Yarn Crawl

FO - Opulent Raglan!!!

Loving it....

Yarn: Brooks Farm Solana
Needles: Size 6 Addi Turbos
Size: 34ish
Source: Fall 2008 Knitscene - another FAB Wendy B. pattern!

Opulent Raglan Pics Coming Later!

I'm wearing Opulent Raglan today and I LOVE this one. Pictures to come later...sorry to tease, but Jim is gone very early in the morning so we can't take pictures then, and won't be home tonight either (he is going to the AC/DC concert with his friends - crazy man is going tonight AND Saturday night - whatever....lots of sewing and knitting time for me!) so I had a co-worker take pictures.

I'll post them tonight when I get home as I don't have my camera cord with me and I won't be able to go home during the day today as I have a million and one things to do today. Besides mind-numbing conference calls (one is DAILY now) I have to go to the DMV at lunchtime to register the new car/get license plates for it, as we finally got the title yesterday and picked it up.

I also am getting my hair done tonight and am thinking about how I want to tweak the color this time. I'm really liking it, and with my four-week interval for needing to get my hair done to combat the gray outgrowth, the red isn't fading too badly. I'm just not sure if I want it to be a richer brown this time or if I want to keep it the same. Maybe a richer brown, with a few red foil highlights. I'm liking red though.

I also decided to go back for microdermabrasion on Saturday morning - my skin is looking like it needs a boost lately. I used to get it done a few times a year a few years ago when I went to another salon, but I found out that my current esthetician does it, so I'm going to try it again. It really gets rid of fine lines around the mouth (I've just started to see these again, after a while of not doing the microderm) and on the forehead, for at least four or five months. For $100, I'll give it a shot again.

Miscellany

Well, I braved it and looked at the Elann sneak peek for November - none of those yarns are ones I can't live without, so we're good for the next month on yarn buying, at least. Elann is my biggest temptation as there are so many great closeout deals.

I also went to my oral surgeon this morning for a checkup after going to my regular dentist yesterday for a routine cleaning, and he says I am good to go on getting the bottom two crowns done in January! This is sooner than I thought, as I thought I might have to wait on all three til mid-next year, and I'm very glad about it even though none of these three teeth really show when I smile or anything. I still have to wait until July for the upper one, where the reconstructive effort was more intense, but at least I don't have to wait on all of them. The price may be lower than what I was quoted yesterday for this second phase, as it turns out that my surgeon already charged me for a piece of what the regular dentist was quoting, so that's good news as well.

I'm on about row 32 on Baby Cables, no pics today.

Class tonight, things are moving along smoothly. I just got assigned to a special project at work (not as exciting as it sounds - believe it or not, it's a team to...wait for it.....redesign the performance review forms/process.) Doesn't that sound like fun? I will (darn) have to miss class on 11/19 though because of it, as I have to fly to Dallas that day for this two day team meeting. And then we don't have class the next week because of Thanksgiving, so all in all I only have four class sessions left including tonight, plus the final. It's coming together!

And You Think I'm An Enabler....

Quick funny story - you know how I said yesterday that I planned to see how long I could knit and sew from my yarn and fabric stashes? Well, yesterday, I'm working on Baby Cables and he comes up to my knitting room, walks into THE CLOSET (with all the crazy yarn and fabric) and says, "Yeah, you know, you probably could do this for awhile. But what about sales? You can't pass those up if you see them....." I said I wasn't going to look at sale emails or check out Elann.com's specials - he says, "Well, if you miss a sale, you know you're going to be kicking yourself." He's like a bad angel (more like a devil!!) on my left shoulder saying, you know you want to do it, just do it, come on, it will be fun, please, pretty please with sugar on top????? And that's one of the reasons I love him so much.

New Project!

Yesterday I decided to cast on Baby Cables and Big Ones Too - here's my progress:

I haven't actually knit along with the SKC in quite a while, so I thought it would be fun to cast on approximately at their start date and play along. I think it officially started toward the end of last week and is part of a three-way tie with Snow White and Silken Scabbard (which I really need to get back to the sleeves on...eventually.)

I think I'm going to try to knit AND sew from stash for awhile and see where it takes me. I find that I get more creative when I come up with alternatives for projects from already-existing stash, and my yarn/fabric closet REALLY needs some clearing out. Plus, I'm just sort of curious as to how long I could do it. The only thing I bought this weekend was two more rotary cutting mats so that now I have my entire sewing table covered - this will save a lot of time when laying out and cutting fabrics. With how many 60" wide (knit) fabrics I work with, it really made sense to do this, especially when they were 40% off at Jo-Ann's.

Jim and I went to Ditka's (LOVED IT - best dinner we'd had recently!! The tuna roll appetizer and the halibut were amazing) with our friends Stefanie and Tom on Friday and were talking about doing a weekend with them up at our favorite place in Michigan in mid-November. Except I have to remember, NO WINE STASHING. I must somehow think yarn, fabric, or wine are going to become unavailable sometime soon, given the size of my stashes. Not showing off, just realizing that I've been a little crazy. Don't worry, I'm not joining the mopey "the sky is falling!!!" people, just thinking that I should lay off the sense of urgency in stashing stuff.

