Hemlock done!!!!!!!

Wahoo, the Hemlock ring blanket has come off the needles at exactly 0845 today! This after an overnight bind-off session--that scallop BO took longer than the whole stinking blanket!!! (I exaggerate,of course. Did I say I would stop exaggerating for the new year?!)

Here's a funky pic of it straight off the needles:


I sure hope it blocks out well! This is finished just in time for our awful cold-wave: windchills in the below-zeroes, and a high today of 4 degrees! Ick. It has been really nice to sit with this wooly wonder on my lap while knitting. My dad's B-day is in early Feb, but I may give it to him early so he gets more use out of it!

I am ready to stuff the Celestine, and haven't done so yet b/c my stuffing is in the closet in the room where DH is snoozing. I don't want to wake him up digging around in the closet, ya know?!


But, the happy thing is that Celestine will also be an FO later today! Gosh, now I'll HAVE to work on the Hello Kitty KAL projects and Ballerina. I also promised my girlfriend a black chullo-type hat, which I will be CO for today. I am on a knitting rampage right now, I feel like finishing up all my WIPs. My list on Ravelry shows I have around 11 WIPs dozing away in a project basket! Sheesh, talk about knitting ADD :)

I am doing an Atkins induction diet right now, it's been 1+ weeks. I lost a bit of weight so far, but Atkins is hard for me to do b/c I'm a vegetarian! Good thing I eat eggs and fish, but I'm just about sick of them right now :) The best thing this is doing is stopping my nervous carb-snacking at work. I ALWAYS was eating something, another piece of chocolate, a piece of cake, a cookie, a granola bar, a doughnut--you get the picture! My blood sugar was a bit unhappy with me initially, but I feel so much better and lighter at this point! I'm going to keep going with it....

Hope all you knitters are staying warm this winter! See ya later (with pics of blocked Hemlock Ring and finished Celestine)!Bye....

Busy

Been sick, got a raise, worked like an ox, enjoyed DH's b-day, got DS registered (second semester), got sick again. In other words, not too much knitting going on here. Now I am suffering from eye strain, relapse of bronchitis, messed up hormones, and a persistent GI problem. Sigh. Never a dull moment :)

I am making (very slow) progress on Celestine:


The Kauni rainbow yarn is really fun; I keep wanting to make the next star point to see what the next color variation looks like knit up!! And it's a good size project to haul back and forth to work.

As opposed to Hemlock Ring, which is in it's last 3 rows and rather bulky at this point. I messed up a YO row 5 rows back, and have been trying to rip back only a section to fix it instead of unraveling 300 something stitches x 5 rows, but now that I've spent 2-1/2 hours doing that, I realize that nothing but ripping out will suffice. I can't stand it, I'm so close to being finished! Oh well, I have been enjoying it during football games....Maybe it'll get me through the Super Bowl :)

I'm learning something from both projects, which is fun. I've heard people say you can't fix lace--oh, now I see why! :( You can tell I'm an "experiential" learner!!

And Celestine calls for "pick up and knit" to add on each star point, but when I do that I get a ridge at the join (red arrows in next photo.) I like it much better if I just pick up the stitches around, and THEN knit them on the first row. It looks so much cleaner :) See the black arrows in the next photo:


See how the black arrows are pointing out seams with nice smooth joins?! (Click to see it better!) This needs some blocking for sure, but I think you get the idea.

Won't be doing much internet this weekend if my eyes don't calm down. I'll probably just refill my antibiotics and sleep. Happy Saturday y'all!

Sincerely,
Aim the inundated.

what I got for Christmas

He likes to play in the snow!



I got this fun calendar for Christmas from DD. Will be nice to flip through these daily while at work this year! Not that I need anymore project ideas, but it's nice to keep the inspiration going!!

Wow, I just spent about 4 hours on Ravelry (1/1/08), with breaks to move the laundry along, and eat. I can just blow a whole day on that website! My brain is spinning right now. I must get off the 'puter b/c DH is going to have a hissy if I don't give him a turn :()

Again, Happy New Year.

