Happy Holidays

Happy Chrismakwansolsticenakah.

I promise that in 2007 one of my resolutions will be to blog more than once every full moon!

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting and do it all the time. While finishing a piece is the plan, you still love the process, and can't imagine a day going by without giving some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation involves leaving ample space for the stash and supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn ends and you begin.http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!








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My fist MeMe

1. FIRST NAME? Mary
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes - My mother's sister Mary Margaret
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? Not sure probably within the last month or so. I'm sure something stressed me out enough to cry.
4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Yes - I actually get compliments on it.
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? Hmmm not sure if I have one. After working in the deli at our local supermarket for one summer, it was YEARS before I would even eat lunchmeat. I guess a good corned beef sandwich though would be my favorite.
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes - I hope so!
7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? I try from time to time but am bad at it. I think my last entry was not too long after 9/11.
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes but I don't have my adnoids.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Are you out of your ever loving mind??!?! Heck no!!! Unless I was on the Amazing Race and had no choice!
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Again I don't really have one. I buy what ever is on sale and maybe I remember to eat it (or buy milk so I can eat it).
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Nope
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Yes
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? A tough one again. I like most ice cream. I would say my favorite depends on my mood but I do LOVE Ben and Jerry.
14. SHOE SIZE? 6 or 6 1/2 (depends on the shoe - my feet are kind of wide)
15. RED OR PINK? Red
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I can be grumpy and take it out on someone who isn't making me grumpy. I am getting better at this and have been really working on it.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? I would guess my dad and my Aunt Mar (now that I'm older and she's been gone a while I don't think I always appreciated her as much as I should have). I also really miss my cockatiel, Wylie. He was my first bird and he was so sweet, loving and friendly. I really miss him being so excited to see me when I came home and just enjoying sitting with me and having his head scratched.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? No
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? My casino print sleep pants, my "Well behaved women seldom make history" t-shirt, an Eeyore sweatshirt and Eeyore slippers
20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Bacon (way too much bacon!) Which I now bake in the oven since it makes it nice and crispy and doesn't mess up the stove top.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The furnace (which is not running cause I have the thermostat set at I'm not normally home now mode) and an airplane.
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Red - something hot and bold!
23. FAVORITE SMELL? The air after a spring thunderstorm
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My friend Amy
25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? Their smile and their laugh.
26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole this from? Well I don't "know" her but I like her blog and have been reading it for a couple of years!
27. FAVORITE DRINK? Honestly I guess water since that's what I drink the most of. If we're talking "grown up" drinks then margaritas or seven and sevens.
28. FAVORITE SPORT? Ice hockey
29. EYE COLOR? Grey
30. HAT SIZE? No idea
31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Nope I prefer my glasses
32. FAVORITE FOOD? Hmmm I love Chipotle but sushi is another good one!
33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings - I hate scary movies. I don't' even like the commercials for half of them!!!
35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer - I live in northern Ohio and those 5 days are some of the nicest in the year! :)
36. HUGS OR KISSES? BOTH
37. FAVORITE DESSERT? Something with chocolate
38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I don't expect anyone will.
39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I don't' think anyone will respond so I guess everyone is least likely.
40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? I just finished a book so I need to start a new one. The latest one from the library is Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich. I have stalled out on My Life by Bill Clinton and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. The last one was the required book for my freshman class 20 years ago. I didn't really "get it" then but want to try and read it again.
41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? At home and work pictures of nieces and nephews. Different ones in each mouse pad.
42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? CSI and ER
43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? I've never thought about this so I don't know.
44. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles
45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? California
46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Being a good knitter and having a head full of useless trivia!
47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Cleveland OH
48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I swiped it from
Stephannie

Alert the media

I hope everyone is sitting down, but today we will have some actual KNITTING CONTENT!! With a PICTURE!!

Does anyone need a moment before we continue?


