Let the Party Begin, Part 2

That last post was getting too long, so I decided to break it into two.

So, Tuesday night I went out with my friend Florence to celebrate my birthday! Yeah! We started with dinner at Bombay Bistro. I haven't been to this one yet and I really enjoyed it. I was craving chicken curry, so I went off the menu and got that. It was delicious! We also had the vegetarian sampler appetizer, which was very tasty also. They knew it was my birthday and brought out some Gulab Jamun (Deep fried wheat and milk balls, soaked in sugar syrup)with a birthday candle - so fun! After dinner we headed over to the Lynx game:



Florence gave me some very cool gifts:



Florence is a printmaker and one of her instructors made this card - I love it!!



This is an assortment of stationary, cards and other fun stuff. Last summer we spent some time at a cabin up on the North Shore of Lake Superior with her husband, her teenage daughter and her daughter's friend. The girls had one of those Tiger Beat type of magazines and we were looking it over and took one of the quizzes. We found out that we are BFF (Best Friends Forever), so we always refer to each other as such. Thank God for that quiz, because otherwise I don't think we would have realized how much we care about each other ;-) I'm tickled by how cute and cheesy this stuff is, but I especially love how obsessive she was in getting absolutely everything there was with this theme.



This is a horrible picture because I took it into the sun instead of with the sun at my back, but hopefully you can kind of see the Gunflint Trail logo on the keychain. That logo is also on the glass. Besides that trip last summer we've been up to the North Shore a couple of other times, always having an AWESOME time. I'm always dying to see moose when we're up there and hardly ever catch a glimpse of them. I can't wait for our next trip up north!



And finally, this beauty! You've seen a couple of my cuffs in this style. Florence and I took the class to learn this project together and she made this gorgeous one for me!! I love it! Those are such great, elegant colors.

Thanks for a great night, Florence! I love ya!!!

I also bought a few birthday presents for myself:



I was shopping for some of this discontinued 1824 cotton for Susan for her birthday, because I knew she liked it and was sad to see it go. When I saw this awesome purple, I knew I had to get some for myself also. I got enough for a summer top for me.



While I was in the sale room, I also picked up some other single skeins that I like. I love Provence cotton and I really loved this color. I also got some of my favorite cotton, Tahki Cotton Classic:



I also decided on a skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky for felting:



Yeah, I like red a lot. What about it?

I've also been doing a little actual knitting. I finished all of the button bands on Florentine Flattery and started sewing it together. I've got one of the sleeves sewn in and seamed:



There's one weird spot where the bind offs stopped and the decreases started. I think that will be hidden in the underarm, though. Hopefully.

Let the Party Begin!

It's been way too hot to sit in front of the computer and blog (I'm really behind in reading blogs too - don't post so much until I get caught up, friends!). I have been busy, having fun, though. First, a cute story.

I got my hair cut last week and when I walked in, my hairdresser, Sandi, handed me a bunch of yarn and two knitting needles. She knows I knit because when she had her first daughter, I knit her a little sweater. Said daughter is now enrolled in a Waldorf School and knitting. She is making these really cute little stuffed animals. She was binding off and accidentally dropped a couple of stitches and didn't know how to pick them back up again. Sandi asked her what she should tell me she needed and her daughter said, "Mom, she knows the knitting magic. She'll know what to do." How cute is that?!

Friday I spent the day at the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. I am not up to walking 60 miles in 3 days, so I volunteered to help out. I worked in the gear store this year and I really enjoyed it. I spent most of the time scanning in purchases and bagging them up, which gave me a great opportunity to talk to and meet a lot of the walkers. It's so inspiring to see so many survivors doing so well! I also got the chance to spend a little time with my friend, Florence, after she finished up the first day. It was so hot and humid, I don't know how she made it all three days, but she did it! I'm so proud of her!! I was dead tired when I finally got home and put my feet up.

