Spring Surprise

It's slowly starting to look like spring around here. The weather is warming up and I am starting to get my garden ready for planting. I am hoping that we have seen the last of the frost, but I'm sure winter still has a few tricks up her sleeve. 

In the meantime, I am looking forward to spring break. My family goes to the beach every year and I can't wait for warm, sunny weather and beautiful seashells... not to mention delicious food. In the meantime, I have been cooking up a little something to wear when we get there. 

The color on the ball came out weird... there's no blue in it. 

Don't you love that cheerful hot pink? I think it's going to be a lot of fun to knit and I will post more details when things have progressed further.

Valentine's Day (is for the birds)

Enough time has passed that all my Valentines have received their surprises, so I can now share them with you! I wanted to make something cute for Valentine's Day, but I also wanted to create something that would stick around a little longer than a card. I didn't have enough time to knit something elaborate for everyone and I have been wanting to try to create little stuffies for a while, so this is what I came up with:

Aren't they cute? I am (beyond) obsessed with owls and birds in general (my house has a bird thing going on... they're on my shoe racks, my shelves, and my dishes) and so are several members of my family, so I thought I would make some owls and one blue bird!

I also found some brown paper tags and wrote cheesy sayings on each of them before I put the birds in the mail.

I somehow didn't get another good picture of the bluebird, but his tag said, "Valentine, you're so tweet!" I am pretty sure all of my recipients loved their gifts... I certainly had fun making them!

Valentine's Day (Weekend Edition)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I have some lovely Valentine's Day surprises to feature here, but I was a little late mailing them so I will have to wait until a few days have passed and the surprises have been received by all recipients. (If you didn't get one, I still love you, but I only sent out a handful this year!!!)

I love Valentine's Day because I love getting mail, and all my family members send out cute cards and greetings to each other this time of year. It's a fun way to remind everyone that they are loved.

I had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend with my family. I went home for a few days and I got to hang out with my parents and play with our cute dogs. I especially love this cute puppy.

How could you resist that sweet little face? Can you see her toy lurking in the corner of the picture? She is a lot of fun and spends all her time 'supervising' whatever we are doing. 

I also got a chance to give my mom her Feather and Fan scarf (knit out of delicious Araucania Worsted--- I am so addicted to that wool and I just bought some of their hot pink sock wool!) which turned out well. I love the subdued lace pattern in the worsted weight and I really love the colors. She liked it a lot, too, but didn't want her face in the photo since I took this after she got back from the barn. Understandable!

Then last night I had a date with my Valentine. He took me to see Romeo et Juliette at the new(ish) opera house donwn town. We didn't get a good shot of the gorgeous red Winspear building, but we did get one of that Dallas skyline. You can see the cathedral on the right. 

After the opera, he had another surprise(!)... and I was very surprised. We ate at Toulouse, one of our favorite little fancy restaurants. We had some delicious French food and a very romantic evening watching people on the sidewalk as they biked or walked by. The weather was so nice that the patio screens were rolled up and we could enjoy a breeze.

We finished out the evening with (you guessed it) a latte and some good conversation at our favorite espresso bar. Sadly, I still owe my Valentine his present, but it is a delicious knit tie that is taking me a while to finish. He did get to see the plan and the work in progress, though, and he was surprised and pleased. I'm glad because he has a very finely developed sense of style and I hoped the yarn would meet with his approval. (BIG thanks to my Aunt Laura for sending that along!)

I hope everyone else is having a great Valentine's Day. What did you do for your Valentine this year? Any favorite Valentine memories from years past?

And, coming soon...

*My Sekrit Valentine Project* Plans for a Home Decoration* SOCKALYPSE: The Final Chapter* Ranch Photos* My House (Decorating still in Progress)* Intarsia* Swift-Winding on a Budget*

SOCKALYPSE

Everyone on Facebook keeps referring to this persistent snow as the 

Snowpocalypse. I think that's just silly. For starters, there's only a few inches. And, even if the entire city has been shut down and I've been trapped in my house with no company for four days, what's so apocalyptic about snow?

