...and then I got sick.

First of all, Thanksgiving was fabulous.

I love having a whole day dedicated to being with family and friends and eating a metric ton of turkey. Ok, maybe not quite that much turkey, but the bird was over 20lbs. We stuffed it with fresh cut oranges, onions, carrots and rosemary and thyme. It's a good thing I'm a beefy girl or I never would have gotten it in the oven by myself. It was a very tasty bird.

After the sleepy coma turkey induces I got a sinus infection, and an ear infection, and then my eardrums ruptured. Which just sucks. I didn't even get back to work until today.

So this is one of those "I'm not dead" posts. With no pictures, because I am humble, and can't find the cord for my camera... Tomorrow we will have more posts, with pictures.

Yes, you can plan a whole vacation around yarn!

My friend and adopted sister Shelley and I went on a pre-holiday yarn crawl. We generally do this twice a year and our favorite destination by far is Port Townsend.

Port Townsend, Washington is a picturesque little Victorian town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.







We always stay at the Palace Hotel.













Port Townsend is a great get-away spot. In the off season the room rates are really low, the restaurants are open and not to crowded and the two yarn shops get in there winter wool. Did I mention the yarn shops are only a block apart. And just to make it even more tempting Port Townsend has fabulous restaurants.

The first place we invaded was Diva Yarns. The ladies there are always so happy to see us.









We shopped and then went to the adjoining bead store












and the store that sells trim. There was a lot of shopping going on.












The fabulous lady at Diva even held up my traveling scarf.












Then she made me hold it up and took my picture. Sneaky woman. Apparently , as I am a large woman, stuffing a lot of things in my pockets and then looking down makes me look like a pear with triple chins. Did I mention I'm not keen on having my picture taken.













After the shopping fest at Diva we took ourselves to lunch at the Fountain Cafe, another favorite place. One of the best things about them is the total lack of a deep fat fryer in the kitchen. They have great soups, great salads, and incredible grilled sandwiches. Try the turkey rueben.

Then we went to the Twisted Ewe, and got more yarn.















And candles.
















This is Shelley going 'why are you taking my picture, monkey?' She learned that look from my cats.










The very nice lady at the shop did not hold the traveling scarf for me.









But I got lots of pictures any way.

I love yarn shops.














After an amazing dinner at Fins and some much deserved rest, to sleep off the amazing dinner, we set out the next day for Bainbridge Island and Churchmouse Yarn and Tea....

Happy Halloween!

Joyful Hallows!

Merry Samhain!

Here's a bunch of cat pictures. Sorry no knitting content today.












Why do cats like to sleep in the sink?













Kitten in the kitchen. Isn't she to cute.













This is Crystal. My beautiful hairy white menace. She's gone. I lost her. She hasn't been home in 10 days. I'm hoping one of our neighbors took her in and loves her as much as I do. I like to think that she is safe and warm and happy and not part of some coyote's digestive system.




OK not a lot of knitting content.



I have to finish Ryan's socks by tomorrow so she can take them to Fall Encampment this weekend. This is the second sock! It's not as bad as it looks, I just need to do the toe.

I still need to block my shawl and I need to finish Quinn's sweater before her next growth spurt so she can wear it for more than two minutes. Girl grows way to fast. At least I finished the back, now I need sleeves.

What was I thinking

Just because your work is getting ready for an audit is no reason to not blog. I am a bad bad knitter.

Warning: this will be a very long post, and it will have many pictures. Go get some coffee.

This is my baby sister Quinn. She is to darn cute for words.

This is the blanket that I made for my Mom for her last birthday. It's hard to tell but that is actually a big mitered square blanket done in an ombre dyed boucle. It's also very soft. You can tell how much Quinn appreciates it.



Mom and Quinn just got back from a trip to Oregon to see the family. Mom tried to get some good shots of her and various baby cousins in some of my hand knits but she hasn't gotten all the film developed yet. Yes, she still uses a regular old film loading camera. Sigh.

She did send my the first lot online though. Go Mom!

My favorite picture is of Quinn watching the cows. She has this total fascination with cows. She even tries to walk up to them and pet them. Mom says it is damn funny to watch. Like a chase in slow motion. Quinn walks up, they take a step or two back, Quinn walks up, and so on. Apparently it's funny watching a toddler herd cows across a field.

In other news.

