Plath’s Adventures

A little knitting progress

I’ve been jumpy with my knitting this week. I’ve worked a little on this and a little on that, so my pictures aren’t that exciting, but I still have pictures today.

Here is the felted lunch bag I’m working on for my mom:

I had to order some more Kureyon for it, since the two skeins in my stash were not enough. I really don’t know what I was thinking when I cast on for it with my measly two skeins. BUT, I got super lucky, as an Ebay seller had three skeins for sale in the same dyelot. Whew!

Here is my brown Raglan:

I’m gaining ground slowly but surely.

The good news, is that my replacement Denise cable arrived this week; that’s a big relief off my shoulders, so I can bring them on our trip! I’m trying to determine what projects I’ll take with me. I already packed 2 balls of Knitpicks Parade for a pair of socks for me. I’m not sure what else to bring… I’m thinking a simple scarf of some sort. I cast on for a boring garter stitch out of the Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed I bought at the LYS a month or so ago (go figure that Elann is selling it now), but I think I might frog and try the wavy scarf from Knitty. Rox’s looks great, but I’m not sure it’s the right choice for this yarn… I probably don’t have enough either… I only have 3 skeins… Decisions Decisions!

I have picked out my vacation reading, however. I’ve already packed Middlesex. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while, and the Detroit-area references intrigue me as well.

In other reading news, I finished Tess of the D’Urbervilles and while I greatly enjoyed it, I really wish I hadn’t read the inside cover before reading it. Knowing Thomas Hardy’s style, I knew it wouldn’t be uplifting, but the inside cover gave the entire story away! How dare they. I also picked up and read Ash Wednesday by Ethan Hawke (yep, he writes books!). It was surprisingly decent. I had read his first book, The Hottest State back in college, but I don’t really remember it much.

I also joined

It looks to be great fun, especially as I’m in a classics frame of mind right now. I just started The Return of the Native (and made sure to get a copy that didn’t give away the ending!). I also picked up A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at the library this morning.

I’m looking forward to the new Pride and Prejudice movie, as well, although I don’t know if it can compete with the fanstastic version already out there:
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Sigh. I love that movie (and book)!

Back to getting my list done for today. Lots of things left to do before we leave!

Weekend List
1. Clean kitchen
2. Clean bathroom
3. Clean out refridgerator
4. Empty litter box and clean it
5. Finish packing
6. Knit!

Florida here we come!

Friday’s To Do List

1. Struggle to move furniture and rugs from entryway, hallway, living room, kitchen and dining room.
2. Curse at said furniture and scratch up the floor
3. Vacuum entire house
4. Open up the cabinet and find box of Swiffer wipes empty and no cleaning solution. Curse again.
5. Brave the cold weather to buy said cleaning supplies and other groceries I must have since I stupidly went to the store without eating breakfast
6. Swiffer entire house
7. Piss off fuel oil delivery man who tried to deliver fuel oil when we didn’t order it from his company, we only called for a price, which was 50 cents/gallon more expensive than the company who will be delivering it on Monday.
8. Give Marzi a bath
9. Find time to knit.
10. Scrounge up something for dinner.

!!!!!!
I started my mom’s felted lunchbag yesterday. I decided to use the Noro Kureyon I was saving for a felted stocking. After all, my mom’s worth it, right? No pics yet.

Another present down!

I decided, a few months ago, to not do the whole knitting presents thing this year. I thought that maybe I’d knit a few things for Jason, and that would be it. Well, the bug hit me. Grrrrrr. Here are my finished socks for my brother.

I used this free pattern for footies, and knit the largest women’s size.
Yarn: less than 2 skeins Knitpicks Parade in Checkers.

I’m thinking my next project will be a felted lunchbag for my mom, but I’m nervous to start a felted project after my pumpkin massacre a little while ago. Yeeks. She recently took a job at the library after 27 years of being a stay-at-home-Mom. I’m so proud of her for that. I also need to work on the Chocolate Waffle socks, that I think will be for my dad, but I’m dreading them for some reason. I think if I finish the first sock, I’ll feel much better. They feel as though they take sooo much longer because of the pattern that travels down the foot and the fact that they’re knit on 1s.

No idea what to knit MIL or SIL or if I’ll even attempt something for them. I know MIL wore one of the scarves I knit her last year (which shocked me!), but I’m not sure SIL appreciated her gifts (mittens and a scarf)… maybe I’ll just knit them some dishcloths or something. I *might* knit up one of the ruffley scarfs in Handknit Holidays in the kidsilk haze I have in my stash for SIL just because I want to knit it with that yarn. Perhaps that’ll be one of the projects I take on vacation.

I’ve still been scrapping a bit. If you want to see a slideshow of some of my pages click here.

A Quickie Before Work

The past few days, I’ve set aside my brown knitting (although thank you all who left me compliments on it!), and cast on for some new shiny projects. Ok, maybe not so shiny, but still new and non-brown. I like brown as much as the next guy, but the repetition was getting to me.

