Boo!

Happy Halloween!

Please check this out, it makes me laugh and cry -- The Life and Death of a Pumpkin. It's so sick and wrong and I can't stop watching it.

Yarn outing!

I had a great time going to Sheep's Clothing in Valparaiso this weekend with Elizabeth, her MIL, Jess and Vicki. The store was overwhelming -- so much yarn, books, needles, notions and good fiber fiends. Check out Jess's blog for some pics b/c I was too busy feeling everything to take any.

I bought this nice multi-colored manos that will eventually become a baby gift, and also something that will soon (I hope) become a little birthday gift for someone who reads this blog.

Take a look at Rogue -- now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! I'm about to start the arms. I love the way the cables came out! I just hope it fits -- I don't have the patience to take it off the needles to try it on. That's dumb, I know, but I came this far...

Last but definitely not least, congratulations to Mikey -- I'm so proud of you! He made detective!

Rogue, interrupted

I'm usually a pretty monogamous knitter, but the Buttercream suri that I bought from the Amish Alpaca farmers kept calling my name, and I knew that I couldn't wait until Rogue was completed before playing with this buttery goodness. I wanted to make a hat with it, but then I found the Nakiska pattern on Knitty and it seemed perfect. It knit up super fast and super soft, and I still have enough yarn left to do a hat -- it didn't even take 1/2 a skein! The only thing I had to fix was the bind off -- MAKE SURE YOU DO A LOOSE BIND OFF for this one! Otherwise it won't stretch. But there was a lesson in un-doing a bind-off there for me. Also, I will use slightly bigger cable needles next time -- the middle with the cables is a lot tighter than the edges with the seed stitch. But this will even out with wear, and it looks and feels niiiiiice!

The Merry Widow

This is my favorite soprano and good friend Laura Portune. She's one hot mama with a voice that can shatter glass, and I mean that in a good way. Go see her in The Merry Widow if you're going to be in or around Columbus in February! While there, you can check in on A Second Breakfast and Ruthless and his bride, who also make their merry homes there.

Two steps forward, one step back

I'm happy with the progress I'm making on the Rogue Hoodie. But I still slip up. Last night I spent about an hour tinking back when I forgot to do a repeat of the cable pattern and just kept on moving up the chart. Grrrr. But it's all good now. Can you see the kangaroo pocket?

Rhinebeck was this weekend -- all the posts about it make it look like the weather was beautiful and everyone had a great time. Wish I was there -- but definitely next year!

Avocado Fever - THE SOURCE

After that Paul Hornung's "pants fell down" post, my hit counter skyrocketed by 2K in two days...and a large number of these hits were coming from deadspin.com (think of it as gawker for sports) -- they had AVOCADO FEVER as one of the confirmed "sources" of this rumor. I love it! Check it out here. I am SO sad I didn't have my camera because we were RIGHT THERE in full view of those baby blue boxers. Here's a link to the "event" on NBC.com (I found this link on NDScene). I can't find actual pics anywhere on the web, but I saw an excellent replay of it on WNDU Saturday morning before the game. Bug them to post the video.

You'll all be happy to know that Mr. Hornung's pants remained firmly around his waist when he was honored on the field during the UCLA game Saturday. Here's a shot of the team rushing over to the student section after Quinn and the Shark's amazing last-minute TD to win the game for the Irish! Best worst game I've ever been to...

Heisman winner caught with pants down...

I had all these great intentions of posting with photos of the leaves in Brown County, where David & I went earlier this week, and of the excellent progress I've made on my Rogue Hoodie, but I just got too busy doing nothing to blog. And then this happened...and I HAD to share...we went to the ND pep rally tonight with my parents, and 1956 Heisman Trophy winner Paul Hornung was speaking, and HIS PANTS FELL DOWN AS HE SPOKE in front of 11,000 people! Oh my God. I wish I had my camera with me. I mean, the guy was standing there in his baby blue boxers and everyone was cracking up as he pulled his pants back up from where they had fallen, which was all the way down around his ankles. Public speaking nightmare! Ahh!

Anyway, more knitting-related news to come next time. I just couldn't stop laughing about what I saw tonight.

Amish Suri!

David & I took a trip out to Nappanee this weekend to see the open house at the J-Bar-J Alpaca Ranch. Their flyer was interesting because there was no web site/email info -- we found out that because the ranchers are Amish, the internet is off limits to them. The herd was small (only 8 animals) but I got some nice yarn spun from their own alpacas, and it's 100% suri! Soooo soft. Here's a pic of a suri, I actually think it is one of the animals that this yarn came from (either Shandon or Butter Creme, the yarn is a blend from the two alpacas).

