Easter

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I felt decidedly un-easter-like the other day, because I was wearing jeans and a button-up shirt that was black and dark turquoise.  No white whatsoever.

But, Easter ended up being, well, you know… Easter.  Josh and I didn’t get the memo about the venue being moved, so when we got to North Bend we found out that they’d lost power (some truck ran over the power box) and that we’d need to go all the way back to Factoria.  So much for that drive eh?

The dinner was as expected… Josh’s grandmother was stressed out due to the change of plans, and we had to fit 13 people in their small-ish house.  We had ham, a jello mold, potato salad, apple sauce, pickles, olives, marshmallow salad, peas, and green beans.  Oh, and Minute Maid’s Cherry Limeade to drink.

We had to set up two long tables to fit everybody (we borrowed on from the church down the street), so the one we were at ended up being more of a kids table, which was actually nicer.

The rest of the time I knit, and we just kind of all chatted away.

That was basically Easter dinner.  We left at about 7:30pm, which was earlier than I expected, so that was also nice.

In other news, yesterday morning my mom called and we had coffee, after which I stayed at Tully’s and knit for a couple of hours.  But I didn’t have my shuffle, so the lack of music to listen to kind of cut my knitting time short.  I was ready to go home after about 2hrs.

That’s about all for yesterday.  Today I called my mom about a coffee question and we ended up having coffee again this morning, this time because there wasn’t any traffic so she had a bit of time.  And of course, again I stayed at Tully’s for a few hours (three this time) and knit some more.

My mom has been bugging my dad again about going down to California, so the good news is that I might be able to go down pretty soon with him.  She says that if he goes down there and gets going on selling the house, then they might be able to go on a cruise (because she won’t be paying for that).  And if they go on a cruise… well, you know I won’t let them go alone without putting up a fight first.  -grin-

Josh has a conference call today between 3-4pm, so he’ll be home a little late.  But we’re going to head over to Overlake and get some more chow fun noodles… yum!

Candles are fun

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The IKEA trip was fun, although we stayed out much longer than I’d expected. Josh kind of knew that we’d end up being out past 6pm, but I was a bit too optimistic about it. At first he didn’t want to go, but in the end he did (so we could look for a little table/stand for next to the bed), and when we got home it was almost 7pm. Oof!

But we did end up getting tons of candles and candle-related accoutrement’s… we got two extra bricks of tea candles (100 each), a box of 50 (yes, 50!) of the “normal” tall skinny candles, and 6 cast iron skinny candle holders which are awesome. They’re tapered, and when oriented one way they hold the skinny candles perfectly, but when turned upside down they hold a tea candle! It’s pretty cool.

IKEA also had a little set of 4 glass tea candle holders, which are about half again as high as the tea candles themselves… the colors are various shades of green and blue, which is nice.

Because we went with my mom and she was using her gift card, she ended up getting us a french press to make coffee with, since we don’t really have a way to make coffee at the moment ourselves. It’s really fun, and we just used it this morning. Josh actually seems to kind of like it!

We have this big bottle of French Vanilla flavored syrup sitting in the cupboard, but it’s been sitting there awhile because neither of us like it much. But in coffee it’s not so bad. There’s still some coffee left from the stuff we made this morning. -grin-

It’ll be nice to be able to make my own iced coffee this summer.

After the IKEA trip, the three of us went to The Keg steakhouse, which was pretty good. I always like their bread, and their crab/spinach/cheese dip. I quite often have iced tea to drink, and surprisingly Josh ordered iced tea too! That was kind of fun.

I have to say though, I had this teriyaki classic meal, and the steak I got was much too chewy. I only ended up eating half of it (although I’d eaten a lot of bread and appetizer before hand), which was kind of sad. It would take me much too long to chew any one piece. Ah well.

As far as today goes, we’re headed out to North Bend again. Because I’d told Josh’s mom that we weren’t busy, she assumed that we’d be coming out to North Bend for Easter. And, since Josh doesn’t have or want to come up with a good excuse to be there, we’re going to be there (even though he really doesn’t want to go). I think so far the plan is to leave and get there at around 1:30pm for a 3:30pm dinner, and “work on the wireless” at camp until it starts. I doubt it’ll take that long though.

Josh claims that this time of all times will be the one where we don’t plan or end up staying until 9pm or so. We’ll see if he manages to pull it off. Heh.

IKEA

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What are Josh and I doing today?  That’s right!  Going to IKEA.

My mom is going (she has a really nice gift card) and asked if we wanted to go with her.   I asked Josh if he wanted to go (expecting him to say no) and he actually did want to go!  Good times!  So she’s going to pick us up in a half hour or so and we’re going to head down and get some more tea candles, because we’re almost out.  And we had close to 200 before!  Oof!

Garage Sales!

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It’s the season again!

I was browsing Craigslist yesterday and found a couple of garage sales this weekend that purported to have knitting and craft supplies.  Naturally that was exciting, so I thought, “why don’t I go and see if I can get some cheap needles?”

One sale was on Friday and Saturday, so at the last minute around noon I decided that I was going to go for it and walk down to the sale.  It ended at 3pm that day, so there wasn’t enough time for Josh to me because he didn’t get off work until then.  It was in Bellevue, about again as far away from the mall as the mall is from our apartment.

Off I went, happily walking around the backside of the mall to try and avoid the sun (it didn’t work).  I couldn’t find my nalgene bottle, so all I had was a mini-bottle of water.  The walk wasn’t so bad, except for the heat, that was kind of annoying.

Anyway, the walk to the house was a lot more uphill than I imagined it’d be, so by the time I arrived (2pm) I was a bit tired out.  So what happens when I get there?

“Oh I’m sorry!  A woman stopped by this morning already and bought out all the knitting stuff we had.”

-sigh-  So I’d missed out.  I ended up spending $2 and came away with a nice 3/4 length sleeve shirt and a bag ‘o pens for my sister.  The woman bought herself all the knitting stuff she’d need to get started when her friend gave her a bunch of new knitting stuff as well… since she “didn’t need two sets” she just put the new ones up at the garage sale.   So frustrating!  Too bad I didn’t find out about it earlier.

So, that was my day yesterday.  It was pretty fun walking outside, and on the way back I went to the library and hung out there waiting for Josh to get off of work.  I activated my library card while I was there (I went to the apts front office and got a copy of our renters insurance which has my name and new address on it) as well, so that was nice to get out of the way.  Now I can borrow library books on own without Josh being there too!

After Josh arrived to pick me up we stopped by and got some strawberry bubble tea, which was immensely yummy.  They had very little boba left, so they asked if jelly was acceptable instead… in the end they were very nice and put jelly and boba in our drink, which ended up being really good.

Uhh, afterwards Josh and I listened to the new podcast novel, The Rookie, which is turning out to be a lot of fun.   Woo!

Botanical Gardens

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On Thursday I was talking to Josh and asked him if he wanted to sit upstairs with me on the “deck” when he got home.  He said he would, so I started getting dressed to go up there, but by the time he was home he wasn’t really interested in going up.

Anyway, in the end we decided that instead, because it was so nice outside, that we were going to go off to the gardens.  We ended up driving down, because it would have been kind of a long walk in the sun, but that gave us more time to walk when actually at the gardens.

While walking, what was I doing?  Knitting.  Yep, I had my strip from the woven scarf coming out of my bag and I was knitting it as we walked.  It was kind of amusing.

It was quite a nice afternoon… we ended up sitting on a bench near a mini-pond that had some mallard ducks in it, and one of them swam up to us to check us out.  We sat on the bench for awhile; Josh reading his book, and me knitting.

Very nice/fun/cute afternoon if I say so myself.  I’m glad Josh wanted to go with me.

Running Out

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Of movies anyway. There are still a few in our collection that Josh and I haven’t managed to watch yet, but they are all movies that will take more concentration to watch than we’ve wanted to put in lately.

The other night Josh and I watched Spaceballs again, which is always fun. This morning I decided to watch The Shawshank Redemption, but before I put it in the mini I realized that Spaceballs might actually have an audio commentary track, so that might be a fun thing to watch while I knit. It didn’t turn out to be spectacular in the end, so that was slightly disappointing, even though it was a Mel Brooks commentary.

I’m not sure what I’ll do for the rest of today while I knit, but I might go back and watch Shawshank anyway.

As far as tomorrow goes, my mom ended up switching one of the days she worked at home this week, so instead of being at home on Friday she’s at home today. Which means that I’m going to have breakfast at Specialty’s with my dad and my mom tomorrow morning. Yay!

It’s so sunny outside that I think I might make a sandwich or grilled cheese and go upstairs to knit on the mini-deck up there.

More scarf progress!

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Yep, I actually got somewhere on the scarf. I managed to take a picture this morning, so I thought I’d post it here on my blog. I opened the window to let in some sunlight, but the color is still a bit off. Better color representation is in the first picture of the yarn I posted.

I’m having fun knitting it, although using the size 4 12″ circ got a bit hard on my hands at the beginning. I think that’s what led to the soreness as the night wore on, even though I’d moved on to the first strip. Today I’ve been knitting about two hours and I seem to be fine, so here’s to hoping.

I think I’m about 24″ along on the first strip, maybe a bit more. If I manage to knit for most of each day I think I can get the first strip done by the end of the weekend.

So far the circular and an extra dpn are doing nice serving as stitch holders… none of the stitches have come close to coming off, so I might not even need to bother with those stitch cap things. This still is an awkward knit though. One big long string coming off of a disorganized mess (or what looks like one).

That’s about all the knitting news for today. I’ll post another picture once I’m done with the first strip.

How many is too many?

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I bought more knitting needles today. I decided that in order to do the bottom of the scarf properly, I needed to use a circular needle, rather than a set of dpns. I had the epiphany this afternoon as I was trying to decide what to do about the unfortunate ladders that kept appearing on the beginning end of the scarf that I’d started at least three times already.

As might or might not be apparent, Skacel (makers of the infamous Addi Turbo) makes a 12″ circular in a variety of sizes. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I ended up calling Hilltop Yarn and asking if they had any in size 4, which they did.

So this afternoon Josh and I went over there and bought a pair of Addi Turbo size 4 12″ circs.

The only problem with that is, well, Addi Turbos are expensive, and I have the receipt to prove it. $18 for a set of needles, and in the smallest length of circular anyone makes! Way more than the $8 for a set of Clover dpns… but I sure did have an easier time making the bottom edge of the woven scarf with those Addis.

I’m already about 12″ into the 90″ that I’ll need to knit for the first rope, which is good, but I’ve taken a few minutes off to write this entry because my left thumb is starting to bother me from all the repetitive motion, and I need to let it rest. For the most part it doesn’t do anything when I type anyway, and even if it did I figured that the different motion might help it.

I’ll post a pic of the progress tomorrow.

In other knitting news I started reading the Andean Folk Knits book that I borrowed from the library. It’s a good thing I borrowed it too, since it was one I kind of had on my wishlist to buy if I happened to become rich. After reading it and admiring all the bits of historical information, I’ve decided that I do not like the patterns enough to really want a copy for myself. If I like anything it’s just some of the motifs that are used, because the meaning behind them is explained.

It’s a good thing that I already have a set of size 6 dpns for the other part of the project (you use size 4s for the ends, and size 6s for the woven strands), otherwise I would have had to spend even more money on some needles. I was nervous at first to be spending that much money on a set of size 4 12″ circs, because, well, what other use will I have for them? But as it turns out, this isn’t the only scarf that I’ll be making in the near future.

I proposed to my mom that she buy some yarn that’s on sale at LittleKnits… enough for me to make a scarf for her. This is the actual called for yarn in the pattern, called Classic Elite Lush, but you need 6 skeins at $10 a pop, versus the yarn I bought for myself with which I’ll only need 4 skeins, and they were $9.75 each. The called for yarn is also 50% wool and 50% angora, which should be very soft. I hear it’s really nice yarn besides.

Anyway, LittleKnits is selling it at 40% off, and there are 4 colors available, 3 of which are available in bags, with 10 skeins in a bag. So you can get $100 worth of yarn for $60. It’s a great deal! So I proposed that she buy a bag, have it sent to our apartment and I’ll use my own scarf as the dummy scarf (in case I screw up). Then I’ll knit hers out of her yarn and take the leftover skeins as payment for all of my effort (this scarf is labor-intensive… it takes awhile to knit). I’m always nervous about running out of yarn, so if the pattern is made with a specific yarn and says you need 6 skeins but doesn’t tell you how much you’ll have left over, I’m liable to want to buy a 7th just in case. Because of that, 10 skeins isn’t that much more than 7, right?

Anyway, I should have some yarn in the mail soon if my mom got around to ordering it tonight. It’s all very exciting for me, I promise.

As if this entry wasn’t long enough, I have something else to mention. The stitch pattern book that I just got has a pattern for a sheep that is the cutest thing ever. And, as it turns out, if my mom gets the green yarn for her scarf I’ll have in my stash and what it leftover from the scarf all I’ll need to fashion some really cute arm warmers out of the green Classic Elite Lush with an adorable, fuzzy, sheep on the back of the hand.

It should be extremely cute, and sounds perfect for Josh’s mom. And with Mother’s Day just around the corner it could work out very nicely. Oh, and a former failed scarf design attempt left me with $50 worth of various yarns that I purchased on a whim in a range of earthy tones and colors… one of which (in texture and color) looks exactly like grass. You can see where this is going, right? I’m going to make a little line of fuzzy grass under the feet of the sheep in the arm warmers. So cute!

Enough knitting talk for now. I should get back to actual knitting I expect.

Promised knitting

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I said I’d finished something. And of course it was the baby blanket. I’m sure no one was guessing. I just spent today weaving in all the ends and cleaning up the look of it. Now I just have to block the sucker. At least I think… I haven’t actually checked to see if this type of yarn would actually benefit from a good blocking or not.

It seems that another baby sweater pattern made out of this same yarn called for some blocking, so I think that this baby blanket will benefit.

How is my woven scarf going you might be asking? Well, not so good at the moment. Josh and I went off to Pacific Fabrics & Crafts and got myself some dpns in size 4, but I managed to break one of those on the first night. -sigh- The whole evening started out with some issues anyway, because I couldn’t decide on a stitch pattern for the short ends of the scarf. I needed something other than garter stitch, and when I finally started knitting it up I didn’t end up liking it.

Off to a new stitch pattern: moss stitch. I think that one will work better, but I still had to rip out the project to put the needles back in the case. I called Hilltop this afternoon, and they have a size 4 12″ circular, so I’m thinking that I might be able to stretch the stitches around that instead and eliminate my awful ladder problem that I can’t seem to get rid of!

I know I should be practiced at this by now, but I just can’t seem to pull tight enough to get rid of them. I’ve tried the whole needles-are-right-next-to-each-other thing, and I’ve tried the whole pulling-until-you-think-the-yarn-will-snap thing, but neither of those worked, and those were the only tips I’ve heard of. So my new idea is just to switch to the circular and see if that works. And yes, I know I’m cheating.

Oh, and I figured out how I want to package up the finished baby blanket. The size is such that I can’t really make it into a nice small square shape… it’s either a floppy rectangle or it’s a too tight mini-square. Either way, I’m going to roll it up like a rug and just tie some string around it and be done.

Also, all the books that Josh and I borrowed at the Bellevue Library yesterday have been lots of fun. Of course I got all knitting books, heh.

DKNY makes poker chips?

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When Josh and I were off in North Bend on Sunday, Josh’s mom asked if we played card games. Of course we do! Well, it turns out that some time ago she got a “gag” gift (which wasn’t even funny really) from some friend awhile back, and she had no use for it.

It was a little James Bond-style briefcase (a very mini one, maybe 6″-7″ across) that’s shiny silver metal. It even has a handle and a little lock key. Inside? Black and white poker chips, two decks of cards, a dealer chip, and two black dice.

Why would DKNY make such a thing? Why would someone give it to Teena as a gag gift? Nobody knows.

Either way, Josh and I now have a portable poker set I suppose. I haven’t yet decided whether it’s useful.

In other news today, I spent a lot of time at Tully’s this afternoon (more on that tomorrow), and after I was done there I found Josh standing out by the road outside our apartment, waiting for me.  Apparently he thought they’d be taking one of the (many) tower cranes in Bellevue down today, and he wanted to watch.  Well, it didn’t happen today, but the makeshift elevators on the side of the new tower have been removed, so it won’t be long before they do take it down.

Of course, his new monocular will come in handy for that won’t it?

Not much else happened today.  Josh made a box of flavored rice (heh) and sausage for dinner, which was actually quite good.  I had a lot of orange juice.

Oh, and I re-loaded my shuffle with Top 200 Hits of the 90’s.  Good times.