Alton Brown

So the cool news I promised you?

Tomorrow my Mom & I are going to see this dude: Alton Brown



I got my Mom some tickets for part of her Christmas present. It's in support of our county library. We'll get to meet him and hopefully he'll be signing books too. I'm taking the camera so I can get a pic with him. We'll see if they allow that. This is a great gig for him since he lives around here in the ATL somewhere (possibly Marietta?).

Have a great weekend!

lazy day

Today's been a fairly lazy day. I did pick up a new project though. I started the Saturday Market Bag from Magknits. I'm making a few modifications to the pattern, the first of which deals with the needles since I don't have any size 15s. I'm using 11s instead. I'm also going to be making this in one long piece and folding it over instead of two pieces, there'll be less seaming that way.

I'm still trying to wait to begin the big project that I've got planned next. It deals with cables and since I'm going to be in an Annie Modesitt cables & lace class, I'm waiting to start on it. It's murder. I've had this yarn just sitting there staring at me, begging me to knit it up into something fabulous, wanting me to give in to the urge to knit. ack! But no, it's the light and airy projects for me for a couple of weeks.

Other than that, I've been dealing with a 2 year old who's either trying to get sick (his cousins were sick when they came over this past weekend) or he's dealing with allergies. My allergies are killing me already, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if his were acting up too.

Here's a leftover Easter pick of him and his friend Roxie checking out the Easter basket:

Got some fun news for you tomorrow about my Saturday plans. See ya then!

Circular Shrug Finished

Yeah! It's finally finished! My hands are killing me from knitting so much so fast, but I'm thrilled that this is now and F.O. I was sick of working on it! I'm not particularly fond of the pics below, but then I dislike just about any pic with me in it. I figure that I've posted worse pics of myself on this blog, so what the hell.

Back View

I had it pinned in front with a barrette that I had lying around, but I think I prefer it unpinned. I'm going to see if I can find a shawl pin or brooch that I like with it.

Front View

Again, this is the Circular Shrug from Craftster. I used Patons SWS in Natural Earth. Done on 9 & 10.5 40" circs. Easy pattern, but boy is it tedious. It might be more entertaining if you substitute a lacier pattern in the middle section instead of mock rib.

Lifelines - not just for lace

You just can't imagine how tired I am of looking at the Circular Shrug. You just can't.

I put it off for a while, Daunted by how much I had to rip out and begin again. 5 inches of 2x2 ribbing across 120 stitches. ouch. Borrrrrrrring. But, I got off my duff and picked it up again.

Before I began ripping out all the ribbing, I grabbed some fairly slick acrylic yarn and put in a lifeline. It would have been ridiculously easy to rip out some of the mock ribbing.

How did I do this? I turned the work so that the wrong side was facing me. Then, working right to left and using a tapestry needle threaded with the acrylic, I picked up the right side of each stitch. This saved me from the headache of putting all the stitches back onto a needle without the fear of dropping every other one and having to rescue it with a crochet hook. Much easier with a lifeline! Why did it take me so long to figure this out?

Here's a pic of it: The acrylic yarn is red and a bit difficult to see.

Since this pic was taken, all the 2x2 ribbing has been ripped away. I did my increase row (forgetting it is what got me into this fix in the first place) and about an inch of the 2x2. Just 4 inches to go! 4 Loooooonnnnnggggg inches of rib. Oh boy.

As promised

I hope everyone had a great Easter Weekend. I did! Saturday night I was knitting bunnies and guess what?


The Easter Bunnies are finished!

Heap O' Bunnies

And as promised, here's the Monty Python Killer Rabbit:

Run Away! Run Away!

I used black embroidery floss for the eyes and brows. Leftover red acrylic yarn was sewn all around the mouth area and over the top of the fangs once they were attached. I created fangs by making i-cord and then sewing onto the mouth area. The Eldest loved it.

The Eldest also received a Mentos & Coke kit in his Easter basket and just had to try it out. Here he is with his Dad racing to get away from the geyser.



We also had an Easter Egg hunt. The Eldest and the older nephew had a ball finding the eggs. The two younger ones? The Youngest found a few eggs, cracked them open immediately and at all the chocolate he could get his hands on. The youngest nephew just wanted to play in the sand box. Oh well. They had fun anyway.