A Geek Gone Mild

Finally....some FO pictures!!

So I promise I didn't mean to be a tease and take forever to put pictures up!  I actually flew home this weekend and knew I was going to be at the Como Park conservatory again, which I figured would be good photo place.  So I waited until today to get the pics....but here they are!!!

Pattern:  Rebecca from the Kim Hargreaves Touching Elegance collection

Yarn:  Rowan Big Wool in color 007 (smoky), 6 skeins

Size:  Medium

Modifications:  None!

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about how this one was going to turn out.   Part of the reason I was drawn to this pattern (besides it being cute) was that it was going to be a quick knit because the yarn was so chunky.  However about halfway through I started to get worried that it was going to make me look really, really huge.    I do think it adds a few pounds, but the fantastic plushiness of the Rowan big wool makes it all ok.  It is a very, very comfy sweater.  But I still refused to put my hands down for the side pictures (hehe):

I also was afraid it was going to be very hard to do the shoulder seams...I had visions of them coming out all poofy and not wanting to stay flat because of how thick the yarn was.  However it went much smoother than I expected, and it also went super fast because of the gauge.  Yay!  Here's a shot of the back:

I really do recommend the Kim Hargreaves kits...they come packaged so nicely and have everything you need, including the buttons (and I must say, I LOVE the big buttons this one came with).  The only thing is you need to be careful of is the exchange rate since the prices are in Euros....I calculated it out wrong and my parents ended up paying more than I'd thought they'd have to for this little Christmas present.  But the pattern was nice and easy to understand and it was a fun knit!  Hooray for Kim Hargreaves!!!

Rebecca Preview...

I just have to get the other sleeve seamed up and the ends woven in....stay tuned for more pictures!

So first off, happy St. Patrick's day a little late!  Check out the very very green Chicago river after they dyed it:

It reminds me of the Nickelodeon slime, but its pretty cool.

So I have been knitting but I've been a lazy blogger.   I've been a little obsessed with sock knitting still...I've been working on a pair in the colorway my secret pal gave me, but I haven't had any good lighting to get pictures of it lately.  However I spent about 2 hours yesterday fixing a dropped stitch under a decrease and I was about ready to throw my crochet hook across the room afterwards....but I still love the socks :)

I also headed out to a new yarn store on Saturday to pick this up:

...and here's a side shot:

Some Noro Silk Garden in 243 for a Lady Eleanor!  I've been wanting to make one for awhile, but was a little unsure if I would really ever wear it.  However I decided that I needed to have one....plus it will be a nice big project to have when I'm traveling by myself on exterships starting in May.  If any Chicago knitters out there are reading this, the store I went to was a new one called Knitwerks and it was really great...the owner is super friendly and she has a nice selection of stuff.

I've also been working on a Nintendo DS case for my fiancee.....

it was technically supposed to be a valentines day present, but he's being wonderfully patient and it may be a little bit yet before he gets it.  I was very surprised about how long it actually took me to stitch each piece, and it just gets a little dull stitching endlessly in gray.  But it will get done!!

I'm ashamed to admit it, but once upon a time I really thought sock knitting was just for old ladies.  But now, I think I may be a sock knitting addict.  Check it out, its my first knitted sock ever (please ignore the dirty jeans with the accidentally flipped up hem on the other leg).....

I used the simple sock pattern in Folk Socks and some Knitpicks Essential that my secret pal sent me.   Once I got started I couldn't stop knitting the thing.  I loved knitting the little heel.....

And finishing up the toe....

So yeah, hooray for socks!  I've started the 2nd one and I think I'm going to try and make it just a little larger (I think I made this one a bit too snug).  I also finally went back to the Rebecca cardigan and am working on the sleeves, so some progress is being made!

And now for some random stories:

Story #1: I actually got carded at a rated R  movie the other night for the first time since I was like 17.  I couldn't believe it....I'm going to be 25 next month......do I really look that young???  I think I need to start wearing more make up or something!

