Stitches... but no pictures

I went to Stitches and had a marvelous time! But the available light is not helping me get accurate pictures of the stash I aquired. It was late evening when we got home and so the sun was low in the sky and casting weird shadows. I tried indoors and outdoors, with and without flash and most of the colors come out weird shadowed, crazy neon bright (when they shouldn't be) or totally washed out.... so I'm going to wait on posting pictures.

The picture here is what I brought to prepare myself. My Ravelry tote customized to me, my Selfish Knitter's pin, my blue kitty/chair bag with a project for the bus, a folder full of pattern information to keep in mind, with my list of what I wanted and information on things like yarn standards and needle sizes, pen and paper to take notes, headache medicine, an additional fold-up tote and of course wallet, with money!!

I'll try again on pictures of the stash tomorrow. It's WAY too pretty to put it up with coloring!

-DFly

New Car!!!

2007 Honda Civic, 27,000 miles

Love this cockpit dashboard....

Going to Stitches Midwest tomorrow so later we will have knitting and yarn but today is all about my new car! I'm loving this car!

-DFly

I need to update more often....

Let's see, important things....

1. I hurt myself, yet again, last Monday, twisted the right angle ankle and made the left one scraped up on the concrete. yeah, I'm a klutz. Walking any major distances is still not comfortable.


2. I got sick last week. Many people at work did so I'm sure it was something passed around. This didn't make vacation days go very well though. Between sickness and feet/ankles, we didn't go to the State Fair like I had planned on.
   
3. Good friends are nice to have. Although we didn't end up at the State Fair any day, we did spend Saturday with friends and just had a genuinely nice time with them, sitting, chatting, knitting and playing video games. (ok, son played the video games)
   


4. I'm going to be in a commercial for University of Wisconsin - Parkside. I went there on Friday to film my part. My understanding is that it will eventually be a web-mercial. There are a few people participating but they said I sounded friendly and natural (even though they forgot to write me a script so I had to wing it).
   


5. Traveling Scarf - I love the concept of this scarf. I't's a fun project at the LYS (local yarn shop, Just 4 Ewe). See, I knit the first 7" of my own scarf and then I pass it off to someone else in my group who knits the next 7" of my scarf using her yarn and then it will get passed to someone else. Of course, I'll be getting other people's to knit on as well with my yarn. Since this is knit with two strands of yarn, we also do some yarn magic to make sure we blend the colors from one person to the next rather than having a sharp contrast. They've been looking beautiful. Along the way, a journal travels with the scarf and everyone writes a little something in it. Below is my scarf before it got sent on its travels and the journal that's going with it. (I have my name on the journal but since I never show that on here, I "smudged" it and now it looks like a big dirt spot)




6. Ravelymics - Otherwise known as the Knitting Olympics as seen on Ravelry. The idea is to pick a project that will challenge you within 17 days of the Olympics. Due to time differences, I was able to start as of 8am Friday morning. Now, I'd decided some time ago to do the Modern Quilt Wrap. Basically when I bought the kit from Cami. But, silly me, I didn't realize that the drawing/schematic in the pattern only represented one half of the wrap. So here I am thinking that 18 large squares in 17 days will be a definite challenge but possible. Then after I started I realized the drawing only shows half of the wrap. Ooops! So I start anyway and realize that the squares take a significant amount of time and considering I do need to return to work, there's no way I can finish the whole wrap. Feeling very crappy and defeatist, luckily friend Apryl (and team captain) said that I could always make my challenge to myself to get the first half done. The original 18 squares that I had planned for. So my challenge is the first half. I'll get the second half done later, I'm sure. I do love how it's knitting up, super soft and light as feathers. I didn't want to do the same exact as the pattern, so first of all, since Cami sent an extra color, I removed the orange. Then, I created little cards labeled A-I and had son randomly pick a card and then randomly pick a ball of yarn from a bag. Now mine will be a bit different but still wonderful. I actually love the idea of making this with colors that are a little closer together. For example I love the mini square that has the dark blue, turquoise and green together. But I don't think I'll make a second one to try it out!
   
   
   
   well, off to work a bit on someone else's traveling scarf so it's portable. (I just got it and need to join my yarn in). Then hopefully another large square tonight.
   
   
   Happy Knitting - DFly

updates

Swap box arrived from Ravelry Book Club swap. Chinese theme to go with the book, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. The yarn is reminicent of cherry blossoms and I'm already more than half way through the book.

Son has new hair. It was only gelled for this one day but he's happy with it. I think it's his way of having something unique now that the tail is gone.

Spring Forward socks are just ready to start the heel, I changed pattern to toe-up. Thought I might do one today but then remembered about pesky things like paying bills.

Baby blanket (Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting) is coming along. I'm very happy with the join at the color change, both front and back look nice and neat. I need to finish these squares, I have another edge to do and then the border. I need to hurry up though since I know I have some time-bound projects coming up for Knitting Olympics and Traveling Scarf project at local yarn shop.