Pretty pictures

We were driving on the mountain right at sunset, and figuring they probably wouldn't turn out very good, I snapped some pictures with my phone from a MOVING CAR but they turned out great!!
The bright lights are Liberty University's football field.

Lazy Saturday

So I know I've promised pictures from NOSoKnit but I'm gonna be lazy and just tell you to look here. That's Dana's report of the day :) If you go one post up she's also got a video of one of the merchants giving a dyeing presentation which was pretty cool!

Kitty had a cricket friend. They were just hanging out so I let the cricket stay until Tripsie saw it. She likes to pull their legs off :(



Speaking of Tripsie, I think she's got some dry skin issues. She's had this rash on her tummy for a while, and now she's got a bald spot on her tail and itchy bumps on her neck. The poor girl, the rash is on the right side of her face (the side with no hind leg for itching!)

If you'll recall the shawl I was working on last weekend... it was for an October Knit-Along with the Let's Knit2Gether podcast group on Ravelry, and I think Karma punished me for starting early. When I started the lace part I found I was off by 4 stitches, and all my efforts to regain them resulted in a bigger and bigger mess. So I ripped it out and have started again AFTER October 1.


I've just got 2 more rows before I start the lace part, and I'm right on track with my number of stitches so YAY!
The way the colors go make me think of the seasons. With beautiful fall represented at the top with browns and greens. Then grey and ice blue of winter, and just barely starting to come in with the purple of pretty spring flowers.

For any of my local friends, today there is a fundraising event in Appomattox VA for a 3 year old girl who has cancer. JessiFest will have some great music as well, organized by a good friend of ours so please show up! Attending is free, there is a yard sale and silent auction and food which will help raise funds, and donations are welcome.

Roll Call

I've been suffering from a bit of cast-on-itis.
Figured today while the sun was out was a good opportunity to show off some of what I've been working on.
Special thanks to Tripsie for sharing (sort of) the one spot of natural light in the apartment.

"Huh wha?"

That's my Mario Socks.


The yarn is from my Retro Video Game sock club 1st shipment and it represents one of my first video games ever, Super Mario Brothers from the NES. The pattern, is called PoppyCock Socks and came from the Loopy Ewe.

"Looks tasty Mama!"

I've also been working on a Pi blanket/shawl thingy. Its my "sims" knitting because its just knitknitknitknitknit so I work on it while I play sims.

"I like to sit under the desk and wait for the yarn to dangle down. NOMNOMNOM"

I nearly ran out of the purple, and I have 1 more set of increases, then 48 rows and THEN the lace border, so I ordered more....

Yesterday I went to Roanoke NoSoKnit with my friends! This was our second year and I think I had even more fun than last year. I was a bad blogger and didn't take ANY Pictures so I will wait and steal others ;)
While I was there I bought me some Noro, and last night I cast on for a "Traveling Woman" shawl.
I can't wait to see how the colors come through :) I have a bit of a wonky bump on my cast on edge becuase I didn't understand the instructions quite right, but since that's at the top I figure most people won't even see it.

Traveling woman is VERY Appropriate for this month, because:
Yesterday I went to Roanoke.
Next week I am traveling to Richmond for work.
The 17th we are going to Charlottesville to see Metallica!!!!
The weekend of the 23rd I will be going to North Carolina to attend SAFF Again with Mom.
And now Hubs is talking about seeing Mastodon the first week of November. *falls over*

I wish I had a chauffeur who could drive me everywhere, so that I could knit in the car!

Happy (belated early) Birthday Hubs!

Hubs birthday was the other day, but we did everything on Tuesday, but I'm just now blogging about it :)

Here's his present all pretty and wrapped. Hubs  was quite confused because he was only expecting a receipt for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which he'd asked me to reserve for him.


This is a look of happy surprise.


Its a ROBE!!!!


Looks pretty good right?


And as usual, Tripsie likes the plastic bag it came in.

Kitty says HI PEOPLE!

Random weekend stuff.

Friday night Hubs went to watch his nephew play football and stopped off to pick up some clothes his sister gave us!


He's been losing quite a bit of weight, so he's actually getting his nephew's clothes. And MAN does he look awesome!