Story #2:  While I was on the bus the other day, a little old lady was asking the bus driver about which bus to take to get to a certain place.  As the little old lady was getting off the bus she said something along the lines of "don't worry about me, I've got a 45 magnum in my purse, hehe."  And the scary thing is, I really think she was serious!  The little laugh she gave was not an "I'm kidding" laugh, it was more along the lines of a crazy person laugh.  Eeek!

Wedding Stuff

So we did a little ceremony and reception venue hunting when I was home for the weekend.  We're thinking that the wedding won't be until Spring 2009, but I'm a big planner so I wanted to look for places early.  Its kind of between Rochester (where my parents are) and Minneapolis/St. Paul right now....we're kind of leaning towards the latter since there are more unique places there.   If we had it in Rochester my ideal ceremony site would be at the Plummer House:

They've got a nice garden in the back for an outdoor ceremony, and you can have it inside as a back-up (I have this giant fear of an outdoor wedding....I feel like if I plan an outdoor one it WILL rain).  They've got a nice staircase inside too which would be good for pictures:

If we didn't have it at the Plummer House it would probably be at my parents church...the only thing is that it has these horrible mustard yellow seat covers on the pews and the aisles are slanted down at an angle and I'm pretty sure I"m going to fall on my butt while walking down the isle.  So that's not really the ideal option.

My favorite reception site was the art center.  It's modern (my mom kept calling it sterile) but I like the fact that there is a lot of light coming in, and I think it could be really pretty when we get it all decorated.  It was kind of hard to get decent pictures of it, but here's one of the atrium when you walk in:

and of where the dinner would be (it has pretty views of the river and of the city):

We only had time to look at one place in St. Paul, which was the conservatory at Como Park...

...which was probably my favorite.  It would have to be a small ceremony though; I guess that the guests stand on one side and the procession goes up the other.  They have candles they put on the edge of the water too which looks really pretty. 

Also when we were in St. Paul we went to the melting pot...

I was pretty excited about it since I'm kind of obsessed with 'The Girls Next Door' and its one of Holly's favorite restaurants :)  And it was sooooooo good.  And very expensive.  But very good!

Thanks secret pal!

I've got an overdue secret pal thank you to post!  The exchange was actually over in January, but due to some circumstances outside my secret pal's control I got my last package a little later.  But it was definitely worth the wait!!!  And actually it was better that I got it in February instead, since thats when I have finals....getting the package was a nice little stress reliever.  So here's what was in it:

Yay, Folk Socks by Nancy Bush!  Even though I've never knitted socks before I've wanted this one for awhile.  Gotta love the Norwegian stockings!   She also sent some knit picks to use to while I'm learning.  I already started on the simple sock pattern in the book...I don't know if its because my feet have been cold or what, but I've been pretty excited to knit some socks.

She also sent some very very pretty sock yarn from Lisa Souza!  I think this order is what held the package up, and it was well worth it....its so soft and the colors are amazing:

Let's get a close up of those colors!

I love it!  Thanks knittymama, you're the best secret pal ever!!

So I just got back from Minnesota yesterday, it was a nice little break...got some family time in, checked out some wedding venue sites, finished off season 1 of Rome (which, by the way, is tied at #1 with The Office right now for my favorite series EVER), and beat my fiancee at bowling.  And I have proof:

Oh yeah, mine is the score on top.  I'm usually a pretty awful bowler (and really 100 is not that good) but I was just pretty excited to actually beat someone.  Anyways I'll leave you with a progress shot of my first sock ever...there something about those little stitches that I can't get enough of!!

New banner!

Ta-daa!!  New banner, courtesy of MoonArts.  I decided it was time for my blog to get a little facelift to help break up the winter blahs a bit.  Sadly I really haven't done much worth blogging about; we're in finals right now so there hasn't been much knitting.

