Don't Call It A Comeback... Really posted on 8/24/11

I have been both missing and dreading blogging if that makes any sense to whoever is still intrigued with my blog. Many things have happened, many decisions made since I dropped off the Blogger world. The idea of documenting parts of my life and talking about knitting really excites me, however the time dedicated to keeping the blog up is a bit overwhelming too. So I think I will just make a weekly entry with highlights and updates. Now which day to pick?? That will have to be thought out carefully.

In the meantime I have yet to tell you all about the wedding/honeymoon/vacation! The good, the bad and the absolute funny.

The bottom left picture is of Honolulu and Waikiki beach. The bottom right picture is of the Leeward (West Coast) of Oahu where we stayed. There are four lagoons, we stayed on the northern most lagoon.

Richard and I arrived to SFO for our flight to Honolulu on Friday October 8th packed carefully and ready to go, wedding clothes (dress included) in a garment bag. The flight is fully booked and it is very crowded but I make my way up to the desk at the gate and ask the attendant if it is possible that I could have my wedding dress taken on to the plane before we board and hung in a closet because I wanted to give it the best chance possible traveling to still look ok when we arrive. The Hawaiian Airline attendant informed me that this plane does not have any closets for hanging clothes....I thought I was going to pass out right there. Ladies surrounding me, could see the panic on my face. I suck it up and move on, we board the plane and the over head compartments are filling very quickly and leaving not much room for anything much less my wedding dress and his wedding clothes. I didn't want to look, I sat down in my seat, head in my hands and could see out of the corner of my eye Richard shoving the garment bag into the compartment. The very sweet lady across the isle "supervising" was trying to ease my mind and telling me that he was doing fine and that the dress will be fine with a sweet smile on her face.......the dress was not fine....the rhinestone piece on the waistband was broken when I opened the bag at the hotel. It ended up fine in the long run, the hotel cleaners/alterations mended it enough to make it through the day, the REALLY long day!

We stayed at the JW Marriott in Ko Olina and it was really beautiful. The resort is situated on the most northern man made lagoon on the Leeward Coast of Oahu and is about 45 minutes from Honolulu. The day of the wedding started at 4:15am...yes, you read that right, 4:15am. I had a hair and make-up lady come to the hotel at 5am and we had to be ready and set at 7:30am for our 8am wedding. If you are reading this and know me well enough, you know that we were not ready at 7:30am and the wedding started a bit late, just a bit. The flowers and lei's were delivered, Richard greeted each of our special guest with a fresh orchid lei and they proceeded to the wedding site, the natural cove.

Once I was given word that everyone was in place I headed down to the cove with my new sister-in-laws. It was time, we were a bit, but the sun was shining brightly with a very soft cool breeze and it was 8:15am. As I step down onto the sandy cove and I see everyone gathered, Richard has his back turned to me and chatting with the minister. He had only one request for our wedding day, he didn't want to see me all dressed and made up until the ceremony started, mission accomplished. The minister smiled, gestured towards me and Richard turned and smiled like I had never seen him smile before. The ceremony was a mixture of Christian and Hawaiian traditions which included prayers spoken in English and Hawaiian. And at 8:45am on Sunday October 10, 2010 we were officially married 6 years and 364 days after our first date!

Now, on to the funny! After the wedding ceremony we had our family gather in our room for mimosas and fruit while we took our wedding photos. After the photos were taken we all went the Champagne Brunch right there at the hotel. We are all having a great time, we are hungry and I have had my fair share of champagne. Have I told you that I love champagne? Well since we were not having a large wedding and the brunch would have all sorts of desserts I passed on purchasing a wedding cake. I scoped out the desserts and there was a white cake with some sort of fruit filling and took a slice and went back to the table declaring this our "wedding cake." So we politely took our forks, cut off some cake and fed each other a bite...proper and civil like. Then his "brother from another mother" Troy with my camera in his hand started winking at my husband and saying, "No, No, No you have the feed it to each other" wink wink grin grin. I was oblivious to the cues that Troy was giving; some people would call it tipsy, whatever! The next thing I know is I see cake coming at my face and my husband is trying to pull me towards him all the while he is leaning back in fear of my retaliation that he leans too far back and well you see what happened below...

He broke the chair and fell on his ass!!! Yes, that is me, his wife laughing so hard that I didn't even get up to help him. I can still hear Aunt Gwen laughing and telling Richard, "God don't like ugly!"

After brunch, we all went our seperate ways and we gathered later that night for the luau. We had such a beautiful morning full of laughter and happy tears. We were in a beautiful setting for such an imporant moment in our lives with family and friends and we would have not done it any different!

