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Aah, Vegas.
We gambled and won, we gambled and lost. We went to a wedding, stayed out late, woke up late, drank manybeers and had an all 'round wicked time. I feel like we were gone for 2 weeks. It's amazing what you can cram into four days.
Now that we're home, I have to get one of the cats outta hock from the kennel before I collapse from exhaustion. Look out Indy, your sister is coming home from summer camp!
Thank you Typepad for the auto-posting feature. Because of you I don't have to take any time away from my precious nickel slots to keep on a regular blog schedule. I love a new post as much as the next gal, but I ROCK the nickel slots.
I took my camera along on my morning walk in Austin the other day and while I didn't get pictures of the crazy cat house, the peacocks or the metal sculpture house, I did manage these nice prickly pear, mimosa and magnolia blooms.
For a moment I had thought once the bathroom was finished the house remodel work would be done. Really though, is work on an older house EVER really finished?
One of the last next projects is the floor in the patio room. The previous owners didn't tile under their crap built-ins (and how could they? Cute little mice had made nests there. Sheesh!) so that leaves me to repair their atrocities.
This morning I will set the tiles so I can grout when we return from Vegas. (Vegas baby!) I'm motivated to wrap this up quickly so I can get to my new knitting project. Are those beads? Is that Sea Silk? Could it be I have forsaken the sock and cast on for Hanami?
Oh hells yeah.
Our contractor estimated that the bathroom remodel would take 1-2 weeks. Having done this sort of thing before, I thought I knew better and planned for an extra week or so beyond the original number. Even with all that planning? We were five weeks start to finish with the hired guns and a week or two for me to find and install the doors, mirror and shelves.
We went 29 days without any means to shower or have a dunk in the tub so every second or third day we would go to Amy or Meg's place. Oh sure, there were plenty of bird baths (or Navy showers as my mum calls them) but without good pals, we would have been REALLY stinky. The absolute worst was the week of the tiling. We went 6 days and nights without a toilet in the house. We'd drive up to the grocery store during the day, pee at the neighbours house before bed and used Glaceau water bottles at night. (Hurray wide mouth bottles!) Needless to say, I spent most of that week very dehydrated so I wouldn't have to use the facilities.
The last step to getting it all finished was the tub. It's a big ol' cast iron behemoth original to the house and it seemed a shame to just toss it because it was a little dinged up. We wouldn't have been able to get it out the door anyway, so we left it in place and had it re-enameled. Ta Da! Shiny and new!
All in all, a successfully rehabilitated loo. Ain't it pretty?
(You'll find the before pictures here.)
I'm generally strict with myself when it comes to sock projects. I know that I would readily fall victim to Second Sock Syndrome if I didn't limit myself to one pair on the needles a time (although that doesn't explain why I have 4 pairs of size one needles.) I cast on for the first Embossed Leaves (from Favorite Socks
Fearing that it might languish in the bottom of my knitting bag for another month, this morning I poured some coffee and took the sock outside. The weather in Texas is steadily heating up and soon time outside midday will not be feasible. This morning at 32°C (89°F) the backyard was perfect and I want to enjoy it while I can. I drank my coffee, took some photos and finally finished the leg of the second sock.
Somewhere in the last few weeks I've managed to squeeze in some time to make a whack of needlecases. There's some of the pink mod and grey mod over in Scout's shop. The splityarn etsy shop has some blue mod cases and my personal faves, the Balance Bird cases. I had one yard of the Etsuko Furuya print and I made it last as long as I could. The print has been sold out in most places, so I don't know that I'll be able to make any more of them. Get 'em while they're still around!
We spent a few hours doing some spring cleaning up in the backyard yesterday afternoon. Because they still don't get along, we kept Bicoe inside so Indy could have quality hangin' out time. My ol' girl can still jump, eh? Not bad for a 11 year old cat. (And yep, I submitted the invisible ladder to ICHC. We'll see!)
If you're a knitter, you've probably heard some of the buzz about Ravelry. I weasled an invite from Maryse the other day and let me tell ya, I'm in LOVE. (With Ravelry, not Maryse. She's delightful, but I'm a married woman.) They're adding new users every day and I highly recommend signing up for an invite. It's still in beta, but damn, it's goooood.
If you're looking to start a new project, Ravelry will be the place to go. Yarn information, patterns, other folks FOs, it's all there. If you want to see a completed Central Park Hoody and want to know who else has knit it and what yarn they used, it's all in one place. This is going to save me a ton of googling and flickr time when I'm looking for inspiration, samples of completed work or searching for a good yarn substitution.
I spent the weekend uploading most of my projects and finished objects to my Ravelry notebook. I even went back through my stash and photographed it all so I could prettify my stash page. Dig the needle inventory! You can download it to a .pdf to print it out. Brilliant!
Uploading all that information motivated me not only to get organized online, but in my studio too. When I finish something, I usually shove the pattern notes in a drawer to be 'organized later.' Turns out, Later was last night. Aaah, stapled, complete, and filed. Almost as good as finishing the project itself!
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Quick TV note: If you missed the airing of the Crafty Bucket episode of Uncommon Threads last time, it will be on HGTV Thursday morning (May 10th.) Check your local listings. If you do watch, try not to cringe when I say "paincil" instead of pencil. I was SO hoping that I'd be the only one to catch it, but Meg totally busted me. I sometimes mix words together when I'm thinking faster than I can speak, but pain-cil? Sheesh!
I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking.
The Project Details
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark, Interweave Knits, Fall 2006
Yarn: Tilli Tomas Fil de la Mer in Atmosphere. 60% silk, 40% Seacell. 3 skeins. I won't use this yarn again. I love the feel, the drape and the sheen, but each of the three skeins had at least one knot and one skein had three. Considering that Tilli Tomas is a self-proclaimed luxury yarn I hoped that their standards would have been higher. Next time I'll try Handmaiden's SeaSilk instead.
Needles: Size 5 US Addi Lace Turbos. LOVE the pointier tip on the Lace needles.
Started: April 21st, 2007
Finished: April 29th, 2007
Modifications: I knit exactly to pattern with the exception of the nupps. The first row was done as 5 stitches but then I started thinking that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish, so the rest of the lily of the valley charts were knit as 3 stitch nupps instead. (k1, YO, k1 then p3tog on the WS)
Final Verdict: It's gorgeous. The drape is spectacular, it's soft and it spray blocked beautifully. I love the single knit stitch spine up the center. Overall I think it'll keep me in the Good Daughter-in-law column for a little while longer.
I had a fabulous time in Boston, as I knew I would. The city is one of my faves.
After massive flight delays on the first day, we finally got in to the airport and made tracks to Fenway as fast as we could. We missed the first pitch of the Blue Jays / Sox game, but the great seats made up for it all. 9 rows behind the dugout. Awesome. I'm fairly certain I'll never get to sit that close again (barring a lottery win) so I took my time drinking it all in.
Speaking of drinking, we had a great night out with Maryse, Kellee and Elisa the following day. My photos didn't come out well at all (shh! I know it wasn't the tequila) but Maryse sums it up better than I ever could anyway.
We spent the rest of the week walking around Boston, cruising through the Husband's old college stomping grounds and relaxing with the in-laws in Plymouth. Much knitting progress was made and tomorrow I'll show off the finished Swallowtail shawl. It's an absolute stunner.
