Purl?

Tomorrow is my brother Kelly's birthday and as usual Lisa style I am late with everything and his present is no exception. I started this hat Monday night and I have finished it today on my lunch hour. So I am going to rush to the post office directly after work to get it post marked today and he will have to just get it one day late! See my FO page for the details.

And as you can see, the newest addition to the knitting crew, my laptop. I think I will have to name it, we have already bonded. It has a pearl color to it, maybe I should just call it Purl?!?!

In other knitting news, I have finally casted on for my Lady Eleanor Stole. Here are a couple of progress shots. I am into my 3rd ball of Noro Silk Garden now.

Karma

Apparently we have been nice to someone in this lifetime because we have had the good fortune of coming into a brand new laptop. This thing is amazing!! I have never owned a laptop, I have used them, but never had the fortune to own it. I must say that this is very exiting for me, I feel so Carrie Bradshaw sitting here in the coffee shop and blogging right now to you all. I know that having this laptop will change my life in many ways, hopefully it will be for the good and I won't want to throw it across the room at a moments notice. I will say that I am a bit concerned of the stability of the portable computer after reading so many of the Yarn Harlots issues with her laptop. But I am going to keep my fingers crossed and baby this electronic life changer and hope for the best!! I will be posting photos very soon, I know I have been saying that for a bit, but now that I have this electronic jewel, it will be easier for me to blog and post photos, yea!!!!

Unfinished things

I got an email today from a co-worker, she forwarded me a joke of sorts that just struck me funny. So I  thought that I would share it with you.

 

Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace
is to finish all the things you've started and never
finished."

    So, I looked around my house to see all the things
I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the
house this morning, I finished off a Bottle of Merlot,
a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Booker's
bourbon, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the
remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of
the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of Godiva

Chocolates.

    You have no idea how friggin' good I feel.

    Please pass this on to those you feel might be in
need of inner peace.

 

I am feeling like I need some inner peace right now, maybe I should look for some unfinished things in my house.  Oh wait, I know what is unfinished, Ursula, the yellow baby blanket.  And I supposedly have only 3 days left to finish her.  I just want you to know that I am officially off the hook on having the blanket done on time.  I was approached by a manager here at my place of work and was asked to work in another department this Saturday for 10 hours of OT.  I am already an idiot for trying to complete that blanket in such a short time, I would have been a certifiable idiot if I passed up 10 hours of OT!!  So I will not be attending the baby shower this Saturday and I will be at peace with finishing the blanket gradually but prior to the birth.  Can someone give me an Om mani padme hum or Amen, which ever you prefer?

 

Speaking of finishing what you have started; this month I have decided that I was going to start and finish the Monthly Dish Cloth patterns that I get from the group that I belong to.  I have been a member for about 4 months, they have 2 patterns a month and have only finished one.  Everyday I get emailed to me 10 lines of the pattern, 10 lines only and I still couldn't complete one.  So this month I am making up for my slacker ways, I casted on for 2 and will have them done at the same time.  In all honesty, 10 rows of knitting on a dishcloth is not that much, so there is no reason that I couldn't get 2 done.

 

On another note, I again have been sucked up into the American Idol craze.  I watched last nights show and I just have to say, some mothers should invoke a little bit of tough love on their kids.  I know we all should support our children in what ever they want to do, but to allow your child to audition for a show that you know full well that they humiliate those without talent is not doing your tone deaf child a favor.  Some of those people really can't understand why there were not chosen, they are a taco short of a combo plate and then prove it to the world when they leave the audition room.  Enough said. 

 

Another Christmas Present

I finallay was able to give my best friend Gina her Clapotis that I knitted. Since we were not able to see eachother during or before Christmas I was able to finish it up after Christmas and I gave it to her This past week. I don't have one of the Clapotis with her wearing it, so the blocking photos will have to do. Maybe I can get her to model it and post that. Well see.

Anyone know a good trained monkey?

In 5 days time, I have knitted only about 6 1/2 inches of what should be about a 30" baby blanket. I am not known for my math skills so much, but a blind deaf monkey could tell you that there is NO WAY that I will have this blanket knitted by Saturday January 20th. I would have to knit at least 6 inches of blanket a day to come even close and I would still be binding off in the car out side the party. I measured my gauge and figured out that there are 8 rows in one inch. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. I just hope that my friend Ursula doesn't stab herself with the knitting needles when she opens this unfinished seed stitch and cabled blanket from no where pleasant. And I am sure you are asking your self, "Why would she knit a yellow blanket?" Well there is a great answer for that, she does not know what she is having and she decided that the bumble bee pattern at the baby store was too cute to pass up, so she is going to have a yellow blanket and I am NEVER knitting ANYTHING yellow again as long as I live. *grin*

Christmas gifts as promised...