I think part of the problem with my lack of progress is that I'm not really into either of my projects right now.  I'm not quite sure if fair isle is my thing so the anemoi mittens have been neglected a bit....I also ran into a bit of a problem with the Rebecca cardigan that I've been to lazy to fix.  I think I just need a new project, something different...maybe I need to learn how to knit socks or something.  I think I need to do some new pattern searching...I need some inspiration!

Anyways after finals are over I'm heading back to Minnesota for a few days over break.  We're going to start looking at some wedding venues and dresses and stuff which I'm getting excited about!   We're not even quite sure what city we're having it in yet....all we know is that it will probably be in Minnesota, so we have a lot of planning to do :)

Sadly the only progress I have to show is the growth on my Nyokki:

I got it from my roomate for Christmas...it's like a chia pet but much, much cuter.  With all the dreary, cold weather lately its nice to have something even a little green in the apartment :) 

Everyone's been Superbowl crazy around here!  Everything is blue and orange for the Bears...I think my favorite thing is the helmets on the lions at the art museum.  We saw them yesterday as we were driving down Michigan Ave to dinner; I wanted to go back today to get a picture but its been so ridiculously cold here that I didn't dare venture out.  I walked 3 blocks to the grocery store Saturday and my legs were seriously numb by the time I got there!  I hope Spring gets here soon!!

I have been knitting a bit but there really isn't much progress to show.  Part of that is because I'm working on a top secret project for Valentine's day, and since I can't trust the recipient to stay away from my blog until then I can't really post anything about it yet :)  But don't worry there will be plenty of pictures after it's given!

Anybody out there have a case of the Winter blahs?  'Cause I do!  I swear the cold and the lack of light does it to me every year about this time....I've just wanted to snuggle under the covers and hibernate until spring time comes.  I've been pretty unmotivated to knit too...until today!  I don't know if its because I'm cold and want a new sweater to wear or what, but I'm itching to finish the Rebecca sweater.

This is the whole cardigan crammed onto one needle.  It's worked in one piece, but I'm just about to divide the right and left sides from the back.  this thing is going super fast since its  such chunky yarn...yay for instant gratification!

And by the way, did anyone else see the Jess Hutch booklet that sold for 87 dollars on ebay?  I'll admit, I really really wanted to place the highest bid on that sucker (but didn't).  I didn't actually start knitting until after she stopped printing the booklet...I think the stuff in it so cute so I've wanted to get my hands on one for awhile.  I wish it would be offered again in some format, but oh well.  Maybe another one will go on ebay for cheaper some day!

the curse of the fair isle mitten

I think I may have angered the knitting gods.  They don't seem to want to let me finish my mittens.  But I'll leave that 'till later...lets talk about some happy stuff first!  I did make some progress on the Rebecca sweater, which isn't too hard since it's knit on size 17 needles:

Yes, that's right, size 17.  I'm scared its going to be so bulky that I'll look huge in it, but it looks so cute on the model that I'm holding out hope.  Honestly it's a little weird to be knitting one thing on size 17's and another on size 2's, but it keeps things interesting I guess.  Right now the sweater looks more like a scarf since the bottom edging is knit first so I don't really have any good progress pictures yet.

Ok, back to the mitten curse.  So I had said before that I think my gauge is finally OK (at least for the cuff).  I wanted to try knitting the mitten on size 3 DPNs so I headed to the yarn store yesterday to pick some up.  I dug through the drawer, found what I needed, paid, and left.  Well later when I got home I took them out of the package and realized there were only 4 freaking needles when there are supposed to be 5. 

I really, really wanted to work on the mittens last night so I tried working with 4 needles.  It just was a little too hard to work with so I nixed that idea.  My next idea was to substitute my size 3 circular...I knew it was going to be weird but I just really wanted to work on them.  This is the result:

I made it one round, decided it was a stupid idea, and took it out.  The yarn store has a pretty strict no returns on needles policy so I'm not really sure what to do.   I'm afraid they're just going to think I'm nuts or lost the needle if I go back and say there were only 4 in the pack.  But on the other hand I really don't want to fork over another 7 bucks for needles.  Hmmm, what to do?