With a little help from my friends...

the theme of the last few days!

on Sunday, a few of us helped Michelle put together a few things for her wedding.



We cut. We scored. We glued and tied, and re-tied... we got high and had a few glasses of wine. (have you ever worked with rubber cement for longer than 5 minutes w/o getting high?)

We had pre-arranged with Michelle's DH a sneaky way to get back into the house when we left for dinner, so that we could surprise her...



with her very own lantern moon 5 tier basket! I think she was truly surprised, and I loved that it was such a sneaky tricksy thing to do!

We spent all day Sunday with her, doing wedding stuff, and I don't think I knit one stitch all day. Such a shame to spend the entire day with knitters and not knit at all.

More help was to be had at home. I think I have accumulated enough boxes to move a small army. I have packed up my knitting books, and decided that my knick knacks (mostly candles) could be packed away. (Does anyone think that I have too many? I mean, I filled an entire box... with just candles. Shit. I think I like to horde things).

Look who came to help!



he sure is cute, but certainly NOT very helpful. The epitome of the phrase "bung dow mung" since I had to fight him tooth and nail for every piece of newspaper I wanted to use to wrap my candles in...

Building a Mystery

What have I been up to? here's a teaser...



So, despite my competitive nature, I've fallen a bit behind with the Mystery Stole 2 A Long. A lot of local knitters are participating in this KAL (Joanne, Michelle, Jeni, and Stacey to name a few), and most are keeping pace with finishing about 100 rows per week. I'm on clue 3 on one side of my stole, and about mid way through clue 2 on the other side.



However, I've been busy with a few other things. Like driving out to the middle of nowhere to get free boxes. Here's my first fully packed box:



Yeah. it would be much nicer if that was a box of yarn. I've got about 4-5 more boxes half packed, but even though they're all the 'small' size, I can't fill em completely with books b/c then they're too heavy for me to lift.

don't feel to sad for me! Even though that nice box didn't come packed full of yarn, I had quite a haul on Friday afternoon after working all day at Colorful Yarns



What you see there... 6 balls of Kerry wool (50% alpaca, 50% wool)intended for the Lelah top , 4 balls of SWTC bamboo (intended for Lotus blossom from Summer IK 2006, or maybe Sizzle - damn you Wanda!!!), and one loverly skein of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in the colorway Icehouse. Anyone detect a theme of which colors I happen to enjoy?

I'm glad I won't be working too much longer at an LYS, b/c it's oh so hard to resist temptation. Especially when my bill for all that yarn? $42 and change. Yep, you read that correctly! I got all that yarn and shelled out less than what the one skein of LL Helen's Lace would have cost me at retail price. How do people like Jon and Scout work at LYS and not have yarn coming out of their... everywhere?

While at camp, I frogged my opal sock back to before my short row heel to try it again. My first try had gaping holes that I could not live with... here she is all fixed up and pretty:



Here's my dessert knitting:


That's what I'm making out of my Primero yarn, gifted to me by my ever so lovely SP7, Tiffany. The pattern? From garnstudio... click here to see it...

Roughin' it

What could be better than good friends, good food (which is bad for you), the mountains, and knitting? Not too much. We organized a small group to head up to Keystone for a few nights away from it all... and I loved every minute of it.
As expected, we spent quite a bit of time knitting, but we also played games, watched movies, and cooked a few meals.
Michaele made some homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which were DE-LI-CIOUS (where's the recipe?), Nachaele, Michelle and I cooked up a spaghetti/meatballs, green beans and garlic bread dinner one night, and then Nachaele made some yummy egg/green chile/and cheese casserole dish for breakfast on Sunday. We had other provisions to keep us satisfied between meals...



And that's before half the people got there. Kim alone brought three bags of potato chips, another three bags of tortilla chips, and assorted salsas to share. Dang.

We had more souvenirs to share with the campers:


Jeni, Michelle, and Stacey sewed them up, and I found some goodies to put inside.

I worked on a variety of projects, but I've been promising progress pics on Madli for quite some time:



When I got back, Preggo (who's no longer Preggo) invited me over for dinner. She made some lamb kofta and we ordered some hummus and baba gannouj from a local middle eastern restaurant. We finally had time to felt her clogs.



All in all, a terrific weekend. But now I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.

Next up: progress on Mystery Stole, and what I'm making with my Brooks Farm Yarn Primero.

Pardon me

for the lack of posts. I spent the majority of the past week preparing for CampWannaKnitKnitII. See Stacey's post for some pics of what we were prepping. I'm drive by blogging from Keystone, CO, while the rest of the campers are watching a movie. So far, we've knit, knit some more, ate enough for an army, and laughed so hard some of us snorted our old fashioned lemonade out of our nose.

more details and pics when I return to Denver on Monday evening.

