Snow day!

Things aren't bad where I am, but I'm guessing other parts of the county must have been a mess this morning. Whatever led to it, woohoo!

I've spent the morning so far poking around Yahoo Travel, and will soon go work on some knitting.... speaking of which:



I went to All About Yarn on Wednesday before work, and was so excited to see that they're carrying the Manos Silk Blend. It's still one big single, but seems to be less thick-and-thin than the wool, and it's SO SOFT. Also got some Jo Sharp Silk Road DK Tweed for a hat, which will be mostly dark brown with just a wee bit of light blue:

Long time no blog, eh?

Ok, I've gone a little bit AWOL, but it's been for good stuff. I *have* actually been working on some knitting...



That's Ariann by Bonne Marie Burns. She sashayed on to the needles on New Years Day; what better way to kick off 2008? I'm using Ella Rae Shibu, which is a 90% silk, 10% viscose yarn. The drape on the stuff is gorgeous, and the viscose thread makes it look almost tweedy. The only drawback is that the yarn sheds a little bit because the silk is a little bit nubby... I stand up after working on it and have little pink fuzzies on my lap. All in all, I'll take it.



The color is better in the first picture... these are courtesy of my new camera, and I'm just excited to have a camera that adjusts for different light conditions. The old camera, which is a bare bones point-and-shoot, gets testy if you're shooting in anything other than direct sunlight. Even bright indirect sunlight requires either a flash or a tripod... and if do you take a picture in direct sunlight, it ends up overexposed and washed out. The above pictures were taken with the new camera using ambient light from a floor lamp; no flash, no tripod. I'm hoping better camera = better pictures = prettier blog. :)

One last FO for 2007

Well, I got a version of the Clapotis done for my grandmother. It became evident in the week leading up to Christmas that I wasn't going to be able to finish a full-length scarf in time, so I switched gears and made it into a neckwarmer/cowl.



It's about 2.5 feet long when laid out flat, so there's plenty of fabric to play around with. I added two buttons and buttonholes, so it can either be fastened with the ends crossed like how I have them in the picture, or fastened so it meets end to end, or not buttoned at all and held closed with a pin or brooch. It's loaded with options. I was really happy with it, and may even make a version for myself down the road. :)

Happy New Year!

A little bit of Christmas knitting

Think I can have this done by Christmas?



It's the start of a Clapotis scarf for my grandmother, which I started over the weekend. I'm into the straight row repeats now, so this is the part that can just go on cruise control. It's narrow enough that I can get a row done whenever I have a spare minute. I even had it with me at 'Legal Issues for Supervisors' training and worked on it during our "Go get water or go to the restroom" break (today, volunteer supervision; tomorrow, world conquest. One step at a time, people.) I think I can get this scarf done if I make a conscious push to do so.



The yarn is nice stuff. It's RYC Luxury Cotton, which is 2 plies of cotton and 2 plies of viscose/silk. It's a little splitty, but show me a cotton that isn't. The viscose/silk plies give it some sheen without being gaudy, and it feels like it will have a good drape once it's finished and blocked. Hopefully in 13 days. :)

Handmade holidays

I had a most awesome day off yesterday. First off, Sarah's in town for the weekend, so it was awesome to see her for the first time since July or so. A group of us got together yesterday morning to decorate onesies as a baby shower-ish gathering for Jolene, and we had a blast being total craft geeks. Yay for my days in college making letter shirts for APO; blanket stitch FTW!

After that, it was off to tea. Now, I have always had a picture in my head of what "going to tea" involves. Etiquette. Straw hats. Hoity-toity-ness. Tiny sandwiches. Pinky fingers sticking out. You know... proper, snooty tea.

The place we went to, Teavolve in Fells Point, was not at all what I was expecting from a tea room. It's not formal; there were people in there with laptops, everyone was wearing jeans. We each got a pot of whatever tea we chose, and a scone with clotted cream and raspberry preserves, 3 sandwiches and a deviled egg, and a little dessert plate at the end. We ended up being there for almost 3 hours, and despite the fact that this was one of those days where caffeine reacted badly with my nervous system, it was a lot of fun.

We had our handmade gift exchange, and to all those who saw the socks Sarah made for me and didn't think they would possibly fit, I say this:



Sarah, they are DEAD-ON! The yarn is Socks That Rock in Pallas Athena, one of their new Raven Clan colorways. I know she said what the pattern is, but I was busy admiring them and convincing everyone that my feet are actually that small. They came wrapped up in this bag that she made, which has skulls on the outside and is shiny purple on the inside. And there were also some yummy hand-dipped chocolate mint candies. Hot. ;)



Thanks, Sarah, for being a fantastic gift buddy!