50-degree difference...

or something close to that - we just had the most massive storm blow through. amazing! i am fascinated by the weather. natural disasters. etc. etc.

first, a quick list of things that i did today:
- i sweared at my computer today. i think it was along the lines of, "oh, shut the f*ck up already!"
- i applied for a job in anchorage, alaska. it scares me because, unlike other jobs i have applied to that seemed like a definite longshot due to a variety of reasons, i think i actually have a chance at this one. anchorage? do i want that? i have no clue, to tell you the truth.
- i ogled all sorts of cheap, plastic, adorable things that i WANT WANT WANT at target. i am a sucker for cheap, cute, plastic things.
- i also searched for a lite brite on ebay. not as easy to find as i had hoped.

okay, on to the knitting already. first off, i started the threepenny sweater from interweave knits, fall 2007 (on page 11 of the e-preview in the link). i am so in love with the fabric being produced by this pattern - seriously, it is amazing, and i can't wait until it is in full-sweater form. pictures soon, no doubt. i'm knitting it up in patons classic wool in a bright olive green. i can't stop knitting it simply because i cannot WAIT until i get to wear it! now that's my kind of pattern.

next, i pulled out a very old knitting book my grandmother had given me years ago. it is chock full of how to make just about any pattern, cable, stitch, fabric you could dream of. i decided to use up some noro i had leftover from my mittens and test my hand at a horseshoe cable. voila! we have yet another luscious, lovely scarflette.


preeee-teeeee!


i also finished a camo sweater for my boss' 21-year old son. timothy derek is expected in may, and i'm hoping it will still fit him by the time the fall comes around! we shall see. i figured since dad is on the younger side, it would be a perfect stash-busting project to use up this camo yarn i got but couldn't figure out what the hell to do with. or something... was that even a sentence? blame it on the rain. yeah, yeah.

in an hour...

in an hour, i will be going to a 31-year old's memorial service. it's at a theater - that should tell you how many lives he touched. i feel strangely numb at the moment. i don't know how this will be... but i know i will regret not going over going.

in happier news, amelia and i began planning the trip to europe last night. originally, i was thinking we should fly in july - however, tickets to london in may into june are roughly half the cost of tickets in july. so yeah... may 19 (the day after my birthday) until june 6 are what we're looking at. i just have to request the time off, and then we are going to buy our tickets to heathrow.

so here's the plan:
5/19 - drive up to chicago, have one of my parents drop us at o'hare.
5/20 - morning - arrive in london. hang out in london and spend the night with our friend, adam, who's doing a postdoc there now.
5/21 - head out to oxford. spend the night with our friend, andy, who is also doing a postdoc there.
5/22 - since we've both been to england before, we're going to hop right on a flight from london to paris in the mid-afternoon! or get there some other way.
5/23-5/25 - paris! baguettes and wine and the eiffel tower and the louvre and all sorts of other stuff amelia has planned for us.
5/26 - fly / bus / train from paris to barcelona.
5/27-5/28 - barcelona and costa brava... ah, beach time.
5/29 - get from barcelona to venice somehow (we were looking at ferries, but they're pricey and it would be about 20 hours on the ferry to get to anywhere in italy... then an additional bus or train ride to get to ferrara/venice/florence).
5/30-5/31 - stay with amelia's friend, andrea (a boy, but his name is andrea) in ferrara. take the bus to venice or florence if we want.
6/1-6/6 - this is where we need the help of a travel agent. flights to and from athens are RIDICULOUS. like, $200 to get from athens back to london, and a lot of money to get there in the first place.

so plan a for our last days, assuming the travel agent can find us cheap flights:
6/1 - get from venice to the greek islands somehow, some way.
6/2-6/3 - kick it on the greek islands (i'm leaning towards mykonos and santorini, but i should talk with my parents since they've been there).
6/4 - athens. stay with my cousin, michael, or uncle, ulysses. yes, i have an uncle named ulysses. he used to skindive for octopus in the mediterranean.
6/5 - get from athens to london somehow (or just stay another night in athens and take a flight back to chicago from athens). spend the night in london with adam if we get back there.
6/6 - fly back to chicago.

plan b for the last days:
6/1 - venice to slovenia.
6/2-6/4 - slovenia and croatia. we could hop on a ferry to get down the coast of croatia, which is supposed to be the best way to see it.
6/5 - flight from zadar, croatia, back to london (SUPER cheap flights via ryanair). spend the night in london with adam.
6/6 - fly back to chicago.

