Broken knitting, ballet, and ipod issues

Hi. What a couple of weeks its been. I managed to finish all of my knitting projects for Christmas, although I'm still working on presents for friends. We'll call those New year's presents and they will appear in the new year. Here are photos from Christmas. Nieces shoes, Jodi's bag, mom's socks, and pile o'felting:

While I was knitting Rich's slippers, I broke a Denise needle at the connection. I've yet to send it in for replacement, but I hear they have excellent customer service, so no worries. Lorie and I exchanged Stitchionary 3 for Christmas, which forced me to purchase more items from Knitpicks in order to get free shipping. That makes sense right? Anyway I purchased the "Knit Scarves" book that I believe I have photocopied almost every pattern from and "Knit Fix". "Knit Fix" is excellent at explaining more technical problems and how to finish them. Except when you are knitting a lace pattern and then notice that you have switched how you slip stitches on every row. And dropped a stitch somewhere. Why did reading Knit Fix cause this? It didn't. It just forced me to pay attention. Yuck. I've completely ripped out the lace scarf I started months ago and put the yarn and pattern away for now. I think I can only do lace knitting and nothing else when I'm doing it. Require concentration. Happily, freeing up a project has allowed me to start my Karabella Boise cable scarf finally. I wasn't happy with any pattern I found, so I've made one up by combining two other patterns. I love it. It's a simple six row repeat, 4-stitch cable pattern. Simple and stunning just as that yarn deserves.

Meanwhile, Rich and I had a date last night. We went to Moscow Ballet's Cinderella and then out to a nice dinner! It was a fantastic night. The ballet was great. Good dancing, stunning costumes, and great sets. The only issue was super tall person two rows in front of me, performing a view block I thought Lola had reserved for herself when I'm watching TV and ignoring her. Anyway, we moved to the center between acts and had a great view of the dance for the finale. We are hoping to go to Maya Angelou in February and I want to see David Sedaris again in April, but I don't know which show, Eugene or Portland? We'll see.

I got an 8 gig Ipod Nano for Christmas in stunning red. Its causing me problems. I've been on the phone now for an hour with apple trying to fix it. Argh. It is formatted as a Windows machine for some reason and won't let me register or download purchased music. I'm not a happy nano owner right now, but hopefully they will get it fixed today. You only get one call under the 90 day warranty unless you buy the extended warranty. Can you say rip-off? (Post-call addition: nano not fixed. I have to take it to a Genius bar. I could go today, but since Rich and I are heading up to Port Orchard, I'll wait until Tuesday. We'll see what they can do. They assured me they think it can be fixed and won't need to be replaced. My luck with ipod continues. Argh.)

Besides the scarf, I'm knitting my gauntles, bowls, and vases. I have about 7 inches on the gauntlets, with three to go before reaching the thumb gusset. I'm stealing the pattern from Dani's non-patterned handwarmers in the previous posting! Hopefully it will work.


Bowls, bowls, bowls. Kendra was down before Christmas and we felted tons o'bowls. Kendra finished her first bowl, which felted beautifully. She started her second and finished it all by herself upon her return to Eugene. I'm so proud of her. She figured things out on her own. She's coming into her own!


Happy New Year to all and may all of your hopes turn into reality.

a belated post

photo first....this time sad. I have learned that our beloved dog Missy has just as expensive taste as I do. From the photo above you can see that there is something wrong with my glove. That right their is a koigu gauntlet that I made (my own pattern) while riding the train in Portugal in 2004. Sadly it will not make it into 2007. But all is not lost, as the gloves are a tad bit big and a bit long in the arm, so I will (at some point) end up ripping them out and making them again. Problem is, I never wrote down the pattern. Now on to better things....

Merry Christmas! I was hoping to get out a picture of our tree....but the pic's did not do it justice. Mr. Fireman decided since we don't own many ornaments and we didn't want to buy them before Christmas as they will be much less expensive after the holidays, that we would use household items to make up our tree. From a bottle of advil to hot chocolate packets and toothbrushes our Charlie Brown tree is lightly dusted in decoration. Even with our attempt we still did not manage to cover the tree with much. Maybe I will send out a photo you can squint at.

I have been meaning to write a post for a bit. I finished the Print 'o the Wave shawl (pictures pending). It was completed in the Winter Blizzard of 2006 while I was stuck at work for 28 hrs. Yep, it was evident that day that I am a diehard knitter. I went to work in running shoes (knowing 3 ft of snow had been forecast) and without extra provisions beyond a toothbrush but I remember to take not only the work in progress (the shawl) but a skein of sock yarn just in case I finished it. And I did! After only three months of tinkering and procrastinating, I completed my largest lace project to date. It is currently layed out on the guest bed blocking. Well, it's probably dry by now but with Christmas I didn't manage to have time to check on it. And now I am at work and not able to check at all. Gotta love working night shift on holidays.

Here's to merry knitting in 2007! Happy Holidays!

Felting Season!

I can't really show many of my projects right now, as they are presents, but be assured I will post photos as soon as the holidays are over. Today is national felting day. I'm felting 7 projects! Argh. Cross your fingers and toes.

I went to Denver to visit Dani. We had a yarn store extravaganza! It was fun and at times fascinating. You see dear Dani worked at a yarn store with the most luscious gossip. Its almost like a soap opera. I can't share the details, but it was endlessly fascinating.

I bought baby alpaca for the bonnet from "Knit 2 Together" and Rowan Tapestry in Moorland for a scarf. Both are extremely tactile soft yarns. Dani got me Austermann Step in greens with a hint of red for Christmas. They will stripe beautifully without any fuss! As she bought the same yarn for herself, we'll report back on whether or not the Jojoba and Aloe Vera make a difference when knitting.

Meanwhile, here are cute photos of Lola, Spike and Rich's new friend.


Dani, if you're ever in the need, consider a crocheted bouquet from your favorite store as a wedding accessory! It s a great look for almost everyone! I know that if the situation were to present itself to me, I would sure think of the forever bouquet for my wedding day!