newlyweds

They're back!!

I got a call from the new Mrs. Jennifer Tan last night - she and Kevin are back in the U S of A! Hooray!!

Incidentally, on Friday I got my photos developed from their wedding.

Miss Jen getting dressed.

The "altar" on the beach.

You may kiss the bride. ...And there's a lot of sunlight giving a weirdness to the photo...

A bunch of us from Pittsburgh - see the Good Bias shrug I'm sporting!! Yay!

Jen and me.

Ruth (not me) taking a picture of the newlyweds.

And, after a long, fun reception full of crazy dancing...

Ruth and Tim's one year anniversary night at the beachouse where all the groomsmen stayed. Awww.

knitting "knews"

I'm going to attempt to give knitting updates on Tuesdays from here on out...

Many things on the knitting front this week:

After finishing the Good Bias shrug a couple weeks ago, I've worn it a couple times and have decided that it needs some help. The back is way to wide. I considered taking out the center back seam, ripping out a few rows from each side, and reseaming, but the sleeves are also a bit too short. Thus, I'm seaming up the sleeves a little bit more. Not the perfect solution, but I think it will work okay. I sewed a bit of one seam on the bus yesterday but haven't checked the new fit. Sleeves seem to be a continual problem for me!! Either the length is wrong or the armscye is incorrect.

Fortunately, the sleeves on the Fairly Easy Fair Isle cardigan sweater are pretty good. Maybe another inch or so would have been better, but it works (I just like my sleeves extra long). At least my arm fits into the armhole without getting squeezed! I finished knitting on the button and button-hole bands (added an extra button-hole because I added some length to the body of the sweater), wove in all the extra ends, and then headed out to find some buttons. The first store I went to didn't have what I was looking for...so I went to Jo-Ann on Saturday night. They didn't have quite what I wanted, either - I was looking for large periwinkle squares or circles - but I found some wood-look buttons that I thought would work well if sewn on with the periwinkle yarn. I was right! Another finished object for me! Below is a picture of my FEFI cardi in its new home - my freezing cold lab.



Also while at Jo-Ann to find buttons I decided to check out the price of Wool-Ease. I've decided to use Wool-Ease for a Maine Islands sweater called Starry Night which I fell in love with soon after I learned how to knit. Now I feel like I actually possess the skills to knit the beloved sweater! I was sooooo excited when I got to Jo-Ann and found out that the Wool-Ease (worsted) was ON SALE!!! I had been watchin the ads from Jo-Ann and Michaels for months lookig for a sale on Wool-Ease, and here it was, unadvertised. I felt so lucky. I grabbed the balls I needed and started swatching on size 8's aiming for 18 stitches/4 inches.

I had yet another experience with the Aran sweater that contributed to the love-hate relationship we have. I will really LOVE it when this sweater is done, and I hate that it's going to take forever. It takes extra long when I work the wrong stitch, as I did last week in the super-easy braided cable, and don't realize it until 4 rows (or more) up the pattern and then have to rip out the stitches. I'm getting better at weaving my needle into the row that I want to rip down to; however, it's still difficult for me to keep the needle on the same row the whole way across. After this unfortunate rip and do-over event, I've been going pretty well. Worked the Aran on the bus most days last week. I can get about 4 rows done per day that way...not very much, but every little bit matters.

And finally, the moment I've been waiting for...Knit One, the new yarn store by my house, is OPEN!!! I saw a huge "OPEN" flag outside their door yesterday on the bus home from work, and even though I still needed to go to the store, buy powdered sugar, make frosting, and frost cupcakes for my Bible study that was going to begin in an hour, I still hopped off at the stop near the store and dashed to their front door. They were not really open; the door was locked. They're actually closed on Mondays; the flag was more an in-general announcement. "We're open for business...the store just isn't open today..." But the nice lady unlocked the door and let me in. SO MUCH YARN. And it's spread out, too, so I don't feel like I'm going to knock over a whole case of skeins as I turn around. I am SOOOO looking forward to going there and hopefully just sitting and knitting. I hope they let people do that. I bought the latest Vogue Knitting magazine (I felt I should buy something since they'd opened the door for me!) and took delighted note of some cute totes made of recycled sweaters. I wanna make one...! Much joy and celebrating.

Oh, one last thing - I picked up Knitting from the Netherlands from the library today. My ancestors are Dutch, and I've always been intrigued by traditional patterns. I excitedly paged through the book over lunch today and found lots of things that will be neat to try out!

undisciplined

Sometimes I really have to laugh at myself because of the situations I put myself in.

Recently I've been learning a lot about discipline and why it's so important. I want to be disciplined in reading my Bible, praying, staying in contact with friends and family, sleeping, and working. I read something almost every day that reminds me that I should be disciplined and that it takes work but will pay off in the end. I've come to realize that I tend towards the notion (thanks to my upbringing in spoiled America) that I can have a high-paying job where I do not much actual work and get to take lots of vacations, and that I can have it NOW. Society says, "If you want it, go to the store and get it...even if you don't have the money for it." That's rubbed off on my view of life in general. It's very undisciplined.

Thus, despite my constant reminders about it, I still stay up until 1:30a.m. (when I have to get up at 6), play games instead of buy groceries or at least call my mom who just came back from a trip and had a job interview, and don't eat dinner (fried zucchini doesn't count as dinner, although it feels like it in my stomach). And what happens? I'm tired (although I amazingly was wide awake at 6...), I have no food (like...seriously in my refrigerator there's really old salsa that I should throw away, leftover baklava from Friday night, lunch meat, and a piece of American cheese. That's it. I'm dead serious.) including no food for lunch other than a sandwich, apple, and carrots, and I missed out on a lot of exciting stuff with my mom that I found out boringly via email. PLUS I didn't do any of those I-want-to-prove-I'm-disciplined things I mentioned above.

