Anyone seen my blog?

I am trying to look at my blog, and it's completely gone! I'll I can see if a blank page. I am posting this to see if it does any good.

TNK--report a little late

Tuesday night, Susan and I took the long drive out to the Hugenot Rd. Barnes and Noble and met up with the TNK group. Before we went to knit, we stopped for a quick bite at the new Mexico restaurant off Forest Hill Ave. The food was really good (v. spicy salsa!) Apparently, on Tuesday nights between 6 and 8, a funny man comes to the restaurant to entertain the kids. There were only a few kids there when we went so he made me a penguin out of balloons.

Pretty talented, huh?
I can't decide what Mr. Penguin's name should be, so I think I'll have a contest. The best penguin name gets a skein of natural fiber yarn.
The penguin came with us to TNK and cheered everyone up. Here are Tammy and Debbie:


And Isobel:

We were so busy chatting and having a good time, that I didn't have a lot of pictures. I should have taken pictures of the handmade soap that Robin brought. She makes the best smelling handmade soaps and body treatments. Mmmm mmmm. I am still trying to decide which fragrance is best for me...but in the mean time, my bathroom smells great from giving them a try.

I took a picture of this beagle in front of PetsMart the other day and now I can't remember her name. She's cute, though, huh?

Here's GL at daycare...looking cute as ever. I need to find out who her friend over there is. He's a fluffy fellow.

Friends?

My friend Kelli was out of town this weekend. So, GL and I went over a couple times to keep Daisy company and give her some distraction. GL and Daisy have an interesting relationship.
Here, you can see they are playing in a friendly manner...a little banter, a little bouncing, a little pawing, a little nipping....

However....
Here is appears that Daisy has been possessed by the devil and is trying to tear GL's ear off. Don't be fooled. GL is not the innocent party here. She goes low and tries to grab Daisy's ankles to take her out from underneath, and then goes in for the kill....that's why Daisy is on the floor here ...


Interestingly, much of th chaos is caused by this object:Daisy's all time dream toy it seems. I probably would have been wise to take it away from them...but quite frankly...the whole encounter was damn riot.

Round of Applause, Please!

We're back in business! Ben...awesome fellow that he is...got my internet cable fixed and I am back to having internet! In honor of the favors that Ben and Susan have done me over the last week, this is going to be the Ben and Susan Rector appreciation post.


Ginnie Lee really likes men...she is quite flirty with Ben, too. I always think that you can tell the character of a person by the way that person is with animals. Ginnie Lee took quite a shine to Ben when she first met him and here she demanding attention from him.







As I posted previously, Susan was awesome enough to pick up GL when I was late on Saturday. I got her some Misti Alpaca Chunky while I was in NoVA.



I think she likes it? What do you think?
Let's see what she makes with it!






This Roxanne Teague Rector. Roxy loves to have her pic taken. Roxy is pretty foxy for an old lady, huh?
(Gosh, I crack myself up!)








And finally...here's my father's sweater!



Susan is modeling it. Of course, my father is bigger than Susan, so it should fit him just fine!

That's it! Thanks Susan and Ben for being great people!

All sorts of trouble

Well, Blogger is having its photo problems again...I still don't have internet at the apartments, and it's been a heck of a morning personally and professionally. I won't get into all that, though.

Went to Tuesday Night Knitting group last night at Southside B & N. Susan and I went and had a great time. I hope I get to post pics of the evening soon. I'll try again later in the day. I'm on my lunch break now.

Technical difficulties

Apparently, there's a mouse in the carriage house. This might be some of the explanation for Ginnie Lee's late night agitations. However, last night, Mr. Mouse bravely made himself aware and visible to both GL and I around 9 p.m. What ensued thereafter was a mad chase around the carriage house and a wild howling hound dog trying to make herself go into every corner that Mr. Mouse went into. Unfortunately, since I live in such a small place, there's a lot of my stuff jammed into every corner of my place.

Also, quite unfortunately, GL got her paw caught up in the ethernet cord to my computer and managed to pull out the wiring from the wall. Here is the problem:
Obviously, all those little wires need to get back into that little plastic box. I'm not sure what the next course of action is... Perhaps some of you tech savvy people can suggest a plan...anyone? anyone?

Also, unforunately, I had already downloaded to my laptop all my pics from yesterday, including the finished Dad's sweater and a picture of how happy Susan was with her Misti Alpaca. I am going to have to find a place with Wifi and get those pics uploaded to show you....b/c some of them are really great!

Here's all that's left of the 11th ball of yarn from my father's sweater.

I love using up a ball of yarn! Of course, there is a full ball of the yarn left, but I don't think that counts, since it's unused.

I figured since I spent so much time on my father's sweater, that I really should do something that I can finish rather quickly just so I feel like I'm accomplishing more than 2 FOs a year. Here is the baby sweater I started yesterday.

Obviously, it's going to knit up v. quickly since I got the back and so much of the front done already. I don't know if you can see it, but that's a cable starting up the front. It should be pretty cute.

My mean, ugly rear neighbor is causing anxiety for me again by yelling at my poor Ginnie Lee. Here she is on squirrel patrol.

Ginnie Lee and I are looking forward to the weather cooling a bit so that we can go for some hikes in the woods at Pocahontas. That really uses up some energy! All the good smells!Anyone care to join us??

Road Rage

I finally finished my father's sweater. I will post a pic later. It is large enough that it doesn't really fit on any surface in my apartment. I might have to get someone to model it. I'm pretty pleased with it, though it still needs to be blocked...and I'm hoping that blocking it will work out some of the imperfections in it....like a little bunching around the collar. I'll ask Cate...she is wise about such things.

So, yesterday I went up to NoVA to visit with my friend Gwen and go on a NoVA yarn crawl. Unfortunately, as so often is the case when travelling up there, I got stuck in traffic. The traffic on the way up was bad and slow, but managable. So, even though I left around 8:30 (stopping briefly for breakfast), I didn't get to Gwen's until about 12:30.

I had to be back in Richmond by 6p.m. to pick up Ginnie Lee from Pets at Play, so I knew I had to be back on the road about 3:30 in order to make sure I was back home in time. You do the math! This left only 3 hours for yarn shopping! But first things first, we had to have a delicious brunch of waffles and bacon made my Gwen!
Here's Tia:

Tia is a Husky and German Shepherd mix. Isn't she a good girl. Look how nicely she posed for the camera! Tia is 11 years old and she is a cancer survivor! Yay Tia!!! She's healthy and strong now! And she knows how to pay dead! She got a little bacon for doing that trick!

We took Gwen's new Cooper Mini! It's as cute as Gwen is! It was fun riding around in the Mini!

Our first stop was Knit Happens in Alexandria. They have a v. pretty storefront, as you can see:

And they had a v. bright and cheerful store. There were tons of people in there too! They were having a pretty good sale! And they're having an even bigger one next week! I bet Gwen goes back! I didn't find anything I couldn't live without, though. There were a few pattern books that I really liked, but nothing I found compelling.

Our next stop was Springwater Fiber Workshop. This is a non-profit studio for the fiber arts!! Yay!!

I bought some Misit Alpaca at Springwater Fiber. It is so soft! But I'm not keeping the Misti Alpaca! More on that later!

And that was all we got to do. How rotten. There were at least two other shops on our list, but we didn't have time! I got back on the road around 3:30...but lo and behold....95S suffered paralyzing delays! Poor Gwen...she had to navigate via phone so I could find a way to US 1. But US 1 was a parking lot too! So another friend had to come to the rescue...of not me, but my little furry baby! Susan, superstar that she is, went and picked up Ginnie Lee from daycare before they closed and GL had to spend the night! Because Susan went out of her way and is such a good friend, I'm giving her the Misti Alpaca...because she's going to love it! Susan loves soft yarn, and this is the softest I've ever touched!

Last night I was too tired to blog, but I started on my next project which is the Garter Stitch Edged Cardigan in Knitter's Stash. It calls for Classic Elite Montera, which I just happened to have in my stash! I really like this yarn and am hoping that Stewart might consider carrying it.

More later!

Short term memory loss

I forgot to take my camera to TYL tonight to snap some pics of the last of this Beyond the Basics session. My class was really fantastic this time around...they are going to be great knitters. I'm sorry I can't show them off one more time. They picked up so fast on cables and double knitting that we finished 15 minutes early...

....which unfortuately left 15 for me to browse. Sigh. I think I'm having a little depression b/c it's been so long since I've bought yarn (a whole week!). That might be the cause of some of my malaise the last few days.

There are tons of beautiful things in the shop now for fall. Some organic wool and some cruelty free wool that I MUST have. Of course...never mind the yarn I have for 14 other sweaters already. Good grief.

Will finish up my father's sweater tomorrow evening and post the pics. I'm glad to have this finishing up. What should be my next endeavor???

Malady

Well, I've been a bit under the weather the last few days so I have not 1) gone to work or 2) done much blogging. Nothing particularly interesting to blog about except my sinus headache and monsterous cold sore (I'll spare you the details).

