100!

February 15, 2005 By

For my 100th post, I’m going with pictures galore!

Picot-Boo‘s debut:

I think this is where she bowled that strike. I kid you not – the child bowled a strike and two spares!

The blankie and pac are never far behind!

New Stash:

For the VK Flower Basket Bag: Cascade Magnum in colors (from the top) Black, Highland Green, Lichen, and Regal Red.

For Valentine’s Day, I bought myself some Manos, Color # 115 – Flame. I only bought four skeins (that’s all they had), but I want more. I want to make a very simple cardigan. For me.

Thanks for all the feel good wishes. I’m definitely feeling better – not 100% – but much better. (Read: not feeling like yakking anymore!) Tomorrow I hope to be completely better.

Almost forgot – a special thanks to Wendy. Her homemade Valentine was just what I needed yesterday. Thanks again Wendy!

Love, Cara

Filed Under: Picot-Boo, Stash

Sick Day

February 15, 2005 By

Woke up this morning around five o’clock just begging to throw up – unfortunately I’m sure you all know the feeling. Didn’t go away all day – my sister has it too.

The worst part is that I had to miss the second part of my intarsia/fair isle class. I was so disappointed. But the LYS is going to do the right thing, and somehow I’ll get the instruction that I missed.

The weekend was a success – my nephew got a mountain of cool toys (Remind me to tell you about the super heavy weight bout between the remote control T-Rex and the remote control Robosapien. Both were very, very cool and more for thirty year olds than four year olds.)

Picot-Boo was a great success, except it was really hard to watch her eat yogurt while wearing it and she kept eating the sleeves. Worst problem was the neck was a little tight because of the hem – she didn’t like taking it on and off, but once it was on she was styling. Thanks for all your comments about it! I’m sorry if I didn’t get back to you, but I feel like crap.

Not too much to worry about the flu ruining my V-day, since every day is V-day in our house. 😉

Hope you all stay well. I hate being sick. (Although I did get to watch Sense & Sensibility today!)

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Prove It All Night

February 14, 2005 By

[Sunday, February 13, 2005, 8:47 PM, New Jersey Turnpike, singing our hearts out]

I’ve been working real hard, trying to get my hands clean,
Tonight we’ll drive that dusty road from Monroe to Angeline,
To buy you a gold ring and pretty dress of blue,
Baby just one kiss will get these things for you,
A kiss to seal our fate tonight,
A kiss to prove it all night.

Prove it all night,
Girl there’s nothing else that we can do,
So prove it all night, prove it all night,
And girl I’ll prove it all night for you.

Everybody’s got a hunger, a hunger they can’t resist,
There’s so much that you want, you deserve much more than this,
But if dreams came true, oh, wouldn’t that be nice,
But this ain’t no dream we’re living through tonight,
Girl, you want it, you take it, you pay the price.

Prove it all night,
Girl there’s nothing else that we can do,
So prove it all night, prove it all night,
And girl I’ll prove it all night for you.

Prove it all night, prove it all night girl and call the bluff,
prove it all night, prove it all night and girl,
I prove it all night for your love.

Baby, tie your hair back in a long white bow,
Meet me in the fields out behind the dynamo,
You hear the voices telling you not to go,
They made their choices and they’ll never know,
What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie,
What it’s like to live and die.

Prove it all night,
Girl there’s nothing else that we can do,
So prove it all night, prove it all night,
And girl I’ll prove it all night for you.

To prove it all night…

Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Happy every day my love….

l o v e

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Happy (Belated) Birthday Max!

February 11, 2005 By

I’m off to see the children today – bowling party on Sunday for Max’s Fourth! (If you’ve never bowled with small children – you don’t know what you’re missing!) His birthday’s in January, but since he was lounging on the beach in Nevis at the time, the party is this weekend.

See how their arms are open wide?
They’re both running to give Aunt Cara BIG, big hugs!

Have a great weekend everybody!
L, C

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

Picot-Boo is Picot-Done!

February 10, 2005 By

Definitely not my best work, but I’m sure Charlotte won’t mind. It will look so cute with her little purple skirt and tights! (I’ll come back with pictures I swear – she just loves clothes. You say to her, “Charlotte, who’s so pretty?” and she answers “ME!”)

The collar is still messed up – but the weird thing happening on the right side (in the picture) may be from ironing it – at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

I’m not sure I’m liking the whole raglan thing – it’s the seams that messed up the collar for sure. I’m not real postitive what I could’ve done better. But the arms and bottom are cute:

I’m feeling better. No snow (at all – thanks for getting my hopes up Weather people!) but I’m pretty much prepared for class.

Thanks for putting up with my craziness!

