2 finished objects and a dog's birthday

I have been working on these socks since last summer. I cast on after we moved into this house in August. I started working on them again over the weekend and was surprised to see how close I was to finishing them, it only had about an hours worth of knitting left. Here they are,

Pattern is from Interweave Knits, Winter 2005. Yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Bittersweet.

If I had to do these socks again, I would definitely not continue the lace pattern along the bottom of the foot. I think it's wasted time/effort, but also it feels kinda funky on the bottom of my feet to have all that texture. I didn't even think of making the bottoms solid stockinette until the first sock was completely done. The pattern also calls to cut the yarn after the heel and start again, I think I would change that too. I get nervous about my socks not all being one long peice of yarn.

The thing in this house that makes me most nervous though... is this:

AHHHHHHHHHHHH There's a sock murderer loose in my house!!!
These are the worst things you could possibly ever step on. The nails stick up just enough to catch on a sock and RRRRRIPPPPP! I have lost quite a few socks to these strips, fortunately though, only store-bought ones. But it makes me extremely paranoid when I am wearing my knit socks.

The next finished object is a bag that I made for a baby shower that was last Saturday. I couldn't make it to the shower because my sister Shannon was home for the weekend. I hadn't seen her since April, so I thought that was a pretty valid reason to not attend the shower. I finished it Sunday night and will give it to the recipient when I see her this Saturday.



And now we travel back in time to September 15th 2007. Since Bella is such a good girl and just loves to play with other dogs, we decided to celebrate her first birthday by throwing her a HUGE party. There was probably 35 or 40 people here and at least 15 dogs. we had People food and dog treats and I made a cake (for people) shaped like a dog bone:



It wasn't that difficult to make the cake. I used three box mixes and baked them in a 9 by 13 rectangular pan. (each separately because I only have one 9 by 13 pan) then stacked them up with cool whip in between and let them sit in the fridge overnight so they would be more solid. Then I just used a sharp knife and carved out the bone shape using a paper pattern that I drew out first.

Here are two of the dogs that attended the party. Cricket is in front and Jada is in back. They are patiently waiting for the hand made dog cookies that are there on the picnic table. Just after the picture was snapped though, cricket jumped up onto the table and snatched as many as he could before his mom caught him.



The next morning, Bella opened her birthday presents. She got quite a few balls and bones and toys. She even got some scratch-off lottery tickets. She didn't win anything though.



The party was quite a success. there were only a few little scraps here and there and the only major problem was the weather. It was only about 62 degrees here. After a whole week of 75 to 80 degree weather, and then the whole week after the party it was in the 90's. We had a keg and a fire so the cold wasn't bothering me.

Happy Halloween (2 days later)

I've taken a very LONG vacation from the blog. Long enough to get kicked off some of my Rings. So I am going to try to really make an effort to blog more than once a week. I thought I would start with Halloween and go backwards. I won't make it all the way back to April in one post though.

I made Ryan an award winning costume this year. In early October, we were at a birthday party for a friend and we started talking about Halloween and Ryan just blurted out, "I"m going to be a pissed-off sunflower for halloween". He said he hadn't even been thinking about it, but it just came to him, right then. Everyone thought it would be hilarious and my wheels started turning about how to make the costume. I would need a costume too, so I decided I would be Marilyn Monroe and enlisted my mom to make the white dress from "The Seven Year Itch". The costumes were for a Halloween show at a local dive venue in Ypsilanti where Ryan and the guys play quite often called "the Elbow Room".

This is him playing drums with his costume on:



and here is a better picture of the costume.
I used felt and sewed each petal shape inside out and stuffed them with fiber-fill and sewed them all to a store-bought knit cap. Originally I started with flat petals with wire clothes hangers glued inside, but that made it really heavy, so I had the idea to use stuffed petals and it really worked well. I sewed each petal to a strip of brown felt and then sewed that to the hat by hand. then I picked a couple places on each petal to sew it either to the petal next to it or to the hat more toward the top of the head, to keep it from just flopping down in front of his face. Then to hide all my stitches, I sewed two strips of brown together and cut slits into it and sewed it around the face opening, to look like the center of a sunflower. He had the best costume at both shows he played that weekend. The second show is where he won the costume contest. It was down to him and one other guy wearing a store-bought costume tied for first place. So they arm-wrestled for it and Ryan won! First prize was a brand new iPod Shuffle! I ask you this though... Who really won? The guy who wears the costume or the gal who made it? I don't want the iPod, I already have my own, but I just want a little recognition for it!

This is the only picture I have of me in my costume so far. I'm still waiting for a friend to send me the pictures she took with her camera.



On Halloween proper, we went to Monroe to go trick or treating with Ryan's niece and nephew. They were freaking adorable in their costumes. Ryan wore his sunflower head too and got comments from almost every person we passed. Kids laughed, older kids just said, "HA! HE's a Giant sunflower!!!!" After trick or treating we came home and charged up the camera batteries and emptied the memory stick onto the computer and gathered up some flashlights. We waited until midnight and then drove to some really old scary cemeteries. We took pictures in the pitch black hoping to see some gnarly scary ghosts on the images, but didn't really see anything. There are quite a few spots on the pictures, like glowing bubbles sort of, but I'm sure they are just light reflections off the moon or the flash or something.