Aloha!
Ko Olina, Oahu
October 10, 2010

Next blog post, the luau...

Hair and make-up by Face Art Beauty

Wedding Photography by Steve Young

Aloha...

Aloha!

As the sun rises on a new day
our love will grow in a special way

Lisa Jalaine Lowery

and

Richard Dean Barefield II

ask that you join us for an intimate ceremony

of the beginning of our new life

together as husband and wife

Sunday, the tenth of October

two thousand and ten

at eight in the morning

Ko Olina Beach

Kapolei - Oahu, Hawaii

Yep! We are getting married. And yes, you read that right, we are marrying at 8am. Since we picked such a popular date, 10/10/10 that was the only time that we could get the wedding photographer that I wanted. Needles to say "he" is not happy about the time. I pointed out that we have gotten up as early or even earlier for karate tournaments and tennis tournaments, he can do the same for his wedding. So the upshot to marrying that early on a Sunday morning is there will be less people out on the beach, the lighting will be amazing and there will be little to no wind. The pictures should be fantastic. We are going to a champagne brunch afterwards and then later that night we are going to get our luau on!

At the request of friends and family, here is a link to our wedding website:

http://barefield-lowery.ourwedding.com/

And here is our wedding (actually honeymoon) registry: https://www.marriottregistry.com/Lisa-Richard

Ok, I am off to do some more wedding planning. Contemplating veil or no veil?

Hello...(tap, tap) Is this thing on??

It has been FOREVER since I last blogged. So much, yet nothing much as been happening if you know what I mean. There has been some knitting, not as much as I would like though. I will very shortly have some BIG news, if I still have an audience! So stay tuned...

This is a hint!

Little Bundle of Jordan Joy...

When I learned the news of my younger brother and his wife expecting child number three I knew immediately that I must knit a baby blanket. They had decided not to find out the sex of the child prior to delivery so I had to decide on a neutral color and pattern for the newest Baby Lowery.

Yellow always seems to be the "neutral" color everyone uses, however I am not a big fan of yellow and decided that a pretty spring like green would do the trick. The pattern I chose was one that I had admired for a while now and was pretty simple to make.

Pattern: Eyelet Squares Blanket by Linda Cyr

Materials:Valley Yarns Valley Superwash DK
Colorway: Grass

Amount: 7 skeins = 959.0 yards (876.9m)

Needles: US 6/4mm

Start Date: September 2009

Finish Date: February 2010

For the record, this yarn is fabulous! It is a superwash merino and knit up, it is very soft and squishy, it is perfect for babies. This yarn has great stitch definition and I am seriously looking forward to knitting with this yarn again. I love this so much that I want to buy a bag of it in every color. I will caution you, swatch, swatch, swatch if you are going to knit a fitted garment, (you should be doing that already, right!) but this did grow once washed. That was not a problem for me, I was happy that it did being a blanket and all. The pattern was not difficult, I only took as long as I did to finish because I was knitting other projects with Christmas deadlines.

With the left over yarn that I had I knit a matching hat for her. Again, this yarn worked perfect for this newborn hat, so soft for her tender little head. May I present Jordan Joy...

Proud Big Sister and Big Brother

I still have some of the green Valley Yarns Superwash DK left over, I am thinking booties!!

Winter Olympics 2010

As the world gathers in Vancouver tonight for the opening ceremonies of the 21st Olympiad, I along with thousands of other knitters will be watching and knitting. Knitters like a challenge and we have adapted our own sort of Knitting Olympics. I have picked my event, WIP Dancing and I will be challenged for sure!

Do you remember this project that I agreed to knit?




There are a few more rows on there since this picture has been taken.

Well, my challenge will be to finish it by the time the put the flame out in Vancouver. Now as a recap, every row/tier takes 5 hours to complete and I have a whole hell of a lot of rows/tiers to complete to make this a full size blanket. I will be posting progress photos as I go along. Wish me luck, I really want to have this completed and presented to the future owner and release one more obligation in my life :)

Waves in the Square

This past Christmas I decided that I would knit my niece and nephew blankets because I have not yet, I was making their new baby sister or brother a blanket and lastly, why not?

Pattern: Waves in the Square Blanket

Modified Waves in the Square Shawl
Materials: KnitPicks Swish Worsted

Colorway: Indigo Heather
Needles: US 7/4.5mm
Start Date: November 2009
Finish Date: December18, 2009

So I began my search of a pretty blanket pattern to knit in the round from the center out. With much searching on Ravelry I did not find anything that I really liked. But I did remember that I had bought the Waves in the Square Shawl pattern by Sivia Harding and thought to myself, I can adapt this pattern! And so I did (with some feedback from some knitting friends.) I started the blanket with a circular cast on by Judy Becker, filled in the center of the blanket with seed stitch and did the written increases until I came to the correct amount of stitches to start the pattern as it was charted out. I am not totally pleased on my choice of center fill space because it sort of puckers, but all in all, I am pleased with the whole project. I am sure that it puckers because I did something dumb and not because of the cast-on.

