RT visits the Zoo!

Roaming Tigger and I took a long-planned field trip today ... to the Los Angeles Zoo! No pictures of people, just of animals, stuffed and otherwise.


We got a pretty good parking spot and sauntered into the Zoo. Our friend Lori went with us, and since she's a member, we didn't have to stand in line with all of the schmoos.


We saw bears.


RT saw some giraffes.


This was the best photo I took all day. It's amazing how long giraffe tongues are.

That's about it from today. Zoo. Lunch with Puppy (no photos), posted the desk and couch on Craigslist and already have a taker for the desk ... hopefully for the couch in the quite near future. Next field trip is to The Huntington on Wednesday.

Finally, the "Moving" post

So it has been 10 days since the truck picked us up, and I'm finally getting around to posting about moving day.

I blame it on all the stuff I had going on the weekend of the move (June 8-10), and the fact that this is the first time I've been able to get online from home since then.


We live on a one-way street, so getting the semi parked was a bit of a challenge, but we got it done.

Here are some before and after photos:


The living room


The kitchen. Kinda boring. Sorry.


The garage.


The epitome of living inside a great big empty... My bedroom with just a lonely little lamp, an Aero bed and a couple of pillows. Four more nights, one at my aunt's house, then I hit the road.


Oh, and since I'm a fiber geek, I was quite intrigued by this lonesome moving pad brought in by our moving team. All of the rest of their pads were monotone. Mostly blue. Then there was this one really cool patterned one. I wanted to steal it and make something out of it. What? I don't know. But I had to at least take a picture!

The Hubster unloaded the truck in Pittsburgh last Friday and started his new job today. I'm hoping to have my last finished object, a quilt, ready for a post tomorrow. Please bear with me over these next few days. I'm running around like a crazy person trying to see everyone before I skip town. I'll make as much time to blog as I can, but no promises.

A Good Time Was Had By All

This will probably be short, since I am wiped out. I have eight more work days in front of me and the schedule is filling up FAST. I literally printed out my schedule off of my palm pilot and am writing in all of my various and assorted appointments for the remainder of my stay in Los Angeles.

Now, I'd just appreciate happy sleep-related thoughts. I can't remember the last solid full night's sleep I had. I'm hoping it's not related to the air mattress, or I'll be in big trouble for the rest of my stay here. I need sleep!

Last night's adventure was an M&Ms meting at Sandy's house. Boy, did we have fun! I brought Diddy Riese cookies and I think it left everyone on a sugar high at the end of the evening. We were all goofy and laughing for the rest of the evening. Oh wait. We generally do that anyway.


I have made some truly amazing friends while learning the craft of quilting here in Los Angeles. In the back row from left to right, we have Me, Anne, Nonie, Denise and Carol, with Sandy, Beth (Louie the WonderPug) and Lisa in the front row.

Last night, we assembled all of our rows and picked sashing fabrics for a housewarming quilt we're making for Anne. I can't show pictures because it would spoil the surprise. Sorry, Anne! (not really!!!)

These amazing, wonderful women have decided that the group's next project will be a quilt for ME! On Friday afternoon, Sandy, Lisa and I are field tripping to The Fabric Patch to pick the background fabric. I wrote down the magazine that the pattern is in, but I'm too damn tired to go find it right now. Wow. Wow. Wow. Can't believe it.

Well, that's about it from here. I'm beat and I need to get a good night's sleep so I can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for tomorrow. My "official" going away shindig is tomorrow night at Westwood Brewing Company. Thursday is clear ... for now ... so it'll be a little more time to rest up. I'll be watching the rest of tonight's Deadliest Catch, then headed for some good sack time. Wish me luck!

Weekend Wrap

The weekend started off with a bang, as Sandy, Nonie and I visited Lake Woebegone and the fun of A Prairie Home Companion.

Saturday was all Pirates, all the time.

Hubster and I went to Downtown Disney and saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3. After the movie, we went into Disneyland and tried to ride Autopia.

Unfortunately, like every other car-related thing in Los Angeles, they had a MAJOR traffic jam. No cars or people in line moving for at least half an hour. Ugh.


So we bailed.

We wandered over to Frontierland and watched a good chunk of the fireworks, then showed up for our dinner reservations at the Blue Bayou. Wow. We had wanted to do this for quite a while, and boy am I glad that we did! The food was fantastic and it was just ... fun.



Today was the softball banquet. As is usual, I cried through a good chunk of the damn thing. *sigh* That's me. The cryer.

Still, it was a good day, and among the wonderful words and cards that came my way, the coolest thing that I can show you is this:




Two of our really cool uber-fans got these amazing bears for our seniors last year. Once the "world" knew I was leaving, the word got back to them and they got a bear for me! The girls have their name on the back and uniform number on the front. The #8 on my bear's letterman jacket (his name is Joe, as in Joe Bruin) is for the eight years I have worked with the softball team here.

I'm exhausted and the hubster starts his drive in the morning. Here begins my 12 days of camping in our still unsold house. I'll try to do the moving recap tomorrow.

Celebrity Bus Tours!

Yeah, the move was yesterday, but I don’t have the energy to take the “after” pictures, so you'll just have to wait.

Sleep-wise, I may as well have been quilting last night. Got home after midnight, but it was SO FUN!

Nonie, Sandy and I went to see A Prairie Home Companion at the Greek Theater last night. We got there plenty early and queued up for our basket dinner. Roaming Tigger joined us, and since we had to buy the dinners in multiples of two, so he had his own serving.


Sandy (left), Nonie (right) and I enjoyed our dinners as well, and the setting was awesome. Highly recommend!


After we ate, we filed in to the theater. Wow! What a great setting!


We were pretty much at the BACK of the theater. As in the very last row of chair-backs with only three rows of bleachers behind us.


Still, it’s a radio show after all, so being able to see isn’t the biggest deal.

The start of the show was a little rough. The house sound system was tooooo low. You could hear Garrison when he was singing, but as soon as he started to talk? It was like the teacher from Charlie Brown.

Anyone who has tried to tape record someone with a low voice knows that it can be impossible to hear on playback. We were a full 15 minutes into the real show before the volume was up high enough to hear the show.

The celebrity guests were fantastic. Randy Newman. Paula Poundstone and Martin Sheen, in his radio acting debut.

All in all, a fantastic night was had by all. Big thanks to the LA Fire Department for saving that amazing venue from the recent fires in Griffith Park, and I hope you enjoy the show when it airs on your local NPR affiliate this weekend. Oh, and if you listen, then the headline of this post will make sense!

Moving Day!

The movers show up in about half an hour, so this is the calm before the storm. After perusing yesterday's comments, here are my responses.

Yes, I'm "sweater girl." I plan to start chipping away on the evil finishing portion of the program once I move and get my life back.

Oh, and I finished the front of the alpaca V-neck last night and executed the magic 3-needle bind-off. Yay! Baxter wanted to see, so he jumped into the photo:



I am also still chipping away .... slooooowly ... on the Koigu Jaywalkers. They are my traveling knitting, living in my little knitting bag so I can get a round in whenever I have a minute or two, which isn't very often these days. Derf is modeling the sock in progress, which is about halfway through the foot.


Derf and Bax are now hiding in the closet, since they're afraid that otherwise they might get green tags on their noses. Tags are only for Truck Bears, and they are Car Bears ... those two, plus Bear, will ride shotgun with me as a I traverse the country in two weeks.


Just about everything I own has one of these on it.

Gotta move the car and brace for the upcoming adventure. PHC tonight. Woo-Hoo! :)

WiP into Thursday

I'm exhausted, as evidenced by the accidental cross-post from Tuesday.

The driver for our moving company came this morning and pre-tagged 95% of our belongings for tomorrow's big day. We had someone come look at the house again today (traffic has been way up over the last 10 days or so since we dropped the price).

I loathe my work PC, am itching to be on my kick-ass MBP full-time, and will buy all the software I need for it next week.

I keep thinking that the "sleep in for a week" period of my life is just around the corner. I am beginning to wonder how long the hallway is before I get to the corner.

Tomorrow night, Sandy, Nonie and I are headed for PHC at the Greek Theater. I'm really excited for the outing. Saturday is going to be a wall-to-wall Pirates day for the hubster and I. We're going to go see the movie at Downtown Disney, then we're going to go to the Mouse House and have dinner at the restaurant that's inside of the Pirates ride.

Sunday is my softball banquet and the Hubster starts driving Monday morning. I may just collapse from exhaustion at that point.

I promised the following post yesterday, but since the post in which I made that promise wound up on the wrong blog .... well, here it is anyway. Turtlegirl did a kick-ass WiP It Wednesday, so go enjoy that while you're at it.

We shall proceed from least finished to most finished. This list only represents the projects that were left "live" following massive packing day. We shall not discuss the stuff I bought on Sunday at Beach Knitting, or the stuff that is in the many boxes that will go on the truck tomorrow.


Project: V-Neck Pullover (Sweater Wizard pattern)
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Worsted Weight (variegated)
Needle: Lantern Moon circs, 24", US7 (i think)
Started: Geez, I suck at this part. Some time between March 22 and 29, based off of my blog archives.
Status: Back is finished and awaiting the 3-needle bind-off. Front is mostly done. This is my primary evening knitting. I loves me some stockingette when I just need to unwind.


Project: I can picture the booklet it's in, and the picture of the black model wearing the pink sweater. But can I get my thoughts to tell you what pattern that actually is? HELL NO!
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Chunky in a beautiful teal
Needle: Lantern Moon circ, 24", US10 (i think)
Started: Probably about a year ago
Status: Front and back finished, joined with 3-needle bind-off and waiting for neck to be picked up. Sleeve #1 knit to shoulder shaping. Yarn for sleeve #2 in aforementioned boxes.


Project: It's out of the Nancy Bush/Interweave Knits sweater recipe book. Looky.
Yarn: Classic Elite "wings"
Needle: US8
Started: STOP ASKING ME THAT!
Status: Both sleeves are done. Back is done and awaiting 3-needle bind off. Front is done up to neck shaping.


Project: Sweater Wizard pattern for a deep V-neck, based off of my friend Beth's really cool sweater.
Yarn: Dark purple is Classic Elite Wool BamBoo. Don't really recommend it. Light purple is really old 127 that was from a friend of a friend.
Needle: You're kidding, right? Perhaps I should have had my patterns with me when I did this.
Started: *sob*
Status: As of Sunday at about 2 pm, all this puppy needs is armpit seams and ends woven in. It went in a box today (with the teal sweater) and will be seen again before fall.


Project: KnitPicks Slipper Socks
Yarn: Knit Picks Memories in Yukon colorway (highly recommend)
Needle: Whatever the pattern said
Status: Totally knitted. Awaiting felting, then I have to sew on the non-felted cuffs that are already knit and in a tub with my few remaining "live" projects.


Project: Fuzzy Feet.
Yarn: Cascade 220
Needle: US10, 16" circ
Status: Just need to felt the damn things.

So there you have it. A small cross-section of my WiP's. (That's Works In Progress). I will now head home and do as much work as I can to be ready for tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Slow Progress

EDITOR'S NOTE: My blogger account has two blogs on it ... a private non-crafty group and HPWT. I posted this to the wrong blog on Tuesday. I hang my head in shame ...

Hi there! I know I've mentioned that I enjoy traveling but hate packing. I didn't realize that my grumpyness with the packing process would multiply with the process of packing the house.

The first few weeks weren't bad. We had the huge pack-fest about a month ago that was scary-productive and had huge visible results. We've packed little chunks of rooms and things as we've gone along.

On Saturday, we spent the whole day getting that last 15-20% of packing finished. I spent the entire day in the kitchen, packing. I spent about two hours in the bathroom (lots of cabinets in there) packing last night. Ugh.

Both of those projects did not yield ANY visible results, since all the stuff that was being packed had previously lived in cabinets. Looks the same after as it did before. No instant gratification. Ick.

But, I did have fun quilting on Friday night at Sandy's house. Most of us were working on our M&Ms blocks, and since those are going to be a surprise for Anne, I can't post any photos since I know she reads this. Sorry! ;-) Here's the best of the rest:


Carol was working on some log cabin blocks that are some sort of kit through one of the local quilt stores. Pretty! See?


Sandy revealed a quilt top that was a kit of some sort.

Personally, I did all the planning and trimming for a T-shirt quilt that I'm bound and determined to finish before I leave Los Angeles. Please wish me luck. Please. I need it!

I'm going to take some pics tonight so I can join in on Turtlegirl's WIP Wednesday challenge. Should be interesting!

It's Official!

Just talked to my parents, live from Alaska, and the Hubster and I are now officially, (but not legally -- no contract yet) owners of the house I grew up in. Yay!

Off for a faboo night of quilting. Wheee!!!!! (a little fun to save up for a full day of packing tomorrow. *sigh*)

Ouch

So we're back from Pittsburgh. It was a productive 2+ day trip.

We arrived in the 'Burgh on Monday night. Tuesday morning, I woke up and promptly kicked the crap out of the bed frame. This is a "two days later" photo. On Tuesday night, that entire 2nd toe was pretty shades of purple and navy blue.



It's not broken. Even from the get-go, I could push down on the toe and it didn't hurt. Just hurt when I'd pull the toe up and put pressure on the top of the toe. It's pretty well healed now, just a little purple near the nail.

Anyhoo, the Hubster my mom and I hit the roads of Mt. Lebanon and saw 15 houses on Tuesday over a six-hour span (one hour break for lunch is included in that). Saw four "definite maybes." and 10 "no's."

After taking some time to regroup and rest, we sat down and talked about what we had seen and reviewed all the pictures I had taken. We also stopped by the house I grew up in just to scope it out and compare. That house has been on the market since last July and has been unoccupied since November. The parentals haven't had great luck getting it sold (obviously)

Of the four "definite maybes" my favorite house was rejected based on location. Too far south (Upper St. Clair), and it was situated on a three-house lane off of a "regular" suburbs road. Hubster's commute wouldn't have been fun, and we were both a little concerned about how that lane might or might not be plowed come wintertime.

The second "maybe" got vetoed b/c the Hubster didn't like it as much as I did. I went along because there was minimal natural light on the inside. Cool, but not great.

That left us with two houses we wanted to see again. One was owned by an architect and had been re-done almost entirely on the inside, plus a bit of an addition to the back of the house. Creative use of space, I really enjoyed the house, but the basement, which would be Quilt Central, was pretty small. Hubster was unhappy with the second, closer inspection of that house.

The second one bore out what mom had noticed when we walked in the front door the previous day. Same first-floor floorplan as the house I grew up in, with a little bit of an addition built on the back. Very similar upstairs with bedrooms. Basement was larger than finalist #1, but the master wasn't as nice. Your basic 1950s bathroom both in colors and size.

So we went back to my parents current abode (they left on a 10-day cruise Wednesday morning). Ran an errand. Talked to a family friend who is an architect. Went to dinner.

Made a pretty much final decision. This (no, not Heinz Field). I'm excited, but didn't expect this outcome. I guess I should have, though. Both my brother and my best friend called it ... after I told them what we've decided.

Now we just have to wait for that cruise to get back to land!

Since I'm pretty wiped out, I'm gonna finish watching the last game of the WCWS then hit the sack. Quilting tomorrow night. Woo-Hoo! :)

RT does Hollywood

So the hubster and I are checking things off of our very short list. That list is entitled "things we want to do before we GO." As in leave Los Angeles. For good. Only to return to visit dear friends (and to enhance the quilting and knitting stash, of course) :)

The number one thing on my list was the Griffith Observatory. It re-opened last fall after being closed for four years for a massive renovation. We never made it before the reno ... actually wasn't even on the radar until some friends put a pic of them at the observatory in their Christmas card just before it closed in 2002.

The way things work with the Observatory these days is that you buy a timed entry. So we did that this morning and got up to Hollywood a little early.

So Roaming Tigger visited some of the sites near Hollywood and Highland while we waited for our shuttle time. Hubster and I had seen most of the sites in the area and the Hollywood & Highland area is ... well ... a little gross. But, we went to Grauman's Chinese Theater and checked out the hand/footprints. RT was feeling photogenic, so ...

Here's JAAAAAAACK. RT can't handle the truth!

One of my all-time favorite actors, and the star of one of the top-five movies of all time, IMHO.

And the royalty of all hollywood couples ...

We eventually got up to the Observatory. It was really fun and I highly recommend it. If you're local, you have no excuse.

The Hubster and I took a few photos while we were up there and had a good time. But those photos are boring. So here's RT at the Observatory.

And, a special photo just for all of you who enjoy space jokes :)

Catching Up is Hard to Do

So now that my season is over, I have 5 weeks in which to finish the amount of work I was planning to do in 2.5 weeks. This is a good thing in that I can weave in several fun days (a few last trips to use my key to Mickey's House, a trip to The Huntington with a work friend). It is a bad thing in that I have plenty of time to get everything done, and as a result will procrastinate much of it until "the end."

Meanwhile, I would like to address my most recent lump of procrastination-related shame, in letter form.

Dear Gerd (college nickname for a friend):

You called me in late 2005 to tell me you were expecting twins. Great! I thought, and ran straight out to Luella's to buy fabric for baby quilts. I pored over my favorite baby quilt books and found a pattern that I really liked (in the third book of the series).

I had the tops started before you let me know the twins were a boy and a girl.

I had them quilted with the binding machine sewn on before the 2006 softball season started last February. All that they needed at that point was labels.

Max and Melissa arrived at the start of May. I was neck-deep in softball season. "After the WCWS" I said to myself.

On my first day of freedom after the season was over, Pitt posted a job. I hopped on a rollercoaster ride that sucked the life out of me all summer, then unceremoniously dumped me right back where I started.

No labels had been made.

Toss in a volleyball season, a "how-to" class on my shiny new-to-me Viking D1 to teach me how to do embroidery with it, the start of softball season, a whirlwind trip to Virginia for another devastating roller coaster ride.

Still no labels.

Now, a normal person would have finished those stupid quilts label-free and sent them on their way, but to me that means they aren't really finished. So I didn't do that.

When the Hubster accepted a job in Pittsburgh on April 26, the pressure was really on. After my amazing quilting buddies helped me pack in early May, those stupid labels were tops on my list. So, I used one of my last Friday Nights at Bearly Stitchin' to get them done. It took about three nights to get the binding hand-sewn down on those two suckers, and they took a trip through the wash and were mailed to you.

I hope Max and Melissa love them to shreds, and I hope to see you soon, now that I'm moving closer to your neck of the woods.

Much love, DPUTiger

Max's Quilt

Melissa's Quilt

Both are the "Illinois Road" pattern from "Even More Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC" by Ursula Reikes. The first book in this series was the second quilting book I ever bought, and the trio of books (Quilts for Baby, More Quilts for Baby and Even More) are ones that will never EVER leave the front line of my quilting library. Masterpieces, all!

MemeTime

Here's the meme that has been spreading like it's viral. SJ tagged me, so it's her fault. ;-)

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

I’m not tagging anyone, since I’m one of the last bloggers on the planet to fill out this meme. If you haven’t already done it and you blog, consider yourself tagged.

On to the fun:

1: I can’t eat anything that used to swim b/c I’m allergic. All fish, all shellfish. Anything that had gills. I have a mild reaction, so if I know something is gonna be really good, I’ll have something fishy once in a blue moon (bagels and lox in NYC, chowder in Boston, etc.), but the less often I eat it, the better chance I have that I won’t react. This is a much better deal than my dad, who is deathly allergic to all seafood. His throat swells up and he can’t breathe.

2: I rode horses competitively until I started college. Want photographic proof?

By the way, I’m out cold in this picture, but it’s the best photo I ever took on a horse.

3: I’ve slept with a teddy bear of some sort pretty much since birth. When I was really little, it was a bear who started out blue but faded to white. I’d only wear a hat if teddy wore a hat, etc. I went to a raccoon for a while, but the first Christmas that the hubster and I were together, he got me Bear, and he’s been the go-to ever since.

4: I love music of just about all kinds, but there are only a few groups I really get excited about. I’ve seen the Barenaked Ladies on every tour since Stunt in 1998. I love the Clarks, but have only seen them at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. There were only about 100 people in the whole place. Go see ‘em in Pittsburgh? They can fill pretty big venues.

It’s also one of my goals in life to get pit tickets to Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band. Next time they tour? I’ll get it done.

5: I’m a little worried about the quilt store situation in Pittsburgh. I know damn well that I’ve been really spoiled with the quilt and knit store situation here in Los Angeles. I’m feeling OK about the Pittsburgh knitting scene and hoping I can find as much info on quilting stores before I go.

6: I played three sports in high school: field hockey (forward), basketball (really bad forward on an even worse team) and lacrosse (goalie). My only regret about my four years at DePauw was that I should have gone out for the soccer team my senior year. I started playing field hockey as a freshman in high school because my HS didn’t sponsor girls soccer. Lacrosse started because my high school didn't have a football team, it had a lacrosse team. Big deal sport. Very big deal.

7: Since September of 2005, I’ve lost about 90 lbs. I did a medically supervised program that changed my life. I am having so much fun now with my new active lifestyle. I don’t ever want to go back to the way I was. Ever.

I've been lifting with one of our strength and conditioning coaches since early March. Olympic lifting with free weights. Hang snatches, front squats, the whole works. I'm loving every second of it and am wondering how I can continue once I move home.

8: I stink at good-byes, and I have a whole bunch coming up very soon. What’s getting me through that thought is remembering where I can spend most of the rest of the summer:

My family has a summer home on Lake Erie in western New York. It is my very favorite place on the entire planet. We’ve been going to this same community since I was seven (I think). The first summer we went there, we rented a place, I got really sick and puked all over my (three years younger) brother. This was payback, as he had peed on my head when he was in diapers (so I’ve been told. I don’t really remember)

That’s about it from chez DPUTiger. I have a quilting post almost ready to go. Hopefully I’ll get to it quite soon. :)

The First of the Lasts

I had the first round of my "The Last Times" over the weekend.

My team which has been the most successful in its sport in NCAA history, had a significantly earlier exit from postseason than it has ever experienced before.

This morning, I went to work the last day of the NCAA Softball Los Angeles regional and the Bruins weren't playing. It was the first time since 1998 that I had worked a tournament that my school was hosting and my school wasn't playing that day.

Our PA announcer joked that he was the DJ of the radio station "KAMY" All my favorites, all day. Lots and LOTS of Barenaked Ladies and The Clarks. Very bittersweet.

I'll get back to more regular blogging now that I have my life back. (Including the meme for which SJ tagged me) For now, I'll leave you with Roaming Tigger, sitting on home plate at Easton Stadium prior to today's Regional Championship game. All of my favorite on-campus memories at UCLA happened here. I'll miss it terribly.

Remember Me?

Hi! My name is Amy and I knit, quilt, work (a lot), travel ... and there's a rumor that I blog.

It has been a shockingly busy two weeks. I last posted from Seattle on April 25, before heading to a softball game at UW. In the fourth inning of that game, the Hubster IM'd me that he was getting a job offer in Pittsburgh. Which would be my hometown.

He accepted that job early the next morning. Since then, we have gotten about 85% packed, we have an open house scheduled for our house tomorrow and our first looky-lous showed up to check out the place yesterday.

WE'RE MOVING TO PITTSBURGH!!!! I still can't quite believe it, but I'm very excited about it.

So a week ago today, I forgot to take a true "before" picture, but at about 10 am, here's what the living room looked like



By 1 pm, three of my crazy, amazing, wonderful, fantastic quilting friends showed up



That's Carol on the left, Lisa in the middle and Sandy on the left. They stayed through dinner and by the next morning, it essentially looked like this



Amazing, huh?

So that's where I have been for the last two weeks. I'm an old pro at handling the home stretch of softball season, which is the part of the year I'm dealing with right now. The moving part isn't so awful, especially since I have amazing friends who were eager and willing to help out. Put the two together? I fall over exhausted at the end of each day and can barely string together enough coherent sentences to handle my job responsibilities. So the blog has suffered.

Jaywalker has a heel that is still being decreased. I have three baby quilts that are now totally finished, including binding sewn down and a trip through the washer. I'll hopefully get that blogged about in the next 72 hours or so.

Hope all of you are doing great. Thanks for bearing with me during this crazy time. Once I get my life back, there will be plenty of knitting and quilting to blog about. Promise!

Jaywalking

Yeah, I did a little bit of that today, on my morning constitutional in downtown Seattle. The down side was that we didn't stay in the funky little hotel where we normally stay. Up-side is that I was able to walk to So Much Yarn! in downtown. It was fun!

I got a little bit of yarn (spent under $40) and will have photos later. I cut it a little close with my walk back through the market, so I didn't have time for a hotel photo shoot.

SJ had warned me about making sure the cuff on my Jaywalkers possibly being too small to get over my heel. I remembered this warning while on the airplane last night, but just kept knitting away while watching the end of Stranger than Fiction and most of The Prestige. (I watched the Prestige in three chunks. Gotta watch it again all in one sitting before I send it back to Netflix). Liked the 2nd movie better, but there's a lot of detail and I missed chunks of it because of how I watched it.

Anyhoo, once I got to the hotel, I tried on the sock. And couldn't get the damn thing over my heel. Freaked out a little bit. Then decided that my kick-ass KnitPicks DPNs were the problem.

So I got out my darning needle and threw those live stitches onto a strand of dental floss and tried it on. A little snug, but definitely do-able.


No interesting photo ops for RT in seattle, so the Jaywalker photo is it. Gotta keep the instructions handy. Hoping to turn that heel on the trip home tonight. Have a great Wednesday!

RT visits 'Furd

Lots of work, not a ton of knitting. Please bear with me!


Last Friday, Roaming Tigger (RT) and I took a two-hour walk around Stanford's campus. Wasn't it nice for them to welcome us?

Well, it was also Admissions Weekend, so the sign wasn't specifically for us ... but still :)


We entered campus off of the "main drag" onto the formal entrance of campus. It's very impressive. Stanford has an amazing amount of open space in and around campus. It's very quiet, and relaxing and it truly feels like a college campus. Still. Academic. Beautiful.

RT's head is hiding an admissions tour group in front of Memorial Church, which is on Stanford's main quad. This is my favorite part of campus, and I believe it is the original part.


Herbert Hoover was a member of one of the first classes at Stanford. Hoover Tower not only has an observation deck, but it houses a library and research center. It's a neat building with lots of history to it, and it's a landmark that you can see from just about anywhere on Stanford's campus. RT and I didn't go to the top (I did that on my own last year), but enjoyed our trip around campus regardless.


Just to prove that there has been some knitting, I cast this on last Friday (April 20) in the hotel at Stanford. I did K2P2 ribbing the whole way up to Cal after Friday's game and have been doing the two pattern rows ever since. This photo was taken just before I got on a plane to Seattle this afternoon. The sock in question is now about 5" along. My secret goal is to get the heel turned tomorrow so I can get it mostly finished on the trip home. Wish me luck! (Oh, and a little luck with the weather tomorrow would be appreciated as well!)

I Spy a Finished Object!

Hey! It's a pair of socks!


Yep. I finished Sock #2 last night. Around getting packed for the latest in work travel adventures. Project stats are as follows:

Pattern: From Sock Wizard, with numbers inputted and printed by Charlo, the Beach Knitting sock guru.
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock
Needles: US 2.5 Bryspun DPNs. I hated these needles. I got used to the bendy-ness, but I never liked it.
Started/Completed: Well, not totally sure when I started. I know I had to do the provisional cast on about three times before I got it right. I think that was in January. Finished April 18.


See? They even fit my feet!


And, as an added bonus, my wound has healed enough that it is no longer gross or damp 24/7, so I was able to model these socks bandage-free! (wound is under the right sock cuff. I'm officially on the mend!)

I wound up having to stay home all day on Wednesday because we're getting tile installed in our master bathroom. There are lots of details that I'd love to change if this was going to be a long-term abode, but it isn't. So I'm letting stuff go.

Here's what the bathroom looked like on Monday night. This photo doesn't truly do justice to the nastiness of the carpet.


Yes, carpet in a bathroom. I don't get it. To me, that's like saying "Hey! Let's leave a damp sponge sitting on the subfloor for ... 20 years or so!"

So we got tile:


Much nicer.

And please! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! toilet in the shower. That's tomorrow's adventure, to be supervised by the hubster!



Off to the Bay Area. We're a Westin tonight. Gotta love that! Big plans to walk around on Stanford's campus tomorrow morning.

Jaywalkers, here I come! :)