Irony Is Not Dead

Well, things have been very busy lately. I greatly appreciate everyones kind words and get well wishes for my Dad. I'm sorry I haven't had time to respond to each one of you individually. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts.


I haven't done much knitting lately either and have no new knitting to show you. But I have been on this cross stitch kick lately and can't seem to get enough of these little designs! In case you are wondering the designs are from Subversive Cross Stitch by Julie Jackson. These things are addictive!

My Friday the 13th

I had Friday off work with big plans to do laundry and meet the hubby at a bar for a drink or two when he got off work. Well, at about 2pm I got a call from my Stepmom that my Dad had been in an accident. He drives a flat bed semi. He's going to be ok but he's facing a very long road to recovery. He was in surgery for a very long time Friday getting things put back together and he is back in surgery today. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

We drove the 6 hours to where he is at to spend the weekend with him and my stepmom. On the way it poured down the rain terribly and I dropped my cell phone outside the truck before we went to dinner and didn't realize until we came back out. So, the cell phone is currently out of commission but I'll be working on getting a new one hopefully today.

I didn't get a whole lot of knitting done since I can't really knit while riding in the truck but I did finish up my Solstice Slip socks while in the hospital room. The Solstice Slip socks are the June kit from the Rockin' sock club of Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I did 13 rounds on the leg portion to commemorate this Friday the 13th. Edited to add - the yarn is Socks that Rock, lightweight in the club exclusive Firebird colorway.












The one highlight of the trip were the baby ducks in the pond/lake outside the hospital. I think I took about 50 pictures but here are some good ones.

Houseboat Vacation

Sorry, it's been forever since I blogged but that's because I've been on vacation! I went to go visit with family. We took a houseboat trip at Eagle Cove resort on Dale Hollow Lake Tennessee.

We rented the 60' houseboat for 4 nights. It was a blast! The slide was a lot of fun as long as it was wet! If it was dry it gave you a rug burn type rash that hurt.


I got to hang out with my "little" brother a little bit before we went on the houseboat since he couldn't go with us.


Here's my mom, sister and adorable little neices playing in the water. It was great getting to visit with them. I can't believe how fast the girls have grown and how smart they are!



We did some fishing on the lake too. Here's the giant I caught.

There was also some knitting happening on the trip. I've been working on a Chevron scarf and also on the June Rockin' Sock Club Kit. Pictures of knitting progress in the next post.

It Only Took a Year

Yes, it took me about a year to finally finish this tank top. It is Pink Frosting from the Spring '06 Interweave Crochet. It is made in Rowan 4 ply cotton and took almost 7 full balls. I bought 8 so I have about 1.5 balls left. Even though this was in Interweave crochet the body of it is knit with 3 panels of cabling going across both the front and back. The sleaves and the ruffles are crocheted. This was the first big knitting project that I started even though many other knitting projects have come and gone between the start and finishing. This was a real learning experience for me. This was made mostly to the 42" bust size but I made some adjustments by increasing my cast on by 6 stitches but then I also changed the rate of of increases and decreases so that the waist measurement stayed the same as the 42" size. If I were to do this again I would make it a little shorter as I don't like were it hits my hips. I also learned that by doing the increases/decreases a few extra stitches in from the edge will make seaming a lot easier. Seems pretty simple but when I started this I had been knitting for less than a month and had no idea what I was doing.

I checked for errata on the Interweave site and there was none listed for this project but I did run into a couple of things worth mentioning. I didn't find any issues with the knitting part. On the crocheted part of the sleeves on one of the rounds the chart shows to do a DC, ch1, sk st, repeat but the written instructions leaves out the sk st part. On Round 20 the written directions don't match the chart for the number of chains to make each little loop. I followed the written directions. And on the ruffle the last 2 rows again do not match from the chart to the written instructions but I just worked them the same as the last few rows of the sleeves. Overall a pretty good pattern.


A also made a quick Sophie bag from Magknits. This pic is pre-felting and I thought I had a better pic of it post felting but this seems to be the only one I have. I made this for a swap. I love making and felting bags but don't have much use for them personally so they end up getting swapped or gifted.










I also dug out the sewing machine this weekend and whipped up this little sushi apron! It was fun and something different. Unforunately some of the sushi panels turned out upside down!

A FO On My Feet and Summer Goals

Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments about my new tattoo. I'll try to answer everyone's questions here. I got it at NOLA tattoo by Walt. He did a great job! I went in with an idea of what I wanted and he drew it up for me. It took about 3 hours to do and yes, it hurt, a lot. This is my second tattoo. The first is a skydiving tat that is between my shoulder blades. I am very fair skinned and wear sunscreen all the time so fading shouldn't be an issue for many years to come. I think that covers everything. If you have any other questions about the tat just leave a comment and I'll do my best to respond!

I'm wearing a new pair of socks today! These are the Grasshopper socks from the April Rockin' Sock Club. The yarn is the new Silkie in the Walking on the Wild Tide colorway. I followed the pattern with the exception of not doing any increases on the leg and keeping them short. They were knit on size 1, knit picks needles. My only complaint might be that the toes are too pointy and they do slouch a little so I'm glad I made them short.


I also dug out a WIP from last summer that was never finished. This is from Interweave Crochet spring '06, called Pink Frosting. I had the back pretty much finished last year except for binding off. Then it got cold and I put it away. The front seems to be going much faster than the back did but I've been knitting a lot longer now.



Ali is having a contest over at her blog relating to summer knitting goals. Go check it out, it's fun! And here is my list of summer knitting goals.

1. Finish "Pink Frosting"
2. Finish "Maltese"
3. Keep up with the remainder of the Rockin Sock Club kits
4. Finish at least 2 more pairs of socks outside the club socks
5. Start a Chevron scarf before the end of summer
6. Design at least 1 crocheted item
   
7. Keep knitting from the stash - maybe I'll get one more tank/sweater started

I've now lost 25.4 pounds on weight watchers since Jan. 9 of this year. I've hit a little bit of a plateau though and haven't moved much in the past 3-4 weeks. I really need to start working out more and I think that will probably get the scale moving again. I'm working to try and keep the motivation level up but I've been having a rough time with my migraines again which makes it hard to work out.

I went to a new nuerologist last week for the migraines. She started me on some new medication. One was a steriod for the current headache and also on verapamil as a preventative. Well, my system had a little bit of a freak out after starting them, extremely flushed, racing heart, shaking. The doctor thinks it was the steriods so I have stopped them, still taking the verapamil which is actually a blood pressure medication. But the headaches are not getting any better, actually maybe worse if anything.

Not for the Faint of Heart

Crazy Coincidences

I was browsing around on the DeStash blog and spotted some good wool for felting. Since making the sushi wallet I've wanted to do more felting and the price was right. So I sent my email to the sealer and she said it was still available and I sent over my address. Now, she sends me an email back saying that she's going to be visiting in New Orleans this weekend and offers to hand deliver the yarn! How cool is that? This morning Jenn and I met at Cafe DeMonde and hung out and knit on our socks for a while. Those jaywalkers she's working on are gorgeous! The internet is a marvelous thing!

We decided to walk over to the yarn store in the Quarter, The Quarter Stitch. I picked up a skein of sari silk to try out and Jenn got a couple of skeins of sock yarn. Then as we're walking out the store we literally run right into Jerry Springer! At first we weren't sure if it was him but then this group of guys started yelling "Jerry!, Jerry!, Jerry!" And he waved a little and kept walking. We think he was looking for a place to eat lunch. Of course we both forgot our cameras!

Stay tuned for pictures of the big surprise! I'll be posting them tomorrow if all goes well.