This picture actually has some of the spots on it, but you proably have to make it big to see them.


Nothing too scary happened while we were out. I was expecting to get really freaked out and RUN back to the car. The first cemetery was the scariest. It is really really old, it is on the side of a road near our house and just sortof in the middle of a bunch of corn fields. We got out of the car and held hands as we walked up the the stones and shined the flashlights around and saw something moving... it was an american flag at one of the grave sites. So we just sortof stood at the edge of the cemetery and took the pictures. The next cemetery was completely fenced off, so we just pulled up and took pics from the car.
At the last cemetery we got out and walked around a little bit. There were some houses sortof near it, but it was way out in the country. All the stones were really old, people that died in the mid 1800's. We were standing there and heard something. kindof like a metal pipe hitting soemthing else metal. we stopped and just looked at each other, still listening. We heard it bang three times and I said, "OK, I'm ready to go". We got to the car and looked back and one of the houses near the cemetery had their outside lights on and we could see someone walking around, so we were pretty sure that's where the noise came from.

Ok, I think this post is long enough, next time I'll go backwards into September and tell you about Bella's First Birthday party!

I went to Chicago and all I got was...

sick, and some ribbon.

So, I visited my sister in Chicago for the weekend and it was a lot of fun. I took the train from Jackson, Michigan Friday night, which was an hour late when it picked me up, then eventually became two hours late getting into the city because of other trains being in our way.

Saturday we went shopping and walked around town. We went to a cute little shop in Bucktown called Soutache. It was a little store with a whole wall of ribbons, a wall of buttons and a some other findings and metal clasps and things to make dog collars and key chains and stuff. I bought one yard of this pretty ribbon and a fob attachment to make a key chain. Shannon bought some cute used clothing at an upscale "value world" type place. And I did my big sister job of not letting her spend $250+ on a pair of shoes. Actually, my job was to not let her spend more than $250 over the whole weekend. We had a nice lunch at Silver Cloud and then went home for a rest. Then we hopped onto the El and headed toward downtown with the eventual destination of The Cheesecake Factory. We stopped at a dissappointing "chicago fabric yarn and button" or something or other store that had bolts and bolts of UGLY fabric. Stopped at the BEAN; My sister said we HAD to go see the BEAN and I didn't know what she was talking about and it sure didn't sound too exciting. But it was SO cool.


We did make it to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We did not order dinner. We each had a coffee drink and a piece of cheesecake for our early dinner. Shannon had Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake and I had the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake. If you know anything about me, this should sound weird to you. I am a chocoholic. I didn't order the full on chocolate overload cheesecake because I also ordered a Mocha to drink, which has chocolate in it. I thought it might be too much. I was wrong. I could have handled more chocolate. But I had enough of Shannon's to get my fix and neither of us finished our huge slices.

Sunday we started out early and went to breakfast at the Hollywood Cafe or something. I forget what it was called exactly. Then we took the EL for a while and walked for quite a while to get to the little neighborhood where our Great Grandma grew up. We had an address off of an old postcard, so Shannon mapquested it and we found our way to the house. It was kind of dissappointing to walk what was probably a mile or two from the EL stop to find a house that looks like it was built in the last decade. This is the house, about 20 feet from the railroad tracks. This is significant because Great Grandma had a little sister named Leora. When Leora was 4, she and a friend were walking to the store and had to cross the tracks. The girls walked between the cars of a parked train and stepped out on the other side onto the second set of tracks, just as another train came. Leora was killed. So it was very eery to see how close the house was to the tracks.

One redeeming point during our long walk to the house was this:

We were walking up a city street in a not so wonderful neighborhood very near the freeway when shannon stops and points across the street to this chicken, just mosey-ing on down the sidewalk. It was hilarious.

After we looked at the house we were tired of walking and I was not feeling very good. I had woken up with a migraine and I don't think breakfast was agreeing with me, so we figured out the shortest distance to a bus stop. Our next stop would be "Midwest Discount Yarn". The online description said they had mill ends and discontinued yarns at discounted prices. This place was pretty far away, but it sounded worth it. So we took two busses to find it. Closed. Closed on Sunday. of course. SO we got back on the bus headed for a yarn store that Shannon knew was open and was worth the trip. We were on the second bus when I started to feel a little queasy. I took a couple deep breaths and started worrying about this busload of people who might all get to see me puke soon. I told Shannon I didn't feel good and we got off the bus. I just needed some water and I started to feel better, but wasn't ready to get back on a bus yet. We walked a couple blocks along the bus route so we could just hop on when I was ready. We finally made it home with no puking in public. But without any yarn either. Yes... I felt that bad that I gave up a trip to a new yarn shop.