The color was decided by my sister-in-law, I was not sure what my niece's favorite color was this week, so I emailed a color card to her and had her pick for me. It was a huge hit.

My brothers family came up just before Christmas to visit and gifted the blanket to her then. The best part is, my niece LOVES it! I asked her how she liked the blanket and she said that she uses it all the time, that makes an Auntie happy.

Next time....Another blanket and my new niece!

Happy New Year??

You betcha! 2010 WILL BE a good year, I am going to make it the best year of my life. So either you are on board with me or get out of my way.

2009 was not so nice to me on several levels, especially the second half of the year, hence the lack of blogging. But after reading some blogs that have recapped the year I thought that would be a great start to this year. I am going to "borrow" Delia's recap idea (her year was much nicer than mine.)

January: Went to my families annual post Christmas Griffin Family Gathering. Lots-O-Fun, we do the gift stealing, this year I came home with a nut chopper.


February: Got a new DSLR a Cannon Rebel XSi (450D). And I went to Stitches West, it is in my back yard practically how could I not? And if you want to see my daily posts click on the following links, Day1 Day2 Day3 Day4



March: Spent the day with my niece and nephew in Bakersfield and took them to the park.


April: Went to Sensei's family reunion in Fresno, lots and lots of family. Also, had dinner with high school friends, Denise and Gina. It was great to catch up!


May: Sensei and I went to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium for the day, was a great day.


June: Was a sad month, but I am sure I did something fun ?!?! Points for someone that can tell me something good about this month.

July: Was a sad month, but I am sure I did something fun ?!?! Points for someone that can tell me something good about this month.

August: I went to the Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon and met Barbara Walker and Meg Swansen. My daily posts about SS09 can be found here, Day1 Day2 Day3 Day4 Day5 Out-takes




September: Reconnected with a couple of high school friends, Debbie and Michelle. We had lunch in Fresno and played catch up of almost 19 years!


October: Went to Bakersfield and watched my nephew play fall baseball and Sensei play in a tennis tournament. That is my brother pitching to his son, cute...



November: My sister-in-law and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner at my Mimi's house and we wore our new cute aprons that my friend Jill hand sewn for us.


December: I had a birthday. My younger brother and his family came up from Bakersfield to see me in San Jose and my mom in San Francisco. While in San Francisco, the girls (Mom, Crystal, Caitlin and I) went and had tea at Crown and Crumpets in San Francisco, that was wonderful. And I have lived in San Jose now for 5 years and this is the first year that I have been to Christmas in the Park. The kids really loved it and it was fun for me too!

Hello! Long time no hear, from me that is. I would love to say that I have been SO busy, and while I have been, I have not been too busy to blog. I have gotten really lazy when it has come to blogging and the sad thing is there has been blog worthy content.

There has been knitting, there has been stash enhancements, there has been library additions too. What has not happened is all my laundry completed and put away, every dish cleaned and put away and the spare room still needs much attention. There is still no baby on the way and we will be picking up our efforts at the fertility clinic the beginning of next year.

I promise to post some finished knitting, update on progress of current projects and pictures of it all. Also I will be having my annual birthday blog contest, the prize you ask? It will be a fabulous book, trust me, it is a gem (just ask Meg Swansen.) So stay tuned, check back and I will keep you posted.

Until then, enjoy a picture of my furry little guy.

Sock Summit the Out-Takes

Ok, this is THE last Sock Summit post that I am going to do, I swear! I wanted to get this out a while ago, but I am still trying to get things back in order post SS09. This post is about random things that happened at SS09 that were very memorable but did not make it into my other SS09 posts. Here goes...

There are a group of 10 of us that know what the meaning of Whoop! Whoop!

You can trade a Voodoo Doughnut for a pair of Mini Socks. This very lovely lady Lynne, sat down at the table I was sitting and really wanted a doughnut so she offered a pair of mini socks that she made for the doughnut, I told her that she could have one, the trade was not necessary and she insisted. So now I have a cute little pair of mini socks!
Cat Borhdi thinks I look like Robin Williams. Well at least the hair part.

Before SS09 I had not known how much my mother and Tina Newton look alike.
They could be sisters (a girl can only dream.) Sorry, the photo of mom is a bit blurry, but you get the idea.

