Category Archives: Knitting

Aug 6

Ravellenic Games – Day 9 & 10

I’m happy to report that I am knitting furiously, but I have just come to a realization that I may have to put my mom’s bolero on hold and cast on for a baby blanket as one of my coworkers is due in September and her baby shower will be NEXT THURSDAY!  Oh where did the time go!?  The last time I remember discussing her baby shower was MAY!!!!  But I’m debating if I should just wait till the baby is here to give her the blanket.  I can’t seem to decide.

On Sunday, David’s mom came to visit us, so we took the opportunity to sneak away from the bebe and went to the movies.  We decided to see The Dark Knight Rises.  It is by far the best movie I’ve seen all year, granted, I haven’t seen a lot of them.  Yes, ladies, this is definitely much better than Magic Mike, although that movie was totally fun to watch with my bitches!  I’ve heard that this was supposedly the last batman movie, but as always, there are loop holes where I can totally see them make the next movie with it.  And I have to admit, I forgot how much I really like Christian Bale!

Speaking of movies, I don’t really watch a lot of them, since I think the ticket price is just ridiculous, plus I rarely have time to spend in the theater, but I really want to watch The Bourne Legacy and Skyfall.  I’ve always really like spy movies and books, so these two are a must for me.

On a completely unrelated topic, I found out today that the Little Lady got into the pre-k program at our local Y.  I am super excited about this as it will save us between $300 to $500 a month!  Plus the Y program includes swimming lessons once a week!  Don’t get me wrong, where she is at is totally fine, but I feel like I’m paying for premium service but not receiving it.  When she was an infant, the program she was in was arguably the best I’ve found around town.  But as she grows, I noticed the service isn’t as great as the infant room, and frankly, I feel like the Little Lady wasn’t getting enough attention because she was a really easy going kid, and if I’m going to pay that kind of money, I might as well go to a different program, pay less, and have more.  She is such a fish I think she will totally love this place, since we’ve been going to a different Y for swimming lessons every Saturday.

So did you do anything fun this weekend?

Aug 4

Ravellenic Games – Day 3 to 8

So I meant to keep up on the posts during the Olympics, but I was traveling for work, so it was difficult.  But that doesn’t mean I stopped knitting and didn’t watch the games!

During this time, Phelps had a big come back.  He not only won gold, he is the only person holding three consecutive title of the same event – TWICE!  AND he now has the most Olympics metal in the world!  It is amazing to witness this piece of history for sure.  Missy Franklin has been impressive, I think she will be the next Phelps!  I am waiting for her to break Phelps record on Olympics metal count.  I have a hunch that she will be just as amazing in the years to come!  And did you see the 15 year old swimmer Katie Ledecky taking gold home on the 800m freestyle?  She almost broke the world record as well!  You can say swimming has never been more exciting than these past two Olympics!  I have to admit, even Ryan Lochte is growing on me.

I am a bit disappointed in Gymnastics this time.  I really wanted Jordyn Wieber to be part of the all around competition, although I guess you could say that she should have done better, but really, my gripe is on the “two gymnasts per country rule”.  I think it should be the eight gymnasts that have the highest points get to compete in the all around!  Besides that, I was happy that Gabby won gold during the all around.  I feel bad for Aly, but I think being able to compete in the all around itself is an incredible achievement!  As for Men’s Gymnastics, I don’t know what happened there.  They did really well during the qualifying, but they didn’t deliver during the finals.

Track and Field has just begun on Day 8.  Some of the sprinters are just amazing.  I can’t wait to see these events!

On the knitting front, I made major progress on Petit Four.  I have majority of the body finished.  I just need to figure out the lace weight I want to use and get going!  As I stated on my last post, I couldn’t get gauge, so I did some math and alter the pattern a bit.  Even then, I was a bit worry that the sweater might be too big, at least when I measured it, it seemed to be on the bigger size than I planned.  But after I tried it on at the Atlanta Airport, it seemed to be fitting quite nicely, plus I figure when I wear it during the fall/winter time, I’ll have an undershirt so it will fill in all the ease.  The pattern was supposed to be “wear with minimal ease” and my goal was to actually have negative ease, but I think I like the way it is going right now.

Since I finished the portion that I can do while in the Atlanta airport, I started a bolero for my mom.  I promised her to have it done before she comes to visit, and she’ll be here in just a couple of weeks!  Eek!  I better get going on that!  I made some progress last night, but had read the pattern wrong, so I had to rip out a few rows.  Now, have you ever try to rip out mohair yarn?  Well, it was NOT EASY!  It took me a long time to get it all straighten out.  Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from her on out.