This is a sweater I finished last month for the baby-to-be (BTB) my friends are expecting in February. The yarn is from the LYS that was going out of business a few months ago (it's Cascade 220 superwash). I went with the green since they don't know if the BTB is a boy or a girl.

The pattern is Tasia's Cardigan from Cabin Fever, which I can't say enough good things about. The pattern is well written, easy to follow and allows the sweater to be knit in one piece from the top down. The sleeves can even be knit in the round (my option) to avoid having to seam the sleeves.

I enjoyed this pattern so much that I am knitting the sweater a second time for BTB's big sister.

Today on Home Improvement

Well I found a chair today. It's not exacatly what I was looking for but what I really wanted was too big to fit through the door any way I measured it. Plus this was on sale and who can turn down a good bargain?



The covers on the cushions are removable so I can (in theory) change them if I ever wanted to.

Another Oddity

This is another one of those weird things that just strikes me as funny. Well actually there are two of them but who's counting?

1) Not only am I getting email from the future (apparently in 2035 I will be webcamming someone named Bunny.... uh huh let me jot that down so I don't forget) I am now getting email from the PAST. Not from last week or even last month - I am talking about email from the last century. I have had a few emails that have claimed to have been from 1903! Yep that internet was a real hopping place about 40 years after the Civil War ended.

2) When I run spell check on my posts the spell checker provided Blogger does not recognize the word blog. Wouldn't you think that a place that is in the business of providing blog space would know what the word was and how it is spelled?

Well in the immortal words of Gilda Radner.... It's always something.

Guess who ...

Is going to be Ms. Popularity with the department of sanitation today? Yep that would be me.

And for further proof that I will photograph and blog about almost anything I give you picture of trash waiting to be picked up!



Do you think my one woman show can be far behind?

And today on DIY

Well the project of the day was the utility cart in the kitchen. We actually have before and after shots today (I know everyone is excited.) Obviously (I hope it's obvious) this is the before shot.

All the stuff in front of it is my "fakantry" (my fake pantry). Stuff that I plan on using soon was going in front of the microwave cart so I wouldn't shove it in the cupboard and forget it was there.

After some major cursing at the idiot who didn't make the screw holes big enough for the screws in the box I finally got this put together.
It took a little longer than I hoped it would, but it turns out to be darn awkward to hold the sides in place before the top and bottom are attached. This might explain how I stabbed myself in the knee with a screwdriver.

Where did all the "fakantry" stuff go? Inside the pretty new cart.

Oh and if anyone was wondering? I have more stuff to take to Half Price Books!

More stuff gone

The purging of unused things continues at the casa. Today it was time for books, CDs and videos to leave the nest and go to Half Price Books. I literally filled the backseat with totebags and boxes full of things.
It actually took two trips to get it all into the store. I was pleasantly surprised though, they offered me $65.00 for all of the stuff. Considering I've had them refuse to buy things in the past I was thrilled that they were willing to take everything and I didn't have to deal with it anymore.

Tomorrow's plan involves the kitchen and getting rid of the current utility cart. This time there may be before and after pictures.

Vacation

I'm on vacation this week and I must say the first day of vacation was a productive one. I am on a mission to get my house cleaned up so that I won't be embarrassed to invite people over. It's not so much that it's dirty but I have TOO MUCH STUFF and really need to get rid of some things!!! Case in point, a couple of weeks ago I cleaned out my closet and my dresser drawers. FIVE (yes that's right FIVE) bags of clothes, a box of purses and a sleeping bag went to the St. Vincent DePaul Society.

Anyway, today I cleaned the bathroom for TWO HOURS!!!! Before anyone panics it wasn't QUITE that dirty but I also went through the storage (supposed to be a linen closet) closet and the medicine chest. Have some stuff to donate to charity (WHY do I need THREE hairdryers????) and a BUNCH of stuff to throw out.

I really should have taken before and after pictures, but I think I might have been too embarrassed to show the before.

Of course as soon as I was done I messed it all up and took a shower...

