by Sarah

I'm back...

You know whats better than arriving home from a trip and picking up your best dog to take him to one of your favorite beaches for a long beach-walk with a cool, crisp sunset?  Having the beach all to yourselves when you do!  Murph and I had a great time at the beach last night, but I regret to inform you that I forgot my camera.

Instead, I give you this sunset shot of the Chicago skyline I snuck out the window while we were in our meetings at the Hancock Tower.  I think its time for that office to wash their windows!

And here's the latest progress update on my raglan cardi...I finally got to do some knitting on it yesterday, and was able to put the sleeve stitches on holders and start on the body.

 

I am very happy to be home, and excited to pass out some Halloween Candies for the first time in my new house tonight!!

Blog Update

Sorry for the blog silence.
I have been traveling, working like crazy, and haven't knit a stitch since Saturday.
Sorry, I have no updates on the knitting front, I didn't take new picture of my raglan dropps like sweater - but I am still ITCHING to knit on it.  I have some mystery socks from Through the Loops just waiting for me to complete the last clues too! (Maybe at the airport tomorrow??)  Guess what else, my sister tried on CPH II and reports that it fits beautifully.  I am going to block it this weekend, and then we will take it for a walk and some pictures when the weather gets sunny again.  Which, even though I am still in the midwest, I hear right now it is NOT.

In the meantime, I will show you a couple of pictures of the hotel and restaurants I visited in Kansas City.  Cause that's all I saw that wasn't work.  And frankly, no offense to KC, but it seemed like there wasn't too much else to see anyway.

A pretty building:

The hotel, and view from its skybridge:

The Majestic - good food and fun jazz.  I have a little video of the jazz on my flickr account,  click on any of these pics to get to my Kansas City set (where the video is living), but for some reason it didn't want to embed, and I'm to busy to figure out why:

Lidia's Restaurant.  Best meal I have had out at a restaurant in a VERY long time. mmmm.  Good ambiance too:

Kansas city, thats all I got.
More on Chicago later.
I LOVE Chicago.
Wish I was gonna be here longer.

productivity...

A wave of productivity hit me last night...

First, I washed the dog.  What a mess THAT always is, but now he is fluffy and beautiful and smells like an angel.  Ok, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but he does no-longer smell like a dirty dog.

I also went to an open mike night and saw Kim LaMothe perform for the second time.  She's great!  While I was there, I did some work on yet another new knitting project.  You see, although in THEORY I was excited about my colorwork cardi, when I picked it up, I was very unmotivated to knit it.  THEN, I say this sweater on ravelry, and decided I needed to make myself a version of it as a top down raglan with a BIG neck - something like this awesome version here.  So I did some quick measuring, some quick swatching, a little bit of math, and knit 100 grams worth of sweater last night!

This morning, the motivation continued.  I cleaned out my fridge, swept the kitchen floor, cleaned out my cat's litter boxes, cooked some rice to mix with the dog's food, did 3 loads of laundry, created a giant pot of butternut squash soup, cooked myself my usual breakfast of 2 egg whites/a wheat tortilla/salsa/and light american cheese, and then, took the sweater off the needles to see how it was progressing, and try it on.  All before work.

The sweater is coming out GREAT.  I love the big square neckline!

I can't wait to work on it more tonight.
I see some video rentals in my future!

Ta Da!

I put the button band and buttons on last night.  I even had the brainstorm to first sew the buttons on with really strong polyester thread, and then put a layer of the yarn I knit the sweater with as a final touch over them.  This is just a little teaser photo of the sweater, until I can get my sister to model it properly.

While you were all at Rhinebeck...

I finished a sweater!
Here's my second CPH, in need of some button bands:

 

And here it is from the front:

My sister asked for the arms extra long - I hope they aren't TOO long.

Now I need to search out an extra long cable thats not broken (I may have to get out some superglue - stupid knitpicks) to knit the button band.

I also did a little work on the stripey scarf, after finishing almost two whole balls of Noro, it is 41 inches:

And now I can start a colorwork yolk sweater for myself. YEAH!!

I'm on a roll...

