I've Almost Recovered

The wedding went off beautifully. Not perfectly, which I knew already, but beautifully anyway. Here are a couple of pictures of the lovely-though-ill bride. I'll wait while you ooh and ahh.

Done? She cleans up nice, doesn't she? I can finally post a link to the dress page so you can see it in more detail. She really was stunning, and her waist looked like it was about eight inches around. Fabulous!! Poor baby, she was really sick, and only a big slug (or two) of DayQuil got her through. Once the dancing started, though, she seemed to forget all her troubles! She nearly killed me on the dance floor. I'm sure there's a picture of that little incident somewhere...

As soon as my son gets the rest of the photos uploaded and fixed to his liking, I'll have a few more. I figure I'm obligated to show one of me, so I'm hoping there's one in which I don't look totally frazzled and exhausted (or lying sprawled on the dance floor.) And I hope there is at least one of Rugrat taken before her ringlets drooped!

We had tons of desserts left over, so I was begging people to take things home as we were cleaning up. And we had about a hundred twenty five pounds of cake left over too. It was delicious, but the cakes were the only real issue we had with the entire event. We were so excited about the groom's cake, because we ordered a carrot cake because the Fiance/Groom loves it so much. We were specific about the decorations--tiny carrots with a little piped vine, a few forget-me-nots to match the flowers on the topper, and the sides were to be decorated to match the main cake. Here's what we got:

I can laugh (sort of) now, but when we walked in and saw that, we were speechless. I really wanted to cry, and my mantra did not help a bit at that moment. Missy just looked at it and then staggered off to the dressing area (probably for another shot of DayQuil) and I tried to deal with the hideousness of it all. There was nothing to be done but to scrape the orange "poop" blobs out of the center so we could put the topper on. You can see a little bit of orange still there at the base of the topper, but the friend who was serving the cake took a little frosting off the back and covered it as best she could. We were soooo disappointed, because we wanted that cake to be sooper-special for The Groom, and I was actually embarrassed to show it to him. Here's the kicker: when we were ordering the cake, she had one like this in the display case. I said, "Now, our cake is NOT going to look like that, is it?" and was reassured that no, it would have tiny carrots, vines, etc. and space open in the center for the topper. Epic Fail.

This was the main cake:

This was closer to what we had ordered, but you can see some problems with it. Besides the gap between the tiers and the cockeyed swags, the color was wrong, and there were supposed to be swags of roses on the top tier--even more roses than on the bottom. Like I said, we told the baker all this, and she carefully wrote it down and drew diagrams, and even had the picture from the Martha Stewart wedding cake book to refer to. I don't think her decorator read those notes very well!

But it tasted wonderful, and it ended as well as could be hoped. When I returned the cake plates, I told the baker that we were not happy with the cakes, showed her the pictures, and said that I really hated to complain and had been putting off the trip to the shop because I just did not want to have the conversation. We talked a bit, she apologized (what else could she do after seeing that groom's cake???) and said she appreciated that I was being nice and polite, while expressing my disappointment. She ended up refunding all but about $100 of the cost of the cakes before I even could ask her for a refund, so that was very cool and upstanding of her. (I'd like to have heard the conversation she had with her decorator!!)

So now we're settling back to normal life, whatever that is. I'm swiftly reclaiming Missy's room for my sewing area, and have already moved in the fabric shelves, my portable cutting table, and my sewing machine. The next step is to get the window AC unit in, because it's already getting too hot to work up here. I got DH busy with painting one of the downstairs bedrooms which is now the office because I'm working from home. Once that's done, I can move my office stuff out of the sunroom, and then the sunroom can be reorganized into my sitting room and music room. It also needs to be painted, but I haven't dropped that little tidbit on DH. Next is the kitchen, then the bedroom, and then...maybe the bathroom, but we'll have to wait and see.

I have been knitting. I got quite a bit done on my Jo Sharp cardigan. I've finished the sleeves, and I've gone as far as I can on the back, and I've started one of the front panels. The fronts have to be finished, then the back finished to the same length, so the back is on a holder for right now. The original plan was for this cardigan to be somewhere between mid-thigh and knee length, but I'm not sure if that will happen. It really hurts my hands to work on this, and I am nervous about whether I'd have enough yarn to make it that length. The pattern shows it as hip-length, so I estimated the extra amount I'd need, but I worry about getting through the whole sweater and coming up short when it's time for the shawl collar. I think I'll make the fronts to the point of decreasing for the neckline, then make my final decision based on how much yarn I have left. Here are some older pictures of the sleeves, but I'll take some of recent progress when I get a moment.