I also spent my hour watching Martha Stewart today shredding the HUGE pile of credit cards applications I have received in the mail that I just kept piling up on the shredder. Apparently I thought the shredder fairy was coming over.

Plus I have a box of videos, two bags of books (big huge tote bags) and mixed box of CDs and books that are headed to the half price book store tomorrow for resale. I know I won't get much (you never do) but I need the space and really need to get rid of some things.

Still on the agenda is to inventory the yarn in the craft room, clean the kitchen cupboards out (someone at work mentioned they could use some dishes), move out the current utility cart and assemble the new one that is still in the trunk from Walmart and clean out another bookshelf and the rest of the CDs (the ones in the bag were cleaned out at least a year ago).

Oh and I have knitting guild and book group this week. After this my 43 hour work week will be a vacation.

YIKES

Geesh I didn't realize it's been almost a month since I last blogged. Well still no pictures today but one of these days! I have all kinds of things to show here too.

Basicly I figured I should let anyone who reads this (my sister and Coletta!) know that I am still alive. I promise to have a real entry soon!

This is amusing

Well OK it's at least amusing to me. Lately I've been noticing that I've been receiving communications from the future. OK it's spam email but still! Today I learned that in August of 2011 I will be the proud winner of a Home Depot gift card and will be receiving a Motorola razr phone with an MP3 player! Gee I hope they know where to find me in five years!

I have knitting guild tonight so I am hauling the fair stuff along with me. I'll try to get some decent pictures of everything later this week and post them so everyone can see.

Let's try this

Well I got photobucket to upload the picture of my cross stitch, but now blogger doesn't want to edit it to my post. So let's see if it will add it to a brand new post.....



Apparently that did the trick. My piece is the little pillow shaped thing in the middle of the picture. Again - better pictures next week once the fair is over.

Results are in

Well I made it to the fair about fifteen minutes after they officially opened (OK I can be a bit obsessive).

All in all it was a pretty successful day for me.


My crocheted bag took second place (I promise better pictures once the things get home -it's hard to get a decent picture with chicken wire in front of you!) My bag is the black blobish thing on the bottom left of the picture.

My necklace that I knit with wire took first place. And my "hat" made from my class sample from the domino knitting took third. The hat has to be the big surprise of the day - I honestly didn't expect it to get anything. You can't really see the necklace very well in this picture, but the hat is off to the right side and the necklace is to the left of it.

My cross stitch of the beaver took first place. Nothing for the bib. (I'm trying to get photbucket to upload this picture but it's being difficult).

I received a fifth place for my picture from last year's fair. None of the other ones got anything.

The picture of my dad didn't win anything and neither did the camera. None of the camera's that were there had ribbons though so that was a little odd. You would think out of a dozen or so cameras they would find one to give a ribbon to.

The scrapbook page didn't win anything either, but I didn't think that it would.

But my big winner was the fish blanket. It took first place!!! I tried to get a picture of it but it looks OK in the camera but is just a big dark mess when I tried to upload it.

I added it up and if we don't count the cost of getting the pictures enlarged so they could be entered I think I turned a profit this year. It costs $10 to enter and you get two admission passes (which are worth more than $10) plus I think I actually won more than $10 this year in prize money (the most any of my placements are worth is $3), so not a bad day. Now I just need to start planning for next year!

No results yet

The fair hasn't even opened yet so no news on that front. I did finish a pair of socks today and amazingly, I took a picture and am blogging about it within hours (instead of months!)


The yarn is Regia Stretch which is 70% wool, 23% polyamid and 7% polyester. I call these my "teaching socks" because I made the first one while teaching one of the girls that worked for me how to knit socks. The second one finished really quickly. I started it Friday at lunch and finished it this morning. I got in some quality knitting time yesterday which turned out to be a movie day. There has been a lot of discussion about Monty Python and the Holy Grail on one of my knitting lists lately and I haven't seen it in ages so I ended up at Walmart yesterday afternoon to buy it. I watched that, The best of Gilda Radner and then I went to the drive-in. For at least a couple of months there is an awesome drive in in my neighborhood. Why for at least a couple of months? They are in negotiations to sell the property. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean (which had awesome makeup and special effects but was WAY WAY TOO long) followed by Me, You and Dupree (which was surprisingly good). I was able to knit for a while until the movies finally started, but after I dropped a stitch I quit.

