Friday, June 20, 2008

New Year's Day Curse

Want to guarantee something won't happen, like say trying to blog more? Make it a New Year's Resolution. That's sure to nip it in the bud. So, since it has been a while, that makes for a long post. I'll at least lead you in with some good knitterly content: my adventures from World-Wide Knit-In-Public (WWKIP) Day.

That Saturday morning, both Diana and I had to work for a few hours and the ol' B&N. Diana was wonderful promoting our National Holiday. We even got a coworker to make out with some yarn!
Okay, small tangent (you knew it was coming). The night before, say around 10pm I finally decide to get my stuff together for the next day. I start sorting through projects...and more projects.....and I realize, I do not have a portable, mindless project on the needles. That's ok....I'll pick out some sock yarn that I wanted to just make some plain socks out of. Also, I wanted some done toe-up for me. (Why did I not take my mom's socks? Well, me and the calf increases still aren't speaking to each other. I would just end up making a scene.) I cast on toe-up with the crochet CO, got it started and put it in the bag, after about 4 rows.

Okay, so back to WWKIP day. Diana and I get ready to head south to pick up Kristina and meet up with the other Rockstars. I reach for my knitting bag for the directions to her house. Didn't bring that bag. Schnikes!! That's okay....I'll just call her. Forgot my phone. Double schnikes!! So much for leaving straight from work.

After a small detour to my apartment, we head down south, pick up Kristina, and head to north Dallas where we go to hop on the DART rail to head downtown. That was our big thing for WWKIP day. We were going to take mass transportation for as much of the day as we could. The DART lines don't quite reach up to us, so we had to drive a little ways. Not only is it "good for the environment", it's good for the wallet.

Okay, so this is my first time on a train of any kind, so this was an experience for me. I grew up out in West Texas where the term "Mass Transportation" involved the back of someone's pick-up. I would have to say, I absolutely loved it! If I lived a little farther south, I would be using it every day. As we wait on our train, we, obviously, pullout our knitting. I'm going along when I realize.....I really need to go down a needle size.....badly. Triple schnikes!!! We still hadn't left the car yet, so I run and get my emergency knitting out of the car. If you want to know, it constitutes of a pair of US 19 needles, a skein of Homespun wrapped into a double stranded ball, CO 10 stitches, K till you run outta yarn. Perfect scarf. Plus, I tell myself, we are stopping by a LYS, I could pick up some needles later.

After our train ride, we met up with the other Rockstars for lunch at the Trinity Hall Pub.Apparently, I should have just skipped work and gone straight to the Pub because Dawn had earmarked several cute European soccer fans, but they left right before we got there. Damn...

After we were done eating and drinking (of which I did none, for which I was thankful for later), we hopped back on the train to head to The Shabby Sheep. This involved taking the train to the only underground trainstop, taking two very long escalators topside, where happened to be about 10 feet from the freeway. Completely freaked Dawn out. We then headed over to the spot where we were going to hop on a trolley. And these were originally trolley's folks. It was awesome.From here, we walked to The Shabby Sheep. Now, we were originally under the assumption that it was 2 blocks from the trolley stop. Oh not so....try about 6-8.....in June......in Texas. And being in Texas, most of us are in flip-flops. So, once we got to the shop, the shop owner took one look and got us all some water. It was wonderful. So I got my US0 for my socks when I saw it. I had searched for the perfect shade of it and never really found one I liked enough to buy. Meet my future My-So-Called Scarf.My first Manos. I seriously couldn't have left this there if I tried.....and I did. Didn't happen.

After we left the shop, we lost a few Rockstars to a cab back to the station, but others of us were on a mission. We headed down to the Dallas Museum of Art in search of a statue. We searched high and low, even had to stop and take a knitting/water break.Then we began to search and search. And with some help from the DMA, we found it.We loved the accuracy of the statue: the unlady-like posture, the multiple bags she carries, and the fact that she had multiple projects in said bag. It was a good end of the day.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

WIP it Wednesday

Thanks for all of the complements on my hair. I absolutely love it! The length is just perfect. Shorter would be bad. We've been down that road...it wasn't pretty. Longer and it would juuuust be too short for a ponytail and that would drive me nuts. I have even almost gotten to the point of got getting out a gallon of shampoo to wash my hair. What's harder than putting shampoo back in the bottle: conditioner.

Here we have the current, active WIPs:This my lifetime-perpetual project, enabled by Tasha. This is my first square for a Barn-Raising quilt from the new Knitalong book. This has become my purse knitting 'cause it's mindless and easy to remember! Great for using up sock scraps. You might recognize this as the Lorna's from my Flaming Monkeys.

I decided I needed a larger needle and a baby sweater for my boss, so I started a EZ February Sweater outta some CottonTots. When I first saw the sweater I really loved it, until I realized that it was done on small needles. You know me and kid stuff on small needles. But after surfing the Ravelry, always dangerous, I notice alot of people doing out of worsted, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Since summer it starting, this is the time of year when we start......
CHRISTMAS KNITTING!!! That's right folks! For those of us who are trying to be proactive about our Christmas knitting (or those of us who tend to knit REALLY slow), we use the 100 degree temperatures to remind us that in the knitting world, Christmas is just around the corner. This is destined to be a surprise Christmas stocking, and on the off chance they see the blog, this will be the last time you see it until it is given. Frankly, this is more of a Hey-mom-I-really-did-cast-it-on kinda entry! :-) (BTW, I got a little free reign on this one, so it's getting made out of Cascade 220, not Red Heart this year. WOO HOO!!) This is #1 of 2 that will need to be done, which is why I'm starting now like a good lil' knitter.