We had to leave Shannon's apartment at 5:30 to make it to Union Station so I could catch my train home. We got to Union Station at 6:19 or so and strolled toward the monitor to see what gate I should wait at. It wasn't on the monitor. So we found an amtrack employee and asked what gate the detroit train should be leaving from, he told us and we went in that direction, but the people at that gate were not even going to Michigan. I was starting to get nervous because the train was supposed to leave at 6:30. I saw another amtrack employee and whipped out my ticket and just said, "where am I supposed to be?" She said, "that train's already gone. It left at 6:00" as she pointed to the ticket where it says "6:00pm". "IT"S GONE" I mouthed to Shannon across the room. She looked puzzled. I got over to her and showed her the 6:00 on my ticket and we both said F***!. but then Shannon exclaimed, "you get to stay another night!!!" Which would have been great and awesome if I still didn't feel like crap with my stupid migraine. So we exchanged my ticket for the first train out in the morning and of course double and triple checked the time with the ticket lady. When we got outside Shannon stopped for a smoke and said I should call Ryan to tell him he doesn't have to pick me up tonight in Jackson. I just looked at her and started BALLING. I lost it. I was sick and when you're sick you just want to be at home. And honestly after only two days away, I missed Ryan and Bella and was excited about him picking me up at the train station. (Of course it's always more romantic in your head). It ended up being a good thing that I didn't take the train Sunday night. It would have been a long miserable ride with the migraine I had. Especially if I didn't get a seat to myself so I could stretch out.

So, that was my trip to Chicago where all I got was a neat piece of ribbon.

few and far between

I just thought I'd stop by my own blog and drop a line. Once every two months seems to be my limit on posting. Not that there isn't "blog worthy" stuff going on around here. I've been sock knitting like crazy. I'm just stuck in a sock rut, and every sock I've worked on, including starting new ones have all been my old stand-by, not toe-up. I was just not in the mood to learn something new I guess.

I've been working on this sock for quite a while. I think I cast on last summer after we moved into the house. I'm getting pretty far on these, despite the needles being stolen and eaten right out of the stitches back in January. Luckily Bella was only interested in the bamboo, not the yarn. Maybe she doesn't like wool... I think in this case that is a good thing.




I have one more 16-row lace repeat to do before I start the toe. This is only sock 1 of the pair. hmmmm that kind of makes me want to go finish it right now.

So after my last pair was finished I cast on this sock. I think the yarn is Trekking, it came from my grandma's stash without a ball band. It seemed like it was a little smaller guage than usual sock yarn, so I was using size 0 needles. I was going along and after 6 inches of 2x2 ribbing and the heel flap and turn heel and even a few gusset decreases, I tried it on.... way too small. So, I stared at it for a couple days, then finally pulled the needles out of it. and there it sits. I'll eventually re-wind the ball and RRRRRRip the sock, but I just can't do it yet.



So after that, I started on my favorite yarn from my stash. My Trekking. I just love these colors. These are for me. I just finished the gussett decreases last night and heading toward the toe on sock one.


And of course I am still working on this pink silk/wool tank top from the cover of Interweave Knits (don't know what issue, magazine is upstairs and I'm lazy). Last time I worked on it, I had an extra stitch in the last row and just did a k2tog with the two stitches before the marker. So now I'm discouraged and think it will mess up the alignment in the lace.



I have not even started working yet today. I have the rest of today, most of tomorrow and all Monday to do almost 20 hours of work. I should be getting it done today and saving myself the stress of finishing 12 hours of work on Monday, but, that's how I do things I guess. Procrastination. Instead of working I have been ADD cleaning, packing, unpacking, doing laundry and snuggling with Bella. Oh, and washed a sink full of dishes. Which included a whole lotta stuff that we got yesterday at IKEA. It was the first time either of us had been there and we (well, I) went nuts; throwing things in the cart left and right. It was all a birthday present to myself. I told Ryan, in lieu of a birthday present this year, I just wanted us to spend a day together and go to IKEA and do some other fun stuff. So that's what we did yesterday.

Then we went to my parents' house for dinner (Seafood quiche, salad and yummy homemade bread), presents and cake. No singing. We don't sing. Except for my sister Shannon, I got a quite lovely saranade over the phone of an off key, out of tune, exuberant Happy Birthday song from Shannon. And since Shannon couldn't come here on a wednesday for my birthday, I am going to take the train tomorrow night to Chicago to see her and spend the weekend. I am SOOOOOOO excited. and kinda nervous. I've never ridden the train alone before. So I have to pack up a big bag of knitting and stuff to keep me busy for at least 4 hours. I am really excited about having 4 hours of knitting time though.

Here's some other stuff I got for my birthday from my parents.

I also got a 10 piece set of CALPHALON pans. Yeah. They are AWESOME. They are all washed and ready to use. I just want to go upstairs and cook a HUGE meal.

And of course, here's another picture of Bella. She has a little raw spot on the top of her nose from burying bones and treats in the couch cushions and in the bed. It's so cute how she pretends there is dirt there to cover the bone up with.


Ok, I think I have gotten all the non-work stuff out of my system. Now I need to get a start on this week's load of work.

Next post (hopefully some time before June) will have some Quilting/sewing content.

