I'm a WIPs Dancing medalist...

Finished Emma's Heather Hoodie last night, thus adding a new medal to my Ravelympics collection...

Really happy with how it turned out. I started it back in September, so the fact that she did not outgrow it before now is amazing. LOL When I first had her try it on last night, I was afraid maybe she had had a growth spurt, but I opted to give it a good blocking (something I rarely do with sweaters), and it opened up nicely.

I used Nashua Wooly Stripes, which is a lighter-weight yarn than what is called for in the pattern. But using US 10 1/2s, I got gauge and it made a nice drapey fabric. I used US9s for the button band to make it a little tighter so that it won't pull as much. I added some length to it, as my girlie is tall, and I made the armholes significantly larger than the pattern called for, or she'd have never been able to comfortably wear a shirt underneath it. I ended up with less than half a skein of yarn left, whew! Was afraid I might not make it.

And so...my medal...

With little over two days left in the Ravelympics, I'm planning to spend as much of my weekend knitting as I can. I want to finish my Socktoberfest mystery socks from last October. Nearly done with the first one. It's a pretty fast pattern, which leaves me wondering why on earth its taken me this many months to finish them in the first place. And because I can't leave things be, I'm thinking of maybe starting one other quick project to try and do before the torch goes out Sunday night. We'll see!

Ugh...sorry...

Seems my blog has been targeted by a spammer. It's happened here and there in the past, which is annoying, but tonight the same spammer hit at least a dozen of my blog posts with the same spam. It was all written in Japanese (I think), so I have no idea what it said, but no matter what -- I don't want it on my blog!

If you previously commented on one of those posts, it is likely you also got the spam sent to you. If so, I'm sorry! I've had the word verification feature on my blog comments for a long time, which is supposed to cut down on this kind of thing. Apparently it's not fool-proof. For now, until I find a better way to deal with it, I'm requiring all comments to be approved by me before they post. So, if you comment (please do! I love to read your comments!), the comment won't show up right away, but it isn't anything personal. Honest! (Unless you are my spammer...then it is totally personal. Go away!)

Ravelympics: Week 1

I am a Ravthlete! LOL That is such an odd word, but what fun it's been to participate in the Ravelympics festivities and events.

To date, I've won four medals, oh yes I have! First, I won three medals for the Aerial Unwind...

Though I won it three times, I'll only post it once. ;)

For those of you not familiar with Ravelympics parlance, Aerial Unwind is the event in which you frog WIPs that are just not working out. I had three languishing projects that fit that bill -- a cabled mitt I was trying to design, a pair of black gloves for my son that I'd rather poke my eyes out than actually knit (hate! black! yarn!) and lastly, almost two thirds of a completed Cosima cardigan that I started before I lost 45 pounds. It was going to be way too big, so I decided it needed to be frogged. The pretty teal Malabrigo will be used for something else later on.

My next medal event, the Flying Camel Spin, was one I hadn't originally planned to go for, but I recently bought some beautiful Falkland fiber from Cosy in a trio of very cheery reds, and I couldn't wait to spin a three ply with it, so that's what I did. Hence, I received this medal...

And here are some pictures of the fibery goodness...before, during and after:

Not sure that I'll earn too many more medals in the second week, but one that will be coming my way soon (hopefully!) will be for WIPs Dancing, as I'm very close to finishing the girlie's Heather Hoodie. Just one and a half armhole cuffs to go! Unfortunately, I'm going on a quick road trip this weekend, and the sweater is just a little too unwieldy to take along. So, it won't be finished until early next week. I'll be working instead on a pair of KAL socks for my Spring Fling group. They don't qualify for any Ravelympics events since they were started beforehand, but I need to finish them by the end of February, so hopefully my 10+ hours in the car this weekend will help me achieve that goal!

Pretties...

Hubby and I went to dinner last night for Valentine's Day. He told me he'd ordered me something but that FedEx seemed to be holding it hostage. He said it was perishable. I thought, great! Come Monday I'll have a lovely basket of rotted fruit to look forward to! LOL But no! FedEx came through today with a Saturday delivery.

Behold, two dozen pretty roses in the loveliest shades of pink, coral and cream...

