My Wedding Quilt

This is the quilt my mother made for G and me for our wedding. I adore it. (This is not turning into a quilt blog, I just happen to have a few quilt-related posts lately.)



My wedding was last summer, but the wedding quilts are usually about a year late. I didn't mind! It was something to look forward to! I requested the beige and white color theme and I am so blown away by how beautiful it came out! It is pretty and girly enough for me w/o being too pink for G! It looks so lovely in our sunny, white bedroom. And it will look so pretty under other quilts. I want to have a bunch of "accent" quilts to change it up throughout the year. For example, in December, I could drape over it the Christmas quilt that mom made for my wedding shower. Also, I am working on a pink and green quilt that will be pretty over it in the spring. And if I someday make something with oranges for fall, it will look nice too.



Here's a close up of the center log-cabin motif:




I absolutely love it!

I Still Knit

I just don't blog ... as often as I'd like. First the pictures:

Finished Monkeys:

Yarn: C*eye*ber Fiber purchased at Stitches East 06.
I started these socks in May! The first sock took me about two months. The second, about a week. In my defense, betweent the time I started and finished that first sock, I also bought a house, painted, removed carpet and wallpaper from and refinished wood floors from said house, packed, moved and then unpacked. Also, I got distracted by trying to finish this in time for my mom's b-day in July.



I didn't finish for the b-day deadline, and then almost finished for the Aug. vacation deadline. I had about 20 border stitches left, but I didn't have a way to block on vacation. So I got it done for the Sept. trip.
The pattern is the Half Pi Shawl from Rosie Knits. I did a few extra yarn over rows, made it a bit longer and added the border, which is from a different shawl altogether. The border is from a pattern in the book Knitter's Stash. The yarn is unknown from A Good Yarn in Fell's Point.

Mom loved it and is planning to bring to Hawaii in Dec. when she accompanies me on a work trip.

Also, in August, I whipped up this shawl for my mother-in-law.



She gave me the yarn for Christmas last year. So the shawl will be her Christmas gift this year. The yarn was a bunch of different kinds of yarn all tied together. She really liked the yarn, so I think she'll like the shawl. It was actually a really fun knit. I liked seeing what yarn would come next. I actually brought this to stitch n bitch with Heather and Sarah who gave me the great idea to add beads to the ends so it will look intentional that they are not woven in. I wasn't sure what to do about them. First of all, the yarn was all attached with knots and it is so open that weaving wouldn't work. And I just didn't want to weave in that many ends! But I knew if I didn't find a way to artfully deal with them, my MIL would wear the shawl and some snarky knitter would comment about the ends (snarky knitters, no, never!). I was actually a bit aprehensive about bringing the shawl to the snitch n bitch b/c horror! novelty yarn! But I wanted advice so I said, screw it. And they were nice! Didn't sneer at all! :)

Would I make this shawl again? Maybe. If someone else wanted one as a gift, I might do it. It was a nice break after socks and last. Such a FAST knit. And one Christmas gift done! That is the best part.

I had grand plans of blogging from last week's work trip, but I couldn't bear to turn on the computer in the evenings in my hotel room.

Instead, I did a bit of shopping. Got some of the new Lane Bryant jeans. I like! I think I am red. Or yellow, whatever the middle color is. The new sizing is super lameo. Like by calling them 1-7 or whater, we're going to forget that we're really a 14 or above? Eh... they make my ass look great and that is all I really care about. Plus they are long. Almost too long.

I had dinner with my dear friend V, her husband and baby girl. V lived across the hall from me in my dorm freshman year. Her daughter is so cute! She didn't want to eat much while I was there, except for the donut holes that were dessert. At one point she had one in each hand. V told her to put one back, so she bit one and put that one back! What a smartie! :)

And I went to Lakeside Fibers, which is a wonderful yarn store in Madison, Wis. First, it is huge: there are three big rooms full of yarn. Second, it has almost every major yarn and tons of selection in the different fibers. You know how some LYS have just one kind of cotton in the summer? Lakeside has several, plus bamboo and of course wool.

Third, it has the great cafe overlooking Lake Menona. I had my dinner there Wed. night and then knit for an hour or so. There was a class going on at the same time and I think a stitch n bitch too. I really should go every time I am in town. I only bought one small skein of Manos cotton stria in brown. I already had 8 skeins. Lakeside had just one and I thought I should get it to give me a bit more yardage.

I restrained myself because, well, I realy don't need to buy yarn. And b/c Friday started the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival. And Friday after work, I had to drive from Madison to Milwaukee, conveniently going right by the fairgrounds where the festival was. I did make a short detour. It is not nearly as big as MDS&W but the sellers were all new to me. I was good in that I only bought from one booth, Michigan- (I think) based Briar Rose... but it was a fairly big purchase. The yarn in the Totally Autumn pattern from the new Knitty is Briar Rose. They had beautiful colorways and lots of different weights and fibers. I got some alpaca, merino, silk that is heaven! The owner I also ordered some Grandma's Blessing (superwash sportweight merino). They didn't have enough of the color that I wanted, so the owner had me pick my favorite skein and is going to dye up more of it for me! How cool is that. I was really impressed by the yarn, the owners, the samples, the booth, everything.

There was another Michigan shop that had some very tempting alpaca wool blends but not enough in the color that I wanted and.

So that was a big yarny detour!

The rest of the trip was fun too: I attended a wedding on Sat. for one of high school/college friends. We were roommates senior year in a bat-invested third floor flat. Our other roommate, and one of my best friends, A came down from Minneapolis w/ her husband too. I had so much fun seeing them. The wedding was lovely and really simple. It was at a park. One of our HS/college friends got ordained online to marry them! She was great. The bride's mother is an interior designer so the park building was really lovely inside. They made dozens of paper cranes to hang from the ceiling, had paper latterns strung. The bride's father made small bud vases for the tables, which were also the party favors! It was really, really lovely.

And Sat. was also my baby brother's 18th birthday. He was at an all-day volleyball tournament, so we celebrated with brunch at home Sunday morning.

I can't believe I squeezed all that in to a Tue-Sun. trip!

Mom's Shawl

This has been claiming most of my knitting time. I am on a deadline!

It's a super simple knit. But w/ more than 500 stitches per row, I takes me 45 minutes to knit one.

At the Columbia Knitting Meet-up last Wed. night, I did two rows and I was there from 7:00 until after 9:00! (By the way, this group, through meetup.com, is really fun! I've wanted to check it out for many months, and finally did last week. I know there are a lot of knitting groups in Columbia (at least three!), but if you are looking to knit on Wed. night, check them out. They meet at Borders. They are a very friendly and fun group of women. I will be back ... though not every week because Columbia is a bit far.)

G and I have been watching the Sopranos, courtesy of Blockbuster Total Access. I'd never seen an episode until a few weeks ago. Never. I thought it would be too violent for me, but so far it hasn't been to bad. I am really enjoying it. But it's a bit frustrating to watch an entire episode and only knit one freaking row!

Still, the shawl is growing:



I leave for vacation with my family on Friday and need to have it blocked and ready to give!

A Very Good Birthday Plus A House!

Monday was my 31st birthday and it was lovely and low-key.

My brother, sister-in-law, niece M (3) and nephew A (6 months) came to stay with us in our two bedroom apartment that is currently filled with boxes. It was cozy (which, incidentally, is M's favorite word. Everything is "cozy" from her "cozy towel" to dry her hands in the bathroom to the "cozy sofa" to the the "cozy bear." Adorable.)

It was such fun having them and we did so much! We went to the pool at my apartment, to the Baltimore zoo, to see our new house (oh, make that our "cozy house). I played restaurant with M several times. G even got into the game one night to play the chef at a "Japanese restaurant." He really outdid himself when he brought us a "birthday cake" (aka a piece of bread with the candles from my cake stuck in it. Suzanne said that would now have to be repeated at home.) M loved it.

G and Suzanne made me a delicious chocolate and peanut butter cake. Two pieces left for tonight yeah!

I had some lovely gifts. Of course, my gifts from G was some of the yarn I bought at MD Sheep and Wool. Plus we went shopping and got these cool chairs from Pier One for our new sunporch.



And I got this lovely bag from my mom.



Joe and Suzanne gave me a beautiful purple necklace. How gorgeous!



And L outdid herself with this wonderful book



and this amazing yarn! That's Seasilk in Rose Garden. How lucky am I?



But the best birthday present is our new house, on which we closed last night! This picture is from a few weeks ago, when the azaleas were in bloom:



And the backyard w/ dogwoods! It is so beautifully landscapped. I am so excited that I don't have to start from scratch. Plus it has so many of my favorite flowers: roses, daffodils, irises, lillies-of-the-valley and many more. It reminds me of my mother's yard, which I've always found lovely.



We bought the house from the original owners who lived there for 50 years. It is in beautiful condition, though we will be taking out the pink carpet and painting over the pink walls. It's a good house. It seems happy. And we saw it completely by accident.

We were going to look at a house on the same street, but at the bottom of the hill. Well, our realtors turned on the street, saw the Century 21 sign and stopped. We were at the door before they realized it wasn't the right address! But they had the code to get in so we decided to look at it, why not? Even w/ the pink carpet and walls, we could see that it was a lovely house. I remember standing in the backyard, looking around thinking "this feels like home." Only it wasn't so much those words as a feeling of being home. Hard to explain. It's a soul house (you know, like a soul mate).

Anyway, we saw a lot of other houses (including a beautiful one in a rat-infested neighborhood--thank goodness G likes to strike up converstation with the neighbors!) and did lots of homework. So we didn't pick solely on emotion. But we love the house and are so glad that we got it. As the previous owner said last night after we told her the story, "It was more than just luck" that we found it.

So here we are: the happy owners.

Other crafts

I worked on my quilt a bit this week. What quilt? you say. Yeah, that's how I feel about it too.



It was two years when my mom came to visit and, along with L, we went to a great fabric store in Annapolis and both L and I bought fabric to start a Yellow Brick Road quilt. We cut out strips and then we stopped. Fast forward to yesterday, and I needed to pack up my machine for our move. Well, I decided I couldn't pack it w/o using it a bit first. So I dusted if off (literally, I hadn't used it since last summer) and started to sew some of my strips together and did quite a bit of them.

I love the fabrics I have: all pinks and greens. I can't wait to work on it some more, but it will have to wait until after the move. I am hoping to set up a nice spot for it in the new house.

It'll be my sixth quilt, I think. Well, my first quilt doesn't really count because it was just two different fabrics. Plus I lost it. During one of my 10 or so moves in my 20s, it disappeared. I suspect an ex-boyfriend. So, my second quilt is a lovely strip quilt, mainly in purples. Mom let me "shop" in her stash so I only had to buy a border and back fabric. I love this quilt. It's a large lapquilt. I have also made one of those flannel lapquilts where the seams are on the outside, so the fray. It has a name ... but I forget. Sadly, these are both packed up, so I'll show pictures next month. And I've made two baby quilts, really cute! But I didn't take pictures.

And here is a bag my mom made for my birthday. I love it!



And here's some pictures of really old and beautfil bonsai trees from the National Arboretum. The green one has been "in training" (that is the term they used for the trees) since 1625.

Gifts for Moi

Look what my brother brought me back from his travels in Tibet? Yak yarn! For some reason, I thought yak yarn would be very scratchy, but this is so very soft. And such pretty colors.



Close up shots:







So cool! I am thinking of making a stripey, lacey shawl. No idea about the pattern yet though.

And, I am extremely late in properly thanking bySarah for these lovely stitch markers (there is a fourth hiding somewhere around here). I heart them. If you want some, check out this store.



And an almost finished project: a not-yet-felted tea cozy made from Noro Kureyon.



With the white stripe at the top, followed by the darker green in the tip, it kind of looks like a boob. But felting will probably allow me to make the tip less nipple-shaped. And if not, a boob-shaped cozy is fine for my tea. Kind of appropriate, really.

I am going to MD Sheep and Wool on Saturday! I am tres excited. It's my first time. Last year I was out of town and the year before, I actually tried to go to a yarn shop but it was closed for sheep and wool and I had no idea such an event even existed! But I am ready and have a plan (well, sort of. Ok, no, not at all. I wrote down the yarn I need for a bunch of patterns that I want to make, but I feel like I'll be so overwhelmed that I'll just wonder aimlessly.) But still, super excited. And, since it's my birthday at the end of May, I suggested to G that he NOT go to all the trouble of buying me a birthday present and that I'll just spend a little extra at sheep and wool. Normally, he likes to be very secretive and romantic and think up a very special gift (like a vintage copy of Anne of Green Gables, my favorite childhood book). And it's so sweet. But I am ok w/ not having a big surprise this year if I get to buy more yarn! :)

Catching Up

So, it's been awhile since I really posted anything. I was mostly just lazy. Well ... I was traveling at the beginning of January. And I was sick with a nasty cold for about two weeks. But mostly I just didn't want to upload pictures. I don't know this is such a pain. It really doesn't take too long but I always put it off. I thought of doing it every day for the past few weeks, but I always decided to knit instead.

The good news is I have two projects to show!

But first my Christmas haul. I know it is a little after the fact, but Christmas was good to me, knitting-wise.

My mother-in-law did good. I got a beautiful wood swift from a Washington-based company called Dragonfly Turnings and With Wood, Naturally and a ball winder. Yeah! I spent a couple of days after Christmas winding up a lot of my stash.







She also got me some luscious yarn: three skeins of alpaca from Connecticut-based Twin Gate Farm in a color-way called "Crap Apple." Yum. And she got me three balls of baby blue yarn to make something for my nephews and another ball of different kinds of yarn wound together to make a open garter-stitch shawl. I may work on this and then give it to her for Christmas next year.

From my parents, I got three knitting books (OK, I picked them out so it wasn't really a surprise, but I was excited to finally get them).

And from my brother I got a gift certificate for Knitpicks. And I haven't redeemed it yet! I am waiting til I feel the urge to buy yarn. I guess that is pretty much all the time, but sometimes the urge is very strong and that is what I am waiting for.





So that is it: all in all a pretty good haul.

So since Christmas I have been working on the "Rachel" tunic sweater from Hot Knits (which has some cute patterns, but also a lot of stuff most definitely not hot. Maybe the "hot" in the title refers to how wearing the sweaters will make you feel, cause a lot of them are big, bulky things). I am done with the sleeves and almost done with the back. I using Cascade Eco. So far pretty easy, but as you can see I saved the front for last. I figured that by the time I get to that part I'll have done the math to figure out where to put the short rows. And now that the temps have dropped in Maryland maybe I'll actually finish it and be able to wear it. (We had snow over the weekend, just a dusting but it was pretty. Also a little odd since earlier last week G and I had our windows open all night it was so warm).





And a sock for G with hand dyed yarn.





I had two great knitting group outings this week. On Saturday, the Baltimore Knitting Meetup met at Teavolve in Fells Point. Teavolve was fun and I talked to some very cool knitters. I really like that group because I always meet new people.

And last night I hauled myself out of work a tiny bit early to go to the Columbia knitting group, which is always fun and sometimes wild.

So people are excited about A Tangled Skein. If I hear anything about when it is opening, I'll post about it.