotton I had laying around. I rather enjoyed this pattern, except for the part where you knit with two strands of the cotton together. Here's a photo:






Quick post tonight... I'm off to bed as I have a small road trip tomorrow! Just gone for one night though. More about that later!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Overachieving

So I didn't post yesterday... and that's twice in one week. I actually had a post written out and just forgot to submit it. But you know what? I don't care. This blog is supposed to be fun and if I miss a few days its ok. Here's a funny picture in light of my carefree attitude:


0921010914 by inkslinger1121
0921010914, a photo by inkslinger1121 on Flickr.

Sorry if the photo looks a little funny, I was having a hard time getting it to upload and ended up putting it on Flickr and posting it directly here. This is our kitty Elliot on hubby's camis. He was pretty content!

Monday, September 19, 2011

The minis are taking over

 I can't help it. I love the minis! Here's a photo of my most recent mini stocking:


I really like the colors in this one. It turned out a bit more purple in the photo than it is in real life.

Not a very long post this time I guess. Not much to say, other than I LOVE making the mini stockings!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Fail

Well, I knew it would happen. I missed a day of blogging. But you know, I'm ok with it. This weekend was crazy busy and I was out doing things every day. Friday I worked and then went to my friends house for a movie. Saturday a friend and I went shopping to get supplies to send boxes to our siblings and friends who are away from college. We came back home and I baked while she set up and decorated the boxes. Saturday night I went to a Pampered Chef party with my mom. This morning I went to church and fater church I watched my friend's son for a few hours. Within an hour of him picking him up hubby was back from drill.

See? Busy! But it was a good weekend. My picture for today is a close up of some of my baking spoils from Saturday. These are chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. I'm not a huge chocolate fan, and I don't usually like chocolate cookies, but these are SO good I think I ended up eating about 2 cookies worth of dough!

Tomorrow I hope to have a picture of my latest finished object!

Friday, September 16, 2011

See that?

You'll notice my WIPs progress bar on the right hand side is getting shorter. That's because I finished my Hermione hat last night! This hat had been completely finished before, but I didn't like how it had turned out. The ribbing wasn't quite tight enough and I hadn't done enough repeats so the hat just a smidge too short. When I re-knit the hat I decided to use size 6 needles for the lace and cable section instead of the 5s I had used previously. This made all the difference! Here's a photo of the hat:


It hasn't been properly blocked out yet, so that's why the cable and lace section looks a little... scrunched. I'm hoping to get to that this weekend!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

WIP Wednesday... on Thursday

Yesterday was Wednesday and we've started something we call "WIP Wednesdays" where we work on an older project for detention. I started a vest for my brother in the Spring, but it got set aside for other projects. I dug it out, found where I was in the pattern, and that as the only knitting I worked on yesterday. Here's a progress pic:





The color is a little off in this picture- its actually more of a dark teal than a cobalt blue. I'm about an inch away from the armholes, then I start the decreases for those. But not until next week! I hope to have this finished for the beginning of January before he goes back to school.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Blessed

I don't share a whole lot about my personal life on this blog, just because I don't think that usually its what people want to read about. But today I decided I had to share about my husband. He's an overall sweet guy and yesterday he surprised me with these when he got home:


Now, I'm not much of a flower person. Hubby has tried to give me potted plants before and I kill them every time. But there's just something about being surprised with a small bouquet of flowers :)

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Teaser

I don't often have secret projects (although there will probably be a lot more in the coming months as I start designing more) but since the current project is for a secret swap, I didn't want to risk the cat getting out of the bag. But no pictures isn't any fun either, so I decided to post a teaser picture of this special project. Can you guess what it is?


Monday, September 12, 2011

Life in Mini

Mini socks are not a new thing- I know of friends who have been making them for years. But I only recently discovered the wonder of them. Socks are amazing knits- sometimes the directions don't make sense, and they can seem pretty complicated, but you feel so accomplished when you're done! This way you get all the accomplishment in a fraction of the knitting time. Plus they're just so darn cute!