What could be better?

Today I learned how to cast on and start a sock from the toe up! Very exciting. I was saving this Twizzle yarn until I learned the toe up method because I don't want to waste even an inch of it. So here is the start of it.


But even more exciting than that is THIS that was waiting for me in the mail box when I got home!

Thirteen sets of 5" DPNs. I can hardly contain my excitement! My mom bought these for me on Ebay for less than $30. What a deal!! I was planning on going to the yarn store and getting new sets of size 0 and 1, to replace what Bella ate. But now I don't have to. Now my only problem is this:


I have too many needles for my needle case... I don't think I'll complain too much about that one.

Wow... It has been so long since I posted I don't even know what to say. There is too much, so let's pretend that I haven't been neglecting the blog, then there won't be a really long rambling post detailing all the mundane happenings since December 10th.

Christmas was fun, 3 days of presents and food.
I got a lot of great stuff; a stereo for my sewing room that has a dock for my iPod that allows it to charge and play at the same time! Plenty of gift cards including one for kpixie.com. (it has been so long since I posted, I have to brush up on my html for linking) And, I am coming to you live over the internet, on my own computer in my own house! My parents actually paid for a full year of internet for us! All I had to do was take the check to the office and sign my name. Very exciting to have internet again, although I am very glad I had that 4 month break from it. When I worked in an office and sat in front of the computer all day, I read blog after blog, checked ebay daily, checked my own web site stats, and bought way too much yarn. So, now that I have had a break from it, I realize I don't miss most of that stuff and now am out of the habit of reading a lot of the blogs I used to read.

The size 13 socks I was knitting were for Ryan. Christmas eve, he opened a box containing one hand knit sock and about 2 inches of the second sock, on the needles. And last night, only 2 months later, I finished the 2nd of the pair. He was very excited about the first one and now is really excited that there are two. It was pretty cute, since Christmas he's been asking me where his other sock is, when it will be done and reminding me that it isn't done and whenever he saw me knittng something other than his sock he said, "so... how's my sock coming along?" Of course I blamed him for it not being done because he has such big feet. Bella hasn't been helping either; she has already eaten two sets of 5" bamboo dpns.
Here are the socks, finished but not yet worn or washed.

And here you can see how much yarn I had left... gulp!
I am very relieved to have had enough to finish. I was really starting to worry.


I haven't really been working on any of my own stuff lately, other than just knitting along on socks. The next big adventure is going to be swapping my sewing room in the basement with the guest bedroom upstairs. Our house is a ranch style with a "finished" basement. I say "finished" because it is usable as another living room, but the drywall isn't finished and the ceiling still looks like an unfinished basement. But, off of that area is the 3rd bedroom of the house which is about 11 foot square, has berber carpeting, two very small basement style windows, no closet and I had to rig up so much lighting in there so I can see that I have to hit 5 switches when I walk in to turn everything on. The worst part of the basement room is that it is freakin' COLD down here. it has to be 10 degrees colder than the upstairs... which would put it at about 58 degrees. I'll be generous and call it 60 though. The upstairs extra bedroom is only about 9 by 10 feet, but it has two REAL windows that get great sunlight all day (they face north and west) it has a closet and some shelving, it is more convenient for work to be upstairs near the bathroom, kitchen, the front door, etc. Best of all, it will be WARM. So I want to paint in there before I move my stuff, I hope to start pulling out nails and start sanding and spackleing this week. I still can't decide on a color, I think I am going to pick out fabric for curtains first, then pick paint for the walls. Then I would also like to paint the basement room before I set up the guest room furniture in there. We'll see how that goes though, it is not a priority.

Life with Bella around has been rough. She just refuses to be potty trained. I don't understand how she can NOT be trained yet. How many times do you have to yell and, I hate to say it, smack a puppy's little butt before she gets it... NO POOP IN THE HOUSE. I don't care if we didn't SEE you do it, I don't care if you can still just barely fit under the bed, that is NOT where poop goes! Umbilical method training starts today. Whenever she is out of her crate, she will be attached to either me or Ryan by leash. She will not be out of our sight until she can learn that POOP goes OUTSIDE. She turns 5 months old tomorrow. Wish us luck...

Hey, remember me?

We don't have internet at home still and now that I don't get paid to sit in front of the internet all day, I have gotten out of my old internet obsessions. I haven't even been able to read Harlot since October! I do have her latest book to read still though. Any way... Thought I would catch up with a quick post. We have a new addition to our little family, her name is Bella. She was born 9-14-06 and we adopted her from a shelter that was at the Novi Pet Expo the weekend of November 17. Here are some pictures of her from the first couple days we had her.


She was pretty stinky, so we ended up giving her a bath the first night.


And here we are hanging out on the couch.

She is a Sheltie mix, We aren't sure what she's mixed with, so we don't know how big she'll get. She was 6 pounds last week, probably up to 8 now. It's been almost a month since we got her and she is doing really well. She sleeps with us and is our new licking and biting and barking alarm clock. 7:30 is perfect during the week, but she can't differentiate between a tuesday and a sunday.