The socks only used one full skein and a VERY tiny bit of a second (literally about 8 decreasing rows at the toe). The skeins are "normal" sized (50g) so usually there is a need for two balls per pair of socks. I guess the fact that I like my socks short is paying off. Of course now I need to figure out what to do with a not quite full ball of yarn.

I had considered toddler socks for my friend's little girl but think I may go for a pair of mittens. My online friend Ann, is having a mitten challenge so I was thinking I might try and see if I can get a pair of (small) mittens out of this.

Phew...

Well everything got finished (sort of! I never made a new scrapbook page, instead I used one that I had already made) and dropped off at the fairgrounds.

I can find out how I did tomorrow. Unfortunately I have to wait until 5 pm to get in. Turns out the fair doesn't open until 5 on the first day. I was all set to get there around 11 or so and see my results and have a fair food brunch.

Results will be reported once I make it home tomorrow night.

If I figured out how to do it, this little button should be over on the side that has my profile.


I've decided I need to go on a yarn diet for a couple of months. I've also decided that I need to log the yarn I have into a program I bought a couple of years ago so I have some idea of what I've got! There is one exception to the diet though - if I find a ball of a specific sock yarn I've been looking for I'm allowed to buy it but that's it! I think I might end the diet when my guild goes on a yarn shop crawl in October (that's the tentative date so far).

It's DONE

The (in)famous fish blanket is DONE. It turned out to be more of a crib sized blanket but that's OK. There are 120 fish in 12 different colors. All of the yarn is Baby Ull by Dale of Norway. Originally this started out as something to use up yarn that I had bought for a class. Well I only had seven colors so I decided to buy 3 more balls for an even number. While I was in Rochester on a business trip, I discovered the yarn shop near my office had two colors of yellow I hadn't seen yet so I bought them and was now up to 12 colors.

Someone asked me tonight if I would ever consider making another one and I said I might but not with such a fine yarn. I made two fish out of dishcloth cotton so I know that regardless of the type of yarn it takes about 45 minutes to make a fish. At 120 fish for the blanket that is 90 hours of knitting. I have no idea how many hours I spent on the finishing. I do know it was almost 7 hours just to sew the six completed strips together but I don't know how much time I spent on the fish themselves. So I figure if I spent that much time with a "bigger" yarn (like a worsted weight) I should have a much bigger blanket for the same amount of work.

I have considered adding more fish to the blanket after the fair is done if I find more colors of yarn that I like. But it's still a nice size to just have on your lap during the winter so it might just stay this size forever - who knows!



I know the picture isn't the greatest but I really wanted something to post with this. I still need to do the blocking before next week when I have to drop this off at the fair. I will try to get a better picture at that point.

Drive By Blogging

Hi all. Today is just a quickie post - no pictures or anything exciting. It's almost fair time and I need to get cracking on getting things finished. I submitted my list of entries on Friday and I have entered the following:

Crochet (yep can you believe it!) handbag - it's a small pouch type bag, got the pattern off the ball of yarn. Just need to add the beaded fringe.

Knitting - Other than above. Two entries here. One is a knitted necklace made with wire (you knit small wire squares and alternate with beads) and the second is a hat made from my domino knitting sampler. I've started knitting the hat band and need to make the necklace.

Cross stitch - Miniature less than 2 x 3 inches. I have a small picture of a beaver that I made a while back that I am entering (he's 100% finished!)

