Day Off + Eye Dr. = Yarn!

I have been getting a lot of headaches at work lately. FINALLY figured out that it was probably my eyes. So today I took a day off from work and went to the eye Dr. and got my peepers looked at. I am getting new glasses and will order new contacts next week if the new prescription is working. (I am trying out a lower prescription on my contacts - so we will see if this works out.) If the new contacts don't work - We head to bifocals. Uffda.  Honestly I didn't know you could get a bi-focal in contacts. I find that amazing! Apparently they are rather spendy though - so the longer I can put them off the better for my pocket book!

So after my eye Dr. appointment I went next door to the yarn store and had fun blowing money on a few things. I am proud to say that I went in with two projects in mind and got all the supplies I need to make both of them. And I only bought two things that were not on my list.

The first was this Lotion Bar. I have been wanting to try one of these for quite some time and when I saw this on the counter I had to grab it. The company is Milk & Honey and I am loving this product! I already wish I had bought more than one bar.

 My other splurge was this ball of Noro Hitsuji. I went back to it over and over and then I just said "Screw it! YOU are coming home with me!" I really had no choice.

On my list of things to get was the yarn for a vest I found on Ravelry called George Sand. It is a $3.00 pattern and I knew I wanted to make it the minute I saw it. The Cascade 220 will be the main color and then I will work the pattern in the Noro Silk Garden. I ended up going with really bold Noro because I really want the pattern to pop out of the dark grey yarn. It will be my first vest so I am excited and nervous. I have the pattern, needles and yarn - so I just have to ball the yarn and then cast on! WOOT!

And finally I bought the yarn to make a little afghan to replace the one I use in the bedroom. Since I am always frozen I have a couple of blankets I throw on top of me every night in addition to our other blankets. One of them is an afghan that my mom crocheted in acrylic in the early 70's or maybe even the 60's? The colors are Hot pink, neon green, yellow.... it's just LOUD. Add to that it's scratchy as hell. My hubby calls it the Luffa blanket because it's so scratchy it can take the calluses off your feet. (Ouch!) So I decided I should probably knit a replacement.

This past spring I knit a baby blanket for our neighbors I called And the Bee goes Buzzzz and loved it so much I had a hard time giving it away. The pattern was simple and you just hold two strands of worsted together. It goes pretty fast and the yarn I used softened up a lot after a wash and dry. I found some blue and gray yarn (to go with the colors of our bedroom) and will soon be knitting my new blanket. The pattern can be found in a wonderful book called Plymouth Yarn 636, The Encore 8-Hour Baby Blanket...Revisited and although I have only made one blanket from it so far I have to say I see myself keeping this book forever. Perfect go-to for baby blanket gifts.

Wednesday night pig out

I have been hungry lately. I mean HUNGRY. Hard to stop eating - pacing around like a tiger in a cage hungry. It sucks. I think it's holiday hangover - but regardless of the reason its my current reality. So in an effort to slap the hungry girl down a bit, I have been trying to branch out in my veggie eating. I have seen a lot on spaghetti squash lately - so I picked one up this weekend.

I had very little clue about how to eat this thing or cook it for that matter. Yay for Google! I found this wonderful tutorial on Food.com and decided to try the boil in a pot method. (Mostly because I didn't have a nice poking device for ... well.... poking it with. I know I have a metal skewer somewhere....)



So I filled a pot with water. The pot had to be big enough to cover the squash. Being inexperienced in this I had concerns. Is it supposed to float? How will it cook evenly? Turns out the squash sort of rolled in the boiling water - which was really neat! The downside to boiling a squash is you kind of have to hang out in the kitchen while it cooks. They said up to a half hour (I gave it 45 minutes) to get your squash cooked, so I grabbed a magazine and a glass of wine!

