I am back, and I am tired

I have returned to Boston! But, first, a few more things from home. . .

I finished one knitting project while home, my father's Hanukkah gift. I made the Irish Hiking Scarf.

It took almost two skeins of Cascade 220 Tweed in a lovely chocolate brown. These photos are from before it was blocked, since it was still drying when I left. :) And a detail shot of the cables:

I also received one knitting related gift for the holidays. My aunt sent me a group of items from The Big Yarn.

These included stitch markers in really neat colors, knitting related notecards, silver stitch holders, and a pink needlesizer.

And, another poodle picture! Henry with his poodle:

And one last poorly taken picture. Every year in our neighborhood one family puts up one of those inflatable snowmen. Theirs, however, is usually falling forward and looks like he's been drinking quite a bit. I hereby present to you, the drunken snowman:

Happy almost New Year!

Mr. Darcy

One little crafty thing to show, now that the receipient has received it. We did t-shirt stencilling at Catherine's place last week. It was the first time I had done it, and the first time any of us had tried doing words. So I was pretty pleased with the results.



It's for a friend who truly appreciates both Mr. Darcy and Colin Firth. :) Here's a close up of the lettering.



And, as I am home, some poodle shots! The first one is of Henry riding in the car, during which he always has his paw over my father's arm.



And this is from my father's office's holiday party yesterday. Henry enjoying his champagne glass.

lots and lots of pictures

I finally finished the socks!



These were done in Regia 4fadig Mini Ringel, which I picked up from the sale shelves at Webs during our road trip in October. I love how these turned out, though the picture here isn't exactly true to color.

Today I also went to the Bazaar Bizarre where I met up with Ariel and Cathy. I also got to meet ZantiMissKnit.

And now, some photographs from Catherine's birthday extravaganza. We went to Jillian's and went bowling. I truly suck at bowling; I finished last in both games, but it was a lot of fun.

The birthday girl and her boy:


Cassandra and Ariel:


Catherine and me:


And the birthday girl with her cake:


One last photo, taken last night:


Happy Hanukkah!

it's been a while, but I have a good excuse

Actually, two of them. I hadn't posted because I didn't have a completed knitting project to show off (I still don't, but I'm making an exception and posting an in progress one or I might never post) and because I've been busy. Doing what, you may ask? Finishing graduate school. As of today, I am finished with my master's degree in library science. Now to find a job. . .

Here's the one project I'm currently working on, which feels like it's been forever.

I've got about half of the foot left on the second sock, but I'm getting (shh!) a little bit bored of working on them, even if I do love how they're turning out.

And since my blog is named after a lovely dog, I'm going to post a few pictures from the Bay Colony Dog Show, which I attended last weekend. I got sniffed, licked, kissed, nuzzled, jumped on, and hugged. I love dogs. Where else does a girl like me see that kind of action?

And now, the dogs:
Poodles, of course!

A very friendly Great Pyrenees.

Isn't this an adorable face? It's a Tibetan Spaniel.

Here's one of the dogs I spent the most time with. This is a Sussex Spaniel. His name is Fuzzy. And he is absolutely adorable.

Next post will feature Catherine's birthday extravaganza.

a jumble of things

Last week, I went over to Catherine's to dye yarn with her and Ariel. Ariel and I both did a couple of skeins of sock yarn and Catherine did yarn she had frogged from a sweater. We used Wilton's icing colors, plus Catherine used some Kool Aid.

Here is Catherine's yarn being dyed, and yes it does look like raw meat. She was going for a burgundy/wine color which came out a more dusty rose.

Here are a couple of pictures of my first skein being dyed. I was going for a "tulip" colorway, in red, pink, yellow, and green.

And here's the finished skein!

My second skein I handpainted with violet and royal blue. The blue was originally fairly light, so a couple of days ago, I put the entire skein in a pot of royal blue to see how it would come out. I'm pretty pleased:

And now some random shots. I went for a walk along Comm Ave this weekend on a gorgeous fall day to take pictures of my starry scarf for the calendar. And here is a photo I took along the way:

And here is a picture of the pumpkin pie Ariel and I (she did the crust, I did the filling) made for Catherine's Thanksgiving party:

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Odessa

Fast projects are fun! I started this Monday night and finished it about half an hour ago. So here is Odessa, which will be a Christmas gift for a friend from college.



That picture is not true at all to the color; the picture below is closer--it's a very rich turquoise blue.



Knit up with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK (which I now love), which has about 20 meters less yarn than the recommended Cashsoft DK, and it was certainly a close call as to whether I would have enough. I have about a two foot strand of yarn left, but I made it! I did this on 5s and 7s instead of the called for 4s and 6s, as those are the needles I had. I had made one before for myself and it worked out well on those needle sizes.

Baaaaaaaa

What can I say? I'm a sheep.

Ariel posted about this contest on her blog, so now I'm joining in. It involves posting a picture of the November page of your calendar. Here is mine:



It's from my Art Nouveau posters calendar that hangs over my desk. The poster itself is by Jane Atche and was done in 1896.

In actual knitting content, I cast on for an Odessa last night, which should be done in a few days, hopefully.

to play with clay

Two posts from me in two days--who can believe it?

On Thursday night I went over to Catherine's to watch Grey's Anatomy. We spent the time being our crafty selves and playing with Sculpey. And here is what we created:



A miniature Thanksgiving dinner! A golden brown turkey, peas and carrots, an ear of corn, a pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce.

After that we wanted to make something else, so we made pens. Well, we actually took the shells off of Bic ballpoints and attached sculpey to them and then reinserted the rest of the pen after baking. But here they are:

jaywalking

I hereby present to you what may be the world's ugliest pair of Jaywalkers. Though now that they're finally finished they're starting to grow on me. And I think they look a little nicer in the picture.



(Please ignore the very messy coffee table behind my feet.)
And a side view:



I did a good chunk of the second sock in the last couple of days--yesterday while watching the movie Sylvia at home, and then while watching Veronica Mars at Ariel's, and they got finished during the Star Wars marathon tonight. Done in Lane Cervinia Calzetteria (the main part of the sock--I ran out of this yarn) and Lang Jawoll Superwash (the toes) on size 2 (2.5 mm) Inox circulars.

And now I'm off to something other than socks!

Reading: The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner, one of the only chicklit writers I'll always read.

sex and knitting

From the book I am currently reading:
"According to one of the coeds interviewed in Sex and the College Girl (1964), 'you could judge how good a girl's sex life was by how much knitting she got done each semester. "It took me two years to finish this sweater,"' she proudly told author Gael Green."

And I think I'll just let that speak for itself.

Reading: College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Coeds, Then and Now by Lynn Peril.

hanging out with the Ladies

This has absolutely nothing to do with knitting, but it is the thing that has made me really happy when I haven't been particularly happy lately, so I'm posting it here anyway.

I've been a fan of the Barenaked Ladies since I started college. That probably gives an indication of how much of a dork I am, but they were part of what kept me (somewhat) sane in college, and I love them and their music. I've met a couple of the guys in the band before, Kevin at his solo concerts and Steve at a free concert he did last summer. But I had never met Ed, and Ed has always been my favorite.

BNL did a concert at BU on Wednesday night, which was fabulous. After the concert I spent two hours hanging out behind the loading dock, with a host of other slightly crazy fans. So, I look crap in the following picture, between being utterly exhausted (it was taken at 2 am) and having had truck fumes spraying my skin for two hours. But I am very happy crap in this picture.


I met Ed! And he was so sweet. I also met Tyler and Jim, and talked to Kevin and Steve again, and had a generally wonderful time. But meeting Ed kind of fulfilled a ten year dream, so that has made me very happy, which I really needed.

socks for Socktoberfest

I was determined to finish a pair of socks in October--the scarf, baby blanket, and life being my main obstacles--and with six hours to spare, I did it.


They're done in Opal, in plain old stockinette, since it knit up so pretty all on its own, on 1.5 (2.5mm) Inox circulars. They look huge lying down, but they're meant to fit my big feet, and they do!



And in other knitting related news, we've apparently determined that I'm the Charlotte of our little circle.

Reading: The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, despite Alison's urging me not to. But I dreamed about it the other night, and I've never read it, so I decided it was time. But I'm not allowed to read it right before I go to bed. I've got Eloise for that.

a baby blanket and Yarn!

I finally finished one of my many projects on the needles--a baby blanket. Some of you have seen me knitting baby stuff for months now, as this is for my fourth friend to have a baby this year. There must be something in the water back home, I swear.

So I started this on Thursday and finished it today. It took three skeins of Plymouth Encore Chunky, on size 10 needles. I knit it on the bias so I wouldn't have to figure out how many stitches to cast on, and increased one stitch at the beginning of each row. I alternated stripes of garter and stockinette stitch to give it some texture, which I think you can see better in the next shot.

And yes, it is for a baby girl, due in December.

And now, gratuitous yarn pictures! Ariel went to Rhinebeck this weekend and brought me back some sock yarn, which is on the left in the picture below. It's 80% wool, 20% nylon from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. The other yarn I added into the shot since it's never been photographed and Ariel gave it to me for my birthday back in September. It's Socks that Rock in Prism.

And now I can go back to my goal of actually finishing a pair of socks during Socktoberfest! Not with either of these, those, but hopefully I'll have more FOs soon.

Reading: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins. I'm finding it fascinating, since I used to be one of those driven kids, but before it got so much more difficult to get into a good school. It's really an interesting read.

one last book

I waited to post this until the intended recipient had received it, but she has, so now you can see the last book I made in my bookbinding class. While most of the books we made were blank, we were given one with text so we could learn about keeping the sections in order and making sure things were going in the right direction. The text was Alice in Wonderland.

We were allowed to choose whatever papers and fabrics we wanted to cover it with and when I was thinking about it, I remembered my friend Erin's fabulous artwork that is tied into the story. And since she was getting married last week, I decided to use some of her images, downloaded from her website, and make her a copy of Alice illustrated with her own work.

The front cover (sorry, the photo is blurry), which is the Queen of Hearts:

Back cover:


Front endpapers, the White Rabbit:


Back endpapers, the Cheshire Cat:


There'll be actual knitting content sometime soon, I'm just right in the middle of a bunch of projects at the moment.

Halloween with the knitters

This goes in the knitting blog, as most of the people involved were my knitting buddies. The party was at Catherine's place and here we are, properly costumed.

Catherine in her 80s wear, Cassandra the cat, Ariel the princess, me as Hermione, and Betsy as. . . well, Betsy in pink.

And here we are, being crazy.

Ariel threatening the Jack-o-lantern to be.

Digging out the pumpkin seeds.



Our finished Jack-o-lantern!