What are the chances...

...that my flight will actually take off at 5pm tomorrow to go to St. Louis??? Where I live south of KC we have about 6 inches of snow. Up north where the airport is, they've only got about an inch. The snow in St. Louis isn't supposed to start until later this evening though, so it's kind of up in the air. I've got my bag packed anyway and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Yesterday it was in the low 60s. At 8pm when I was driving home last night, I contemplated putting the top down on my convertible... This morning, whoa Baby!!! It was 37degrees when I left for work and the temperature continued to fall all day. It was dreary and foggy all day. It rained/sleeted all afternoon. We closed the office early, but it wasn't really any good. It took me 30 minutes to get out of our parking garage. I was knitting a sock. Thank god I had one in my purse or I'd have been bored out of my mind. I really wish I could have taken the day off and curled up on my couch under a blanket to watch tv and knit.

I was somewhat prepared for the weather...I wore my wool socks to work today. So as I sat in the sub-zero temperatures of my office, trying to burrow deeper into the knitted shawl I keep in my office for warmth, my feet were at least warm and toasty.

Thank you to everyone for your condolences on my tree tragedy. I'd have taken pictures, but the camera was beyond the broken glass field and since I didn't want to step on the glass breaking into even smaller pieces and grinding it in to my carpet, I had to go pictureless. Mental note to self...next year, buy a piece of wood to put the tree on instead of the plush carpet. Mental note to self #2...Decorate the back of the tree to counter-balance all the ornaments on the front. It doensn't matter that no one sees it. Buy more ornaments.

Christmas Tragedy

I came home today and my christmas tree fell over while I was at work. :-(
Lots of broken ornaments. Broken glass everywhere. Not a pretty scene. I'm so sad.

Busy Day

I had one of those weekends where I had all this energy and got so much accomplished. I made this for my neice. It's the hat from Last Minute
Knitted Gifts in my precious stash of cotton-ease. I also made progress on the baby blanket. I'm done with the second set of squares in the basket weave pattern. I started to pack my knitting that I want to take to my parent's house for Thanksgiving next week. I'm going to take the Vintage Velvet scarf. A x-mas gift that needs to be finished. The baby blanket...and I'm really considering taking a pair of socks to start for me. I'm going for 5 days. I'm kind of feeling anxious like it's not enough????

I think my energy and good cheer may be related to the fact that my
favorite season is starting up. Look what else I did this afternoon. Yes, I'm one of those. I love to give gifts and watch people open them. Yep. Absolutely can't wait for x-mas day when everyone opens the gifts! I even dragged out the christmas music, which was kind of weird because I had the windows to my apartment open and it was all sunny and nice out.

Not exactly the right atmosphere for doing this:
Yes, this year's Christmas tree. I had to go buy a new tree because I accidently threw away one of the feet to my old one during a move...(oops), so I upgraded to the $39.99 tree from Target. I love getting out my ornaments out each year. Here's the one I got from my best friend in high school. Here's one my great aunt made for me and stuck at $5 bill in many years ago. Here's one that I gave to someone and they regifted back to me. My house is going to look naked after the holidays. I'm going to have to find something for that corner where the tree is. It makes my living room so much more cosy.

Oh well, back to work tomorrow and I have to go in early for a meeting and stay late for an interview. That's okay...I'm off on Wednesday! Yippeee!!!

A winner!!!

And the winner of this beautiful yarn is...











Sprite!
Sprite is knitting 4 projects and thinks she'll finish 2 by Christmas and maybe one more. Good luck to everyone with their holiday projects.

Look at all this wonderful progress on the baby blanket! Yes...lots of
progress made on the baby blanket...progress on x-mas projects...not so much. BTW - yarn is much more bright green than shown here. I did make it to the yarn store this evening to buy additional yarn needed to complete a gift. Unfortunately, I needed 2 skeins and they only had 1, so this is going to require some creative knitting or some solutions...but I'll muddle through.

Tonight, I also baked the most wonderful dessert in the world. The St.
Louis speciality known as the "Gooey Butter Cake." No one at work has ever had one and when I talk about it rapturously they all look at me weirdly, but tomorrow, tomorrow, they will look at me as if I'm a god and beg for the recipe. :-) Yummm!!! Can't wait to have some.



Remember, tomorrow is the last day to enter the contest. I'll post the winner tomorrow evening.

In spite of all my troubles...there is still knitting going on. I tried to start Lift & Separate this evening (sorry Carmen!), but alas, I don't like the yarn on it. Serves me right for starting early... Well, I've decided to wait for Stitch Diva's Sahara pattern to come out because I think the yarn will work for it. I'm in love with this pattern, and although I'd love to be able to make it out of the Tilli Thomas yarn...not going to happen. I do have to pay rent and stuff like that. KC Power and Light gets aggravated if they don't get their money. Things like that...so, I'm substituting...

In the meantime, I've started a baby blanket for my sister's childhood friend who is having her first baby. It's out of that green cotton boucle
yarn I got at Stitches 2 years ago. I got something like 1800 yds for $10. I figured I could find something to do with it and apparently that something is a baby blanket for a baby of indeterminate sex. (BTW, I used to think having a surprise baby would be fun, but finding colors that work for babies of indeterminate sex is not fun...) I'm going to do a seed stitch border and then I'm thinking a basketweave pattern in the middle. No fringe. It took me forever to fringe the first baby blanket I made... Never again!!! Oh, the nightmares just thinking about it.