Actually, it was 23 roses in those colors, and one yellow rose, which didn't really fit into the color scheme, so I tucked him into his own little vase to look pretty all on his own!

And also in the box...chocolate! Mmm!

Yeah...one was missing pretty quick. Tonight, there are only three left. I think that shows incredible restraint, frankly. ;)

I have to say, in our 16 1/2 years of marriage, I think I've probably gotten the better end of the deal. I'm married to a man who is a terrific father and good provider. He willingly gets up and goes to work every single day, whereas if it was left up to me, we'd likely be living under a bridge in a cardboard box within a month. And he takes care of things around the house pretty well, too, even if his priority list and mine don't always jive. More than anything, he puts up with me. My moods, my craziness, my (ahem) bitchiness...and, without many questions, he willingly funds my obsessions...yarn, tattoos, travel. Sometimes I wish he'd be more romantic or be interested in more of the same things as I am, or try and "get" me better than he does, but when it comes down to it, I know he loves me. I know we're in this marriage together for the long haul, and I feel pretty darned blessed by that fact. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow and a Sweater

Otherwise known as an account of the past week of my life. First, here's our house last Saturday morning after 22" fell on it in less than 24 hours....

And here's our road looking to the east...

And to the west...

And here are my front shrubberies...

Did you say shrubberies??

And here is our neighbors' back yard...

Our neighbors are retired and are spending two months in Florida. Our neighbors are smart.

And here is my 5' 6" daughter standing in snow up past her knees...

She looks...happy. Kids. Sheesh. :}

And here is my husband doing his best to plow out the driveway, using our daughter as ballast to keep the tractor from slipping. (It should be noted that our son was actually an hour away, up in the mountains, for SNOW CAMP with the youth group. Ha! They picked the right weekend for that, lemme tell ya!)

She was having fun here, too. Him? Not so much.

And here is a car-shaped lump that would in fact be formed over my car...

And here is my actual car after I spent two hours Saturday afternoon digging it out from its snowy tomb.

Yes, digging...with a shovel...because there would have been no way for the husband to get the tractor in and around my car up there in its spot. But hey! All these months of kickboxing have definitely paid off because it turns out I'm in GREAT shape! Didn't get too tired or sore at all from the shoveling experience!

Indeed, by mid-afternoon Saturday, the snow stopped coming down, the sun came out, and it all looked very pretty...

No? Yes!

Being snowed in makes for excellent knitting time, and knit I did, finishing my Eyelet Cardigan...

I lurve it sooooo much!

Even though I have a slight linebacker-ish look to me from behind...yikes...

My butt! My butt! Where is my butt?? Alas, I inherited the buttless gene that seems to pass down to females on my mom's side of the family. We are buttless women, we are.

Had the perfect pewter buttons for it in my stash, too. How awesome is that?

Pay no attention to the fact that I cannot evenly space buttonholes to save my soul.

And look! I was not the only red thing outside! I finally got a semi-decent picture of a Cardinal with a snowy background (this has been an ongoing quest of mine for a long time)...

All in all, it's been a good week...other than the fact that I am now going stir-crazy and really MUST get out of my house SOON if I am to salvage what sanity I still possess.

The snow is either smiling at me or sticking out its tongue at me. I'm not sure which.

Big blue blob...

Yep. It's a big, blue blob of snow.

Mega-snow.

Snowzilla.

Snowmageddon.

And we're right smack in the middle of it right now. In the past ten hours, we've already gotten twelve very heavy, wet inches. Poor Muffin gets buried every time we take her out to do her potty thing. Sounds like we could get at least six inches more before it ends sometime tomorrow. I'd be far more excited about the prospect of being snowed in if it weren't for the fact that I have PLANS for tomorrow night, people. Plans I've been looking forward to for weeks! Really hoping I don't have to miss.

I'd post actual pictures of this snow event, but all of the ones I took tonight mainly show up as big shiny white dots in front of everything because it's coming down so heavily. I'll try again tomorrow once it stops. If it stops. Please stop.

On the up side, the boy child is away at the high school church retreat -- snow camp. At least the weather cooperated for them!

ETA: Snowfall as measured on our picnic table at 1:30 a.m....about 11 1/2 hours after it started...

Crappy camera phone picture of yard stick...a yard stick, people! Sheesh!