so yeah... we have the cities mapped out. now we just need to talk with our travel agent friends and see what we can figure out to get from one place to the next. THEN we need to figure out where to stay (we were even thinking of camping certain places to save money). then... oh, lord, then i need to figure out how to pack less than 30 pounds into a bag, since ryanair is cheap but makes most of its money off of baggage carrier fees. i will be investing in a black knit dress that can be worn for any occasion, is easily washed in a sink, and won't show my inevitable dirtiness.

and so this post isn't entirely non-craft-related... i finally got a very belated birthday gift shipped off to san diego, but as per my usual, i forgot to snap a picture of it before sealing up the envelope.

i also just finished my very first baby sweater and promptly began a second one. this first one is for my cousin, who's having his second little girl in march (well, his poor wife is, but you know what i'm sayin'). knit up with patons soy wool stripes in natural pink. i love the yarn, but i had to shorten the sweater AND use the very last scraps of yarn i had to bind it off, even after buying two skeins of the stuff.


and then i started another for my boss' son. he's 21, and he and his girlfriend were dating for about three months before she got preggers. yikes! so, since he is a little of the young/hip age, i decided to use up this camo yarn i've had in my stash for a while. here's baby sweater #2, very much in progress. oh, and a blurry cat head.


also? i will yet again profess my undying love for my hairstylist. new haircut, y'all!

taking stock and some FOs...

i have so much yarn. seriously, you guys, it's getting kind of ridiculous. if yarn were water and i were stranded at sea, i would be struggling to keep from drowning. so my goal is to take stock and begin slogging through some of my desired projects with the yarn i already have. a revolutionary thought, no? to do this, i simply cannot set foot in any yarn-selling locale. sounds simple enough, right? hmmm... we'll see how i fare with that. i might actually post some of my finished objects for sale, too, since all my friends and i and my family already have all the hand-knitted goods they need for a while.

is there such a thing as having as many handknitted objects as one could need? i mean, really.

so anyway... i thought i'd actually post some of what i've been finishing lately. i still need to finish jes' birthday present, which was december 22. i am a horrible friend! it would be perfect for the cooler temps they're getting out there right now (it's hard to knit for a gal who lives in san diego). maybe i'll try to finish it today? maybe?

anyway, on to the photos. here's my big, cozy, cable-y scarf, modified slightly from the sharfik pattern. thomas bought me this yarn for christmas from yarns unlimited, and it's tweedy and warm and simply lovely. he had an interesting time at the yarn store - his first attempt ever at buying yarn was not too pleasant, apparently. i have a bit of both colors leftover... mittens, perhaps? something else entirely? i'm not sure yet, but something good will be made with the (substantial) scraps.


me looking kind of pale in said scarf.


my version of the bold and bulky mini cardi - i give you... orangina! knit up with lion brand bulky in butterscotch and citron. this was the fastest knit ever - i finished the body in about a day over christmas, lying sick on my parents' couch. the buttonhole area is kind of wonky, but whatevs.


the devil is in the details.


and one of my presents for christmas was three skeins of noro kureyon, colorway 166. noro = love, lemme tell you (as if you didn't already know). this is my personal fave as of late: the branching out scarf. so pretty!


me being silly. yes, that would be bedhead.


can i reiterate for a moment... SO SO pretty!


i've also picked back up rusted root, and it is taking me FOR-EVAH. it'll be one of those long-term, go-back-to-when-i'm-bored-with-other-unfinished-objects object. it's going to be awesome - if it fits. i'm going to be very sad (though not surprised) if it doesn't. i have patience problems, namely in the form of gauge checking problems. it LOOKS like it's pretty right on so far, but the sleeves are, so far, disturbingly full. if worse comes to worse, i guess it can get gifted.

another year comes along...

i woke up at 1:00 this morning, dreaming about people singing a strange song. when i finally woke fully, i realized the song in my mind was to a very distinct whistling outside. someone was whistling a sad little tune outside of my house at 1:00 in the morning in probably single digit temperatures. i don't think i dreamt the whistling part, to be honest.

days have been very strange lately. i've had moments of total excitement and revitalization to be followed by extreme sadness. i had a breakdown at the bar last weekend. not too attractive...

