A Weekend Of Fun

What did you do this weekend?

Saturday morning, our new lawn guy came, and he did an AMAZING job cleaning up the yard.

Even the dogs didn't know what to do with it!

I went to my weekly farmer's market with Archiknist and we came back to the house waiting for a few others to show so we can go try on my wedding gown. Now, I was too excited to see my gown and didn't take ANY pictures!!!!! But no fear, my readers, I'm going back on Thursday to do my first fitting so I will make sure I take a picture then.

While I was there, I was tying out different veils. The one I liked was $195!!!! WTF??? So I looked online and found this - yup, only $63!! I'm pretty sure I'll be getting that. At first I didn't want to have a veil, but I saw a very similar one on a magazine and just loved it.

We came back to my house for some BBQ and crafting. It was too bad that the weather wasn't so great so we couldn't be out to enjoy my new swing:

We are going to use it for our "altar" area. We will take out the awning part, and the swing, and I'll decorate it with some fabric and ask my florist to get some hanging plants for the four corners. I really like the look of this when I first saw it during my research, so I'll do something similar, minus the crazy flower on the top.

Today I went with Beth and Ola to Lyman's Orchard for some strawberry picking. It was a lot of fun looking for those ripen red, juicy berries.

Afterwards we went to the Apple Barrel to see what's in season and what they got. There are lots of canning stuff for sale (mmm... jam...) and pies. But I came home with these:

YUM. Can't wait for mid-July for the other berries to be ready.

On other news, I worked on my invitations, and here is what I got:

Yeah, the outer pockets are finally done! I can finally move on into the inside of the invitations. Speaking of that, I got these in the mail:

I'm going to use these vintage postcards as the response card. I think it would make a cool scrapbook when it is all over. I just hope everyone will actually return the response card!

Oh, and it's 97 days till the big day! :)

As far as gardening, I've been kinda on hold since I couldn't move all the blocks needed to do the raise garden and David is away for work, all the seedlings have been just staying in their starter container and waiting. Hopefully it's not too late. So without further ado, here are some pictures of the herbs:

See how awesome those herbs look? And I use some for dinner tonight:

I had some Greek pasta salad at Ola's house not too long ago, so I decided to try my hands in it with some of my herbs.

jennsquared's Greek Pasta Salad

1 box of pasta of any kind
1 small can of chopped olives
1 and half cup of corn (I grilled some corn last night so I used that)
1 shallots, finely chopped
1 scallion, finely sliced
some parsley, finely chopped
some thyme, finely chopped
1 tsp dry basil (use fresh ones if you have any)
some garlic pepper seasoning
salt
olive oil
basil pesto grapeseed oil (just use more olive oil)
apple cider vinegar (use whatever light vinegar you have on hand)
crumbled feta cheese

1. Boil a pot of water and cook the pasta until al dente
2. While the pasta is cooking, chopped up all the herbs
3. When pasta is ready, drain well and let it cool a little bit before mixing everything together
4. Serve slightly warm

Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. And feel free to leave a comment on your variation!

Where Did The Socks Go?

And you say whaaaaaat?

Well... Let me back track a bit. Last Thursday, work sent me to NYC for East Pack Expo. With such a short notice, I decided to cast on a pair of easy socks to knit while I am walking around in the expo. I started them while i was on the train, and once I got out of Grand Central (no photo there... DOH!) I started walking towards to Freefoods for breakfast. While walking, I show my pair of socks around town:

Time Square was a little dark due to the clouds. Oh well. While I was at Freefoods, I had a hard time choosing what I want to eat since there were so many different awesome organic foods there, but I settle for these:

My melon smoothie and mango. The smoothie is made with honeydew, goats milk yogurt, honey and mint, and the mango was infused with agave syrup and mint. I also got an organic bagel with organic cream cheese - SO YUMMY.

Sadly, I would say that's about the highlight of my expo trip, since the trade show isn't THAT exciting. I did have one person come up to me while knitting and asked me if my needles were "medical devices". HUH? Yeah...

Saturday I went to Dream Come True Farm with Archiknist. I swear I thought we were going to melt while we were there - it was SO. HOT. And it still is! While we were there, we saw two Nigerian goats. They were so tiny and cute!

That's a mama goat!!! Isn't she cute and tiny? :) She actually provides the milk that makes the soaps the farm sells! So awesome. There are also llamas, alpacas and sheep on site. I was so good and didn't buy anything!!!

Speaking of anything, a box showed up in my house few days ago:

A drop spindle and lots of rovings! When I went to MDS&W last month, I went to the ravelry party, but due to time constraint, I didn't stay for the raffle and gave my ticket to Anarchy, who I met during the party. Apparently my ticket won, and instead of keeping the drop spindle, she messaged me in ravelry and sent me the spindle, and threw in some roving for me to try too! Knitters are SO generous! I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'm thinking of doing that this weekend.

Another thing I received this past week was this:

It's the Amish Friendship Bread from Knitsheady. Today is day 9, and tomorrow, I need to split it and bake it and give four of the starters to four friends. It's a good thing I'm going to SnB tomorrow :) I saw this on the internet a lot, and apparently it's quite a popular thing to do - although it is my first one ever.

So no knitting to show this post due to these:

I've been busy making my wedding invitations. I decided that I really like the one I saw online but didn't want to pay the hefty price, so I bought whole sheet paper and am making them myself! I want to mail them up at the 1000 Islands so I got less than a month to finish them. I better hurry! It's a good thing I'm almost done with the cover :).

Well, I'm off cutting more paper. Maybe next time, there will be some knitting to show, or maybe even garden stuff! :)

MDS&W & Sock Pentathlon Sock #2

In case you are wondering, that's "Maryland Sheep and Wool". I wasn't able to go last year, but this year, I was SOOOOO there.

I took a half day on Friday and took the train down to Baltimore. I've never taken Amtrak before and I have to say I had quite a pleasant experience. And I met a couple of nice people too! Once I got there, I took a taxi and went to MamaE's Party! Sadly, I didn't take ANY picture! I was too excited to meet E and SweetSheep!!! But I did get a photo with them the next day!

Sneaksleep came and meet me up at the party, and after the party, I went back with her to her house for a nap cap and got up for the big day.

And see who we saw!!! :)

Zarzuela!!! She had move to Jersey a couple of years back and I haven't seen her since then! It was so great to see her there!

There were lots of sheep, llamas, alpacas, angora bunnies, and of course, there were food, yarn, and people spinning.

And while I was eating lunch, I noticed quite a bit of buttercup:

After the first day, Sneaksleep and I went to the Ravelry party - it was fun, and a lot less people than I expected. We stayed for a little while before we went and met up with the rest of the New Haven gang for some fondue at Melting Pot.

That was the first time I've been to a Melting Pot and it was so much fun! Although a little on the pricey side, but it was totally worth it, especially the chocolate fondue!

Yum. (that was the s'mores fondue, you should try it if you go!)

Sunday was a lot less intense, even the traffic was a lot less. Sneaksleep and I say goodbye after an hour in the fairground, and I left with Sami, Karen, Brenda and Beth around noon. While I was in the car, I was busy working on the Sock Pentathlon Sock #2 - Berlin Muster. I finished first sock while in the car on the way home, but the sewing needles were in the trunk with my overnight bag, so I couldn't finish the grafting, so what is a girl to do?

Use the buttons I got from the festival and parties! (and you call me crazy, collecting pins and all!) And since I couldn't knit while I'm at work, slowly, I finally finished the pair this morning, although, not without a hitch - again, that stupid little sewing needle. So the engineer in me took over, and fond something to use:

Twisty-tie!!! Yes, you read that right! And a few minutes after, I have these:

Pattern - Berlin Muster by Kristin Benecken
Yarn Used - 0.56 skein of Valley Yarn Franklin
Needles - Harmony size 1
Gauge - 8 sts per inch
Knit - May 01, 08 to May 07, 2008
Modification - I reduced the purl stitch so it's only 56 stitches, although I probably could still go down a bit since the lace is quite stretchy.

