This past weekend was the first Pawsox Stitch N Pitch in Rhode Island. The whole family and some friends packed into cars and headed to McCoy Stadium for a great (but cold!) game. I am not a huge baseball (or sports in general for that matter) fan, but I had fun knitting and watching the game. I got a lot of compliments on my Clapotis, which was cool…and I won a raffle prize…again! I won a museum gift basket from Slater Mill (textile museum). I think I should probably buy a lotto ticket this week, I’m on a roll.

Clickable Pictures:

In other knit-related news, I’m casting on for the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl this week. Wish me better luck than I had for Secret of the Stole. I have to order more yarn because this thing is hugemongous.

And in non-knitting AWESOME news, I am officially done with school. Somehow I managed to finish my honors projects, pass in my final paper for Sociology (on knitting no less), and I think I even managed to do fairly decent on my dreaded French final. I also got a letter from school saying I’m getting some sort of award next week, though it doesn’t say for what. So until further notice I will assume it is the AWESOMEST STUDENT EVER award.

I graduate May 31st and head to UMASS in the Fall to finish up my Bachelor’s. Hopefully. Woohoo!

In somewhat shitty news, I found out the lump on my belly I always assumed was a wonky muscle or something is actually a hernia. I might have to have surgery on it after Aiden is born. Not a huge deal, but I’m a big baby so I plan to stress over it anyway. As if the stretch marks weren’t enough, now I’ll have a matching scar. Child bearing…it’s a dirty job.

Well I have to go swear at sew the final item for my Crafty Detective swap so I can mail it today.

ETA: I almost forgot, I sent off my first wholesale order for my knitting earrings yesterday, how cool is that?

  

This post is 3 days of editing in the making! Links! Photos! Yay, Maryland!

Friday- Ma, Cat and Allison pulled up to pick me up for our long-ass drive down to Maryland.

We’re all giddy with excitement and and laugh and talk the whole way down. We get to our hotel (Comfort Inn/Catonsville) and relax for a while. We eventually dragged our butts off the super comfy beds and went exploring the Baltimore National Pike looking for the WalMart to buy some sandals since it was way warmer than we expected. We shopped a little, grabbed some food, and bought a bunch of junk to go with the booze Ma and Cat packed:

Naturally I stuck to the junk food.

We all hit the sack around 10pm, but thanks to the morons next door (a whole high school basketball team from Baltimore…awesome) I didn’t get much sleep. I’d say I got maybe 3 hours to add to the 4 I got the night before thanks to over-excitement and panic that I’d oversleep.

Saturday: I was up at 5:30am after I finally gave up on sleeping. I was the first one in the shower and felt pretty good considering my lack of rest. By 7am we were all dressed, packed and donning our “Hello My Name Is” Ravelry pins we snagged last year at Rhinebeck. We got to the fairgrounds around 7:30am and I hadn’t taken more than three steps out of the car before the first on many cries of “LICK MY STIIIICKS!” came flying from Ravelers Nikki and JenniChrys and in the parking lot. I vastly underestimated how many people read about my “yell at me” hopes here and on Ravelry, so that was a good preparation for what was to come!

Once we were inside, we went STRAIGHT to The Fold where we, and about 15 other early birds got first-picks on Socks That Rock! On the way we picked up LanieRed who came all the way from Mississippi by herself!

I tried to give her free earrings for spotting me while we waited in line but she wanted to buy them and save a freebie for someone else (incredibly sweet of her). This then caught the attention of other line people who wanted to buy earrings, including some Ravelers, including katiebell,Yarnyoldkim and rescueapet. I can officially say I was picked clean before The Fold even opened! Thanks so much to everyone who bought them!! I didn’t think anyone would be interested in buying them so I foolishly didn’t make the big batch I planned on making- silly me…I could have had a considerably bigger yarn budget!