My OWL for the HPKCHC this term is to make 30 mini socks plus a garland to string them on. I plan to use it as a Christmas decoration and to add to it as I collect more HP Sunshine colorways. I just finished my second sock, which also serves as my photo of the day:


I'm going to label each photo with the colorway to make it easier. I wound the yarn for my next mini sock this morning... but its a surprise!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Rememberance

I know many of you are thinking back to where you were this time ten years ago. I know I have been. This isn't going to be a long post, but I just hope that some of the feelings we all feel today can be carried into other parts of the year as well. I have an old picture of the twin towers form 10 days before the attacks, unfortunately I was unable to find it. I really like this one I found, though, so this is my photo for the day (even though I didn't take it).


Saturday, September 10, 2011

A hat, is a hat, is a hat

Here's a progress photo from one of my WIPs (Work in Progress) Hermione's Hat.






You will notice I finally got the time stamp to display the correct date :) I've also been working away on the secret project and its almost done. Maybe soon I'll post a teaser picture, though I wont post a picture of the whole project until after it has been received by the secret swap partner.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Gray days

The weather has been pretty blah around here- lots of gray skies and drizzles of rain. We've been getting up a lot earlier since my husband has started school again, and one of the things I love about getting up early is that I have an hour or so to myself before I go to work. This is one of my favorite parts of that hour:


This is our cat, Elliot, curled up on my lap (and yes, I'm still in my pajamas!) He's very loveable and likes cuddling after he gets his breakfast. The other part I like about having time to myself? Knitting! I've been making decent progress on a few projects. But that's a blog post for another day!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Photo a Day: The beginning

I'm not one to take many photos. There have been several vacations that have to photographic evidence, many celebrations and events where a camera is no where to be found. However, in an effort to make myself more accountable with photos and to this blog, I'm doing a photo a day. I know there are lots of organized programs like this, but I'm doing my own thing. This first one is from my commute to work:


Hopefully from now on there will be a blog post everyday with a photo. I might miss some (its inevitable) and sometimes it might only be the picture with no description, but I hope you enjoy them!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Transformers 3

Sunday night a few friends and I decided to do something fun since we all had Monday off. We ended up settling on seeing a movie, and we went to see Transformers 3.

We also decided to see it in 3D Imax, and this was my first Imax movie, though not my first 3D movie. I thought the movie itself was pretty good. I grew up with the Transformers cartoons and have enjoyed seeing the series remade into movies. I liked that they brought back a lot of the characters from the first movies, and thought they even did a decent job integrating the new girlfriend and explaining what had happened with the old one, played by Megan Fox. Overall I would give the movie 4 stars.

My Imax experience was pretty good. We went to a late showing, and this movie has been out a little while, so it wasn't crowded. One thing I noticed is that you want to sit toward the very back of the theater in Imax- the screen is so large even sitting in the middle made you feel like you were too close. My glasses broke right as the movie started, but thankfully my husband went and got new ones and the theater didn't give him a hard time.I also had a headache at the end of the movie, and I'm not sure if it was the 3d glasses combined with my regular glasses, the large screen, where we sat, or a combination of all three. I would try either Imax or 3D again though... but maybe with a coupon! It was $31 for us to go see the movie, and we definitely wont be doing this more than once in a great while.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

I need a plan


September is one of those months that is associated with new routines. Kids go back to school, summer hours change to winter hours, and around here fall sets in and summer fades away. I don't know if I've blogged about it much, but I'm on a self imposed yarn diet until Rhinebeck in October. I've done really well- its been over a month and not so much as a skein! I've been planning my projects from stash yarn and its a nice feeling knowing that I'm making room for more yarn and finally using up yarns I've had for a while. This month I started on my quest to make a mini stocking garland. I'm using my stash of Sunshine Yarns Classic sock in the Harry Potter colorways I have accumulated. This will be a semi-long term project- once I get my needles I ordered (Hey! Needles aren't yarn! And I NEEDED them!) I am aiming for a mini sock every 2-3 days. I have plans for 4 projects for classes this month: a Shalom sweater that doesn't have a class assignment yet, a bookmark for Muggle Studies, a redo on my Hermione Hat for CoMC, and a Crochet square for DADA. Yes, I said crochet. I actually managed to do more than a straight line! I think that might get its own post though :) With the weather cooling down, in addition to these I will begin work again on the blanket I started for my hubby last year. Its gotten rather large and I plan on crocheting until I run out of yarn!