In other news... I'm still working at home, which means I spend all my time in the sewing room working and when the work is done, I don't want to be in there anymore. So, no new art to show off for now. And now that Bella is here, there isn't much knitting happening either. A couple more months and she'll be better around the needles and knitting. Right now anything that is within reach is a toy. Including our socks, my purple fuzzy slippers, a gardening glove she found in the yard, and used dryer sheets. She'll pretty much play with anything that she can carry away.

That's all for now. Christmas is coming and only one person is for sure getting anything home made. The trekking socks, well, it is still just one sock, not a pair yet. They will be wrapped and under the tree whether finished or not. More likely 'NOT'. I will try to post at least once a month for now, but I think we'll be getting the internet at home soon.

HOpe everyone had a lovely thanksgiving and that you all have a great Christmas too!

fuzzy

Somehow I left the house today without putting my contacts in. Two months ago, that wouldn't have been a problem, I would have noticed as soon as I got to work and looked at my computer screen. But this time, I noticed when I was half way to work, which instead of the 10 minute drive I had 2 months ago, is a 45 minute drive now. So I couldn't turn around and go back, or wait till lunch time to go home and put them in... nope, have to wait till 5 when I get to leave. Which will be too late. I will already have a headache. grrrr...

So, I just wanted to slip into my own blog and write a little sumthin' sumthin'.

The entry deadline for Quilt National has come and gone and I didn't get to send anything in. I wanted SO bad to send in my black remazol wholecloth quilt that I've been hand quilting since spring. It is just moving along too slowly, and I don't want to rush it because I want it to be perfect. So, maybe next year.

It is my last week of work. Starting Monday I am officially an artist. Doing someone else's art, but that is beside the point. It's a stepping stone. It's all a stepping stone to my dream job, ARTEEEEEST. I'm still a little nervous, but I think it will all work out.

I dyed some fabric over the weekend, I am starting a multi-process and multi-layered piece to hang in a cool old frame in our bedroom. I acqured the frame from my old job at a frame shop. When customers would bring in art that was already frame, sometimes they didn't want their old supplies back, so they were up for grabs for employees. Needless to say that I have BOXES and BOXES of stuff in our basement that came from my almost 4 years at that job. Ryan too, because that is where we met!

Anyway... Not much else new to report. Going to look into getting internet hooked up at home in the next week or two. Then I can get back to posting regularly. Please know that I miss ya'll when I am so far away from the whole world, without my internet, without my blogs to read, without my Ebay... the list goes on... and now, my MySpace. ugh... I resisted for SO long, but I finally gave in and started a myspace. It's fun so far, addicting. Like when you first start reading blogs, you can sit there for hours going from one page to the next.

do it already

Oh.... you have no idea how many times I've opened up blogger and started to write a couple sentences, read them over and then said, "that's dumb" or "that's boring" (not to mention the times that I stared at the blank screen) and just closed the window and went somewhere else. But today, even if it is dumb or boring... gotta write something.

Things are changing and I'm freaking out a bit. kinda starting to cry right now at work because I just changed something huge and I don't know what's going to happen next.

Quitting your job because you hate it and are bored is a good reason right? Quitting your job for those reasons, plus getting to work for an artist is a good reason. Except when your original job paid really well even though you had to get up at the ass crack of dawn and drive for 45 minutes to get there because you bought an awesome house too far from work. I have been weighing all these things for days. I am looking, searching, hunting for a 2nd job to go along with my awesome work-at-home-doing-art-for-someone-else-almost-full-time job, because I need to make up the difference in my pay, because HOLY MAMA, I OWN A HOUSE now and have lots of bills.

whoa... not at all what I expected to come out when I started typing. I really came to show some pictures of what I've been working on at home, which isn't a whole lot, but it's something.

I made my Grandma a roll up dpn case for her birthday and included a set of size 1's in the 5-inch length, which are THE BEST!

Turns out that she has never used the 5-inchers before... oh she will LOVE them for socks! How can a sock knitter use the long ones? I have tried since I switched over the the 5's and man, they just get in the way of each other. I love my 5" needles!

And, here is a purple rail fence quilt that I started back in the apartment.

It is layered and trimmed and ready for quilting and binding. I am thinking of some all over floral pattern. something to really be opposite to all the geometric stuff.

And, to all those that loved these pieces before... I had to do it.

I peeled off all the little details. I even threw them away. I really could just leave them the way they are now. I love them. But I will probably do some hand stitching on them.

For now... I have a stack of resumes to read and sort through. My replacement you know. Hard to read and process them all when you can't think straight.

Hopefully will be updating more regularly again soon. Still no internet at home.
But Sunday... Oh... Sunday is the Fiber Festival in Chelsea. I have $50 burning a hole in my pocket, and I will be buying yarn with it.

The difference 12 square feet can make

We started our first big home improvement adventure last night. The hall closet is no more. I brushed my teeth and blow dried my hair and put my makeup on this morning and didn't bump my elbow once. It was great.

So here are some pictures of the bathroom up until 7:00 last night.