Okay, now it's 1/2/08. I just worked all day again, what a workhorse I can be. I love my job right now.

I am very happy these days. I think the satisfaction of moving through the holidays, being with family and friends, and having well-deserved time off really makes a difference! Plus all the new knitting and surfing time!!!

I am working away on the Hemlock ring. Will be knitting on that tonight. But what has really got me going is the Celestine from Norah Gaughan (pattern on Berocco's website): I cast on last night in my Kauni rainbow yarn, and I'm really excited to be making it in this. I don't know what it will look like in this yarn, but I'm having fun using it! And it's a nice break from the boring color of Hemlock :)

I had a brainstorm too. I really want to use my Jojoland Rhythm yarn for the Klaralund sweater! It is self-striping and a really neat colorway I think would look very well in that pattern. I've been sitting on it wondering what to do with it for a number of months...I love brainstorms!

Well, back to the knitting board. Oh, and by the way, I need to get started on my HK knitting pattern for the KAL blog! The pattern came out Christmas Eve, but I am somewhat behind :)

Resolutions for the New Year

New Year Knitting Resolutions:

1. Be prolific.
2. Be creative.
3. Be financially responsible.

There. It's open to interpretation, but I just need some loose guidelines for making changes I want to see happen! Some of these span more than just my knitting goals, but then, that's a given.

Before I wax too philosophical, I want to pass on one of my all-time favorite jokes. Let this set the tenor for my new year....;-p

Long ago, when sailing ships ruled the sea, the ships were always in danger of being attacked by pirates.

One day, a certain captain and his crew saw that a pirate ship was approaching. The crew became worried, but the Captain was calm.

He bellowed to his First Mate, "Bring me my red shirt!"

The First Mate quickly got the Captain's red shirt, which the captain put on. Then he led his crew into fierce battle against the pirates. Although there were some casualties among the crew, the pirates were defeated.

Later that day, the lookout shouted that there were two pirate vessels approaching their ship. The crew was nervous, but the Captain, calm as ever, bellowed, "Bring me my red shirt!" And once again the battle was on!

The Captain and his crew bravely fought off the pirates, though this time more casualties occurred.

Weary from the battles, the men sat around on deck that night recounting the day's events when an ensign looked at the Captain and asked, "Sir, why do you call for your red shirt before the battle?"

The Captain explained, "If I am wounded in battle, the red shirt does not show the blood, so you men will continue to fight unafraid." The men sat in silence. They were amazed at the courage of such a man.

As dawn came the next morning, the lookout spotted more pirate ships, 10 of them, drawing close. Terror struck the crew; the men became silent and looked to the Captain, their leader, for his usual command.

The Captain, bellowed, 'Bring me my brown pants!!!'

Hope you liked this joke. Hee hee hee o.O

And now, to some knitting:
Look at this interesting site, this woman dyes her yarns from botanicals she collects in the woods, mostly mushrooms!!! Is this not gorgeous?! Look at some of the colors she gets, wow. I am so impressed. She is a very inspiring read, I think I will be following her blog carefully!

And, I have another scarf project in mind: check this out! It is so pretty, I would love a scarf like this! I am very tempted to try to figure that one out based on the photos. She states it is made in one piece, and I think I know how that's done.... :)

And here is a link to lots of info about Japanese knitting patterns, for my future reference if not yours!

Okay, time to knit some more. I am on round 72 of the Hemlock Ring Blanket. Many more to go, but that's okay. I have the whole winter looming ahead of me. We are snowed in, with heaps of snow everywhere. I love it! We have had such stinky snow-stingey winters in the past decade, I'm excited to have some deep snow!!!

Oh, one last comment: LOOK AT WHERE THIS WOMAN LIVES!!!!! (Scroll to previous/next posts on her blog for other beautiful photos of her home.)
How come I live in such a topographically challenged area, when there are places like this around?!"
Wow. Almost makes me want to revise my plans to move to the south pacific.....(I said almost!) I love her photography, it puts me right there.

I will enjoy visiting with all of you in 2008--thanks everyone for making blogging such a joy to a newbie like me! I now have 9 months of blogging under my belt--woo hoo!
Happy 2008!

