You know it's time for knitting when I say it's knitting time!

So, I'm happy to say that the Brooklyn Birthing Center seemed really nice. I went on a tour there yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised at how homey it was. I have my first appointment there 2 weeks from Friday.

I'm almost done knitting the turtle that I started 2 months ago. I stopped working on it for a while, because I started to hate the i-cord edging that I had to do. But I picked it up the other day and it was like "What's the big deal?" It was easy. So now I just need to attach the legs and embroider some eyes onto it, and voila! I will have a Sheldon for Gwendolyn. I'm sure she'll come up with a cute name for him.

Then I'll work on the little cardigan for Gwen. It's so cute and simple, I don't know why I've been procrastinating working on it. It's purple & white striped. I can't wait to pick out some adorable buttons for it...

Achy breaky head...

My head is killing me. A nice woman from my knitting group (Hi Penelope!) drove me to the subway station after the group let out, and as I was getting out of her car, I bashed my head on the top of the car. It still hurts, 2 hours later. That's not so good. I mean, it's not bad enough to be a concussion, but I kind of feel like I lost a few IQ points.

We found a home for Ralph, the new cat from the street! My mom's friend Ellen is taking him in on Friday for a "trial run", but I think it's likely that she'll keep him permanently. He's a pretty sweet little cat.

Organizing My Yarn

Yesterday I realized that my yarn is getting out of control. 5 good-sized boxes and I don't know where a lot of stuff is! Once Michael's stuff is gone, I'm going to use the closet in his old room to really organize my yarn in an attractive way. But for now, I'll settle for having it organized within the boxes.



I have these 4 boxes, plus a cardboard one in another room. See how the balls of yarn are loose inside the boxes, not within bags or anything? It was chaos.

So now, I organized all the yarn into bags as follows:

Green Fabric Box:
All needles, accessories, etc. (Everything that’s not yarn), plus Araucania Ranco Solid in purple (to be used for Grandma's shawl)

Medium Plastic Box:
Bag #1: SWTC, Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Plymouth, Sunshine Yarns, Brooks Farm
Bag #2: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease
Bag #3: All other Lion Brand, All Lily dishcloth cotton
Bag #4: All sock yarn - Lorna’s Laces, Lulubeans, etc

Large Plastic Box #1:
All Cascade (except destash)
All Brown Sheep
All Patons
Bag of unknown partial skeins (I think most are Knitpicks WotA)

Large Plastic Box #2:
Bottom bags: All DESTASH (For Trade/Sell)
Top bags: Weird Lithuanian yarn, ALL ALPACA bag

Cardboard box:
Yarn that still needs to be photographed
Bag #5: Malabrigo Worsted & Lace, Jaggerspun Lace, Blue Moon lace, Jojoland Harmony, GGH Magica & Bel Air
Bag X (small): Noro Kureyon, Berroco Jasper, Araucania Pomaire in teal
Araucania Bag: Araucania Pomaire in pink/orange (sweater quantity)

It's all back in the boxes, but it's much more organized now. And I have all my stash on Ravelry marked where it is! Now it will be a million times more easy to remember where all my yarn is!

"Care for a little necrophilia?"

Poor John has been sick for days. It looks like strep throat or something along those lines, but his ears are also filled with fluid. He got antibiotics yesterday but he took today off, and I'm sure he'll take tomorrow off, too. It's a bit of a shame since tomorrow he'd get time & a half for MLK Jr. Day. Oh well.

I finally organized my circular needles today! I've been planning on it for months. I got these expanding file pockets in... October, I think!



The insides:




...Now I just have to tackle my yarn stash. That's a MUCH bigger job, and Michael's closet has to be emptied first. Stupid boy hasn't moved all of his stuff out yet, and he's impossible to get a hold of. Hopefully next weekend, John and I will go to Long Island, and then we can just drag it all out to him. Even though he should really do it himself, I'm anxious to have that closet free, so we'll just have to cram all his stuff in the car for him! Oh well.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

New Year's Eve was a really fun, crazed night. I paid the consequences the next day for too much drinking fun, though... Ooof, I'm never doing that again.

