Why do we care?

With the condition that the world is in these days, I don't understand why Britney Spears and Paris Hilton now being "Best Friends" is such breaking news. I understand that we sometimes need a break from tense and emotional situations and a bit of entertainment is in order. Go see Casino Royale, quit caring about Britney Spears, Ooops I Did It Again!

Now on to knitting news....
I can't seem to get my moms Christmas gift quite finished. I need some uninterrupted knitting time to finish it off. And then I can concentrate on the other million knitting projects that have to be done by December 23rd and I have to still block these things too. I have to finish my best friends gift, I have not picked that up in about 3 weeks. But I am finding myself searching out cable patterns now; I think I am hooked on cables now. Anything that has cables catches my eye. I was at the grocery store last night getting a couple of things for dinner and while at the check stand I see this small booklet of knitting patterns for babies. I was intrigued so I picked it up and thumbed through it and pass by a little cabled cardigan, so of course I bought the booklet, it had cables in it!

Turkey Lurkey, Cables Schmables

It is very strange, I had written a couple of entries to my blog, saved them as drafts to add the photos to them and then publish and lost all the stuff that I wrote. So I am pretty bummed because some of what I had to say was pretty witty. So here is what happened since the weekend before Thanksgiving weekend:
Saturday 11/18: Played poker with the girls from work, I did well, but I am not sure that I will be accepted into the WPT. Found my FAVORITE wine of all time, EOS Petite Sryah, bought 2 bottles-drank one at poker night.
Sunday 11/19: Played a 9 hole round of golf with Sensei. *Snicker* I won. He was not that happy. Especially since I had not even picked up my clubs in about 9 months.
Monday 11/20: I recieved my first Secret Pal 9 gift. Very cute and very true handmade sign, "Will Work For Yarn" Photos will have to be posted later, (you will find out why in just a minute.)
Tuesday night 11/21: Went to Target to get a couple of things for my road trip to Selma for Thanksgiving. Went to Michaels to get some yarn to start my moms Christmas gift, I will be knitting it at Thanksgiving since she will not be in attendance this year. Laundry, must have clean clothes when going to grandma's.
Wednesday 11/22: Go to work at 7:30am, get out early, leave at 10:00am. I came to work packed, but forgot to take my grandmothers birthday gift to block at my other grandmothers house, so I had to go back home to get it. Yes, my mothers mom and my fathers mom live across the street, it is great for when we visit them. Sat on grandmas couch and knitted while she sat in her chair and crocheted. Later that evening, my brother and his family arrive at my other grandmothers and we all visit. My niece came and slept with me, we had a little pajama party.
Thurday 11/23 Thanksgiving Day: Got up, helped make dinner, set the table etc. We all gathered and ate a wonderful meal. We played with the kids and I found out that my nephew is a Lighting McQueen groupie! He has seen the movie Cars about a 100 times. He can recite scenes from the movie and he is 2. So we heard "Kachow" and "Mater" all evening, it was very cute. I also had to capture on video him saying Piston Cup, because the way he pronounces it is hilarious. I will have video later, (again, you will know why in a minute.) My brother and his family drive home that night and I take my grandmother to my uncles house to visit. We watch Survivor and then went home.
Friday 11/24: I sat on the couch in my pajamas drinking jasmine tea and knitting until 3pm in the afternoon, it was a GREAT day! I got the majority of my mothers Christmas gift knitted. Then I went to visit my other grandmother for a bit, she fed me and then I went back to the other grandma's.
Saturday 11/25: It is the big day, the big game, I have to get home to see it. I wake up, call my friend Irene who I was to see the night before and didn't work out. I pack up all my stuff, at least I thought I did and went to Irene's because it is on my way home. I was at Irene's for about 20 minutes and my phone rang, it is grandma informing me that I left my digital camera behind. Torn between going back to pick it up and just leaving it until next weekend (I will be returing for her 80th birthday party) I decided that I should not be needing it this week and I can wait. It is Monday today and I have found 5 things that I need to take photos of, Murphy's Law I guess. That is why I have no photos of my Secret Pal gift, not photos of my darling niece and nephew over Thanksgiving, they are trapped on the camera in Selma, CA. So, now back to Saturday, I leave Irene’s house at 11:30am and I am headed north. I arrive in San Jose about 3:00pm, not much traffic at all, thank god! And I get home, Sensei is not there, but I see that he has made an effort to pick up the house, a SMALL effort, but when he got home, I ooh’d and ahhh’d over his “efforts.”
5:00 comes around and it is the kick off to the BIG GAME, Notre Dame vs. USC. Suffice it to say, I am in mourning right now. My Irish lost. It was not an easy loss to take either, Sensei is a USC fan. All I can say is, we have next year.

Sunday is my Stitch n Bitch gathering but before I went to that I had some window shopping to do. I went to Purlescense and then to Commuknity, I knitted awhile at Commuknity and then went to Stitch n Bitch. It was a nice day and it was nice to see some new faces at the SnB this time around.

And now we arrive to today, Monday. When I got to work, it felt odd, I had not been here for 4 and a half days. But work did not disappoint, the phone started ringing off the hook and the papers piled up, it definitely is Monday.

