Nope, it's fall

The flip flops went over great!! Jessica just loved them and immediately put them on - one of each, of course. I could have guessed.

Scrubs starts tonight, which means the fall tv season has begun. The last pre-season football game is this week. Red started Kindergarten today. And the State Fair wraps up this weekend. It's official, summer's over. This summer went WAY too fast!

My friend Kathy is working with a bugs theme for work, so I made these bugs for her last night:



They're made with strips of paper - it's called quilling. I love the grasshopper!!! I think I'll make a few more tomorrow night. Tonight I want to do some knitting.

Last weekend I was working on a "secret" project - I'm thinking it may be for RAOK or SP III. It's wire knitting, and I can't finish because I lost the last of the wire that I was going to use for finishing. It's so annoying, because I thought one spool of wire was going to be enough - no. So I buy more wire. Still not enough. So I buy a 3rd package. It's finally enough, but now I've lost the spool with the little bit that's left to do the finishing touches. ARGH! Note to self: when doing wire knitting, use the large spools, not the little ones.

I keep forgetting to mention that I finished reading "Sock". I liked it pretty well. It's a little heavy handed, but I liked the way he combined pop culture references with the story. There were parts where the story was really absorbing too. The end was a bit disappointing though.

Now I'm reading this:

It's Still Summer, right?

I made a couple of pairs of knitted flip flops for my niece, Jessica. Her birthday was Saturday and I really thought she'd like these:





As you can see, they're a little too big for me, but I hope Jessica likes them. I think they're super cute. I may even make a pair for myself, even though flip flops really bother my toes.

The week was fairly busy, work-wise, so I haven't done that much else. Thursday I went to the Great Minnesota Get-Together, also known as the Minnesota State Fair. The MN State Fair is really a bigger deal here than anywhere else, I think. It's always one of my favorite times of year and we had a great time. I'll be going back again at least once more.

Friday night the Vikings played, but we decided to give our tickets away since it's a pre-season game and those are usually not all that much fun, at least once the starts leave the game. The first half was pretty darn fun, though!

Yesterday I saw this movie:



It was pretty good. The music is good, of course, and there are cameos from contemporary singers such as Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morisette, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall.

Bead Night

My friend, Florence, treated me to a beaded bracelets class for my birthday, which we went to last night. It was fun taking a class with Florence and seeing everyone else's bracelets, but as faithful readers of this blog can attest, I already am addicted to bracelets, so I really didn't learn much. We first made memory wire bracelets:



That's purple India glass with gold beads and spacers. I think my wrists are too fat for memory wire bracelets, so I'm contemplating making it into a necklace instead. I'm going to mull it over for a while first, though.

Next we made stretch bracelets. I made two since I had extra time:


You can't tell from the photo, but those red beads are just gorgeous. I also used silver heishis.


That one is made from wooden purple and green beads and a gold seed bead. I really love the wooden beads. They come in such great colors and are so lightweight.

We also made a regular Softflex bracelet with a clasp, but my camera ran out of battery before I could take a picture of that one. I did it with the same red beads and some silver beads with Celtic knotwork and silver spacers. However, my bracelet wasn't long enough, so the teacher told me to add some more red beads to the end. I was worried the red beads would be too big to allow the toggle to work, but she assured me it would be fine. Turns out, I was right. So, I'm not sure if I'm even going to make that again or not. Another thing to think about!

Sorry that the pictures are so poor. It's a very gray morning here, so I couldn't get good light.

FO!

Saturday was the Twin Cities Ample Knitters Get Together. A great time was had by all, I think. Susan was very smart and brought her camera, so we have actual photographic evidence of the fun - check out Susan's blog.

I also saw this on Saturday:



Loved it! I'm not a big fan of Metallica or metal music, but the music is only part of the film, and probably the smallest part. The fascinating part of the film is the inside look at a band that is crumbling apart after 20+ years of playing together (both musically and off-stage). They hire a therapist to try to work with them and figure out how they can stay together after the bassist quits the band.

