A spa morning

So far, I have 1.5 socks finished and 90% of my feb lady sweater's body done. The socks on the right are for a coworker:
 paton's croy sock yarn, 2 skeins
 Monkey sock pattern, cookie A
     Knitty.com

Sock on the left is Wisdom Yarns, Los Angeles, for PC...they are curling socks. *note for me: 68 st cast on & leg, dec to 64 for the foot, 9 inch before toes *

Amy's been knitting on her shalom cardi all weekend...and Diane? She wore your cowl all weekend and I made her get up before 8 am each day :)

Photos of yarn that I rehomed to my house. :)

See you tomorrow..

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

@ spa...

Having a great time! Yup, that's my Olympic knitting: orange february lady :)  I'm getting there, but not quite to the end yet.

What do you think? Will I make it?

I'm walking around in my purple shawl at spa, so if you see me, say hi!

-- Sent from my Palm Prē

sewing mojo

So, on my lunch hour, I cruised over to the Moda Bake Shop (what a place... it's filled w/ great ideas and truly cool projects) and found these flat dolls. Yup! Paper dolls that are fabric. I'm in love. I  *heart* paper dolls and know 2 little girls who will need these very soon (Sorry, Noodle, maybe next year-- you are too little for these this summer).

Hmm... 1 for MC and 1 for Miss O.

:)

Contest!!! you could be a winner!

Or I could. Go see JessaLu and say "happy blogiversary!" to her --- 5 years of bloggin' and she's going strong. I feel  a special kinship to JessaLu... the patience of waiting for a particular man, the need to create, and I think we have a bit of a 'bag problem.' :)

http://www.jessaluknits.com/2010/02/18/five/

South Beachers!

Okay, so I've been on Phase II and I don't like it. I'm eating too many carbs and I really don't like that. I'm getting too hungry and cranky.  So, today's back to Phase I. Anyone have a good recipe for lentils? I need to have more legumes in my diet and lentils are a good legume.

Breakfast: eggs + celery + peanut butter (3tbsp)
Snack: Greek Yogurt + sprinkle sugar free, fat free jello powder (cherry)
Lunch: scallops+ asparagus+ quinoa (I know, not Phase I, but it's what we had for leftovers and quinoa is a whole grain)
Snack: mozzarella cheese sticks
Dinnner: tandoori chicken (see recipe) + green beans+ wax beans
Snack: jello snacks (10 calories each)

My tandoori chicken recipe is easy peasy and crockpot friendly.

• 4-5 skinless chicken thighs frozen ( I know, SB says only chicken breasts, but some checking around says that skinless chicken is fine)
• 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
• 1 lemon
• 3tbsp tandoori seasoning (I use Penzeys)

Put chicken in crockpot (line with crockpot liners and save yourself a hassle). Mix next three ingredients and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 7.5 hours. Cooking the chicken frozen keeps it moist and delish.

rare photo post.

On Saturday, I got to meet up with someone quite cool, Jacquie! She and I were Valentine's Day Swap buddies on Ravelry... y'know where you send each other a package with V-Day stuff inside? Well, that wasn't quite good enough for us. Jacquie lives in NY (in a former B&B, I'm trying to convince her to host some knitting events!) and used to live up here. So, we made a date to have lunch while she was here. A few hours at Aquitaine at Legacy Place and voila! Instant friendship! My package included 8 balls of orange wool yarn, a skein of hand spun (that's already been wound--- waiting to be a cowl post-Olympics), candy, pattern book for purses, 2 original Jacquie patterns and some really cute other things.















(rare Mini-in-the-wild photo)

This is the Mini-Mom. She's sporting a new cowl on Sunday (in my kitchen) that she loves. Mom uses O2 and the cowl is better than scarves for not getting wrapped up in the tubing. Note to self: mom loves cowls. Wants more cowls. Isn't she beautiful? I look a lot like my mom.... especially when I smile. Our eyes crinkle.














No Olympic updates except Curling starts tonight. There's a curling broom in my kitchen, so you can bet we'll be watching. Am 90 % through the yoke of the Feb Lady-and am remembering how much I love garter stitch (not at all).

Technical Difficulties

bear with me while I strangle ECHO (my new comment service)--- I'm having it uninstalled as it completely sucks. A supposed upgrade to the perfectly fine Haloscan.

You need a degree in computer science to moderate your comments and I am just not Trek. :)

So... any recommendations for a non-evil free commenting service that works a la Haloscan?

Opening Ceremonies

Tonight marks the opening of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Of the sports being played, our house is anticipating the curling, downhill racing, and snowboarding. Speed skating tops the list as well. :) And, while I never wanted to buy a DVR when we had the chance, our cable system came with one this year and I expect it'll be pretty full at the end of the 17 days of competition.

On the knitting front, have you joined up at the Knitting Olympics? I had to make some adjustments, didn't want to be accused of "doping" by bringing a started project to the games. So, I wound some yarn last night and swatched (all legal: falls under training) and washed the swatch.


My house is desert-like, so the swatch was dry this morning.... last night's unwashed gauge: 5spi (too small); this morning's washed & unblocked gauge: 4.5spi. Perfect! My stitches plumped up with a washing and got softer.


Oh? What's that? You want to know what I am knitting?

Project: February Lady (pdf), size 49 inches (2 sizes smaller than I am now)
Yarn: Aurancania Wool Solids, Color 53 "Marigold"
Needles: US 8 bamboo circulars and dpns

Pumpkin will be announcing my progress at times throughout the competition. She's been practicing her Howard Cosell impression.

Ready, Set....

Why is she stretching? The Knitting Olympics begin FRIDAY!

Are your needles ready? Mine are!

Project: Huron by Jared Flood in Reynolds Whiskey and Cascade 100% alpaca. J

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity, nay, the privilege of joining my fellow MetroWest Knitters at Whispering Pines conference center at URI for a long, luxurious weekend of knitting, eating, laughing, singing, and laughing. Did I mention the laughing?
Our annual retreat "sleepover" is always a success, but this year we had a special treat at the end: a trip to Unwind in East Greenwich, RI. Holy.smokes. Now, this is quite the LYS! Jeanne (the owner) opened up Just For Us on a Sunday and was so great about hosting the 20+ knitters who descended upon her store like a bunch of crazy women who've never seen yarn before. I'm sure Jeanne did 'well' for keeping the shop open, but we loved just having us in the shop. It was personal. The employees were great. So great in fact, there might be more surprises next year. :)
My mom flat out asked me for a cowl. Now, this is not something I thought she'd want. Mom wears oxygen and her tubing would get stuck under the cow l (I thought), but no, she likes mine and tried it on. And, of course, it must match her jacket. Her purple ski jacket I bought her a few years ago. I have a weekend to myself coming up (PC's got a curling tournament)... perhaps some coordinating mittens are in order.
And finally, the Steggy. JR's (my nephew is a JR) birthday party went swimmingly. Auntie Mini spoiled him rotten with several outfits, new sneakers, books and a handknit sweater (he got lots of toys for Christmas, the month before). My bro and SIL loved the sweater and I have been promised one of JR in it. I'll post it if I can crop the face out--- I don't put photos of kids online, unless they are mine. :)
I got home from a work trip to San Francisco where I sealed my realization that I am meant to do this job. And i love it. I'm amazed at how natural it feels and how much I am enjoying the work. But, I only had limited knitting time as I was exhausted by 8pm each night. I had cast on for some Monkey socks,using Paton's Croy Sock yarn that I had in the stash. It's "meh" but a coworker who watched me knit on them fell.in.love. And she's the resident no-shoes person at the office, so it's very fitting that she desire hand knit socks. So, they will go live with her. Once I finish sock #2.