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!