It's Friday, I'm in Love

Actually, it's Saturday, but I am in love, and I love the Cure, so it works. There's a new yarn store in town called Knit and Caboodle. It's located on Main Street in St. Charles, which is a great location for a yarn store. The street is still paved in cobble stones and is lined with little shops that sell antiques and restaurants. Knit and Caboodle is located right down the street from Trailhead, one of my favorite micro-breweries. When I walked in the first thing I noticed was the WALL OF CASCADE! Any type of cascade in any colorway you can think of. The store is organized so well, which is great. They have the square bins on one wall and hanks of yarn hanging from pegs. It was well lit, and there a shelve for the pattern binders.

I went in just to look. I just wanted to see what she had. I ended up buying a hank of Jitterbug sock yarn and a hank of Cascade Jewell. I have no idea what I will do with this, but it was too beautiful to pass up. I will definitely be going back. I think it may be my new home away from home.

PS: I finally added a banner. I know my hand is glowingly white, but I'm new to photoshop, so I'm pleased that I got this far!

Hello

Meet my new car.
I like it.

So long

Sorry for the lack of blogging again. The car is completely dead, so I have been looking at buying a new car. In the mean time I am driving a mini van. It came in handy on Sunday. I went to the Zoo with several of my neighbors and we all fit in my car.

Progress on the sweater has come to an almost complete halt. For some reason I just don't feel like working on a heavy alpaca sweater in the 70 degree weather.

I had finished and bound off the button band, but it really needs a few more rows. I have the yarn, so I am taking out the bound of edge so I can add another row or two. In the meantime I am working on cotton dishcloths. They don't make me break out into a sweat every time I look at them.

DO you want cheese with that?

It's been rather eventful here this week. Purl has a life threatening disease a cold. She has a really gross cough that acts up if I take her for a walk of more then 2 feet. I think she's starting to do better, which is good. Maybe I can take her for a walk today.
My check engine light is still on. I've already paid way to much money to have it fixed, but the light won't go off! Now I am told it is an electrical problem.
My transmission stopped working yesterday. The car just refused to move forward any more. Luckily I had just left my apartment parking lot, so one of my neighbors took me to work. My car is now sitting in service shop parking lot while I drive a rental.
None of this is fun.

Pour Me

I decided, at 9:15pm., that I was going to take Purl for a walk tonight. I had planned on skipping a day, but since it is so close to April 1st, and I have a ways to go before hitting the goal, I can't really skip a day. It's been raining off an on all day, but I thought it was pretty much done with. I got about 1/2 a block away from my apartment when it started to pour. Lots and Lots of rain.

Honestly, it was Purl that decided to turn back. She has a cold.

A day at the park

I've gotten a lot done on my sweater. After a little bit of confusion over how I was supposed to do a make 1 increase (there are seriously 3 completely different ways to do this. I eventually gave up and asked the author for clarification. She got back to me within 1/2 hour - I love the internet), I am down to the last bit of ribbing on the body. I still have several inches left to go, but it's getting close.

Something Red by Wendy Bernard

I just started ball number 6 of 10. This leaves me with at least 2 for the body, 2 for the sleeves, and 1 for the button band. I think I will be ok. (Now watch me run out of yarn completely with only one sleeve done. This yarn has been in my stash for so long there's no way I will find more. I really should know better then to say things like this).
I took Purl to a dog park on Friday (and managed to talk Deb into coming with me - what a good friend). It was a lot of fun, although it rained. Purl was covered in mud. She spent the entire time tackling other dogs and rolling around in the mud.

Before

See how dirty she is? Because I know how my dog rolls, I knew she would head strait for my bed as soon as we got home, so I took her to get a bath.

After - look how tired!

Doesn't she look so pretty now? (That nasty looking green plaid thing next to her? It's her blanky. It used to be one big piece of fleece, now it's several small pieces)

Finito!

At least for now. I officially get one whole week off in between classes. I almost had a complete melt down tonight - my computer decided to temporarily eat the paper I'd spent the last four hours working on. Luckily, I found it pretty quickly, so as soon as my heart beat returned to normal I was able to finish and turn the thing in. It's nice to be finished.
I took Purl to a friends house today. The friend has a fenced in yard and two small dogs, so Purl got to go play. My 80 lb rottweiler/st. bernard got beat up by a 10 lb rat terrier. It was pretty funny, but good for Purl. She normally doesn't understand aggression from other dogs, and I think this time she was just being well behaved because the dog was so much smaller then her. It was cute. Maggy (the dog) would put a toy in front of Purl's face, than jump all over her if Purl so much as looked at the toy. It helped me get my homework done, though, because otherwise Purl would not have left me alone long enough to write tonight. She was working on a good hyper this afternoon, which is why we went to play with the other dogs.
I think I'm going to go pour myself a glass of wine and pick up some knitting.

1 down, 1 to go

Edited Tuesday, March 6th

I have survived my finals, so far. Technically they are finished, but due to a misunderstanding between me and my professor, I have until tomorrow evening to turn a presentation into a paper. Since I have already done the research for the project I think I will be ok on this.


The only knitting progress I have to show for myself is the church sock. I went back again this week, and accidentally agreed to knit a scarf for a complete stranger. I panicked and said yes. I dislike knitting for other people, mainly because I have so little free time. Hopefully that will change, due to the fact that I no longer work full time. The internship started this week, and so far it is going ok. My old company agreed to let me stay on part time, so I still have a form of income. Maybe now I can actually be a good student (yeah right).
It's way past my bed time now. I stayed up too late watching the Blues loose to the Flames.

Something Fun

I am supposed to be working on homework. I have a major project due on Monday, and a small paper due on Tuesday. Instead, I can't put down Something Red. Maybe it's because this is my first sweater, maybe it's the simple stockinette stitch, and maybe it's just the extremely soft yarn, but I love this project.

Is this to eat?

I am on the fourth ball of yarn, and am almost finished with the bust. According to the pattern, I am finished, but apparently I'm a little longer in the top part of my torso then the pattern expected. I knit the 12 1/2 inches the pattern calls for, and like the good little knitter I am, I put a safety line in and tried the sweater on. Instead of hitting below the bust or high on the waist, it stopped half way down my chest. It fits well going around, so that's good.

Off to do homework now...sigh.