turkeys and such

not much thanksgiving news to talk about... ian and i went up to erie to visit my family and have thanksgiving dinner. luckily it wasn't too chilly and we had a good time. my dad seemed to be feeling alot better which was also good :) when we got back into town, we met up with ians friend mike who was visiting from japan. the monkey hoodie turned out to be a great gift... here's the finished pic:




it was a quick knit and fun to do except for the seaming. i hate it so much that i have started on a prototype for a baby hoodie knit in the round. we'll see how that goes. i don't have any progress to show on my other sweater as i still need to seam it. :\ i have started on the swallowtail shawl from interweave knits... not much to really show until its blocked to show the lace, but here it is:




before the holidays, i was able to get a little more demo work done on the bathroom; here it is, day 2 of renovations:



i will probably get back to work on this tomorrow or thursday. even wearing a mask and gloves, i still need to take a few days in between because of all the black dust. we've got a ways to go...

not much else is really going on. we're settling into married life, updating all the paperwork for name changes, and just trying to relax. i know i always say it, but i'm really hoping to get back to the gym this week. its been way too long. its just hard to find the motivation when its dark at 5pm. wish me luck :)

coziness and knitting [now with photos!]

maybe i was wrong in the last post. it looks like fall returned for a short spell :) the bad news is that meant we had to catch up on our yardwork this past weekend with raking all the leaves and mowing the grass one last time. the good news is that the leaves have been beautiful and the weather has been nice enough for us to want to be outside. and of course, its the perfect time of year to knit, bake, and enjoy a cup of tea.

so what are my current projects? i finished the baby sweater trellis; this shot isn't so great, but i don't have any babies accessible for the shoot, soo.... this is what you get.




i'm working on another baby sweater... a friend of ian's moved to japan a few years ago and will be coming home for thanksgiving, so i need to finish this by then! its a cute hoodie that i put an anime monkey on :) the monkey chart is from the stich n bitch books, and i thought it would be perfect on the hoodie :)




i'm about 75% finished with a sweater i'm knitting for myself, the looking glass top from interweave knits summer issue. i'm using recycled yarn for that top. i'm finished with all the knitting, i just need to graft the top and bottom front halves together and seam up the rest. here's a pic of the top 1/2...




i do have some projects lined up. i'm going to do a little lace knitting and work on the swalltail shawl [also from interweave knits], after seeing and falling in love with jared's version. i'm doing it in the same yarn and color scheme, because i really like the simplicity of the ivory, and it will go with most colors.

i ordered a few samples from webs as well, and i am coveting their longmeadow yarn in olive. its beautiful! i even started working on a design for a new sweater in it. here's a sketch of what i'm thinking...



its going to be a top-down or bottom-up raglan in the round... but with the front left seam left open. i'm going to try to find some interesting closures for it. i also want to incorporate some sort of lace/open work pattern down the middle. thoughts?

i have promised myself i won't order the yarn until i have finished my current sweater and have made a little progress on the shawl. i'm also loving the jaeger trinity in 445 [or 449 :/] and the elsebeth lavold silky tweed, but... i'm not sure what i'd use them for, so i should wait til i decide on that. :) i think the trinity would make a great deconstructed hourglass sweater... with some on purpose runs/snags, and more exposed raglan seams. * mental note to start on sketch of that.

but anyways... i'm sure on boring my non-knitting readers :) and i know i promised that wedding post, but... not yet. it is in progress, just not finished. in the meantime, enjoy the wedding and honemoon photos.

other than knitting, this week is going to involve a lot of cleaning and organizing. depending on how long that takes, we may officially start the main bathroom remodel. we're still working on the plans for that, but i can start the demo work as we finalize what we're doing. then, on to the bedrooms... before you know it, we'll be ready to sell!

*updated*... we have officially started the bathroom remodel, because i can't have less than 12 projects going on at once :)



time to make some tea...

brrr.

i love autumn and the changing leave, except that it is way too short of a season. pennsylvania has beautiful foliage, but its over before you know it. ian and i traveled up to erie this weekend, and the drive up was beautiful. the changing leaves, the scenery... a warm coffee, it felt warm and cozy. then we hit meadville. snow. and lots of it. as we arrived in erie, i'd guess there was at least 5 inches? i'm not ready for it! luckily, it had pretty much melted by sunday when we left... but it was a sad reminder of whats to come in the next week or two. time to get my knitting into gear and start on my list of cold weather knits.

it was nice to see my family again, and we brought up our wedding album to show everyone. [post coming soon!]. sadly, when we got back into pittsburgh last night, i received a call from my sister saying my dad had been taken to the hospital by ambulance... he is in intensive care now, with a bad case of pneumonia. my dad has emphysema and asbestosis and is on oxygen, so when he gets pneumonia, its a little more risky for him. everyone who met him at the wedding knows thats he's a fighter, but lets all cross our fingers and pray that he'll be out of ICU soon.

now its time for me to get back to my freelance project and try to concentrate. once i'm finished with that, i've got another long to-do list of post-wedding business to take care of, namely finishing the thank you notes and finalizing the rest of my name changes. who knew there was so much work *after* the wedding? maybe i'll even find some time to get back to work on my weekender bag.