I'm back on track with the Rogue. That's the kangaroo pocket in front -- I was afraid to attempt this at first, because the instructions intimidated me. But then I read them again and it's really pretty simple. I'm past the point where I had to frog it the last time, and it seems to be coming along pretty nicely. I should make some nice progress on it during our trip down to Bloomington, IN tomorrow. It's supposed to be a cute area and is just a little get away during our week off.

Isn't it a bit early...

To wake up in the morning and find this outside???

The 10th Circle of Hell

Here's a progress shot of my Rogue Hoodie. Does it look a little strange? That's because I circularly knitted myself into a MOBIUS LOOP!!! Unbeknownst to me until I had progressed through several inches + hem + a bunch of the kangaroo pocket, of course. The only bright side is that now I can fix (aka start over on) that dropped stitch in the cable panel.

I just needed to bitch. I'm so so mad.

Fall Is TOTALLY Here

First up, a progress shot on the Rogue Hoodie -- I'm doing okay, better than I thought I would be. I actually progressed about 2x as far as you can see from this pic, but 1/2 of that is the hem which I just knit to the WIP, so you can't see it any more (thanks for the lesson on that in the Hourglass Sweater, Jess!). I did mess up one of the cables slightly by dropping a stitch and then finagling it back up to the needle, and I'm not so sure it was properly finagled, but the thought of ripping made me realize that I can live with this mistake, and it's not very noticeable. I'm sure it will be the first of many errors. There is a bit of trickery at work in the pattern in the form of the Trinity Stitch. It involes a combo of K/P into the same stitch 3 times. I found a video on the DIY Network to help me figure out how to do this, but OMG! This Janet Szabo woman, the demonstrator, knits and purls into the same stitch about 20 times!!!! I have no idea what she is doing. And then Vickie Howell says, "It's super easy!" Even David was cracking up as I watched the video over and over and screamed obscenities at the computer screen. Super easy my ass! I think I figured it out anyway, I have the right # of stitches, and if I find out later that I did it wrong, I'm not going back!!!!

The weather this weekend was picture perfect for a football game. Lots of our friends were in town, including the guru's parents and fiance, A Second Breakfast & her roommate and family, Becca, Eoin, Ryan & their family...the list goes on! We won the game and had lots of quality bonding time with everyone.

Sunday was time to get into fall gear, so we headed up to Fennville, MI to visit the corn maze at Crane Orchards and to drink some crisp apple cider. I think this is the last of the beautiful weekends for a while, so we milked it.

Last but not least the eggs -- I scrambled them up for breakfast and there is such a difference in color and taste. I don't ever want to eat store-bought eggs again!

Jane Fonda's Dog

David & I went to see Ms. Fonda speak at Notre Dame last night. The subject was "The Feminization of Poverty". I'm not so sure how enlightening her talk was on the intended subject, but she was really interesting to listen to. She said she brings her dog everywhere so that she doesn't miss her grandkids.

In other news, I found somewhere to get eggs from pasture-fed hens. I'm cracking some open today and making chocolate chip cookies with them. Here's a pic of 2 types of eggs next to each other -- the one on the right is one from the pasture hens, the other was produced from an unknown hen diet. The pasture-fed one is WAY darker, you can see it even better in person but the pic shows it too. Maybe tomorrow we will do a scrambled or over-easy taste test!

One side will make you grow taller...

Well, my stature remains unchanged but my eyes have been opened to the omnipresent mushroom kingdom. I met my new friend Davanh at her parents' house, and we hunted the little fungi in the woods for close to 2 hours yesterday. The weather was perfect, having rained the day before (albeit while we were enjoying the ND v. Purdue game, but we stayed until the end this time and ND won so that's okay) and being delightfully warm and sunny for an early October day. But I mean it, seriously, mushrooms are EVERYWHERE. We saw puffballs, entolomas, honey mushrooms and many more. I liked the taste of the entolomas the best, but the puffballs smelled so heavenly and mushroomy. From the moment Davanh picked the first one off of the tree trunk, my olfactory senses were in overdrive. Davanh also game me some of the 15 pound chicken mushroom she and her dad had found the day before. Yes, I said 15 pounds. This thing was HUGE, it almost took over their house. I didn't get poisoned, either, although I admit I was curious to see whether or not I would wake up dead this morning...haha, just kidding. And here I am anyway!

So thanks, Davanh, for the keys to the kingdom. I look forward to the spring, when the hunting is supposed to be particularly fine thanks to the presence of the morel!

I cast on the for the rogue hoodie last night, but casting on is about all I did. I'm using the darker color yarn in the pic, it's some wool from Mountain Shepherdess that I bought from MDSW.