rest in peace, evan. it breaks my heart to think i'll never run into you on the streets of bloomington again.

i have a lot of photos from christmas and knitting projects to post, but i think for now, i'll leave it at that.

we are all in some way or another going to reseda someday to die...

the first day of real snow has arrived, and i am listening to a song about los angeles. my toes are cold, my hands are cold because my house, well... it's freaking cold. but snow! i almost bit it on my front porch, which really could use some of those grippy duckies you stick on the floor of your bathtub. i opted for salt instead, but it sure doesn't seem to do a whole heck of a lot. maybe i need to stick grippy duckies to the bottoms of my worn out converse. now there's an idea!

i also made a mix cd for someone that i dubbed "the wintry mix." i am so punny! i know - hardy har har.

i've still been knitting some for christmas and birthday presents, but i'm realizing a couple of things are most definitely going to arrive late, so the urgency has passed a bit.

first, my favorite place to be in the world during christmas - the bloomington square. explosions in the air above our heads.




the buttery side cable mittens are done! voila! i based the general pattern on the warmest mittens pattern and just played it by ear from there.


shocking, i know!


and another modified mit from the same warmest mittens pattern - this time in pine sol green. note that i did, in fact, manage to get the cables to go down the MIDDLE of the mit this time around. so proud! so lucky!


this was made with debbie mumm's traditions yarn, which i absolutely hated after the buttery mitten debacle of the twisty-turny-untwisty variety. however, this skein was not so awful, for whatever reason. probably because it is, in fact, cheap and chintzy yarn that you simply can't rely on to be awesome OR awful.


and what else have i been doing? well, i baked a metric fuckton of cookies last weekend. oatmeal, pecan, and chocolate chip; ginger snaps; and oh-my-god-yum mexican chocolate chip, which are my new personal favorite.




and my big baby boombox - his favorite cat bed would be me.


and the view out my window this morning was something along these lines. look at my poor, lonely, snowy car, all cold and shrouded in snow.

ahem... i said, a-HEM!

to welcome the first real snow of the year, i also got to welcome and become the home to a nice little cold. fun! there are cold bugs having a party in my nose and throat. i wish they'd keep it down a little. those cold bugs sure are party animals.

i managed to sleep until 11:30 this morning. at 10:30, i thought, "i should really get up," plopped my glasses onto my face... then woke up an hour later with glasses marks pressed into my cheeks. a good look for me. so yeah. good times.

on the plus side of the ledger, i finished making and addressing almost all of my christmas cards, watched "batman returns" (it's a christmas movie... really, it is!), and worked on some knitting. specifically, i finished dad's present, the sharfik scarf. i am so in love with this scarf that i wish i could keep it for myself. i guess i'll just have to make my own one of these years. i also didn't take a shower until 3:30 this afternoon. yummy.

first, some "i just woke up and it snowed last night" pictures. this is the view out my window through my sorry excuse for a curtain. note the vw bus that hasn't moved since i moved in.


me gazing out the window.


my little lovey, boombox. he's about 2-1/2 years old now, but he was born in the wilds of bloomington, indiana. one day, his mama (monster kitty - the sweetest stray cat i have ever met) just disappeared; about a month later, she showed up on my friend's front porch with six fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand fuzzballs. over the next month or so, i changed my mind roughly 15 times about which kitty i wanted to take home with me, but boombox had just a little extra sass. a lot of personality in that little furball, lemme tell ya.


finished! my very own noro kureyon mittens.
yarn: noro kureyon #212
pattern: warmest mittens
needles: US 4 (cuff) and US 5 (all the rest)


i know, i know... it is SO DAMN EXCITING! first pair of mittens EVAH!


i decided to explore cables with the warmest mittens pattern. yup, these cables were supposed to be in the MIDDLE of the mitten. however, i kind of like the side-cable look of them. the yarn colors are gorgeous, but let me advise anyone against ever buying this stuff. it twists and unwinds and winds up on itself the entire time you're working with it. in other words, joann fabrics' debbie mumm traditions yarn is a total pain in the ass. don't go there.


cable close-up:


and drumroll please... as mentioned above (i think? i don't know, i'm delirious), i finally finished the sharfik scarf for my dad for christmas. i don't know why, but those last three cable sets were impossible for me to finish. like pulling teeth. like knitting and walking at the same time. in short, impossible.