Hope everyone has a great week!

So Far, So Good

Yesterday I had cut out Butterick 5246, view B (with the cowl neck)

two sizes down from my measurements in a light gray sweater knit I got from Fabric.com on sale for $1.95 a yard, and I just finished sewing it (took about 2.5 hours - super easy.) It's a little maternity with the gathers, but I need to play around with the ties to cinch it in more.

I'm super glad I didn't make the size my measurements indicate as it would have been WAY big - I've learned that with these gathery dresses, I need to go down at least two sizes to have them have any shape whatsoever. I'll show it later this week modeled if I get the courage to wear it. I'm thinking it needs black DKNY tights and some tall black boots to glam it up a bit. I like how the cowl turned out though as I'd never sewn one before. I like working with sweater knits too - it is a nice way to get immediate gratification while creating a fine gauge sweater. It's probably the equivalent of less than sport weight.

I also did a lot of laundry so far today and washed Opulent Raglan.

Yep - I finished the second sleeve and neck pickups yesterday and all I have left is the hem at the bottom and weaving in the ends. I wanted to wash it first to check the length before doing that, so as soon as it dries I'll have a new sweater to show this week.

Now I'm going to reward myself and start Baby Cables and Big Ones Too in that green cashmere I bought from yubina.com a while back. My friend Susan is coming over at 3:45 to pick me up for a movie - we're going to see Pride and Glory - about the only aspect of that I'm excited about is Edward Norton. (Jim - he kinda reminds me of you, so it's all good.) I'm making the trade with her so I can see Twilight next month when it comes out. I'm giving her the first book to read today, as she wants to read the book first before seeing the movie. She said she was just looking for something fun to read lately so I think this will fit the bill perfectly.

Greetings, Oh Wise FatKat...

FatKat just kicked Gilda out of "her" chair and is now looking all serene. Or something. Check her out:

Is it Friday YET??

I don't know about you all, but this has been the looooongessst week. No new progress really on anything, although I have been knitting on Jim's sweater and the cowl neck for the Sweaterbabe pattern. Wore Ariann yesterday and was thinking of making another long-ish lace cardigan like it - maybe in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for the spring. I know, I'm all discombobulated on my seasons. It works out though, because then when the season starts I have new stuff to wear. I think I need to finish what I've got going on the needles first, which really shouldn't take all that long. I might actually knit this weekend instead of sewing, as I have the lead on our MBA group's case this week (I volunteered, as it's on the fashion industry and sounded more interesting than some of the others I could have gotten) so I won't have a lot of blocks of uninterrupted time to sew.

Hanging on til the weekend....

New Sweater AND New Car for Jim!

I've given away what this post is about - first, I got Jim to try on Big Thaw Pullover in process yesterday and it is going to fit perfectly. I finished the upper front later that night (after we took care of the second half of this post) and am working the body in the round now. This pattern goes soooo fast.

In the last one, I had asked him to hold the upper front flat so you could see the center panel with its slip stitch down the center. He got cute and decided to hold it with his middle finger (ha ha) so I've cropped this one so he's not flipping everyone off in the picture.

It was a good day for Jim - after he got to try on his sweater, he got a new car! We had found this 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee through his company's internal classifieds, and we took a look at it last night and bought it. We got a good deal on it, and it feels good to pay cash for a car - that was a primary motivator for us in buying something used. Jim keeps his cars FOREVER (as evidenced by the "beast" - the Lincoln Mark VIII that he was the original owner of and drove for 14 years) so it is worth it for us to buy instead of lease when it comes to his car. We don't drive that many miles as we live really close to my job and to the train station, so the deals on SUVs worked out for us. Plus now we don't have to borrow the neighbor's truck when we need to pick up furniture or stuff like that.

And..I got my navigation system. I've been wanting one of these:

No more 30 degree motorcycle drives at 6 am for Jim!

Good Mail Day!

Yesterday was a great mail day - I got wool AND fabric!!!

First the wool - I ordered three "safety skeins" of RYC Soft Lux for Ingenue as it seemed that my row gauge was off and I would possibly run out. Not sure I'll need them, but for $2.99 each I wanted to make sure I was safe.

I also bought this at the same time (both from Little Knits) as they had a $25 minimum - DARN! This color's slightly more orange than this, but it truly lives up to its "beautiful russet" name, and for $25 for a full bag of 10 skeins, I couldn't go wrong:

Now for the fabric - all on sale $3.59 with free shipping from fabric.com and I am IN LOVE with the quality of all of them:

3 yards of this - this has Wrap Dress 2.0 written ALL over it:

3 yards of this - I have big plans for this, but not sure of the specifics yet:

2.5 yards of this - I wasn't so sure about this and am still not 100% on it, but it can be a version 1.0 of something I'm trying out for the first time:

and 2 yards of this for another funky top kinda along the same lines of the one I did over the weekend, or a tunic of some sort:

All in all, a good day and not a lot of money spent!