Saw this on Turtlegirl’s blog - I had to take it! I mean, we used “Storybook Love” at our wedding, for heaven’s sake!

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

If I have a chance this afternoon, I’ll try to post some updated WIP photos. The Pomatomus socks are coming along quite nicely, and take 2 on Bombshell is doing fine. I’ll probably take it with me today when I go to get my hair done, so that should bring some more progress.

So, I was cruising along on the awesome “Bombshell” pattern from Big Girl Knits, with only some minor… um… modifications. (Roughly translated, I was working at a very slightly different gauge, and I miscounted where I was on the increases and did fewer than called for) In spite of these modifications, it was going to work out fine. Sort of. Then I decided to try it on (Ah, the wonders of the top-down raglan!). Yeah… not so much. Just not quite… right. So, I frogged it all and will be starting over on smaller needles.

Speaking of needles, have you seen these: KnitPicks Options Needles? I am drooling over them. I reeeeeeally want to order them, but I’ve decided I’m going to wait for at least a little while before I do. Of course, the fact that KnitPicks has gotten so swamped with orders for them that they are looking at a 1-2 week delay on shipping them has helped me make that decision. =) I really hope that they are what they look like - an interchangeable equivalent of Addis. If that is true… Anyway, if I wait until after the 1st, I can safely order yarn without blowing the YFC.

Had a good weekend. We went up to PA to see Kris’s Mom and my folks.

One of the reasons we went up to see Kris’s Mom was so that he could deliver something to her. When his Dad passed away in April, Kris and I talked about buying the urn for his ashes, but I suggested to him that maybe he should make something. His Dad is the one who taught him woodworking, so we decided that would be a fitting tribute. Kris designed and built this:
The light wood is cherry, and the dark wood is wenge. I think it is absolutely stunning. Like I told Kris, I wish to hell he hadn’t had to make it, but I think he did a beautiful job on it.

While we were there, we took a walk with his Mom and Onyx (their black lab/Rottweiler mix) around the old farm. Kris took a bunch of pictures and posted some of the best ones on his flickr page.

We spent Saturday night at my folks’ and took Dad to lunch at the Olive Garden on Sunday. He claims never to have been to an Olive Garden, which just boggles my mind. We had a great lunch and a nice time just hanging out with them.

In the car on the way to and fro, I finally started my HushHush. I cast on and got through about half of the lace at the bottom. At the moment, it’s just kind of a pink pile, so I haven’t taken any pics just yet. That, and it’s been raining like mad here since yesterday (although it looks to be clearing up), so the light is less than ideal.

I did realize that between the HushHush, the Pomatomus socks (currently in time out due to some issues on my part. Trying to figure out how to fix them without ripping. Not sure it’s going to be possible. Sigh), and the Candleflame Shawl, I am using nothing bigger than a US2 needle right now. And it is killing my hands! So, the solution? Cast on something else, of course! :D

I recently swapped with chadzturtledove2 on the Knittyboards, and she sent me 8 skeins of the coveted and discontinued Lion Cotton-Ease in Ice Blue. She also sent me some really cute patterns for it from an issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting. I’m seriously considering a sleeveless turtleneck with some of it. For the time being, though, I started the Bombshell tee from Big Girl Knits. It is really a cute pattern, and I can’t wait to see how it comes out!

And how sad is it that I have gotten to the point where using US8’s is using “big” needles. What happened to the woman who feared anything smaller than a 9?

Oh, and just for massive amounts of temptation - check out this blog: Cupcake Bakeshop. I am totally drooling over some of her recipes and am absolutely going to try some of them. Eventually.

I’ve seen this quiz on a couple of blogs and decided to take it, just for fun.

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 88% Idealist 63% Postmodernist 56% Existentialist 50% Materialist 38% Romanticist 31% Modernist 25% Fundamentalist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Kind of neat. And, at least for me, the result seems pretty accurate. Cool.

Yeah, after seeing PennyKarma’s and Domestic Overlord’s quizzes, I decided to do one, too.

So, How Well Do You Know Trillian42?

I have a hunch most of these are pretty easy, but what the heck.

Had the BEST time last night at the Ram’s Head Inn in Annapolis. We went to see Carbon Leaf with Jen and Hillary, and it was an AWESOME show. The Ram’s Head is a nice small venue, so even the furthest tables were near the stage and you could see the guys clearly. Plus, they were just SO good! They played a bunch of new stuff that will hopefully be on the new cd, which is coming out in September. Yay!

Hillary was a total hoot at the show. She wasn’t familiar with Carbon Leaf, but I knew shed like them, so I invited her to come with us. She LOVED them. She kept looking at me after every song, saying “Oh, my God! These guys are GREAT!” By the time we left, she was bouncing up and down, totally in love with the band (and I think perhaps harboring a bit of a crush on the lead singer Barry, who is rather a cutie.) I love introducing new people to Carbon Leaf.

Okay, tell me this is not the cutest thing ever:

That’s right - my hubby is learning to spin!! And he’s pretty proud of himself, too. Of course, I’d say he has pretty good reason. Not bad for his very first attempt, eh? He’s champing at the bit to get his hands on my spinning wheel, too. I can just see it now - we’re going to have to ration time on it. =)

First of all, how much do I love the Tony Awards? I was sad that my boyfriend (Hugh Jackman, and yes, he is MINE!) wasn’t there this year, having done such a great job hosting the last couple, but it was a great night, with some wonderful performances. Kris is totally enamored of the new version of Sweeney Todd, and I would love to get to NY to see it, but I’m not sure if we’ll have time. At the very least, I need to get the cd for him.

In other news, remember the comment I made on Saturday about not getting much of a sunburn while we were in Annapolis? WRONG! I totally cooked my left shoulder (only the left because the right was partly shaded from the tree). So, I’ve been trying really hard not to scratch it. Ugh. I hate sunburn. And I hate when I’m dumb enough to forget sunscreen. It’s not like it’s news to me that I am pasty and burn easily. You’d figure I might have caught on in the last 32 years…

So, while Kris was outside chopping up the big branch that fell in the yard (Yay chainsaw!), I was working on the Pomatomus socks that I started at WWKIPD and detangling the mess that was my One Skein Tank Top. I finished the ribbing on the socks and one repeat of the chart as of last night. What a seriously gorgeous pattern this is. I am totally psyched about doing Hedera next, since it is also by the same designer. Might even use the other STR for that pattern. I think I have decided that I am not doing the second chart repeat on the cuff for two reasons - I don’t tend to wear socks that high unless they are actually knee socks, and they are a nice length right now, and I am a little bit concerned about running short of yarn. I’m pretty sure I’d be fine, but I’d be really peeved if I got to the toe and had to rip all the way back because I ran short. I am totally loving the pattern though. (And aren’t the stitch markers faboo? Roxy made those for me, because she is uber cool.)

Ok, so about the One Skein Tank Top. Like I said last time, I was not really happy with it. I like the design, and I love the yarn, but it just felt like they weren’t happy with one another. Plus, I had that massive tangle to deal with. So, I slept on it Saturday night, fought my way through detangling on Sunday afternoon, and finally decided that I really wanted to do something else with the yarn. So, I ripped out the 6 inches or so that I had finished, and Kris helped me wind it up, and I cast on for the Candleflame Shawl. I really loved this pattern when I saw it, and the fact that I had the yarn in the same color sort of hinted to me that maybe this was what it should be. I think I’m going to give it to my Mom, because she was really admiring the Turquoise Splendor color the one day when I was showing her the KnitPicks site. The pattern calls for 3 skeins, and I actually have 4, so I might make it longer, since Mom is a little taller than I am. Still debating that, though. I do still have the same yarn in the Flower Garden color (originally bought for HushHush, but too skinny to get gauge), which will possibly become the Tank Top, take 2, or maybe a Candleflame Shawl for me, if I decide I like the pattern.

Speaking of HushHush, I swear I am casting on for it one of these days… I just have to stop getting distracted by pretty sock yarn and lace. Maybe tonight while we watch the TiVoed season premiere of The 4400, possibly followed by the season premiere of The Closer. I think it is hilarious that I mocked both of these shows when they were first advertising them (I mean, come on, alien abductees? And what was with them showing Kyra Sedgwick doing nothing but saying “Thank yeeeeeew”?), and I’ve become a major fan since then. Totally eating my words there, and totally ok with it. If you haven’t checked them out, you really should.

Oh, and my California-based cousin Beth had her baby girl Anna Elizabeth on the 1st of this month. By an awesome stroke of luck, the quilt I made for her acutally matches her bedroom! I talked to Beth the other day, and everyone is doing great. Hopefully, they’ll make it home at Christmas this year, and we’ll get to meet the baby.