Anyway, they opened up the Fold just after 8am and we all rushed in. I bought four beautiful skeins, and Ma, Cat, and Allison and I hurried into line with armfuls of yarn.

I must have met 10 more Ravelers before I left Barn 3 including SailorCarol, which was so cool. I got to the end of Barn 3 and met one more person that totally blew my mind. Pam Helm! (My name is Pam Helme). I got such a kick out of it I forced her to take a picture with me.

I’m pretty sure she thought I was batshit crazy, but I’m more or less used to that.

We went from there to a couple more barns (and I hit the bathroom 800 times in this short timespan…once running into KnitNat, who won some earrings!) where I burned through my budget in no time. I got a wonderful expandable market bag kit and awesome Lavendar cooling spray from The Spinnery, some bees wax at the next booth over, and some delicious Bamboo from Maple Creek Farm.

Somewhere in between these barns I was swarmed by trueepicture, greydog, smartash, lillypad, georgiepurl, whimsyfist and trinity all at once which was almost like my fantasy rock star dreams consisted of except all these beautiful women would be be beautiful men. Uh…WHO ALL LOOK LIKE Gerard Butler MY HUSBAND. (Love you, hunny…) It was pretty awesome and naturally being my smooth self I just stood there like an idiot not knowing what to say. (This happened basically all weekend. I’m far more charming on the internetz or after a 12-pack)

I took lots of pictures of the pacas. So.fucking.cute!!

We decided to check the other barns later, grabbed some corn dogs and headed to the Main Exhibition Hall. I went straight to the Cloverhill booth and was immediately overwhelmed by all the gorgeous yarn. Ravelraiser creator and general bad ass JulieFrick found me and threatened to tickle me. She has literally the CUTEST little boy I have ever laid eyes on. I was already low on cash and pretty bummed about that, but I decided to splurge on some HandMaiden Sea Silk anyway. The stuff is soooo beautiful, my craptastic camera does it zero justice.

I looked for Jacey from Insubordiknit but unfortunately she wasn’t there yet (I never did find her!). I was bummed, I was looking forward to meeting her. I did get to oogle her awesome eyeball yarn though! I started making my way to the next booth and started feeling light-headed. At this point I’d been on my feet for about 3 hours and they were SCREAMING. It was warm and there were some rude-ass people making the Main barn a total mobscene. I got really claustrophobic and dizzy and starting jogging for the door…which took 10 minutes because no one would get out of my way. It sucked.

I made it out the door and headed for a bench, met and chatted with a couple more Ravelers (lar being one of them) while I waited for my head to stop spinning. The rest of my party came out after a while and we headed for the Ravelry meet up. At this point I had run into a shit-ton of Ravelers and I am kicking myself for not writing down everyone’s screen names and blogs because I’d love to know! I was so tired and hurting the morning is now a total blur. If I ran into you and didn’t mention you, say hello!!

Anyway, The Ravelry meet-up was great. I met lots of awesome Ravelers like dulcedosa, cicadaqueen & silkworm (LSG, bitches!) carrieoke, turtlegirl, trillian42 (also of Knitty Board fame), fleecyknits, knitty34, yarnkarma, vismajor, an explicit podcaster who was passing out giant flowers and is pictured below with her notepad and message she wrote just for the photo…someone help, who is she??? I forgot and I want to worship her listen to her podcast. There were so many more people but I am too tired to keep digging around Ravelry to find them! If you were one of them, let me know!!

All in all, it was a blast and I got some quality sitting time and felt much better. Perhaps best of all I finally got to meet the awesome Mary-Heather (rainydaygoods) who is really, really not an LSG narc. She swears.

Apparently some people decided to be MDK’s and get pissed off because they ran out of the FREE Ravelry buttons or couldn’t find their FREE avatar stickers and cussed out some of the Ravelry VOLUNTEERS. Since I can’t say it on the public Maryland forum, I will say it here: GET OVER YOURSELF YOU FUCKING CRYBABIES. Are you serious? It’s a button, STFU.