Here are only a few of the gifts that I knitted this season for Christmas.
Cody's Brown Skull Cap
Caitlin's Felted Purse
Mom's Irish Hiking Scarf

Ok, I have to get home, I am running late (sounds familiar right?) and I have to get dinner cooked. More to come in the next couple of days!

Happy New Year? Late...

I know, I am late with the Happy New Year exclamation, but I am always late to everything. I wouldn't want to do something on time and have the earth suddenly stop rotating the sun now would I? For example, I was late to work to day, I waltzed in at 10am with a hardy "Good Morning" to everyone, sat down at my desk and started to write my blog. Please, no worries about me completing my duties today, piece of cake! But completing my knitting projects on time, that is another story.

As I had said before I received my yellow yarn for the baby blanket that I need to knit for a girlfriend of mine. Tuesday I casted on to size 7 needles 230 stitches. Yes, 230!! Then after finishing the border I realized that I miscalculated the number of stitches and had to quickly rearrange the pattern to make it work because I certainly was not going to frog the 20 rows that I had just completed, I have a deadline. As Tim Gunn would say on Project Runway, "Make it work!" So I tried. And the more I knitted the blanket the more I was unhappy with it and over lunch I mentioned to my co-worker Colleen (no, not my mom) that I thought my friends baby shower was coming up and that I had to kick it in high gear. No sooner than I said that, she called to get my mailing address and informed me that the shower was January 20th. Now I am in a bind. Do I continue with the blanket as is and not be remotely satisfied with it or do I frog it and start over? You see the problem is that I was making a ribbed/cabled blanket with a seed stitch border and after knitting 20 rows it looked to loose and I am a tight knitter naturally. So I did what some would think as unfathomable, knitters would say, that is life, I FROGGED IT! I just can't gift something that I am not happy with. I have already broke one of my New Year's Resolutions, No knitting deadlines. Today is January 11 and I have as of 11:45am casted on my size 6 needles 220 stitches and have completed 4 rows of knitting. I am hoping to get at least 3 or 4 rows done at lunch and tomorrow I will let you know how late I stay up tonight knitting. Photos of Christmas knitting to come, I promise and progress on the yellow baby blanket that we will call Ursula too.

Santa was good to me

Ok, I guess that I don't know how to blog via email because I wrote this on December 29th, 2006!!

I hope that all of you had a very Merry Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or what ever holiday that you celebrate at this time of year. Santa was pretty good to me this year, I was very surprised. There was minimal family drama, oh come on, you can't expect the holiday season to come around and have NO DRAMA (insert Mary J Blige song.) I am writing the family edited edition of this blog entry, hehehehe.
Sensei and I went to my Mimi's house for the Christmas weekend with Mugsy in tow. She is a real dog lover and she enjoys spoiling him to death, so much so that he got a little sick in the middle of the night on the bed. Merry Christmas to me.
Christmas day was spent over at my brothers house with his family. My nephew Cody is now 14, I can't believe it. He is a very talented artist. He plays the guitar and can hear music and repeat it after a few minutes of picking it out on the strings. He was playing chords of a song over and over and I thought that I recognized the tune so I asked him if he was playing "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones and he said yes. I then told him that he was playing it to fast and he informed me that he was playing the cover version from his favorite band. Then he smartly showed me that he new the correct tempo of the song. He couldn't believe that I knew that song, I think I earned "Cool Aunt" points with him. While I was there at the house for Christmas I knitted him a second Skull Cap, London Beanie, Head Hugger, which ever name you prefer, in a superwash wool brown in color. If my music knowledge didn't impress him, I know that knitting him that hat while I was there did. I gave it to him and I got a "COOL" out of him and then he went to skate board.
Tonight Sensei and I are heading to "The Streets of Bakersfield" (I know another song), to visit with my little brother and his family and exchange gifts. I can't wait to see the look on my niece's face when she opens up her present and sees the little felted purple purse that I made her. I think she is going to love it. Besides having Christmas with my little brothers family we are going to play golf with him and my cousin tomorrow morning, 7am!! When am I going to get a day to sleep in?? But this is just another opportunity to beat Sensei at golf again. Now my little brother, no way I can beat him, but Sensei is within my reach still.
Now on to knitting news...
I have attempted to cast on for my Lady Eleanor Stole 3 times!!! Yes, you read that right, 3 times. I have never done entralac and I thought that I was doing something wrong because it looked horrible, the base triangles looked like cornucopias, there was no way that this could have been right. Last night at Social Knitting I describing what a dork I was with the LE and one of the lady's told me that I had it right and it would straighten out after a couple of tiers were knitted. WOW, did I feel even worse. So I am going to have to try it again. But the good news is that the yellow yarn that I wanted to knit a baby blanket for a girlfriend of mine came in yesterday. So this weekend I will be casting on to swatch for the blanket because I am going to use my new book on cables to make the blanket.

Ok, I have rambled on and on and I know that this was not very entertaining, but I am sure that you will get over it soon. Have a safe and Happy New Year!!