Filed Under: Picot-Boo

Picot-Boo has a Boo-Boo

February 10, 2005 By

Man, I’m still dreaming about that collar.

Yesterday was pretty productive, until the end. I ran. I read through all of the stories for tonight’s class (still have to read and critique them again – although I’m really hoping class will be snowed out.) I finished the pictures for the job I did the other day – thank god! In the end I was quite pleased with them, camera dying and all. So then I settled in to pick up the collar on Picot-Boo. NO biggy. It’s a mere 60 odd stitches and half of them are on stitch holders anyway – piece of cake!

No. No. No. How is it that the thing looks like crap now? The problem is that on the front you had to bind off the middle 18 stitches and then continue to decrease so that you wind up with two stitches on each side of the bind off. Then you keep them on holders. Well all the decreases got so screwed up when trying to transfer them to the circulars and the whole thing was so awful and ended up ripping out the seaming, then ripping down past the cast-off edge then knitting it back up. It seems to be working now. So frustrating. I don’t have a lot of time! I’m supposed to be leaving for my sister’s some time tomorrow and I have SO MUCH to do before now and then. Including finishing this sweater. I know I don’t have to finish it – but there’s so little left to do – and I wanted Charlotte to wear it to the birthday party on Sunday (Max’s fourth birthday party – bowling with four year olds! Whipee!) Plus I have to get the pictures out in the mail. I have a package I want to send my SP4 for Valentine’s Day. My house is ridiculous. And I have to prepare for class tonight. The sweater was supposed to be EASY! I did a couple rounds before bed last night, but there are gaping holes that need to be seamed again (I’m praying that’s what it is – I KNOW that’s what it is….)

And we went to bed late again last night. It’s like the fifth post 1:30 AM night in a row. I am beat. Poor Georgie is too. He’s been fighting a cold and working so hard. We’re both overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with each other. Tonight will be late again – my class doesn’t end until 10 PM and by the time I get home and eat something it’s after 11.

Okay. Rant over. I need to get going.

But before I go, you MUST check out Ms. Cocoa Pebbles’ styling tee-shirt! AB/CD. I LOVE it!

Filed Under: Picot-Boo

All You Need Is A Collar and A Dream

February 9, 2005 By

Georgie worked real late last night, poor baby, so I stayed up, like Penelope, seaming my little heart out.

Now all I need to do is pick up the collar and knit a few rows – nothing to it – and press the hell out of the edges so I can whipstich the picot hems. Have no clue as to how to whipstitch. This yarn is so soft, it’s ridiculous. I hope it fits her.

Plumbers BEWARE!

or

What Do YOU Care What Other People Wear?

As per Norma, the Virginia State Legislature’s at it again. First this, now you can’t show off your Calvins – introduced by a Democrat, no less. Hey bozos – what if I wear my underwear on my freakin HEAD you fucks! (Besides the fact that this is an unbelievable waste of tax payer money and Virginia has no other issues to legislate, right? – this really boils down to nothing but racism in my opinion.) No, they’re not laughing at us too much. Thank fucking GOD I live in New Jersey.

I think I feel another Knitblogger Protest coming on. COMMANDO DAY! (from Cassie’s great idea to go without!).

Where’s Bill Maher when we need him most? (Oh, thank god, he’s coming back.)

Filed Under: Picot-Boo

Intarsia

February 8, 2005 By

So last night was my first color class with Shirley Paden. As I mentioned earlier – she is DIVAlicious. I’m sure those that have met her would agree – she certainly is a commanding prescence. Add to that a healthy dose of self-confidence and you certainly near diva-status. But that’s okay because this woman knows her shit! When I took the finishing class last year, it was a bit overwhelming. It was a three-hour class and we covered EVERYTHING – seaming, weaving, button-holes – you name it. Given how intense that first class was, I was a little bit anxious about last night.

But it was great! It’s a two week class and last night we covered Intarsia only (next week is fair isle). We started off making butterflies – Shirley said she prefers butterflies (hand tied bobbins) to plastic bobbins because when you’ve got a lot of bobbins hanging down the plastic ones can get really heavy. So we made the bobbins we would need for our argyle piece. I forgot to mention – Shirley had brought some of her sweaters she had designed and knit – they were unbelievable. Very intimidating to say the least.

Okay, so once we had our bobbins, we did weaving. Basically, using two colors, we knit one with the main color, then carried the second color behind on the next stitch all the way through the row. We did about ten rows just carrying and weaving in the second color until we got the hang of it.

