Mirrors can be fun!

Hey Robin!
Didn't want to wait too much longer to get a picture... besides it is chilly in the house and I wanted to wear it anyway. Later!

Aaaaaaah...

Hey Robin,
I promiosed this post a long time ago (in April I believe) and finally I will deliver. I imagined this one as a pictorial with few words, but as my mouth/fingers tend to get ahead of me there might be more of a word-count than anticipated...

Here is my aaaah moment incarnate. The view from the Sky Chair:

Complete with fountain and my huge yard...

To the right of me:

Lilacs, Dogwoods whatever-the-white thing is, and this hosta that was a leftover from a previous planting. I didn't think it was going to make it, and it's by far the biggest one on the whole property. (see teensy one in nearly-empty-pot adjacent)

To the left of me:


These brown (bronze?) irises are ones I "stole" from our rental property before buying this place. I know what you are thinking, but actually I did them a favor, the iris was totally packed and needed separating, I really didn't think the landlord (sweet and very awesome guy) would mind if I took one. The one turned out to need separating the very-next year. And now I have a bazillion of them and they are ALL throwing up spikes. And I counted, one of them has SEVEN flowers on one spike... I think it was happy it came with me. What do you think?

The sweet kitty is Sheba (Cally) who is a neighborhood cat that also seems to like my back yard. She is a very welcome sweetie. And when I sit in my chair she likes to bump up against me and give me a swing... so she adds to my zen when i am in the chair.

Kudos go to my Dad for helping me to "just do it" when it came to putting up the eye-bolt to hang the chair. He is my angel of mercy when it comes to "just doing it" I need to come to L.A. and help him with same :)

Next time I will have pictures of the newly finished objects in my "resume of knitting". I am pretty excited about the Rogue Hoodie.

Later!

I'm grape!

Hey Kate!

So I'm grape, it seems.

You Are Grape

You are bold and a true individual. You are very different and very okay with that. People know you as a straight shooter. You're very honest, even when the truth hurts. You are also very grounded and practical. No one is going to sneak anything by you. People enjoy your fresh approach to life. And it's this honesty that makes you a very innovative person.

What Color Purple Are You?

I got this from Smariek Knits. And that's all I got. I promise to catch up sooooon.

Later!

Robin

and Furthermore!

Hey Robin,
All I got to say is:

Brownie...

Cookies...

are teh awesome

Thank you Farmgroupie!!

And another thing!

Hello again Robin!
OK so here was another thing I wanted to bring up. I was in the Malabrigo swap group for the "spring swap". Yay! It was so fun stalking my swapee. I sent her some good goodies, but the REAL interesting part was the good goodies I got! My swapper: Hachacha on Ravelry was so good. She spoiled me rotten man! I mean look at this box-o-goodness:

There were stitch markers from my Etsy favorites! A whole assortment of CHOCOLATE and some great coffee and SOX STIX!!! Rosewood! My favorite!! And some neato breath mints (totally need those) and a printout of a pattern in my queue (how thoughtful!) and a cell-phone-dangly-thing and a fairy note card!! AND she saw that I want to get a dog for my son (and myself) and got him a little stuffed one that he has barely let out of his sight since it arrived. It is now named Fuzzy Wuzzy.

ALSO: She sent me two GORGEOUS skeins of malabrigo (which is what it's all about!) and I have to point out that those are two different colorways. Don't they look identical? Anyway, one is silky merino and the other is laceweight. The laceweight will take some thought, but the silky has already been put to good use. Unfortunately that good use isn't translating to camera time. Observe:

*Sigh*. Why art I so bad at picture taking?!

More later... maybe

One at a time...

Hey Robin,
I am a bit overwhelmed with how behind I am on updates to our hallowed pages here... so I thought I would start small and tackle it bits at a time.

I gotta say I love your synchonized sleepers. Fuzzy buds!

I am so sorry I had nothing on Mom's Day. Seems like a lot of bloggers had something to say. I had a lovely day beginning with the sleeping-in part. Aaaaah. Followed by a delicious breakfast that I had neither to cook nor to clean. Mmmm.

Little Guy picked out my present this year. He had the idea and the motivation and Daddy, though flabbergasted that LG had an idea at ALL, was on-board with the idea and drove him to the store to get it. This is what greeted me when I opened the box:

I mean. He picked out all the balls and had some ideas for what I could make with them! How's THAT for a 4-year-old huh?! I think I am going to cry again...

Next post will probably contain some blather about recent projects....

Later!

If the Olympics were run by cats

Hey Kate!

If the Olympics were run by cats, we would have Synchronized Sleeping!


And Thor and Loki would be Gold Medal contenders.

Later!

Robin

FO's of the non-fibrous variety...

Hey Robin!
I am back from the anti-blogging-land that is the family visit. I don't say that with any kind of negative connotation. Simply, that when family visits I barely have time to check OTHER knitter's blogs much less make time to augment our lovely home, home on the web.

My Father is, as far as I know, now on the plane and safely on his way back to your neck of the woods! We had a great visit as always... went a few places in Seattle that we haven't seen yet which is always great! We saw the 'new' Downtown Seattle library (inspiration for the ubiquitous and wonderful Koolhaas hat). I have pictures, but there are already plenty of them to be found online that my poor attempt at photography would be un-loved for sure. We also went to the Kubota Japanese Garden in South Seattle. What a place!!