So how are yo’all doing on your projects?

Jul 29

Ravellenic Games – Day 2

After the first full day of games, I have to say, I’m sad to see that Phelps didn’t metal. I remember watching him when he was 15, then when he was 19, then 23 when he dominated Beijing. He is probably my favorite Olympian of all time, and really, for no reason other than just watching him grow over the years. I’ve only been to the US a little over six months when I saw him swim for the first time in the Olympics.

And as for Ryan Lochte, well, he does nothing for me. Way too cocky and full of himself. Maybe he has gain the rights to be, but I’m just not a fan.
On the gymnastic front, I’m happy to see the US Men’s Team doing fairly well, with minor hiccups. I feel bad for the China team, as I know they should be the power house, but with numerous mistakes, it is hard to stay in the game. Can’t wait to see how the women’s team does tonight.

Image

As for knitting, well, I started the Petit Four with my own math adjustment. It is going fairly smoothly, but slowly. I was hoping to make some major progress during Little Lady’s nap time today, well, she didn’t nap, instead, she found a roll of tums and a pack of gum. I kept my calm and asked how many she had of each. She said three on the tums and nothing on the gum, then change to one gum. I guess I will have to see what her poop says.

So what’s your take on the Olympics so far?

Jul 28

Ravellenic Games – Day 1

I ♥ Olympics.  There is no questions on that.  I sometimes dream that I am a great athlete (whether it be swimming or gymnastics, two of my favorite summer game events) and take home Olympics Gold.  But alas, I’m lucky that I don’t trip while I’m walking!

Every Olympics, I participate in the Ravelympics, and even before it was Ravelympics!  But this year, apparently Ravelry can no longer use the name since it has “lympics” in it and it infringed the Olympics.  I’m OK with their claim on the infringement, what I am NOT OK with, is in their letter to Ravelry’s owner, they pretty much called knitting stupid.  Now, that’s a fast way to piss off 2 million people all in one shot!  When they apologized, they completely missed the point, and then told the knitting community to donate knitwear for the athletes.  Seriously?!  I wonder who is the stupid one.

But their stupidity isn’t going to deterred me from watching the games, nor it is going to prevent me to participate the now called Ravellenic Games.

I wasn’t sure what I want to do as my challenge.  I have a hat I need to do for Rhinebeck, and I always wanted to make a Rhinebeck sweater, but never had the time.  I also need to finish my dad’s vest and make a vest for my mom.  I just couldn’t decide.  But then, I decided to flip through my new Interweave magazine, and immediately fell in love with two sweater patterns:  Petit Four Pullover and Sweetheart Pullover.  I looked through my stash and decided that I really want to make Petit Four and the new yarn I recently acquired from Hubs Mill Store would fit the bill.  My only problem – I can’t seem to get gauge!  Ugh. I guess I’ll be doing some math.

So what’s your favorite games to watch?

May 9

Yarn Along: May 9, 2012

From small things:

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?

Project I worked on this past week:  Oatmeal.

Book just finished:  Weeknights with Giada, New Haven Chef’s Table, Made-Ahead Meals Make Healthy

Currently reading:  The girl’s guide to being a boss (without being a bitch)

How funny that the last Yarn Along post I’ve done, which is before Christmas, I also listed Oatmeal as my project?  Well, this time I used the yarn it called for and it is a much bigger size snowman than before.  This is a long overdue project for Ali-san.  I’m hoping to have it finished this week so I can mail it out to her.

So I’ve been MIA on the blog for awhile now.  Partly due to no motivation after work to post something, but partly due to a change.  A looooong while ago, I had mentioned it briefly here that there may be some changes happening and decisions will have to be made.  Well, that change has finally happened.   I got a new job working in Program Management instead of Quality.  It is a promotion and requires some travel.  The job itself is much more demanding than my previous ones, and with increase job scope.  I am no longer an Engineer, but a Manager.  It is very strange to say, but I am getting used to the title change.  And this change didn’t come easy.  There were some work politics that happened and truth be told, it was rather ugly and uncomfortable.  Without going too much into details, my previous boss took my leaving personally and thought that I betrayed her, even though she knew this job was coming eventually, at least I had let her know ahead of time, actually, when she first started to be my boss.

I think that was the reason why I picked up the book above to read.  I had saw it on a swap awhile ago, so I requested from my library.  So far it gave some good advice, but I haven’t read enough to really give it a good review.