Cross stitch - picture less than 6 x 8 inches. This one is a bib that has been laying around for a LONG time. All I need to do is outline a carrot, tomato and broccoli and it's done. After the fair it will be a baby gift for my friend that is expecting.

Afghans - hand knit. This is the tessellating fish. The strips are done I just need to seam them together and block.

Hand made Felt - Knitted Felt This is the Market Squares bag. It's been done and ready to go since February!

Scrapbook - one page. Ummm this one isn't even started yet. I think I will scrap my trip last year to Stitches East.

Photography (these are all mounted and ready to go!!)
Nature (color) a picture of a thistle
Human Interest animal (no pet) a close up of a lorikeet from the zoo
Architectural Design (color) - The Beta Bells
Architectural Design (B&W) - The Sun Dial
Cuyahoga County Fair (color) - Some very cute alpacas from last year's fair

I'm also entering two items in the antiques category: an old camera and my dad's baby picture. I still need to get a frame for the picture since the category is framed pictures.

So that's why we are doing drive by blogging today. Everything must be delivered to the fair no later than Saturday August 5. The fair starts on Monday August 7 and I'm on vacation that week so I'm planning on going day one to see how I did!

Now for something different

Well, since this claims to be a knitting blog, I thought I would show you some more knitting. This isn't the most current thing though. I made this poncho for my niece's birthday in December. I got the pattern from the 2006 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar and Kayla mentioned that she liked it when she saw the picture. I let her pick out the color and I used Shine (60% pima cotton, 40% modal) from Knit Picks.
The pattern was pretty simple, stockinette stitch with a dropped stitch cast off.



I'm hoping to have pictures of the tessellating fish blanket by next weekend!

It's Here!!!

Yippee, today was definitely a red letter day here - my new dishwasher arrived. I've wanted a countertop dishwasher for YEARS (maybe as many as fifteen) but the last time I remember seeing one was in an inflight magazine ages ago and the little bugger was REALLY expensive.

Well keeping in mind that google is your friend, I decided to google "compact dishwasher" just for the heck of it. To my surprise I found two different brands both reasonably priced.

Since I still had a gift card from my sister and brother-in-law for Walmart from this past Christmas (yes I know it's July, I wanted to use it on something special) they ended up buying me half a dishwasher for Christmas.

I've already done a couple of loads of dishes (have I mentioned that I hate doing dishes???)
Yes I took a picture of the first load of clean dishes to come out of the dishwasher.... Hey I take pictures of my food so I can blog it, so I really don't think anyone should be surprised!

I do promise that we will eventually get back to the knitting part of the blog one of these days!

Oh I Forgot -

Apparently Hell froze over in the last 15 years and no one told me. How do I know this? Miami University (formerly home of the no car on campus rule) built a PARKING GARAGE!!! It's a lovely structure and it blends into the campus nicely but it's a parking garage!!! Which, by the way, is the fate of the current home of my Googin once it's deconstructed - an underground parking garage.


But there are still some things that don't ever seem to change (thank God I might seriously cry if they did) - Turkey Gobblers and Brunos Pizza.


A turkey gobbler is a sandwich I used to get at least once a week while I lived in Oxford. Tuesday night was sub night at SDS and this is the one that I always got. In fact I don't think I've ever had another sub from them - EVER. When I go back I make sure that I make at least one trip there for a TGYC (YC=yellow cheddar).


Brunos has some of the best pizza ever. It's not fancy by any means but it has an awesome flavor. Plus how can you beat pizza for 50 cents a slice (I think it's now 75 cents but who cares?!?!). They had a fire after I graduated but are now back in their familiar uptown location. Now if only the water tower was still there to sit under while you ate Brunos.

My Second Home

Well in my last post we strolled by all of the places I lived in while at Miami (OK so blogger didn't want you to see Havighurst but I digress). Now we shall visit the place I might as well have lived in since I spent so much time there - Goggin Ice Arena.



I was the sports editor for our college paper my senior year and the hockey reporter for three years. Plus I published the newsletter for our local hockey boosters so I spent A LOT of time at the rink.

