i present to you evidence of a weekend of fun.

sorry for the poor image quality as this picture was taken at 2AM after having the spiders over for cocktails and a yarn swap before KP and i leave for tokyo on thursday. the aim for the evening was to get everyone together to drink, knit, and exchange yarn that you no longer want and, by golly, we did just that. unfortunately, i was too busy playing host to take too many pictures so i’ll give you the abbreviated tour of the evening.

i set up a winding station at the back of the couch for those spiders who wanted to spend some quality time with the swift. in a spare moment, i jumped back there and wound up my skein of socks that rock in the jewel of the nile colorway (ain’t it pretty!?) i’m not entirely sure which sock pattern i’m going to make yet. i really want to try the grumperina sock pattern, jaywalker, but it’s a whopping 75 stitches to cast-on and that’s really just too damn big. my mom’s cabled sock were 72 stitches and i thought they were big!

speaking of cabled socks, let me throw this in before continuing on with the party pics.

pattern: brainylady’s basic cabled sock pattern

needles: two US1 addi turbos

yarn: paton’s kroy sock yarn in pink power

these were an easy knit but i don’t recommend them if you’ve never knit socks before. the pattern is quite barren when it comes to the actual foot of the sock. you’re supposed to use whatever heel turn you like and whatever toe decreases you like but if you’ve never knit socks before then you don’t know what you like! so try something else first before you conquer these. the ribbing started to get really boring near the end so i think that the next pair that i make will have to be more challenging.

ok, back to the party. after downing a huge bottle of red wine and making a few pomegranate martinis we dumped out all our yarn and swapped according to birthdays.

i asked katie to lay down in the yarn but she declined. i wish i had a picture of everyone there but, like i said, i was too busy making cocktails and doling out the food! all in all, we had a quick appearance by abby, and marie, sarah, lisa, katie, and veronique all stayed for a late evening of fun. thanks for coming girls!

yarn and cocktails a-go-go gallery

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i really needed the weekend to get things together around this joint. sometimes when i arrive home at night, i’m not able to speak much less knit or get back on the computer to do the needed blog maintenance. KP was out in vegas all last week attending the IAPP privacy conference and didn’t arrive back home till saturday night which left me with much of the day to sit in front of the computer and get my updates done. moveabletype then design… i thought about updating the gallery too (i use gallery 1.4 and to upgrade to either 1.5 or 2.0 would have meant major changes around here and i just couldn’t bring myself to do it) but didn’t want to blow away the part of my site that gets the most traffic so i let it be with only an update to the stylesheet. i won’t be joining the flickr brigade just yet.

so now with the site lookin’ so brand spankin’ new, it’s time to give you all the updates. first of all, the spiders numbers have grown by two over the past couple of weeks. veronique and marie have joined us the past two knit sessions at the point and we’re so happy to have them.

marie demonstrates spinning to veronique and sarah

i’ve also been working on a few new projects. i picked up two skeins of morehouse merino 3-ply after rhinebeck and i must say that this is some damn soft yarn. i bought it out of the broken ends barrel at $6 per skein which means that there were several knots and loose strands but i just felted them back together! i used them to knit up a hat for KP friday night and saturday. it all started off fine…

love those stitch markers!

but the end result left much to be desired…

it’s a bit bunchy

i don’t really like it. not at all. at least, not on KP. the top of the hat is all bunchy because i used k2tog instead of skk which would have been flatter. i’m going to knit up a second hat seeing as i have plenty of yarn left.

i also started my sleepy pillow mitered square project. i’ll need 8 in total and i finished 1 yesterday. here it is on the needles.

ecru is not a color that photographs well

sorry about the image quality. ecru is one of those colors that’s either too hot or too cold when photographed. anyway, you get the picture. only 7 more to go! i also finished mom’s first sock (as mentioned in the previous post)…

and started on the second one last night. i’m really quite happy with the way the first one turned out. the second one will no doubt be better since i probably won’t have to rip it out as much. ok, for more info on projects please check out the backpack: projects in progress, in the queue, 2005 finished projects. i updated them all over the weekend.

the patterns page should be up and running by the end of the week (maybe sooner) so, in the meantime, if you’re still looking for the bulky circular bolero pattern, please use the contact form.

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i got off my butt this morning and took a few pictures in order to keep those foaming at the mouth for knitting content satiated. but before i get to that, let’s do a little recap. battlestar galactica is STILL the best show on TV. i just want to make that clear as there are some people out there that still don’t know about it. each week, i’m surprised and left wanting more… on a friday night, no less! since i’m gaining in years, i’ve noticed that i no longer like to go out on friday nights. after a long, stressful week at work, i like to kick it back with my hubby and a nice glass of montepulciano and watch TV. battlestar galactica is the perfect way to end my week. i look forward to the next one the minute the episode is over… then i re-watch the episode over the weekend to pick up all the stuff that i missed. the good news is that i’ve hooked kaitlyn into it (sorry about leaving the DVD at home last night! doh! i can be a real airhead sometimes…) and i have joy and KP as well to talk about it with. the other good news is that i got katie into firefly (i feel like a drug pusher, “just try the firefly. you KNOW you’ll love it.”) now KP and i will have someone else to go see serenity with in september.

other than these few things, i’ve been doing a lot of freelance. my current client, marc, JUST introduced me to phpicalendar which i’m nuts about! i’ve been looking for a substitute for .mac for a long time and i think that this will really do the trick. when i get it installed, i’ll leave it open to the public for a while so that you can see how it’s working. i plan on being involved in the dev process of it since i know some PHP. gotta love the internet.

ok, knitting content. not much is going on. i’ve been working on the christmas gifts which is fun although not that fulfilling because i know that none of it is going to me. once i get to 75% done on each of these, i plan on starting up 1) the tubular camisole from glampyre for myself in debbie bliss cotton cashmere & 2) the circular shrug from yesterknits in lamb’s pride bulky medieval red, also for myself (backpack: patterns in the queue). it’s nice to have more than one project going at once!

here’s the beginning of mom’s cabled sock (pattern from brainylady… see backpack for more info). i like this pattern. it’s very simple and easy to understand. alison does leave out a lot of the directions so you should know that this pattern is not for sock-newbies. give another fully written pattern a try first and then try this with those techniques you learned. i’m going to try the short-row heel on this one. hopefully i understand it enough.

after ripping back the clapotis, i’m back in business and i think that i’ll have enough yarn to make a decent sized version of it. yeah! the only bummer about this thing is that the darn straight rows take FOREVER! this is why i have more than one project going on at once. too boring otherwise.

and, in closing, i present the clapotis-race-to-the-finish! which i think that lisa is going to win.. she’s crafty, that one.

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