His sister also lost a bit of weight, so she gave me quite a few clothes as well (pictured above).
I've no idea where we'll put it all but we're grateful for it! And I've never owned one of those velour track suits before, but now i have 2 and man are they comfy!

One small problem though, the clothes were quite fragrant. Pleasantly fragrant mind you, but we're allergic to Fabreeze and heavily perfumed stuff. Yes, all of us are. Even the cats. Poor Tripise has been sneezing all weekend.
Here she is chilling on her fort with her flea.


Hubs and I have both been working out using our Wii Fit. I need to get my butt in gear! Hubs only weighs about 40 lbs more than I do and he's 9 inches taller!!!

I am working on some knitting projects, but I can't seem to get the color to come out right so I will keep working at that before sharing. I hope everyone's got new shows coming on this week to look forward to :)

Sorry for the silence...

Its an odd experience, when you're too busy to blog, but dont have really much to say :) I blame twitter.
If you're on there i'm Jadielady there as well.

Today, I've been VERY BUSY.

1. Wrangled 3-legged cat with a dingleberry problem. 3-legged long haired cat with dingleberry problem. All by myself. *gives self gold star of cat wrangling* (if you ever find yourself in a similar position, grab a blanket. Throw it over the cat, straddle the cat with the tangle facing towards you and cut).
   
2. pulled all my shoes out of my closet. Pulled out about 5 pairs I forgot I even had and put with clothes to go to Goodwill. Reorganized the rest by what I actually wear most often.
   
3. Took 2 bags of stuff to Goodwill. Also dropped off prescription and a mystery camera at CVS
4. Went to Kohl's. Pretty much epic fail there, ended up with just a pair of jeans and a sweater.
5. Picked up camera. Prescription will have to wait til the pharmacy, the doctor, and my insurance company work out what kind of nasal spray I'm allowed to have *eye roll* $120 to keep me from sneezing?
6. Brought down dirty clothes from the week, and raided my old acrylic yarn stash in the tiny closet in the computer room.
   
7. Yarn stash is next. Gonna sort out acrylic to donate to the charity knitters at work, then sort out other yarn to de-stash fo cash!. Photos and info will be placed here first, then I'll post to twitter/plurk then Ravelry.

Phew! No wonder I need a nap! Feels good to be able to get to my clothes though.

Happy Birfday to me!! (lotsa pictures)

This weekend has been SUCH A BLAST!!! My parents came up Friday, and we all went out with Hubs parents for dinner.

Hubs gave me my birthday present on the way there, a gift card to Michaels! He knows me so well ;)
After dinner, my parents and I went to Michaels because he also gave me a coupon which was only good through Saturday. I bought myself the One Skein Wonder book!
It has some beautiful lace shawl and scarf projects.

Saturday morning, I headed to meet up with my parents and we went to the Sedalia Fiber Festival!! I won't describe each and every picture, you can probably figure out mostly what's going on.

When we first arrived, we saw NAMASTE BAGS!!

Mom bought me a beautiful bag, which is very awesome and I will use it for my work laptop. She bought herself the pink one, and the blue one for me ;) (That's my mom holding them, isn't she pretty? Way too pretty to have a 30 year old daughter right?)





It was cloudy, I thought the mountains looked beautiful half-hidden by the clouds.



"HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" I love Alpacas!
Woman plucks a bunny.
I was very good. I only bought 2 skeins of yarn.
Pretty silk yarn. I'm debating between a hat and a scarf... its 110 yards.Skein of pretty sock yarn!

My super awesome Knitting Group friends had a big surprise for me! When I first got there, Dianne sang Happy Birthday to me over the loudspeaker! Then, later on they called me over and wished me Happy Birthday again, and gave me a beautiful gift.

Knowing that I'd hoped to buy some Socks that Rock at the festival, but that no vendor was going to have some, they ordered me a skein!! They also had Nana Sadie Rose custom make me this beautiful WIP Bag.
AND to top all that off, Dana made cupcakes!!!


AND!!! Then they made me wear a tiara!!!


Then I made my sister wear it, but then she didn't take it off the rest of the afternoon :)

OH! And Dianne was wearing her socks that she knit with the yarn I dyed and gave her for Christmas :)



And then Claudette brought me a lovely washcloth! Which was very nice of her :)


I bought myself a really neat Mayan Spinner, which is kind of like a drop spindle, except instead of dropping it you hold it in your had and whirl it around like a noisemaker. This makes it much easier to use with cats around, or even in the car! I can't wait to try it.
Afterwards, Mom and I went to the Yellow Submarine for lunch while my Dad, sister, and grandmother went to the Monacan Pow-Wow.

Then after dinner, we had cake!!!


So whew, what a day! I'm still pooped.

And YAY! Took me so long to type this that the video I took of the Alpacas finished processing.

Hibedibedibe that's shawl folks!

*groan* I know, but "Shawl that jazz" is the name of an actual pattern, so my pun options were limited :P

I decided to go ahead and block my shawl that I knit to wear to Sedalia and my goodness it grew!!!
Sorry about the blurry picture, I had to hold the camera above my head to get it all.

Here it is drying on a full-sized beach towel! Oh! And I got the yarn from the Loopy Ewe which now I wonder why I didn't get Black Magic, or Victorian Parlor. Next time maybe ;)

And, I've gotten on a shawl/lace bender now.. here's my next project:
Blech, that color is NOT right at all... its actually very deep brown with beautiful greens (if I may say so myself). I called the color Mirkwood. 10 points if you know what that's from!
Its Malabrigo lace which I bought undyed and then practiced on. I have a 2nd color which I may add on if this isn't enough yarn.



Also, today I cleaned off my desk! Thomas says its still messy, well he should have seen it before! Its much better. (photos of friends and family are flipped up to protect the innocent) And yes, I have a picture of a cat doing the pee-pee dance. Its a cat litter ad, and one of my co-workers thought of me when she saw it.





I hope everyone is well. I'll probably be pretty scarce this weekend. My family is coming into town and Friday night we are all going out to dinner so that my folks can meet Hubs folks! Then Saturday is the Fiber Festival and we might possibly go to the Monacan Pow-Wow which isn't far away

And of course I'll be busy turning 30 :P

Productivity: I can has!

Yesterday I took a half day to take Kitty to the vet. Long story short, the vet said "Hmm I have no idea why he's walking funny." But, he seems to be healthy otherwise so we're not going to worry! Ear mites are 100% gone which is also good news. Could be that the meds were messing with his brain, or he just got used to walking weird to manage his dizziness.

Anywho, then I went to work, then we podcasted. I worked on my socks during the show :)

Then we got home and went on a house-cleaning rampage. Serious cleaning, like pulling the toaster apart and scrubbing the melted cheese from the bottom.

This morning we got up early, took my car to get the part it needed to pass inspection (engine mount) and then to Sam's folks to print out our wedding invitations! YAAAAAAY.

While they printed, I finished my sock other than doing up the heel(see next blog post)!



Also... I recently made another order through the Loopy Ewe. it was someone on Plurk's fault. They had just re-stocked a limited edition of Namaste Bags.

Sam says I should put a bowling ball in it. Funny thing is, it would fit!


*love*
2 knitting projects!
I used to carry 3 bags to work. My totebag, containing knitting bags, a book, my snacks & lunch, and various other stuff. My purse, with my wallet, cell phone, ipod, lip gloss collection etc. And of course my laptop bag.
Now I just have the Namaste bag and the laptop bag.

I love it, it holds EVERYTHING.

And of course its purple.

Book to read (in those rare, rare instances I can't knit and have spare time) calendar, pen, checkbook, hair brush, everything!. The little grey thing is my Namaste buddy. they are so awesome, it has some stitchmarkers, my sewing needles, and my fold up scissors. Oooh I'll have to do another post later on knitters' tools.

I can has haircut

For those of you who have known me for sometime, you know that generally I get one, maybe 2 haircuts a year.
And when I get it cut I GET IT CUT!!
Here's last year's.

Here's a recentish picture of me
My hair had actually grown a good 2 inches since then.

Here it is tonight!
I love it.

Here's the back


And the best part is, I can still put it in a ponytail.... mostly.

*+5 points to myself for taking pictures of the back of my own head*
Of course, this is after being blow dried, sprayed with something that smelled wonderful and made me want to tip extra, and then being flat ironed, all are things I do not do.... ever. So we'll see how it looks after its been in my care for 24 hours, but for now? *joy*