So, after an evening of playing World of Warcraft, Kris remembered that he was supposed to be helping me figure out why my freaking blog was misbehaving. He finally (after a couple of hours of fighting with it) figured out that Blogger is putting a tag at the beginning of my posts which causes things not to flow, and makes either the sidebars or the center column appear at the bottom. He then figured out a way to trick it into not doing that, although I’m not entirely sure what he did. (Something about putting the post in a table, which would then flow, but which would make the non-flowing a non-issue because it would be inside the table? This is waaaaay beyond my grasp of HTML) So, anyway, yay!

Speaking of yay, today (for those of you who do not know this) is WorldWide Knit In Public Day, so I met up with Alice and a few other people down at the City Dock in Annapolis, where we had a lovely time gabbing and knitting by the water on a gorgeous day. I think I may have gotten a little sunburned, but no biggie. I wore my finished-as-of-last-night Ribbon X-Back, which I was very pleased with. I also started a pair of Pomatomus socks with my Socks That Rock, so we’ll see how those go. I keep hearing horror stories that they are quite difficult, so I’m trying to be patient with them. So far, I have the cuffs done. I am doing them at the same time on two circs as usual, so I am hoping I won’t have too many problems with the pattern.

While we were knitting, Kris was running around Annapolis taking pictures. He even got one of us from across the water:
Left to right, that’s Alice, Maggie, Sarah, Kathy, and me. And you can’t quite tell from the angle on this one, but my chair legs were about a foot from the edge of the sidewalk along the water. It was awesome. He got some really wonderful pictures of all sorts of stuff in Annapolis. After lunch, we went to Allen Pond Park here in Bowie for some more picture-taking. And now, we’re both wiped out and I’m going to go sit and work on my socks. And maybe start my HushHush. =)

Let’s see… I know I owe Kennywood pictures, so for those of you who are interested, Kris has a flickr set here. It’s not all of them just yet, but he’s going to put the rest of them up soon.

Also - current knitting progress. I have put my One Skein Tank in time out until I decide I have the patience to untangle to one ball of yarn, which has gotten horribly snarled. I’m annoyed enough with it at the moment that I am considering ripping it all out and scrapping the idea. This is why it is in time out, until I can deal with it more rationally.

So, in the meantime, my June Free Day for the Yarn Focus Challenge was (shockingly) used on June 1, and I placed a couple of online orders, including one with elann for some Rowan Cotton Tape in “Fever” to make a Ribbon X-Back. As much as I hate seed stitch (and oh, do I hate tedious seed stitch), it’s going pretty quickly. As of this morning, it was here:
Not too bad, eh? I’m hoping to finish it up tonight or tomorrow. If I do finish it, I’ll probably wind some sock yarn to take with me to World-Wide Knit In Public Day in Annapolis. Maybe I’ll even start on my Socks That Rock, finally!

Other than that, I ordered a bunch of KnitPicks’ discontinued sock yarns, which will keep Kris and I in socks for a while, some Wool of the Andes for a sweater for my Dad for Christmas, the Palette sampler to make the Palette Fair Isle Cardigan (gulp!), and some more WotA to make We Call Them Pirates hats for Kris and my brother. Finally, I pulled out the cone of Valley Yarns cotton I ordered ages ago from WEBS to make Hush Hush, figuring on swatching it and getting it started. It was then that I realized that I had ordered the 10/2 cotton, and the pattern calls for 3/2 cotton. There is a significant size difference there. So, I had to order a cone of the 3/2 cotton, which arrived yesterday. Once the Ribbon X-Back is done, I’ll get started on Hush-Hush, but it’s not really travel knitting, so I won’t worry about it for tomorrow.

Last, but certainly not least, I got a package yesterday from my Knittyboard Cheap Ass Secret Pal 2 Pal, Cheapy Cheep. My goodies are pictured here (along with the sheep candleholders that Kirsten gave me when we were in Pittsburgh):
Apparently, Cheapy Cheep was helping out at a garage sale this weekend, and was allowed to pick some goodies for herself (or in this case, me) as a thank-you. The red bag is this awesome little clutch that will be perfect to take along a sock WIP. The card is a really pretty embossed petroglyph design with a lovely note inside from Cheapy, one of the candles in the sheep is a yummy vanilla tealight, and the little bag in the front is just right for carrying stitch markers or other little necessities. (And, like I said, the candleholders from Kir, which Kris insists on calling my “friendsheep”. Sigh.)

Oh, and my sidebars may be a little wonky today. I am trying to switch to a 3-column layout, but we are having technical difficulties. Everything is exactly the way I want it, except that my two sidebars refuse to play nice and line up at the top. We’re working on it. In the meantime, if you can figure out how to fix it, I’ll give you a prize.