Pay It Forward, Part 2

Awhile ago, I have offered up the Pay It Forward when I left a comment on Octopus Knits's blog. No one signed up on my blog, so I had forgotten about it. Today, Octopus Knits showed up at SnB with this:

And it contains these:

Snowflake wash cloth in organic cotton and snickerdoodles!!! The cookies are delicious (I already ate 3!!!) and the cloth is soooooo soft!

Thanks so much Octopus Knits! And it is nice FINALLY meeting you! :)

As for those of you who are still interested participating, just click above and leave me a comment!

Thank You My Cocoa Swap Pal!

I came home and found a big box in front of the door, and inside it contained these:

All the presents were nicely wrapped and presented

It's my Hot Cocoa swap package!!!!

Can you tell she really took care of me? So here is the list of what InsanKnitty put together for me:

• Homemade cocoa mix
  
• Photo travel mug - instead of pictures, she put in a piece of hand knitted stockinette swatch.
• Mousepad calendar with doggies on them
• 2 Marshmallow men - my "Beat the Winter Blahs" buddies
• 2 sets of stitch markers and 1 set of keychains made by InsanKnitty
• Honey Sticks!
• Werther's Original hard candies
• Homemade Marshmallows - So yummy, already dived in~
• Cocoa mixes - 2 from Hershey's Cocoa Reserve (Mayan and Aztec), 4 Candycane Cocoa with real peppermint candycane from Sephen's, which is the kind David's mom got me for Christmas and I finished and wanted for me but couldn't find!!! And a pack of Chocolate Royale by For Giving Souls.
• 1 package of sticky notes in mug shape
• 1 package of recipe cards with her homemade cocoa mix recipe on it
• 1 tube of chocolate cover sunflower seeds
• A felted mug - that will be my pen holder at work for sure!
• 2 skeins of yarn - of course yarn!!! Blue one is from NH Knitting Mama and the Orange one is from Glass Hedge Studios.
• 2 package of Chew Cheez Rolls - she even remembers my puppies!

Here is the close-up of the stitch markers and keychains - although apparently my photo taking skill isn't really quite to par...

So I want to just give a shout out to InsanKnitty - Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!! I love EVERYTHING! Even David was impressed with the thought you put into putting this package! And here are Mick and Vanilla saying their thank you's -

Cocoa Swap Topic of the Week #4

What is your most memorable vacation? Where did you go? What made it memorable?

Well, I think every trip we went up to 1000 Islands for vacation is memorable, but the one in 2006 was the one David and I got engaged, so I guess that's the most memorable. And of course when I went to Germany to meet up with David, that was a very memorable 2 day weekend I've ever taken for sure.

I also finished the swatch for the scarf, but no pictures yet. The pattern isn't too bad, but I think I'll have to pay attention to it for a little while before I get a hang of it.

Completely random thought - I LOVE MYTHBUSTERS! Yes, I know, I am dorky.

Cocoa Swap Topic of the Week #3 & Piggy

What is the most 'random' memory you have from your childhood?

Hmmm... It's actually a dream. My first dream I ever remembered. I think I was still in grade school. The dream was that I was a ninja along with few other ones, we were stuck in this maze and trying to find something or save something, but it was dark and I can barely see. The whole dream basically was me running around looking for this "thing" with the other ninjas.

I don't know why I still remember it, but I just do.

I finished the piggy today. So excited!

Pattern - Curly the Pig by Rebecca Hatcher
Yarn Used - 1.5 skeins of Beaumont Yarn (special yarn made for me from my friend)
Needles - Option size 2
Gauge - N/A
Knit - January 19, 08 to January 27, 2008
Modifications - None.

It was a super quick knit. I think it would have been faster if I realized earlier that I can convert the pattern to knit it in the round. I really like this pattern and I'm sure I'll be making it again, for myself.

After finishing the piggy, I started stringing the beads onto Susan so I can start the Undulating Waves Scarf.

Instead of using the thread and needle method, I used one of the dental floss threader and string the beads that way. It was super easy. Soon I had this:

Isn't the yarn just pretty? I thought so. I better go swatching.

Cocoa Swap Week #2 Topic

Now that we're in the thick of 'Winter'... has your knitting changed to match the season? Are you moving on from dishcloths, and tank tops to afghans, hats and mittens? Has your yarn changed from silk or cotton to wool, superwash or heavier cottons?

Actually, my knitting has nothing to do with the weather. I knit whatever I want whenever I want. Although I tend to plan my projects so that during the winter time, I'm making something for the spring, and spring for summer, summer for fall, fall for winter - I'm not a fast knitter, so I need the whole season to prepare for the next :).

On other news, I have been busy working on the wedding stuff, including Moondance, but not much progress had been made so I won't be posting any pictures today.

I do, however, have to get busy making my swap pal a "buddy". Off me go to look for a pattern.

Hot Cocoa Scavenger Hunt & Contest

So I got a partner now :) So exciting! I can't wait to get started. And to start this cool swap, here is a scavenger hunt and getting to know the participants:

1. Who's favorite animal is an Otter? Anne K.
2. Name someone who prefers whipped cream with their hot cocoa. Devin H.
3. Find 3 people who live outside of the United States. Maria M. in Japan, Alex E. in Germany, Geraldine P. in Ireland
4. Name a fan of Harry Potter. Angela A-H. A Ravenclaw!
5. Name someone who crochets. Nicole D.
6. Name someone who DOES NOT have a healthy supply of notions. Emma G.
7. Name someone who has NOT put up their questionnaire yet (just put a date with your answer in case they put it up after seeing their name listed somewhere ;-) ). Ana Sofia F. Date: 01/07/08
8. Who likes to have Kahlua, Baileys, or Peppermint Schnapps in their cocoa? Paula B-E with Peppermint for Butterscotch Schnapps, or Godiva Liqueur.
9. Name someone who knits fingerless gloves as a 'quick knit'. Sarah J. designed it herself too!
10.Name someone who's looking forward to gardening this spring. Amanda R.
11.Who's favorite way to drink cocoa is with a gorgeous Frenchman, while overlooking the eiffel tower from a French Cafe? (I'm right there with you... well at the table next to yours!) Kris L. Man that sounds awesome!
12.Name someone who's favorite animal is NOT a dog or house cat. Amanda D.
13. Name someone who's favorite treat is NOT chocolate. Nelda G. mmm Popcorn...
14. Who plays Candyland? Criquette, but she is burned out from playing too much.
15. Name someone who DOESN'T get the winter blahs. Katherine S. She only gets any day of the year blah sometimes

Now, do I win something to be the first one completing this? I mean I link it and everything!!!! :)

And, go check out Coconut Cupcakes's contest on Favorite Things! Let her know you went there because of me, please?

Cookie Swap #2 and Honeycomb

Last night, I went to the Thursday SnB and did the second cookie swap. Of course, my camera had to die right then so I didn't snap any pictures, but click over to Anphoe's to see some pictures.

On knitting front, I finished two more ornaments and gave them out, one to Anphoe, and one to David's admin at work. I have also receive from Schaefer Yarn a ball of Anne and the Honeycomb Socks pattern for model knitting. However, I have an issue:

As you can clearly see, it is not 9 stitches/inch, nor 12 rows/inch, which is what the pattern called for. What size needles was I using for this swatch you ask? Size 0. Yup. I already sent an email to Schaefer to see what they would like me to do - I really don't want to buy new needles, but to do these socks, and if the stated gauge is correct, I don't see how I can avoid it. Plus, I don't think there is any circulars that small!!! I'll have to use DPNs!!!!!!!!

One thing I do have to say though - the yarn is very lovely to work with and the color is gorgeous! Lets take another look at the swatch, shall we?

Beautiful!

On swap news, I joined the Mmmm... Hot Cocoa Swap. Everyone who knows me at work knows not to bother me before I have my cup of cocoa - I drink it like it's coffee. It is only appropriate for me to join in this swap, especially when the swap is closing on MY BIRTHDAY! :)

David and I are leaving tomorrow morning to go to Michigan. We'll be there for a few days, but I'll be blogging because lucky me, they have wireless :) Until then, I leave you with this (I stole it from The Mad Knitter):

A Great Day

Let me give you a run down of my day and you may agree with me on my title for today.