Saturday I met up with Kerry at our favorite spot and we gnoshed a bit, chatted a bit and knit a bit. It wasn't quite as hot on Saturday, so we decided to head over to the Minnesota Craft Council show at the Minnesota History Center. It was so nice! It wasn't too crowded, so we were able to get into and out of the booths and there was a nice breeze. They had some guild booths with displays that were really fun to look at. I'm thinking about joining the Bead Society. We also did a little shopping, of course. Kerry already showed her adorable fairy house. I stuck to jewelry:



This is a cloisonne Enamel pendant from Emily Chesick. It was more than I wanted to spend, but I really loved it. It came with a rubber necklace, but it was too short so I put it on this very nice silver chain instead.



These are anodized aluminum earrings from Q3 Art. I really like their stuff and have bought several other things from them. I bought these before the pendant, but I wore them both together yesterday and liked them together.



These are pins made from postage stamps attached to polymer clay by Susan Werner. I've bought a pin from her in the past and think they're really cool. The giraffe one is for my step-mom, since she collects giraffes. The other two are for me, obviously.

Sunday I had to go into the office and do some work, since I was gone most of Friday. Afterward, I went over to the mall and did a little more shopping for some birthday presents for my brother and some new work clothes for me. It's been so hot I haven't wanted to wear a suit and especially pantyhose, so I picked up some cute skirts that I think I can wear to court without hose for days when we're going to be meeting the judge's chambers and not having a formal in the courtroom hearing. They very cute!

Catch Up

Whew! Time flies when it's hotter than Hades. I think I'm going to skip the pantyhose, even though I have a court hearing today. I think everyone will understand that when it's this hot and humid and I have to drive 45 miles to get there, I don't need to be all sweaty when I arrive.

It always seems like it's feast or famine around this place. Last weekend I didn't have any plans and stayed around the house the whole weekend. I got a lot of stuff done, which was nice. This weekend, I was gone so much I don't think I saw much of the inside of the house. After the brake repair fiasco on Friday, I tried to sleep in on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, my electricity went out on Friday and I forgot to reset the clock after it came back on. I got up at 7:30, thinking it was 10:30. That's really early for me!

That did allow me the time to do yardwork before heading off for the AK Get Together at Minnehaha Coffee. I love that place! There was a pretty good turn out, considering it was a gorgeous, sunny Saturday. My sister, Kerry, was in town that night so my brother and I headed out to see her in the evening. Her boyfriend, Raine, has a band called Power Play:



That's Raine in the forefront, in the white and blue shirt. He's the lead singer. They were playing at the Back to the 50s show at the State Fairgrounds. So, we went to listen to the band and hang out with Kerry. I really enjoy those blogs where people always have pictures of every activity they do, so I can feel like I was really there. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those bloggers. I forgot to bring the camera. So, I stole that picture of the band from their website. Here's one of my sister from their website too:



She's the cute blonde on the right. Yeah, not the proudest moment of my life, but at least she's not pulling her top down. She's a beauty, so I'll have to post some better pictures of her some time. Anyway, after Power Play was done, Greg and I decided to head out and get a cocktail because no alcohol was sold on the fairgrounds. It was a pretty late night, yet again.

Sunday was Father's Day, of course, so Kerry and I headed over to Wisconsin to see our grandpa. He was looking pretty frail, so I'm glad we did it. Afterward, I went to a fireworks stand because I was in Wisconsin, after all. Most fireworks are banned in Minnesota. I'm not even going to be here for the 4th, so I just bought some stuff for presents for others. When I got back into town, the kids and I took Greg out for Father's Day. He chose his favorite - Fuji Ya for sushi. I got Chirashi, which is a bowl of rice with a bunch of sashimi on top. I liked it, but I don't think I'll order it again. I'm allergic to shrimp and I don't like anything really rubbery and fishy, so I had to give 3 or 4 pieces to Greg. I like to order a la carte so I can get what I really like. It was a good meal, though. Bill called while I was out and asked if I could watch Beth's kids so they could go out for dinner, so after dinner was over I headed over there and babysat. So, by the time I got home, it was late once again. Weekends go so fast when you're that busy!