Then it was time to knit our argyle swatch! I’m not sure why, but somehow I just got it – you carry the yarn when you expand the pattern, twist when the bobbin is right there. It all seemed very intuitive once I was actually doing it. I did almost half while we were there. When I got home I finished:

The picture is awful – ugh – still not getting the flash working. But I’m pretty happy with the results! (I messed up a couple of stitches, all you eagle eyes out there, but only because I should’ve done a MC when I did color B or A or vice versa.)

We have homework too. She gave us a chart for a flower we’re supposed to do (using four colors) and the big assignment is to knit a ball of yarn in our opposite style – Continental if you knit English, English if you knit Continental, etc. I’m guessing when we do fair isle she’ll be teaching it two handed. I feel I have mittens on trying to knit with my left hand – it doesn’t work, but I’m willing to give it a go.

In the end, I was very pleased with the class. We laughed, we worked, we ate chocolate. Very, very good!

Picot-Boo

Picot-Boo is blocking. Someone please tell me it’s okay that the arms look bigger than the body. Or, if that’s wrong, don’t tell me. Just let me fuck up in peace.

I may start seaming tonight – depends on how much “real” work I get done. It’s not looking too good right now.

Bloglines isn’t updating for me again. I blogged this morning before I went to get my hair done – at around 10:30. It still hasn’t updated for me and it’s now 4:30. I don’t know how this shit works, but it’s annoying me. We’ll see how long it takes to update now.

ETA: I almost forgot! I picked up the NEW Interweave Knits last night at the LYS. It’s nice. I find that I have to really sit on these magazines sometimes. You never know when new skills will all of a sudden make you look differently at a pattern. For now, the one I keep coming back to is the bear claw blanket. Maybe if I stock up on the yarn slowly, I might get this done in a decade or so. I’m thinking Aurora 8 might be nice for this. What do you think? I think I might change out the colors though. Or does that mess up the whole Amish quilt thing? Quilters – opinions?

Filed Under: Class, Picot-Boo

It’s Official.

February 8, 2005 By

I’m fat. Yesterday I tipped the scale slightly passed my “that’s it I’m fat” zone. So I’m doing this. I’m hoping that blogging about my success or lack there of will spur me on. Nothing like a little public humiliation to get you off your ass. I did go out and run yesterday – I do the beginning runner’s pyramid program in The Runner’s Handbook by Bob Glover. It’s worked before, goddammit, it will work again! Stayed tuned as I get physical.

[Besides, if we’re thinking about trying again in the Summer — SHHHHH, don’t say it out loud!!! — it might be good to be in some kind of shape. You know, so I can get fat again.]

Thank you Secret Pal!

I received a box from my secret pal!



Filed Under: Stash

Night-Blogging

February 6, 2005 By

I’m blogging tonight, before I go to bed, so I can concentrate on working tomorrow. Also, I don’t have much to say, so it should be kind of quick (famous last words, I know.)

Progress has been made on The Pinwheel Blanket. Thanks again for all the support thrown out there – it was definitely worth the frustration. It’s so cute right now – I’m thinking the pattern would make a great hat. get it to the width I want then start ribbing for the edge. It would be very, very cute. Maybe I’ll do that since I’ll probably have a TON of left over yarn. I think I found the yarn for the edging too – instead of going with a silky/satiny type edging, I think I’m going to go with a soft/chenille type. I was searching around to day and I found Wendy Velvet Touch. I’m thinking the Jewels color might be perfect. Anyone ever knit with it? Is it luxuriously soft? Would it go well with the All Season’s Cotton?

I stayed up last night until around 2 finishing up the second sleeve on Picot-Boo. Then I couldn’t fall asleep until 3:30. I was the walking dead all day. The sweater is blocking and I hope to start seaming maybe Wednesday. I’ve never knit a raglan sweater before so it should be interesting. Then I have to hem the sleeves, bottom, neckline etc. Never done a whipstitch either. Love learning new things.

Speaking of learning – tomorrow night’s my Color class with Shirley Paden. I’m a little bit nervous. She can be tough – not like she’ll yell at you or anything it’s just that she is very exacting and straightforward and she jams like five weeks of lessons into a three hour class. This class actually meets two nights – this week and next week. But I’m excited to learn color knitting FINALLY. I’ve never even tried it on my own, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ve heard she teaches two handed fair isle – I can’t do anything with my left hand. I’ll report back Tuesday.

Commenter Contest

Be my 500th Commenter, and win three skeins of Artyarns Supermerino! Winner will get to choose the colors. I’ll try to update the count as often as I can. And yes, I’m not above buying love!

Current Count: 357

Oh and congratulations to the New England Patriots and their fans. At least we didn’t get our asses kicked. I’m still not over ’81. That shit can scar an eleven-year-old for life.

Filed Under: Contest, Picot-Boo, Pinwheel
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