You can see how much cabling there is in this pattern, and it's turning out beautifully. The color in the top picture is pretty accurate--a lovely silver-gray. I think I've put these pictures on the blog before, so sorry for the recycling!

I also have my usual sock project going, and the sock blankie as well. Now that I have the space again to work on quilts, I may get back to the one I was making for my bedroom. I haven't decided yet. I have so many UFOs that it's hard to decide which one takes priority, and now that I've been sorting and moving things in my sewing rooms, I'm rediscovering things I'd forgotten about. I did not need that!

I'm Still Alive. I Think.

This blogging thing has gotten way off track. Part of it is that I hate to blog without picture content, and I can never find the camera when I need it. Well, that's not always true, but getting pictures done and uploaded is my biggest obstacle. I'll try to stick a couple of random ones in, just so I feel like I've done my bloggerly duty.

Life pretty much feels out of control right now. We have a wedding gown, we have a mother-of-the-bride dress, we have the reception hall, we have a cake ordered. So now we have to order the flowers, then knuckle down for the really big job, which is the food for the reception. We're not doing a full-blown dinner, so it will be finger foods like little sandwiches and such, and bite-size dessert thingys. It's mostly a matter of deciding what we'll have, asking friends to help out with the making of everything, then figuring out how and when to get it all to the reception hall. Now I know why people have these things catered, but it's not in our budget.

On the needlework front, since this blog is supposed to be about how I'm finishing UFOs (hush--I can hear the snorts of derision from here), I have three projects that I am focusing on at the moment. One is a Jo Sharp cabled cardigan that I originally planned to make almost knee-length. It may end up being hip-length as called for in the pattern. I do need to set some limits for myself! Another is a needlepoint pillow from Ewe & Eye & Friends, which I'm doing for my bedroom. Said bedroom is on the list for repainting and decorating after The Wedding, so I want to finish a few things for the decor. Third project is a pair of socks. How could I not have a pair of socks in the works??

Why three projects? Why not just work on one at a time? Well, the cardigan takes a lot of concentration and marking off rows, because I'm doing two different cables while increasing. I have to have silence while I work on that (which is why progress is so slow and it will not be knee-length!) The needlepoint is mindless and can be done while I listen to the TV or any other hideous yammering going on around me. But that's not portable, so the socks are the portable mindless project. See, there is a method to my madness, at least in the needlework department.

I figure the house will be trashed until at least a few weeks after the wedding, because Missy is starting to go through the boxes that have been stored in our basement. The boxes contain what we moved out of her house during her divorce, so she's figuring out what she has in the way of kitchenware and dishes and such. Those boxes are stacking up around the edges of various rooms. In other rooms, decorations and tiered dessert plates are piling up, awaiting The Big Day. So we hit the middles of the rooms with the vaccuum cleaner, clean the bathroom occasionally, and keep the dishes and laundry done. Otherwise, housework is not at the top of the priority list.

So that's the life for the moment. Maybe next time I'll have pictures of the three projects. And I'm planning another giveaway, so stay tuned. Speaking of tuned...here is a picture of something else I'm trying to focus on right now, not very successfully:

 

Ah, my lovely violin. The brief moments I spend with it are not enough, but I'm trying to do at least a little every day. The goal is to finish the 2nd Suzuki book by the end of May, and I'm about halfway through it. So I need to get off the computer and start working on those scales and etudes! 

It's All About the Dress

I have lots of catching up to do since my last post. I'm still sick, so that's part of the reason for neglecting the blog. I don't know what this is that's hanging on so long, but I'm sick of coughing. From what I hear, though, so many people have the same thing, and it takes forever to go away. I've been sick for a solid month, and it's getting a bit old. Especially as I'd planned to go back to ballet class when the studio reopened after the holiday break. Instead I sit here trying to cough up a lung and getting fatter by the minute. The fried-egg sandwiches that have suddenly become an obsession haven't helped.

First things first. I showed you the proposal pic earlier. Here's the response:

 

Tee hee. Isn't that too cute!!

Next up, due to the demands of Daniele and Jessica, we have pictures of the knitted Wedding Dress in progress:

See, I told you it wasn't much to look at.

