Progress

Finally, FINALLY, I've made it to the foot of this sock. Oy. It is taking me a while, but my gosh, it looks so darn cute in person! Now, between this cute sweatshirt that I got today (it is a very cute top that looks like something Jackie O would wear) and these socks, I'm totally ready for fall.

And I am completely itching to knit this awesome Habu sweater that is in knitty's new suprise. Here it is: Sea Tangles. But I think I shall wait till I get through a little more yarn. Though Habu doesn't exactly take up a ton of space, either...

The boy's at the comic con, and for those of us who are stuck at home--here is the comic book--well, their site: Mask and Cape Comics

Dream yarns

Ok, so here are some yarns that I want to try knitting with (hint: none of them are Noro)....The other day, I stopped by Miss Chickpea's, and I saw some awesome yarn...


Like:

Ozark Handspun

Lampes Lumps (pictured below)

and Bamboo yarn.

I'm also curious about this ceramic yarn that I've heard about...

In knitting news, I am seaming up the sweater! (yeah!) It's all blocked and everything, just need to put it together and find some great buttons.

In other (non-knitting) news, I have been busy these past few days, doing work--we have some HUGE events coming up, such as the Kent Fest, and our Hallmark Ornament Premiere...so we're getting everything ready and ship-shape. Not to mention that I think we're going to promote the heck out of trollbeads and Chamilia (did you forget what those look like? Here's a reminder:














In a few weeks, we're going to have a huge special on Trollbeads & Chamilia--buy 3 beads, and you can get the bracelet for $25 (regularly priced at $48--that's a savings of almost half, people! Interested? let me know...)

Today, I went to the library (huge used book sale), and I walked away with some really great books, like 3 textbooks (2 statistics books and one about advertising, each were 75 cents!) and a lot of books like The Poisonwood Bible (75 cents, looks like someone read it once), a hardback of "The Perfume" by Patrick Sueskind (So I have the German language version, but I'd like to see the movie sooner than later to compare...I am sooooo slow at reading the German, though that book may come with me to Las Vegas), Middlesex (1.50), "The Curious Incident of the Dog in Nighttime ($1.00). Not bad. Many more. I also picked up some knitting books with some of the most horrifying patterns I've seen in my life, but each of them have like, one redeeming pattern or style...so I figure 75 cents per book isn't too bad. Not to mention a copy of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. (one dollar). Not a bad haul. Now I just need the time to read everything. (Oh, and I found a couple autographed books for a dollar each! How cool is that?)

More stuff...

Last night, I got home around 10:30 (celebrating my brother's birthday with the family, plus my dad wanted to stop at our store) and so that ate up some time...especially since the store's totally in the opposite direction of our house/dinner.

In any case, I was very, very tired last night. And very, very tired when I came home. And thank god all I had to do was teach this morning...at 8 AM. Only two more days till spring break (2 more classes to teach!). The best part of the week has been bringing breakfast to my classes. Monday got bagels (way expensive) and today got doughnuts--VERY good ones, I may add...and that was like, ten dollars cheaper than the bagels. I think my Friday 8 AM class will get doughnuts as well, and my 11 AM class may get some snacky foods, I think, like cookies, chips. I think. We'll see. Or maybe I'll just buy two dozen doughnuts, since they are very yummy. Why, you ask, is it so fun to bring breakfast to my classes?

Take a look at the topic:

Disorders of the ear.

So they get to see beautiful pictures like:

The first picture: a perforation of the eardrum. Second picture, retraction pocket, and the bone you see is the malleus (hammer), and the last one is truly gross. It's a parent maggot that laid 6 maggot eggs in the ear. ICK.

So you can see why it's been fun to feed my students. I'm so bad. ;D

But in knitting news:

I got my order of Baby Ull yarn in today! I ordered it sometime last week and was getting nervous that it wouldn't come in, because I really need to make a pair of baby booties. BUT it came in today, yay! I can start them tonight! Hopefully finish up tomorrow or Friday, so can wrap them!

And I've also been doing a tunisian crochet scarf, with two colors, so it does have a neat effect on the front, and the back is all striped. So it's really cool. Once I finish this (and my million projects, I'm going to try three colors and see how that would look.

This is my very pretty Trollbeads bracelet. can you tell I'm totally in love?

Starting 2007

Well, now it's a new year...and hopefully one filled with lots of happiness and good things...