The three books I returned to the library prior to me leaving for Maryland were really great though.  I wish I get more time with them so I can actually make a few recipes to try.  Maybe next time.   I especially enjoyed the Make-Ahead Meal one.  I think I’m gonna borrow that book again in the near future and get the ingredients the same day!  That way I can make the food and freeze them so when I do travel or work late, David and the Little Lady can still eat healthy home cooked meals!  Maybe I can convince my brother to come and make the meals with me so he can take some home with him, and that way we can make a larger varieties of things to try…  Yeah, I like that idea.  Continue reading »

Jan 4

Yarn Along & Schools

From small things:

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?

 

Project I worked on this past week:   Autumn.

Book just finished:  Magnet Schools brochures

Currently reading:  Daddy’s Little Girl

Currently listening:  Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I’m slowly knitting the hat.  But I have a lot of knitting time coming up soon so I’m excited to get knitting more.  And I decided that I need to frog anything that I haven’t finished by now.  Especially if the item was for the Little Lady.  I’m sure it won’t fit by now.

I still haven’t finish reading the first book of Narnia.  I haven’t have a lot of time to just sit, knit and listen, so it is on the back burner.  In the mean time, I listed a bunch of my books on paperbackswap.com .  I decided before Christmas that I no longer need them, since I can easily borrow them from the library.  I do have a few books that remains on my bookshelf.  They either have the autographs to me or I especially like the books, such as my collection of Harry Potter series, Narnia series, Lord of the Rings series, along with a few books from my favorite authors.  When I listed the books, I realized that some of them I bought when I was collecting the author, but never read!  So I decided to pick one up to read it while someone haven’t requested it.  ”Daddy’s Little Girl” by Mary Higgins Clark is very captivating.  I had a hard time putting it down the first night I started reading.  But now that I’m back to work, it’s a little tough to read a whole chapter before my eyes get tired.  I’m hoping to finish it before Saturday though.

So, the Little Lady being 2 years and 2 months old, you would think that you still have time to think about schools, right?  WRONG.  Tonight, we went to the magnet schools fair, which you can see from the picture the massive amount of information we had to sort through tonight as open houses are coming real soon!  One of them is this Saturday!  And the application deadline is Feb. 17!!!!!

HOLY CRAP!

Sometimes, I wish my Little Lady stays little.

Dec 28

Yarn Along

From small things:

Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?

Project I worked on this past week:  Oatmeal,  Star Trek Shirty and Autumn.

Book just finished:  Things I learned from Knitting and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Currently listening:  Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I have been inspired by my fellow knitters, and after a little encouragement, I decided to join in on the small thing bandwagon.  You already know my rant on Comcast (which I have yet to call to discontinue it), and the fact that I can’t really read and knit at the same time as well as others that I know, so I decided that I need to listen to more audiobooks.  Being the cheap ass frugal person that I am, I decided to look up free audiobooks online, since I wasn’t able to get to the library the day I wanted to start.  I found this site with some really great books!  Did you know F. Scott Fitgerald wrote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?  I’ve never watched the movie, but the story was really interesting and it was a very quick listen!    Since it was so quick, I’ve decided to start listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  I’ve  seen the movie for this book, and also Prince Caspian.  I do want to see the third movie, but I’m debating if I should listen to the book first then go see the movie.

On another note, I went into work today to cover.  It was super quiet, so quiet I almost considered pulling out my knitting!  But I didn’t.  I’m off until next Tuesday, so I’m really looking forward to the next few days until the new year.  I’ll be super busy the next few days – cleaning, knitting with the girls, have a party with my knitting girls, and hosting a swap on Rav and enjoying my birthday! New Year will be here before you know it!

So what are you doing to celebrate the arrival of 2012?

Oct 22

RHINEBECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AKA New York Sheep & Wool Festival!

I know, that was SOOOOOOOOOOOO last week!  But when I got no time to blog, I’ll take what I can get.

CostumeChick, WifeMomKnitter, backstageknits, hedwigbc, lisau99, jessilyn28, nutmegknitter, little nutmeg and I all met up at a commuter lot Friday at noon, and caravan up to the Secret Bat Cave, aka our retreat house.  We picked up fakeknitter midway and met Anphoe, Anphoe’s DH and Little V at the our regular stopping point – Harney & Sons Tea Shop.  We sampled quite a few tea and I settled on these:

Royal Wedding TeaChocolate Tea

Photos from Harney & Sons website.

I really liked the Chocolate Mint, but I have a lot of mint tea leaves at home, so I decided to blend my own with the Chocolate tea.

When we finally arrive at the secret bat cave, we enjoyed some yummy lagsana (Contributed by WifeMomKintter’s DH), garlic pull apart bread (contributed by fakeknitter), and some really good salad (contributed by lisau99).  We sat around and planned out our plan of attack for the next day, and did some knitting/hanging out.