Hope sprang eternal that it wouldn't look like a gray rag once it was spread out over a crinoline, perhaps with a pale pink or blue underskirt, but the more I knitted, the more I worried. For one thing, it took me an hour and a half to knit one round of 2400 stitches, and those stitches had to be doubled after twelve inches. I realized that I was seriously going to have to do nothing but knit for the next three months, and there was no guarantee that this thing would look good.

So Saturday, when we went to the bridal shop to pick out bridesmaids' dresses, which we had left way too late so they have to be rushed (for an extra fee, of course), we bought a wedding dress.

That was SO not in the budget, but you should see how she looks in it. It's a FairyTale Princess dress, without being over the top. When she stepped into it, pulled it up, and got it zipped, the bridesmaids all screamed. I kid you not. The owner of the shop said she was going to hire them as professional squealers for the fitting rooms. She was sooooo beautiful. The color is perfect for her. It's deeper than ivory--the tag calls it gold, but it's not a blazing gold that you might first think of. I think of it more as a dark champagne, and it has the most beautiful silver trim. It's taffeta, which makes the color even better than shiny satin would.  I would love to show you a picture, but since The Fiance checks in here occasionally, you'll have to wait for the actual wedding pictures. (Neener, neener, Douglas!!) I think they'll be better than the pictures on the retailer's website anyway, because you can't see the true color and the sheen of the fabric. I can't wait 'til she starts down that aisle!! And I'm so happy that she'll get to wear the dress of her dreams. She's earned it.

So now this leaves me free to knit whatever I want. Or I don't have to knit--I can work on a quilt, or my needlepoint, or I can just sit and watch eight straight hours of DVR'd "Law & Order" episodes! Oh, the freedom! But what am I going to do with 10,000 yards of cashmere/merino/viscose blend laceweight yarn?

I do feel bad (sort of, kind of, in a way) because many of my fellow Plurkers and Ravelers were looking forward to seeing the finished knitted dress. I think I might have persevered if it hadn't been for the color. It was just too gray. That's what happens when you order yarn online sometimes. You can't be sure of the exact color. Well, cheer up. Maybe I'll put some of it up as a blog giveaway. It could make a lovely shawl. Just not a wedding dress.

While I'm throwing pictures in, here's what I decided to put in the giant Mason jar:

 

That's merely a fraction of the roving I have stashed, but it sure looks cool in the jar! (Maybe that will be today's project--spinning!)

And here's a pic of the Manspun yarn I bought a couple of weeks ago:

I think you can faintly see the twinkly bits in it, and it has a cool, crunchy feel. I've had to pry it out of Missy's hands a couple of times. She tried to trade me a couple of balls of Plymouth Boku for it. Now, really. Boku?? I don't think so. I haven't decided what this will become yet. I just pet it now and then. It's a little over 200 yards, so I'm thinking maybe a pair of Fetching mitts?  Ideas, anyone?

So, to wind up, we are all about weddings here at this house. April 11th isn't far away, and we still are trying to sort out the food, dishes, tablecloths, punch, music, flowers, cake, and the other ninety-bazillion details of the whole thing. (Plus we have to figure out how to pay for it all. Do you think a PayPal "Donate" button on this blog would be approprate??) There probably will be very little knitting or finishing content here for the next few months!

I leave you with pictures of Rugrat helping Mommy with the handmade invitations:

 

You have to hold your mouth just right, you know...

Blech, Blah, Ick

Still sick. I had to take off work yesterday, which I hate to do right now, because it's the end of the year for one of our clients' accounting departments. I feel like I've let them down because I couldn't get their invoices processed and out to them in time. They were nice enough about it when I called, but it's my own guilt hang-up that's making me feel bad.

But, then again, I was too sick to even knit yesterday. That means I'm really sick. Oh wait--I did cast on Rugrat's second mitten, but casting on and knitting just a few rounds of K2P2 ribbing was all I could handle. I spent most of the day huddled on the sofa watching TV, alternating among "Clean Sweep", "What Not to Wear", and DVR'd "Law & Order: SVU". Do you think the people on "Clean Sweep" REALLY live like that all the time, or do they mess it up worse before the TV crew gets there? And I have a morbid fascination with "WNTW" because I just know that my family is trying to get me on that show. They don't like my flannel-wearing propensities. I know my wardrobe could stand to be punched up a bit, but considering that Clinton was wearing a pair of plaid pants in one of the shows yesterday, I'm not sure how much I'd trust some of their fashion advice. And why do they insist on dressing overweight women in sleeveless clothes? Even I know that's a no-no, even if I do wear men's flannel shirts (but only in my own house. Most of the time.)