Ahem…moving on, Nation.

So from here we dropped off our purchases and hit some more booths. Brooks Farm was a hot spot and the yarn was gorgeous. I met a few more Ravelers here…I’m missing some names again, but I have mdknitr and felinemagnet, nice to meet you both!

We pretty much left right after this and went out to eat at Applebee’s. We went back to the hotel and spent a couple hours playing with our hauls, casting on new projects and napping.

I woke up from my nap at 10 to 7 and lept up. We had 10 minutes until the Ravelry Sheraton Party! Oops. We gussied up real quick and took off.

A few minutes after we arrived and grabbed our raffle and drink tickets, it started to rain and the crowd poured inside. Myself, Ma, Allison, Cat and the ever-awesome Silkworm plunked down at the table closest to the bar, where we remained all night.

Jess, Casey and Mary-Heather thanked everyone for the last year of Ravelry, the Ravelraiser, and for coming. Then they started drawing door prizes. I told all those other bitches at my table not to bother looking at their tickets because I was OBVIOUSLY going to win. By now, ChezAristote had joined us at the table and she told ME to put MY ticket away. We gave each other the stinkeye.

About halfway through the drawings (there was a LOT of schwag), they actually called my number! I won a cone of gorgeous Alpaca Silk lace weight and a vest pattern from WEBS. I was pumped, I never win anything. No sooner had I gotten back to the table from running to the ladies room, ChezAristote won one of those brand new Namaste clutches that go with the bag I just got! If her clutch had matched my bag I might have had to mud wrestle her for it, but it was the saddle color so I decided to instead be really happy for her!

(Bitch.)

(j/k)

We laughed all night, foul language flew from our “LSG table”, and we had a really great time. Jess and Mary-Heather stopped by, both a little glowy from boozey happiness. We even talked them (and a reluctant, possibly afraid Casey) into taking a “prove you love LSG and we’re not the equivalent of your bastard child you pretend not to have” picture, which might be my favorite souvenir from the weekend. (Don’t tell frecklemom, Jess didn’t want her to see her daughter giving a camera the finger)

And yes, I am currently the size of a house.

We eventually staggered out after deciding to abandon our plan to throw Casey in the pool (because it’s really not a party unless someone goes in the pool unwillingly). We got mildly lost coming back, and passed out happily in our marshmallow beds.

Sunday: We took a quick pass back through the fest, nothing much to report here. I purchased some tilli thomas yarn and some lace from Tess’ Designer yarn. The drive home was unbearably long and shitty and I was so happy to finally get home and smother husband and my dog.

SEE YOU AT RHINEBECK!!

  

It’s here, it’s here!!! Action shots!!!

The bag has little metal feet on the bottom of it so the bag not only stays off the floor, it sits open without falling over. So awesome.

I did a “knitty side” and a “purse-y side”.

I’ve stuffed my whole CPH project with magnetic chart keeper and needles in here with room for another ball of yarn or a sock project. Plus my shades and the pocket I have my spray sunscreen in is perfect size for the iPod video I plan to stick in there. In the purse side I have my wallet/clutch (which matches the bag and I didn’t even plan that), my glasses and this:

Because The Loopy Ewe is so awesome they sent me a little needle inventory! That will be super handy for Maryland shopping!! Did I mention I ordered this Monday and got it on Thursday? I’m a lifer!
Speaking of Maryland, I leave tomorrow- bright and early!! How prepared am I?

I have a plastic-sleeved and yarn bound direction book with multiple routes, maps, and a print out of tons of places to eat between Catonsville (where I’m staying) and the fest, and between Catonsville and Columbia, where the Ravelry Party is Saturday evening!

And as if that wasn’t nerdy and anal enough,

That’s my color coded map of the grounds and Ravelry queue! (Did you know you can print out your queue? You can!) I even attached a wrist strap on a key ring! Am I prepared? Fuckin A right I am!