Goggin is going to be torn down later this year since they have built a much bigger and supposedly better Goggin elsewhere on campus. I wasn't able to get inside the new Goggin while I was in Oxford since it is still under construction, but the outside looks pretty nice.





Since my old Goggin will be torn down soon visiting it again was a bit like saying goodbye to an old friend. In fact I asked the fellow overseeing the broomball game if I could go and visit the steps leading out of the locker room. He looked at me like I had an extra head but said it was OK.
What he didn't get was those were MY steps, I spent ages sitting on them (fourth one from the bottom) waiting for players and coaches after the games so I could do my interviews for the paper. I have my name on the list to buy a brick once Goggin is "deconstructed" only because I don't think they'll sell me a piece of my steps.

Where to start...

Still no knitting content in this one, but I think we will start the trip down memory lane with dorms (OK in politically correct lingo they are now residence halls.) I was a bit of an oddity on campus since I lived in the dorms all five years I attended Miami. I couldn't see the attraction in living off campus where you had to cook for yourself and clean your own bathroom, but that was just me.

Freshman year I lived in Dorsey Hall. It was an all female dorm on Eastern Quad and I lived on the second floor in the "alley" (the connecter part between the two wings). I've heard a rumor that Dorsey is going to be "deconstructed" (that's Miami speak for demolished) but I don't know if it's true or not.


I lived in Scott Hall (on the Central Quad) for a year and a half. I liked the hall and it was a great location, but let's just say that I did not have great roommate situations while I lived there. Of the three that I had one of them was fantastic. We shall leave it at that! Scott was a co-ed hall and had the added benefit of housing a dining hall for the quad.


After I moved out of Scott, I moved into Wells. This was a fantastic hall with some of the highest ceilings I have ever seen. I had the greatest roommates when I lived there (in fact we still keep in touch). The first six months I lived there, my roommate and I had a room next to the French doors that led out to a little rooftop balcony. The memory is fuzzy but I'm pretty sure residents were not encouraged to go out there. The next year we had a triple with a private bathroom (and I had the single room in the triple which is a good thing since I was the sloppiest). Wells was also a fantastic location for me since I was literally across the parking lot from the building that held the majority of classes for my major.

My senior senior year (what I like to call year five!) I lived on Western Campus in Havighurst (for some reason blogger doesn't want you to see my lovely picture of Havighurst. Either we'll try again later or stick it in another post). Havighurst was one of the newer dorms and had the benefit of being air conditioned. It was also close to one of the places that took up a large portion of my time, Sawyer Hall, home of The Miami Student and The Recensio. The Student is the school paper and that was the year I was hockey reporter and sports editor. The Recensio is the yearbook and I did cover some sports for them as well. We were stuck over there when they decided to remodel The Shiver Center (The Res to the truly politically incorrect among us). Sawyer was literally the farthest location you could be in and still be on campus. For some reason we thought the administration didn't care for us!

I was able to see the Student's new digs and they are MUCH nicer. They are in the basement of their building but at least you don't need a map to find them!

I'm back

Well reunion weekend was great and we'll all be taking a long stroll down memory lane as soon as I get photobucket to finish uploading my pictures.

In the meantime I have to tell you about the nice surprise I got from my friend Judy last week. Now keep in mind that while Judy and I are friends we have never met in person. We've gotten to know each other via bulletin board online.

Judy is avoiding carbs right now and I was teasing her that she should send me all her Tastykakes (a snack cake available in limited areas in the east but originally from Philadelphia) since we had been discussing them earlier. Wednesday night I come home from work and there is a box on my steps. "Great," I'm thinking to myself, "what did I forget about ordering?"

