Liking the Lace....

So I got to go to England to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a week ago (I can't believe a week has already gone by!), and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in love with the UK! Seriously! I could live there, happily!!! It is stunningly beautiful!!! I miss the moors something dreadful, and miss hearing English spoken around me even more, I think. But in this week of "recovering" of the fun of the weekend get-away, I have been working hard on the kit for my spoilee for the swap, and got two more scarves for Scarf Travels. The first one I got is to be done in lace weight, which I've never done before...I was super excited, had a blast picking out a pattern, and have enjoyed watching the pattern form under my fingers...I have noticed, however, that it takes an insanely longer amount of time to knit 5" of scarf in laceweight than in worsted. Definitely a lot longer than I expected. But the pattern I chose is beautiful (as is the story behind the designing of it!), and it will be well worth it in the end...I just have to get to that end...and quickly! I wanted my husband to send it out tomorrow when he goes to work, and I'm lucky if I'm halfway through it! LOL On the plus side: we got a working printer yesterday, so that means I can now print out patterns for when I take the boys to the park...I'd have taken the scarf with me to work on, but couldn't access the pattern (wireless Internet isn't all over the place, yet...LOL)...which means that about 5 hours were spent out of doors without the scarf. Le sigh. But it won't happen again! In fact, I'm getting off the computer right now to feed the kiddos dinner and then plug away at it some more! It's certainly taking me a lot longer than I thought, but at least it's going faster as I go! :)

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE my husband!!!!!!!!!!! He gave the go-ahead!!! I get to go watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the IMAX..............IN ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!! I can't stop giggling and clapping and "squee"-ing!!!!!!!!!!!! Kristin is coming with me, and we're going to stay with Ann and Marie from the Harry Potter swap! I wonder of we'll have time to go to an LYS....hmmm...But now I have a deadline for my Hermione hat...I am so wearing it to the movie!!!!!!!! And, if I can get it done in time, I'll make one for Kristin, as well! :D YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm too excited to sit anywhere...I'm off to be productive with this mass of excited energy!!!!

Sneeze, sniffle, choke, cough, sputter

While those may sound like allergies (hmm, maybe it partially is...), but in reality, it's me dusting off an old project...my Hermione hat had a rough start, and then, as all other projects I have started for myself, got set aside for other projects. However, the Half-Blood Prince (in which movies this hat makes it's appearance) premiere is only weeks away...and the best part? I might get to go to England to watch it in the IMAX!!! I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hope it works out! But, if it does, I can't go all that way for the movie and not have at least one piece of some costume! I have to show everyone else (that doesn't know I'm flying all the way from Italy just to see it) that I'm more than just a casual fan...LOL

However, two more scarves have been worked on and passed along, and I've got one more in my possession...I'm waiting on the yarn I ordered to come in first, though. Here's the section of the crochet scarf I've sent on. I couldn't get a good picture of it to show it off, but I intend to make an entire scarf with the pattern and share the pattern here. And I was so focused on trying to get a good picture of my section, I forgot to get a picture of Rebecca's scarf so far before I packed it up to go! LOL



Here is the section I did on Stacey's scarf, which is knitted:



I did a variation of the pattern I used on Jody's scarf, which I am working on making an entire scarf to share that pattern as well. And here is a picture of Stacey's scarf thus far:



I did about 6", I think, instead of five, because of how it fell with my cables. :) But now I'm off to work some more on my hat...I can't wait until it's completed!!!

Patterns, patterns, patterns...

You know, I've never really thought about how many different scarf patterns exist out there, until this scarf round robin group...I have learned that I choose patterns much like I shop; I browse and browse and browse, until something just jumps out at me, and 9 times of 10, it's perfect! And if it's not, then I tweak it a little, and voila, a new pattern is born! I really need to get to posting those patterns here, come to think of it. Especially the pattern I used for the red scarf I made a couple posts back, and the 5" I did on Jody's scarf. Well, now, I've done it again! I've got Rebecca's scarf, and I like the pattern of a hat I've made a few times, so I modified it to work for crocheting that's not in the round...I believe I'll share it! As soon as I'm done with adding it to the scarf, that is... ;)

Wrist Woes

Wow, things have been great, albeit slightly adventurous, around our house! We're getting a new (and I mean new...as in 2010 new) car sometime within 5-14 days, we got a futon (finally!) for the TV/computer room and got the husband a computer desk (which means his currant "desk," aka the card table, will be finding it;s permanent home in my crafting room...I'll be able to keep my sewing machine up and sew at will!!!) all within the last week! On the not-so-good side...we ran out of gasolio again, so we have no hot water...hopefully we'll get lucky and it'll be refilled within a couple days...maybe on Monday? But back to the positives...

The car we had was breaking left and right and driving me insane. I think my griping finally got to my husband, because he decided it was time for a new car! We're getting a 2010 Ford Escape! I'm so excited! I don't know what he plans on doing with our old car (which, by the way, is something like a '93 or '94 Chystler[?] Stratus), but he also is talking about getting a nice bicycle to ride to work Monday, Wednesday and Friday...which means I would actually have a car part of the week!!!!!! (We'll see how that pans out, though...)

I was excited beyond all belief at the futon (which I've been wanting for over a year now) and desk (YAY for the table going to my craft room! And yay for DH getting a nice desk!)...even more exciting was that he went to the warehouse and pick them up in a timely manner! So the night before last, I was helping him carry the boxes in from the car...I'm not used to heavy lifting. I am a stay-at-home mom. I change stinky butts, I wash dishes, every now and again I'll rearrange furniture, but 90% of that is simply pushing things across the floor. The heaviest things I lift in a normal day are my boys, the heavier of which is 39 pounds. So we get the box and mattress of the futon in, and then we go for the heavy box. I don't know how heavy it actually was, but like I said, I'm a wuss. lol I had to stop 2 or 3 times between the car and house to get a better grip because the weight kept it slipping out of my hands! We had to turn it to carry it up the stairs, and the momentum (and weight!) kept the box turning when it should have stopped, which twisted my wrist. It didn't feel good, but it didn't feel excruciating, either. No big deal. Got to the top of the stairs and my foot slipped, which resulted in my fingers getting smashed between the heavy box and metal handrail. That swelled up fairly quickly, actually, and I could see it bruising within half an hour to an hour (which, blessedly, means it wasn't as deep as it easily could have been!). I think my wrist would have been just fine if it weren't for previous injuries...in 2000 I fell on it while at a roller skating rink and had to wear a splint on it for a month and in '03, it got smashed in a stainless steel walk-in refrigerator door at work (which resulted in consistent and frequent icing and a brace along with physical therapy). So it's a little more prone to injury. Sadly, it's my dominant hand. And, even worse, it means I can't knit or crochet! (Even typing isn't helping me right now, really...) It's feeling significantly better today, compared to yesterday, but it's still sore. I'm hoping I'll be back to crafting tomorrow! I have 3 scarves to work on!!!!