Tuesday, July 24, 2007

I'm going back to Cali, Cali, Cali...

It's time to take this show on the road. I leave tomorrow for Sacramento. I'm going to visit my friend Maya, and to celebrate her birthday. It's been over three years since I've been to California. The last time was also for a birthday celebration. (It seems to be a recurring theme). I'm really excited to visit Maya. She has been living in Sacramento for quite a few years, but I have never visited her there.

My cross-country flight will provide an excellent opportunity to work on my Log Cabin squares. That's the only project that I will be bring on the plane with me. I'm sure to get a little bored with it, but I need to focus on getting more squares completed.

Maya is also a knitter! If all goes well, I will be giving her a crash course on sock knitting. As her birthday gift, I have offered to supply her with everything she needs to make her first pair of socks...a knit along, of sorts. I'm not sure if an actual pair of socks will be completed in a week, but we'll be able to finish them when she comes to DC in September.

See you next week!

Friday, July 20, 2007

14*/35...

I have been working on my Log Cabin Blanket off and on since February. When I started, I calculated that I would need to knit a little more than one block per week to have things complete in time for their September wedding. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned.

I knit many of the 15 completed blocks while riding the bus to and from work. This is a very portable project...It's also a very monotonous project. After a few weeks, I got a little bored with it, and knit a couple pairs of socks. Then life got really busy, and I had little time to breath...much less knit. Now, with only a little more than 7 weeks until the wedding, I find myself only with 40% of the squares needed for the originally blanket design.


*Technically, it should be 15/35, but one of my squares has gone AWOL.

I will need to knit almost 3 blocks a week to meet the deadline! I'm not sure I can make it on time, but I'm going to keep plugging along. I'm devoting today to log cabin knitting. I had a few chores to wrap up this morning, and I will now install myself on the sofa for miles and miles of garter stitch.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

a mid-summer debut...

Please ignore the goofy look on my face. AF loves to take pictures right at the moment just before you're ready. In this case, I think I was in the middle of talking about how much I really didn't want my picture taken. Either way, our recent trip back to his hometown proved to be a perfect place to debut my Summertime Tunic from the Summer Interweave.

I started this project a couple of weeks after the magazine came out. I thought it would be a quick and easy project. I used Jaeger Trinity, that I recycled from an underworn project. I think the yarn is perfect for this top because it's lightweight and has an slightly uneven, bumpy quality.

This was the first time that I have visited Michigan in the summer. Usually, we visit AF's family around Thanksgiving or Christmas...which automatically means cold weather and snow. However, the 4th of July was perfect! The sun shined every day. We visited the Midway at Summer Celebration and rode the Ferris wheel. We walked around the downtown, which is going through a renaissance of sorts. And, we even made time to drive up to Silver Lake for a dune ride.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Mid-year execution review...

A post wherein I apologize for not writing a post in nearly 3 months, and I try to make up for it by updating all knitting-related things.

That's right, it's been nearly 3 months since writing a post. I didn't miss it as much as I thought I would. To tell you the truth, there's been a lot going on. Since it's mostly non-knitting related, it really has no place on my knitting blog. That doesn't mean that I haven't been knitting! So on to the knitting content!

At the beginning of the year, I laid out a few loose resolutions for 2007. I'm proud to say that the only new yarn that I have bought this year was for my less than stellar efforts to take part in Sock Madness and the shipments that I have received as a member of Rockin' Sock Club™...all sock yarn. I haven't even used my "Get Out of Jail Free" card!

I haven't been as committed to the 1st seven of '07. So far, I have only finished one project from the list, the Aran Tee. I have also been *slowly* chipping away at the Log Cabin Blanket. Of the 35 squares that I need to complete the blanket, I have finished 12. That's about a third...with only two and a half months before the recipients are to be wed. (EEK!) I also have a few more finished objects that weren't on the 1st seven list that I am hoping to share very soon.