So now I feel guilty for having spent a whole day not knitting The Dress. The last time I worked on it, I timed each round. It takes me an hour and a half to knit a round, and there are about 4 or 5 rows to the inch. I have to knit 12 inches of this 2400-stitch row, then double them to 4800 stitches. I refuse to do the math on how many hours this will take. I'm just glad that I have a few audiobooks on the iPod to listen to while I knit, and that this is straight knitting--no fancy increase/decrease stuff.

I'm not sure how long I'll have to knit the 4800-stitch rows. I figure the best thing to do is measure the length of the crinoline. When I start getting close to that measurement, I'll have to put the stitches (oh. my. gosh.) on a string to hold them, let it hang for a day or two, then have Missy try it on over the crinoline to see how much the skirt has stretched. We've talked about doing a ruffle or some such nonsense at the bottom, but I don't think that's going to be possible. By the time I get 4800 stitches on this circular needle, it's going to be packed solid, and there's no way I can do another increase for a ruffle. The only way is to knit a separate strip and attach it. I'll think about that when I get there.

Notice that I haven't even mentioned the bodice for this dress. I'm refusing to think about it at this point.

I had also planned to knit a lace shawl for her to wear over the dress if she wanted to, but I don't think that's going to happen (that was Secret Project #2.) I had started it with some fine ice-blue silk, but now she's not sure that blue will be the theme color. It depends on when the wedding is. So the shawl is definitely on the back-burner, though I think it would be lovely to have made that too. The 4800-stitch skirt looms waaaaay too large though.

I really must go back to work tomorrow, so I think I'd better get settled in with The Dress. The set of replacement tips I called for the first time my needles fell apart has arrived, so I'm good for needles at the moment (though I'll feel a lot more confident using the nickel-plated set when I get it.) I'm feeling a little better today, so I need to use every moment I can. Though I'm thinking a shower is probably in order. And I hope I have a clean flannel shirt in the closet.

It's Official!!!

 

That's pretty much all I have to say about that right now. I've gotta go knit.

Kind of a Cheat Post

I've been sick with a filthy cold, so this isn't going to be much of a post. I don't have the energy. I actually did try to do a post late last week, but the computer decided it didn't want to upload pictures, so I gave up. But I've since run all the adware/spyware doodads, so it's working fine. I, however, am not.

This is what's been on the agenda for the last million thousand couple of weeks:

It's the wedding gown pattern from Interweave Knits, and I really have very little to go on except a blurry photo on the printout, and some pictures of finished projects on Ravelry. So I'm knitting (and knitting and knitting and knitting) and hoping for the best. It will literally be designed on the bride, because we're not using the yarn called for, and we're changing the neck, and we might be adding sleeves, and we're attaching the skirt at the waistline, and it will go over a crinoline, and she may end up wearing a black plastic bag with holes cut in it for all I know.

Wanna know something really funny? I miss knitting socks.

Caturday again!

And you know what that means:

But wait, there's more (even cuter):

It's a good thing this cat is so very laid-back. Rugrat ADORES him, and he lets her pretty much do everything but drag him around by the tail. And he'd probably let her do that except for the fact that his tail got slammed in a door when he was very young and had to be amputated, so I'm sure it's a bit sensitive. He is definitely a "dog cat" though. You know, one of those cats who act like lap dogs instead of being all "don't-touch-me-I'm-a-cat" types. Like Emmy-cat. BTW, his name is Princess. It seems that Missy and her ex-husband found him as a tiny, sick kitten, and since they weren't exactly experts, they thought he was a she. Once they figured out he wasn't, it was too late. So now he answers to Princess--and yes, he does come when you call his name. Dog cat, I'm tellin' ya!

I just found a cool blog/website/vendor.  Very witty, even for a Canadian, eh?  And I want the purple yarn! And the Jeans & Coffee yarn. And a bunch of others. So I should stay away from that blog, eh?

