All the news that fit to print

What's happening in my life . . .

Finished the 3 sweaters for niece Samantha's doll, Princess Ballerina.



One hoodie in a light purplish-blue, 1 peach gansey and 1 lilac lace tunic. Sam said she wanted knit clothes for her doll rather than herself for her birthday this year. I'll probably go on a hunt for pants or skirts to coordinate or buy material and make them myself. Gotta use the sewing machine at least once a year, ya know.

Trying to make sure I get a backup trained at work so I can take time off for Ryan's Stitch 'N' Pitch event. (Thanks, Ryan for the link!) Go M's! Rob, Erin, Rebecca, Katherine have agreed to go with me, but I think only Rebecca and I are truly excited about the yarn.

Lisa asked on her blog earlier this week how many projects did we, as knitters, typically work on at the same time. I had to take stock and here's the new lineup:
- Branching Out scarf in yellow silk/wool blend
- Baby blanket in KnitPicks Crayon (blue)
- Hoodie for Erin in Bernat Denim
- Buffalo Plaid blanket in red & black Red Heart for Sean
- Socks in KnitPicks Daffodil colorway

And waiting in the wings:
- The Shoalwater shawl
- Paws to Remember scarf
- Socks in KnitPicks Spring Prairie colorway
- Socks in Cascade 220 oatmeal colored

As for books, I like others in the knitting blogosphere am in process of reading Harry Potter. But I'm also reading Madame Secretary (still!), started Galileo's Daugher and have Life of Pi in the wings. This Tuesday, Jasper Fforde will be at Powell's so I'm going to try to get to that and the week after it gets better.

The Harlot will be in Portland.

Birthday greetings from Vancouver!

Today I'm 36 years old. I'm not 29 for the 8th time. I'm celebrating 36 years of life.

Not bad. And neither is this:



Gifts from the Hubby. Knitter's Stash which already has me planning a few things (Yes, Kim, at least one project for me), Life of Pi which looks to be a very good read and the first season of Friends (I happen to have a couple of other seasons but somehow missed getting Season 1).

After dinner (turkey burgers made by Rob), he went off to the store and I watched Tour de France footage, 30 Days and Clean Sweep (rerun and deleted from TiVo quite quickly).

We went for a 30-minute walk and I came in to blog about the birthday. It's going to be a quick one because I have this waiting for me:



Yum!

Make yourself comfortable, it's been awhile

Picture heavy post ahead!

Mom left on June 29th for San Diego. The weekend prior, Sis 1 of 2 came down with her girls. We decided to have a July birthday party for Mom (3rd), me (6th) and Samantha (29th).

We had cake, wore crowns had fun.


Everyone left on Tuesday, and Wednesday night our water heater threw up. We'd hoped to be able to deal with it on the weekend, but no way. Rob & I stayed home on Thursday and tried to clean up the mess. You can see that we had to remove some of the sheet rock. Luckily, the linoleum extended under the carpet in our closet and we just have to deal with cleaning it.

But we did get a new water heater out of it and gained a little plumbing experience. Gotta find the upside right?

Arrgh! Ewww! Ahhh!

And an upside is also that I finally sent my Dulaan knits. I sent the 3 hats, 2 vests, 1 sweater and 1 scarf shown here. The scarf was a started by niece Samantha who did the first 5 or 6 inches and I finished it for her. I also managed to get another couple of hats banged out one evening.

Rob got them sent out for me and my procrastination cost us, but it's worth it.

and

So now what to do? I've got a hoodie to make for Erin from the new FCEK (the only pattern in there that caught my eye), socks for 3 people, a lace scarf for a friend using the Paws to Remember pattern from FiberTrends, the Shoalwater shawl also from FT, a baby blanket in blue Crayon from Knitpicks, a couple of doll sweaters for Samantha and find something to make for myself. I'm thinking socks at this point.

The weight loss is going slowly but positively. I'm down 10 pounds, but I need to add some walking. I'm so lazy that I just want to knit, I don't want to give up time to other things. But if I don't then I'm hurting myself in the long run.

Short term weight goal: Hit my 10% by Labor Day. Only 9 more pounds to go.