I'll tell you what's truly horrific. SOCKS.

Tiny rabbit and deer horn on my mantel added for scale. 

Teensy weensy needles, splitty soft sock yarn (that was probably ill-advised), and a rapidly looming deadline of my dad's birthday. Now THAT is something truly apocalyptic. So, I give you: SOCKALYPSE 2011!!!! Will I make that birthday deadline and successfully complete my second pair of socks ever? Or will I give up sock knitting* and return to simple lace patterns worked on large circulars in worsted weight wool? Only time will tell...


*Given that I just spent thirty minutes admiring sock yarn on etsy, this seems unlikely. 

Sad Day!

Well, I was afraid that this would happen. Do you see what I'm holding in that picture? No, it's not a pair of really thin pencils. It's one of my double pointed sock needles (size 1) from Knit Picks and, as you can tell, it has suffered a terrible casualty. It seems like folly to knit with such teeny weeny toothpicks, anyway, and I had been wondering when one of them was going to give out.

In my defense, this one was a casualty to the couch, not my tight grip on the needles. Fortunately for my sake, the folks at KP include an extra needle in every set. Clearly, I'm going to need them.

Still, I like the feel of wood (and I love these needles!) too much to switch over to something metal.

Snow Days

For those of you who actually live somewhere with 'real winter,' this photo is pretty unimpressive. But to those of us who live in the South, this much snow is terrifying. The whole city has shut down and today is snow day #2 this week. No class, no school anywhere, and so far, no mail and no trash pickup. It's like living in a totally silent city, except for the little kids playing outside in the street. You know they are enjoying their day off!

The snow was so bad that Luis had to stay another day, turning his visit into a three day weekend! It was nice to just take a break and hang out for the day, especially since I had a terrible and very hectic Monday that left me feeling like I needed a month off for vacation! I have been spending a lot of time catching up on my school reading, watching TV (X-Files, mostly) and, of course, knitting. I am fortunate in that I have not lost power, water, or heat so I can enjoy the day off instead of shivering miserably like some other people stuck in the storm. 

I also wanted to take a moment to show off the latest stage in my handwarmer obsession! I have recently knit up two pairs of these cuties and I think I have finally perfected my pattern. It's so easy that it's not really worth glorifying it with the title 'pattern'...just ribbed handwarmers with a thumbhole and a feminine touch of eyelet lace at the top. 

The pair in gray and white is knit in Cascade Alpaca's Eco Duo and was a birthday present for my dear friend and fellow grad student, Julianne. The turquoise pair I'm wearing is in Araucania (of course-- I'm obsessed!) and I'm keeping them all to myself. 

Grace Handwarmers

I'm back at school and getting back into the thick of things, but I wanted to pop in and share something I made last week. I owed my friend Grace a birthday present. She lives in NYC and I wanted to get her something both useful and glam so, of course, my mind turned to handwarmers. I love handwarmers because they are versatile (you can get more seasonal wear out of them than gloves, especially if you live in a warmer climate) and stylish.

I shopped around for yarn and found a great pick-- Berocco's Lustra. It's wool and Tencel and feels gorgeous and extravagant when you work with it. It's actually not extravagant at all, at least price-wise, and you get a generous 197 yards per skein. I chose the wine color because I thought it would look great with Grace's complexion and because I thought it was classy but still a fun choice.

When planning the handwarmers I had trouble finding a pattern that was knit in the round instead of sewn, so I just wound up writing my own. I did 2x2 rib, moss stitch for the hands, and then ended with short few rows of rib and some eyelet lace.

This is a really terrible photo since my photographer boyfriend wasn't around to help me photograph, but rest assured-- in real life these fit much better than they appear to in the photo.

What's on my needles now?
SOCKS.
I will tell you all about that when I finish.