As you can see, the sink is tiny and not as deep as the wall on the right side of it. The other side of that wall is the hall closet.

And this is what it looks like now.



It will probably look like this for a few months until we fix the roof. That will be at least $1,000 to buy supplies and do it ourselves. And by "ourselves" I mean, Ryan and his buddies will fix the roof, I will hand them tools from the ground and go get beer and pizza and maybe make a cake or some other dessert (the strawberry shortcake with berries masserated in Vodka went over well last time). The roof has to be done before winter and we're planning on the bathroom costing another $1,000, so we'll have to save up for a while before we can buy the new vanity and fixtures.

There was only one casualty in the process (besides of course the closet). Here I am doing the first bit of demolition. I got to do the first wail on the wall. But in that first hit, becuase the handle on the hammer was so short, my knuckles hit the wall and my ring got smashed between the handle and the wall.
Now it looks like this:

Finally some freakin' pictures

As soon as I got home on Friday I headed straight for the box I thought the camera cords would be in. EUREKA!!! I packed them in around my computer monitor at the last minute... I probably chose that box so I would remember where they were and be able to find them quickly. Isn't that always the way it goes.

So, the sewing room is assembled as far as the furniture goes. All the stuff that gets stored in or on the furniture is not so organized yet. I am getting an itch to get in there and get it done enough so I can sew. I think it's been at least 2 months since I have sat at the machine for longer than 20 minutes. And the button I sewed back onto my pants on Sunday doesn't count.

This is my sewing table and machine. I have the table set up so that I am facing the doorway when I sew. I don't like to have my back to the door when I'm sewing, especially because my machine is so loud that I wouldn't hear anyone come in the room. And, because of the hilarious habit Ryan has of sneaking up on me and saying BOO!


This is an old ugly hand-me-down dresser that I am not at all attached to, but it serves it's purpose. My dad built a little table top and I use it as an ironing surface and storage.


Here is a shelf that I'm going to store all my calico and hand dyes on. This spot in the room gets no direct sunlight, so it should be perfect to just leave everything folded and on the shelves. My design wall is there to the right. It doesn't get much direct sunlight either.


And last night I set up my little loom area. The sewing room isn't big enough to keep the loom in, so I set it up just outside the sewing room in the basement living area. That bench is FULL of all my coned yarn. When Ryan picked it up at my apartment to take it out to the moving truck I told him, it's not heavy, it's just full of yarn... The groan he made when he picked it up said otherwise.


On the other side of the wall behind the loom in that picture is about a 10 by 10 storage room that also has the furnace in it. There is no outlet on the wall in the living area of the basement, so I had to plug in that silver lamp around the corner in the storage room. The previous owners had their carbon monoxide detector plugged into that outlet, but there was room for one more thing, so I plugged in the lamp and turned it on. Nothing. Made sure the light bulb was still good and screwed in all the way, tried again, nothing. Went into the storage room and turned on the light switch and the silver lamp came on... Did you catch that? That stroke of genius? The previous owners plugged their carbon monoxide detector into an outlet that only works when the light switch is turned on. GENIUS.

Shannon and my parents came over on Friday for a weenie roast around our fire pit. It was our first party-type thing at our new house and all we did was come up with the idea. Mom brought the dogs, buns, beer and even some cooking tools. All we supplied was a little bit of gasoline to get a fire going... Which at over $3/gallon is nothing to huff at. haha. We tried to get my dad to drink a beer, but he wouldn't. We thought maybe if his only choices were beer or water, surely he'd choose beer. He ended up walking to the gas station around the corner to get a pop.

Here is Ryan and I sitting at the fire. Shannon took about four dumb pictures of us with fake smiles. I knew in order for a picture to turn out with us looking like we were actually having fun she'd have to do something funny. She did. She was wearing a skirt and sitting on a blanket on the other side of the fire from us. I yelled out a specific request, just before she took the picture, for her to do something very unlady-like... she did.


and here is one of Shannon and Ryan cooking their weenies. (They really were having fun, even though they both look bored out of their minds.)


It was a fun time and I think we're going to do it again soon.

Lost

I had 10 extra minutes this morning before I had to leave for work, so I went downstairs with my camera to take some pictures of my roughly assembled sewing room in the new house. Then I remembered that I haven't taken any pictures yet not because I didn't have time, but because I don't know where the cord is to get the pictures from the camera to the computer. It's in a box labeled "computer stuff" and it is somewhere in the house. I haven't found the box yet. I am sure I put all the cords for my camera and my iPod all in the same box and then wrote on it, "camera cord" or something obvious. Because I knew I would want that before we set the computer up. I looked in ALL of my boxes in the sewing room, and the basement where all of the still packed boxes have accumulated. So of course, my 10 extra minutes turned into 15 minutes of me looking through boxes that I had already checked, then remembering I still had to put on my shoes and gather all my work stuff before I could leave. 20 minutes later I was on the road and stuck behind a gas guzzler that couldn't decide if he should do 5 under or 5 over the speed limit. If it isn't a soccer mom on the phone, it's a gravel truck... every single morning. For the two weeks I have been commuting to work so far I have been late. Why does it take 35 minutes to get TO work, but only 25 to get home, when I take the exact same roads?!

