Slam Dunk!

It’s that time of year.  The air is nippy, the grass is covered in frost, the leaves are changing… that’s right, it’s basketball season!   My son has played for the last four year or so and absolutely LOVES it.  This year is the first year my daughter will play and not that I’m biased or anything, but she’s really good!  I took her to tryouts on Sunday and wouldn’t you know it, the girl can dribble, run and shoot!  This is going to be a great year, I can feel it.  Because I’m friends with certain people *wink wink* I found out this morning which team my son will be on and let me say… it’s a REALLY GOOD team, with extremely talented kids!  I can’t wait to tell him because he’s going to be super excited when he finds out!  The wife of the coach(who I am friends with) told me that her husband was extremely happy to get Cody on his team because he has some mad basketball skillz which of course makes me very happy to hear as his mom!  My husband is fairly athletic but I am completely hopeless when it comes to anything that involves balls or hand eye coordination, so it makes me so freaking happy to see that my kids did not inherit my athletic “prowess.”

What is slower than a snail?

Sloth maybe? Whatever it is, that is the pace in which I am finishing my projects.

I did knit up some Saartje Bootees for a co-worker’s wife. She’s due on the 9th and my husband told me on Friday that they had a baby shower for her at work. Nice. Men. Or maybe it’s just my husband who is completely clueless and called and asked “Do you bring presents to a baby shower?”

 

Saartje Bootees

Pattern: http://members.home.nl/tdpj/Patronen/Bootees/Saartjes%20bootees.pdf

Yarn: Cleckheaton Cocoon

Needles: DP #2 US

Pattern Notes: Quick, easy, and heartbreakingly precious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can I borrow your head?

Thank goodness she is a lovely girl who adores having her picture taken and takes every opportunity to help her Momma out!  Koolhaas will be on display at HCW, and so far I am extremely pleased by the way it’s turning out.  The yarn in itself is wonderful to work with but the pattern…. Oh the pattern!  So easy to memorize, and the outcome is just…. WOW!

BTW, the hat is sized to fit an adult head.  I just used my daughter’s because I didn’t feel like switching to larger needles.

Kind of like “Where’s Waldo?”

Except it’s more like “Where’s Garter?”

*Deep breaths* Don’t panic. This is fixable!

*Shaky hands. Nerves are shot. Feel like puking* What will help? Oh I know, Mr. Beam!

I’ve seen this done on many different knitting sites. I’m a pro with the crochet hook and therefore despite the huge looking stringy mess, this will be easy peasy!

So after awhile I thought to myself that there has to be an easier way because the whole crochet hook isn’t doing anything for me.

Two DPN’s are much easier, although slightly trickier because I don’t have any hooks to grab the yarn.

So about half way through I decided to take a step back and look at my progress. Not good people and not because I was drinking and knit fixing, but because…. Well I’m not quite sure why it looks like ass, it just does.

Ugh. How disappointing. I guess my next option is to just frog down to the garter bottom and start over. I don’t know how I could have missed the garter sides. What an amateur move. *sigh*

What do you think?

I love when people ask me that when I’m working.  Not only do I get to voice my opinion (Always in a tactful and nice manner) but I also get to suggest something that they normally would have overlooked.  Today I sold a customer on the O-Wool.  Like I’ve said before, there are few yarns I really, seriously love, and O-Wool is one of them.  I pointed out some green, tweed Balance and she fell in love and said it was “perfect!”  Now how’s that for customer feedback!  I should be an O-Wool spokeswoman!

I’ve also started a new project but this one is for the store – HCW.  I’ve found that a lot of us over there are huge fans of Brooklyntweed and he not only has a pattern in the latest Interweave Knits but his hat – Koolhaas is in the Interweave Holiday Gifts.  We just got a shipment of really wonderful, yummy Merino Alpaca from ShiBui  “and wouldn’t it just make the most wonderful Koolhaas?”  Of course it would!

“O” is for Oooooooooh

If you think it looks lovely you should touch it and knit with it because it really is as lovely as it looks, and according to the price tag, completely affordable(how gauche of me.)

Just in case you don’t know what the Cobblestone Pullover is….

So how do people do it?

Wow.  It’s been almost a month since I’ve finished a project.  For awhile I worked on Salina but after getting to the armhole/neck shaping, I just wasn’t feeling her so I added her to the “frog” pile.  I then bought some really wonderful Buckingham by Bristol Yarn Gallery and started knitting Thermal from Knitty.com and so far it’s turning out beautifully.  Unfortunately it is knit with fingering weight yarn and on size 2 needles so this makes for a very slow, time consuming project.  I only work on it in tiny increments, 15-20 minutes at a time, maybe once or twice a day.  At this rate Thermal should be finished by 2027.

Has anyone knit with O-Wool?   I bought 10 skeins of it in a grey tweed to knit the Cobblestone Pullover from the latest issues of Interweave Knits.  It’s 50% organic merino wool and 50% organic cotton and so far I’m really digging it.  The pullover and yarn is perfect, I’m knitting it for my hybrid driving, tree hugging, earth friendly, environmentally conscience friend.  One of the downsides of knitting for someone who isn’t within arms length is that you never know how it’ll fit.  I have cast on and am already inches into the garter stitch bottom.  This is the first project in a month that I’ve been super excited about doing.  Let’s hope it fits!

And why haven’t I been knitting like a crazy fiend?  Because I am totally digging the new job!  DUH!  I seriously love it.  I feel so incredibly lucky to be working at HCW but to also spend my time around people who love the same things I do and to be able to talk to them and help them….  I look forward to going into work and you know, not many people can say that!  Not only that but also my PTO duties.  This year I’m on the PTO board and let me tell you… it’s a lot of work and commitment.  Oh and let’s not forget that basketball season starts next month and I’ve got two kids signed up.  I seriously don’t know how parents do the working, volunteering, parenting thing without going absolutely insane.  My hats off to those of you who do it all, because it’s totally kicking my butt.  The 2a.m. knitting marathon sessions are no more.  Last night I actually went to bed at 9:30 P.M.  That is unheard of.  Me, Mrs. NightOwl, I can be exhausted all day long and come 9:00 at night, I am wide awake.

I will try and remember to take some pictures of my Cobblestone Pullover progress tomorrow.  We are going to a Halloween party tomorrow night where I plan on spending a lot of time drinking and by “a lot” I actually mean 1, or 1.5 drinks because that’s pretty much all my body can handle without going into toxic shock and I spend the next 4 days with a hangover(long story… I’ll regal y’all with it sometime) and debauchery!  Yay!

God I hope it fits.

Who Knew?

Working in a yarn store is fun! Not only do I get to play with yarn all day and by “play” I mean stock and arrange shelves and make things look visually appealing, I get to talk about yarn and knitting and gauge and give advice and help people! I had a lot of fun today, I was kind of nervous and I’m still learning everything and I have to ask a lot of questions but it’s all worth it. On top of which it looks like I’ll be teaching knitting classes sooner than expected. The woman who currently teaches at Craft O Rama wants to leave early, she is due to have a baby soon and I don’t really blame her, so my first day will be the 20th! Tomorrow I’m going to observe, meet people and get a feel of the class since I am keeping the same format.

Yesterday I decided to cleanse my brain and participate in a little retail therapy. Why is it that buying something can instantly make a person feel better? Once a year I try and buy new blue jeans. Because I live in TX and one day out of the year it gets down to 75 degrees,  so new jeans aren’t essential but the last two years I’ve been shopping at Charlotte Russe. Please do not let the 16 year old stick thin models discourage you. They have some really awesome tops and their jeans are freaking fantastic!

I bought two pair of these! If you’re short like me, check them out. You won’t be dissapointed!

Oh and I’ve found my next project.

Long sleeves, shorter, maybe cream or black?

8 Random Things

I was tagged by Maryse.

The Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I am adopted. I was four years old, my parents adopted both my sister and I together. My mom tells me the first thing I did when she scooped me up at the airport, was punch her in the nose. In my defense (I don’t remember doing it), some strange woman coming at you and grabbing you while smiling and crying can be pretty darn scary, especially for a four year old.

2. I went to a fine performing arts high school. I studied the piano. I took lessons for about eight years when I was younger and studied piano in high school for two. I haven’t played in years and I doubt I’d remember how to even play anymore, but I hear it’s just like riding a bike.

3. In the same vein as my adoption. In 1998 my birth mother found me and contacted me. We wrote each other for two years and in 2000, almost two months after giving birth to my daughter, my family and I flew to Korea to meet my biological family and to attend my Korean sister’s wedding. It was quite an experience but wish I had had more emotional preparation.

4. I have never done drugs of the illegal kind. I’ve never even experimented. When my kids get older and they get to that point where they want to try stuff and they ask me if I’ve ever done it, I can honestly say NO and as silly as it may sound, I’m proud of that.

5. I am a complete slob. I hate doing housework, in fact I’m pretty terrible at housework which is funny considering I’m a stay at home mom. Every once in awhile though, I’ll be hit by waves of the “got to have a clean house NOW” bug and I’ll frantically go on a cleaning binge at 1 o’clock in the morning.

6. I have a sick and dirty sense of humor. Case in point. Cracked. Warning: It’s a video, definitely NOT suitable for work and definitely NOT suitable for children. I laughed like crazy.

7.  I am in love with Stephen Colbert.  He is pretty much the perfect man.  He’s funny, intelligent, geeky, humble, down to earth….  Matthew McConawho?  I wonder if he does vanity searches?  I wonder if he does, will he see this?  Stephen… Marry me!   BTW, that is not a question.

8.  More times than not I will read the end of a book first.  Well technically my system looks a little like- read the first two chapters, get bored, read the ending, am enticed by the ending enough to want to finish reading the entire book just to see how the ending came about.  I really don’t think I lose anything with this method, in fact I’m fairly sure that without doing it my way, I wouldn’t have finished at least 60% of the books I have read.

Tagging:  Lilygo, Pax, So Knitpicky, Stacey, Katarina, Gail, Ellen, Green Apples

Running out of fingers

Why is it that bad things always follow good things or bad things always follow more bad things?  Is this some universal law, force of karma, did I do something bad in a past life, does the god/deities hate me?  Not to go into detail, the entire month of October has for the most part, royally sucked.  Oh sure, I got both jobs I tried for, and trust me, without those rays of sunshine peeking through the perpetual gray funk hovering over my head, I think I would have had started sharpening the kitchen knives (metaphorically speaking… I don’t even know how to sharpen knives.)    Quite honestly the only way this month could get worse is if I lost a my feet and could no longer buy shoes,  or my cat ate my face during the middle of the night.

/end whine