SURPRISE!!!

Check out Knitty!

You know you want one!

P.S. I am working on the pattern for Lauren, and hope to finish it tonight. I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing what others do with it!

Isn't it time for some really GOOD photos?

I finished this one the other night... my latest design! It was inspired by and made on commission for a friend of mine from New Job. She loves my handknits so much she wanted one for herself; she gave me creative license, but we worked together from the sketch to the fitting phase. She's petite like I am, but shorter, so the sleeves will be full-length on her.

After taking a small-scale poll, it seems there is a lot of interest in the pattern. It's easy, but has some neat design tricks, too. I WILL be writing up the pattern, which will be available for purchase for $3 through Ravelry or right here on the blog. I like to do patterns for free, but the math involved in sizing things for a wide range, as well as some alternate options I'm going to add (thanks, hannabirke, for the more ease in the bust alternate suggestion), well, it feels a little like work. Just a little.

Weekend of Wonder

For the first time, I went to see the finish of the Boston Marathon. The best part? The handcycles. This is what my Dud does... I just had to call him and tell him when the first few went by. The handcycles and wheelchair were very spaced out and were the first finishers, so the crowd went nuts every time anyone came into view.

On the phone my Dud let me know that he just filled out his entry forms for a 25K he'll do with his handcycle. Wow.

I did this on the sidelines:

I have an excuse, however... I twisted an ankle pretty badly walking from Rondo's Diner back to work last Friday with a bag of cheeseburgers. We wrapped it up and did a serious bike ride in the Nashoba Valley on Saturday, but I've been taking it easy since then in anticipation of my trip to NYC this weekend with Mom and Little Sister for a binge of shopping and eating and walking around. I have a very, very hard time being still. It took remarkable willpower to not go to the gym today.

Knitting? Of course, it's almost Mother's Day, so it's socks. I've chosen my yarns from my stash based on Project Spectrum this year.

First, some self-striping Lovesticks in After Dinner Mint:

And some completed ones in Sport Weight Yarntini, color Chocolatini, with contrasting toes from some leftover Spunky Eclectic Super Sport.

New sweater design and blocked lace to come!

A bizarre yet happy surprise

My postman brought me a huge box the other day, something my parents had been hinting at giddily. This is what was inside:

So that's 5 pounds of roving, ready to spin, as well as a small fleece in the white plastic bag. Ann, my parents' neighbor , was recently in New Zealand, visited a farm, and came back with this. When my mom swooned over it and told Ann how crazy I would go for something like this, she said, "Oh, let's send it to her!"

Obviously I owe this wonderful lady something handknit. Here's another shot, with newly-pedicured feet for scale:


I'm not going to process the fleece myself... there are only so many hours in the day. Does anyone have a suggestion as to where I could send it to have it made into roving? I really love the chocolate color.

I promise many lovely finished object shots in the future... I've been hoarding a lot of big stuff, new designs and such. Here is my little knits competition scarf, 9 feet of grey lace with a little yellow trim, waiting for my blocking wires to arrive from KnitPicks to finish it off and send it out. I'll give an update when pictures are up at the little knits site!

Poor, dear Mulva.

It is clear that Mulva, our dear vintage Volvo, has become a collision magnet. Last week Tuesday, the president of the company for which I work backed into parked Mulva on his way out from work. It was about 10 pm, and Chris had stopped by to bring me dinner to break up my 14-hour day, and, well, the whole front end was kind of accordian-crumpled as a result. I found this exceptionally amusing, but I had worked 14 hours and was more than a little slap-happy.

The company's insurance man came and appraised Mulva yesterday and will cover all of the damage. However, last night we took Mulva to the gym and were the victims of a hit-and-run sideswipe that left one headlight shattered and scattered on the pavement about 10 yards from the car and copious red paint along the newly-impacted left side. Chris is on the warpath to find and photograph the offending full-size red truck with yellow lettering on the side that was parked next to us when we arrived, a truck which often parks in our gym lot. It's been a bad month for Mulva.

For the next two months I have decided that, in addition to my Grellow knitting commitment, I am going to knit with Project Spectrum in the greens and browns. I hope that this is an effective way to cull the stash; we shall see. I have swatched for a sweater that I've been promising Chris for nearly a year:

I'm also working on some socks in Yarntini Sport Weight in Chololatini, basic 1 by 3 rib on #3 needles:

AND, in the background, bonus libation recipe!

Have you gotten your 5 servings of fruit and veggies for the day? No? Is this perhaps because the fruit you have is past its prime, a bit grainy, or just not really in season? Do you have a juicer? If so:

VICTIM CAR VODKA SMOOTHIE

Juice your second-tier fruit (in this case it was 2 pears and about 10 stawberries)

Pour the juice into a cocktail shaker

Add as much vodka as you like (I do about 1 part vodka to 1 part juice, but I really like vodka)

Add some ice

Shake and strain and enjoy

There. You've eaten your fruit and can relax a bit after all the car trauma. Good night!

The Hat So Nice I Made It Twice (so far).

In need of some subway knitting (the Trenna long scarf is getting too long to carry around, and my other project is a nearly-finished jacket knit in one piece... pattern to come), I started Felicity. You can get the pattern for free on Wanett's site... just look to the right sidebar. The first one took one day, and is made with one skein of Sylvan Spirit from Green Mountain Spinnery. I LOVE the sheen of this yarn! And the color is "Moonshadow." Like the Cat Stevens song that makes me cry when I hear it... not many things make me cry, but Cat Stevens, yep, he does, as does anything about Lincoln's assasination and the movie Gladiator. Even advertisements for shows about Lincoln.

Then I started a Grellow one out of alpaca sport weight leftovers. It's almost done and already fantastic.

Also of note:

I bench pressed 95 lbs. the other day.

Donut and Donuts opened in my subway station yesterday, and today their watery coffee ruined my morning. It was as if I had NO coffee. I tripped over the same box near my desk three times in ten minutes. I spilled on my desk. I was short with my coworkers. Boo! BOOOOOOO!