The knitting that I have been doing is all Christmas stuff so I can’t say much about it in detail and no pictures yet, that would ruin the surprise. But I must say, I finally tackled cables. I was so afraid to do them and now that just seems silly. Awhile back, Emy told me that all you did was knit the stitches out of order and when she showed me what she meant, it looked pretty ok. So I started something that has cables, for the knitters out there, IHS, and WOW. How really silly I was to think that it was to hard. So what do I say now? Cables Schmables!!

I will have photos and video posted later, promise.

More Christmas Gifts Completed

As you know, I have been knitting fast and furiously these past days to make up time that I had been unable to knit while sick. I thought that I had planned out all the things to knit for Christmas, but foolish me decided to just "see really how long it takes to knit a small tote/hand bag and felt." Well, surprisingly enough, not long! I have to admit, I think that I just might have found a new knitting obsession, the wonderful world of felting. Now my Christmas knitting project list has been revamped and reorganized.

Shame on me for not getting the before photo of my very first felted bag, but I did get the semi-completed bag (I just have to finish sewing in my handles, please ignore the quite large and shiny safety pins holding them in place.)

So after I felted that bag, I knew that I needed to get some "other" knitting completed, like Gina's gift. So I picked it up and looked at it and said, "this yarn is feltable and I have 3 more balls of it right now." (insert evil grin and laugh) So I drop that project, pick up the unused balls and casted on for a different bag, and the starting gun went off. I was determined to get the bag knitted and felted in a single night. When it got to be 9pm I was getting a bit tired and worried that I was not going to make it. But as you can see from my "before felting" photos here, I finished.

On this one, I used Patons SWS in Natural Earth. And as you can see below here, it felts very nicely.

I have now bought handles to go on the striped bag, I just have to sew them on and I will be sitting pretty OK for Christmas gifts. So if you are a woman and in my family, don't be surprised to see one of these come December.

Now, let me see what else I can felt...

Etc, Etc, Etc...

I am really not sure why this did not post on Monday Nov. 13th when I originally wrote it! But here it is now...

The King and I was FANTASTIC!! My best friend Gina for my birthday/Christmas took me to see The King and I on Saturday. We were a bit late due to the Veteran's parade down town, they had streets blocked off and what streets that were not blocked off were like parking lots! But I finally got parked and then scurried over to the theater as fast as I could in heels. The show started without us, I was a bit disappointed that they didn't wait for me, but then again, who am I really in the grand scheme of things. The only part that we missed was her arrival on the boat to Siam. And when I say "her", Anna was played by Debbie Boone and she was really much better than I had anticipated. The King of Siam was played brilliantly by Francis Jue. He is no Yul Brenner, but I will say that he took command of the role was very very good. All the singing was beautiful.

That was Saturday. Sunday I spent most of the day working on knitting Christmas gifts for friends and family. I am seriously running out of time. And Mugsy is not understanding that yarn and items that I am knitting are NOT play toys for him. I caught him with a ball of yarn in his mouth sneaking off to destroy it in the other room. Lets just say he sees it my way now.

I have to say a big SORRY to my secret pal for buying myself something that she had bought to give to me. My family can relate to that, I do it every holiday time to them. It is just a good thing that I blogged about it so you knew ahead of time! (You see me looking for the silver lining, right?)

And lastly, the only thing I have to say about K-Fed and Brittany is, DUH? I lost my $10 bet, I said that it wouldn't last a year and a half. It is a good thing that she has a stong mother and good handlers, she is really to stupid to be in control of all that money!

Knit ya later!

FRIDAY!!!

Sorry for the long absence from the blog but it was beyond my control! I am still feeling really tired and worn out. By body had to battle a really bad virus and I think it is finally victorious. My dog Mugsy is a little bummed that mom is not home for the entire day. He got a little to used to laying with me on the couch and watching the Peoples Court and Oprah!

I am happy to report that I have gotten the first of my Secret Pal packages in the mail to my Secret Pal in Massachusetts. I went to one of the many yarn stores here in my area of the South Bay Area, Purlescense. They were very helpful in my choosing some yarn for her. She likes bulky yarns and blue was one of her favorite colors so I chose Malabrigo in a vibrant blue sapphire color. And while I was there I saw that they had the 2007 Stitch n' Bitch Daily Desk Calender so I had to have it! Since I got such a late start on send my Secret Pal stuff off, I am going to have to get the second one off pretty soon, it has a long way to travel.

My knitting progress has been sort of slow. I seem to think that I can get 10 things knitted by Christmas, then I wake up from my dream and realize that I have now only 43 days left before time runs out! I seem to start other projects before I have finished the other three I have going! I am still at a loss as to what to knit for my brothers and one of my nephews. None of them live in cold climates, so I will have to come up with something. The more I am writing this and thinking at the same time which is rather challenging lately, I am NEVER going to get something knitted for everyone! I would have to knit 10 hours straight every day to maybe come close. Oh yeah, I will be at the mall on December 23rd frantically looking for gifts! I thought knitting was supposed to be relaxing, who ever said that didn't mean it for the holidays.

I really wanted to get my Lady Eleanor Stole knitted for myself for Christmas to wear when I go see the family, something to show off you know. Well, there is always next year! Oh and tomorrow, I am going to see the King and I, I am so excited. My best friend Gina ( Hey G ) is taking me for my Birthday/Christmas present. Yes, I am one of the many whos birthday and Christmas almost cross paths. But I can't wait to see the big dance scene with the King swinging Anna around the dance floor. I will give you all details later.