Monday I had lunch with a friend at Fhima's. I LOVE that place! The decor is so pretty and the food is delicious. I had never been there for lunch - it's really reasonably priced and equally devine. I'll definitely be going back. On my way back from lunch, a huge storm blew in and I thought I was going to have to pull over. It was pitch dark and the rain was so heavy that I had a hard time seeing 3 feet ahead of me. I made it through, though, safe and sound.

Last night I met up with some knitter's at Nina's Coffee Cafe. They were so nice and I really enjoyed the evening. I also had an iced mocha that was devine. I may be addicted, now. I finished the left side of Mariah and decided to rip out the right side and re-do it with the proper edging. I tried all of the suggestions that you helpful people gave me, but none of them looked quite right with the left side. I could have ripped the left side and done both of them the same, but I decided if I was going to rip, I might as well rip the wrong one and do it right. I hardly noticed it since I was sitting there chatting and knitting with others - definitely the right way to rip! I got about 1/3 of it reknit, so I don't think it'll take me long to get back to where I was and then I can join all the pieces together for the yoke. I also blocked the hearts sweater:



I think that helped. I'm pleased with how most of the hearts look now, especially the blues that I duplicate stitched on. I'm not pleased that the two vertical stripes hearts look so different. The bottom fat one I did mostly in intarsia and the middle skinny one I did mostly in fair isle. Luckily this is the back, so people probably won't notice it that much.

I also hadn't mentioned that I finished "Epileptic". I did like it quite a bit. The drawings are very inky and dark and definitely add a lot to the story. There were parts that sort of dragged on, but overall, I enjoyed it. I'm interested to see how our book club discussion goes. I started this book:



Of course I'm enjoying it. I really like the Harry Potter books and movies. I'm sort of reading them yearly - ahead of the movie. I'm very impressed that kids are reading a book as huge as this one is. Apparently my nephew, Michael, has read this book 3-4 times. He was becoming a bit obsessed with the books.

And finally, a picture of Fiona, because I hardly ever post pictures of her:



As you can see, she also likes the small hiding places. She sits under the table sometimes when I'm at the computer, but this corner by the bathtub is her favorite place. This picture shows why I rarely post pictures of her. She's often hidden in little dark corners like this, which makes it hard to take pictures. And she's so dark that you need really good light to see her beautiful face. At least you can clearly see the dog dirt on the bathtub and know my house is a pigsty everywhere.

Buttons

I went shopping for buttons for Florentine Flattery at JoAnn's yesterday. They were having a sale - 50% off all buttons. So, I picked up a few for my button stash:



The blue and the green buttons are shell buttons that have been dyed. I think they're gorgeous! The gray ones up in the right corner are natural colored shell. Next to those are some opalescent glass. The little silver ones in the middle have an interesting texture. I'm not sure which ones I'll use for this sweater, but I really like all of them.

I didn't have much time to shop, but I did notice they also had all clearance merchandise on sale for 50% off - that means the Cottonease was only $1.50 per skein. But, I didn't buy any, because I already have a lot of cotton yarn that I like better. I did buy a little pair of Fiskars with a spring:



We used these in my last card class and I really, really liked them. I can use them for scrapbooking and knitting. I also bought this really cute basket:



I didn't get much knitting done last night because I was stuck at Bill's house. He was replacing my brakepads for me and before he finished, he got a fire call. I was hoping he'd just ignore it and finish the job, but when I heard "car on fire" and "driver trapped inside", I knew there's no way he'd miss that call. Boys can't miss a chance to use the jaws of life. After that call another call came in, so he ended up being gone for 4 hours. Yikes! Luckily I had that sock in the car, so I knit and chatted with Beth and the kids and played Barbies with Katie. so fun! :-)

Despite the potential embarassment, I thought I'd share this picture of Finbar:



That's him sitting underneath the dining room table. I'm pretty sure he thinks he's a wolf and that's his den. I bought that dog bed for Fiona, but she likes sleeping on Finbar's bigger pillow-type bed better, so I moved that bed under the table. Fiona lays in there more than Finbar, but occasionally he sprawls across it, despite the fact it's way too small for him. As you can see, both of the dogs are filthy and have made the wall hideous where they lean on it. I do get them bathed at the kennel pretty regularly and Fiona gets baths for her allergies very regularly, but they like to roll around outside....

