As you may know, my husband had to have emergency back surgery the first week of January.  It was a huge surprise to us, one minute he was fine, next minute he needed surgery.  So we did the surgery and prepared for it, but we didn’t even think about the recovery time or what recovery meant.  It turned into a 3 month stint on disability for my hubby and alot of personal loving nurse care from me  for him.     We were concerned for awhile but after therapy and regaining his strength, he actually returned to his job, in full capacity, in mid-March.  He’s got full mobility and we do our regular running every other day.  Were so grateful for his recovery, believe me we heard horror stories about back surgery.  Anyways, the weekend prior to his return to work, we celebrated with a mini-honeymoon celebration in San Francisco.

Here are some pics to share:

Che’ and I by Neptune’s Palace

Do you see that knitted shrug I’m wearing?  I’m so bad, I haven’t shared this FO yet, but I love it!  I need to take better pics so I can do it justice.

I just had to take a picture of this guy, it was so odd, he wasn’t scared of anybody.  I literally walked right up to him.

Ooh, it was St. Patrick’s, look at the bread in the shape of a clover!

Check out this little guy!  They had larger ones, but I just couldn’t resist me a wee-baby turtle!

Now this was pretty cool, you may have caught on my FB page.  I almost took a picture with him!

So what’s on the next post, some fun FO’s to share.  I’ll try to get another post out this Friday!

A great feeling this Mother’s day, sorry for the digression there, I’m just felt like sharing some of the my adventures. My husband treated me all weekend, just being at my beck and call, even though he really always is for me like that. I had a BBQ’d tri-tip, grilled asparagus, and stuffed mushrooms for dinner, hmmm! Ooh, and a drumstick for desert, YUM-O! Plus roses from my hubby. My kids bought me an awesome Twilight t-shirt from Hot Topic, I love IT! My Mother bought me the book “The Host” by Stephenie Meyer with $40 in it for spending.

Here’s my happy face!

To all Mother’s, “Happy Mother’s Day!”

Yes, my son is a wrestler, to my surprise! Of all the sports for him to gain interest in, he chooses Wrestling. It’s perfectly fine for me; any type of athletic participation makes me happy. I’m always encouraging my kids to participate in sports. He joined the wrestling team without any coercion by me, which made me even happier.

Regardless, what makes this even more interesting is that his Wrestling tournament is at my former High School, Abraham Lincoln here in San Jose. So it was an overwhelmingly nostalgic Saturday, filled with excitement to see my son wrestle. I never would’ve of thought back in High School that 15 years later, I would be visiting it to watch my 13.5 year old son wrestle.

Lincoln High School has a real “classic” look to it, a very nice visually looking school. I remember when I used to go there; I had always admired the architecture of the buildings, and the style. It all still looks the same, with some changes to the Quad area.

The Front of the School

That lawn has seen many a high school student sit and eat lunch.

The Main Entrance

The stoop here, was always very popular with the more social clique’s, I actually have a picture of all my friends posing in front of this back in 1994.

The back area by the Quad

This was a little getaway area, away from the watchful eyes of “Yard Duties”

In the Gym

I remember working out in this gym, and coming here after swim class.

Classic stairs

They sure don’t make them like this anymore; I really do love this school. It reminds me of the school in Grease!

The Hallway

I can still remember my first time going to the school to register for my classes. I had joined late, about a month into the start of the school year for my 10th year. My luck, I had to register during the school day, right smack during lunch time and of course all the students were just “all too curious” to see who the “new girl” was. Even funnier, my cousin was horrified that his “fave cuz” was going to go to school with him. He’s my fave cuz, like a brother, but it was his way of giving me a hard time.

“The Man”

Yes this is the one I met at 9 years old, and remembered him when I saw him in 10th grade that first day of school. We started dating shortly after and now we have 2 teenage kids.. hmmm…

ME

Me, walking into the main building with memories filling my head.

A distasteful addition

This is a new theatre that was added smack in the middle of the Quad area, and it’s horrible. Granted having a full theatre is great for a school, but I was upset that they didn’t match or even attempt to blend in the style with the rest of the buildings.

I say good-bye to my former high school, but it still has a special hold for me, it was the “Lincoln Lions”, and still is, for me I’m a Lioness at heart, both in spirit and in sign.