Since I've been doing the Inventory and trying to find a better way to manage the rubble junk stash, I've been looking around for good storage. Office Max paper boxes work well, but are kinda ugly, and you can't see what's in them.  I found this in a local antique/junque shop:

 

 

Now that's what I call a Mason jar!  It stands about 18 inches tall, and is 30 inches around. I should remember how to figure the volume, but that little formula has gone slap out of my head. I think it involves Pi.
This gives a better idea of the size:

It's a bit dark, but you can see how big it is relative to our dining room chairs. Now, what to fill it with? Sock yarn? That would be cool! But I have 12 skeins of Noro that would look great too. Or, I could coil up some of my many pounds of hand-painted roving and put in there. Hmmm. I think I'll have to audition some of these things.

I really need to get off here and start the wedding dress. I swatched last night, and we agreed on what size needles I need to use, so let the casting on begin! The basic pattern is from Interweave Knits Summer 2003 (and if you have a copy you'd like to part with, I'll take it, just so I can see the article about the dress. All I have is the printout of the free pattern.) I have to cast on 150 stitches, so I'd better round up my stitch markers! And, of course, this means a temporary haitus of the "finishing" part of the blog, which, let's face it, hasn't been going so well anyway. But once this giant project is done, I'll get back on the wagon and get a new Project List going and FINISH SOME THINGS!

The Very Big (Formerly Secret) Project Begins, Part 1

This came in the mail the other day--5 cones of it. It's a cashmere/merino/viscose blend from colourmart.com, and it's going to be Missy's wedding dress. Guess who gets to knit it?

It's laceweight yarn, which is why we ordered 5 cones. We're not exactly sure how much we'll need. We're not exactly sure what the dress is going to look like. We're not exactly sure how long we I have to make it, as there's been no formal proposal just yet. But you know how it is--when he's out looking at apartments, that's a good sign. I think.

Colourmart.com is a wonderful place to get these terrific luxury yarns so inexpensively, but the downside is that they must be taken off the cone and washed. They're spun for machine knitting, so they have a coating of oil. So this was the somewhat daunting scene earlier this week:















 We're winding, we're winding. And one of us looks much happier than the other. (This picture also shows me in my native garb, one that would make a lumberjack blush. Missy says it looks like a plaid flannel train wreck. I say it's comfortable, so shut up.)

After a billion million couple of hours of winding, we finished two of the skeins and washed them. I'm totally convinced of the necessity of that now, though I toyed with the thought of skipping that step. I could see clouds of gray dirt and oil coming off the yarn, so we rinsed it a thousand hundred dozen times, rolled it in towels, and hung it to dry. This is how big the skeins are. I didn't measure the diameter, but that's about 2100 yards per skein.

Later, after drying. The yarn fluffed up beautifully, and the contrast of the soft cash/merino with the shiny viscose is lovely.


It's much more silvery than we expected, but since Missy wants to add ruffled accents of icy blue, it will be perfect. When it's knitted, that is...

So now it's off to swatching. I hereby consider myself officially excused from any sort of household duty whatsoever, including washing dishes (which would roughen my hands), laundry, cleaning, and cooking. If somebody wants a wedding dress, she'll cooperate, right?

Oh, and don't forget, there's another Secret Project going on right now. Can't talk about it. Shhhh.

Exciting New Project(s)!!

I guess I should be careful not to whine about boredom with the WIPs (or the UFOs--two totally different categories.) I've obligated myself to something really, really big. Two big things actually. And maybe a third, depending on the other two things and their relative bigness vs. deadlines.

But...I can't tell you about any of them. Well, I could, but then I'd have to hunt you down and kill you.

Not really. It would be way too much trouble to try to retrace blog hits, especially for me. Besides,  I don't really expect this (these) to remain secret(s) until they're finished, but it would be nice. I'll give a little hint, though. A couple of them involve purchases from Colourmart.  I'm not saying exactly what, but cashmere and silk are two more clues. And it all has to do with a special occasion. There. That's all I'm saying. For the moment.

So although I bought navy blue and black yarns for socks for the husband, those will have to be put on hold. By the way, it was extremely difficult to track down dark solid colors for Man Socks. I kept getting sidetracked by all the wonderful handpaints (as if I couldn't stock my own yarn shop already!) But, really, all of my favorite pushers enablers shops carry very little in the way of Man Sock-style yarns. My husband is just not the type to wear variegated colors, no matter how much he may admire the hand-knit jewels that adorn my feet.

No pics this time around. I've been busy knitting. But I can't say what...