Fun!

We've had a couple of really fun days around here.

Tuesday night Bill and Beth invited me to go bowling with them and their kids at Tuttles. This is a fun place for a family bowling night. There are bumpers on any lane for the kids, their shoes go down to a very small size and they have 6 pound balls. I started out very poorly, bowling better than only the 3 year old. As usual, I got better as the night wore on and I had a chance to win with my last ball, but choked, so I came in 2nd. Not too bad after actually falling down on the lane after the first ball. Yeah, I'm a graceful one!

Bill had Red for the afternoon yesterday, so decided to see this:



I LOVED it! By far the best Batman movie and Christian Bale is the best Batman. After doing this movie with Christian Bale, I don't know how Katie Holmes would fall in love with Tom Cruise. The writing and dialog were great. The acting was really, really good. Christian Bale played Batman with the right amount of anger and menace and Bruce Wayne with the perfect mix of charm, charisma and entitlement. Gary Oldman was also awesome as Officer Gordon (before he was Commish). The tone of the movie is perfect - it's very realistic (well, as realistic as a man running around dressed like a bat can be) instead of the cartoony stuff of the last few Batmans. It's the best comic-book based movie I've seen. I thought it was much better than Spiderman 2. Of course, I've always found Batman the most compelling super hero and I love the director, Christopher Nolan.

I finally finished the last bit of the original yarn for Florentine Flattery. I managed to get a button band on all of the most exposed pieces. I'll have to finish the button bands with the new yarn and see how I can piece those button band segments together. I'm going to try to buy buttons today and then maybe I can finish this project up on Sunday. I've got Father's Day plans so I don't know how much time I'll be able to spend on it, but I'm highly motivated!

Knitting Keeps Me Grounded

Knitting provides many things for me. It calms me down when I'm aggitated or angry. It provides hours of entertainment when I'm bored. It gives me something to do with my hands instead of smoking or eating (although I manage to eat quite a bit already). It makes me happy to handle yarn and look at the beautiful colors. It provides a sense of accomplishment when I do something well. It has brought me into some fellowship that I love - knitters in my community and in blogland. It also keeps me humble. Just when I think I'm a master knitter, the knitting kicks my ass.

Last week I showed you I was nearly done with the back of Lucky. I was working on it Thursday night when Michael and Jessica were over. I had only one more row to go when Michael asked when he could go to bed (he was sleeping on the couch). Of course, I answered with the knitter's refrain - as soon as I finish this row. Problem was, I had the wrong stitch count. Closely exam the knitting - in the last row of clovers I managed to make a 4 leaf clover. I'd leave it and figure something else out if I had done it at the top of the clover so it REALLY looked like a lucky clover. Unfortunately, I put it on the bottom row so there were three leaves on the bottom. ARGH! I ripped down to that row again, finally managed to get all the stitches back on the needles correctly. Such is knitting. I finished up the back and started one of the fronts last night.

Last night I started the final piece of Mariah:



Blast it! Another mistake!! Can you spot it? Let's take a closer look:



I forgot to keep the edge stitches in garter stitch on the right front. NOOOOOOOO!!! OK. I did most of that front in one long evening at SNB, so I could just rip it all up and re-knit it. I'm so sick of these projects, though. I'm having problems with my mantra - it's the proces... it's the process... I could knit a little strip in garter stitch and sew it on. I could also rip out the left front and do an applied i-cord to both edges. The big problem is that I'm supposed to continue this up to the edge of the hood. So, I'll have to mull this for a couple of days before I bite the bullet. What would y'all do?

