Stitchmarkers, Candy Floss and SPEED KNITTER

Yesterday I received a gorgeous set of stitchmarkers from Lynnea (from the swapastitchmarker swap from knittyboard) they arrived at the same time as my gorgeous new yarn from sweetgeorgia I could not get a great pic but here they are together.

Aren't they both so pretty? The yarn is a GORGEOUS blue that reminds me of Negril...ahhh honeymoon. Ahhh free cocktails with waitresses all day serving.

Here is the amazing thing about the stitch markers. It truly gave me chills. The charms used in the stitch markers were the SAME EXACT ones that I used for all my bridesmaids in my wedding. I stitched a little charm into each of the purses I made for them. The read: Hope, Love, Believe, Dream, & Peace (if I remember off the top of my head correctly ;) ) I thought that was REALLY cool! So these will DEFINITELY be treasured for a lifetime THANK YOU!!!!!

IN OTHER UPDATES:

GO GO SPEED KNITTER GO!*

Baby Bolero: This one will definitely be done. I just have the final ribbing and one sleeve then seam her up time :) WOOHOO!

Wrap Cardi from Rebecca: I am 80% up both fronts. I made some error somewhere, but I am unsure where it occured. I put both pieces up against eachother and you cannot see a difference so I am treking along. I hope this one is doable, but with me having to drive down south I am unsure. I was expecting a good 4 hours of knitting time.

Carolina: Well Carolina is on hold. I came to the realization that she really will need more time. I am fine with that and expect to take her for knitting while I am there. I will have to fix my dreaded cast on error though before leaving or while we are at my parents. Wish me luck there!

*Calling me Speed Knitter is really a joke because actually I am a pretty pathetically slow knitter. Lets hope I get faster with time ;)

Speed Knitting and a LYS that ROCKS

So today at lunch I ran over to my lys to get the Barbara Walker Knitting from the Top Down book. Well I had that and of course another skein and needles, although I did resist the LM circs they had. YES I DID! Well I get to the front and realize my wallet was NOT in my purse - but ON MY DESK!

Well my lys rocked they just told me to call them when I got back to work to give them my card. GOTTA LOVE THAT! Phew I did NOT want to make another trip.

I got about 35% done on the baby bolero last night. I think I should be done tonight. I need to finish one of the carolina sleeves and start on the short-row Rebecca cardi. WOW SPEED KNITTING TIME!

Oh and the disaster update...the LYS said that ripping out then knitting down did seem like the best option...oh wish me luck. I will have to do a photoessay on this one!

Everyone have a great weekend.

Dear Benihana's....

Thank you. Thank you for closing for reno and not bothering to send me a card. Letting me know that the building was sick and sad and needed a face lift. Thank you for letting me crave your deliciousness for the 30 minute drive to your restaurant.

For future reference July 19th is NOT the day for you to be closed. You see I was craving shrimp and steak cooked in front of me. I was craving seeing the chefs with the tall white caps and showing bruiser how funny they were when they threw the egg up and caught in the hat. I was craving you I tell you...

Well Bruiser REALLY does want to thank you. You see we had to go over to Sacramento Brewing because you were closed and B was starving. So Bruiser got to have his favorite thing in the world...no NOT beer PEOPLE - GUACAMOLE! I cannot believe it the kid ate a HUGE bowl of guacamole. He also loved chowing down on the tomatoes. I find it so hillarious because I NEVER liked those two as much as I did when I was pregnant. In fact I NEVER had guac until I got pregnant and was craving it one day. Now wouldn't you know it - Bruiser LOOOVES the stuff! I just find that so funny for some reason.

Thank you ladies for stopping by and saying happy anniversary! I let B read my post...thought it was sweet, but the first words out of his mouth were, "You have a BLOG!?!"

oops!

In Knitting News:
I got some deadlines!

I HAVE.TO.FINISH 3 - three - THREE items by next weekend!

First is the baby bolero from the One Skein book. We are going to a baby shower for my cousin and I thought this mixed with a cute dress would be a perfect gift.
This.has.not.been.started

ummm....yeah

Second I must finish The Rowan Carolina. I really want to wear it next weekend when I am down there. I have to finish both lace sleeves and all the lace edging. I ALSO have to cut part of it and fix my insane error of not keeping the provisional cast on. Yeah I am kinda worried about this one.

Third I want to finish a shrug to wear with the dress that the lovely knittywhipped just enabled me ;) I have the pink ggh mohair and the pattern. I practiced my swatch before because I was already planning to knit this. I just need to actually knit it ;) I ripped it once so maybe I will do okay. I have been reading about short rows and I charted the pattern out so I am hoping I got it ;) Here is the dress and the picture of the ggh - debating between the green shrug, the blue bell sleeve wrap cardi (which would tie in the front IRL) and one that I cannot find online but it is similar to this bright pink below, but in the mohair, but less lace...


Thoughts Ladies? I gotta start knitting this weekend if I have any hope of getting these done ;)

Stay tuned for some hilarity as SPEED KNITTING TO ENSUE!

Well 3 years ago today B and I got married. aaahhhh this morning at 12:30 he rolls over and hugs me and said Happy Anniversary Sweetheart in his sleep...yup he still melts my heart. It has been just 3 years but it seems we have packed in a lifetime worth of changes:
Remodeled our house
Sold said house
Built a new house
Changed Jobs
Built a pool
Started 2 companies
Had baby R
Sold second house
Moving way far away (well next month!)
Wow WHAT A RIDE!
Happy Anniversary B

I LOVE YOU!

DISTRAUGHT

I am.so.upset....sooo upset. Here was my post on the coffeeshop

Totally.ABSOLUTELY.SO.UNBELIEVABLY - UP.SET...

Okay NOW that I have gotten that off my chest here is my problem. I am PRAYING someone can PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME!

Okay the pattern is Carolina from Rowan 39.

Now this is my FIRST venture with lace and lace weight yarn and also my first venture with Rowan and english (like UK english) patterns. I SHOULD have known better. I am a pretty new knitter, but I am rather adventurous so I am willing to try anything to get this to work.

I am also willing to have it look less than perfect if that is what has to occur...soo here is the issue:
I DID NOT PROVISIONAL CAST ON!

I thought when at the end it said pick up the stitches that I just picked up stitches...looking at the pattern I am realizing that I should of provisional cast on for this KSH. YEAH - KSH snowballs chance in you know where that I can frog this whole thing.

Also, I am realizing now that my cast on is probably not stretchy enough either... Well I am done with the center part. 10 more rows to go - so frogging this is really not an option... SOOOO does ANYONE HAVE A SUGGESTION. I am sriously in tears here. I canNOT believe I am so DUMB!

Thanks for letting me rant and ANY HELP is SOOO appreciative I cannot even explain.

Final Destination Moment

So I had a Final Destination moment today. You see I had to get to work early today to prep for a meeting with my boss. I usually go one route to work and drop off bruiser on the way in at daycare. Well today B took bruiser in because I needed to be early. Well as I was at the light RIGHT before getting on the freeway on ramp B called.

THE CARSEAT WAS STILL IN MY CAR!

No we do not have two yet we still have the portable bucket. Well I turned around immediately to give it to him. He was waiting outside. This was about a 5 minute detour. Well when I got back to the same intersection I see fire trucks and ambulances coming up and the freeway was DEAD STOPPED! On NPR came a flash that freeway 50 was closed TWO BIG RIGGS COLLIDED RIGHT where I was suppose to get on. THE COLLIDED THE SAME MINUTE according to the time at Sacbee.com - umm yeah from looking at this picture that is EXACTLY where I would of been lane and all because of my snazzy carpool sticker.


PHEW I will hug B and bruiser tonight!

100 Random Things about MEEEE

Thought I would share my randomness...

1. I am 31 years old and an Aries…very true to form with that one.
2. B & I got married at a zoo…okay it was a semi-private zoo/botanical gardens and kicked butt – alas there were still zebras that overlooked our vows and white tigers in the distance.
3. We have a son who will be a year in August we call him Little R (or lil' r)
4. I cried when the ultrasound technician told us it was a boy, mostly because I was so sure it was a girl and thus felt so disconnected. B high-fived himself…no really he did. I still feel guilty about crying and love lil' r more than I ever thought I could.
5. I danced on stage with Prince at a concert…yeah that was rad!
6. Number 5 was my nickname forever…hence the cool Prince note went at number 5.
   My other nickname was peanut. Yes I had that as an adult.
7. What is ironic is I am deathly allergic to peanuts I have to carry a shot with me at all times.
8. My parents have been married for 45 years, but I am their oldest child. Our whole family thought they would never have children.
9. I have been a swim instructor for babies for 15+ years.
10. I considered my baby old when we started at 7 months. I was very sad, but stupid weather would not cooperate, and crazy schedule.
11. Our crazy schedules and not seeing our son enough has prompted my husband and me to move 3 states away and leave CA.
12. We both are born and raised in Southern California everyone we know is in shock.
13. B almost moved to Boulder 8 months before he met me, but he said something did not feel right, so he bought a house here in Sacramento.
14. We always say that house was the smartest financial decision he has ever made…I always pipe in that the smartest decision was me ;)
15. I picked up B in a bar. My girlfriend said he was smart and had a really good body so I went up to him felt him up and whispered in his ear, "Alana said you had a great body so I had to come check you out for myself". I actually really thought he was a twiggy guy and too skinny for me until I felt him up.
16. He stole my hairband that night and "charged" me a kiss to get it back…that was a first kiss. We still joke over the corniness of "well it'll cost you" "what?" "a kiss" hahahahahahahaha
17. As corny as that was -- it and he still melts my heart.
18. I hated the house that B bought before he met me. B loved it more than anything.
19. He sold that house for me and we had a new house built.
20. B hated that city/suburb after we moved there, but we both loved that house.
21. We sold that house for little R...to move to Boulder.
22. I make jewelry and purses on top of knitting.
23. I have not made a purse since I had one selected for an emerging designer of the year honor in a magazine because I just could not figure out how I would of wanted to market them…they were made out of gemstones.
24. I have never had a McDonalds/Burger King/Wendy's etc hamburger.
25. I always make up new stuff. I made up a maternity shirt "I am not Buddha" and sold them on my website and in stores when I was pregnant.
26. My bead/gemstone stash is scary.
27. Most my jewelry I have made was done with variants on crochet techniques.
28. The only thing I ever crocheted was jewelry/wire...until I started knitting.
29. We selected our house partly based on what type of room I would have for beading.
30. I am thrilled there will be room for yarn in there as well.
31. My husband and I only really argue about cleaning and decorating.
32. I am very opinionated on the decorating, but I have to adhere to his rules and it infuriates me.
33. But I love him more than a stupid couch so sometimes I am unhappy with how the house looks. Most the time I am fine with that.
34. I am an all or nothing when it comes to cleaning.
35. DH/B is the clean one…well in terms of picking up. Thank goodness he picks up.
36. I expect to be praised like a 6 year old when I do any sort of housework.
37. In heaven I will have a maid and someone who follows and picks up after me.
38. This person will also bring me Greyhound (vodka and grapefruit juice) while I am sitting out on the veranda knitting looking at heaven's beach and ocean.
39. As much as I hate to clean if my house is not clean it is draining on me and bothers me both emotionally and physically.
40. My friend Tam had to convince me to take the knitting class.
41. That was in April…it is July. I took the class thinking it would give me something to do while I was pumping..well I contracted a sick sick disease in class…(addicted personality much)
42. I have been exclusively pumping milk for my son for 10 months now. I hope to make a year.
43. We went to a lactation consultant weekly for his first two months.
44. The consultant decided he had some insane suction that was 5 times more of a normal baby when he almost took off my entire nipple with a proper latch.
45. I say I am a breastfeeding mom even though he gets the milk in a bottle now.
46. I felt extremely guilty about it and still have moments of guilt.
47. At the same time I am very proud that I have worked thru much adversity to give him mommy milk and not formula.
48. My sister and I are polar opposites.
49. I love her dearly, but I don't know if we would be friends if we were not related.
50. That makes me very sad.
51. Her oldest daughter looks just like me.
52. Lil' R looks very much like her son, who also happens to look like my dad.
53. I broke my left arm in 2 places 3 days before summer vacation in 5th grade.
54. I was on the swim team.
55. It took ALL summer to heal. I was so bummed. I would wrap it in cellophane and duct tape so I could swim.
56. My dad practiced one-armed volleyball digs with me all summer. He was the coach.
57. I can still bounce the ball by myself on one arm REALLY well.
58. I hated volleyball.
59. I played one year.
60. I sucked. My dad cut me down to jr. varsity.
61. Although I suck I can dissect the game and coach like no one's business. My sister was awesome and I always coached her. She use to tell me that all the time. Yeah little sister keeping me in line.
62. My sister is 3.5 years younger than me.
63. I have an 'adopted' sister named Stacy.
64. She was my best friend. My parents took her in all through high school.
65. We have been best friends since first grade, but rarely talk to each other. When we see each other it is like no time has ever passed.
66. I have been to probably over 100 concerts.
67. My favorite artist of all time is Prince, and not because I danced on stage.
68. DH and I selected our new hometown partly on the music scene.
69. My other best friend growing up was Lisa she had the nickname "Lunar".
70. We were REALLY into fashion magazines.
71. We made up a fashion company called, "Lunar Tiace'"
72. Tiace' is supposed to be pronounced Tie-say – We thought it sounded like a French version of my nickname Stac.
73. Yes we were dorks, but we thought we were cool.
74. I still have a half dozen sketch books that contains drawings and notes about fashion designs we created.
75. I have naturally curly hair.
76. It turned curly when I went thru puberty and has stayed that way.
77. I have no idea what my natural color is…well except some shade of brown with grey.
78. I got grey in my early 20's and started coloring my hair.
79. I have been on one hike in my life.
80. To the top of Yosemite Falls where DH asked me to marry him.
81. He said the most beautiful things, but I don't remember them.
82. He still will not let me have the paper where he wrote it all out. Actually he typed it up.
83. I thought that was the cutest thing ever.
84. Before the hike I teased him that the only way he was going to get me to the top was to dangle a ring in front of me like the do with the donkey and carrot.
85. No I did not know he was going to propose then.
86. I had postponed the trip for 2 months. This killed him, but he acted all cool.
87. I had deja vu about ½ ways up the mountain. I think part of me knew what was going to happen.
88. I have never had a brown soda.
89. When I was a kid I thought the brown color came from dirt, i.e. Rootbeer was called that because it was made from Roots hence the dirt.
90. I drive a Prius, and LOOVE that I can drive in the carpool on the way to work.
91. I say, "her ha" (like Nelson from the Simpsons) in the car when I pass people who were jerks to me as I got on the freeway. That happens weekly it seems…last week it was an old fat man in a Porsche that one felt good!
92. I love Superman.
93. My favorite TV Show is Smallville. I think Tom Welling (Clark) is so FIIIIIIINNNEEEEE.
94. I have a thing about bald men so of course I think Lex on the show is pretty fine as well. I touched his butt at the House of Blues during an after-hours Prince show. That was fun.
95. My ex-boyfriend was working for Prince at the time and got my girlfriend and me into the VIP balcony. I had no idea and had not spoken to him for two years when I saw him walk by and said hello. It was REALLY random.
96. I was a vegetarian for eight years.
97. I started fainting though from a bad diet and slowly introduced meat. I still have a VERY hard time cutting up raw meat.
98. I am addicted to coffee and love French press coffee to be more specific.
99. I did stand-up comedy for a bit. I learned from my comedy tape that I should not wear boat neck sweaters that are cropped.
100. It took me about a week to come up with this many things…DH still is asking what the hell that stupid word document is for…nice.
     

Story of the downed KSH...

The History:

So I work in a big office building…well it has a rather decent size lobby…I have to walk across the building past the cafeteria to use the designated room for lactating moms. So I go over there 2 times a day at work and "hang out" for a bit of time. Well I always try to sneak my knitting in over there because well it is quite a bit boring sitting there waiting and waiting. I much rather be productive!

Now that you have the history on with the story…

On Monday I was going down to the room. I did not have my bag with me so I had to sneak my knitting for the Carolina Sweater over there. I had it under my arm…two balls of Rowan Kid Silk Haze is what it requires since it is double stranded at this portion. Well I was just past the cafeteria when someone says, "I think you dropped something" at which time I felt a vibration, like a cell phone, under my arm. I thought the vibrating was weird because I did not have my phone…then I felt a tug and saw a snap. It was my KSH or as more affectionately and accurately referred to as Kid Silk Crack! I ran back…someone from HR tells me they say the string so they yanked on it to break it!! The security guard had the ball. It had fallen on the stairs!! I had walked down the stairs across the lobby down two hallways and DID NOT EVEN NOTICE!!!!! BUT SHE BROKE MY YARN! Does she know when you see KSC you have to RUN after the poor soul and say, "Sweetie I think you dropped your Kid Silk Crack for you obviously divine project that you are creating because someone would only use yarn that gorgeous for something truly special." BUT NO she broke it then just jumbled it together. Because yeah kid mohair does not stick to itself and NEVER tangles!!! So alas I did not knit during that mommy session but rather I untangled about 120 feet of KSC and rewound my ball then unknit half the row because I needed to add the yarn back in and weaving on such an open piece would have been to obvious for my liking.

So I am about 52 rows on my 128 rows of 3x3 ribbing for the back of Carolina. Man she will be beautiful.

Lesson I learned…I need one of those cute bags to carry my knitting vs. hiding it under my arm!

The Monthly Blogger

Well I have a ton of updates! I canNOT believe it has been almost a month I am SO bad.
Bad BAD Stacy!

Well actually I have been lurking around and a bit under the weather. I got struck with mastitis again suddenly (read: went from fine to 103 temp in about an hour) and had to go on IV one afternoon and doc ordered me to be a "lady of leisure" aww shucks TWIST MY ARM will ya Well I got a ton of beading done over that time and quite a bit of knitting. I am on my last sleeve of the cardigan/lace edge jacket below. I probably will be done after tomorrow, but honestly the sleeves are scaring me. They seem to have these four rows at the top and I just have no idea how they are going to fit/seem up. Also I have a new rule - ALL SLEEVES AND FRONTS basically anything that is supposed to match MUST BE DONE AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!! I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast much less remember all the rows/repeats, increase, decrease yada yayayaya so next time instead of spending a gazillion hours checking and rechecking I am going to do them together!
Always learning.
Well I am making up a 101 things about me so stay tuned.
Also - I have a blog for stacyzdesigns on blogger for a while. It went deserted when I had lil' r but I am resurrecting it as well. Since I started the knit blog I thought I would do it here (blogdrive) thinking it would be best to have two separate usernames and places, but I am starting to wonder. I am having issues on loading this and also figuring out how to respond to people...so who knows I may change soon enough.
Well I have a few more posts I need to work up. We have family updates with our move. I also need to take pics tonight/tomorrow so I can show all the WIP. I also decided to nix the CP lace shrug and just go for Carolina from rowan I am working on the ribbing right now there are a gazillion rows (well just like 150 so not really a gazillion but I am known to over exaggerate everything by at least a million) I am about 1/3 the way thru on that. I tried out the lace pattern that is on the sleeve. I think I will practice some more with some scrap yarn just so I can get it down.
Also, in my ever crazy state I am also working on creating a new pattern. Yes I know I have not been knitting long at all, but I want to try. We shall see...I am pretty excited and I got the idea in my head...now to get my fingers to make it take shape!