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June 30, 2005

Survey-licious

Content coming soon ;-)

Posted by Shannon at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2005

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yay - as of today, I have made 26 full round-trips around the sun. In celebration of my birthday, our Monday night stitch and bitch took a field trip to the McMenamin's Cornelius Pass Roadhouse Pub - and they even bought me dinner! In exchange, I took pictures, so now you can see the lovely women I knit with every week:

The three J's: Josie (aka Elena), Janet, and Julie

Julie again, and fabulous fellow blogger Ilona

I also managed to convince Ilona to take a picture of me in Andra, which I finished up late Sunday night - so this time you don't have to see an awkward mirror shot! Instead, you get an awkward normal shot:

This was a pretty quick and easy knit, and I'm very happy with the fit and overall look. This is something I think I'll get a lot of wear from, especially as it's both work- and weekend-appropriate. I made the sleeves 1 size up from the rest, since I have massive upper arms, and I probably could have gotten away without doing so, but it worked well anyway. I bought the recommended 7 hanks, and ended up with my swatch and 2 tiny balls left after seaming, so I'm not sure that the largest size, which also called for 7 hanks, would work out right...

Next on my plate: a tank of my own design out of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts rayon ribbon that I bought last March. I have already done some heavy-duty swatching with this yarn (it doesn't have a recommended gauge or needle size on the ball band.)

So, I tried a couple of different ribbing patterns and needle sizes - and I am so in love with this yarn. It's soft and slinky and light and airy and an absolute dream to knit with. After the slightly abrasive quality of Zen Colors, this is a welcome change. I've pretty much worked up the design, but haven't actually started knitting it yet...

In my life outside of knitting, I've finally returned to bellydance classes after about 8 months away from them (yay!) My studio had its 2nd annual student show last weekend, and I went, but didn't perform since I'd only been back in classes for a few weeks... boy, did I miss being in costume and up there dancing! And I was running late to get there, so I didn't even remember to bring my camera and get pics of the performances! (Silly blogger!)

The 'downside,' such as it is, to getting back into dance is that now I have to find a way to balance my 'fun' purchases between dance goodies (costuming, and such) and knitting (and books, etc...) without going broke. However, my yarn stash is pretty darn healthy, so it shouldn't be *that* difficult!

Also, D and I have been out looking at apartments, and I think we've found where we'll be moving (though we do need to discuss it some more). We hope to be moved by sometime early next month. It will be *so* nice to have my own space again and have all of my stuff back out of storage! And to be with the mr. again, of course! ;-)

And now, I need to go, because he is taking me out for a birthday dinner, to an undisclosed location!

Oh! Quickly - I've been stunned by the number of comments on Mariah! Thank you all for your compliments!

Posted by Shannon at 04:00 PM | Comments (7)

June 07, 2005

Catsup

mariah 002 Originally uploaded by SpiralShannon.

Yes, Mariah is finally finished! Actually, it's been finished for about two and a half weeks. However, it's been longer than that since I've blogged (somehow the blog posts I write in my head don't make it up here... I'll have to investigate that further). Anyway, here's a look at the collar I ended up making:

I left it doing the slightly-ruffly thing at the bind-off edge, because I kind of like it that way. Just for the hell of it, how about another side view?



I've worn it a ton already - it's such a great weight, and the weather here has been rather schizophrenic recently (90s, no - 60s, no - 90s, no - 50s...) I'm pretty thrilled with it, especially for my first sweater.

I've actually gotten very close to finishing Andra, as well... finished the second sleeve on Sunday, so all I have left is to seam it, knit the drawstring casing, and the I-cord drawstring. No pics of that, though.

Oh, I also got my backtack goodies last week - here are the raw materials I'll be working with:


(An embarrassment of riches - click on the photo to go to the flickr page and get the rundown on what all was in there.)

And here are the treats my included just for me!



A box of "Reverse" cookies - kinda like inverse pocky, and addictively good, a card, and a little toothpick sheath. Thank goodness my swap-buddy mentioned the toothpick holder in the card... until I read it I was trying to figure out how one would use those odd but nifty needles without holes...

Posted by Shannon at 02:52 PM | Comments (16)