I'm in Long Island for the week, cat-sitting for Brenda. I'm getting a lot of knitting done. Today I nearly finished this piece of cherry pie! I can't completely finish it, though, because the toy stuffing is back at home, and I have to stuff it before I finish sewing it up. Here's a picture of it nearly complete, though:



I also started on a scarf for myself, Midwest Moonlight (Ravelry link) from the book Scarf Style. At first I was cranky with all the careful row counting, but I'm starting to like the look of it.

The weather outside is NOT frightful

It is ridiculously nice and warm out today. 64 degrees (Fahrenheit) outside and it's 3 days after Christmas! Very weird. I wonder if this is some kind of record.

The cats are thrilled and they've been out in the backyard for over an hour. I'm concerned Bogart won't be back until it's very late. He's probably prowling around, reminding all the other cats on the street that he's still in charge!

I got some nice Christmas gifts, plus the sweetest package from Christine, who took Blakely the cat -- Freaking GORGEOUS Malabrigo, a skein of sock yarn that matches Blakely's fur, 2 knitting related books that I've been wanting for a long while, some pretty stationery, and a sweet card thanking me for giving the cat to her.



So sweet of her! As for other gifts, John procrastinated his Christmas shopping so much that all I actually got on Christmas day from him was a video game (albeit a cool one), but he came with me to the knitting store and ordered me a yarn swift and ball winder. So YAY!! No more winding balls by hand!

Commercials are stupid.

This ad is so creepy. Therefore I must share it with the rest of you:



Also, John showed me this great commercial from when he was a kid, about poison control...



I've been singing it all day! Okay, now I have to go knit swatches...

Stupid banks.

My bank got bought out. Details here. This sucks. I really liked Washington Mutual. Then again, any bank is better than the one I had before, Apple Bank. They were AWFUL. I mean, totally incompetent.

This economic disaster thing sucks the big one.

I had my 2nd crochet class last night! Unfortunately there are only 2, but I learned a bit -- I'm still a total newbie, but I'm psyched about learning more. And I'm looking into taking a class that can make me a Certified knitting instructor, which I'm very excited about. I'm waiting to hear about if the class is full yet -- Hopefully not, in which case I'll be taking it in about 3 weeks.

The neverending baby blanket

I started this entrelac baby blanket back in June, for Andy (Doug's baby), and I'm still knitting it. It's only about a third done. Granted, I've taken a few breaks from it -- some of those breaks were a week or 2 long -- But it's taking freaking forever!

Now Brenda told me that she's going to Florida the first weekend of October, to see Doug and family, and I'm wondering: Can I get the blanket done in time? If I make a push and work on it every day, could I really get it done?

15 tiers of entrelac to go. If I work my butt off, I think I could knit half a tier per day. That's 30 days. No. I can't do it. Seriously. I mean, if I was going to work on the thing 8 hours a day, I could probably swing it, but I am NOT willing to do that! My hands will ache and just... poo. Oh well. I guess it will have to be a Christmas gift.

I'm hoping to hear back soon about freelance knitting. Veryyyy anxious. I really want to be able to do this. Everyone send "CALL ME!" vibes!!

DPNs, I have defeated you!

I'm so proud of myself! I have totally mastered DPNs! I'm knitting a secret project (for a swap on Ravelry) that is much simpler on DPNs, and I totally jumped in with no problem. This is my 3rd time using them and I'm finally comfortable with them.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, DPNs = Double-Pointed Needles. Knitting with them is kind of like trying to use 4 (sometimes 5) chopsticks at once! This means I'm finally ready to conquer SOCKS!

I hung out with Abby and she helped me with the embroidery part of the project. I suck at sewing, so it was a relief to have her do that part for me! Thanks Abs!

Wii Fit... And the job for John!!

So, the city investigative job that John has been waiting and waiting to hear about (and was really starting to doubt he would get it) finally called... And he GOT IT!! He is thrilled and has been telling everyone. He starts training on July 7th.

Unfortunately, this means probably no Hawaii trip in August. :-( We'll have to see, maybe he'll be able to get time off between training and starting the actual job, but it seems unlikely.

In other news, I have been working my ass off on the Wii Fit for the past week. I've only missed one day (Monday), and made up for it by working out for an hour and a half yesterday! Still haven't lost any weight, but that probably has something to do with the big dinners I had Sunday and Monday night.

I'm about to start this blanket for John's nephew Andy, who's just a month old. It's okay to give them a blankie in August, right??