The intent of the garden, created around 1927, was to showcase Northwestern fauna in a Japanese manner. It's so beautiful! I LOVE Japanese style gardens, and to think that I could (with a LOT of work) create a garden like it from local plants just renews my interest in trying something in my own backyard. Here's a couple of nice photos to give you an idea of the beauty:

That's my Dear ol' Dad, ain't he handsome?

More importantly though, I wanted to share what we did to the house while he was here... that's the most EXCITING part! Well... to me it is anyway. First of all we changed this:

To This:

aaaaah....

Next thing that happened was this:

Any idea what that is? No? Want a hint? That's the largest amount of FLOOR i have seen in my garage since we bought the house. I can tell you right now THAT is an accomplishment and there's just no way to pay Dad back for all that help and brainstorming. THANKS DAD!!!

Don't worry, I paid him back a little with his favorite dinners and desserts ;)

You want knitting?? Man, some people are SO hard to please! Alrighty here's where I stand with the current WIPs:
The Greenlake Jays

This many sleeves for the Rogue Hoodie:

And I am unveiling the Grammy Square because it probably won't be done in time to ship to Mom for Mother's Day (woops):

It's coming along ;) Sorry about the blurry pic on the Rogue sleeves, there's just no great way to get the cabling detail with a flash.

That's all I got for now. What's happening with you?

Later!

A Very Harlot Evening

Hey Robin,
I know I know, I should have written this as SOON as I got home last night! Heaven knows I was too excited to sleep! So here's my account of what fun there was to have...

I got there about an hour and a half early and was by far NOT the first knitter to arrive. The event staff was just setting up the auditorium style seating (they have to remove much of the food-court's dining tables/chairs for any speaking events) and the early-birds were already saving space for their knit-groups and what-have-you. It was just as fun as last year! Only this time I met FRIEND'S!!

On Ravelry Peanutga11ery1 and Dancing Sheep (and Ornerie too... sorry you couldn't be there!) said they would attend and Peanut (sorry for the abbreviation but I just realized I STILL don't know your real name!) was nice enough to tell me what shirt she would be wearing. She was also surrounded by her knit/spin group but was sweet enough to let me sit with her and chat! She also brought her beautiful daughter who was making a go at some garter stitch. I admit, i tried to take a flash-less photo, but the result was more like a spelunking pic than a photo or mother and child so I was nice and deleted it. Peanut ALSO introduced me to knitters more local to myself AND she gave me some pointers on drop-spindle spinning. Was there ever a more lovely person on the planet?? Oh AND... she shared a stitch-marker with me that was one of many she made to share with her group and with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. How nice is that?? I had offered my woodworking skills up for trade for the spinning lessons, but turns out she is filthy-with-woodworkers in her family so i am unneeded in that arena. How am i ever to repay her kindnesses??
She also introduced me to this fine fellow (Brian?) who shared his teaching-shawl with us. A remarkable piece of knittery to be sure:

On to the focus of our program! THE KNITTERS!

I hope I didn't blind that poor woman in front...

Just kidding, the focus is Stephanie. As last year, Stephanie came out and just started talking. She was brilliant and hilarious and kept us all in stitches for I would guess about an hour and a little bit over? She spoke about how knitters are going to take over the world (eventually) because we are constantly getting smarter. It has a lot to do with Theta-brain-use (an idea for CoH?) and repetitive motion. You would have to go listen to her speak to get the explanation, I don't want to ruin it for the SCADS of knitters that read this blog!! Right? ...hello?

Sorry my flash doesn't reach very far

Anyway! She kept us laughing for a nice, long time and then opened things up for questions (or staring blankly at her, that was an option too) and THIS time she got a couple of good ones. They were mainly setups for her to be more-funny which is certainly all right by me.

Then she made her pre-boarding announcements and we were OFF! So many people had waited to buy their book so that they could purchase from the store like Harlot asked, that the HUGE stack that was there when I arrived was gone long before she spoke. The manager informed us that more were on the way and would arrive before she started signing. How great for the store to sell out all their copies!! Just saying....

My benefactor-in-seating and spinning-lessons went to get her copy and get in line. While Dancing Sheep and I waited a comfortable interval to hop in (ok, we were gabbing but I'm not going to point that out). We got in line somewhere near the end-ish and had fun chatting with our neighbors and each other. I couldn't knit in-line because I didn't bring a sock... but I WOULD have!! Really!

We got to the front in what seemed like no-time (nothing like knitters to make time seem to pass more quickly) and Stephanie was amazingly gracious and pleasant to everyone (again!!) and I loved every minute (OK more like second) of time speaking with her.

This sweetheart have her some REAL Seattle coffee. Yum!

Here's my new friend Katie:

Here's me:

"all cazh"

And here's my offering to the Goddess of Knit Humor:

I hope she liked it.

Later!

Prejudiced!

Hey Kate,

Woot! I get to be Mrs. Darcy!

Take the Quiz here!

Later!

Robin

Sensible?

Hey Robin,
Apparently this is me:

Take the Quiz here!

I like the result, but I am wondering if I am as wonderful as this esteemed character. I think not, but it makes me feel good ;)

Latah!

Emme's got a new bag

Hey Kate!

As usual my F.O. pales in comparison to yours, but I'm still pretty proud of Emme's new purse.


And as usual that's all I got.

Later!

Robin