2 more days to enter my contest. I'll draw a winner Friday night.

If I didn't have bad luck...

had a terrible, horrible, no good day today... On the way to work, I got a flat tire. Not one of those where the tire slowly goes flat or something, but one of those Clunk and the next thing you know it sounds like you're racing a train down the highway. So, I pulled off and froze by the side of the highway waiting for the nice AAA tow truck guy to come and change my tire. This should have been a sign to go back home, but no, I went on to work. My very first act of the day was to copy an e-mail into a calendar reminder...only I didn't do it as a reminder, but a meeting and invited every single person on the meeting invite...all 120 people. Oh Yeah!! I thought about canceling it, but then figured that people would think that the meeting was canceled, so I just left it the way it was.... Oh Good Lord...

Happy "Thank God Monday Is Over!" Ugghhh!!! Is it Thanksgiving yet???? I swear. I need a couple of days off to recover. I'm almost afraid to pick up the phone at work fearing more bad news.

I did have a good weekend this weekend. I went to Lawrence, KS to the Yarn Barn and The Toy Shop. Now, don't faint...I DID NOT BUY ANY YARN. Yes, you read that right. I didn't buy any yarn. I was tempted by some merino/tencel laceweight, but managed to leave without it. Small Victory. I did go crazy at The Toy Store though, buying my neice lots of cool toys for her birthday and Christmas. She's going to be so cute this year.

Sunday I suffered a crippling injury. I burned the heck out of my finger making dinner and couldn't knit for the rest of the evening because I had to hold ice on it. Put a crimp in my knitting plans for the evening and, since I frogged a certain x-mas present 3 times this weekend...puts me behind.

Speaking of Holiday knitting still time to enter my contest before friday night.

Iwas having a crappy day at work and then Carmen came to the rescue with this amazingly shoe-tastic gift bag for me at knit night.
There's a shoe plate, shoe candle, shoe box, book thong, pink calculator, "Go Girl" pink picture frame, and hand made beaded key chain and stitch markers. She's freakin' awesome!!! Totally made my crappy day.

Woo Hoo!! Carmen, you rock!


Entries for my whatcha makin' for the holiday contest are going strong. Entries range from not making anything to the "I seriously don't think you're going to make it in spite of what you're thinking." :-) Deadline is next Friday to win that wonderful skein of Tess' Super Sock Yarn.

She's back...

Yes, ladies and gentleman...the knitter has returned! I sat on my couch this evening surrounded by all of the knitting projects I've started lately. Socks, scarves, hats, shawls...Yes, I'm definitely back.

I'm absolutely obsessed with the Vintage Velvet Scarf from Scarf Style. I
have been knitting at least a half a skein each evening. I'm forcing myself to work on other project...because...well they're x-mas presents and they have a deadline... I have a feeling this scarf will probably be done by next weekend though at the rate I'm going on it. Just in time for it to get cold enough to wear my winter coat with the brown fur that matches this scarf. Yes, method to my madness...

Speaking of x-mas knitting projects. I'm actually going to finish my knitting projects this year. Unlike years past, as it got closer and closer to x-mas I would decide that certain people just didn't need knitted gifts this year...it could wait for their birthday or next year... But not this year. With 7 weeks left, I just have a few half finished project that will be easily finished. Hurrah!!

In honor of my foresigtedness this year in starting all my x-mas gifts early and the fact that the end is in sight...I'm going to have a contest. Leave me a comment before Friday, November 15th at midnight and let me know what you're knitting for holiday gifts and whether or not you think you'll finish by the date of the holiday event where you'll be giving the gift. A randomly picked winner will win this wonderful, beautiful skein of Tess' Super Sock Yarn...which is heaven to knit with...and maybe some other assorted goodies.

I had a wonderful day! I went to the Flash Your Stash yarn swap at The Studio with Carmen, Johanna and Joanna. The bad was that I was the only one of us who did not win an attendance prize???? So sad!! I swapped/sold 9 skeins of yarn and brought home 9. I definitely ended up on the winning end of this swap because I came out exactly even.


6 skeins of Touch Me in a lucious chocolate brown, 2 skeins of Noro Daria in multi pinks and greens, and 1 skeins of Classic Elite Sand in white.







You'll note that there are only 5 skeins of the Touch Me in this picture... because I've already done this...

It's the Vintage Velvet scarf from the Scarf Style book. I'm loving, loving, loving it. Yeah!!!! The chocolatey brown color will perfectly match the fur on the hood of my winter coat. Hurrah!!!

Forgive me, but it is November first??? Just November 1st??? Not December 1st??? Because a radio station here in KC has gone to playing all Holiday Music all the time. I rode home in the car listening to it. I couldn't help myself. Since when did the Holiday season start November 1st????? UGGHH!!! It means I need to get on the ball with my holiday knitting and I need to start shopping.

I did knit tonight. I knit about 2 inches of a sock and...ummm...another washcloth...yes, that's the bandwagon you can see me jumping on...