Why, why, why?

On a brighter note, I did put forth a lot of disciplined effort in finishing the Good Bias shrug over the weekend. I seamed the two sides (using Kitchener stitch) yesterday on the bus (well...I started it at a million o' clock at night on Sunday and finished it on the bus...) and just need to sew up the arms now. Yay!!!!

AND - this is unbelievable -- I called up WEBS, which is where I had put in my latest (June 22) and still standing order for yarn that was on backorder to make a skirt -- and it's in and should be shipped today or so. YAY!!!!! Now...I can start on something that I might possibly be able to finish before it gets too cold to wear. Brown Sheep Yarn Co. - I love you, but you really gotta up that production.

Wait...wasn't I just saying something about being a demanding American?

P.S. Check out my friend "Al"'s blog.

can't think

I can't come up with anything very interesting to write in these few moments I have available to type. I'm getting to the end of my shrug, which is good news. Need to find a new project to work on while riding the bus. I could, I guess, pick up that dratted Aran sweater again. It hasn't gotten big enough to be hard to carry around...since I have to rip it apart every 2 weeks when I do work on it - grrr grrr. However, this weekend my roommates are bringing back to me the first Harry Potter book. I've never read any of them and decided I'd give one a shot. So possibly I'll be devouring the pages on the bus if it's a gripping as everyone says it is. We'll see.

hello, my name is grumpy

Maybe it's hormones, maybe it's lack of patience, maybe it's a bad attitude. But I was not very excited to be at pick-up for hockey last night. First of all I hadn't realized that our ice time started 45 minutes later than it had the week before, and nobody had pointed that out to me. So I was there 45 minutes early. And I was there 45 minutes later...which meant I faced 45 minutes less sleep. As the ice arena is 30 minutes from my home, I had no intention of going back, and so I utilized the time to work on my knitting, which fortunately I had taken along with me. The first half is now done. "Woo hoo" I say with little enthusiasm.

And then... And then when we finally do get on the ice it's this one guy trying his darndest to shoot the puck through the center of my body, I swear. I don't really mind taking shots like this. They're strong, clean shots (although I can't figure out why players - particularly guys - think they're exceptionally well-planned shots since they go RIGHT AT THE GOALIE...) and are easy to stop (see previous parentheses), so it makes the goalie feel like he/she is doing a good job. That wasn't my issue with this particular dude. I was much more frustrated by the fact that as he went flying around the ice with his show-offy shots, there was always at least one gal who could have gotten an even better shot if he had just dumped the puck back to her. I was mad. Wasting the team's time as they prepare for a tournament, wasting my time as in real games people don't usually get non-stop breakaways, and being a conceited jerk trying to impress I'm not quite sure who. I got off the ice. I couldn't take it. I thought I was going to have to sock him.

And then when I jumped back on the ice the teams had switched sides and then I got about zero shots and just stood there most of the time. Overall not a very good experience. And I was crabby for having been at the ice arena for so long and now having to drive back home at 11p.m.

Grr.

I did, however, find out that the ice arena has curling. I'd love to try that sometime.

I long for the "good old days" when I had a goalie coach to work with. I never realized how lucky I was to grow up with Mr. Townsend who would make sure he or another coach was working with me on skate saves or keeping my floating stick on the ice (bad habit I still have...boo) while the other girls worked on passing and plays and whatnot. In college I was also so blessed - there was an ex-college goalie who came to most of our practices and worked Melissa (the other goalie) and I until I thought we were going to pass out. Those were the days...

bias update

I've been working on my shrug on the bus and have finished the sleeve part of it and am into the back part. It's going very quickly. YAY! I really like the way it's looking and feeling. It's now 32% complete.

I also learned that using the knit-on cast on was a great method to use. It's recommended for soft, lace edges. That's precisely what I've got. Amazing... I'm lucky.

There is a new knitting store opening up the street from me in a couple weeks. The grand opening is, of course, the weekend of Jen and Kevin's wedding, but supposedly the store should actually be up and running beforehand. I look forward to it.

I purchased the newest edition of Interweave Knits. Yay. So many things to knit, so little time (and money)...

a good bias

I've finally selected something to wear for my friends' Jen's and Kevin's wedding in September!

I was originally planning to make a lovely outfit with a knit skirt, sewn blouse, and knit shrug to offset any late-summer ocean breezes on the Cape, but yarn manufacturers foiled my plans. Two colors of the yarn I selected for my skirt have been on backorder at every place I try to buy it from. Even if the yarn arrived on my doorstep today I hightly doubt I could get the skirt finished by September since I'm not a terrifically fast knitter.

So I have been contemplating something else to wear, and I've decided to dig out an old dress and make a shrug to go with it instead. I never, EVER wear dresses (in fact, when I wore said dress to church this weekend everyone asked me what the special occasion was...), so nobody will know that this dress is old. It's blue and flowy and I think will fit the ocean scene quite well. I need to think about shoes, though.

At any rate, the point of the post in my new knitting project, which is entitled "A Good Bias" and comes from the Spring 2005 issue of Interweave Knits, which is my favorite knitting magazine. I chose this project for this particular wedding outfit because it covers the back pretty well (my dress has no back), it has a lacy but not overly lacy pattern, and it seems like it will knit up really quick. The latter is the biggest reason I picked it...

I cast on with the knit-on cast on method (haven't done that before...not sure if I should have used it for this particular project, but I neglected to consult my cast-on-chooser reference book first) on Saturday night after buying some cheap Lion Cotton from Michaels (which I'll also probably use to make some dish cloths or something from my getting-married friends). So far, so good. It's a fun but simple pattern and is going quickly. Yay! I'm currently 8% of the way done.

Here's a picture of what it will look like when it's done, except mine will be white: