Progress

I've made some progress on the Olympic Sweater. It's about the length of my Mac Mighty Mouse.

Needles: Knit Picks Zepher Acrylic Size US 7
Yarn: Briggs and Little Regal Color Brown Heather
Cast on 180 stitches knit 6 bumps of garter stitch - joined in round increased to 200 stitches stockinette.

Waiting...

Have Yarn, Have needles, Have pattern, Have desire.

When will the fire come? Awesome opening ceremonies, I am enjoying them with bated breath. 180 stitches waiting to be cast on when that torch is freshly ablaze!

Knitting Olympics

The Yarn Harlot announced Knitting Olympics. I will be signing up officially and tracking progress here (prolly crappy mac pics because this is about quantity of knitting time, not quality of blog).

I hope is that this will be an exercise in not only knitting a sweater, but as seeing this blog as what it is: a place for me to document stuff I do for my own future reference.

I'm going to make Elizabeth Zimmerman's Seamless Yoke Sweater following the instructions on the Knitting Workshop DVD my parents got me for Christmas.

The yarn is Briggs and Little "Regal" in a lovely heather brown. The color looks like bright red, magenta, and blue streaks.

New, but kinda lame

So, I do have new knitting -- but don't have pictures. That is the lame part.

New: Paul and I spent a really fun valentines day with a couple friend of ours. A highschool friend of his, along with his fiance, went to the Mall Of America and mini golfed (planned to ride some rides at the amusement park, but the crowds were horrendus). While we were there I saw, then remembered, that there was a knitting/crocheting event going on Knit Out Crochet Too '09 . It was kinda cool to see some fiber going on at MOA (I was there forCrazy Aunt Purl...but I digress).

Some other new: I am going to school at Dakota County Technical College, DCTC, for Graphic Design. It is so fun! I have a photography course, a color theory course, and an intro to the program course. Right now I am really digging the painting and photo developing experiences. I go three times a week and have a 45 minute (each way) commute, which is awesome in our new car! (that doesn't want to be linked to right now, 2005 Mazda 3 hatchback)

Done, Done, and Still So Much to Do!

It's Official! (not according to any government agency yet... but that will come soon enough) I AM EMILY TRANDEM!!

The wedding was FANTASTIC couldn't have gone better (aside from not getting a chance to talk with practically anyone - seems to be a normal complaint from newlyweds though) The weather was sunny, the ceremony was quick and fun, the view from our hotel room was spectacular!

Toronto was AMAZING the city is so alive and clean and surprisingly easy to navigate. We lived it up - really tasty dinners every night, took Lincoln and Cadillac car services to and from the airport and the concert Friday night which was by the airport. Went on a day trip to Niagra falls (it's a little like High School -- everyone should do it at least once) and were cold and wet. We saw some local music at a hole in the wall bar (Paul played - that was cool to see). We saw some non-local music when we went to the Rock Band II concert and saw Panic! at the Disco and Dashboard Confessional (sadly, we got there late and missed Plain White T's and the Cab). It was a pretty fun time.

Our wedding photos are up on the AWESOME photographer's blog lingfoto.com/blog I won't post the direct-to-us link here, because I think all her work is beautiful and worth seeing -- but if you don't want to wade through a bunch of people you don't know -- she has a search bar near the top of the page. The engagement photos are there too -- as well as pictures of my new Brother and Sister in law (Jon and Jenna).

Now all that is left is cleaning the wedding vomit (figurative, of course -- but just as overwhelming) out of the house and garage, changing my last name officially, staging this house and picking out a new one and moving ---- any volunteers ;)

Knitting content will commence when knitting happens.

Toronto!!!!!!

Just booked our honeymoon trip to Toronto! It will not only be our first trip as a married pair, but our first vacation together :D

We are very jump up and down excited!

distract yourself

I just found a new distraction...

Totally Looks Like dot Com


see more famous faces look-a-likes

Celtic Star

Real Amazing Stuff

You read correctly! RAS! You've no doubt heard of RAS - perhaps you believed up to now that that combination of letters was only the beginning to words like: raspberry, rasta, rash, rase, rashers, and about 10 others. Real Amazing Stuff is in fact a phenomenon discovered by the egoist Randall Ashbury Shereton (ironically, not an heir to the hotel family) who would have been called Rand by his friends if he'd had any. Randall, who preferred (post discovery of RAS) to call himself RAS was born in a small, Kentucky mining town to illiterate Pacific islander immigrants.

RAS's parents only spoke a rare dialect of PacIslandish understood by 50 people, none of whom lived in Kentucky. RAS's childhood was a quiet one, mostly due to his absolute denial to learn PacIslandish and the only English he heard was Kentucky dialect which nobody outside Kentucky can understand anyway. Randall made up his own language, you guessed it - Organtish. He scribed and spoke Organtish so well that he received multiple awards in literacy and elocution from the Official Organtish Office headquartered in Randal Ashbury Shereton's bedroom.

His story goes on from there through childhood and awkward teenage years when Randall finally learned English and got a big head from braging so much about Organtish. In his third semester of junior college, Randal met a girl on the internet and fell in love - her name was Rashida Ashley Sleep-Inn (also, ironically not an heir to the hotel line). Randall thought this was all amazing stuff, and it was real so he coined the phrase Real Amazing Stuff.

His thrill lasted for 6 months at which time he remembered that he had created Rahsida Ashley Sleep-Inn on a discussion board about creating your dream girl. Nobody has seen or heard from Randall (or Rashida for that matter), but his discovery of RAS is still celebrated.

End of the world?

A co-worker informed us that today is "Blog like it's the end of the world" in honor of Friday the 13th. http://community.livejournal.com/bliteotw stay tuned...

Guess what I got back!

Pictures are locked and loaded, and virus checked. All clear! This is such fantastic news because I have much to share. I give you in no particular order...



The engagement ring atop the engagement gift from me to Paul. Bailey modeling the chest of the fitted sweater I knit for her odd body.





K2 P2 ad nauseum completed (with a few cold days left to be useful -- thank you El Nina weather pattern). A couple of my favorite shots from the session I had with my stash. First is Malbrigo worsted colorway: Sapphire Magenta; second KnitPicks Pallete color: Blush.

Wedding is approaching faster each day (duh, huh - the Gregorian calendar has been part of my whole life and yet - I am still shocked that every 24hours equals one day closer to whatever is due... Homework, Job Applications, Projects, Wedding dates).

Messin around

I have been learning how to use the Fireworks program in my spare time at work... today I completed my first "work of art"
I present to you... Pink Sphere of Happiness!

Computer on the mend

I found the recovery disk for my laptop and have started rebuilding everything.

Weeks

22 weeks until our wedding

22 weeks to knit the stole I will wear. I am 2 pattern repeats in - undetermined number to go. I am liking how it is turning out so far. Really simple, really beautiful. I will show pictures when I get around to repairing my computer from a virus it caught.

for now, I will distract you with some pictures I have at work...

Green

You Are Teal Green

You are a one of a kind, original person. There's no one even close to being like you. Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible. While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks. Your warm personality nicely counteracts any strange habits you may have.

What Color Green Are You?

Betsy Ross, I Presume...

Pattern: Lilly Hat by Larissa Brown (link to the pattern on Ravelry - if you haven't been Ravelled this is the place you can see it)

Made for an expected Niece (Fiance's sister is pregnant, not mine). Due April 9th. The pattern was well written, went fast and looks pretty darned cute. I fought the yarn (Lily Sugar'n Cream Cotton) most of the way, so the gauge is a little inconsistant. It fits the dog if nothing else :P

Why yes, those are new floors...

I call this one "The Purple Crown affair" it is a play on the intended name of an expected girl, due on April 9th. When I marry her uncle in October, she will officially be my niece.

The pattern is the "Sunny Side Up Hoodie" from a Michaels pull off pamphlet in the yarn section. The pattern can be found , with some signing up, here (I didn't sign up, so don't know how much they spam). If you are really interested in the pattern, I googled it and found it all written out without having to sign up at Lions Brand.

This is my first sweater and it was easy - the pattern is written well, but I ended up ripping back a few times because I wasn’t measuring correctly (I wondered if at all once I laid out what I had done :P )I didn’t use the suggested yarn for this pattern because it contains Acrylic and I would rather use natural fibers for baby clothes.

Modifications:
I didn’t make the hood
added a stripe and some embroidery with Lily Sugar’n Cream.

Notes:

—-still needs buttons

Just when you think...

I don't have a huge desire to update here all the time or have some fan base that I feed - but I would like to document my projects and have my own pretty pictured to reset my brain at work. (I am a pretty creative person who likes color and variety in a pretty non-creative job - so I "reset" throughout the day; I look at other knitblogs, Ravelry, browse Flikr...)

Anyway - I will update soon, I have lots to show!

Thank you :)

When I went to see Crazy Aunt Purl (CAP) last month I sat by a lovely lady who told me about her new sock knitting machine, showed me how to tat (it was really amazing and completely different than what I had imagined:


She also told me about a Yarn Shop in Circle Pines, MN Double Ewe . She had been asked to write an article for the shop's newsletter and said she thought she would write about going to see CAP. I never caught her name.

Today I was ravelring (if one can "be googling" certainly, we can be ravelring) and I found the group for the DoubleEwe, went to check out the shop owner's blog and found a link to the newsletter, where I read the article by the Lovely Lady (Ann).



So thank you, Ann, for the company and the publicity. Hope you are enjoying crankin out the socks on your new machine.

Snippet

I have been sucked away by life, you will forgive me...right?

Life happened, knitting happened. When the house is clean[er] and the pictures taken there will be a big celebratory post.

Highlights since the last post -- to be elaborated on later:

• Kim's purse is ready to be gifted
• The sock is, miraculously, a sock
• My boyfriend is now my Fiance
• Went to see CrazyAuntPurl read at MOA
• I got my Ravelry invite (I'm KnittingStar there too)
• Over halfway done with K2P2K2P2 ad nauseum
• Oven Mits cast on
• Stash additions to introduce

That's all I have time for now, hope to have a clean house to blog from soon.