I have to say I didn't have high hopes for the February Knit 'n Style based on the cover sweater. (Didn't I wear this in 1993?) But I actually found quite a few things of interest in this magazine. If you click here you can see the Gallery of the items featured in the magazine. I really love the knit Bulky Cabled Vest by Melissa Leapman. I have been aching to knit myself a vest for about a year now - and this one is so interesting. A bit of peek-a-boo with the cables so your shirt under the vest shows. Really like this! (Wonder how it would look on my size rather than a model though?)

I also really liked the shaping of the Kaleidoscope sweater. Not thrilled with the pattern of the yarn - but the shaping of the sweater itself is nice. I think this would be nice in a solid or ombre yarn. Maybe even kettle dyed.

The Lattice Pullover with Peplum was neat too. Reminds me of the Jane Austin Knits magazine that was all the rage in the last few months.

I also really liked the Nordic Ice sweater. Pretty basic Nordic design - but I am really geeking out on Nordic Sweaters right now. I kind of want to knit a giant Lopi Sweater.

So I enjoyed my flip through the magazine and the wine was pretty nice too. :) Before I knew it my squash was done. (I stuck a fork in it and it went in easy - that's how you know it's cooked.) So I dumped it out in the sink and let it cool for a minute while I washed the pan. Then I cut it in half.

It was still quite hot at this point. You can see the seeds in there a little bit. I had to get those out - so I grabbed a spoon and started scooping away the seeds and attached squash. (This was kind of like scooping seeds out of a pumpkin - but a lot warmer. Boiling a squash for 45 minutes REALLY makes it warm. Just saying.)

Once the seeds were out I grabbed a fork and started pulling the squash out. Wow. You get a LOT Of squash! The outer skin sort of peels off and a half squash filled this plate up and then some. I ended up taking one cup of Wee Willy's Pasta Sauce and just a shake of reduced fat Parmesan cheese on top. It was really good and SO filling! I could have halved the amount I ate easily. As it was, I pigged out and got really full and did it guilt free. A very healthy dinner and I am quite pleased.

AND I have a nice bunch of leftovers for lunch tomorrow too! Yay!

Nimbus Cowl

I came home tonight and my Nimbus Cowl was done blocking! Yay! Another finished object!

This cowl is a free pattern on Ravelry called the Stacked Eyelet Cowl. I knit this out of Zitron Nimbus (you see now where I got the name, yeah?) and I used about 1.75 skeins of yarn. The pattern was very easy and the eyelet rows keep you from snoring. Love how it blocked out.

Here you see Emma modeling it. It looks really good on her - but she would just destroy the heck out of this - so..... I guess I will just have to keep it for me!

This is actually really perfect for wearing with my black pea coat. It covers up that open neck perfectly - giving just a really nice pop of color. Another happy project!

More detailed notes on my Nimbus Cowl can be found in my Ravelry Project Page.

Ladybug Picnic

My first finished object of 2012! WOOT! I started working on this WAY back in July of last summer, a simple project I started for a family picnic. The pattern is a free one on Ravely called Scrunchable Scarf and it's a pretty popular pattern. Wonderful use of a single skein and an easy pattern to memorize.

All that being said it was boring boring boring and I had to force myself to work on it. Which is why it took me about 6 months to finish a simple scarf.

The yarn is by Pagewood Farms and is called Kissi. 210 yards of 100% merino wool - it reminds me a lot of Malabrigo but more expensive. The colors in this and the squish of the yarn were so amazing that I had to have it.

The length after I soaked it in Eucalin (See bottom picture for a look at the dye that came out of this puppy!) was just over Six feet! I was surprised by how long it got. This made blocking a bit interesting. I was worried about laying my blocking blocks on the floor with oodles of pins sticking out. Our cat has never pulled out my pins - but I don't want to tempt her. So I folded the scarf in half and used a rolled towel to pull the scarf taut. I then pinned the towel and it worked just perfect!

The finished scarf is quite pretty and I am very pleased with it! Love the colors in it - I suspect it will "go with" almost anything since there is a ton of colors in there. It's quite soft and squishy still. And the length ended up making it versatile in how I can wrap it around my neck. I am very pleased!
 

And here is the "bath water" to demonstrate how much dye came out of this yarn after a soak. As usual, blocking made a huge difference in this project. I am more and more a fan of blocking even though it delays my gratification.

More specific project notes can be found on my project page on Ravelry.

100 Posts Strong!

My 100th post! WOOT! I went to google images and typed in "100" and this was the image that smoked to me. Errr. Spoke to me. (Yeah - I miss smoking thank you very much.)

My hubby and I tease each other that when we get to be a zillion we will take up all the habits we quit. The healthier I get the more I realize I don't want to go back to my eating like a pig and smoking like a chimney ways.

I wish smoking was healthy. **sigh** Alas, it's very not healthy. Pity that. And I wish eating at Red Lobster made your heart stronger and gave you an instant orgasm. Sadly.... that too would be a no.

So I celebrate being "100" today, even if it's only in Blog post form. And while I am at it, I will send out a whisper to the universe that I might see 100 years as well. :)

Thank you for being here with me.

Where you at?!?

Time management is a bugger sometimes. I want to blog on a close to daily basis. Like 5-7 times a week. Lately I can barely squeak a weekly post in. I thought once the holidays were over I would settle down, but I don't feel like I can find a rhythm lately. It's tough.

I have been continuing to work on my health goals. I am proud to say I lost weight every single week of the holiday season and am now over the 40 lb loss for my overall weight loss and over the 25 lb mark on weight watchers. I often think about how much that weight is and try to savor it NOT being on my body anymore. So when I pick something up (like the 25 pound box of cat litter this weekend) and I am grunting away trying to get it into the grocery cart, I try and stop and say "this is how much you were walking around with on your body last August - and you dropped 15 pounds more to boot!" It's so easy to just see yourself as the same weight when you are slowly melting it off a pound or two a week. So I think it's good to step back and appreciate the enormity of the accomplishments.

Over the last couple of weeks I changed my work out routine and I now set a goal of 6 days a week. I do three days of tread milling for an hour session and three days of Zumba on the Wii (45 minute session.) I still love Zumba. Still smile while I am sweating my butt off. Love it.

And just so this post isn't all about me sweating my bum off, here are a few gratuitous pet photos.

 Emma is our dog and she is looking at me like I am a nutball for snapping her picture. You can see the curtain is parted - she loves to scope the front yard for raccoons and paper carriers in the mornings. (Not much else going on at this hour of the morning - you can see it's still dark out....) Izzi, our cat, is curled up in the heated cat bed and just happy to doze.

This is a day or two later. I think it was pretty cold out this morning. They were both curled up together in here when I came out for my coffee refill. (Please excuse the ghost eyes - it was dark in here and I had to use a flash.) My girls are just too cute.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2012! WOOT! I have decided (and therefore it shall be so) that 2012 will be an awesome and wonderful year. Boom. I said it. I am putting it out there. I said it out loud AND typed it in my blog - so it's in Real Life AND virtual.

My goals for 2012:
 - I want to continue surprising myself with how healthy and fit I feel. I want to surpass my expectations.
 - I want to ride my bike this spring/summer/fall and have a taste of what it was like as a child and not this horrible thing it has become as an adult - A very sore butt and a lesson in how old and out of shape I am.
- I want to resolve some health issues. (Personal crap.)
- I want to knit my first sweater for me! (Only one sweater knit so far - it was for a baby and the recipients were ungrateful bastards.... boo. I need sweater gratification!)
 - I want to continue working on mending my soul.
 - Job?!?! Issues galore. Work. It. Out.

AND I want to continue to reduce what I own and go from being a little in debt to being the queen of saving.

Is that too much to ask?!?! I think not. Go baby go!

Happy New Year all who read this. I wish you good fortune, good health and good fiber. May at least one of your dreams come true this year. Make it so!

XOXO