In place of knitting this week I’ve been working on framing and hanging my darkroom prints for my photo wall! Yes…I’m in full blown nesting mode.

It was a bitch to hang up straight but I love it! Next week we’re making over the bedroom, so expect some more home decor photos soon!

Well I gotta go do some laundry for tomorrow! If you’re going, I’ll see you there!! Don’t forget to find me and win earrings!!

Here’s the Ravelry meet up and party info for anyone that doesn’t know:

We have three official meetups scheduled - if you are going to MDS&W, it would be great to see you at one of them! The on-site meetups at the festival will be held in the Rabbit Building:

• Saturday, May 3, from 11:30 - 1:00 pm
• Sunday, May 4, from 1:00 - 2:00 pm

Here are the party details:

• When: Saturday, May 3, from 7:00 - 11:00 pm
• Where: Sheraton Columbia - 10207 Wincopin Circle, Columbia, Maryland 21044 (link to Google Map)
• Who: Ravelers and their families! Come meet up - we can’t wait to say hi!
• What: The event is outdoors around their pool/grove area (we do have a backup location at the Sheraton in case of rain - but we really hope it is nice!). We will have some snacks to munch on and drinks at the party (2 drink tickets/person - after that it’s a cash bar), but please note that we will not be serving dinner at this event! There will be music, a giveaway with some amazing prizes, and a lot of fun people to meet. We really can’t wait!
• Why: Because we like parties and we love Ravelers. Sounds like a great way to spend Saturday night!

  

I’ve been knit-lazy the last few days, so not much to report there. I’m letting 2 weeks left of college finishing work pile up and when I get stressed (rather than DO what I’m putting off) I tend to get really lazy and just watch a lot of TV. I’m a champion like that.

But what I HAVE been doing is planning for this weekend’s pilgrimage to Maryland Sheep and Wool!! Who’s going? If you’re going, I have a little bit of a contest for you! The prize? Knitting earrings!

I’m going to whip up 5 pairs of knitting earrings for the first five people that find me at Maryland! That’s it, you just gotta spot me (not hard, I’m in my third trimester and will be wearing a Bad Ass Knitters shirt and most likely my hot pink bandanna) and say something like “I SPOTTED YOU! I WANT EARRINGS!” I might bring more than 5, but I’ll say 5 for now in case making more earrings becomes a stress thing I avoid! See you there!! Trust me, this won’t be hard to spot:

Secondly, in lou of this “stimulus” tax money I’m getting Monday, I opted to finally treat myself to a nice knitting bag. I’ve been looking for a nice big purse for 3 weeks now and haven’t found a thing, so rather than waste money on some “meh” purse, I figured I might as well get a nice knitting bag that doubles as a nice big purse.

What did I get? The new drool-inducing Namaste Cali Malibu bag in Charcoal:

Oooohhohohoh I can’t wait. The Loopy Ewe has them in stock right now and they’re only $59.00! If this comes in time for Maryland I will be ridiculously happy.

I’m also thinking I will cut my hair like this:

Thoughts?

Alright, end of knit-less blog…stay tuned for a big-ass Maryland post!!

  

I am experiencing a mania-laden week. I’ve had to be physically removed from cleaning by my husband twice (there were fingerprints on the door frames…twitch), I have knit the rest of my French Market Bag, organized my office area, yarn bin (one of them), read all my piled up magazines, painted my toenails (this was difficult as they are now seemingly out of reach), knit THREE ____’s for the Crafty Detective Swap, and caught up on some schoolwork. Last night 3 of my daughter’s friends slept over and today, Hubby and I took all four of them to the zoo and out for ice cream.

I am exhausted, so let’s have a picture fest:

French Market Bag, pre-felted.

