Re union & re knitting

Well, interesting week. Monday started with an event that should have been sad, but was really a ton of fun! My grandmother died late last week & her funeral was Monday. Weirdly, no one was terribly sad about it. (Maybe not weirdly, she wasn't a very nice person) It did give us an un avoidable excuse to re unite as a family. I hadn't seen all my cousins together in probably 15 years. It was wonderful to sit around, eat, drink & just catch up on everyone's lives! So that's a shot of all of us up there at the left .

Here's my mom with her 2 remaining brothers.
And here's another shot that includes a couple of kids!
I can't believe that any of us are old enough to have children of our own, bit it's true! Both Katie and Christie have a little girl each! Heck, Melissa has 3!!

As far as knitting goes....feels like I've been trucking along for EVER on this lace scarf & I'm not getting anywhere! That ball of yarn just isn't getting any smaller & it seems like I knit on it at every available moment. But my logic prevails & I know I must be getting somewhere, so I'm keeping at it. Hope to be done before too much longer, it really is a lovely project.

I did a bit of frogging on my cable & eyelet fingerless mitts. They were too long & I thought I could live with it like that. I could not. So I frogged down to where I wanted to re-start the ribbing, picked up the stitches & they fit much better now.

Charlie took me to the bookstore today, just for looking around & of course I bee line straight for any knitting books I can find. I'd read about Big Girl Knits on Ravelry but I'd never seen it in person. I cracked that puppy open & I was hooked. So much information, well written, very very very funny & on top of all that are some beautiful patterns! I made such a fuss over it (including laughing so hard that tears rolled down my face at the phrase 'super hero boobie mask') that I think he'll get it for me for my birthday next month. It's bookmarked anyway....

Newest pet - of the virtual sort

adopt your own virtual pet!

Well, I thought it was funny! He likes to be scratched on his head, or he'll chase your mouse around the screen. He'll munch some grass when he's contented. You can give him a special treat of hay or broccoli (I think it's broccoli, maybe it's more grass?) by clicking the "more" button. I think it makes him feel loved, so please feed Sheldon in case I haven't been by in a few hours. Bit of a bummer that virtual sheep only equals virtual yarn.....but also only virtual poo.....
so.....maybe that's okay.....

What's next?

So the mitts are done! They match the hat perfectly & I like them almost as much. The fit is just a bit off, I think because I knitted too much length after the thumbs. They are also scrunching down toward my fingers so I have to yank them back down every so often. But they are soft, moderately warm & will be perfect for those chilly spring days that are headed our way.

Now I don't know what to work on! Horrible, I know. My first thought is to get back to my lovely Malabrigo scarf that I've been working on since last summer. It's my first attempt at "true" lace and while I am enjoying it, sometimes I need a break from it because I really do have to concentrate on not screwing it up. This last break from it was just a little longer than it really needed to be. I am however open to suggestions so let me know if you think there is something I should be trying!

I think that last time I promised a soup recipe. Well, I'm not so great at coming up with things on my own. But I can follow a recipe! And this is one that we love. It's Rachel Ray's Tomato & Bean Soup. You get a lot of food for your money, it's great re-heated & nothing is better on a snowy night than a bowl of home made soup! The olive frittata from that episode is also quite tasty. Whip it up & enjoy!

Meet the crew!

Not a darn thing going on this week to talk about. Work has kinda gone in the crapper, we're broke & living on ramen noodles & I really freakin' hate all this snow!

I finished my hat, which I love. Wear it all the time! Now I'm using the cable pattern on a fingerless mitt pattern with a different cable to make mitts that match since I had so much yarn left over! Gonna love those, too!

But really, that's it. Kinda dull. So I think I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew. Yup. You guessed it. I have cats. And a dog. And I love them. And so will you.

First we have Zoe. She was the first to come live with us. Charlie wanted to get me something I'd really love for my 20th birthday, so he took me to the ASPCA to pick out a pet. I of course picked the cute, cuddly tabby kitten. And he picked her. We took her home the following day & I have been in love since. She is no doubt the most beautiful cat in the whole world. Her hobbies include being aloof, stealing food from your plate & sleeping with Charlie, not so much me. (She knows who picked her from the cage, I think. He's clearly her favorite.)

Next up we have Lucy. She picked us when she was sitting under my apartment window yowling one night. I went outside, she came running up to me, I lifted her into my arms & she hugged me! That was it, I was done for. Now, she's not the world's brightest crayon, I don't think. Her hobbies include growling and hissing at the boys (see below for said boys), chasing her tail & planning world domination with her only tool, her sparkle ball.

Finally we have The Boys. First came Steve (he's the joker) and next came Fred
who tends to be more serious. They are litter mates, and the story of how they came to me is long. The short of it is, I worked in a vet hospital and their mother was brought in still in labor & the owners wanted to put her down. I said no, went to surgery with the mom, she was leukemia positive & was euthanized & I hand raised the litter. When 6 weeks of age came I couldn't let these 2 go! The litter tested leukemia negative & the 2 others were adopted out. They provide hours & hours of entertainment for me & each other. Don't know what I'd do without them. They have hobbies that they tend to share such as licking each other, playing fetch, talking loudly at 2 am, taunting poor Lucy & walking across the mantle, the only place in the house where they are not allowed.

