Socks long overdue and newly cast on

Happy New Year!

I just passed my 6 year knitaversary this past new years eve. 6 months after starting these for Bear, they're finally done this evening.  This yarn was one of my custom indie dyer purchases in my first year of learning how to knit.  When I asked Bear what color he wanted his socks to be, he replied, "army colors".  So this colorway "militia" was born.

I guess I put off knitting these because I wanted to make sure they were the right size, and fit him well.  He patiently waited and he's got them on his feet right now while relaxing in his flannel pj bottoms.  I hope it was worth the wait for him :)


I'm going through a slump, so trying to get back into knitting to keep me busy. I joined another mystery KAL  and knitting two socks at a time again.  Not sure about the yarn that is called for this pattern yet (no wool, it's a cotton, silk, bamboo blend that is a bit splitty), but we'll see how they feel once we see more of the pattern emerge.

So what's new with you? Any new projects you're working on?

Well, hello there!

Oh brother, I'm letting too much time lapse between blog posts.  I need to get this back up and running again!  I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  I had this past week off from work which has been WONDERFUL, but damnit where the heck did it go????  I hope my work week next week will go just as fast.

Earlier this week, I took my sewing machine down to my mom's to have a craft day with her.  It was so much fun!  We decided to try to do this on a monthly basis and I sure hope to stick with it as I do enjoy my time with her doing crafty things while enjoying our love of sipping coffee all day.

This photo below we're making some potholders.

Mom looks like she's having fun - it was nice to capture the smile, as it acknowledges that she had a good time too :)  Below, we're cutting out felt pieces to make felt ornaments.

You can kind of tell what it is on the table, but end result is to look like this:

It's this time of year I start to go crazy and get inspired from all of the gorgeous knitting patterns that are out there.  I've queued so many things this week and getting some holiday gift making started. Some knitted, some not.  Here are some projects that I'm wanting to make.

And yarn colorways such as this one (that also snuck into a shopping cart at 2am a few days ago, lol)

And I've been wanting to make an Icelandic sweater w/ Lopi yarn forever and couldn't pass this up through Craftsy with their current holiday discount pricing to learn along with others and will be making this - so excited!

Now that I have a million things I want to cast on for, I just wish work didn't take up so much time!  Yuck.

And finally, sharing a red scarf photo I took that turned out pretty nice.  I knit this to donate to a silent auction this weekend to benefit a local charity (Lifelong AIDS Alliance). I hope it will keep someone warm this winter :)

So..what have all of you been up to?  What yarns/patterns/projects have you been inspired by lately?  Please share (I need to add more to my ever-increasing Rav queue, hahaha)

Happy halloween!

Brraaaaains

Yikes, where has the time gone by???  It's been crazy here.  Cah.Ray.Zee.  Work is....blech. Hot dog biz is doing ok, but we're not fighting the typical crummy NW weather, so we're looking for options for Bear to hunker down under shelter for the colder months, but still be able to sell dogs.

Knitting hasn't had too much attention until about a week or two ago when I started thinking of what I wanted to dress up as this Halloween.

As everyone has probably seen, there's been a cool brain hat circulating ___book and Rav and one night, I saw the picture of the finished hat and decided that's it! So I went and got some brainy colored pink yarn (yes, I know brains aren't pink, but for a Halloween costume, you want it to stand out and it looked better than grey) and set to work.




Knitting that icord was a biatch.  People asked me why I didn't use a icord crank, but I didn't see any that made the icord in the thickness I wanted, so I knit and knit and knit and knit and knit so much icord that I don't think I'll be making any more of these hats anytime soon :)

I'm kicking myself for not measuring the actual length I ended up having to make for the hat, but this evening, I finished pinning the icord to the hat and was able to finish sewing the "squiggles" (or gyri are they called in medical terms? see, I learned some stuff from knitting this pattern, lol) to the skullcap and I'm done!

 So here's the hat in finished form.  Sorry for the dark photos, but I just finished right before bedtime this evening.

Look forward to putting together the rest of my costume - will post on Halloween, so you'll have to stay tuned 'til then :)

Hot dogs, come get your hot dogs!

Just a quick update, we got our food cart license approved from the health deparment in late July and have been selling hot dogs every Sunday at a nearby marina (still scouting a good weekday lunch location). Bear has been having a good time being his own boss and we're getting good feedback on the food we serve.

Although I have my other FT job, I'm helping Bear out on the weekends as the money taker so that he can focus on the food. It's been exhausting, but you gotta put in the effort to get what you want for the output, right?

Here are some recent photos, one from our first opening at the oldest neighborhood grocery store in Seattle, and then our regular Sunday spot at the nearby marina :)

Baby shower

Today is Bear's daughter's baby shower (he will be a grandpa next month!). I was in charge of the cake for the shower and I just got done frosting it this morning. Her colors were pink and purple, so I stuck with the theme. The cake is 2 layers and I made a filling mixing some of the buttercream with some homemade strawberry preserves.

I also wanted to experiment with making onesie cookies and I think they turned out pretty well, considering it was my first time icing cookies using the flooding technique with royal icing.

I have been pretty busy with work, so didn't get a whole lot of knitting time, but did make 2 hats. I will have to make a cardi for the baby as a holiday gift knit :) hope the mom to be will like everything!

Jammin

Stopped by my local farmstand for a full flat of strawberries. Can you guess how I spent my sunday afternoon? :)