• I worked grand total of 2 and half hours today.
• I went to a nice lunch at Carmen Anthony's, had a nice Fillet Mignon and Creme Brulee, courtesy of Schick.
• I went to the post office and sent out the package for my new friend in Germany. Too bad it isn't going to be delivered by Christmas, but it's the best I can do.
  
• I got the beads I ordered for my Wedding Stole, but I think they are too big.

• I stamped up all the Save the Date so they are ready to be mailed.

• I got to watch David's nephew learning how to ride a bike on a DVD that arrived today in the mail along with a Christmas card.
• I got some Christmas presents from my coworkers.

• I got a swift as birthday present from David. No, it's not my birthday YET (12/31).

• I went to my Wednesday SnB and we had a nice cookie swap.

• Marla from Casting On came to SnB and brought the audio book of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife.

So yeah, I had a good day :) And I leave you one more photo so Bruno won't hijack my computer again...

Cookies...

... ARE DONE for the cookie swap!!!

And Mel made Rice Krispy! With chocolate chips on top!

YUM!

Finishing Touches

I put mother of pearl buttons on it. Aren't they gorgeous?

And we got our Save the Date in the mail today. We'll be mailing those out in the next few days :)

Thank You Andrea :)

Most of you don't know who Andrea is, in fact, all of you who reads my blog don't know who she is. Andrea is my Secret Santa from Christmas Around the World Knitters Swap. She had put together a beautiful and very thoughtful package together for me. I was too excited and couldn't wait until Christmas to open it!

The package included 2 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze, 2 patterns - Sahara from Stitch Diva Studios and Ariann from Chic Knits, 3 bags of puppy treats, 2 bags of gummy bears from HARIBO - one regular and one in Christmas edition, a mystery novel by Elizabeth Peters, 2 heart buttons, 2 CDs full of German Christmas music - at least I think they are Christmas music :P, and a bag of wedding bells :)

Of course, one of the requirement for the swap is to include something knitted by the Santa, and here is what she knitted for me:

Isn't it gorgeous? I absolutely LOVE IT! Although it is a little cold to wear it now, but you can bet that it will be one of my staple wardrobes!

Andrea, thank you for being my Secret Santa. I enjoy getting to know you via email and I hope someday I can meet you in person so I can give you a big hug! So for now, I'll give you a cyber hug -

::HUG::

On Hold

So Diamond Spires is officially on hold. I think it is just the way the pattern is written so that the bottom half of the yarn overs are nice and neat, and the upper half have stitches in between each odd row. It is driving me nuts, so I emailed Laura from Schaefer to see if she can send me a close up picture of the shawl knitted in Martha. She replied that she won't be able to do it until Tuesday, so in the mean time, I started something for my Christmas Swap pal.

Of course, just as I was about to take a picture to show the world, I realized I mis-read the pattern and now I have to frog it... granted it is a really quick knit, but still. All of this I blame Ben.

Who is Ben? you ask. Well, Ben is a very good friend of mine from college. I haven't seen him since my best friend got married (Labor Day of 2005!!!). He's been in California, pursuing his PhD, and I've been working here on the east coast. He IMed me today while I was making the gift. Needless to say, I was very excited to "talk" to him and it was so great to hear from him. So my frogging, it is all worth it. :)

To be fair to Ben, I was also watching Family Guy - where at the end, Stewie was just having a simulations to kill Lois. David had figured it out and we've been anticipating it. But it was still pretty good to see how Stewie's vision was and how they were going to do the whole episode.

Oh! How can I forget! Mel and Mer came Saturday and we went to Harold's and tried on dresses. We actually decided on one and came back after an hour and half! I couldn't believe we actually found a dress that everyone liked! And the price isn't too bad either! For the rest of the time, we sat around, chatted about RPI, had Thai food for dinner and did some research for save the date and invitations. I gotta get going on those invitations, especially if I want to make my own!! They left today and I wish the weekend is longer! I love having my friends over!