Well I’ve been working on a secret personal project, that for now I can’t share, but maybe someday soon, I’m aiming for later this year. It isn’t related to knitting, but I can’t say that knitting won’t be a part of it. It’s a different passion of mines that I’ve always aspired too, and hopefully I’ll make it happen. It’s the right time in my life for me right now to do this, so wish me luck I would shed more light on “what it is” but for now, I need to keep it under wraps.

The project I’ve been working on requires a lot of research, a lot of soul-searching and a lot of time to think. I’ve slowly started trying to balance my other passions, like knitting, which I love, and need to focus on balancing it more. On top of this, there’s the normal work grind and raising my kids, although their both completely self sufficient, they require more “mental” support from me and my husband. When your kids get to the teenage years, the game changes, and a lot of questions are asked about decisions for their future, about life in general.

It’s too easy when their big to forget about them in the sense that you don’t have to “babysit” them, as it once was required. You know when their babies, toddlers, little kids, they can get into anything, and it involves a lot of “physical” stamina to keep them safe. There’s also planning the college layout for my daughter, which has actually turned out better than planned, because my daughter put the effort forward and was promoted to a TA for her class. Lastly, there’s my son who begged to go to a completely different High School than my daughter, it was first a deliberate “NO” from me, but eventually I reached a compromise with him and I think it was probably the best decision I’ve made thus far for him. It means a lot of commitment on his part, like being responsible for his own transportation, keeping his grades in the A range, and also getting involved in sports. He is now on the wrestling team, it was a major surprise to us, but he did it and now is learning the brains of wrestling. Ok, so are you sick of my life now? LOL!

Onto the more fun stuff and exactly what this blog post needs!

Granted this is a late share, but hey, better late than never!

My Stitches Loot, yes it’s small, I was practicing restraint the whole time, and now that I see what I bought, I’m amazed at how little it is!

From Plymouth Yarns, Baby Alpaca, in a black tweedish colorway, so soft! Suri lace, now this, it is the green ball you see there, this fiber is the softest I’ve felt ever, and that little ball has over 400 yards! There’s also some naturally dyed fiber from “A Verb for Knitting” in black. I love this so much, I just had to buy some when I saw it and I have to say again, WonderMike is the nicest! He was working the booth when Marisol and I visited. Another friend, Leslie a.k.a. Tapmouse, was working the BMF booth and she aptly pointed out the LSS goodie in my hand in the Muddy Bottom Breakdown colorway as being a “Rocky” color, and she is so right! I love it, the beige is just too gorgeous, I just don’t know what to make with it! Lastly I purchased the cutest bull magnet, cause I love magnets! And that’s it for the loot, not a lot, but definitely pleasing.

Now, I have some knitting time scheduled, that’s my plan, to block out specific times to knit otherwise I’ll get lost in my private project if I don’t.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Here are the rules:

1. Go to your pictures on your computer

2. Open the 6th folder

3. Choose the 6th picture

4. Show the picture on your blog and write something about it.

5. Invite 6 new people to this challenge.

6. Link to them and let them know they have been tagged.

Well is it no surprise that my picture is this gorgeous guy? Who I’m just a huge fan of now, and I can’t seem to get enough info on him.

This is Rob Pattinson at the 2009 Oscars, he looks very handsome and I love his temperament, I’m especially eager to see Little Ashes which is set to open on 3/27/09. Rob first really caught my eye in none other than the Twilight movie, but he was on the radar when he played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie. Did you know he’s also a musician? I’m scouring the web for anything on his music, I bet he plays well.

Ok, now for my tag, these peeps are who I’m tagging now!

Marisol
Tapmouse
Nell
Opal
Batty
Rosann

Well, this past Thursday, I kept thinking “I gotta get started on my Leyburns”, and I finally did. The purpose of the KAL is to have everyone participating in it knit in Socks that Rock yarn only, and in any colorway, hoping to get as many different colorways knitted up for the “Leyburn” sock pattern by Mintyfresh. It has a lattice pattern look, similar to the lattice you would see going across the top of some fenced homes.

I casted on Thursday evening, got the toe and foot started, and contined a teeny bit Friday, but not really, and the on Saturday, kind of did nothing. That is until later in the evening when I finished up other tasks I had to do, and I turned the heel, and started the leg. I was all fine to keep on knitting, but I was tired from cleaning and other random tasks I finished during the day, so I put my sock down.

Come Sunday morning, and I was flying along, like my heading says “The Rhythm in the needles”, and it certainly was. I had memorized the pattern and was knitting “blindly”. I finished my first sock by mid-morning, even weaved in the ends. The pattern really looks very nice in the Dragondance colorway, and wouldn’t yah know it, it’s the perfect color for Valentine’s Day!

Here’s how it started, TOE UP, my fave way now:

And then voila, I got one down and another one about 50% of the way done!

I quickly casted on for the 2nd sock, but had to put it down to take Rosie, my doggy, to the doggy park to play with other dogs. My hubby and I left and visited a dog park in North San Jose, one we hadn’t been to before, but it was perfect. Wide open, a bit smaller than a football field, with benches and chairs to sit. Rosie had a great time, she runs like a race horse and we call her Sea Biscuit when she runs like that. Golden Retrievers have amazing speed and agility, it’s really neat to see them in full stride. She was a good girl, and got along with all the other dogs, who all were behaved very well. Here, she’s resting, after having stole a tennis ball from another dog.

Oh, and she made plenty of friends, including this little guy who just wouldn’t stop following her around

When we arrived back home, I started working on finishing the toe, and again, the rhythm took over, and I stopped at the leg portion, which I’ll work on tomorrow. I should get these done by Tuesday, I’m giving myself some slack for working *-)

Now, I need to get my beauty sleep, work again tomorrow! And rain is in the forecast, which means I can bulk up with some of my knits, which I love!

Late Saturday night my hubby’s cell phone rang, we weren’t in the mood to answer, so we let it go to voicemail. The next morning, about 6:00 a.m., we awoke, and enjoyed our morning relaxing in bed watching Howard Stern shows (yes a guilty pleasure of ours). At about 7:30 a.m., my hubby decided to check his voicemail, but before he could, the phone rang and it wasn’t good news. Apparantly, my Mother-in-Law’s husband, Ed, died Saturday night. The cause is not known yet, but based off of the description of how he was found and the position his body was in, it appears to be a heart attack or unfortunately drugs. I won’t be around the bush, my hubby’s Mother, I love her, and we get along like best friends, but she’s made her own choices in the last 10 or so years, so it’s been not that often we talk to her. We love her dearly, and her husband isn’t my husband’s Father nor was he ever considered a Step-Father by my hubby. It’s a troubled past, but an unfortunate end. We spent a portion of our morning checking on my husband’s little sister, she’s about 18 years, but slow, so she’s special, and visiting with my hubby’s Grandma. To make this more unfortunate, his Mother wasn’t around to know her husband died, she’s at the moment “taking a vacation”, which will hopefully end come tomorrow. I think most of us have that part of the family that just seems to have troubles. So that was our morning, by noon, we tried to shrug off the sadness and get ready for our little get together, but amidst all this, all I could think of was “I could never handle losing my husband, he’s my life, literally, he’s all that I cherish, him and my kids”, when things like this happen, it makes you stop and think. I’m so thankful to have to him here with me and I pray that God allows us to be with each other until were 90 years old.

Once things got going for the BBQ, our moods lightened, we had a few drinks that did help, and got into the game. I was rooting for Arizona, because I didn’t want Pittsburgh to win a 6th ring, but in the end, Arizona just couldn’t hold onto the lead, and Pittsburgh won. It was a rookie defense that needed to hold their ground until the play clock expired, but they didn’t and allowed Pittsburgh to score the winning touchdown. A slow starter game, but a good ending one, I did enjoy it regardless of the outcome.

In other swappy news, I received 2 great packages from 2 different spoilers in 2 different swap groups I’m in on Ravelry.

First off, my “Rubberswap Redux” swap, apart of the RR group on Ravelry. This is from AngelaRae, and I love everything in it.

–1lb of fresh 100% Fair Trade coffee from Planet Bean
I love this, and made a fresh brew this morning, very smooth and tasteful!
–1 bottle of real Canadian Maple Syrup
hmm… I’m thinking freshly homemade waffles next weekend!
–1 pure beeswax pinecone
This smells so fresh and is hanging in my office, it’s smells so nice now, it cleans out impurities in the air
–3 packages of Origami papers, for making different fishes, dinosaurs, and animals
My hubby and I already made 2 fishees
–1 bar of handmade soap in the shape of a sheep face?
I love this, smells awesome, AngelaRae can you share the store for this? I’d love to get some more
–1 pair of green earrings
Very pretty
–1 skein of 50% mohair, 50% merino in “disagreen” colorway
Very soft and a very gorgeous disagreen color
–A lovely card with a picture of the oldest church in Guelph
I love the story behind this, it’s a church believed to have a vortex in it that pulls people to Guelph, I love that type of stuff!

I can’t thank AngelaRae enough!

Onto my lovely “Love Bites” swap package from the group on Ravelry, this comes from Gherkin who is just an awesome spoiler.

-I received the most luscious fiber, 100% Imported British BFL, this is to die for, a full 6.7 ounces!
-3 cute white knitted sponges
-A cute decorative box
-The cutest knitted Vampire Heart that had a label “Careful he’s a biter!”, so cute!
-Custom Love Bites Stitch markers, one is heart with a bandaid, soo cute! Gherkin had these custom made by ScaryMerry on Etsy, you’ll have to check these out.
-The prettiest and coolest hand made bracelet by Gherkin herself, check out her wonderful Etsy shop
-A knitted/felted Skull keychain, this was so thoughtful of Gherkin knowing that my spoilee from my previous Day of the Dead swap flaked, she knitted/felted me the skull in honor of that swap
-Yummy chocolates & Valentine’s stickers
-And the funnest “pull me” yarn ball with a prize in the middle, can I say the yarn scraps from this ball are so nice, I think I can knit a a small pouch out of it, and inside was 2 cute magnets!
-Ooh and a 50% off coupon for Gherkin’s Bucket.

Such great packages I received, I couldn’t be more thankful. I have some other projects I’m working on, I’ll share soon. I need to get a bit more headway on before I share, and also I’ll need to provide some updates on my Swallowtail, which sadly has been moving slowly because of so many other things I’ve been working on. But I swear it will get done in order to show off at Stitches!

Hope you all had a good weekend, and now for the grown-up stuff, work 8)… I’ll post tomorrow.

My stash is filled with lace, sock yarns, various amounts of worsted weight yarns, but not much of chunky or thicker yarns. There are a few projects that have caught my eye, and I need the thicker yarns to do it, say like a a litter thicker than your average worsted weight.

One of my little investments was Obsidian from Twisted BMF, it’s 560 yds. of pure 100% Merino softness, I fell in love when I saw it.

I can make more than a few things out of this one skein, or hank? What would you call it? I’ll have to dig up some of my saved “Planned Projects” patterns to start using this yarn. It will be quick and sweet satsifaction.

Another tidbit I’ve been just aching to get my hands on is the latest Knit1 mag, since you can’t subscribe to the mag you really need to stalk your local carriers, mine being Barnes and Noble or Michael’s, but it’s very hard to catch one of these left behind there, so Barnes it is for me. Hey, I don’t mind, any excuse to go to Barnes for me is a good one, I just love books.

One of my all time favorite designers, he’s classic but fresh, simple yet intricate with his designs, is Jared Flood. I read his blog, Brooklyn Tweed, religiously, and he mentioned that he’ll have his Relm Tam featured in the latest Knit1. Here’s this pretty tam…

I have some gorgeous yarn I picked up last year at Stitches West 2008, it is from a newer yarn provider, East Port Yarns. Their yarn is literally super soft and the colors are so gorgeous reminiscent of the classic victorian era. I’ll snap some pics of my EPY stash and show yah. I plan to use one of the skeins to make the Relm Tam.

Ooh, last but not least, one little scrumptous morsel left, I was “enabled” by a fellow RR member on Ravelry to visit this yarnie’s site Dude Yarn. I picked up 1 skein of 100% wool in “Sunday Driver Grey” isn’t that a cool name?

I’ll catch you later, it’s mid-week and I’m ready for the end of it.

Since I’m talking about Stitches West, last year I saw Jennifer Hansen from Stitch Diva Studios there demonstrating her stash busting Tunisian blanket, which was totally gorgeous! I quickly bought the Jenkin’s Tunisian Crochet hook in S with a stopper, thankfully, her blanket was such a hit that Jenkin’s has these on back order still because of demand. After Stitches I went to a knit along for this blanket at Knitting Arts and started my blanket. I worked on it and found the method very easy and great “mindless” crocheting, or a cross between crocheting and knitting. I finally finished this, and am so proud of it. I love it so much. There are 9 different yarns in this, including Alpaca silk! It’s so soft, and warm, this is fast to make if you actually spend the time working it, for me I put it away and finally decided to bring it out again.

I’ve been steadily knitting along on my Tech Square Afghan blanket, and finally, oh finally finished my Pocket Square! There are 3 pockets to it, a Kangaroo, Ribbed, and Pouch pocket. All are different methods and pretty darn interesting. I went on faith when following the directions, and thankfully the designer didn’t fail.

In the middle is the Kangaroo pocket, method is fairly simple, you knit the center stitches to the desired length of the pocket, while leaving the sides on waste yarn, when your ready to knit the back of the pocket, you start knitting the live stitches on the waste yarn and when you get to the pocket front, pick up stitches in the back of it, in a straight line then continue knitting the remaining live stitches on yarn, and when you reach the same length of the front pocket, you use 2 needles, one for the back stitches and one for the front pocket stitches and knit the front and back stitches together, creating one seam stitch. Here’s a close up:

This is the Pouch Pocket, the angle is looking at the inside or opening, that is lined with Red yarn. To start it off you take waste yarn and knit 2 rows of X amount of stitches you want for your pocket width, and then continue re-knitting the same stitches of waste yarn with the working yarn, and continue on your piece. When your ready to work the pocket, you remove the waste yarn, leaving 2 rows of live stitches, top and bottom row. You take these stitches and knit in the round, picking up a stitch at the corners to close the gap, and knit for however deep you want your pocket. You knit in stockinette so when you push the pocket inwards, it’s knitted inside.

This is the back of the square:

The last pocket is a Ribbed square, you do a YO every other knit stitch, and then the next row you knit the knit stitches and transfer the YO’s to waste yarn. When your’ve ready to knit the back of the pocket, you knit the YO’s thru the back stitch, knit tightly, and keep going until you’ve reached the ribbing. You then seam up the sides.

Opening of pocket:

Out of all 3 pockets, all methods are pretty interesting, I like the Pouch pocket for being a loose change pocket, you really can’t loose anything in it, the Ribbed one is nice, but you need to seam nicely, and the Kangaroo I love, very pretty and so many designs you can incorporate with it, I just don’t care for picking up stitches on the purl bump side. I was so happy to finish this square, it had be hibernating for awhile because I was knitting other things or got stuck in the holidays.

I quicky cast on for my next square, the Entrelac square. I’ve made leaps of progress with this, almost done, but need to buy more yarn. It has 2 of my fave colors, green and red, oh my! I’ve never done Entrelac before, this is my first attempt, and I admit when I was first looking at the instructions, I was like, WTF, but mainly because the picture was far more confusing then the actual method. Anyways, I followed the instructions like a good little knitter, and sure as day, was speeding along in no time. This is why I love this project, you get something of everything and your smack ready for a real garment, like a sweater, or vest.

I’m loving the color combo, my hubby picked the 2 to go with out of my entire color scheme. So far these are all the squares I have done, the Entrelac is not shown yet cause it’s not yet finished.

From a previous post, I never got the chance to post a picture of the Dayflower gloves I knitted for my daughter for Christmas, here’s her pose (note she wouldn’t let me show her face, kids??!??)

This is yarn scrumptous!

I also participated in a Christmas Stocking Swap with Yarnwhisperer on Ravelry for the Death By Socks group. All the members thought it would be nice to knit a stocking, no competition, but a way of knitting something nice for someone else.

Here’s the stocking I sent her:

And here’s the goodies and stocking she sent me:

I love the stocking, good color choice, and I love the Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn! All the goodies she sent, plus the lovely magnets and ornament.

Oooh.. and last, but not least, I received my Scout’s Swag shipment, “Red Pear Tweed”, I’m loving this color! Great for the upcoming Valentines day!

Phew! Sorry for the long post, but gosh I just needed to share all this, I have more, but I’ll spare you and save it for another post.

R