Hemlock Ring Blanket Progress

Here's a photo of my Hemlock Ring Blanket as of last night:



I am liking this pattern a lot. However, I'm not liking the doody color of this yarn. I had purchased it because it is the same one Jared Flood used on his blog, and I loved his pics of the finished work. I thought it would go with my brown tapestry-print sofa, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll like it better when it's blocked....I have, however, seen some stunning ones on Ravelry that have been done in juicy colors, one in royal blue, and one in leaf green. I may need to make a more colorful one for myself, and give this guy-colored one when it's finished to my Dad for an upcoming B-day in Feb. We'll see. I bet he'd like a wool throw in Feb. (This all relates to this post, where I noticed that I crave saturated, intense colors during the winter months!)

DH's b-day is in early January. I have no plans to knit anything gifty, so unless something jumps out at me soon, he's getting nothing handmade. And that's okay, 2008 is the year of knitting for me :)

Wanna see what I got with my Christmas gift certificate to a LYS?


Wow, I'm in heaven. I am inspired by Opal's version of the Selbuvotter patterns, and plan on some mittens for myself. I want to do some fair-isle knitting, so I bought a bunch of random colors of Heilo and Dalegarn Baby Ull to build the stash! This is going to be so much fun!!!

I also got some Cashsoft DK and Cashcotton DK that was marked down. I don't even care what colors I get of this stuff, it is so soft and gorgeous! Fair-Isle hats, here I come :)


I splurged and bought myself the angora yarn I've been eyeballing for much of a year. After all, it was a gift certificate! It's Lush, from Classic Elite and man is it soft!!!!! The only problem: I fell in love with this lovely ice-blue color, and now I will need to get myself a new coat!! (My winter coats are red, and charcoal gray!) That's okay, a white puffy down coat would be really special, and I can wear any color scarf with it.

I was on a mission yesterday, to get myself an immersion blender. My daughter and I spent a very fun day traipsing around some great stores, like Crate & Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma, and Anthropologie. We had some Jamba Juice smoothies, and ate later at Roly-Poly, the rolled sandwich shop.

Anyway, we did all this w/o finding a decent immersion blender. I was bummed. I could not allow myself to go home w/o the one thing I really wanted to buy. So I dropped her off and went to Macy's, and....waddayaknow, they actually had one. (It was the last one!) And I was so happy to find it, I also bought a new Martha Stewart 5-quart skillet! They were both on sale--bonus!! I'm very pleased, now I can crank out some soup :)

Fun with photoshop:


I had made some onion soup from scratch after watching Michael Chiarello's version last weekend. Oh, was it simple and good! This recipe is mostly about technique. The discovery of a new technique (i.e. caramelizing the onions), really lights my fire! Now it will always be a great easy go-to dish, and I don't need a recipe to do it :)

For this soup, I figured out that you need about one onion per serving: I used three onions because it was a stretch fitting more than that into my pathetic cast-iron skillet; I got three yummy big servings out of it. The best onion soup I've ever had. My version used vegetable stock (I'm a vegetarian) and I forgot to add sage....But like I said, delicious!!!!! And done in about 45 minutes.

He then made a butternut squash soup on which he used an immersion blender. (Light-bulb went on: 'hey I need one of those') Then yesterday, I watched Giada de Laurentiis make some homemade tomato soup and puree it with an immersion blender. How easy that is compared to what I normally do: dump the steaming soup into my blender in small enough batches to avoid explosions of boiling liquid all over the walls--yes it's happened!)

My family (esp DH) is very finicky about eating chunky type soups, but if it's pureed they'll eat it! So I'm very happy with my new toys! (And I didn't leave Williams-Sonoma empty-handed: I stocked up on some more grey salt!)


Well, enough blabbering about food. DD flies back to her base in the California desert tomorrow morning, while I work a half-day >:| Today we go to a fondue restaurant for a nice family time--should be fun! Maybe I'll make some more soup on New Year's Day :) See ya then!

Mutlu yillar!