Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and brightest blessings in the coming year. I have no idea what DBF and I are going to get into tonight, but it'll probably involve champagne at least. I bought a new dress, so we'll see if I'm ambitious enough to wear it.

Happy New Year everyone. Hope the new year is full of yarny goodness for all.

Knit on...

Finally Some Pictures

I'm still enjoying the rest of my mini vacation from work right now. Watched the Cats play basketball today and beat EKU which was good. I was rather concerned there for a little while.

I'm still stealing wireless internet from my neighbors (bless them for having an open network!), so I decided that today I would post a few pictures. First, some knitting...

A finished sock for DBF's mom being modelled by Phoebie, my parents' new cat. She was really sweet. Yeah, she liked me, but in typical cat-fashion, wouldn't give you the time of day when it came to picture taking:

Now I'm knitting a sock, but those pictures will be for another day. I have Final Fantasy to beat right now...

Knit on...

I'm back, and I'm knitting

Big surprise there. I'm back home now, enjoying the last bit of my vacation before going back to work, and of course knitting. There is however a new obsession...Final Fantasy 12...

DBF bought me the game for Christmas (Have I mentioned on here before how much I love him?) and I was dying to play it as soon as I opened it. I had to go visit my parents though, so the game play was delayed. I played it yesterday for the first time and I am in awe. The cinemas in this game are incredible, the gameplay is awesome, the licenses are pretty cool and I'm still figuring out the gambit system.

But today my alma mater is playing in a bowl game, the first in a very long time. So I'm going to go over to DBF's (I don't get ESPN) and watch the game, munch on some typical football munchies, and say Go Cats a lot! Have a happy New Years and I'll have some pictures here real soon. I've just got to get them off the camera first!

Knit on...

Merry Christmas

Well, merry day-after-Christmas. Hello from the sunshine state. It poured rain all day yesterday and we had tornadoes. Welcome back home!

Anyways, it was a nice Christmas down here with the folks. I'll be back home tomorrow and I'll try to post some pictures then if I get the chance. I got a bunch of new toys (PSP, games, DVDs, and some cookbooks) that I have been playing with non-stop since opening them. If I had a car today, I would probably go brave the crowds and hit the sales (I saw Star Wars Battlefront 2 for 18 bucks for PSP and I want it...), but seeing as I don't, I will finish DBF's mom's socks. I'm on sock number two now, past the heel, on the home stretch, but there is this problem. It's called Lemmings.

Lemmings is this game for PSP. It starts out easy, gets harder, and then becomes just that much more addicting. Oh well. I'm forcing myself to finish this sock. I may have to take a little break now that I'm done with Christmas knitting (Ha!), but I would like to finish DBF's scarf and my gecko scarf which has been sitting in poor isolation at the house for months now. Poor gecko scarf. It's cold up home, so I'll be needing a nice merino scarf soon and DBF could use a nice alpaca one I think :oP

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, kwazy kwanza, a tip-top Tet, or a very solemn Ramadan (to quote Krusty the Clown from the Simpsons).

Knit on...

Last Minute

I always wait until the last minute to make sure I have everything done and ready to go on vacation. This trip is no exception to that rule. It all began yesterday when people started passing out gift cards at work and I realized I didn't have any to give since I was expecting anything. So, off to Starbies I went and got a bunch of 5 buck gift cards. Now watch, none of the people I need to give them to will show up today. They should since we get a 1/2 day and get paid for it...anyways.

Last night I exchanged presents with my grandparents right after work. I wasn't expecting anything from them since they sunk 300 bucks into my spinning wheel for my Christmas present, but they bought me a shirt set and a makeup kit anyways. That was very nice of them and I appreciate it a lot. DBF and I gave them each a 15 dollar gift card to their favorite stores plus a 15 dollar Fazoli's gift card so they can go out to lunch on us. I made Grandpa the pair of socks you have been watching me knit and I gave Grandma some dish cloths seeing as she really wanted some. I also gave them candy and nuts in the stocking as well.

After that, I went over to DBF's place and met him there after work (he got off early last night) so we could go see Eragon (did you know that Eragon is only one letter off from dragon? Just put a D instead of E...DBF found this out due to Spell Check). It was pretty good. I now want a pet dragon so I can ride it. Anyways...

Tonight DBF and I will exchange gifts and then he will go play at the UK game tonight. Lucky dog...I still have never been to a game even though I went to college there. Oh well. While he's there, I will pack. I very well may have to pack two suitcases, one for presents, one for clothing. The sweaters I knit for Mom and Dad take up a lot of room and then I got several more from my grandparents to take down there as well. At least none are wrapped, so I don't have to worry about them being destroyed going through security, especially the bottles of cologne.

Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and doesn't get snowed in. I'll be sitting in Florida, playing by the pool. Ha ha... :oP

Knit on...

Seaming and Weaving, Seaming and Weaving...

Guess what I did last night? Normally Wednesday evenings are for spinning, but not yesterday. I needed to finish up the cardigans and sweater I made for my parents and grandmother. I had to weave in ends for Dad's cardigan, seam and weave Mom's cardigan, and weave Grandma's sweater. So, I took some pictures too. Both cardigans are so dark that it's hard to get a good picture of them, so use your imagination!Mom's cardigan on me. Like I said, it's dark, sorry. Here's the cardigan on the bed:

I'm really liking this pattern. I don't like the yarn (wool-ease thick and quick), but I like the simple shaping of the pattern. It's from Lionbrand.com. I did completely change the neckline on that one, and it actually turned out better. I wasn't too keen on the polo shirt-like neck they had on this sweater. I couldn't see Mom happy with it either. I just picked up stitches around the edge and crocheted a smooth neckline. I need to remember that next time I made DBF a sweater. Crocheted necklines will look much better than anything I can do with the needles aparently...Here's a close up of the buttons. They're little spirals.

I would show you Dad's cardigan on the bed, but it's entirely too dark to even make out a sweater. So instead, I'll show you a finished pair of socks:

Yarn is Trekking XXL in some blue colorway (threw the band away a long time ago) Size 10.5 mens feet in my basic sock pattern, will be given to my grandpa today. I had to start one more pair of Christmas socks for DBF's mom:

These are made out of Knit Picks Dancing sock yarn. It's a cotton/wool/elastic blend and it feels rather nice. I like Trekking better, but she wanted ones made out of mostly cotton. Ask and ye shall receive. They are much brighter than the manly ones, huh? I like it though.

Tonight I'm going to go see Eragon with DBF. He gets off work early, so we're going to take advantage of that. Tomorrow I'm packing up all the gifts and a few clothes for myself and heading home to visit the folks for a few days. I may be blogger-less down there, so if you don't get any new posts after tomorrow, that's why. I'll try to find internet somewhere and post if I can though.

Knit on...

I hate migraines

So I trounced into work late this morning due to a massive migraine that shut me down for a few hours. I hate those things. I hate having to miss work because of a stupid headache, but I can't stand the light when I have one, so I figured I might want to get rid of it before staring at the giant glowing computer screen. Blah.

I finished the second sock last night, but it was pretty late when I got home, so you'll get a picture of it tomorrow. I started DBF's mom's socks last night too. They're being made out of Knit Picks Dancing yarn since she wanted socks made of cotton. It's a cotton/wool blend, so it should make a nice fabric. It is so far anyways. I was amazed at how sproingy the yarn is too. You can definitely tell there's elastic in there. Now I just have to weave in the ends of Grandpa's socks and the presents for people up here are good to go. DBF's scarf is the last one I have to make, but I'll work on that once I get done with his mom's socks.

My head is still throbbing, so I'm off for today. Tonight I'll be seaming mom's cardigan so that I can have another FO. That and weaving in ends of three sweaters. I'll weave in the socks' ends during lunch today.

Knit on...

Wrapping, Seaming, Sushi-ing

So last night was about wrapping presents for the most part. Seeing as I'll be flying in a few days, I decided not to wrap anything that I will be taking with me since I've heard they will open it up if your luggage is inspected. Instead I have a giant bag which will hold everything in it so that certain people don't see their presents before I can get them wrapped and under the tree. I wrapped all of DBF's presents, his mom's, my friends', and my grandparents'. I also stuffed stockings for DBF and my grandparents. I don't know why, but last year I put together a stocking for DBF and enjoyed it so well that I decided it needed to happen again this year.

Anyways, after stuffing and wrapping, I finished sewing up this:

Grandma's five hour raglan sweater. I've come to the conclusion that the five hours includes an hour of knitting and four of seaming. Blah. It's done, it's soft, it looks like something my grandmother would wear (not too flattering on me though...). Let us never speak of the size 50 tree trunks again...

I made sushi last night for dinner and then made another roll for lunch today. I'm on a sushi kick for some reason. It's vegan sushi, but it's that wonderfully seasoned rice that makes the whole thing after all. Plus I'm getting really good and rolling up the sheets of nori. Now if I could just work on those chocolate chip cookies...

I've also been working on Grandpa's sock:

The heel has been turned and now it's just knit, knit, knit until the end. I need to finish that by tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be done. If not, then he'll open up one sock and I'll give him the other when I get done.

Tonight I'll be playing poker, trying to win some last minute Christmas money. I'll also be knitting.

Knit on...

Crunch Time

OK, knitters, it's crunch time. Do you have your gifts ready to go? Are you travelling and working on projects while in the plane or car? Are you done? If you are, you make me sick, but congratulations. If not, join the club.

I was reflecting on the amount of holiday knitting that I have been doing recently. I have knit four sweaters, 10 dishcloths, a pair of socks, and spun up three skeins of yarn as presents in the past 2 months. I still have to work on another pair of socks or two and the scarf for DBF.

Remember that secret project I was working on for him? I showed it to him since it wouldn't be done in time. Well, it's a scarf with poker suits going up the center of it and on the back of the scarf, it will have the Magic symbols going up the center. It'll be reversible and all made out of alpaca. It's very soft, but I only have one repeat of the suits done, so it won't be done for Christmas. Oh well, I'll work on it once I get back from visiting with my folks for a few days.

This weekend was all about Christmas parties. We ate and ate and ate and then watched Survivor last night (Ozzy should have won...). We also saw Apocalypto yesterday afternoon. I'm still not sure what to think about that movie. It was OK, very graphic, and sort of Rambo-ish in the end (how did that guy survive again?). But it was OK.

No pictures today. I was lazy. I will be seeming sweaters tonight, so I may have a picture of an FO to show you tomorrow. If not, then you'll get to see the sock in progress :oP

Knit on...

I Would Like to Thank the Academy

Last night was the camera club Christmas party. I made vegan chocolate chip cookies to bring, so I'll start out with that fiasco first. I used the recipe from the book Vegan Lunchbox for the "back to school chocolate chip cookies". Now it calls for lining the cookie sheet with parchment paper and then spraying it down with cooking spray. I didn't have any parchment paper, so I said, "Surely these will come out fine if I just load the cookie sheet down with cooking spray, right?" Wrong. These are the best tasting cookies I have eaten in a long time (they outrank the snickerdoodles for me now), but they look like hell. They stuck to the bottom of the cookie sheet. I used the spatula on them and tore them all to hell. I ate the broken pieces and had a good laugh about how to tell people why I didn't bring anything to eat, then scooped up the rest of the pieces into a pie pan, covered them with foil, and left for the club.

I got there about 7:30 after driving past the damn place about 15 times. I called my grandparents to see if they knew where it was, I called DBF's mom, but her cell phone was off, then I finally flagged down a student and asked them where the cottage was. Thankfully she knew and told me that the driveway was really hard to see at night. Telling this to someone who has night blindness is just cruel. I drove past it again, circled back and finally made it into the parking lot. Next time, scope places out during the day, Leah. I knew what the building looked like, and I saw it each time I drove past it. I just couldn't figure out where the hell to park. Oh well, I got there.

We looked at pictures of penguins from Antarctica, then they gave out awards. The past two years I have won both beginning categories. This year, I was in intermediate, and I knew I was in the running for an award there, but I also knew it would be very close. People were surprised when my name was called for Intermediate Photographer of the Year. The other person who was so close to me points-wise won a ton of first places in the competition, but while she was winning 1st, I was winning 2, 3, and honorable mention which gave me a higher amount of points. Woo-hoo!

I worked some more on grandpa's sock. I'm almost to the heel flap now. I always like getting to the heel because I feel like I'm 1/2 way there. The second half of the sock always seems to go faster for me for some reason. It's the same amount of stitches, so I don't know why I feel this way, I just do.

Tonight is the office Christmas party. I made vegan squash casserole which we'll see how well it turns out. It normally calls for condensed cream of chicken soup, so I bought a vegan substitute and I've never tried it before. Hopefully it doesn't taste all funky. We'll see.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Knit on...

Excited Over a Lunchbox

I was excited when I drove home from work yesterday because I saw that my Christmas present to myself had been delivered via UPS. I quickly drove by my grandparents' house to pick up the package and then headed home to play with my new toy.

Yes, I bought a laptop lunchbox. It is extremely nice and I was amazed at how thick the plastic is on the thing. I had been eyeballing the lunches put together by Jennifer over at Vegan Lunchbox, and since I was going to buy her book, I decided to buy the lunchbox too. It's really cool. Here's my first bento creation:

Mandarin oranes, dried cranberries with almonds, rice, brocolli and vegan sour cream to dip them in, plus a fig jam heart sandwich and a peanut butter sheep sandwich. I was bored last night, what can I say? Oh, and don't forget the candy cane! I was having too much fun with the cookie cutters last night. I call this my "I heart sheep" lunch :oP Ok, feel free to make fun of me now.

I also did what Wednesdays are for:

Two more skeins of red roving. I don't know if the first two have arrived in Indy yet, but these are also for that cause if the original two skeins sell. Here's a close up:

Tonight is the camera club Christmas party. I'm not looking forward to the party because it will have lots of food, and probably very little that I can eat. I'm bringing vegan carob chip cookies so that I can at least have something sweet while there. I am also going to have to cook the squash casserole for my work Christmas party tomorrow. I don't know how I'm going to keep it hot until dinner is served at 6. Oh well, it will just be cold squash I guess.

Knit on...

Ding Dong the Final is Done!

The wicked final is done! Whoo-hoo! I need a beer now, but seeing as it's only 7:30 in the morning, I think I should maybe wait until I get home from work before I have one of those. I finished the final last night despite my internet connection crapping out on me at home. So, I lugged my laptop over to Starbucks and met the SnBers there, finished my strat column for the final, and then stitched away while sipping on my vinti peppermint mocha. That's the last mocha I have for a while since I don't even want to know how many points are in one of those suckers. Now I just need to walk the paper over to the department and call it a day.

I have no pictures for you today, sadly. I made a little progress on my grandpa's sock, but I still have a ways to go before I finish that one. At least I'm to the straight knit part now. I also did something last night that I have not done in what seems like forever. I read. Yes, that's right, I actually did some reading. I picked up Chicken Soup for the Traveller's Soul and read two passages and then read two chapters in the most recent Dragonlance book. I also played Final Fantasy on my Nintendo DS. I'm stuck in the land of the elves. I am wondering if I should have not travelled there first, but should have gone somewhere else. I may have to play some more tonight if I don't play pokemon instead, or Dragonquest 8, or any of the new games. I need more time in a day!

Wednesdays are for spinning, so I intend to do a little bit of that tonight. I am about done with two bobbins of red singles, so I will probably just finish those up and ply them. I have to start amassing a stash of handspun for the SnBers who will be getting gifts from me. Guess what everyone is getting this year? :oP

Knit on...

Look, a Sock!

This is the finished sock for my grandpa's Christmas present. I think for my grandparents, I'm going to go out and buy a stocking for each of them and stuff them full of little goodies like socks and dishcloths and their gift cards. Oh, and here's a dishcloth. I made two more yesterday at my lunch break: This is just a plain 30 stitch 12 row double crochet dishcloth. I can do two or more in an hour, so they work up quickly. My grandmother loves crocheted dishcloths more than knit ones, so crochet it is. Personally, I like knitted ones better since they have a better scrubby surface.

I got to thinking last night in between banging my head on the table and looking up coal depositional environments for my final exam that I have yet to post a picture of the giant Christmas tree that is dominating the front room. Without further ado... This is DBF's giant tree, trimmed in sparkly garland with a ton of Halmark ornaments and real candy canes. I couldn't get the whole tree in either. There's a pretty fiber optic angel on top of there too.

I came home last night and worked furiously on my final exam. After a couple of hours working on that, I decided I needed a coffee break, so I drove to Starbies to meet up with some of the SnB'ers. I stayed there for about an hour and cast on the second sock for my grandpa and got maybe a quarter of an inch done on the thing. I really enjoyed the company and the peppermint mocha (go, I know you want one now. Just go and get one), but I only stayed for a little bit since that final was screaming at me to go complete it. I'm not done yet, but I intend to work on it at lunch today and this afternoon if it's completely slow again. If not, then I'll lock myself in my house tonight and not come out until that final exam is in printable condition.

Plus I'll knit a sock. A girl has to knit you know...

Knit on...

The Trials and Tribulations of a Non-Carnivore

OK, so I can eat fish if I want, but I generally didn't eat much fish before I found out I couldn't eat meat anymore. So I'm basically a vegan, but I can have a little cheese and milk every now and again. It hasn't been that hard adjusting and making sure all my meals are veggie based, but this weekend created a new problem: The Christmas Party.

You never think about party snack foods containing meat products until you can't eat meat anymore. At least there was a veggie tray at the party, so I chowed down on brocolli, carrots, and celery dipped in a little ranch sauce (which judging by the way my stomach twinged, probably had egg in it). The rest of the food was meatballs, chicken fingers, chicken gumbo, chicken wings, brownies which I were sure had eggs in there, some sort of dip that I really wasn't sure what was in it, baked meat-filled ziti, and apple cider. Hooray for the apple cider! It was quite tasty and I really need to get the recipe for that.

So I ate veggies. Another problem that I see is eating out at fast food restaurants. We ran by Wendy's before sitting out at the Horse Park for the evening, since I knew that a small plate of veggies was not going to hold me for the next 5 hours. At least Wendy's has baked potatoes. So I had a baked potato with chives and no butter or sour cream. It filled me up at least. When we got to the park, there was a kettle corn dealer, so I also got some yummy hot popcorn straight from the kettle. Considering I had 15 points left for the day after the potato, I thought it would be OK to indulge in a little sweet and salty popcorn.

I will still be indulging in that some more today. It was quite a lot for only 3 bucks.

So the moral of this story is: Have more at your party for veggie eaters aside from just a veggie plate. While veggies are good, something with a tad more substance would be nice. Considering I think I was the only vegetarian at the party, I doubt they would have ever considered it. I wouldn't have until this past week and a half.

I'm still waiting for my final exam to be emailed to me today. There were email problems at the university over the weekend, so I'm not sure when the teacher will be sending it out. In the meantime, I suppose I could actually do some work :oP I'll have some pictures tomorrow of a sock and dishcloths and maybe more if I don't have to spend my whole night working on a final exam.

Knit on...

New Blogger?

OK, so I switched to the new version of blogger. They said they had trouble moving my old blogs to the new server, so we'll see if my blog is OK and if Spooky's blog is OK. They also say that your email address won't show up for other users. We'll see how that goes too. Anyways, that's what happens on a Friday for you.

Last night I went over to Jane's for SnB. It was just three of us last night, but we had a nice time, lovely conversation, and had fun playing with Jane's toys. I brought in the remainder of the Suri Dream from knitpicks and traded that with Jane for a ball of roving which I tried rather unsuccessfully to spin some last night. I think it needs to be refreshed some, so I'll flick card it a little and get those fibers moving.

I didn't feel like seeming last night, so my grandma's sweater and my mom's cardigan are still in their respective pieces. I'll maybe get to that this weekend, we'll see.

People have actually noticed that I have more energy than they have ever seen me have. I have felt the best I think I have ever felt this week. It's amazing what cutting out a food group you're allergic to can do!

It's a short post today. I have a bunch of stuff to do before I can go home at 4, so hopefully I'll get it all done. If I don't, I'm hourly, so oh well, I'll get it done on Monday.

Knit on...

Two Completely Different Looks

Ok, first and foremost, here's the roving that Emily gave me that blogger fritzed out on and wouldn't let me post yesterday:
It's quite nice and will go nicely with the skeins I already spun of kid mohair/merino blend from Erica. Last night my order from Veganessentials.com came in and I dug into the package, pulling out vegan cream of chicken soup (need this to make my favorite casserole), vegan "ribs" mix, no chicken soup, vegan jello, pudding, and ener-g egg replacer. I am impressed that it came some quick. They even sent me two eggless cinnamon rolls to try (um, yeah, they're both gone courtesy of desert last night and breakfast this morning). Last night I made a country type dinner:

It doesn't looke pretty, but it's the vegan "ribs", cornbread, and two pickles. I shouldn't have made that much because I'm still stuffed this morning and I have leftover ribs too. They actually tasted really good. I was surprised that the texture really was so meat-like. I will buy this stuff again, but I think it will just be one of those once-in-a-while dishes. I ate all that and after a few hours, I ate the cinnamon roll. That's the most I've eaten for dinner in the past month not counting Thanksgiving! It was good though, so I give the ribs a B+

Wednesday evenings are for spinning, so I did just that:

I played around with different color combinations from the same bag of roving and came up with two completely different looking skeins. I love the red and black one. I hate to part with it, but it's going to a good cause. Here's a close-up:

It's a thick and thin yarn, but not too much variation in there. The red one is similar too, just not as stark of a contrast of colors.

These came from the same bag of roving, but I ripped the black off in strips for 1/2 a bobbin and then did the same for red for the other 1/2. I'm really quite pleased with how it turned out.

In knitting news, I finished knitting my grandmother's sweater, now I just have to seem it up. I think that for SnB tonight, I'm going to take both my mom's cardigan and my grandma's sweater with me to start doing the seeming thing. I've let my mom's cardigan sit there for over a week now with no finishing done on it. I want to get them done so that I can figure out what to work on next. I think some crochet dishcloths are coming up for my other grandma who keeps dropping hints that she really wants some more dishcloths :oP I haven't made a dishcloth since last Christmas when I went through three cones of sugar and cream making dishcloths. I lost count of how many I did after 50. Everyone got dishcloths last year. This year they're all getting sweaters, socks, and scarves.

Knit on...

A Little Bit of Randomness

My brain hurts after writing that stupid paper for class and putting the finishing touches on my presentation that I have to give at class today too, so forgive me if I ramble on incoherently. First off, this is what I did before I played poker last night:
Lava colorway single for Impossible Princess and his etsy store to benefit the AIDS cycle. I'll finish single number 2 so that I can ply them tonight. Go donate to him, it's a great cause. If you don't feel comfortable with that, go buy my yarn once I finish it and it goes up at the shop. I also finished this:
Raglan sleeve number one for Grandma's sweater. I'm 1/4 way done with the second one and will finish that tonight while spinning and cleaning (I'll be doing a lot of that tonight). Here's what I did at poker last night aside from not winning:

In the words of the Yarn Harlot, "look, a sock!" I finished the heel flap and turned the heel at poker last night. This will be a Christmas present for someone. I'm calling it my poker sock since that's pretty much the only time I ever work on the blasted thing.

Last, but not least, we had to say goodbye to Emily yesterday at SnB. She's leaving us for some position at Yale. I mean, come on, what's more important? A good paying post-doc or SnB on Tuesdays? :oP We'll miss her a lot, but we'll all still be in touch, so it's OK. She may get a random visit from me and Kim every now and again (if we can ever find time to get away from classes and work!). We exchanged gifts/Christmas presents yesterday as well. Kim gave Emily a nice pink and gray scarf that definitely looked like the yarn was just dyed for Emily. Emily gave Kim some alpaca mix yarn that we all wanted to pet. I gave Emily two skeins of handspun yarn (the gray stuff I posted pictures of a few days ago) and she gave me some really pretty roving that blogger won't let me post a picture of. I guess you'll get a picture of that tomorrow! It's mohair/merino blend roving in a blues and greens colorway. I pulled out the four skeins of kid mohair/merino blend that I spun up from the roving that Erica sent me for my birthday and started comparing fiber. I think that these two groups of mohair/merino must go together. The white from Erica's will be accented by the blues and greens of Emily's. Now just what to make out of them...after Christmas...

Knit on...

What to Do?

So, I have this huge bag of fleece at home. I don't know how to handle a raw fleece or even store it for that matter. How should I store this thing? Should I roll it out or just leave it in the bag? I won't be able to work on it until next weekend at least because I'm being kicked out of the house for the weekend since the owners come back for a few days. Blah. Don't they know how tempting a raw fleece is to start preparing, especially when the high for yesterday was only 25 degrees?

Anyways, I went to a new bookstore in town yesterday and of course first went to the knitting books. They had a pretty good selection, but I ended up not buying any, despite the desire to especially buy Beyond Wool: A Knitter's Guide to Natural Fibers. I did however buy two vegan cookbooks since I only have two vegetarian cookbooks and both use eggs in about every recipe.

Speaking of the lack of meat, I had a voicemail message from my doctor on my work phone this morning. I am allergic to all common land animals. This means:

No Chicken
No Eggs
No Beef
No Poultry
No Game Animals
No Snake
No Penguin

OK, so those last two were thrown in there just for the hell of it since they are land animals. What can I have? Vegetables and Dairy. Lots of vegetables and a little bit of dairy.

Thank God I like tofu already!

Knit on...

Pictures Finally

OK, let's see how many pictures blogger will allow me to post before it freezes up!
The front of Grandma's sweater, being inspected by Spooky. It's rather meshy, but I think she'll like it. I now have the back done and almost one sleeve. I was lazy this weekend, so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I should have it done by Tuesday I think. At least I'm hoping to.
Two skeins of gray yarn for a special event on Tuesday. It's probably my most evenly spun yarn to date. It's DK to worsted weight yarn.
What is this? I won a fleece! That's right, a whole freaking fleece from Stone's Throw. I loved the dark color of this one. I had my choice of three different fleeces, bt this one just called to me in that fibery sort of way. I'll be cleaning this one once my paper is turned in for class this week. I also need some hand carders now.
I also got this. Two pounds of green superwash wool top.

Lastly, I will be spinning this up next for Impossible Princess' AIDS etsy store. It's called Lava.

I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the Christmas tree last night. DBF and I put up the big tree in the front room (it takes up half the room) and decorated it. It looks so pretty, but for some reason I didn't take a picture of it. I'll try to remember to take one tonight.

I have a presentation due for my class as well as a paper, so until Wednesday morning, there won't be too much knitting going on. I can probably finish my grandmother's sweater, but that's about it.

Knit on...

Windy, windy, windy

Yep, it's howling outside right now. I had to call in to work today because my car wouldn't start and since it was pouring rain and the wind was howling, I figured that was enough of an excuse to use a vacation day. So I went out to find out what was wrong with the car (as if I can tell what's wrong!) once it stopped raining and I noticed that one of the wires connected to the battery was loose. Well, I went inside, got a wrench, and tightened it. Lo and behold, the car started! I fixed my own car, even though it wasn't that bad of a fix!

Last night I went to Janes for SnB. We had about five people there, so it was a small turnout, but a fun one. We all made fun of my giant needles (uh-huh-huh in Butthead voice), wondering how one could knit with size 50s and keep their sanity (I didn't, I reverted to a sock after an hour and a half), and also making fun at all out projects. It was a good evening.

I made a batch of cookies to take there because while reading the ingredients on the cookies, I found out that they have egg in them, so I can't eat them? Why you may ask? I have found out that I am allergic to some sort of meat. My doctor is afraid that I am actually allergic to all land-based animals, so I am not allowed to eat any meat or eggs until the allergy bloodwork comes back and we can determine exactly what the culprit is. So I have gone vegan, rather unintentionally. I do have to admit that I feel the best I've felt in a long time, my stomach hasn't bothered me even one bit, and I've lost 7 pounds in 3 days. I'm not complaining. I've discovered a line of frozen foods called Amy's that I am now in love with too, so it's causing me to experiment some now.

Anyways, I made cookies to get rid of them. I saved the snickerdoodles for DBF because I know that he really liked those, so I'll make a batch up tonight or tomorrow for him (or both!). I'm also cooking the 10 pound turkey that I have in my fridge. I'll be giving most of that away to friends and family.

Pictures, you want pictures? I would, but I'm on dial-up right now and I can't get the computer to move fast enough to download them. I'll get pictures to you on Monday when I get back in to work.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Knit on...