Last, but certainly not least, is my almost 11 year old greyhound, Jessie. I got her when I was clearing off the advertisment board at work. One of those "Free to a good home" ads. She was a trade with my husband for digital cable. Meaning that if I could get a dog, he could get digital cable. Win win situation for me, I'd say. She's a wonderful dog. Loving, smart, funny, quiet, really, almost another cat! Her hobbies include sleeping on the couch, sleeping on the chair, and occasionally sleeping on her dog bed. She doesn't do much else, but that's okay. She came from the race track so she deserves a life of doing whatever she wants. And if sleeping is what she wants, so be it!

And that's it, kids! That's the whole crew! I don't know what I'm going to talk about the next time I have a boring week. Perhaps maybe I'll post a recipe? I do like a good soup....

Magic it aint!

The magic slipper debacle has commenced. It took me the better part of the afternoon to untangle some lovely yarn that my cat had decided looked like a wonderfully fun toy (why can't I learn to put it away???) and wound into a ball. The easy part was the knitting of the sole of the slipper. Just back & forth & it was done.

Picking up the stitches was where I had the most difficulty. I am not that good at it, need more practice. But I finally got them all picked up and onto the needles to start going in the round.

From there it was pretty easy. Just 15 rounds and you're done!

The issue is that 1) I think the slipper is too big for a newborn and 2) I don't have enough yarn to make the other slipper! I suppose I could try one more time on smaller needles. Or perhaps she needs some burping cloths or something like that in addition to the hat I already have done? Babies burp up a lot of stuff, right?

So in the way of projects that actually have a chance of getting completed sometime in the near future, please see this lovely piece of knitting!

It's the Hermione Cable & Eyelet hat that can be found here. The pattern is free & very nice, but I'm loving it mostly because of the yarn I chose. There may be nothing better in the whole wide world than Debbie Bliss. Okay, okay, I'm a Malabrigo junkie, too, but this stuff is pretty sweet to work with.

I am also very excited to mention that one of the doctors at work has expressed an interest in learning to knit! She found knitty.com and says she fell in love with all the scarves. I offered to help her, and although she is a kind of "do it yourself" girl, she says she will come & ask for help when she's screwed it up too badly to continue. So yeah for new knitters!

Mmmm....food....

So Charlie and I (that's the husband of 8 years for any of you who don't know) decided that we hadn't been out to dinner in a long time and we needed it. I had just made a rather large paycheck (well, large for me, not large in the grand scheme of things, I'm sure) due to a few hours of overtime and 5 hours of work on a Sunday for which they pay time and a half. So after much debate, we decided on Indigo Casual Gourmet in Ft. Mitchell. Now, when Charlie mentioned going to this place, I initially rejected it. We tried to go there for my birthday last year. When we walked into the joint, it reeked of Applebee's in atmosphere. They were having some sort of game night, people were drunk and yelling at the bar, there was a 2 hour wait for a table & it just wasn't for us. I couldn't figure out why he wanted to go there, but he assured me it was not always like that.

And he was right. We got there around 6pm on Friday night and there were very few people in the place. We were seated right away at a table near the bar to which my only complaint would be that the heating vent which was right under my chair was blowing luke warm air at me, but my hand knitted shawl made up for that! The waitress was mostly competent, although I did ask for her choice on the menu and she did not seem to understand the question & just pointed out that "the vegetarian selections are noted with a 'V.'" I ended up ordering the basil cream pasta over penne pasta. I balked a bit at the price of $16.95 for a plate of pasta, but the good husband encouraged me to order what I wanted and I did! We also got salads, they have a wonderful soy ginger dressing, breadsticks and a couple glasses of wine. When the pasta arrived, I was a little sad at how small the plate was. I figured I would have plenty left over to take home at $16.95 but in reality I only packed up about 1/3 of it and that was more out of sheer will to do it than anything else! It was good, I liked it, but not quite $16.95 liked it. Maybe $10.95 liked it. The desserts were much more reasonably priced and I got a slice of carrot cake from Bon Bonnerie for about $4. All in all, it was a nice meal and a nice evening with the husband.

In other news (knitting news that is) I've just about finished up my friend Mike's fingerless mitts that I am making him to match his hat. He really liked the hat and I bought too much yarn so I thought I'd whip him something up to match. But I'm excited to finish them because after that I get to start on some baby booties for a girl at work who is pregnant & having a shower in a couple weeks. I'm going to use this Magic Slipper pattern I found on Ravelry & looks easy enough for a non-sock knitter to make. We shall see about that soon enough!

So it begins....

Well, it seemed like time to get my own. Blog that is. So here we go.

I'm not quite 30, been married for 8 years to a great guy, work as a veterinary technician at a very busy hospital, have 4 cats & a dog & I am a knitter. (Yup. Another knitting blog.)

But I hope it will be more than just a knitting blog. While it's a big part of my life, I'm also into food (vegetarian food at that), good movies (indy films anyone?) and I'm a bit of a geek (in the Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter vein of geek).

So I plan to just let you read a bit about my life on perhaps a weekly basis. Let you know if I've found any good restaurants, seen any good movies, or seriously screwed up any of my knitting (which happens more than the other 2 things, I promise!)

Drop me a line to let me know you've been here!