Lazin' A Long

With my summer. Seriously folks, I'm just too lazy to upload/download pictures this week. I do have some funny stories and tidbits to share.

* knitting content ends at the line of these **********

First off, please note that I have contracted another severe and acute case of knitterstartitis, a condition often confused with knitterly ADHD. I am unsure about the treatments for either problem, but would love to hear any ideas/thoughts about different treatments and their rates of effectiveness. My initial round of treatment included allowing myself to blithely cast on for whichever and whatever project caught my fancy. The effectiveness? Er... I haven't crunched numbers, but I think it's not good. Not good at all. Prognosis grim. I don't think I finished more than 50% of the projects I've cast on for...

examples include (but are not limited to):
1) Spork: need to finish the reinforcing strip. HOW freaking hard can it be to do stockinette, 20 sts wide, for 5 feet?

2) Soleil & Gatsby Tank: these two are in time out until I lose all the weight I've gained due to a) knitting, and b) the last year of hell in finishing my master's degree.

3) Rogue.

4) winter weight clapotis. (does it count when I've completely frogged the sucker?)

5) denim purse (kit from Black Water Abbey)

6) Fair Isle Jazz- scarf style

7) DB alpaca silk scarf for NYC friend.

I'm scared to keep thinking.

So... since I'm not aware of what other treatment options are available to me, I went ahead and joined the Mystery Stole 2. Last year's project was stunning, and I thought since it's almost kinda kinda sorta a competition, it would be right up my alley. I think you have until July 14th to join, though the first 'clue' will be given on July 7th. Click on the link above, or on the button on the left (under 'join me') to join the group. You know you want to.

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Amusing stories from my Boston trip.
I'm a single 30 yr old woman. I'm content with my life, happy with the people I've chosen to surround myself with, and excited about my future. Of course, there are people out there wondering when and if I'm ever going to get married. As I've shared with quite a few friends, I do want to share my life with someone. My reasons for wanting to be married... do not include wanting to have children or sharing a household. My most compellinging reason to get married is that I want/need someone to help me when my furbabies kick the bucket. The second reason? So that I can have a dog. I don't think either of these reasons are strong enough to actually get married... The third reason, the most abstract one, is probably the most sane reason. I would like to share my twilight years on the front porch with someone. Someone to watch sunsets with, read/share the newspaper, etc etc.

That reason was SOUNDLY crapped all over while I was in Boston with my parents. The first morning, we all got up and got ready for a day full of apartment searching. Of course, we needed a good breakfast. My parents decided we would eat at the hotel's restaurant. No, we were not staying at some 4 star hotel. We were at Holiday Inn Express. My dad was disappointed with the fruit selection, which consisted of honey dew, canteloupe, and pineapple. He exclaimed that the fruit juice was sour. He spit up not just one, but TWO mouthfuls of fruit back onto his plate when he felt like they weren't ripe. Since that display of table manners was followed by a conversation about bowel movements, I quickly lost my appetite. Is that what being married in your 60s looks like? Sounds like? Why? I suppose there's something sweet about feeling so comfortable with your spouse that you can sit there and have a 10 minute conversation about your daily B.M.s. I have to stop that train when my mother turns to me and starts asking me about MY movements... which I feel have not been her bidness since I became potty trained at 3 yrs old. EUW EUW EUW.

The second 'amusing to everyone else but me' story I'll share from Boston... If you've ever rented any property in Colorado, and you have pets, you're familiar with pet deposit and pet rent. I think a pet deposit is pretty standard in most places, but I hadn't ever heard of pet RENT. Neither of my cats earn an income, so I'm unclear how come they need to pay rent. Anyway, it's not that uncommon out here in CO for apartment complexes to have these addendums to their standard leases. When I met with the first realtor out there in Boston (and I think in Boston, a 'realtor' is more like a property manager), I told him my minimum requirements. Pet friendly. Close to school. Parking available. Laundry on site. minimum of 600 sq feet.
The kid asks me... "pet friendly? dog or cat?"
me: "I have a cat"
my dad: "she has TWO!"
me (to my mom, in chinese): "WHY is Dad such a freaking idiot? WHY would he feel compelled to share that?"

I was about ready to shoot my Dad on site. I suppose since there is no pet rent in Boston, it's all water under the bridge, but all I can think is... "bung dow mung"
which is a Chinese saying my mom used to say to me when I was 'helping' her do whatever. Which meant, while I thought I was helping her, I was really just making more work for her. That's my dad. he thinks he's helping me, and he's just making everything 10 times harder for me.

Don't get the wrong idea. My innate pessimism worked out for me. I really didn't think I would survive the trip to Boston with my parents. 5 days. Just the three of us. In the same hotel room? AUGH. I made it so horrible in my mind, that the reality wasn't that bad. I know my parents love me, want what's best for me, and want to help me achieve my dreams. But still.