We are Siamese if you please..

Yes, it turns out my pitty (pretty) kitty is a traditional flame point siamese who at the present moment is playing with his ziplocked bag of treats, trying to open it up.. I really should take more pics of Sam, but this will have to suffice in the meantime..

Life being owned by a cat...

About a week ago, a beautiful cat showed up in our stairwell and didn't have an owner. Now I am thoroughly in love with a beautiful white flame point male siamese mix 6 month old male. He is CRAZY!!! Tonight, he invented a new sport: extreme table jumping... Sam always runs around the apartment, but tonight, he came running from my room, jumped up, launching himself from the floor and landed on the table. Thank god there was junk all over the table, otherwise, he would have sailed across the table, clinging to the table cloth, and hit the wall! I wish I could catch it on video....

Almost done!!!

My EZ fair isle yoke sweater from Knitting Around is almost done! I have been knitting and knitting and knitting on it for the past two weeks and I finally am in sight of the finish line! I LOVE this pattern! It is soooooo easy to do as long as you get your count right when you attach the sleeves and are ready to do the first set of decreases! I will definitely be making more of these, especially for kids!

Me wearing the sweater when it is almost done!

This sweater has been very forgiving of my more ample chest and I have lots of extra room through my back and arms even before the blocking, so I'm happy..

The yarn I used was Patons Classic Wool in Winter White, Worn Denim, Grey Mix. New Denim, and Leaf Green in case anyone is interested.

And one gratuitous close up for you to drool over:

Later: I hope that blocking can even out the problems that developed in this sweater... As I worked on the neck, and continued with color work closing up the shoulders, I came across a massive problem: gauge. i should have remembered that the gauge shrinks and the fabric becomes LESS elastic when you switch to a color work design! For someone who has worked on fair isle sweaters before, this should have been a no duh, but I failed to take this into account. As I slipped the sweater over my head and expected it to fall easily around my shoulders, I was shocked to discover that the neck was resting around my vocal chords because of the wonky shaping of the second row of decreases.. some good tugging and i was able to make it look a good bit better, BUT I am hoping that the wet blocking will take care of my problems. I am hoping to enter this in the fair this year. I have a good number of entries I want to take over including this sweater because the color work really is very beautiful. I would feel awful if it didn't fit properly at all, though.

Wrapping up projects

The summer has been very good to me, even if I have not told you about everything. I have finally moved into my own place which I am loving to no end. I have no extra spending money, but I have a roof over my head, food on my plate, electricity, and stash to fill my needles. I am so thankful I had built up my stash over the years. I now have stuff to keep me busy until I have money to refill the stash.

With that, comes the finishing up of projects that have been sitting around.

1) The Pi Shawl from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Almanac that I changed up just a bit.

And the obligator close up of the detail:

I am also knitting up a storm on that fabulous fair isle yoke sweater Elizabeth created so many years ago that launched her Opinionate Knitter magazine! While I don't have any pictures right now, I hope to once I get the body attached to both sleeves which are already done and ready to go as soon as I have enough on the trunk.. I am sooo excited about having it done and ready to wear this winter.

My fair isle sweater is being much more of a pain. The sleeves are being very difficult. I have now had to switch to the double pointed needles, and anyone who has done fair isle stranding on double pointed needles knows how easy it is to make the stranding on the back of the material too tight. So it is coming along, but it is not something I am relishing picking up at the moment. I am even contemplating undoing the sleeves and reknitting them from the cuffs up. Am I willing to put up with the facing around my arms and get the sweater done faster or shall I continue with the sweater as is and risk NOT winning Best in Show at the fair next year? Choices, choices! I am beginning to see what I must do to get it done to my liking, but it is a very hard decision to make. My last experience with sleeves and facings was NOT good (Baby Norgi) but for reasons that were beyond the pattern itself.

I guess I will decide when I finish my fair isle yoke sweater and have a chance to model it for you!

A hard lesson learned

In my overwhelming desire to keep things on the cheap side while I save for the first month's rent, I decided to take the cheap route in touching up my hair ( yes, I dye it regularly) rather than going to the salon. I picked up Loreal's Natural Match in Deep Auburn ( there is a reason for this information) and promptly applied it yesterday afternoon. BIG MISTAKE. My hair turned PURPLE. Not a pretty dark auburn, but PURPLE... my younger sister started calling me Barney and it was totally stripped of all its moisture. Today, with a baseball cap firmly planted over all my nasty purple frizzy straw, I made my way to the salon to see what they could do about rescuing my hair. Over $100 later, I walked out with very dark, but manageable dark auburn hair that i can live with... perhaps it is not as gorgeous as the color I was shooting for, but stripping the deposited color was not an option, nor was buzzing the entire thing. I might be my own girl but I'm not as brave ( or crazy) as Britney Spears. My comfort in this is that the color will fade gradually with time and I can go back to my old lovely shade already picked out at the salon. I have to congratulate Loreal for choosing to pick up the tab on what has turned into my most expensive day at the salon, but the emotional damage has already been done.. Never again will i trust my locks to their coloring stuff.

Lesson: If you are coloring your hair, just go to the salon. It's worth the extra money in the end.. oh, and pics to come soon!

Et Voici!

My Own Place..

After entirely too many years at home because I couldn't afford to move out of my parents house, I am five weeks away from moving into my own apartment! I am so giddy with the excitement that my head is spinning, and I have not gotten much sleep as a result.. oh well, I can always catch up on that later!

I have been very lucky in having access to so many yard sales and thrift shops. They have allowed me to put together a fantastic apartment with just about everything I will need except a TV. I'm sure you will all agree that they are entirely too expensive these days and if you don't get a flat screen TV ( who has the money for them?), you end up with a massively heavy CRT with a 2' bootay on it. I am NOT carrying one of those up 3 flights of stairs! What to do?? still not sure, but I'll think of something.... in the meantime, I'm telling everyone what to get me for housewarming presents! LOL

In the realm of knitting, I have been busy on just two projects lately: a pair of Trekking socks for me, and a handspun baby sweater a la EZ. It IS the patter from her almanac, and the yarn was just screaming for it. I'm sure you'll agree.

Sock and gratuitous close-up:

The colors just SCREAM summer, don't they??? I love the punches of magenta and lime, and as conservative as I usually dress, I can definitely see myself wearing these.. go figure! Here is the baby sweater yoke, it is top down and it's the second one I've made with this pattern. The first is for my little nephew due in October. No lace... but this color was screaming for it. Such a pretty color for a little girl.

Successfully Enabled!!

Isn't it amazing how someone could enable you without even trying?? I went to my guild meeting on Sunday, taking along a baby sweater I am knitting out of handspun.. Nothing else.. I definitely traveled light that day. Well, all around me are all of these beautiful single drive Ashford Traddy's... it was too much for me to take, so I went up to my LYFS today and ordered the blasted thing. Nancy ( I love her to death) looked at me like I was an alien from another world when I told her I wanted to order it. She couldn't understand why the DD wasn't working... well, the damn bobbins are too hard to take off, I HATE having to constantly readjust the drive band when I change bobbins, and I'm afraid my sister might break something because she has an even harder time taking the bobbins off than I do.

So now, I'm cleaning up my items (including all 12 bobbins for the DD and hi speed whorl), and trying to figure out how to advertise it best. Perhaps I'll sweeten the deal with a whole huge fleece I will never get around to spinning, as I'm trying desperately to downsize my whole stash of stuff before I move this summer... Finally, a place of my own!