Well I didn't forget about anything. Judy had sent me a huge box of Taastykakes fresh from the factory! I have got to tell you a fresh Tastykake is an amazing thing. While I enjoy Tastykakes (we can get them in limited supply here in Ohio) they taste NOTHING like a nice fresh one. Plus the timing was perfect, since I was able to toss some in a bag for roadtrip snacks.
(Blogger has decided I am now allowed to show you my yummy goodies!)

Road to blogdom

Well they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I guess it's the same for the road to blogging! I've had every intention of posting all kinds of things but just haven't had the chance. Of course it didn't help that I had to reformat the hard drive last week. This will just be a quick post so my only reader (that I know of!) doesn't think I've abandoned ship. I'm off to my 15 year class reunion from college. Hopefully I'll have all kinds of things to post when I get back.

Super Saturday

Yes I do know that it is Sunday but this post is about the great day I had yesterday. First I was able to take a class in Domino knitting through my guild with Vivian Hoxboro. She is a really neat instructor (we were her first stop in the US from Denmark) and the class was very inspiring.


I've already finished the main part of my class project, all I need to do is decide if I'm going to make it into a hat or not. I do want to use the leftovers from my market squares bag to make a larger version of the project to make a felted bag.

We had a small class (only 12 students) so there was a great deal of personal instruction. At one point Vivian stopped by to see check on my progress and she did tell me that my edges needed some work since the rest of my knitting was so perfect! Yippee!! The edges did come along and I was just thrilled that she thought the rest of my knitting was so good.

After class I had dinner with Vivian, my guild's vice president, and the VP's daughter and a co-worker. We ate at a restaurant called the Wild Mango and the food was fantastic. In fact we were there for three hours just eating, laughing and talking.

I had the soup of the day (which was a fantastic Chinese seafood chowder), pot stickers and the Romano shrimp. The shrimp was so beautiful that I had to take a picture of it.

Actually the presentation of the food is so beautiful I'm not the only person at the table who took a picture of their dinner!

While we were at dinner, Vivian told me that she thought I had made some excellent color choices in my class sample. Well that was another nice compliment, especially since I was using left over colors from the tessellating fish afghan. It was nice to have external validation form a published knitting designer that I was making good color choices.

Well I had a post....

already to go yesterday, but my computer decided that it was going to log me off. Apparently the goofy weather we were having didn't help my connection (I try to blame all kinds of things on the weather).

That's OK though, because I really didn't have that much knitting to talk about. I did finish my sock on Tuesday. I went to Barnes and Noble to read knitting books and finished up my sock while I was there. Most of my sock progress came while I was hanging out with the family this weekend watching movies.

We watched Rumor Has It (cute movie but nothing I want to watch more than once), Walk the Line (an excellent movie that we have all watched more than once) and Shall We Dance (a good movie that apparently everyone else in the family has seen more that once - this was my first time seeing it).

The girl from work that I've been teaching how to knit finished her first sock yesterday!!!! YIPPEE!!! And good timing too, since today was the last day at my office for her (she is transferring to another city to finish school - we are all very sad about that).

Since I still don't have pictures of new knitting. I thought I would show a picture of old knitting. Back in February I participated in the Knitting Olympics. Since I had never done entrelac or felting, I decided on the Market Squares Bag.

Hopefully this will work and you can see the picture!

First Post

Welcome to my new knitting blog. Afraid we don't have any pictures for this first post but we do have some WIPS to talk about.

I have just started assembling my tessellating fish afghan. A friend calculated that I have about 90 hours of knitting time involved in it so far. I want to have this done in time to enter in the county fair in August. Of course, we are now starting the first of summer's heat waves (it promises to be near 90 here tomorrow) which should make having all of this in my lap a great joy!

Right now I have one sock under construction. I've been teaching one of my employees how to knit and she asked to learn to make socks. I decided to cast on with her so that I could have a sock to demonstrate techniques on while teaching her.

I really want to start my Jaywalker socks though. Especially since I would like to enter those in the fair this summer also. I did pick up an extra set of size one dpns so I can get started even while I have another sock in the works but so far I haven't gotten around to it!