Weekend plans

I'm going out of town for the weekend to let my former-self as a high school band geek out to play. And yes...I do have stories that begin "This one time at band camp..." It's the 50-something annual Algona Band Day this Saturday and so I'm heading home. Pictures and details of the festivities when I return (I may even give you all a glimpse of me from my band geek days....if I can find the pictures to scan).

So my goals for the weekend are as follows (in random order):
- Scream myself hoarse at the field competition Saturday night.
- Knit during the parade.
- Knit at home.
- Knit while the bands are setting up at the field competition.
- Finish Christmas present #1.
- Finish the Princess Leia hat.
- Start Christmas present #2 once Mom picks out a pattern.
- Sleep (as of right now, I've been up since 1 pm on Thursday...that's 21 hours people...and I've got a 4-hour drive ahead of me. Bring on the caffeine!!!)
- Drink coffee with the INC cronies.
- Eat at least two of Denny's amazing cinnamon rolls.

And I think that's everything. I'll be back in town Monday evening.

another flower picture!

Well, the dark purple clematis decided to put out some double blooms as well. Here are 2 of about 10 that are in bloom right now.



Knitting has been slow since I had to work this last weekend. I turned the heel on the current pair of socks last night. I'm hoping to get those done either this next weekend or sooner. The afghan for my co-worker's wedding present will probably turn into a 1st anniversary gift...and she knits so she's fine with that.

And I hit panic mode this morning at work when I realized that I've got less than 3 months until Christmas. I'm going to have to blow out my wrist if I want to get everything done on time. I'm already thinking I may have to scale back, but I'm not sure where.

I stopped at Wally World on my way home from work this morning and gave into the temptation that is the new release of the Star Wars trilogy. Now I've got all six movies on dvd, so I'm a happy geek. And I found that I've got fabric in my stash to make my Princess Leia dress out of for Halloween! Yay for stash busting!

Dozy Cozy

Here's a pic from this last weekend when my parents were visiting with their two dogs. Cozy, my dad's Brittney spaniel, decided to jump up on their bed and lay down with her head on his pillow. It was just too cute not to get take a picture of. And yes...she does have green eyes. Her eyes and her pink nose are such a contrast to our other two dogs with their dark eyes and noses.


And I helped my mom start her own blog. It's here. And she knows how to comment, so be nice people!

All better!

My cold is no more! Yay! Four days of misery and then it suddenly disappeared.

No new pictures at the moment. I'm trying to get a better pic of the Titania STR, but it's proving difficult to photograph. Especially more so since the sun's playing hide and seek behind the clouds.

I've got one Christmas present almost half done. Bought yarn for another one this weekend and added another to the list.

Just went on Webs and ordered my Misti Alpaca to make my Princess Leia hat out of. None of the shops around here had the color that I needed.

Parents were here this last weekend and we got my raised garden put into the backyard. We're already planning on tilling up the whole backyard and starting over with the grass back there, since it was cruddy to start with when I moved in, and then died while I was in Minnesota in July.

Planning on going home two weekends from now for Band Day. I'm such a band geek.

I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicck!!

And whiny. Stupid cold. *kicks cold*

Now onto the good news!! And there are many, so here comes another bulleted list!!

- Congratulations to Minnie! May you and Mark have many happy years together. We missed you on Thursday!

- I've sucked another one in! Here's Jackie, another co-worker, starting a scarf for her daughter in the wee hours of Friday morning.


- My most recent pair of socks is done! I'm going to call them my Pacific Wave socks. They're done in Lisa Souza Sock! yarn in the Pacific colorway. I used a pattern my last Knitty SP sent me called Caribbean Twist. Sorry for the cruddy picture. I'll post a better one once they're washed.


- My stuff I ordered from Lisa Souza came yesterday!! I got Sock! in the LimeNViolet colorway (of course), and some Fat Bunny in Mars Quake that is destined to be one of the fabulous Italian Job hats that Lisa also offers on her site.


- And lastly, I got not one, but TWO packages from Blue Moon in the mail today. One had my skeins of Scottish Highlands and County Clare in it, and the other was my Rockin' Sock Club package for September. That's the color on the right. I'm not too crazy about it at the moment, but I'm sure it'll grow on me. The color's called Titania and it's the second of three in the Midsummer's Night series. A lot darker and richer than the last two.


So aside from this crappy cold, it's been a great day!!

Photo post and a yarny confession

Let's start with the pictures!

First off is the clapotis I finished last week out of Noro Silk Garden #82. It blocked out bigger than I thought it would, but that's ok....there's just more yarny goodness to wrap myself in.


Next is my proud knitter moment of the week. This is my co-worker, Shannan, who waited until her next-to-the-last night at work to ask me to teach her to knit. She's taken a job at a different hospital, but one of the other girls told me that she already finished knitting that scarf and just needs me to help her with the bind-off. She picked it up really fast and I'm hoping that I've converted another one. *evil cackle*


Lastly, these are some of my clematis that I've got growing up my back deck. I've actually got lavender, pink, white, and deep purple. However, the white ones seem to be flourishing faster than the other three. And I must have some kind of mutant clematis because all my memories of it at my grandparents' farm was that each flower only had 5 or 6 petals. These suckers have 10! I'm not complaining, they're still gorgeous, just different from what I expected.


Now for my confession. I was very very bad with the credit card tonight. Not as bad as I could have been, but bad enough. It all started with my innocent little Knitpicks order. I got the dpns sizes 0, 1, 2, and 3, three laced shawl patterns, and a kit to make an afghan as a wedding present for a co-worker.

I should have stopped there, but it was just too easy to click on over to the Blue Moon Fiber Arts site and order Scottish Highlands medium weight and County Clare light weight.

Then I had to support my two favorite podcasters, Lime & Violet, by going to the Lisa Souza website and ordering the sock yarn in their namesake colorway. And a skein of the Fat Bunny yarn in Mars Quake along with the pattern for The Italian Job hat may have made its way into my basket too.

That's it!! I'm done with yarn buying until November!! That's when I'm going up to the Twin Cities for the wedding of one of my friends from college. Anyone up for a yarn crawl?

Oh yeah....I may make an exception if I find the yarn to make this hat for Halloween. The pattern is from bleuarts, and I found it through the Cast-On podcast. My Halloween costume is set!!

Hey all!

Things have been a little busy around here, so I haven't had time to post like I wanted to.

I've got a picture of my Clapotis that Minnie took for me last week, but it's still on the camera. Still haven't started the Simple Knitted Bodice by Stitch Diva, but I plan to dive into that this weekend. I did manage to start one of my Christmas presents and have gotten a good bit of it done.

The socks in the Lisa Souza yarn are currently stalled out until tonight at SoP when Becky will be taking pictures of them. I'll explain why tonight.

On that note, I need to get to bed. I've got to be up at noon so I can get to a meeting at the hospital at 1:30, then to SoP around 4:30/5, then to work by 7. Oy.