Nancy Bush and Ann Budd were walking out of the convention center on their way to dinner. Jasmin sees them and runs up to them looks at Ann Budd and says, "I loved your daughter in the production of Romeo and Juliet." Ann Budd replies, "That was Pam Allen."

This was taken before the faux pas.

I was interviewed on the local CBS station KOIN 6 about the Sock Summit. This is the only video available online, but there were other segments that ran at different times with more of the interview.


Mittens can be used to cover other parts of your body (and that is all I am going to say about that to protect the innocent.)

Knitters after having several drinks are good negotiators, they could even talk a person out of their clothes (and that is all I am going to say about that to protect the innocent.)

The next time Cookie gives me advice on what classes to take at a knitting event, I will listen. (Regret not taking a class from Anna Zilboorg.)

Some stash enhancement. I really didn't buy much yarn, I bought more tools and project bags than yarn.

Bryson sock blockers with my sock project I was knitting at SS09, Miss Babs sock yarn in My Kelley colorway, Skull and knitting needles project bag in chocolate brown and mint green, Misti Alpaca lace (the entire bag-5 hanks) in a beautiful red at a steal of a price I might add, Thank you WEBS Yarns, Ebony tool named Wanda, Triangular project bag made by Knit, Purl, Sew What?

What do I think if Sock Summit? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt :)

Portland Sock Summit Day 5

This was a big day. What I did not tell you about the night before is that I sold my Sunday class Textured Colorwork with Chrissy Gardiner for a prawn & scallop dinner to a nice young man Ben. Why would I do that? Cause my class started at 9am and well, I was going to Barbara Walker's hotel room at 10am! The Knitmore Girls scored an interview with BGW and there was not going to be anything that could have stopped me from being there.

So I packed my two BGW books that I brought with me to get signed and off we went. We arrived at the hotel and when I say we, I mean Jasmin & Gigi (The Knitmore Girls) and Chloe, Maribel and I. Now remember yesterday when I saw her in my class with Meg Swansen and took a picture, I cried? Well she opens the door and saw all five of us and sees me, she says, "Oh my there are a lot of you" I reply quickly with, "I promise I won't cry today," cause I am real witty! We all file in to the room, Barbara gets comfortable while Jasmin sets up the equipment and we were all just waiting for BGW to start speaking and impart all her wisdom upon us and she did.





Once Jasmin asked her pre-determined questions she asked us if there was anything we wanted to ask her and my mind went blank. The only thing I could think of was "Chloe has a great question!" And it was a great question, you have to listen to the interview when it comes out because she answers a question that is asked on Ravelry every day.

Now that the question and answer portion of the visit was over I had pulled out my books for her to sign and she did graciously.





Then Jasmin leans in and says, "Isn't there something else that you would like her to sign?" Jasmin put me on the spot and BGW looked at me for the "something else" to sign. So let me go back a few days and explain. Since we took off from San Jose, we have been chatting about this interview, what was going to be asked, speculating where the interview was going to take place, what we would say to her when we met her, so on and so forth. I had a silly idea that I was going to have BGW sign a part of my body, possibly my ankle or foot and have that permanently tattooed on me. This idea started as a joke, but I started to seriously consider it for a few days. I thought what would Sensei say when I came home and my ankle says Barbara Walker? The idea was great fun to imagine how she would react and what she would think and then reason got the better of me (the same reason that stopped me from running up to Meg Swansen and hugging her when I first saw her) and I decided that the tattoo was not a good idea. Besides, how would I feel if she said NO!?!? I would have been shattered. So I quickly explained the idea to Barbara and she just giggled a bit and smiled but still had the pen in her hand. I think she would have done it, I really do.

Barbara G. Walker is one of the most interesting people that I have ever met. I learned so much from her and I did ask her a question that I am not sure we were still taping, but I asked how nice it was that Meg and her were at SS09 and I asked if they keep in touch much. To my surprise BGW said that was about the 2nd or 3rd time they had been in each others presence.
The five of us gathered up our things and BGW hugged each of us, we said our goodbye's and walked on air for the rest of the day.

The last SS09 event was the Luminary Panel. The Panel was moderated by Stephanie Pearl McPhee (The Yarn Harlot) and Tina Newton of Blue Moon Fiber Arts and the consisted of Lucy Neatby, Cat Borhdi, Deborah Robson, Anna Zilboorg, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Meg Swansen, Babara Walker, Judith Mackenzie-McCuin and Nancy Bush...WOW.