Well, that's all folks! Have a good night!

Progress

I made progress in two ways today in knitting:

1. I knitted total of 20 rows for Hemlock Ring.

2. My beads arrived for Secret of the Stole.

Only the crystals are for the stole. The leave pendent is MAYBE for my wedding, and I got two charms to make stitch markers for my Christmas Swap.

Yeah... Hint 2 is arriving in midnight tonight... ::sigh:: I'm just never gonna catch up for any KAL I joined.

And before I leave you tonight, I just want to give a shout out to my Secret Santa - We've never met and we lived 8 hours flight times away, but I feel like I already know her, even though I don't really since I don't know her name yet. She is really cool and I know this is gonna be a fun swap. I can't wait to find out her name, and maybe meet her in person in 2009, when we go on our honeymoon in Europe :).

An Afternoon of Yarn

Anyone who knows me knows I can't pass up a sale. So today after my training for Primerica, I went to Yarn Garden and met up with Anphoe there. The funny thing is, following me into the store immediately wasn't Anphoe, but it was costumchick! Speaking costumchick, she was mean and "made" me join yet another KAL. Go check it out and sign up!!

Anyways, so Yarn Garden had everything 40% off! EVERYTHING! When Denise hold a sale, she has a real sale! Here is what I got from the few hours of shopping:

A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swason, Knitting on the Edge by Nicky Epstein, Noni Lattice Bag pattern and Sustermann Step (mit Aloe Vera und Jojoba Öl - with Aloe Vera and Jojoba Oil)

I also got my friends some sock yarns and Christmas secret pal a pattern and some yarn and accessory, but I don't want to show it, in case they read my blog (in fact, I know they do). I'll reveal once the package is sent.

Afterwards, Anphoe and I went to Panera Bread to have some lunch and wind the lace yarn we got awhile ago. I actually bought a digital scale at LnT for pretty cheap for this purpose as well:

All the yarn!!


See the scale?

Anphoe and I had loads of fun! Now only if both of us knew that we were gonna join the Mystic Waters KAL, we would have also gotten some blue lace... Blue lace, anyone? anyone? Com'on costumechick!

Last Weekend in September

Where did September go? Time does fly when you are having fun! So let me recap on what happened this past weekend - I feel like I need another weekend just to recover from all the excitement!

The excitement really started Saturday afternoon after coming home from my morning training session. A picture is worth a 1000 words:

The beginning


The wing

Pattern - Swan Lake by Melanie Gibbons, aka Pink Lemon Twist
Yarn Called For - 780 yards of lace weight yarn, Zephyr used, black or white
Yarn Used - 1 skein of Skacel Merino Lace in pale pink
Beads - About 300 Swarovski crystal in Antique Rose, bicone, size 3
Needles - Crystal Palace bamboo circular size 2
Gauge - N/A
Knit - June 29, 2007 to September 24, 2007
Blocked - September 29, 2007
Modifications - None

SOOO PUUUUUURTY! The wing and where the cat's paws pattern in the center was hard to knit - it's not difficult, it's just boring! And adding beads just slows down the process. I also didn't use any stitch markers until the wing portion, and I only used one. But all the trouble is worth it at the end! And now I'm gonna send it to its merry way. Maybe I have enough yarn leftover to make another one for myself when I feel like it! Speaking of yarn, I forgot to showcase these awhile back when I received the order, along with quite a few of my fellow SnBers:

Pounds of Zephyr!!

No, they are not all for me!! I am holding for Anphoe and a friend Anya.

After the MS3 dried, David and I went to the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration put out by Aiping Tai Chi & Wu Dang Kung Fu Academy. It had a huge variety of different performances, including students from the academy showcaseing what they learned, special guests from "Changing Face" master to Chinese Acrobatics. Here are some of the pictures I took during the celebration:

Lion dance!