We got up bright and early, but still didn’t beat the crazy traffic going into the fairgrounds.  Immediately  going into the fairgrounds, we were interviewed by Knit 1, heart 2 podcast for our crazy looking hats!  And here is a group shot of everyone:

We ARE missing one hat – Archiknist.  She was called away by the yummy goodness of artichoke.

Last year, after CostumeChick finished one of the fat hats, we all decided that we all need to make the same hat, so we can easily find each other.  And this was us last year:

Well, SheShoopSheep took some picture of us last year, and guess what!?  We ended up in her book:  Craft Activism.

We are in the front holding the ravelry sign!  And we did again this year as well!

We had a ton of fun, got home exhausted, but had a party of our own – Anphoe’s birthday!  We had a Thanksgiving style feast and cupcakes, with blueberry wine and tea!  (Big thanks to CostumeChick who coordinate and made dinner for both nights!)

Sunday we said goodbye to hedwigbc (she had to take the train home to Virginia!) and went back to the fairgrounds.  Well, you’ll see that the hat in the above was red, but then I had a yellow hat on Sunday:

Photo curtesy of WifeMomKnitter.

I originally was making it for babysquared, even though she didn’t come up this year, and stayed home with daddy and grandma (they had their own fun with the Renaissance’s Fair, but of course, leave it to daddy with no photo evidence!).  But while CostumeChick and I were at the Skaska booth to figure out the yarn we need to make our crazy wedding ring shawl, the owner/designer Galina took interest of my hat, and wanted to trade the yarn for it!  I didn’t go for it then, since I apparently wasn’t thinking, so I finished the yellow hat Sunday morning in the parking lot while waiting for the fairgrounds to open, so I can barter with Galina A. Khmeleva on her books! (and may I add that I was successful!!!!)

Here is a picture of us in our hats! :)  Photo cutesy of WifeMomKnitter.  For the hat, I received two signed books by Galina and also a copy of the PieceWork magazine where an article on repairing the Orenburg Lace Shawl.  A side note:  She is going to have a lace knitting retreat in Colorado and I REALLY want to go!  But I don’t think I can do it this coming year due to budget constraint.  We’ll see.

Another author I took photo with is Anna Dalvi.  I first started following her on her mystic serious mystery shawls on yahoo group.  It was super awesome to finally meet her, since I love all of her designs.

I of course had to purchase her new book…  Shaping Shawls.  And here are my other loot from the weekend:

In addition to the books mentioned, I also bought the Complete Book of Drafting by Madelyn Van der Hoogt, 2.8 oz of purple/green roving (I think it’s BFL) from briar rose fibers, 4 oz of organic cotton roving, 6 skeins of Plymouth Mira Mira (wool and metal!), a skein of four play by Brooks Farm, and 1/2 cone of cobweb weight wool by Jagger (photo shows the whole cone, but CostumeChick and I are splitting that!).  I also got babysquared a lamb book that has wheels.  That book has already been played quite a few times and babysquared won’t let me take it away from her to photograph.

Oh, one more thing I did on Sunday – I went to the Hansen miniSpinner booth.  I have a miniSpinner for almost a year now, but I had yet to figure out how to spin lace weight on it.  I had a little chat with Mr. Hansen (Kevin) himself, and in a few minutes, he had me spinning this:

See that blue yarn?  yup, that’s a 2-ply lace from me!  For comparison, I put a dime underneath, and the pink is JaggerSpun Zypher, the orange is Schaefer Yarn Andrea, and the bottom white is the Jagger cobweb that was in the picture above (in the cone, there were 55,000 yards in that thing!).  The trick I learnt was slower speed and lots of twist!  I can’t wait to get on my wheel next time.  I thinking to spin the purple roving into lace weight since I only have 2.8 oz of it.

I’m sad that the weekend was over so soon, but it only means one thing:  Looking forward to Rhinebeck 2012!

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You can see some other photos from WifeMomKnitter, NutmegKnitter, and My Grandmother’s Knitting.

Jul 11

Rest Day… With a WIP

Today is Day 10 of Tour de Fleece, and it is also a rest day.  So instead of spinning, I spent a little time on this little cutie:

It is a test knit that is due 7/20.  I’m making it for the little lady in size 2T.  I’m still debating on the collar color.  Luckily I have a few days of knitting before I have to decide.  Oh, and I knitted those buttons in so I don’t have to sew them on!  Aren’t I lazy clever?

And of course, how can we speak of the Little Lady with no photos of her? :)