This was the second best thing about SS09 for me. Lots of laughs, lots of wisdom and a bit if regret on my part for not listening to a certain friend who told me to take a class from Anna Zilboorg (I love this woman!) Also, since I am not a spinner I have not had much knowledge of Judith MacKenzie-McCuin, but she is a very lovely woman, very classy. One of the many memorable comments from the panel came from Judith. When asked about how large your stash is and how to deal with the possible guilt that comes with a large stash her reply was, Julia Child says that every chef needs a well stocked pantry when inspiration hits so do not be ashmed of your large stash, you need inventory for when inspiration strikes. The good thing is, I believe it was professionally recorded the event from the looks of the camera man in the back and I am sure that the DVD will be available for purchase eventually.

The Luminary Panel marked the end of Sock Summit 2009 and it coincided with what would have been Elizabeth Zimmermann's 99th birthday. A cake was presented, we all sang Happy Birthday and Meg cut the cake and served.

For the full set of my Sock Summit photos you can find them here.
The next post will be full of out takes (they will be fun), stuff I bought and stuff I didn't buy.

Portland Sock Summit Day 4 (long day, long post)

Ok, where did we leave off? Oh that is right, it is now Saturday of the Sock Summit and today is the day that I am to meet Meg Swansen. There were two major reasons I came to Sock Summit, first and foremost-Barbara Walker and second-Meg Swansen. I had a feeling that this was going to be my one and only opportunity to see these ladies and nothing was going to get in my away. I was fortunate to get a spot in one of Meg Swansen's class, however I did not get a spot in Barbara Walkers class or lecture.



So Maribel and I took the Elizabeth Zimmermann's Wearable Art Stockings and when we arrived to the class only the seats in the last two rows were open. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get there to sit in the front but oh well. Class is about to start and the back door opens, I turn to look to see who is coming in and it is Barbara G. Walker. BGW takes a seat behind me quietly and pulls out her knitting and class starts. I have to say, Amy Detjen (Meg's assistant) IS the funniest woman in knitting.




Meg is witty, charming and knowledgeable; Amy is hysterical, but BGW is sitting behind me and it took everything I had to not just pick up my stuff and sit next to her and see what she was knitting (it was re purposed pinkish mauve yarn and she was knitting socks) , how was her lunch, what did you eat? Ya know, chat like girlfriends. It would have been rather rude to Meg if I did that, so I refrained, until there was a break....



I had this whole well thought out statement of gratitude that I was rehearsing in my head for like an hour and a half. I grab my camera, grab Maribel's arm demanding she come with me and I lean over and with a shaky smile and say,

"Would you mind terribly to pose for a photograph with me?"
She replies, "No, I would not mind."

I could not sit down fast enough, I really thought my legs were going to come out from under me. I put on my stupidest smile and Maribel snaps the photo. Then here is where I am going to regret telling you the whole story. I then slide off the chair, remain squatting in front of BGW and proceed to say,

"I have to tell you, you are THE number one reason I came to the Sock Summit." Queue the very shaky voice and tears (I mean real tears.) BGW give me a Ahh and reached over and touched my arm. I then had more brilliant words to say,

"I am going to go now, I am starting to cry."

Well I was pretty much crying already and I am pretty sure that I bolted out of the room to really get emotional.



I was over the moon! So i had to collect myself and get back to class, break was going to be over and Meg waits on no one. During class, we were witness to Meg Swansen clarifying her understanding of who invented SSK. Meg asked BGW, "did you invent SSK?" and BGW replied, "well, I suppose, I knew of no one else doing that before." And then Amy Detjen cried and the room clapped and cheered.



1. SockSummitPortland2009 073, 2. SockSummitPortland2009 074, 3. SockSummitPortland2009 072, 4. SockSummitPortland2009 071, 5. SockSummitPortland2009 070, 6. SockSummitPortland2009 069, 7. SockSummitPortland2009 068, 8. SockSummitPortland2009 067, 9. SockSummitPortland2009 066, 10. SockSummitPortland2009 064, 11. SockSummitPortland2009 063, 12. SockSummitPortland2009 067, 13. SockSummitPortland2009 064

After class we sat with Judy Becker and had an impromptu lesson on how to hand wind your yarn, I love this woman, she is great! Then we were off to dinner with the ladies of Abstract Fibers. Once we realized what time it was, we hurried off to grab the MAX to get to the Ravelry party. Once we got there albeit late, we still had some fun.



Cristi (turtlegirl71) and Stacey came with us back to our hotel for the After After Party. Well, we had a blast! There was lots of wine then more drinks just started appearing. There are pictures and video, however, I have nothing that is appropriate to share here on this blog. Believe me, knitters DO have fun! I think the video just might find its way to YouTube and become viral!

Stay tuned, there will be more to come tomorrow.