Shannon is in town this weekend and she is coming over tonight to see the new house. We're going to have a fire in the fire pit and cook hot dogs and s'mores. Ryan and I had our first fire in the pit earlier in the week and if you had been there you would have laughed so hard at us city kids having to start a fire with gasoline. It took so long to get the fire going and actually get the LOGS to start burning instead of the brush and newspaper underneath. And then the first dose of gasoline burned off and we had to put more on it. By the time it was a good fire we were bored with it and wanted to go inside. I think we figured out some better techniques though and it should be easier this time around.

Pictures on Monday. That is the goal. I think I just thought of where they are... I remember having some extra space in the box I put the computer monitor in... I think that's it.

I had a little time to knit last night. I am done with the heel flap on the brown/purple sock. It looks the same as the first one, you can see it here. I am anxious to get this pair done because it is boring the hell out of me. I want to start a pair of trekking socks. I got a brand new ball of Trekking in a certain boring colorway for a certain big-footed man that will get his first pair of hand knit socks for Xmas this year. I also got a set of shorter bamboo size 1 dpns that I am anxious to try out. It has taken everything in me to not start these socks without finishing the brown/purple ones.
Has anyone out there ever knit man-socks for someone with wider than average feet? I'm wondering if I should cast on more or maybe do some increases around the ball area of the foot. And I'm thinking that if I do a 2 by 2 riibbing all the way down to the toe it will be more snug and stretchy.

Peachy Keen

Whoa, I knew it had been a long time since I posted, but I didn't realize HOW long until I went back to view my last post. (Surprise, I don't re-read my own blog after it is posted!) My excuse (this time) is that I didn't think all the stuff going on right now would be interesting to a whole lot of people that come here looking for Yarn Porn, quilts and other fibery goodness. Not much of that has been going on, unless you consider doing laundry "fibery goodness".

We just love our new house and are both so happy. We have melded our lives together perfectly. Yes it has only been two weeks, but we have been spending more time together than we EVER have, we've been making big decisions, we've been dealing with money, and still no fighting, arguing or agreeing to disagree. It seems like people are standing back, watching and waiting for some kind of shit to hit the fan. People at work keep asking, "How is the house" I say, "It's GREAT!" and they say, "so, how do you like having a room mate?" It seems like they just can't wait to hear some dirt. For me to tell them that he puts the toilet paper roll on the wrong way, that he leaves his dirty socks on the couch, that he doesn't do laundry or dishes. And honestly, I can't say that. None of it. Okay, the toilet paper roll thing we handled immediately, but everything else isn't an issue. We both lived on our own for long enough before living together that there isn't that, "oh, if I leave this dish in the sink, it won't magically become clean and teleport itself back into the cupboard" shock that you get when you don't live with your mom any more.

The main level of the house is pretty much put together, the kitchen was first, then the bedroom and living/dining room. This past weekend I started on the sewing room. All the furniture has found its final resting place, so this week I'll be organizing and putting away fabric and yarn.

And here is the list of home improvements, and in the tentative order of importance.

• Tear down wall in bathroom. For some reason, the builder or a previous owner thought that having a hall coat closet would be better than having a bathroom big enough to brush your teeth in without hitting your elbow on the wall. So, goodbye closet. We don't need no stinkin' closet! The wall is coming down. We probably will end up actually fixing the bathroom last, maybe this winter, but the wall is coming down ASAP.


• Break up and remove cement driveway. There is pavement on two sides of the house, the driveway and the back yard has a good sized patio. The cement is graded TOWARD our foundation, which means any water runs INTO the foundation. The pressure of the cement pushing on the foundation is also making it bow in and crack. So the cement has to be broken up and removed.


• New roof.


• Then we can start thinking about remodeling the bathroom


• Finish the almost finished basement, which may include un-doing what was already done and starting over.
  

I also want to paint almost every room in the house. But, since the kitchen/dining room/living room will all be remodeled eventually, we're only worried about painting the bedroom.

Still no internet at home, and probably won't have it for a while. I'll take some pictures soon and will have to load them here at work.

I am still having a hard time grasping the OWNING part of this living situation. I can't grasp that I'm setting up my sewing room and it will stay that way for longer than a year. I still see For Sale and For Rent signs when I drive around and for a split second think, "oh, I'll have to remember to look that one up". And I'm still on the look out for empty boxes for moving. For two months I snatched up every empty box I could get my hands on. Now that our garage is full of empty and broken-down boxes, I can't quit the habit to acquire more. And the most surprising habit that has carried over from renting an upper unit apartment; when we drop something or walk around on our wood floors and they creek or I notice that I am walking with a heavy footed gait, I think, "the people downstairs will be pissed."

The ink is dry

We signed all the papers, got the keys and some money that was part of the deal (towards a new roof) today. We had lunch with my mom and then headed to our respective homes to load up some preliminary moving items. I wanted to get my loom over to the house and Ryan wanted to get his motorcycle and tools over today. Mom and I intended on cleaing the house today while it was still for the most part empty, but we cleaned the windows and called it done. The previous owners cleaned it pretty well before they left.