With elephant background for ambiance, obviously. With the full sunlight, I finally got the true color of the yarn (Knit Picks Amethyst Heather) to come out right. I don’t have a washing machine, busket, plunger, or tennis balls…hence the lack of felted action going on right now. I’m beginning to realize why I’ve never done a felted project before…I lack the necessary equipment. Guess I’m doomed to hit the laundromat. Eeech.

I can’t post about the other things just yet. My Crafty Detective Swap partner might read my blog so it’s radio silence until she receives her goodies. I should be sending in a few days if my mania continues and I finish everything. Rest assured, I am knitting my expanding arse off at the moment.

On to the fun stuff, a trip to the local zoo! I figured “these kids had me up at 6:30am, I’m tired and my back hurts, why not try and keep track of them in a crowded zoo on the first day of school vacation!?”

We did have fun though, it was a brief trip (small zoo) so it was pretty stress free…plus I had free passes. Bonus.

Zoe’s been to this zoo a few times so she immediately went for the Otter exhibit, only she must have forgotten the name “otter” and yelled “YAAAAY THE WATER FERRETS!!!” which I thought was pretty hilarious. Right up there with asking me for a tissue from the “glove department” the other day.

These little fuckers were really enjoying the gawking onlookers. They were racing around their tank and playing with each other…until one of them apparently grew tired of us and with a hard glare he surfaced and raspberry’d us. Like a full blown “PPPBBBBLLLTTT”. Smart ass.

The girls had a great time modeling for photos, and by modeling I mean making goofy faces while I plead with them to smile nicely. We got some cute pictures though. Note my child working the camera…

We took them out afterward for a “holy cow”. Those unschooled in the ways of Newport Creamery don’t know what I’m talking about…the “holy cow” is ten mother-effin scoops of ice cream under piles of whipped cream, hot fudge, bananas and jimmies (or sprinkles for you non-Bostonians) that grown ass men can hardly even finish.

This is the Holy Cow:

This is the Holy Cow LESS THAN TEN MINUTES LATER:

Needless to say we promptly returned the other three to their parents before the sugar really kicked in.

All in all it was a nice day. This Spring is shaping up to be one of the best I’ve had yet! For all our little problems and struggles, I really have a great life. I have an amazing husband (hello? woke me up with a French Toast breakfast yesterday for no reason), a great kid, a so-far healthy son on the way and a warm place to sleep at night. I’m getting pretty optimistic and satisfied in my old age.

It’s not such a bad way to live.

  

Wanted to whore out my friend Jacky’s crafty charitable endeavor. She’s making “sock Monstahs” and donating all the proceeds to charity (The American Cancer Society). These things are so cute! I have one so far…they’re less than 10 bucks and all hand stitched. She does custom work and has just put up an etsy:

EDIT: Jacky has changed the URL to wackyjacky.etsy.com…easier to remember!!

Wacky Jacky’s Sock Monstahs
Here’s my sock monstah, Gabrielle…seriously…so cute:

Here’s some of the others she has made:

Again, all proceeds go to charity. Jacky is doing the relay for life (Team “Electric Avenue”) in June and after that she plans to continue making the Monstahs for various charities.

  

Royal Purple, Candy Apple Red, Black, Black/Hot Pink, HOT pink, True Blue…

Coming soon: Light Green, Grass Green, Blue Sparkle and white!

(I’m on a roll over here people.)

I’m also going to be announcing a little “FIND ME” contest for earring prizes at Maryland Sheep and Wool…details coming! Better less-promotional post coming…

  

So I was mere rows away from completing the body of my Central Park Hoodie last night when I noticed the cables seemed to be more to the left than they should have been. My dumb ass did the initial set up row wrong and did the entire left front panel WRONG. FAIL. SUCK.

So I frogged the whole damned thing, re-did the set up rows and angrily plowed though 2 chart repeats before I put down the needles and backed away slowly. Angry knitting = tension change. I have learned this over the years.

