Family Trip
Having two days off in a row at the same time doesn't happen to us that often, so we had to take advantage of it. Even though the gas prices seem to be going through the roof right now, we took the oportunity for a day trip to Atlanta. We didn't get cought in the travel rush, so the drive was pretty smooth. After only about 4 hours we made it to Atlanta and headed for our destination, the
Georgia Aquarium. It was pretty impressive for being a huge aquarium, but since we expected something a little more interactive, we didn't spend as much time there as we had planned.
Next stop, after a drive through a pretty (and rich looking) neighborhood with old colonial houses and parks with jogging people, very nice landscaping and Mercedes in the drive ways, was
Stone Mountain Park. After this we headed home and since we had more time on hand than expected and traffic wasn't bad either, we stopped one more time at the
Tanger Outlet Mall in Locust Grove and took advantage of their Memorial Day savings and the additional military discounts offered. I scored a couple of nice Tommy pants for me :).
Since we were on the road a while I had a chance to get quite a bit of knitting done too. I am up
7 inches on the latest test knit. 3 balls of yarn down and many more to go.
Labels: family trip, KP
Tag, you're it
Michelle tagged me the other day and I almost forgot about it. This is a cute one, so here we go.
“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”
1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Being a SAHM with a then 1-year-old in the Mojave desert in the middle of nowhere.
2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Get the boys ready for school, go to work, walk the dog, do some laundry, knit, blog, go out to dinner (it's friday!)
3) Snacks I enjoy:
Yogurt, granola bars, sour cream with sugar (no, I'm not pregnant, just weird sometimes), gummi bears and sour octopus gummies
4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Pay off all my bills and open a yarn store. Go figure
5) Places I have lived:
Schweinfurt and Baumholder, Germany (obviously); Fort Stewart, GA (twice); San Diego, CA; Fort Irwin, CA and soon I can add Fort Knox, KY to the list
6) 5 peeps I wanna know more about:
Ashley,
Wannietta,
Del,
Tami, and
ConnieI hope all of them will play, so we can get to know a little more about each other than what we knit.
I want to blog, I swear I do, but something always seems to get in the way. So now I just took the time, ignored everything else, even the nagging dog and the child next to me, telling me everything about playing Halo 3 I don't want to know, and plugged in my new toy. Guess what, this is what I'm using right now.
This is my new little Toshiba laptop that my husband insisted I'd have. I deserve it, he says. Hmm, what does he want? Or better yet, what does he want to buy to justify buying me this one? We'll see. He does things like that. Keri knows. The whole reason for that was that my older son caught something on our laptop, which made it not hook up to the Internet anymore. I wouldn't connect to the Internet Explorer anymore. Now this one works like a charm and I can even work Blogger perfectly again. I can link and I can move around my pics again, which was impossible before.
Now on the knitting note, I wanted to show you the last delivery from the UPS guy.
This is my new KP testknit. 17 balls of
Comfy. Yes, it's going to be a big one this time, but I have a pretty generous deadline. I did my swatch and now I'm off to casting on. Once I have something to show for, I'll take some more pics.
Well, that's going to have to do for now. I'm needed again. Gotta run.
Labels: General, KP
I have issues
Gauge issues that is. I am usually not the one that uses the same exact yarn as in the pattern. Well, one reason is that when I knit for Knit Picks, unless the original pattern calls for it, the yarn gets substituted with one of theirs. Duh, that's to be expected, since the whole point behind me knitting for them is to promote their yarns and to show that substitutions will work out just was well as knitting it with the "original" yarn.
Anyway. My issue is not with one of their patterns, it's with one that I'm actually knitting for me. Well, more for a friend of mine as a late, or maybe we can already say, early Christmas present. She requested a vest last Christmas. After searching for that perfect pattern I decided to make the Veste Everest by Veronik Avery from the IK Fall 2005 issue. I found the perfect yarn on last months WEBS sale and went for RYC Cashsoft DK. Choosing the right size seemed to be a problem for me, since the size I needed, was not exactly in the pattern. So I have to figure out a "in between" size. Therefore I had two choices. Bigger pattern and smaller needles or smaller pattern and bigger needles. Since I know that I knit a little loose, I went for the smaller needles. Eeeenk. Wrong answer. After knitting through about half a ball of yarn I had to figure out that I had a perfect gauge for the size I was NOT going for. So ripping I went. Now I'm going for door number 2: smaller pattern, normal needles. I knit up the yarn I ripped out before and it seems to be working in my favor. The best part about it, it's two whole repeats less, which is 24 stitches. That should speed up things a bit.
And since I sent out my last KP test knit beginning of this week, I got a new on in my e-mail box today. Contract is signed, yarn is ordered therefore stay tuned for new sneak peaks at the yarn. Until then I'll have to knit a little faster on the vest, before I have to decide which one has priority.
Labels: KP
KP 8 Revealed
How do you like this cardigan? Pretty nice, hugh? I found this today on Knitpicks.
Now compair it to this:
Yup, it's my tidepool lace knitting I did a while back for them. It made it to the website and should be in the next catalog too. I'm glad it looks great on the model. It was lots of knitting, constant knitting, but in the end it was worth it. I like it. See Michelle, this is what you look forward too, except that your name won't be mentioned, but that's ok. The fellow bloggers, that follow my blog, know I did it and that's all that matters. Thank you all for putting up with my teaser pictures all the time.
I'm almost done with the last one I'm making for them. All I can say it's gray and it's a sweater. Woohoo, that should narrow it down, right? Yeah, well, that's all you are going to get for now. :). Now I wonder what they have to offer next time.
I don't know what I'm going to be working on in the meantime, but I'm sure I'll find something. After all, I got that big box of yarn from Keri to go through and instant gratification that comes with doing small things isn't so bad either.
Have a nice weekend and a good mothers day, for all that it applies to.
Labels: KP
FO Report
It is done, finished, blocked and it's gorgeous. I love this shawl. May I present:
"M O H A N A"
This shawl is designed by Monika, as peviously mentioned only a few times :) and I had the honor to testknit it, to make sure no bugs were left in there. I hope I cought them all and now it's up to you all to show, that you too can make this masterpiece. It's really fun to knit.
I got the yarn from Monika too, who bought it from the talented Maggie (dyedinthe woolhandmade.com), which hand died it for her in the color "Winter Violet". I used a little more than two skeins of it, one of the running 378 yards, so you go figure out yourself, how much it would take you. I had to start the last skein on the picot edge. The yarn is a Fingering Sock Mediumweight and I used my size 5 (3.75mm) KP options needles with a looooong cable for it. Great combination. It seemed a little small yesterday, after I was done, but after a good soak and a nice over nicht stretch the shawl grew to a good 40 inches down the spine and 80 inches wingspan. It's sure to keep me warm enough in the evenings out on the porch in that rocker and it being the weight it is, made it faster to knit too.
Have fun.
Labels: Lace