First up, we have my newest FO:

It’s the ruffley scarf from Handknit Holidays. I used Elann’s Peruvian 100% alpaca, and it’s so soft. The problem, however, was that I thought I had 3 skeins of the yarn, and got halfway through and realized I only could find two, so I had to skip the last increase section, and it turned out not much different from my other ruffley scarf I knit before. I pulled half the yarn out of my yarn shelf looking for the missing ball and still couldn’t find it. Well, what did I find yesterday? Yep, the lonely ball of alpaca. Grrrr!!! The scarf is super-soft though and decadent. It’s going to be gifted, so it went right back into my basket so I’m not tempted to wear it myself.

I managed to complete a few more FOs yesterday as well.

Sorry the picture sucks; my camera batteries were about to die and it’s dark in the living room.
I joined a couple ornament swaps, and I’m thinking these would be perfect! They turned out so adorable (and MUCH cuter in person). I used this great, easy to follow pattern.

I also cast on for a new pair of socks. These will be for my brother. He only wears tiny ankle socks, and they’re in his school colors; he goes to Miami University.

They’re working up fast on size 2 needles with the Knitpicks Parade yarn; I’ve already turned the heel!

P.S. SP, I did notice your little mistake, and I must confess that I clicked it, but I read no more than a few words, realized what I was doing and clicked out. I edited your comment, as well, so I won’t be tempted in the future to go back and check out your blog until the SP round is over! So, your secret is still safe, because I can’t remember your blog URL.

Shades of Brown

I took a look at my knitting today and realized every WIP is brown. Brown socks, brown sweater, blah blah blah. Which is rather coincidental, because looking at the trees earlier this week, the vivid oranges and scarlets were losing their color and turning… you guessed it, brown. My knitting matches the environment. Am I trying to camouflage? Or am I expressing my mood?

I haven’t been in a good mood this week, some crap went down at work that I don’t want to post about, Jason has been very busy and stressed out at his job and is frantically trying to finish up the garage before the snow hits, so I haven’t seen him as much as I’d like, I’ve been PMSing which is always a joy, LOST has been reruns, and I’m just being a big cranky baby. Boo hoo. Maybe now that I’ve posted about it, I’ll feel better.
I need to keep reminding myself of my things to look forward to.

Things to look forward to:
Our Florida vacation! We leave Nov 22nd.
LOST is a new episode this week!

Brown Knitting

Chocolate Waffle progress. I haven’t worked much on this at home this past week, but they have been my “work” project for lunchtime and prep hours. I cast on for this for Pixie Purl’s Solid Sock-a-long, but I’m not sure if she approves of the yarn. It’s a hand-dyed brown that’s slightly variegated perhaps, but I think it’s more kettle dyed in my opinion. Oh well.

I picked up my (wo)Men’s Knitting Pure and Simple Top down Raglan this week, as well. I’m calling it a (wo)men’s, because it’s the Men’s pattern, but it’s going to be for me. I’ve been wanting a floppy boyfriend-type sweater and think this will fit the bill nicely. However, while working on it yesterday, one of my Denise cables snapped. Again. This is the second problem I’ve had with it and I’m really bummed because I was planning on taking them with me to Florida and don’t think a replacement will show up in time I wanted that particular cable length for a scarf pattern I wanted to try.

I’ve really been scrapbooking more than knitting this week. I scrapped quite a few pages of our wedding (3 years ago!), and a ton of pages of Marzi and Patches. When I was a kid, I loved looking at my Mom and Dad’s old pictures, so I hope our future kids enjoy looking through my scrapbook albums. It’s funny how I think of these invisible kids we have when I’m scrapping. Does that make me weird?

P.S. Thank you SP for the ecard!

Books listed on Ebay.

I’ve been feeling like crap the past two days, so I’m going to go huddle down with some hot tea and a book. Just started Tess of the d’Urbervilles, a classic I’ve never read before. It’s by Thomas Hardy; and I loved Jude the Obscure , which he also wrote. I’m enjoying it so far, but it’s very depressing.

Rox asked me how I liked The Amityville Horror (2005)) and Saw (Uncut Edition), so I figured I’d post in case anyone else was wondering. Amityville Horror was a little scarier, it seemed to me, with more “jump out of your seat” scariness, although I thought the original The Amityville Horror was much better, although I haven’t seen it in MANY years, so it might not be scary to me today. I read the book a long time ago, which is supposed to be nonfiction, and the family was involved with the first movie. They were unhappy with the making of the newest version, I read. The Saw was definitely a better movie, and I’m looking forward to the sequel. It had me going, “What?” at the end, which I rather enjoyed.

Since I’m on the topic of reviews, I ordered

from Amazon a few weeks ago, and am in love with it! I don’t know that there’s a TON that I’d knit from it, but the felted ornament balls are definitely on my list, and the Ruffled scarves are already in the plans for a couple gifts! It definitely ranks up there with Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and Weekend Knitting. 3 books I can just browse through and feel inspired anytime I need a little knitting pick-me-up.

One more link I forgot yesterday:

Go Join the Ornament Exchange! I just love handmade ornaments, and I can’t wait to hang a new one, made by someone else, on my tree this year!