So what did I do? I cast on another project. Meet my French Market Bag:

That’s the bottom which I have been knitting since last night non stop. This is my first knit with KP Wool of the Andes since I was a newb and I am REALLY enjoying it. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a new found love for straight up WOOL. Plus the color (Merlot Heather) is gorgeous.

As for the cat, yes…he is dead serious about making that face at me, but in all fairness, I did stick Zoe’s new skater hat on him just before I took the picture. Fair is fair.

The skater hat is crocheted, from my wists, and came from my awesome partner in Craftster’s current Crafty Detective swap. I’m mid craft for my partner but I’m not posting anything about it until she gets her stuff so I don’t ruin any surprises. I got some great stuff including tiny crocheted earrings, furry bear feet booties for baby A, a cute market bag, and that bad ass skully potholder from Stitch N Bitch Happy Hooker…

There’s a reason I wisted that hat…could she look any cuter?

I don’t believe she could.

If you’d like to see what else I got, visit my Flickr. I can’t sit here another moment as my husband has graduated to “hard” mode on Guitar Hero III and I can’t take the bunk notes any longer without rocketing into a hormone-induced rage.

I’ll leave you with something fellow New Englanders wait a long time each year to see…a sign of Spring:

  

Just a quick note to say thanks to those buying up the Lick My Sticks earrings! I donated money to the Ravelraiser going on at Ravelry from your sales and I will continue to do so! I’m off to the craft store tomorrow to pick up some new colors so keep an eye out for that!
BTW- In just about 5 days, Ravelers have raised over 34,000 dollars and taken Ravelry out of debt and bought it a new faster server! Never underestimate what knitters in large numbers can do!

  

Here’s another FO, I actually finished this last weekend but I’ve been lazy about posting it.

• Pattern: Sizzle by Wendy Bernard of Knit and Tonic
• Size: Small
• Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Sport (5 balls) in “Sage”
  Needles: US7 circulars
• Modifications: None

Beautiful top that this is, that is my last Sizzle. I am definitely not a knit-something-twice kinda gal, especially something with a lot of stocking stitch! I’m unhappy with the way the neck looks. The Shine yarn is not very forgiving so it really seemed to show and slightly bigger stitches and despite 3 frogs of the picked-up neckline it just never looked as neat as my first one. BUT, with no swatching or measuring- it fits Mom like a glove and it looks really nice on her! Take that everyone who yells at me to swatch. Mission: success.

This week it has been all Central Park Hoodie all the time. I’ve completed the back, right front panel and I’m about to start the charts for the left front panel. It’s actually moving along pretty quickly. (Funny how that happens when you actually KNIT the thing, eh?)

Aside from that, I’ve been making some new Lick My Sticks earrings. I was planning to anyway but I got a boost when Miss LotusKnits wore her pair to the Yarn Harlot book launch last week and ended up getting a lot of “where’d you get those?” She was awesome enough to spread the word so now I’ve got some emails coming in looking for earrings. Here’s what I did tonight- no ear wires yet, I need to pick some up. I’m only buying sterling silver from now on, so there’s some more bang for your buck.

Like I said, they need a quick polish and some ear wires, but hey! I got some done. (These things are the bane of my existence and involve a good 2 hours of foul language and a lot of AAAARRRGGGGGHHHH’s…but I love the way they come out.) They’ll be up on my etsy for 10 smackeroos.

I spent the day in the darkroom at school printing off some older shots for my wall-of-black-and-whites I have dancing in my head. (Can you say nesting urge?) I also neurotically went through my Ravelry queue filling in all the yardage and specs for EVERYTHING so I can print off a final copy for Maryland Sheep And Wool.

I will leave you with the art my daughter just showed me. (Yes, I’m working on nailing “you’re” and “your” into her head) This is for her friend Britt:

And this…is for her sister: I don’t know why this made me laugh so hard but it did. Kids are hilarious.Oh and my friend had her baby yesterday morning, welcome to the world, Isis!!!