"i'm a model, you know what i mean," and i wear my little scarf on the catwalk. i also am a total nerd and have no idea why i look so serious here. smile, dammit!


in other news, the entrelac scarf is coming right along. i really like it, but my picked up stitches are a bit, erm, obvious. ah, well, i'll keep chugging away and see if i can't figure out what the hell i'm doing wrong.


oh, and? i have a football watching date on sunday. wahoo! i am way too excited about football this week. for serious.

thunderstorms in december? really?

it has been raining all day long - light, misty rain. then heavy, loud rain. then lightning and thunder rumbles. then misty rain again. my parents, bro, and sister-in-law came for a short visit this weekend, and we spent the bulk of the morning in my favorite bookstore on the square, the book corner. really, it houses hundreds of magazines, paper doll books, pop-up books, art tattoos, stickers, stencils... and a few books. which is probably why i love it so. i spent too much money there, but i got a jump on my christmas gifts. so there's that.

what have i been up to lately? let's get the non-knitting stuff out of the way first and foremost, shall we?

exhibit a: hanging out in my house, taking photos of my outfits.


exhibit b: petting my cat in orange tights.


exhibit c: making lists on my hand.


exhibit d: making christmas cards.


exhibit e: taking silly bedhead pictures.


whew! i'm glad i got that off my chest. now for the knitting. first, i had a lacy, gorgeous version of the branching out scarf that i had slaved over for quite a while. it was slated to be a gift for a friend's birthday. i had blocked it on my kitchen counter, then folded it up and set it on top of the towels in the kitchen. i get home from work and, lo and behold, my cat had gotten to it. at first i thought the damage wasn't so bad... then i saw the BIIIIG hole right smack dab in the middle. i still feel sick thinking about it. i have not pulled it out since to see if it is at all salvageable. it breaks my heart, but, hey, lesson learned: no delicates (or not so delicates) near the kitty's reach. damn cat.

so yeah... rest in peace, branching out scarf.


to try to un-break my heart over the scarf, i decided to jump right into a couple of other projects. i got some noro for the first time in years and decided i really needed a new pair of mittens. voila! mittens in the makings!

yarn: noro kureyon, #212
needles: US 4 for the cuff, US 5 for everything else
pattern: warmest mittens

i so, so love this pattern (super easy, super quick) and this yarn. i may do another pair with a big ass cable along the top of the hands. maybe - we'll see. i'm working on mitten number two at the present.


and my first attempts at entrelac! i'm not very good at picking up stitches, but whatever. i still think it looks pretty damn cool, if i do say so myself.

yarn: soy wool stripes, natural violet
needles: US 9
pattern: entrelac scarf

of haircuts, bedhead, and finished objects...

i have the hardest time actually finishing things. does anyone else have that problem? i'll have a bag that's been done for months and just needs a handle sewn in, or a neck warmer that just needs a couple of buttons. well, i finally bucked up and finished two lovely, cozy, wonderful neck warmers today. and by "finish," i mean "sewed buttons onto." yeah, that's the way i roll. but, hey, at least i was finally able to buckle down and just get the darned things done, right? yes, that's better.

the pacific ocean-esque scholar collar!
yarn: moda dea tweedle dee in surf and turf.
needles: 10.5 US
super cute pile-of-log buttons: from jesthestar! thank you, darling!


the color is more accurate in this shot:


and the more stormy version. have i mentioned lately how much i like storms?
yarn: moda dea tweedle dee in thunder.
needles: 10.5 US


i am clearly sans all make-up.


so now for the day-to-day, life of me stuff. although it may not particularly excite or interest you, i got my hairs cut yesterday. yay for cut hairs! i really needed it. thank the heavens for my hairdresser. i love, love, love her. i actually met her when i first moved here - she was (and still is) dating one of the kids who lived in the basement apartment in my house. and now she cuts my hairs.

love, love, love.


hairs!


killer hangover headache. i was up way too late on friday night having way too much fun. oh! and i saw a bouncer put a guy in a choke-hold for the first time ever! crazy gagging and such. yikes. anyway, my haircut was at noon on saturday, and i almost didn't pull myself together for it, that's how bad the damage was. i was sort of like a lost, little, delusional kid last night, yelling out things like, "cheese and crackers! i want cheese and crackers!" yeah... i am not proud. i am a trainwreck sometimes.


and new haircut = new bedhead.


i really love bedhead. if only my hair would stay like this all day.