Woo and hoo!

My cotton angora finally finally finally arrived! It was delivered last week while we were up north, and has been languishing at the post office. I feel bad, though - I was so mad that it took her two weeks to ship the package and four weeks to finally confirm delivery that I left the eBayer a neutral feedback. She has 94 positives, 1 negative (from a crummy buyer) and my neutral. Since this is only the second thing I've ever bought off eBay I can only imagine the feedback she'd leave for me - but she didn't leave me any.

This is why I hate eBay.

ANYWAY... I have 20 balls of beautiful navy blue cotton angora and I'm planning on making this pretty wrap sweater - I just received the pattern book last week, too. Excellent timing, if I discount the pain that goes along with buying from eBay.

Woo and hoo!

Picture pages!

Remember that song from Captain Kangaroo?
"PicturePages, PicturePages
Time to get your PicturePages
Time to get your crayons and your pencils
PicturePages, PicturePages
Open up your PicturePages
Time to watch Bill Cosby do a PicturePage with you."

Ok, I didn't remember that from memory, I had to google, but I remembered the melody and I've been singing it all morning! Anyway, I uploaded my favorite pictures from the week at my folks...

The view from my parents' back patio... isn't it breathtaking? That's Mt. Bachelor...


My goofy older brother and sister in law, making the picture that much more special with his doofus salesman face...


Me and my "little" brother. Geez, that boy is TALL! So proud, I am.


Kevin and I goofing around, with the beautiful sunset highlighting our goofiness.


My little sister and I - I'm actually taller than her, I really am!

Love love love my family, yes I do.

Picture pages!

I'm back!

What a wonderful week. The weather was great - warm without being hot, rained every now and again, etc. The entire family got along famously (save for a quick temper tantrum when we went and saw Day After Tomorrow without little sis, because she was off getting her hair colored), ate amazingly well.

I didn't even have a chance to bust out the knitting for some downtime, except for in the car on the way up and on the way back. As such, I do have one FO - I made another MagKnits Sophie Bag for Amy, who was our lovely hostess with the mostest when we drove into Portland on Friday. All I need is to knit the closure and felt the puppy.

I ran out of yarn for the wedding wrap - I showed it off to Terry, my stepmom, and she thought it might need to be a bit longer... so I have to run over to a LYS some day to get one more ball of the DB Baby Cashmerino to finish that one off.

No pictures yet - Kevin is such a computer and camera hog! - but hopefully I can upload some tonight. After kickboxing, which I dearly need after all the amazing food I ate all week!

I'm back!

Update

Still working on the wrap. Went shopping with K's mom yesterday and had a great time watching her try on fancy dresses for the wedding (or Big Fancy Party, as I like to call it). She also wants to buy me a double strand of costume pearls, but apparently they were nowhere to be found. Instead, I bought two dresses on sale at Ann Taylor Loft. Whee - being within the conventional sizes is terribly fun and expensive!

So no knitting update, unfortunately. I haven't had much time to work on knitting, and after my unfortunate almost-put-an-eye-out incident, I've been wary of knitting-while-sleepy. But I just grafted on the last ball of yarn, so I'm in the home stretch!

Won't be blogging much in the next week - Leaving on Tuesday morning (or if Kevin gets his way, Monday night) for Oregon to visit the folks and watch my littlest brother graduate from high school. I. CAN'T. WAIT!

Update

Why my brother is the funniest guy on the planet.

A couple months ago, my brother called me to talk about some of the news going on with the family - our mom had lost her job, I was on the verge of getting laid off myself - and in his quest for solidarity and trying to be alpha family member, he exclaimed, "I HAVE RICKETS!" We laughed and snorted for a good 10 minutes over that one and it became the punchline for many an e-mail.

So I'm starting to get in all the response cards for the wedding. Keith sent his and Shell's in, with a little novel written on it, and I'm paraphrasing: "As you know, I have rickets. In my quest to gain acceptance over my plight, I have formed a support group. We developed a new program to help us, which includes flicking pill bugs and I named it: 'Flick It for Rickets!' It doesn't help us with our disease, but it can be quite entertaining. As such, I have invited my entire support group to the wedding. The number in my party will be 168."

I called him today and said no problem - but they must all bring very expensive gifts and no pill bugs were to be flicked during dinner.

HEE!

Why my brother is the funniest guy on the planet.

Extreme knitting?

I was knitting along last night watching a taped episode of CSI when... bonk... I fell asleep. I COULD HAVE PUT AN EYE OUT! I feel dangerous.

Extreme knitting?

Knitting as therapy

It's so true. Case in point - the other day, I was cranky as a three year old who had her toys taken away. Work was horrible, wedding stress, and then I had to go to the doctor. I was done with the doctor by 3:30 and decided not to go back to work. Instead, I tried a little retail therapy at Valley Fair (kind of fun in the middle of the day in the middle of the week!) but that didn't result in anything fruitful. I was meeting Maria for dinner at 6, and I had my knitting project with me, so I just drove over to the restaurant, found a shady parking spot, and knit for a couple hours. The breeze coming through the car window, the chatter on KGO and my yo, k1, k2tog, finally eased my shoulders away from my ears. It really did work! And I'm still almost done with my wedding wrap! But my cotton angora isn't here yet - STILL. I have a bunch of Linen Drape and All Seasons' Cotton I have to figure out what to make with - so I guess I can start on those...

Knitting as therapy

My first felting projects... like crack.

Just for fun, and because I have them in my photobucket... The MagKnits Sophie bag in periwinkle... for my little sister's birthday. Say hi to the kitty! Hello, kittykittykitty! Hey get away from the bag! BAD KITTY! VERY BAD KITTY!

[Not to worry... the bag survived Mercury's 'curiosity'.]

The Sophie in red heather for Lolo. Don't think she will use it, but her 3 year old daughter will love it. Before she tears it to shreds. First felting project, absolutely loved making it. Probably helped that I knit most of it traveling to and from Las Vegas. Woot! More to come!

My first felting projects... like crack.

Wip photo #1: Wedding wrap

Here is what I'm currently working on - it's a cream-colored wrap in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, done in a simple turkish stitch. 100 stitches cast on, pattern as follows: k1, *yo, k1, k2tog*, k1. Simple! I have about one ball of yarn left to go, methinks. If I had the patience, I would have tried doing a ring shawl - the shetland shawls knit so finely they can actually be strung through a wedding ring. Devastating. a closeup of the stitch: Many mistakes will be found in this wrap, but I just can't bring it to myself to knit back due to all the YOs and K2TOGs confusing the mix. So I consider them proof that the wrap is handmade. I can't wait to wear it - especially at my wedding.

Wip photo #1: Wedding wrap

A little tightly wound begins...

So here's entry #1 in blogland. Hey and howdy to those who read - and here's to many happy returns! I will be hunting around for a more interesting template - I'm just using one of the ones that pitas offers for free for now... but I'll pretty up the place soon enough!

A little tightly wound begins...