New Year's Resolutions:
1) Do a very good job with finances. ;) Essentially, no needless spending (outside of a limited, budgeted amount.
2) Finish various knitting projects. Including sweaters and/or vests. Anything that's not a scarf.
3) Cook one new thing each week. Meaning: Trying out new recipes, whether they be for cookies, entrees, potato dishes (my weakness!), complicated pasta sauces, Indian food (like Biyrani) etc.
4) Learn to juggle. Okay, so this was my resolution from last year. Not yet accomplished. But a whole 'nuther year to complete this task. Right?

And my boyfriend got me some nice stuff for Christmas and some things that just have me scratching my head. Nice stuff include: a hilarious William Wegman video (with the dogs and human hands), a trivial pursuit game that actually requires me to have tons of people over to play, and one of the oddest gifts was a $100 gift card to an aquarium store. Because I love fish. And I'm allergic to his cats (and I think he felt so bad that I was allergic to his cats, that he wanted to get me pet fish?) But you know, I have one fish named Seven (or maybe it's Nine, I'm not sure--the companion fish died some time ago) which has been a pet since 2000. And where will I put about 20 other fish?

But knitting content:
My friend NK gave me this awesome yarn for Christmas. She got it at a fair out in the LA area, and it's this gorgeous hand spun, hand-painted yarn, and I can't wait to knit something with it. I have to find a good pattern or inspiration for it.

Thanks NK! I LOVE this yarn!

Birds and Gardens

On Saturday, I went to see my friends from college--one of whom is starting to become a knitter...we made plans to go check out The Knitting Garden in Westlake before meeting our other friends for dinner at Udupi. Anyway, my friend's grandma told us that she was going to take us to this very unique yarn store in Avon, and wow. I think I'm in love with that store. Too bad it takes me an hour to get there, but I guess if I ever drive out that way, I'll stop in Avon to check out the store. It's absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Of course, I'm still living like a poor graduate student, so I bought a pattern, and that was it. The Knitting Garden was ok, but I'd choose the Birds of a Feather store over the Knitting Garden, for the ambience and the people.

Knitting. For real.

Actually, I wrote this big long post and then blogger LOST the damn thing, I guess due to some sort of "Blogger cannot connect to the server" thing. I have no idea. I'll do the best I can to actually recreate this thing. But a lot of things have happened in the past...well, however long it's been since I last posted.

• I got a new job! It's per diem, which means I'm not devoting like a million hours to work plus the million I already work at school. It's good. I'm happy. Plus it pays.
• I went to San Francisco with my parents a couple weeks ago. It was great fun--went to Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, Ghiradelli Square, and Chinatown (of course). I did lots of shopping, but at the same time, not really. I did buy chocolates, a couple pieces of jewelry, and a cute cell phone holder.
• I went to my group's knit-in weekend at Peak n' Peek. Amy and I drove together, with Heather following us. We stopped at a bead store on the way, and had some dinner at some restaurant with lots of dead animals hanging on the walls. We were trying to find an Applebee's. Obviously it wasn't one. Anyhow, it snowed on the way up there (!!). But anyway, we all went to The Cultured Purl for their SnB group. The rest of our group from Ohio (Rae, Ann, Adrianne, Juniper, and Meg) joined us there.
• I saw this. The most amazing selection of Noro. Yum.

• Yes, I bought some.

Plus some Berocco Optik.

(Noro Aurora)

(Noro Kujaki)

(Berocco Optik)

• I left my camera at The Cultured Purl. So in fact, I have only two pictures from the whole weekend. Sigh. At least one of them has people in it. (Yes, I got it back on the way home).
• It took us quite a while to get to Peak n' Peak because of all the snow. Scary. But we made it alive. My mom said if she had known it was that snowy, she'd have been freaking out, so I suppose it's a good thing that she didn't know that it was that snowy.
• I finished my sweater! Yay! Finally. These are pictures before they were seamed up. I have it drying out now; I steam-blocked it (little too impatient to wet-block) and seamed it, and washed it. I cant' wait to wear it.

(Finally!)

• I also started a new scarf with some Noro I bought in Pittsburgh.

• On the way home, Amy and I stopped by at A.C. Moore. I bought even more yarn. I can't believe the amount of money I've spent this weekend. I am not allowed to spend more money...oh, wait, Christmas is coming up. Darn it.