Traditional Chinese folk music


"Changing Face"


Everyone who performed


The Chinese Acrobatics who is balancing THREE eggs on some stick!

Yeah! THREE eggs! He even cracked them to prove that he didn't cheat! I thought that was amazing! The show was definitely worth my money and we will be sure to come back for next year!

Sunday morning I woke up with these on top of me:

Mick and Bruno on the bed waking me up

See my arm? Yeah, Mick likes to cover my face for some reason - it's a good thing he just got groomed and is super fluffy and soft and smelly good :). I let them out and saw the beautiful Sunday sky:

Beautiful September sky

We woke up so early for Sunday, it's not even funny... 6AM!! Yes, you read it right, and for what? See below:

46 tires!!!

A truck full of tires - We had to go get it up in MA, near VT border. It was for David's race car, and they were free, so there we were, up so early to get them. After we got the tires, we drove back down to go here:

Yankee Candle Village

I haven't gone there for awhile now, and I always like going in there, one, to check out all the new scents, and two, to see all the Christmas decorations. Although, I completely forgot to take ANY pictures...

After Yankee Candles, we finally headed to the Big E. (Click if you don't know what a Big E is) The first vendor we went to sells linens. We found these beautiful doily type thing that has autumn leaves on it - perfect for our wedding! So we ended up buying 15 of them for the center pieces. We continued on and went into the State Buildings (Each of the New England State has its own building showcasing what is produced in that state). New Hampshire was the first. I got a Maple Sundae and turned around and found this:

Spinners in New Hampshire Building

Yup! You see that right! And she was wearing her handmade socks! :) Then we moved onto Connecticut. On the way in, we saw this new potato place that wasn't there couple of years ago:

Giant baked potato with butter, cheese and BBQ pull pork. YUM!

Now, what you need to know, is that Baked Potato is Maine's specialty - at least that's when people lined up all the way outside to get a Maine Baked Potato:

The looooong line in Maine Building waiting for baked potatoes!

So this year, we didn't wait at all! AND we got pull pork on top of it! We moved on through all the states and went out to the antique car show:

OOOOOLD car in display

There are actually quite a few cars out there and I wish I had them all... Old cars are just so much prettier than the newer ones. The next major thing we did was to go see the bears:

One of the bears we saw!

This time, there was no mama bear though. I hope mama bear was okay. There were about 6 or 7 bears in there total. They are actually quite cute and they nudged the guy who was IN the trailer with them who fed them to play! Can you imagine? In an enclosed space with 6 live bears? Yeah, me either.

The last place we went to was the barn that house all the live stocks. There was a little place for the fiber:

Fiber? Anyone??


Baaaaaaaah...

I went inside the fiber nook but I just missed it! They were all cleaning up! However, I did find a vendor who is not completely finished on cleaning and found a bunch of patterns. I went home with 3 Fiber Trend patterns for $5!!! Not to shabby if I do say so myself!

While we were there, there was a sheep show going on...

Sheep show

So here is the loot:

The Loot!

The green Marker vest usually runs about 80 bucks, but I got it for half off, along with the hot chili undershirt and long underwear - all for half off! I know it's hard to think of winter right now, but when they are at that price, I know it is a good idea to get them now. The yellow 400 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets - 20 bucks for the entire set! Great Pyrenees picture frame, key chain, tea cup ornament, and stickers - we NEVER find anything Great Pyrenees related so we had to get them! I put the key chain on my purse and I'm going to print some pictures of the dogs to put it in the frame. The autumn leaves doilies, Florian ratchet-cut pruning tool, a box of fudge, and the stuff from Yankee Candles - Tea and Honey candle, Maple leave cookie cutter and a little maple syrup for my Christmas Swapee :) It's secret, so no showing off her blog right now, in case somehow she finds me. But I am super excited about the swap though :).

We were so exhausted when we got home... My legs and butt still hurt when I woke up on Monday!! We took this right before we went to bed:

Vanilla waiting for us going to bed!

Yeah, my weekend was just a little busy...

ps. Just so you know, there are only 76 people in front of me in Ravelry!!!!