I finished my shawl! It is not blocked yet to show off it's true beauty. That lump in the back of the picture is actually the top of my husbands head. He was kind enough to hold it up for the picture. My husband is also a large man so the distance between his outstretched arms is 72" to give you an idea of size. It should block out nicely.

I don't think I'm going to dye it after all. It's just to pretty.

I also just had to torture my cat. He's such a lump. This is his "What the hell do you think you're doing monkey?" look.

I started a new sweater for Quinn. Here's the front. It's done in Lion Brand's Organic Cotton, dyed pink, so not so organic anymore. They have the pattern free online. I made pants to match too.

I'm still working on the back but it is the serious boring knitting only good for standing in lines or watching tv, all garter stitch to the neck.

We got a new kitten. Her name is Rio, because I had to fish her out from under a Kia Rio to bring her home. My cat Sentry found her and would not come in the house until I went and got her. Probably just as well, when I got there she was hiding from a family of five raccoons.

This is her snuggled up in between my knee and Sentry's butt.

We have nicknamed her Raccoon Bait. She's only about seven weeks old.

There is lots more to tell but I have to get back to work.... My lunch is over, that's always so sad.

Picture Day (Catching Up)

I rembered to bring my cable with me this time. Go me.

So here are a few pics from the last 2 weeks or so to prove to you, me and everybody that knitting has in fact occurred. And there are some cute cat pictures too.

Here's the finished top section of the Icelandic Lace Shawl.

Here's Pixel being totally unconcerned that he is interfering with my picture.

Some goodies I took up to my Mom. That yellow thing in the middle is actually a very cute baby sweater that I wrote the pattern for myself. I'll get pictures of Quinn actually in it soon. Hopefully before she grows out of it.

Here's some sock progress. Yes, I know they are not identicle socks. But I really like how self striping yarns make fabulous fraternal, twin socks.

And last for this morning, my fierce new knitting bag. Which I'm using as a purse, because mostly what goes in my purse is knitting anyway.

It's suade. I love to just pet it.

Gainful Employment Interferes With Knitters Ability To Blog!

More money, yeah! No time, boo...

This is just a quick post to try and catch up and ease my guilt for not having posted in, gasp, two weeks. More than two weeks actually, but I'm trying not to think about it. Some day I will be like my blogging idol Stephanie Pearl-Mcfee and post almost every day. But today is not that day.

I have been so busy. Work went from part-time to full time. My husband switched from graveyard to day shift. School started. But knitting has occurred. I'm to the heal turn on the second sock I was working on at the baseball game. I'm very nearly done with the Iceland Lace shawl. I'm having such a good time with lace knitting that I even bought Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby.

I even took pictures of all my projects and everything. And next time I bring my camera to work to post before work starts I'll remember to bring the darn cable to plug the darn camera in too..... Argh.

Work officially starts in 3 minutes so as I said, just a quick post....

How much sock can you knit in a baseball game?

I can knit this much.

If you want to get all technical it's 4 1/2 " using Opal sock yarn on size 1 double points. The pink and purple and blue in this color way is very pretty, but the orangey brown and black stripe mixed in to the colorway begs a question. What the hell were they thinking?

I've been avoiding this preticular sock for this very reason. I finished the first one in June. It is not second sock sindrome at work here. I have never before hessitated at making a second sock. The pattern is very nice, it's a plain 1 by 1 rib for an inch at the top and a 1 by 3 rib the rest of the way. I just can't stand the colorway. And size 1 needles take longer than size 2.

In my real life, yes I have one, I've been busy at work and haven't had a lot of time for knitting. I always get quite sad when I don't have time to knit. It makes me want to go and buy yarn, um, more yarn. So I did. Yesterday I popped in Michael's and picked up some of the new self-striping Sugar and Cream, and Paton's has some new colors of SWS. So I got some of that too.

Funny how yarn just jumps out at you when you haven't had enough time to spend with it. And all I really needed were some clasps to fix a bracelet. I got those too.

In other news the shawl is coming along fine. I've finished the first ball of yarn and I was going to do a big 'I Finished the First Ball' post. But I was working and got busy and couldn't stop knitting on it so finishing the first 437 yards became a non-event. Bad me, these things should be celebrated.

It's hard to see in the picture but the center bit of lace is shaping up nicely. Now that I've knit on it a while I'm getting to like it. I'll never use this pattern again but it looks pretty cool now that I'm knitting more than 2 rows an hour. Funny how when the work goes faster the patterns starts being less irritating.