I can't believe how gorgeous it's been outside the last few days and I've really been feeing too fatigued to go out and play in it.

Between naps yesterday, I got quite a bit done on my dad's sweater, and did some more today. All that's left is to finish the last bit of the sleeve and then I'll be all done...far ahead of my Saturday deadline. I'm not going to post a pic until it's all done, though.

Meanwhile, after being home a couple days, I think I'm starting understand why GL is not sleeping through the night...she sleeps all day! I woke her up several times yesterday trying to get her to go out and play during the day, but she seemed much more interested in sleeping. This doesn't account for why she doesn't sleep through the night on doggie day care days...when she's supposed to be playing all day.

I think she's bored with her life....

Keep on pluggin'

In a desperate attempt to further consolidate and organize my stash, I purchased this mini tower with 3 drawers to hold some yarn. I should have just admitted defeat and gotten another 6 drawer tower...oh well. This helps a little. Still, not enough to claim victory over the yarn explosion in in here.






I'm somewhat on schedule on my father's sweater. I finished the left sleeve this weekend and have started working on the right. Hope to get another few inches done on it tonight. I am worried that I am not going to get this done before Saturday a.m. I haven't pulled an all nighter since college!


Ginnie Lee and I went for an evening walk, as always. The weather is deceptive. Feels rather pleasant while you're roaming about in it, but it starts feeling pretty sticky when you're on an hour walk.

Here she is chillin' on the bed after her walk. It's 8:30 and she's asleep on her bed now...I can only hope that she makes it through the night...

I've been feeling a little under the weather these days, hence the sporadic posts.... Plus, nothing much interesting going on except this sleeve. Yawn.

A New Hope...

Ryan came up with an excellent plan to help me curve my yarn buying habits. He called for an intervention today. He made the point that I am merely turning into a yarn collector at this point...and that's not what I want to be! I want to be a knitter! So, the plan is only to buy yarn when I finish a project. A reward for completion, as it were.

So...I have a challenge that lies ahead of me....I am going to NoVA to visit with Gwen next Saturday, the 19th. I would like to buy a little something special from my trip to NoVA since we're going to visit several yarn shops (of course)...so I am challenged to finish my father's sweater before then. CAN I DO IT?!?!? I am almost done with the left sleeve. If I finish that sleeve tonight and work on the other sleeve all week, I THINK I CAN DO IT!!!

Of course, then there's the matter of the VA Fall Fiber Festival....

I have an illness....

I just can't resist yarn at a great price! I have tons of this Rowan Harris already, but I can't resist the price....so I had to get some more.

I could kick myself.

Clearly, I have no intention of ever catching up on my knitting.

The truth is...I'm trying to help out Stewart....that's all it is...an altruistic act.

The dog days of summer...

We finally got that much needed rain we've been waiting for. It rained buckets this morning. As we all know, rain makes mud and mud makes THESE:

All over my newly laundered sheets.

Here's the culprit:

Even thought it appears she's in jail, just like she deserves to be, she's actually just on the landing outside the carriage house. Can I get mad at that face??

Many of you know Homer, the Yarn Lounge shop dog:

Homer would never do something as crass as jumping up on the bed with muddy foot prints. Of course, that's largely because Stewart has enough sense not to let him onto the furniture.

Another poochie at TYL tonight. This is Sebastian:









He is a very distinguished fellow. Sebastian is a Tibetan Spaniel with a v. fetching hair cut.

FINALLY

The sleeve of my father's sweater has progressed enough to move down to double pointed needles, which is good.

I have had barely a minute to knit the last few days so I've made poor progress. Tonight is the second Beyond the Basics class, so I probably won't have much time today either, but hopefully can get about an hour in before class starts.

From the files of "What the hell do I do with this....?"

I bought this on super sale last year. The scrap of paper inside the bag says "Whole Ball of Elaine." It appears to be some sort of wool/synthetic blend. Very soft and pretty colorway. Don't have a clue about gauge or yardage or what the heck to make with it....

Ginnie Lee is still not sleeping through the night and I'm not really sure what to do about it. But here she is...looking cute as ever.

Since I can't post pics....

I don't know what's going on with Blogger, but it's getting on my nerves. Meantime, I guess I will post this interesting tidbit.

You Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

What European City Do You Belong In?

How can this be??

Last night I finally got sick of seeing the yarn piled up all over my floor...

And it made me a little industrious. So, I took a late evening drive to Kmart where I found a practical, but not terribly attractive yarn keeping device which I was sure was going to hold the yarn that was scattered on the floor in various bags and then I would have the wicker chest and the ugly plastic bins as yarn storage.