I tried to finish the garter stitch shawl on Saturday, but my own ineptitude delayed me. I started to bind off, but 2/3 through I realized I would have a lot of yarn left. I tinked the bind off and knit another 2 rows, then realized I WOULDN'T have enough yarn to bind off. ARGH!! So, I tinked the last row and Sunday morning I finally bound off. Here it is:



As I was knitting it, I thought I might not need the 4th ball of yarn, but now that it's finished, I think I could have probably used a 5th. Those long rows eat up a lot of yarn.

Doggie time!

My knitting isn't very photogenic lately. I'm just starting the other front on the Florentine Flattery, so it's tiny. I'm working on the back of the Cabled T, so it's just miles of stockinette. And the shawl is just garter stitch, so it looks the same as before, just bigger. Plus, I'm hoping to finish it today, so I'll have a finished picture soon.

I haven't been knitting much. The bat debacle took most of the evening - once the sun went down, the bat started stirring again and I barracaded myself in my room untiil my brother came over to rescue me. After he captured the bat and brought it outside, we sat and talked for a while. Last night I had a draft in one of my fantasy football leagues and it was the slowest draft ever - 4 1/2 hours. Sheesh!

Since I have no knitting to show, I'm forced to post more pictures of the puppies. This time I got a good shot of Fiona. Isn't she cute?:



But not such a good one of Finbar. He's clutching one of his favorite toys, the hairy man:



I also joined the Purling Puppies webring - the link is at the side.

Carol's Square

Well, my blog is down right now, so no one is going to read this, but I finished the square for Carol's afghan, so I thought I'd post it anyway:



I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to knit tonight because I found a bat in my kitchen this morning when I woke up. My friend came over to try to catch it for me, but by the time he got there, the bat was nowhere to be found. It's probably hiding in some dark corner somewhere and going to come out again when I get home. Yikes!

Road Trip

The weekend goes too quickly! Saturday morning I had an eye doctor appointment (and my vision actually got significantly better!) and then I went to the Irish Fair. There was some knitting at the Fair - the Minnesota Knitter's Guild had a demonstration table set up. I bought some earrings, a ring and a dress, all with a Celtic flair!

Sunday I had to go to Cass Lake for a home visit. It's about a 4 hour drive there, so I always treat myself on the way back with a stop at the Outlet Mall. I decided this time to check out a craft store I had seen billboards for instead. It's called Crafts Direct, in Waite Park/St. Cloud.

What a great store!! It's a very large craft store with lots of supplies for all manner of crafts - kind of like a Michael's or a Hobby Lobby, only bigger and with better stuff. I was in search of supplies for an afghan square (more about that later), but I got distracted by all the scrapbooking/rubber stamping supplies when I walked in. I bought some very cute rubber stamps and some stickers.

The Ample Knitter's List is knitting a group afghan for one of our members who is ill and in the hospital right now. We're knitting it in the unofficial list colors - purple and yellow/gold (my favorites!!). I wanted to do something unique, so I decided to knit a square from this book:



The pattern calls for DK weight yarn and 5mm beads. I don't have any DK weight yellow, so I decided I would just check this store. 5mm beads are larger than seed beads, so I didn't have any beads that size, either.

I spent quite a bit of time looking at the beads and didn't find any that were 5mm. I did pick up a beaded watch kit in purple, though. :-) By the time I got through with the beads and rubberstamps, etc. I only had 5 minutes to look at yarn - bad shopping on my part!! I did manage to find the yarn for the afghan square, though. It's Patons Grace. There aren't any reviews in Wise Needle for this yarn, but I'll submit one after I finish knitting it up. I love it so far. I checked The Bead Monkey for 5mm beads, also, but didn't find anything. There was one Czech bead that had a wide enough hole and was about 5mm, but there weren't enough of them. I decided to just use size 6 seed beads instead and I think it looks ok. Here's what I have so far:



I also picked up a skein of fluffy yarn to make some of the knitted flip-flops for my neice for her birthday. I've never seen this yarn before, but I really like it.

What Kind of Yarn are You?

I love the Quizilla quizes. Anything having to do with knitting or yarn is always good. I think this is pretty accurate of me:


You are Mohair.
You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with
others, doing your share without being too
weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely
refuse to change your position once it is set,
but that's okay since you are good at covering
up your mistakes.