I finished the CPH II Sleeves Last night, here they are soaking in a bath so I can block them and sew them onto the sweater:

I have also been working on a Noro stripy scarf (yes, I cast on something else), and it is totally addictive!  I am making this as a Christmas present for a family member, and I keep looking at it thinking, maybe I don't need to gift it away.  I know a million of these have been made before, but it is just so fun to see how the stripes get together:

I'm going to try and get the sweater together so I can start the hood before the weekend is out!  If the scarf doesn't distract me too much!

Its Socktober...

Last Friday night, I went to White Electric Coffee Shop with some friends and saw Kim Lamothe and Anna Coogan play.  Both had amazing voices and great bands, and I totally enjoyed myself.  I even bought one of Kim's CDs.

White Electric is usually only open during the day, when I can't get into the city too easily, so I was glad to get the opportunity to hang there in the evening, as the atmosphere and the tea are both quite nice.  I finished some socks while I was there.  Then was reminded of why I only knit plain stockinette in the dark, and don't do daring things like toe decreases:

But I ripped that toe back, and the socks are done again.  My first finished socks of socktober (plus Morgan's butt):

So far, I have only missed one night of working on my socks before bed.  It had to do with a lot of yard work, and plying my yarn singles until I was too tired to do anything else. The last few nights, I have been working on my gentleman's half hose ringwood socks.  Here's a little update photo:

I finished the heel flaps on both of my Through The Loops Socktober Mystery Socks, but I am only showing you the legs - that was last week's clue:

And last but DEFINITELY not least, I have been knitting on my CPH II Sweater. I only have about 1 1/2 inches left before I decrease for the sleeve cap on the arms, and then I will be able to wash and block and put the sweater together so I can do the hood:

On yardwork...

I weeded the front garden this past weekend (oops I forgot to take a before picture), and have slowly been adding mulch.  Twenty bags later, it is finally done:

AND...look at this weird worm I found inside the Lilac bush while I was cutting it down to try and move it:

Another Meme

Thanks to Sarah and Katie for tagging me. 

Rules:

* Link to the person who tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Write six random things about yourself.
* Tag six people at the end of your post.
* Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
* Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Here are my six random things:

1) When I was younger I never wanted a dog.  Actually, I thought dogs were kind of stupid, a lot of work, and a little smelly.  My how times have changed.  To be fair, I do think SOME dogs are kind of stupid, and a little smelly, but now I realize they are probably worth the work.  At least to their owners.

2) I have two cats.  I seldom refer to them on the blog, but they are always around.  Morgan is 11, and I have had her since she was 12 weeks old.  She is my constant supervisor.  Caleb is 10, I have had him since he was 8 weeks old.  He mostly sleeps.  I always liked cats.

3) I used to have fish.  I also used to have an iguana.  I don't have either anymore, but I took good care of them when I did have them.  I would agree to someone living with me having a (non-poisonous) lizard, but a bird would be a dealbreaker.

4) I have been living in Rhode Island for a year, and so far, everytime someone has told me that a pizza place is good, I have disagreed.  I like brick oven style pizza...not deep dish greasiness.

5) When I am not traveling for business, I work from an office in my home.  It is good and bad.  I wish I was around people more, but I get a lot of work done, and dont have to worry about waiting for repair people.

6) I absolutely love being outside.  I like going to the beach.  I like walking in the woods.  I like hiking in the mountains.  I have even started to like yard work.  At least the being outside of it part.  I like all of these places, including the beach, best in the fall.  In my opinion, autumn weather cannot last long enough!

And here's where I ignore the rules a little.  Why? Cause I can't stop myself from participating in a chain letter (I'm pretty sure memes are the chain letters of the blogging world), but I don't really like doing them.  So I don't want to inflict the chain letter on you if you don't feel like doing it.  If you like 'em and you read my blog...consider yourself tagged.  Please leave me a comment so I can go read your answers later!

Saturday's RISG Meeting...

On Saturday, the RI Spinners Guild met at the Gilbert Stuart Homestead.  It was quite pretty there, so I thought I'd share a couple of pictures:

The meeting was a nice social gathering, with the added bonus of a demonstration from Richard on how to spin flax.  Here he is spreading out the flax to put on his distaff:

And look how thin he spins it here, I swear he is using like 3 flax fibers at a time:

Here are a couple of bonus photos I took in N Kingstown, after I turned the wrong way on my drive home.  Its quite pretty down there, so I am glad I ended up going this way: