Being Sentimental.....

As promised in my last post, I will be showing you all the festive goodness that came out of this past four day weekend. Our old faithful Christmas tree was put up:

Mom has really gotten into these theme trees since my brother and I left. She doesn't feel the need to put up all the ornaments that held sentimental value anymore. Nope, instead everything is white lights and angels. Oh and a little red ribbon for pizzazz.

When it comes to the sentimental ornaments, my brother and I went through them and picked out the ones we couldn't live without. We even fought over one that has been our favorite since the beginning. It's this little elf working on a Christmas light. It really is the cutest thing. Unfortunately I can't show it to you because this year it's my brother's turn to have it. Originally we did a coin toss and I got it so I got to keep it, well, last year the spirit of giving overtook me so I ended up wrapping it up and giving it to my brother as a present for christmas. I'm just a good sister like that. I wasn't always mind you, but I feel like I need to make up for all those times he got in trouble and it was actually me who started it.

So, without further ado, I will show you some of my favorite sentimental Christmas ornaments that I have hanging on my pathetically small four-foot Christmas tree.

This is the Gingerbread man that I've loved since we've had it. I think it's his smile that puts me in such a good mood!

And here's the little mouse sleeping in a santa hat. The bottom of the hat has sparkles on it which because the flash on my computer is so blinding, you can't see. And there's Ramses playing with the lights. I'm feeling a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation moment coming on so I quickly got him to stop playing with it.

And last but certainly not least:

Is that a Care Bear made of felt?

Why yes it is. I believe it's name was Sister Bear, but I could be wrong. You better believe we have the light blue Brother Bear as well. (I think it was one my brother couldn't part with). This ornament is actually as old as the original Care Bears cartoon. Yep, back in the day when Rainbow Bright and He-Man were new. And lets not forget the original My Little Ponies. Why are they bringing all of these cartoons back? Well, because they liked how our generation turned out and want to produce more of us of course.

I hope you've enjoyed this little trip down memory lane for me..... On to knitting news.

I'd like to say that one can get a whole lot done on a four day weekend. These for example:

were started on Thursday night and finished Sunday morning. I can't even tell you how many different combinations I tried before I settled on this one. None of the others were quite right, hence the reason why I totally ripped out the blue and black ones. I think my grandmom's really going to like these.

I also started a booga bag out of some left over yarn I found in the stash. It's ready to be felted but I ran out of yarn for the strap so it may be a little short.... we'll see. I might have to do a little creative adding before I felt...

Twas the day After Thanksgiving....

Thanksgiving is now over. Funny how quickly the holidays come and go. This Thanksgiving isn’t going to go down as one of the most memorable in history, but it was wonderful all the same. The traditional fire in the fireplace was going, as was the football game on TV. We were particularly lucky this year to have snow.


As is tradition in our house, an over-abundance of food was cooked. My mom has a knack for making much more food than could possibly be eaten by seven people. I think one of the main reasons for this is the fact that she didn’t want anyone going home empty handed. Indeed I think that was an impossibility due to the fact that we not only had one turkey….. we had two.

That’s 26 pounds of turkey…..for seven people…..one of whom is vegetarian…..

Such are the holidays in my house. Another tradition has always been to put up the Christmas tree and decorations the day after thanksgiving.

Ah, there she is, old faithful, all tucked away. That is the 10-foot artificial tree we’ve had since I was ten. She has given us 13 years of service, dutifully allowing herself to be made and unmade year after year. Putting up with the cats who seem to be fascinated to no end by climbing through her branches. This year will be no different. In fact, she may see more climbing action due to the fact that there are now two new cats, still in kitten phase.

And then there are the various other Christmas decorations we’ve had packed away in the garage since last year…

And you thought your family had a lot of decorations. I’ll be sure to post pictures once there all up to show you just how festive a house can become!

As for knitting, I finished my Debbie Bliss cashmerino, cabled sweater in time to wear on Thanksgiving day. You should have seen me sewing in ends a couple hours before we were due to eat! I can tell you if there is anything I truly dislike about knitting, it’s sewing in ends. I, unlike most people I know, love to piece the sweater together. There’s just some underlying satisfaction I get from seeing those seams come together so perfectly. But the ends…..those I dread. But, I sucked it up and did them anyway and I was left with a wonderfully finished sweater….


If you’re wondering about the mittens….well….I frogged them. I wasn’t very satisfied with the way they were turning out and there was just something about them I didn’t like so….I ripped them out. It hurt, I know, but it had to be done. Today I’m going to be trying them again, in different colors and I think a different pattern. We’ll see if I like those better!

Weekend Update with ErLeCa

Allergy update: I am feeling much better! I am in love with this nose squirty stuff. I'm still a little stuffed up at times but man, the majority of the time I have been able to breathe! It's a lovely, lovely feeling. Unfortunately I have to stop using it on Friday because I have to be off all antihistamines, allergy meds, etc, seven days before my skin test.....bummer.

It has been an eventful yet relaxing weekend. I went to see The Incredibles Friday night. Excellent movie. I highly recommend it. Not only was it a great movie, but it had a great short film before it started. You know how Pixar always makes a short before all of it's movies. (My personal favorite is the one with the old man playing chess with himself!) This particular short involved a sheep and, if that wasn't already playing to the fiberholic in me, it also revovled around his beautiful fleece. I won't ruin the story for you, you'll just have to go see it.

Oh the knitting front, I will begin by saying I am the biggest hypocrite there is when it comes to knitting a particular item. We'll get to that in a sec. First, I have finished all the pieces of my wonderful, drool inducing, fibery goodness, Debbie Bliss cashmerino sweater. I started sewing it together last night.

I tried it on (because I'm that big of a dork that I have to try it on when only one side is sewn) and the sleeve is a tad bit tight so I think some blocking is in order. Other than that I LOVE IT! However, I'm slightly concerned about the amount of yarn I have left. I'm thinking the collar might not be as high as I want it to be. We'll have to see when I get there!

Now, on to why I'm the biggest hypocrite in the world. In a previous post I said I wasn't going to make any more mittens. Now I've made a liar of myself. But it's for a good cause. (I'm sure that's what all liars say, but I feel completely justified) My grandmom, who is 83 and still kicking, just found out that she has a heart arrythmia. This is the first major medical problem that she's had, which I'd say is pretty outstanding for an 83 year old who drives a Firebird. I kid you not, she has a Firebird in fire engine red. The real toping on the cake would be if it was a convertible, unfortunately she doesn't live that far on the edge! The women in my family are very long-lived. My great grandmother lived to be 95. And now my grandmom is getting up there, but I tell you she certainly doesn't act her age which I think is the secret to why she's so healthy! Anyway, I thought it would be really nice to make her a pair of mittens.

I wasn't sure I'd like the combination of light blue and black, but it's actually turning out really nice. I like how the light blue looks something like snowflakes. Now all you mitten addicts out there get to have another fix before I hang up my mitten needles for more than a few weeks! At this point, I can't guarantee I won't make another pair. Inspiration might strike and I may not be able to help myself.

By the way, I bought the best knitting book in the world this weekend: Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I've already made something out of it, but unfortunately I can't show you because it's a present for someone. Oh I'm so sneaky.

Hope everyone has a happy Day-Before-the-last-day-of-work-this-week day!

My Adventures in Allergy Town

First off, thank you to everyone for your well wishes on my allergies. I have to say, I have a brighter outlook on it. No longer do I feel there's nothing that can be done. No longer do I feel that breathing through my nose is an impossibility. Granted, breathing through my nose is still a distant memory of the past, but I feel it may yet be part of my future. And it's a glorious future, full of tissue-free days, breathable nights and frollicing in meadows. So maybe not the frollicing part, but you get my point. I won't be a mouth-breather anymore and you have no idea how happy that makes me!

I went to the allergist today for my consultation. Not only did I find hope in not having to suffer through allergies, but I also found fellow knitters. If I wasn't involved in knitting I'd probably think it was an epidemic. Hell, make that a pandemic! I was sitting in the waiting room..... waiting (duh) when the nurse called me in. The first thing out of her mouth was "you're a knitter!" I must say, she was very excited. That's a nice change from those who say "you're a knitter, isn't that granny?" or similar idiotic phrases. What struck me as funny was we talked more about knitting than we did about my allergies. It's a good thing the doctor who evaluated me couldn't have cared less about the state of my knitting or I may be no further in ridding myself of this curse.

After the nurse took a look through my pattern book, then the finished pieces of my sweater and then the sweater I was wearing which I happen to have made (I was asked in a comment if I wear my sweaters often and the answer is yes, every day that's cold enough) she left me to myself until the doctor arrived.

Thus began my consultation. First came 20 questions. 20 very hard to understand questions from a man who originated from difficulttounderstandsville and had the bushiest eyebrows I've ever seen. Ok, so maybe he actually originated from some eastern european nation but he would definitely benefit from a pair of scissors strategically used over those caterpillars he calls eyebrows.

Once that was over I was handed what basically amounts to a very large piece of paper which was supposed to double as a "gown". Whoever thought of these must be laughing at this point. Fannies across the nation are hanging out because the proper use of these
monstrosities requires you to put them on with the opening in back. Many a joke has been made in movies and television shows alluding to this fact and now I have become part of that joke by the sheer fact that I was wearing one.

On to the physical examination! This basically consisted of the checking of breathing, reflexes and my nose & throat. Apparently I have sluggish reflexes because it took him a couple of tries before my knee finally jerked. Personally I don't think he was hitting the right spot but that seems to be a common problem among men. Ok, get those minds out of the gutter! Then came the checking of the nose and throat. I already know this would not be a profession I would do well in. The thought of looking up someones nose just doesn't appeal to me. Especially noses that are malfunctioning and working overtime to produce some of the nasties stuff mankind has ever come across. Nope, it's certainly not for me.

Thus concluded my consultation. I was given samples of some sort of nose spray. My basic thought is I'm trying to stop things from coming out of my nose, putting stuff up there seems counterproductive to me, but they're the experts. Once I shed myself of the paper tent and re-dressed I headed out to the front desk only to be bombared by nurses who wanted to see my knitting. Apparently the nurse I first met was not the only knitter. I felt somewhat like a celebrity...... a very minor, z-list celebrity, but that just made my visit that much better.

I'm due back in a couple of weeks for the (insert scary music here) skin test so hopefully we can identify the culprit. Till then, I will be knitting and enjoying my Thanksgiving break, which as I mentioned before is only a week (less than actually) away!

I'm Not Jinxed!

I broke the curse! I said I was going to chorale and I went! Though I have to admit I almost didn't go. My allergies were terrible yesterday. If you've never experience allergies where you can't breath all day long and you end up using about 50 tissues in the course of 8 hours, well, you're one lucky person. I kid you not, my tissue box was almost full when I started work yesterday and now it's half empty! I won't get into details because basically it's gross and none of you want to hear about it. Ok, so I can't resist, if I didn't have those tissues I'd probably look like this.

I have to admit when I almost decided to not go last night I thought "but now the blogging jinx will really come true!" I realize that there is no such thing as a blogging jinx and the fact that I was motivated to go because I thought that if I didn't I would just be perpetuating a blogging jinx that won't go away, is, well, let's face it.... ridiculous and not a little humorous. So if you can imagine, there I was singing, completely stuffed up and probably sounding quite horrible all because I was stubborn and wanted to get rid of a make-believe jinx. I'm sure my over-abundant sense of responsibility had something to do with it as well but I choose not to take that into account at this point.

My stubbornness is partially responsible for me feeling as horrid I did yesterday. I kept convincing myself that these allergies will go away. 'I'll feel better tomorrow' was a common re-occuring thought. I kept thinking that after the frost comes I'll feel better. Hmmm, let's think back, it's snowed already, I'd say that's a hard frost. Well, it's time to face reality sweetheart. It's time for me to say to myself "Erin, you have a problem. Maybe you should get your stubborn butt into the allergist's so you can finally breath again." So I broke down yesterday and called them. I'm dreading the skin test, but what has be done, has to be done. I'm a big girl, I can take it! And you better believe I'll be sitting in that office knitting because who knows how long I'm going to have to be there for!

On a lighter and much happier note, next week is Thanksgiving! I only have a three day work week! I'm trying to decide which I'm most happy about: Stuffing my face with Thanksgiving goodness, or having a four-day weekend.... hmmm, that's a tough one.

Someday Binghamton.... someday.

So my plans to go down to Binghamton have been thwarted yet again! Apprently whatever higher power there is, it doesn't want me to go down there any time soon. We were going to do this big family thing with my brother and my parents but my mom ended up coming down with a cold so we thought we'd better let her rest. I'm thinking next time I have plans to go down there I'm not going to write about them here until I've actually done them. (I think there's some sort of weird blogging jinx where if you write about a future event it won't come true, especially a future event involving Binghamton..... creepy)

So what did I do instead? Well, I knit (that's a given) on the front of my oh-so-yummy Debbie Bliss Cashmerino sweater. I'm to the armhole shapings now. I did laundry, not nearly as glamorous as knitting on oh-so-yummy sweaters, but it was a necessity. I moved things out of my room because we have the carpet steamer guys coming today. This is all in an attempt to rid my room of whatever allergens are making me crazy. I watched TV. Pretty much there wasn't anything good on so I flipped the channels and randomly landed on a horrid reality TV show that I will never watch again. Luckily it was one of those reality shows that's a one episode at a time kind and not the suck-you-in-and-not-let-you-stop-watching-it-till-it's-over kind. And (to the delight of many of my readers) I took pictures!

Yes that is one of the kittens chewing on a knitting needle. I can assure you that as soon as this picture was taken I shooed him away. I'm glad he's so interested in my work, but seriously, leaving little puncture marks in my needles in not ok.

They're not always little monsters either. See.......

They can be sweet little angels too. The first one is Ramses laying on one of my sweaters. The second is Pippin, laying on my lap while I was knitting. Luckily I happened to have my camera nearby so I didn't miss the moment.

Tonight I have Chorale practice. Barring some disaster I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it. (call this testing my blogging jinx!)

Weekend Activities

This weekend didn't exactly turn out how I had planned, but I really don't have anything to complain about. Saturday I went to the coffeeshop to knit with my meetup ladies. Ahhh, I love that. We had a really great time. I finished the mitten linings while I was there. So I've turned out yet another pair of mittens. (I'm thinking that's all for awhile, though I could be completely wrong, who knows? I may find someone else who's just dying for a pair!) I'll have pictures for you soon.
I went home and was waiting for the people who I was going to go to the concert with to call, but they never did. To be perfectly honest, I'm not at all disappointed. In fact, I'm sort of glad they didn't call. I really wasn't in the mood to drive all the way down there and back that night. What I really wanted to do was sit and knit. (Plus my allergies were getting me down so I wasn't feeling up for it that way either) So I sat and watched movies and knit (of course). I started the front of the Debbie Bliss sweater I was working on. I'm about halfway through with that. I love how quickly it goes. I really can't believe it. I wonder if I'm going to have a hard time going back to sweaters on normal needle sizes. I think I might resent the fact that after working on them for several hours they only grow a couple of centimeters. I know that's how it's gonna be on my mom's sweater which I may start soon. It's on size 3's. Am I crazy?!?!? Yeah, crazy for going from an 11 to a 3. That would pretty much send anyone to the looney bin.
Sunday was actually great too. I went to see the new Bridget Jones movie. Seriously funny. If you liked the first one you'll love the second one. It was campy in parts, but that just made it better. There were also a lot of really good previews for new movies. Isn't it bad when you're watching previews and you want to see the preview more than the movie you actually went to see? Or you forget which movie you went to see because there were so many previews? Yeah, that's about what it was like yesterday.
It looks like I'm going down to Binghamton tonight. My brother wants us to go down for another one of those trivia nights he goes to. Should be fun. We'll see if I can answer any questions this time!
I promise I'll upload some pictures soon! I would hate for you all to get bored cause there's nothing to look at!

No knitting here....

Let me apologize in advance that there are no pictures in this post. Call me a slacker, call me what you will, but I just don't think you all want to see the makings of mitten linings.....again..... So instead, I will talk about my last couple of days. Mainly they were spent sitting on the couch, watching my favorite TV shows of which I only have two. LOSTand Survivor. Apparently I like shows on islands. Who knew? Anyway, I was never a big Survivor fan, but like all reality shows, there you are, minding your own business, flipping through channels and nothing good is on so you think, why not, there's nothing better on. You didn't intend to watch it, but now that you have, you're just sunk. They've hooked you and now they're reeling you in. Damn television producers and their reality TV. LOST is my other favorite show. I feel like I've talked about it already so I won't get into it now.

Something interesting happened to me on the way to work the other day. I was driving along and wasn't really paying any attention to the cars in front of me until I looked at the license plate of one of them. You know what it said? GOT2KNIT. Now I was both ecstatic and disappointed at the same time. Ecstatic because it was really cool to see a license plate like that and disappointed because now that one is taken. What was really funny was when I looked into the car to see if it was anyone I knew. I can most assuredly say no. It was an old guy, who may or may not knit. I really don't know, but it wasn't what I was expecting to see.

My weekend is pretty full. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the knitting meetup with all of those ladies (can't wait because I missed last weekend) . Tomorrow night I am going down to Binghamton to see an acapella group sing. I know one of the guys in it from high school. He was in 8th grade when I was a senior! So now he's singing in this group at his college and me and his parents are going down to see their concert. How do I know his parents you ask. Well, for one, I live in a really small town and everyone knows everyone, and two, they're in the chorale that I sing in and we carpool, so last Tuesday they asked me if I wanted to go with them to this concert. It sounds like it'll be fun and besides, I'm not doing anything else Saturday night.
The rest of the weekend will be spent cleaning because I finally can't handle these indoor allergies I have so I will be cleaning like a maniac. Hope it works..... there's no way I'm getting rid of my pets!

Thanks for the laugh!

I know exactly what you're thinking...

'Wait a minute, didn't you post just the first one on your last blog entry?'

Why yes, yes I did.

'How is it that you can finish two mittens in a week?'

Funny you should ask. I never would have been able to do it without a interesting little power outage we had today. So there I was, minding my own business, doing my work when my computer, the lights and everything else turned off. Guess how long the power was out for? Oh, just about four hours.....did anyone tell us we could go home? Nope. So after my coworker and I finished all the filing there was to do we sat in our office and knit....in the dark....while the building became increasingly colder from lack of electricity to run the heater. Ah, you gotta love the company I work for. They'd rather pay us for sitting on our asses, doing nothing that benefits them in the off chance that the power just might come back on in time for us to do some work than send us home and not pay us..... Hmmm, it says something about their budgeting department doesn't it? Oh yeah, I forgot we don't have a budgeting department! (Can you tell I would have rather gone home today?)

Anyway, there you have it, two finished mittens. Ok, so they're not finished, they don't have linings, they haven't been blocked and the ends haven't been woven in, but they're mostly finished. (I was going to make a stupid Princess Bride reference here about 'dead' and 'mostly dead' but I'll spare you!)

So I read the funniest description of my mittens today. Michelle posted a comment that said my mittens remind her of little cakes. Mitten cakes to be exact. They look so good you could eat 'em. I almost peed my pants. Seriously, I haven't got a clue as to why I found this to be so amusing, but I really did. Even thinking about it now makes me laugh. Mitten cakes......teeheee..... I know I'm going to be that person who starts laughing about it because it popped into my mind at a completely inappropriate time. Does that ever happen to you? You think of something that made you laugh hours, days, maybe weeks before and it makes you laugh again? (And inevitably the people who are around you give you looks because they think you're insane for laughing at nothing in particular!) Oh yeah, that'll be me!


Mitten cakes..........HA!

SNOW!!!!!

When I woke up this morning I found a surprise waiting for me outside. Yep, that's snow..... It's begun. I drove through two lake effect bands on my way to work. *sigh* I don't like driving through it, but I do like snow. This really wasn't anything more than a dusting, but it definitely was pretty to watch it come down.

So I'm almost finished with the first mitten. I decided to go for a plain look on the band. It's just k1, p1 rib and I think I'm going to put a stripe in it. I really wasn't feeling the more fancy cuffs.

Sorry this post isn't more exciting. I'm still pretty worn out from the weekend!

Quickie

Just a quick update for you. Thank you to everyone concerning my finger. It's doing well, doesn't hurt (thank god!) I don't really like to look at it though. I don't think you've ever seen anyone change a bandaid as fast as I do!

Not a lot of knitting went on this weekend because I drove about three and a half hours out to Albany (Lake George to be specific) for a wedding reception. One of my roommate's from college got married..... I can't believe it. Anyway, I had an excellent time. It really was just one big college reunion. Me and two of my other roommates drove out there. We met up with a ton of other people we knew in college which was fabulous. I can tell you, I was hurting the next day, not because of drinking mind you (I only had three drinks in 6 or 7 hours) but because I danced so much! I'm telling you they had the best band I've ever seen at a wedding. They didn't play any cheezy music, just oldies but goodies and even a couple of newer songs. It was great. While they were taking their brakes they used their little iPod to play some great dance songs. The photographers were great too. I only know this because they went around taking a bunch of candid shots of everyone talking, or dancing, etc with their excellent digital cameras then put them up on a screen in a slide show. It was so awesome. I'm telling you that's exactly what I want for my wedding (which won't be anytime soon seeing as how I'm not with anyone!).

All-in-all I had an excellent time. It really made me miss the times I shared with all of my friends from college. We spent most of the evening remenicing (did I spell that right?) of all the things that went on at school, the good and the bad! It was bittersweet. But, I'm not sad, I have new memories to make!

I'll probably post a couple of pictures (not wedding reception pictures but general knitting, etc pictures) tonight, so stay tuned!

The Tale of the Eventful Day

Today has been....eventful. That would definitely be the word to describe it. It seems I can now add another thing to the list of stupid things I've done. It's a really good one too, even the doctor laughed about it. Yes, before you ask, it did involve a trip to the doctors office. This morning I was opening a can of cat food......(this pause is to allow you to imagine all the things one can do with a can of cat food which later involves a doctor) my hand slipped and I cut my finger on the metal disc of death. Why do they even make lids like that? I swear they are a hazard and they should be outlawed!

Anyway, this oh so smart thing happened at around 7 in the morning..... four hours, three stitches and one tetanus shot later, I am a new woman.......with an incredibly huge bandage wrapped not only around the offending finger, but also around the wrist which only accentuates my clumsy mistake. But I'm not bitter. Things like this happen right? I only wish it could have been a bit more glamorous, for instance, my incredibly wonderful (yet, sadly imaginary) boyfriend decided to propose and when he was trying to slip the ring on my finger unfortunately it was a size too small so in his zeal to try to make the ring fit, the incredibly huge diamond cut my finger....the cut's on my pinkie, it's possible! No, no, instead when I relate the story it has to be.....I cut my finger on a can of cat food.... It's alright to laugh, I do! Seriously, you have to laugh about things like this!

So, as you can imagine knitting is somewhat off a challenge! However, I did finish the back of my sweater!

That surely brightened my mood, even if it was incredibly awkward to hold the needles and yarn with this huge mass of a bandaged finger! I imagine watching this sort of thing must be awfully funny. My pinkie is stuck in this permanent position of sheer snobbery (imagine holding a tea cup with the pinkie lifted.....yep, that's how it looks) And trying to negotiate the needle around the yarn and vice versa was something of a challenge..... So what did I do?

I started another pair of mittens of course!

Remember me saying my mom wanted me to make a pair for her friend for Christmas? Well, here's the beginning of that. She finally got around to buying the yarn so, sadly, I have to put down my "heaven in a skein" project to work on some mittens....actually it's not that sad, it just means I get to go back to my dreamy yarn once I'm finished with these mittens. (And as you all know, I love mittens so really, there's nothing to be sad about!)

And with that I leave you and hope your day was less *eventful* than mine.

Random Musings....

Basically I am disappointed about the election outcome, but I don't want to go into it here. This is my blog for happy stuff. Not for depressing election stuff.

Chorale practice last night was fun. We really didn't get a lot done because it was sectional rehearsals and the woman leading wasn't all that great at keeping us focused. Anything was better than sitting at home watching the election results. We have our concert in 5 weeks. I can't believe it. Where the heck has time gone? Did I turn my head or close my eyes and all of a sudden time decided to pass me by? It felt like August was yesterday and already fall is over. Is it over for anyone else? We have snow in the forcast for next week....SNOW! I suppose it's right, it generally snows here in November. I just feels like time has flown.

In knitting related news, I will probably be finished with the back of my sweater tonight. Shock is pretty much my feeling on it. I can't believe I'm almost finished with the back and I really haven't worked on it very much! I'm having a love/hate relationship with it now. I love that it's going fast, but I hate that it will be over soon.

In random news, the third Ratchet and Clank game for PS2 has come out! It's called Up Your Arsenal! How awesome is that? I am in love with these games. My love for them began when I beat the first game. I quickly moved on to the second game (Going Commando) and beat it after non-stop playing for a month! I was ecstatic when I found out there was going to be a third and have less-than-patiently been waiting for it to come out. I know it's strange, I am a knitter who is obsessed with video games. I must say that these are conflicting interests because there's only so much time in a day and I can only be doing one or the other. If there ever came to be a way where I could play video games and knit at the same time I would be all over that!

I'm not planning on buying it until after Christmas because I'm afraid I won't get my Christmas knitting done. *sigh* I really want to buy it, but I have to be strong! Wish me luck!

Happy November Everyone!

I'd first off like to say thank you to everyone who's visited my blog and left comments (that also goes for those of you who've visited and haven't left comments!) I really appreciate that you've stopped by! I'd also like to answer a couple of questions that some of you have asked and forgive me if I've already answered them for you on your blog. Well, the questions centered around the mittens (go figure, that's all I've made recently!) First, the mitten pattern(s) can be found in the Magnificent Mittens book by Anna Zilboorg. This book came out a few years ago. I've had it since it came out and I've made lots of mittens from it (duh). Second, was a question about the lining. Basically you are making two mittens. You first make the outer mitten, then you fold over the cuff so that the inside of the cuff is facing out, then you pick up stitches and basically make a second mitten to fit inside the first. This can be done to any mitten and let me tell you it really helps on those super cold days! You're hands hardly know it's 20 degrees below zero! If anyone has any other questions about them let me know, I'd be happy to answer! Thanks again.

Ok, so call me crazy, but the minute I finished the mittens I cast on for a new project. Did I mention I had a lot of time on my hands this weekend? I've worked on it for a total of about 4 hours and this is what I have so far:

I know, it shocked me too! It seems like I'm flying on this project but it's all in my perception I think. In truth, I'm working on size 11 needles. Almost anything you worked on before size 11's seems like it took a lifetime compared to the speed at which you can work on this size. I almost don't want it to go so quickly because I really want to savor this yarn. It's Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky! It's heaven in a skein! I definitely splurged on this one and let me tell you it is the most I've ever spent on a single project and that's with getting 30% off the yarn! Expensive, but sooooo worth it. If you've ever touched this stuff you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyway, the pattern is a Rowan pattern out of book 32 I think. I've loved this pattern forever but I just didn't really like the yarn they used for it...too tweedy. Then Cashmerino Chunky came into my life and well.... the rest is history.

P.S. For those of you who were wonder what the answer is to the trivia question I posed last week: Jimmy Hoffa's middle name was Riddle. Weird huh?