So this is my last night in my apartment, my last night of sleeping alone and my last post in my apartment before I shut down and pack up the computer. We don't plan on signing up for cable or internet service right away. We are going to be so busy with unpacking, getting settled and doing our respective hobbies, that cable tv and internet is going to be fairly low on the list. Plus, it's a big expense every month and we want to make sure we aren't spending more than we have to while we're figuring out what all our bills will be like and all that fun stuff of home ownership. Not to mention all the nickel and dime things that will come along that we'll need/want to do to the house.

So, I won't have access to the internet again until I go back to work on Tuesday... OH MY GOD... Will I survive?!

I have to say that Yarn Harlot picked the WRONG day to come to Ann Arbor. She will be here on Sunday at the Library for a reading/signing and I know I will be busy at the house setting up everything and unpacking and as much as I REALLY want to go see her, I know I won't want to leave my new house for a couple hours for it.

That is all for now, pictures of the house and my new sewing room will come in due time.

One more week of...

• Living alone


• Noisy neighbors


• This lovely view from my bedroom window
















• Parking in a parking lot


• The wonderful blasts of screamin' hot water in the shower when a neighbor flushes the toilet


• Squeeky floors and bed noises in the bedroom above mine


• Annoying, over-sensitive car alarms in the middle of the night


• Going to Mom and Dad's to do laundry


• My small hallway of a kitchen


• The heavy-footed people in the stairwell

We close next Friday. We had one more speed bump to overcome last week, but that is past us, and now the only thing to do is finish packing and get really really excited.

**Insert clever title here**

What a crazy week it's been. Nothing too frustrating, stressful or worrisome has been going on, but with the holiday on a Tuesday, it kind of messed up the whole week. Saturday Ryan and I went to a birthday party at his parents' house, which is usually a Sunday destination for us, so Saturday really felt like it was Sunday. Sunday actually felt like Sunday because I had to work on Monday. I left work early on Monday because there was no one else there and no one was calling because I think I was the only person in Michigan (and some of Ohio) that had to work on Monday. So since I left early and didn't have to work the next day, it made it kinda feel like a Friday. Then Tuesday was the holiday, so that felt like another Sunday because it was a day off and I did have to work the next day. Then on Wednesday, thinking the rest of the week would be getting back to normal, felt like a Monday. Thursday felt like Friday and Friday felt like a Wednesday for some reason. I can't really explain why today didn't feel like Friday, but believe me I was glad when I finally realized it.

The ratio of Yarn:Bills in today's mail made me extremely happy. I ordered some yarn from Elann.com on Monday. It came in the mail today. They are so quick and affordable. I got 3 skeins of a reddish/maroon and one skein of pumpkiny orange 100% peruvian wool to make a French Market Bag from Knitty. I'm kindof planning projects and hordeing yarn, I'm anticipating a... um... financial shortage coming. So I think I need to buy yarn while I can. Stockpile, ya know.

So tonight, I almost finished a sock. Just need to kichener it up.


BUT... The book that holds the mystery of the kichener stitch is packed somewhere in this mess of boxes and bags. That sounds like a project to tackle tomorrow.

I haven't used the kichener stitch enough to memorize it, I still need to read the instructions out of my sock-shaped sock book.

And the BEST most exciting thing I've been waiting and waiting for...

It's real, I really did graduate. Having not participated in the commencement ceremony and since it is summer whether I would be taking classes in the fall or not, it still isn't really real to me that I don't have to go back in the fall, or ever.

Third time's the charm

I haven't posted because we've still been busy house hunting. The one I talked about last time was not for us. We made an offer, but ours wasn't the only one. We had a chance to counter offer, but the other offer was still higher and they accepted that one. Which, we have found out is a good thing, because our panicked counter-offer was too high for our income and we would have been broke after a couple months. I think we were getting a little too greedy and picky, we looked at at least 25 houses. A lot of them out of our price range, hoping we could offer less. So, we made an offer on a house that was actually our "first choice" for a couple days before we saw the other two that we made offers on. This one is a perfect starter house. We made the offer Friday evening and got a call about three hours later that our offer was accepted as written!!! I will have a studio in the finished basement, near the laundry room where I can do my dying. The yard is very large and we are only a couple blocks from town. We close at the end of the month, so I still have about 4 weeks to finish packing. Which really means, I can think about packing for 3 weeks, and actually start on the 4th week. It also means I have only 3 days to move out of my apartment and clean it and do any cleaning at the new house and get everything into it. No problem, right?



I've been working on a sock and started the Lotus Blossom Tank in the latest Interweave Knits. I'm using Elisebeth Lavold Silky Wool in pink. I'm almost done with the first lace repeat and it isn't too hard. I've only had to tink back one round so far. The lace pattern is not repetitive enough to be done while watching tv, movies or with any other distractions. This is "alone time" knitting; which is why I'm not farther into it after two weeks.