However, this thing..with it's six drawer...barely held 1/3 of the stash that I have managed to accumulate. At the end of the evening...not much could be seen in the way of improvement:

There are still bags and boxes of yarn everywhere.

Roz came by and said I needed 17 of the ugly plastic bins. I beg to differ. I am quite sure that 2 more will be more than adequate.

Ginnie Lee and I worked at The Yarn Lounge all day today. GL always makes the customers smile because she is so sweet and pretty, but this young lady and GL really hit it off:

They spent a lot of time getting to know each other and it was really sweet.

Mel's hubby, Mike, came by and he is such a supermodel that he modelled my father's sweater. I really needed to see it on a man's body and after Mike tried it on, it was clear to me that it's a good sweater and it's going to fit Daddy just fine.

...if I ever finish it....

Yarn Lounge Saturday

Stew wanted to take a weekend off, so she asked me to pitch in at the shop. I said, Sure! So Mel and I spent the day together at TYL and Roz was there all day too! Roz is so close to finishing her red blanket, that I have decided not to post any progress pics of it and just have one big unveiling at the end.

It was oddly slow for much of the day today, as you can tell....


I made a pyramid of yarn with the NEW Wildfoote sock yarn in all these magnificent colors!! Cate picked them...she has such an eye, doesn't she? There are at least 2 colorways I'm going to get for socks this winter. I am such a loose knitter, I would have to knit Wildfoote on a size 0 or below. Yikes!

FINALLY feel like I'm making some progress on Dad's sweater. The left sleeve is actually resembling something other than a nub.

The pic is taken outside on my landing, not in jail, as it may appear. It was nice and sunny out, so I thought I would take advantage of it.

GL spent the day at daycare. Apparently, it's done what it's supposed to do:

Let's hope she makes it through the night...

As Weatherpixie has no doubt indicated to you, the heat wave has broken. Whew! We made it...With a high of 91 today it felt like a cold snap!

Thursday's Pictures

What I should have done was EDIT Thursday's post. But I didn't come up with that brilliant idea until after I uploaded these pics, and I'm not going thru all that again.

Here's Daisy. Isn't she a cutie pie?

And of course, my beautiful GL:

I think she's really getting used to the camera now.

And here's my great Beyond the Basics class.

As you can see, they're very diligent.

What's up with this thing?

I, once again, can't upload any photos. How annoying. It was the first night of my new Beyond the Basics class and I have a GREAT class. I have a pic of them. Maybe I can get it up later.

Ginnie Lee has a play date with Daisy this evening. I have a pic of Daisy too. Hopefully I can get that up tomorrow.

I managed to go a day w/out buying more yarn...even though I spent the whole evening in the yarn shop. Shocking, I know. Try to contain your amazement.

Afterwards, I was naughty and met Mel, Mike and Roz for an ice cream cone at Bev's. I would like to tell you this is a decadent treat for me...but quite frankly, I eat ice cream all the time. I took a picture there, too...but I think Roz and Mel would be glad that it's not being posted.

I am working on the left sleeve of my father's sweater...but it's such a pathetic advancement, it's not worth photographing and sharing. I'll post it when I'm further along.

I haven't melted yet

For national night out, I decide to take pics of the dogs who were out for crime prevention...they are, after all, such a great crime deterrent! Unforunately, only one venue was dog friendly, and that's when I got pics of these two cuties!


That's Lottie (or Lonnie) the fluffy dog and Max the Chihuahua. They braved the heat to show their support for their communities!

In knitting news, I am planning on making this sweater eventually:

In Debbie Bliss Cathay. The Cathay is 23 to 4 inches and the sweater is written for 20 to 4 inches, but I think I can make it work by making the next size larger. I decided to make the body in black, but couldn't decide on a contrast color until I stopped at the Knitting Basket yesterday over lunch to see what they had. Ta Da!

DB Cathay in Red. The perfect contrast color for the bottom and wrist details.

Unfortunately, they also had this on sale for 30% off:

As if I needed more yarn. But this Blue Skye Alpacas Cotton is a great buy at 30% off. I think I will make some baby things out of it.
I MUST stop buying yarn now. My little apartment is being taken over by it. AND I have enough for 10 years of knitting. Besides, lately it seems like all I do is buy yarn...have I FINISHED anything recently? I don't think so!

Here's a great head shot of GL:


It appears that when the temps hit three digits, Weatherpixie merely dons her green bikini. She doesn't even have a glass of water with her...Oh well...a bit of a disappointment, but I'm so fixated on the weather, I like having her around.