What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Checking In

Don't have much to blog about lately. Not a whole heck of a lot of knitting going on. I have started hiking every Tuesday and Thursday after work, so that cuts down on my nightly knitting time. I'm at the point in my projects that there isn't much to show, either. I may be able to finish the shawl this weekend, but it'll probably take a little longer.

I'm excited that the first pre-season Vikings game is tonight. I was going to go to the game and test out the train, but there have been many stories about how many people have the same idea, so I may not take the train to games after all. Maybe I'll try the first game and see how it goes.

Last night I saw this movie:



It was ok. As with all action films, you have to suspend disbelief a bit, but it got to a point where there were just too many unlikely events. Perhaps I like Tom better as a good guy - or at least a bad guy with redeeming qualities :-) Dinner at La Grolla, which I went to earlier this summer and forgot to mention. It's ok. Good food, but not great. I got the exact same thing both times and it was better last time. Pretty restaurant. Spotty service.

Restored!

I re-knit the frogged sections of the Cable T and managed to finish the front. Here's what it looks like:



and here's a close up of the cable split around the neck:



It's looking like the neckline isn't that deep. I'll see when I try it on. However, I think I may split for the neck a little earlier if I make another one. I may make one with long sleeves for winter wear. I've really enjoyed the Gallery from the Knit along.

The football pre-season has started, so I'm very excited! I've signed up for a bunch of fantasy football leagues and scheduled the draft for my own league. I'm the Commish of a league that has been around for 5 or 6 years and includes my brother, one of my best friends from law school, his brother, his best friend from college, one of my brother's best friends, etc. It's really fun because we all know each other and we do it every year. I've won the last two years, so I'm hoping to defend my championship in a three-peat!

I hate frogging

I had to rip out a good couple of inches on my Cable T sweater because I didn't read the pattern before starting. The neck shaping was a separate section of the pattern, so I thought you started the neck shaping after you finished the armhole shaping. WRONG! The first words in the neck shaping section are "At the same time". I was 2.5 inches further than I needed to be to start the neck shaping. ARGH! I started to just start later, because the pattern is adjustable to suit any length sweater, but I soon realized that I'd either have to make the whole armhole longer, and thus also adjust the sleeves, or I'd have a shallow v-neck. With my body, I need the deepest V possible, so I ripped-it, ripped-it, ripped-it. Still haven't gotten back to whether I was before, but I know in the end I'll be happier. It was a little tricky keeping track of what row I am in for the main cable down the middle, which row I need to decrease for the armhole and which row I need to decrease for the neck, but I managed.

Last night I started a hiking program with my friend Kathleen. We are hiking around the Fort Snelling trails every Tuesday and Thursday after work. It's really nice down there. I was surprised my allergies didn't kick in with all that humidity and wild plants.

After I got home, I worked on Florentine Flattery. I think it's coming along pretty well. Almost done with the right front:



Here's a closeup of the cable on the front:

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Sunday was the last day of Ribfest and I saw this band:



It was also a fun show. We ended up pulling up some chairs and sitting down because niece and nephew, possibly the laziest person in the world, were along and got tired. Right in front of us was a group of people who did quite a bit of swing dancing. It was fun watching them dance and trying to figure out what the relationships to each other were.

Before Ribfest I went to Needlework Unlimited to check out their selection of Schaefer Anne. I really want to knit the scarf in the newest Interweave Knits that uses Anne, but I didn't like the colors they had there, so I left empty handed. I'm so proud of myself! I was sorely tempted by the Rowan Calmer, but I'm going to keep trying to get it from eBay at a little cheaper price.

When I got home I was exhausted so I watched some tv and knit on my Cable T. I'm almost done with the front:



Here's a closer look at the cable up the front:

More Music

Headed back over to Ribfest yesterday and saw this guy:



He's a great musician from Austin, TX. Another fun time had by all. The really cool thing Bob does is record every show and offer a CD of it at the end of the show for $15. I love that! I was lucky enough to get Bob to sign mine, too.

I also checked out this film yesterday:



I'm a huge Shyamalan fan, so I was really excited about this film. I liked it a lot, but didn't love it. The direction is masterful - really good suspense, fantastic cinematography. The actors were all really good, despite some clunky lines. However, I saw the "big twist" from the very beginning, so what was supposed to be a big surprise, really wasn't. I'd still recommend it, though.