White Sunday

I woke up this morning and all the windows were frosted over... and there was a foot of snow on the ground! :)

It was actually fun shoveling our 3 flights of stairs.  I'm sure in early March it'll be obnoxious when we're gearing up and trudging through the snow for the ninetieth time, but today it was like a celebration!  We even walked down to the corner store and bought the paper and some beer.

It was nice just sitting around knitting and watching movies and stuff.  We also made Christmas cookies... but just baked them.  Hopefully we'll ice them sometime this week... maybe not.  We decorated for Christmas, got a tree, and put up some greens in the flower boxes, but didn't so much.  Our big Christmas purchase was a cute little snow globe with a fox in it.

And, even better news... my orchid that Dan got me for Valentine's Day last year is blooming again! It even has some new little shoots coming up. Did you hear about the color of the year? It's Orchid! The color of my orchid, the color of my sweater and the color of my socks.  I'm actually a little sick of seeing this color with two projects with it!

Busy Busy

I'm working a lot lately... trying to finish stuff for the end of the year! At home, I'm doing the same thing.  I washed and blocked my sweater this weekend, all I have to do is sew in all the seams and make the button bands!

I'm really excited.  Thought I realize that I would have helped myself out a lot by blocking sides that were supposed to be sewn together next to eachother so I could make sure they were the same length... live and learn! Next year, my new year's resolution is going to be to have less projects going on at once.  I can't keep track of everything.

Busybody

I've had a good Sunday.  I woke up, painted, mended a blanket that mysteriously got a hole in it:

(I was going to patch it but I don't think you can tell where the stitch was, so I'm just going to leave it there.)

And... I dealt with this:

I wanted to clean stuff out of my Dad's house, since I don't live there anymore and it's not doing any good way up there.  I got a BIG laundry basket of old clothes and miscellany; an under-the-bed tupperware of fabric; and these three containers of yarn. The entire trunk of my car was full!

So I spent the day sorting yarn into "Future Projects," "Misc. Arylic Yarn," "Misc. Wool-Slash-Animal Fiber Yarn," and "Misc. Sock yarn."

So... know anyone that wants some acrylic yarn?  I'm not going to use it... pretty much ever.  I just don't like the way that Red Heart looks when knit up, and I don't like the way it feels.  Some other Acrylic, like Caron Simply Soft or Vanna's Choice, are ok... but Red Heart is just not soft enough for my picky hands.

I think I'm going to take the Misc. Yarn to my knitting group and give it away there, then maybe post some of the stuff here and see if anyone wants it!

Foolproof

 

During my Thanksgiving travels, I told myself I would work on the socks.  There is now NO WAY that they'll be different sizes... Right?  Oh I hope so... I'd like to finish them this year.  I think that nine months is a long time to be knitting socks. 

How I Spent My Weekend

When I was in elementary school, we had to write in "journals." A lot of times the writing was prompted, like "What is your favorite dessert?" - and a very common one was "What did you do on the weekend?"

I'm some people can't really answer the question "What did you do on the weekend?" in an interesting way.  They say something like "Oh, just stayed in, didn't really do much..." before the conversation turns to sports or the news or the weather.  I can't be like that.  Even when I stay in, I still have to do some sort of project or I will just have so much energy that I can't hold it in and I'll have to do yoga or go to the gym.

Don't ask me how vacations are.  Dan thinks I'm obnoxious!

This weekend has been a weekend in.  And I'm really enjoying it - my sweater is on track (only had a sleeve and the bands to go!) and I've baked and walked around Target and watched Friends for the first time.

But most importantly... we had the first snow!  Our cars were covered in it when we woke up! I'm sure it'll be all melted before noon, but... it's here! SNOW!

I am Actually Making Progress on this Freaking Sweater

Okay, so not much progress, but I have now sucessfully identified which side is the left and the right.  This has been a pretty big source of problems, since, as you can see, THE RIGHT IS ON THE LEFT AND THE LEFT IS ON THE RIGHT.  

There was something in the Bible about how during the end of days, North with be South and South will be North.  That is how I feel with this freaking sweater.  It's the end of days. 

So, I didn't actually do any knitting, but I have paved the way to do knitting more efficiently.  Seems like an excuse that you'd here from a process engineer, right?  I have had to rip back both sides at least twice because I can't figure out the difference between them, so I knit the left side like the right and then... ugh.   I'm getting frustrated just remembering it!

When Okay Ideas Go Wrong

Did you ever get an idea that just didn't work out well when it was executed? I got that a lot when I was drawing a lot - One day I would be working away furiously at something that I thought was the bee's knees, then the next day I would sit down in front of it and think "What was I thinking!?" 

The worst ones would be the ones I actually finished.  I would step back, so proud of my accomplishment, then look at what I'd wasted so much time on... and my pride would shatter.  It would be crap!

Well, this project happened like that.  

I bought some nice yarn at Stitches - I liked it, it seemed warm and floofy... and I liked the color combination.  It just looked good to me.

On Tuesday, I couldn't find my knitting bag so I grabbed these two balls of yarn and started a hat for myself.  

Today, I finished said hat and tried it on.   First minus, is that it's too small.  The second minus, though, is that I couldn't help thinking that this hat was familiar.  I showed Dan.  "Don't these colors look familiar?"

He looked at me like I was crazy.   Then I realized.

My hat looks just like Cartman's from South Park!

So, I will probably weave in the ends and donate it somewhere.  It really is a nice hat... if you have a head the size of a cantaloupe and don't know what South Park is.  Or maybe some kid that's a big SP fan will get it and be excited. Because all my excitement for this hat is gone.

I'm sure everyone has a story like this, though!