Grrrr

Lace does not like me. I know I've said this before, but it really doesn't. Every time I get a row done on Orangeina I have to undo two.

This is frustrating.
I'm also having sock issues. I'm picking up stitches on the gusset. One side looks perfect, but the other sides keeps getting big gaping holes.

And it's one, two, three, strikes you're out

I went to a baseball game with my parents last night. We lost, but it was still a lot of fun. We were up as high as we could go in the stadium, but it was my first time to the new Busch, so it was still great.
I was trying to take a picture of the fire works that went off when we hit a home run. I missed the fire works, but this is still an awesome picture of the arch.

Tag

I finished my Cabo Halter! I finished it on Sunday.

Try to ignore the fact that I look like a complete dork here.

Pattern Specs:
Patter: Cabo Halter by Amy Butler
Fabric: I have no idea. I bought it when I went to Hagerstown, MD last year to visit family. It's covered in cats and I thought it was cute.
Mods: None, really. I didn't close the back below the zipper, because I thought it looked cute open, and I'm sure there are some accidental ones in there, but that's it.
Start to Finish: Technically, I cut the pattern and fabric out last July when I got back from MD, but my machine was broken, so I couldn't sew it together. I started sewing on Friday and finished it Sunday. All in all, I think I spent three days total on it.
Consensus: I love it!

Obligatory mirror shoot.

You can see the cute back of the shirt here. (I almost said cute back, but since you can see my back side I thought I should rephrase)

I got tagged by the meme going around by Deb. The Rules: Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and need to read your blog.

1. My dog is trained with hand signals. She is incredibly stubborn, though, and will either pretend she can't hear you with out the signals or pretend that she didn't see them. (I didn't say she was well trained, just trained). She also rarely barks, and needs to carry something in her mouths on walks. Oh, and she is the biggest baby ever.
2. My maternal grandmother passed away on May 9, 2006. My paternal grandma passed on May 10, 2007.
3. My dad's parents had recently celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary. My parents will have been married for 33 years this June. My grandparents met in junior high, my parents in high school.
4. I took dance lessons until I was 15, when my foot turned purple. It had hurt for a while before, but nothing weird ever showed up in x-rays. It turned out that I had an extra bone in my foot and it had to be removed. I spent at least a week on crutches every year between my sophomore and senior year of high school. I even had to go to senior prom on crutches. Turns out I have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, which is why I had to be on crutches senior year – the injury refused to heal correctly. (I also had wisdom teeth removed due to jaw pain that turned out to be arthritis related).
5. I have had the same best friend since 7th grade. I am still friends with the girl I called my best friend in 3rd grade, I still talk to someone I met in preschool regularly, and I am closer to most of the people I hung out with in high school then anyone I've met since. We can go for long periods of time without talking, but when we see each other nothing has changed. And this is a good thing, because I still like the people they are.
6. When I was little I wanted to be an animal cartographer. Basically, I wanted to follow animals around and map their migration patterns. My dad was a cartographer and I loved animals. This seemed like the best way to combine the two. Now, I want to work with art. I have no artistic skills myself, but I appreciate both the beautiful and things that make you think. I get both with art.

7. I collect recipes, but I don't like to cook. I'm good at it, and can make some pretty great stuff when I need too, but I don't often see the point. I live alone, and I don't like leftovers. Stuff tends to go bad, so it just makes more sense for me to pick up something pre-made. In all honesty, if you figure out how much money I waste on food that goes bad, it probably makes more sense financially if I buy pre-made stuff as well.

I'm only going to tag one person. Suze, you're it!

Catching up: super picture heavy

Hi. I haven't posted pictures in awhile, mostly because I've been too lazy to even get them off of my camera. So now that I'm finally getting around too it I have about a month's worth of pictures, mostly non-knitting related, to show.
This is my cousin at the zoo. Isn't she cute? She's standing in front of a giant fish tank inside a cave. I love how the fish looks like it's coming up to give her a giant kiss.

This is the baby elephant. I hadn't gotten to see her yet, so this is exciting. The matriarch of the pack died recently, so the pack is with out one right now. The zoo is wondering who will step up now that she's gone.

This is my cousin and I in front of the hippo tank. My cousin is only 17 so I'm thinking about making a shirt for her that says off limits. She kept getting whistled at while she was here.

I took her to my favorite place in St. Louis, Laumeier sculpture park. This is my dad's favorite piece, Ball? Ball! Wall? Wall! (sorry, RAC's website is down, and they have way better info on the sculpture's at Laumeier then Laumeier's website, so I can't link the actual piece. But it's there if you search. It also has all of the public art in St. Louis listed, so you should check it out). This guy in the picture was running across the top of the piece. Apparently Purl knew that this is not allowed, because she barked and growled at the guy. This may not seem odd to most of you, because that's what dogs do, but Purl does not bark, and she almost never acts aggressively. I always joke that as long as an attacker called her pretty and petted her she'd let someone come up and mug me. She's not very protective (most of the time, this is a very good thing. I don't want an aggressive dog. It would be nice if she was a bit more concerned with my well-being though. I mean, seriously. She's big. And while in most cases an 80lb rottweiler is more then enough of a deterrent, she's a big baby. Good thing I didn't get for anything other then a pet).