The pattern was fairly easy, although everyone had a hard time to get it started due to various reasons. The yarn was wonderful. I love it so much I want to get more of it! I have plenty of it left to do another pair of socks! You can read my full review here.

Well, now both of that are blogged and in the bag, it is time for me to rest my eyes. Good Night.

The Harlot

Was at Northampton! I drove up with Archiknist and Costumchick up to Webs to see Stephanie Pearl-McPhee to give a talk. She was hilarious and did not disappoint.

This was my attempt of taking a picture of the Harlot from far away in the dark in the Calvin Theater.

After the talk, we went back to WEBS to do a little shopping. After a very long line, I finally got to talk to Stephanie, and had her signed couple of the books.

I had my sock picture taken, and you will have to go over to her blog to see the picture when she posts it later.

And after another very long line, I left WEBS with these:

I had "At Knit's End", I just brought it along with me for the signing. I bought couple of the "Thins I Learned from Knitting". One for me, and one is a gift. Of course, with 25% off all sock yarn, I couldn't stop myself and bought a skein of Franklin, and a skein of Playful Weekend, which will be part of another scarf I made, but only needed some ribbon threading to be completed!!! One less ZZZ project on my Ravelry notebook!!! Speaking of Ravelry, guess who I saw at WEBS?????

Jess, the co-creater of the Ravelry!!! She also gave me my new "Where are my stitches at?" pin :). I will be seeing her next weekend when I go to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, so I can complete my collection.

Overall, it was a great trip and we had fun, despite the massive amount of people.

So on a complete different note, I want to show off a little something I made for Anphoe awhile ago:

I saw something similar on a jewelry magazine few weeks ago and wanted to give it a try, and Anphoe had said she needed a pin so her Sunshine top won't keep falling off her shoulder. Few days after, viola! I had fun making it, and I hope she likes it.

Well, I'm exhausted after much excitement from today. Off to rest and read some Harlot-ism before I fall asleep!!! And if you have a chance to see Steph, I suggest you to go to the talk, even if you don't read her blog, or are a follower of the Yarn Harlot, because she will make you laugh, until tears come out of your eyes!

Dumplings, Anyone? And More!

This past Saturday, CostumeChick, WifeMomKnitter and I went to Anphoe's for some knitting and chatting, and also for some dumplings!

Anphoe made the pork filling and I made the tofu one. They were YUMMY! After that, we knitted and played some Wii. Well, let me just put this out there first - I'm not big about playing video games, because 1) I'm not very good, 2) I'm not a good sport about losing. But this Wii thing... It's addicting! And so much fun! You can see pictures and video on Anphoe's blog.

So besides playing video games and eat, I did make some progress on the MoonDance:

Chart B is almost done!!! Which means this stole is almost done! :) You can't see the edging in the pictures, but I can assure you they are all there.

On the other news, I bought a scratch ticket and the result:

I won $25.00!!!!!!! The biggest one I've ever got!!! I think before that, the most money I won was ten bucks! Well, I'm one step towards winning big, right? ;) A lady I worked with won $200,000 on a scratch ticket not too long ago. Yeah, you read that right. Then shortly after, she won over $8,000 at Mohegan Sun... Only if I have her luck! But I think my risk taking level is too small to win that level. I guess that's why I'm an engineer.

So I bought couple of Alice Starmore books from amazon not too long ago and they finally arrived, along with Beyond Wool with a trade from Ravelry.

Only if I can find a copy of Aran Knitting, there are so many patterns I want to knit but I just can't afford the book! Too rare. ::sigh::

Speaking of books, I have a duplicate copy of this one:

I posted this on Destash book forum on Ravelry, but I figure I will offer this to my friends as well - I''m willing to part with it for $8.00 + actual shipping (if required).

Well, I'm off to go over the new books and complaint about no progress made on MoonDance to the dogs.