Non-Knitting Rant

Since I've got my rant on, I'm going to keep going. Who says PBS is a liberal network? Sunday morning while I'm making brunch I turn on PBS and it's some Wall Street Journal show. It's a panel of 4 members of the editorial board of the WSJ. One of the issues they're talking about is the pharmacist rights issue that I'm very interested in, so I was curious what they'd say and kept watching. What a joke this show is. First they talked about something else, which I can't for the life of me remember, but of course they all agreed. Duh! The editors of the WSJ are all going to take a conservative viewpoint on any issue. When you have every guest providing EXACTLY the same point of view, how helpful or informative is that? Why not just have one editor? Then they get to the pharmacist topic and I think, "if these guys are truly conservative, they won't like the religious right dictating access to healthcare". No. All of them agreed that pharmacists should be able to determine what meds they dispense. This despite an actual balanced lead in story showing patients who were unable to get birth control or Plan B because there is only one pharmacist in town and a physician talking about how there's only a short period during which Plan B is effective. One of the editors actually used a restaurant analogy - if you don't like one restaurant you don't have to go there, so if you don't like one pharmacy, you can choose another. WHAT? If this guy really can't see a difference between medical care and french fries, I fear for the analytical future of the WSJ. You do not see a show on Fox News featuring all members of Air America Radio, so I don't want to hear anyone comparing Fox News to PBS ever again.

Lovely Day

It's days like today that make you glad to live in Minnesota! Yesterday was a little more rainy, but I had a great time at Minnehaha Coffee, knitting with Kerry. I FINALLY finished all the pieces of Florentine Flattery. I was so excited!! I ended up staying up really, really late, working on finishing. I sewed the two shoulders together and then started the buttonband. I had enough of the original color to make the front left button band. I'm going to try to make the part of the right button band that shows. Here's how she looks:



Here's a closeup of the buttonhole band:



I'm very happy with the picked up stitches. I'm going to have to go shopping for buttons this week. I want something very plain that won't draw a lot of attention to the buttonbands and don't have anything that fits in the bill in my button stash.

After I was up so late, I was pretty groggy when I woke up this morning. The first thing I saw was Fiona, laying next to the bed on her back, with her feet up in the air. Her head was away from the bed, so I couldn't figure out at first what that big lump of black and white fur was. When I finally woke up enough to figure out it was Fiona, I worried that she was dead because she wasn't moving at all. Happily, she was just asleep, in a crazy position!

By popular acclaim (ok, one request in my comments), here's a photo of my knitting books book shelf:



They're not organized in any meaningful way, which is somewhat embarrassing for someone like me. I put the shelves in at different lengths, so they are mostly organized by size. Those black binders at the top are my "knitting diary". I record information about every project I knit. I'll probably move more of those magazines out of the bottom shelf when I buy any more books. I've already moved all of my "Vogue Knitting"s into a separate box. The black binders next to the bookcase are my last two knitting diaries, for easy access to update. The bright green dish on top of the bookcase is my "snips" container - I throw any tails I cut off into there.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I had considered not signing up for Secret Pal 5. It can be kind of a hassle to figure out what to get, especially if you and your pal aren't a lot a like. Plus, you've gotta put it all together in a box and go to the post office, and I'm incredibly lazy. But, it is so much fun to pick out little gifts and of course to see that envelope or box on my desk when I come in to the office....

I'm so glad I signed up, because my SP is incredible! I got a nice box lined in beautiful purple tissue paper and filled with goodies:



Yum! Yum! Yum! I LOVE those Lindt Lindor Truffles, so I can't wait to dig in. I even managed to wait long enough to bring the whole thing home and take a photo - very self-disciplined of me, don't you think? The fun doesn't stop there, though. After all that chocolate, I got some fun soap to clean my fingers with:



Isn't that tin cute? I'll definitely be using that again after I finish up the soap. She also included some of my favorite knitting tools, beaded stitch markers:



Aren't they beautiful? I love beaded stitch markers so much! They make me happy every time I slip one from one needle to the next. The little ladybug one in the middle is adorable! My absolute favorite, thing, however, is my new prized possession:



Isn't it AWESOME???? I couldn't be more tickled! I just love combining two of my favorite things - Gromit and knitting! I just heard that there's going to be a new W&G movie coming out and I can't wait to see it!!

Secret Pal - THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I can't even express how happy these gifts have made me. I'm gonna enjoy this for a long time!

I didn't get to use my stitch markers yet because I had family in town last night. My sister's mom (my dad's ex-wife), who I still call my step-mom, was in town last night for a wedding. My brother and his kids and I met up with her at Outback Steakhouse for dinner. We were joined by her boyfriend, her sister (my aunt) and her niece (my cousin). My cousin also had her 8 month old baby boy along. He was SOOOOO adorable! Huge baby with such kissable chubby cheeks. I returned the pictures my stepmom lent me to download into my dad's digital frame, so we also spent some time looking at them together and laughing at our horrible clothing, unfortunate hairstyles and gigantic eyeglasses. There were a lot of pictures of my brother and my cousin playing together when they were really little and now here they both are, all grown up with kids of their own. Seems impossible! It was a really fun night and time flew by much too quickly.

Auntie Time

My brother's electricity went off in the big storm on Tuesday night (it just came back about 2 hours ago), so I had my niece and nephew over for a sleepover. Michael was engrossed in cartoons on Thursday morning:



No, he hadn't brushed his hair, either. Jessica looks pretty sad about the whole thing:



I'm happy because she's wearing the fluffy flip flops I made her last summer. I thought they'd fall apart after about a month. You can also see the very edge of my knitting book bookcase - which is filled to the brim. I either need to stop buying knitting books (yeah, that's going to happen) or get a bigger bookcase.

The day got more fun for everyone when we went to Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America. I wish I had remembered my camera, because I could have gotten some good shots of them on the bumper cars and hanging upside down in the moon ball. After that I had to go to a meeting, then we met up with Greg at Lion's Tap. Definitely one of the Top Five hamburgers in the Twin Cities. I had bid won some gift certificates at the Wing Ding, so our dinner also supported a battered woman's shelter.

Thursday night they spent at their Mom's house and now they can finally come back home again and not have to sit in the dark and high heat!

Summer Returns

Working with teenagers is a challenge sometimes... Monday night I relaxed and finished up the left side of Mariah:



One more side, then I can join them together and start the yoke. I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, by the time it's done, I won't be able to wear it, because it was over 90 degrees yesterday. Wow. Two weeks ago I was worrying about whether I'd need to turn the furnace on in June. How little did I know....

Rubber Stamping

Last night I took a Hero Arts rubber stamping class at Archiver's. We made 4 different cards using current HA stamps:



Upper left - we learned how to ink a stamp with different colors for a multi-color stamp look. We were using those new chalk ink stamps that I talked about a couple of weeks ago.

Upper right - water color pencils. I learned how to do this technique when I took my first rubberstamping class and bought the supplies. In the mean time, I sort of forgot how to do it, and have never done it again. Now that I remember, I think I'll use this technique more in the future. I think it looks really cool and pretty.

Lower left - We learned how to paint with the chalk ink stamp pad right on the card to make that background square. I kind of like it.

Lower right - obvious I've already done this technique. In the class, we used these foam rubber daubers to apply the chalk ink to the paper and that worked MUCH better than a q-tip. I actually now like these ink pad better than actual chalks and probably won't use my chalks again.

Summer Storms

I've been very envious of everyone's peony pictures in blogland. My peonies weren't opening and weren't opening. Last night after work I was in the back with the dogs and saw a bit of the white, so I figured that they'd probably open today or tomorrow. When I went out there at the end of the night again, they were already open. Amazing! I was all excited to take pictures for my blog this morning. Then we got a hellacious storm last night. It was so loud and electricity went out. Over 90 degrees? Summer thunderstorms? Tornado warnings? Yep, it's summer! As I suspected, when I went out to take pictures this morning, the peony bush was flattened:



Oh well. I cut some of the big flowers off and put them in a vase now that the Lilies of the Valley are dead:

Monday again

I had such a nice weekend. I'm just loving the warm weather. It's awesome to be able to walk outside without a coat and barefoot. As negative as the winter weather can get by March, we do tend to really, really appreciate the nice days like this.

After such a hectic week, I just chilled at home on Friday night. I'm still spending quite a bit of time putting together Beaded Necklace kits. I had absolutely nothing on my calendar for Saturday. LOVE that! I managed to actually clean the house. All that's left is my bedroom. I actually managed to work the gigantic pile of laundry down to a big pile. I watched a couple of my Netflix DVDs - Sex and the City and Coupling. How much fun is that? I did a little knitting too. I am almost done with the back of the hearts sweater:



I'm hoping it'll even out a bit when I block it out. This thing is way too big for a 1-2 year old. The cover photo shows a really oversized sweater, so I should have known and made the smaller size. Oh well, hopefully that just means it'll last a long time. Hopefully Saralee will be happy with it.

Finbar was quite amusing me on Saturday too. I have an enclosed front porch. When we moved from our old office to our new office (well over a year ago), things were "temporarily" moved onto my porch for a while. The stuff that I actually moved back into the new office were put in the far corner and stuff that we haven't needed for the last 18 months were on the outside - yeah, that's way backwards. My porch is still chock a block full of stuff, which doesn't make me very happy, but not unhappy enough to actually do something about it so far. Anyway, Finbar managed to pick his way between boxes into the corner where there's some empty space and hide out:



I also got to catch up on a lot of my blog reading. I fell behind quite a bit when I was trying to get so much done before we left for Maryland, the time we were in MD and then trying to catch up from being gone. It's been a month since MDS&W, so that's a lot of posts to catch up on! Finbar was sitting as close as he possibly could while I was sitting at the computer, reading:



Sunday was Bill and Beth's "wedding" reception at the Science Museum. It's hard enough to go to a wedding as a single girl. It's really hard when it's your ex-boyfriend's wedding. With all of his family there. And his friends, a lot of whom you don't really like. Happily, since it was at the Science Museum, I was able to convince my nephew, Michael, to come along. He really likes Red and likes the museum, so it ended up not being so bad. I was able to concentrate on Michael during the social part and then when we went out to the museum, Michael had a blast. He's such a smart kid! I had to drag him from exhibit to exhibit because he was so engrossed in the experiments and such. Afterwards we met up with my brother and Michael's sister for dinner.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the AK Get together at Yarn Cafe. I didn't mention that I didn't walk out empty-handed. I bought some really great patterns:



I also got a couple of patterns that were free with purchase of yarn from Plymouth. I got this:



for a hat that's knit with Stars (a novelty yarn) that I already had in my stash. I also picked up this:



to knit a little felted bag. Not so bad as Stash Enhancement goes. I can't tell you how much I want to cast on for a new project, but I've gotta finish at least two of the projects I'm already working on before I do that.

Thank goodness for short weeks

This week has been unbelievably busy. I know part of it is because it's been a short week, but I can hardly believe it's already Friday. Thank goodness!

I can findly post pictures of what I've been working on the last couple of weeks:



This is the pattern that I did for the June Kit for the Beaded Knitting Group. I knit up a bunch of samples and gathered all the materials to put kits together. It's been fun, but very, very time consuming. I've gotten some great ideas from the colors other people have put together, so I may need to knit up a couple more necklaces.

On Tuesday night I went to the TC SnB get together at Caribou at Larpenteur and Lexington. We had a nice time knitting and chatting - come on over and join us if you're in the neighborhood on Tuesday nights. I almost finished one of the fronts of Mariah while I was there.

I also worked on Lucky this week. I'm getting close to finishing the back of that too:



Slowly but surely things are coming along with this. Maybe by the time it starts to get cool in the fall again I'll finish this up. I'm a pathetically slow knitter....

I definitely won't be able to wear it around here right now. A week ago it was in the 50s and now it's in the 80s. Wowza! We had a couple of days of 60s/low 70s, so I guess that was spring and now it's summer. I think I've unpacked all my summer clothes, now. I was missing one big box with a lot of my summer suits, which left me about two outfits to wear to court, kind of a panic! I still have more winter clothes to pack away, so I guess I'll have to go pick up some more Rubbermaid boxes and free up some closet space. I live in a very small old house built when people had 3 outfits, so there's no closet space. We have way too much crap these days. Anyway, Finbar has been enjoying the warm weather:



Doesn't he look crazy? He just finished rolling around on his back.