Still at the park. This is a picture of Chelsea taking a picture of me.

Actual knitting! This is the gauge swatch I did of Orangina. I finally cast on again yesterday, worked two repeats, and already am short a stitch. Lace does not like me.

Today is my birthday! My parents came up with my nephews yesterday to buy me new running shoes! Both of my parents ended up getting a pair, as well. This place really knows its stuff. My mom and I both have messed up feet. Mom's had surgery twice this past year due to hers, and I have arthritis, so we both need special fits. We found them here. My dad's an avid runner, so he was due for a new pair.

When my oldest neph got out of the car he was so excited to see me. The first words out of his mouth were "Aunt Becca, we got you a cake with your name on it!" My mom tried to remind him that that was a surprise, but he proceeded to tell me all about the cake. He's so cute. The youngest just discover smell, so he likes to tell everyone about it. He will come up to me and say "Aunt Becca, I smell!" while sniffing. He just means that he sniffed, but this cracks me up every time. The first time he did it I told him to go find his daddy, because I don't take care of smelly diapers.
After we got the shoes my dad took me to the opera. This was SO.MUCH.FUN! We saw The Mikado, which was so funny. We also did the pre-show picnic, which was a lot of fun. Next time I go I'm going to bring my own food, though. The provided stuff was really good, but the people who brought there own stuff looked like they had more fun. People brought in these really nice baskets with wine and really great looking food. The people sitting next to us had Red Lobster! There were some crazy looking outfits there. The man we sat next to in the show had on orange pants! And there were so many bow ties! I'm trying to get my friends together to just go to the picnic before hand. We can get dressed up and buy our own wine and just sit out and people watch.
Finally, here is a shot of the Cabo Halter in progress.

Apparently I need to clean my mirror. I now have the bottom section attached. All I need to do is attach the zipper and do the hem. Yeah!
And just in case anyone thought I would pay more attention to what I was doing while sewing then I do while knitting, don't worry. I don't.

I didn't have a seam ripper, either. I got to pick that seam out with a pin. I'd even gone over the stitch a few times, due to tension issues with the machine. Shiny. My mom gave me a seam ripper for my birthday. She thinks she's funny.

Sew, how ya doing?

Lately I've been wanting to sew. It's been in the 80's here, so sitting around with a pile of wool on my lap just doesn't sound fun, especially since I strongly dislike air conditioning and try to keep the temp set as high as possible (the fact that I set it at 90 and my apartment is STILL in the 70's is also part of why I set it high. Imagine if I actually set the thermostat at 70 or 75, like a normal person). My mom gave me her old machine last summer when she got a new one, but I was never able to get it to work. The bobbin wouldn't catch, and I couldn't figure out why. My mom came up, took a look at it, and when she was convinced I hadn't just put the bobbin in backwards (she has so much faith in me), she decided she didn't know why it didn't work either (to be fair in this story, she spent about 2 minuets looking at it. She was in a hurry). Today I finally took the machine to American Sewing Machine. If you live in St. Louis and are in the market for a machine, or just need work done, I recommend this guy. He has store cats, and if that's not enough to make you want to go there, he's incredibly nice and does free estimates on machines. Anyway, I took my machine there and explained the problem. He looked at the machine, told me it was an operator error, adjusted the needle, and now it works! (Apparently I didn't have the needle in all the way. This is why the free estimate part is important. The other place in St. Charles charges $60.00 just to look at a machine). Now I can finish my Cabo Halter! Maybe there will be a finished object here soon!
Also, my birthday is on Sunday. I'm going to the opera with my dad! We're going to picnic on the lawn before hand, and have wine. Yea!

With Love

My grandmother died last Thursday. It was blessedly quick. She came down with pneumonia and had to be checked into the hospital, where she was not a good patient. She kept trying to escape. After a week of antibiotics that weren't doing a thing the doctor informed us he thought the breast cancer she had fought off and on for the last 10 years had moved into her lungs. She died a day or two later.
I thought I would be fine with this. I grew up in Missouri and my grandparents had lived in Baltimore until 5 or 6 years ago when they needed to move into a retirement home. The homes here were nicer for less money, so they moved. It turns out Grandma wasn't close with either of her granddaughters. She was proud of us, and bragged about our accomplishments, but she didn't understand us. The boys were easier, I guess. I understand this, I was always Grandpa's girl.
It wasn't until I was getting ready to leave for walk with Purl today that I realized how affected I am by her leaving. I had subconsciously dressed in pink walking gear and my koman race for the cure hat. This itself isn't that odd, but I chose a race bandanna for Purl, one that I almost never use for her. I guess I was paying a tribute in my own way.

all apologies

Sorry. I haven't been knitting much the past few weeks, so I really have nothing to blog. My cousin was here, and that was great. We went to the sculpture park and to the zoo, which is always fun. They are two of my favorite places in St. Louis. Last weekend I went to Rolla to watch a friend get married. I also agreed to dog sit, which I will never do again. I have two extra dogs for a full week. Purl is no angel, and she is rather hyper, but she is house broken and doesn't bark. I can't say either about these dogs.
I did finish one of the plain vanilla socks, but it's just plain stockinette, so not very exciting to show. Hopefully everything will return to normal soon so I will be able to knit again.