Some finished beady things and an iron chef

I said I owe you all pictures of some finished beady things. Well, here they are. First up is a labradorite necklace and earrings. I used some sterling silver softflex for the necklace. I really like that stuff!

Next, we have a piece that has come back from the dead. I had started in on the stone way back when but lost inspiration. Sometime in the last month, I was at Bead Obsessions when I saw Susan was counting out some Czech fire polished beads. They screamed at me about wanting to be in a spiral rope so I took some home. And I realized that the beads to compliment it in the spiral were beads I was using in this stone...and it all came together!


I have one more picture but I need to take a better picture.

Finally, I was at Wegman's last week and the first thing I saw when I walked in was:


Why couldn't I have seen that sooner so I could still get tickets to the cooking demonstration??? This is next Sunday at Wegman's. You can go get a book signed but you need to have purchased the book at Wegman's. Cover price has it at $40 but you can get 20% off. Sigh

Whee!!!!

The first 100 miles with Nike+!

Finished knitted objects post

I've had a very productive day. Most of it was spent knitting. I also took a knife skills class at Sur La Table and came home with a knife and stuff... :)

First up, a picture of the finished pair of STR Club's Grasshopper socks. Yes, I chose to make the knee highs.


Yes, they're done and washed. Finally, I can move on to other socks. Next up, we have:

Yes, that's right. I finished this sweater tonight. Finished all the seams, weaved in all the edges. Here's another close up of some details:


Amber helped me take these pictures.

One last picture:

I'm actually a bit further along than that because I got in some good knitting time while at the mall this afternoon. I like how bulky knits up fast! Once I finish the current skein of yarn, I want to do the sleeves first. The thing I like about top down raglans is that you don't have to do the body first. I like full length sleeves and I can deal with having a crop top if I run out of yarn.

2008 Women's Health Calendar

2008 Women's Health Calendar from the US Department of Health. It's free!

Some knitting, some beading, a visit from the Harlot

Well, first off, I would like to point everyone to pictures of the Yarn Harlot's visit to VA. Picture set here. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot is a great comedienne. The talk was hilarious and knitters from all over came out. Amber and I got there early and managed to get front row seats. Whee! If she is in your area, definitely make an effort to go see her.


You'll also notice among the picture set that I have started in on something that is BRIGHT LIME GREEN. Yes, I know it is bright. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought it other than, "This yarn must come home with me to be made into a top down raglan!"


So it is getting turned into a sweater from Fitted Knits. Stockinette body with ribbing.

And in case anyone is curious, yes, I have been beading as well. I still need to take some finished object pictures though. For now, here's one of my work area


I'll point some things out. Front and center is a serpentine strap designed by Patricia for part of our cabochon class at Bead Obsessions. I think I need a highly artsy beady project each year and this would be it. It will be the kelp like strap on a necklace on which a lampwork mermaid will be swinging off of. In the upper left quadrant, you see a spiral necklace and the blue Chinese torquoise stone. If I could find my silver end caps, I would go ahead and attempt to finish it...

Grasshopper socks

Are done! And they're drying now. I need to take pictures. I've made a couple of necklaces. I need to take pictures of those. I just need to take pictures. I've also started in on a v neck raglan from Fitted Knits with Lamb's Pride Bulky in a lime green. Hee :)

The second of the pair

The second of the pair
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

Some progress. I've been taking the bus to and from work the last couple of days cuz the car was in the shop. Car is all fixed now and the right side looks like new! In that time, I started in on the cuff. I had just finished the heel flap by the time I went to bed Sunday night. It has just started up my leg. I just started the 3rd repeat of 7. Damn knee highs. What possessed me? I think I'll bring this to knitting tomorrow night.

Starts and ends

I'm onto the cuff of the second of the Grasshopper socks. Whoo hoo! It must go faster. My car is in the shop so I am taking the metro to work. That's 40 minutes of knitting time!

I have finished with the knitting of the Shelridge Farm sweater. Here's a picture of it before I did up the raglan seams:

Not too interesting here. I have finished the raglan seams and had started on the arm seams but I couldn't get it to work out right. One side kept being longer than the other. I think I'm going to take some time this weekend and sit down, baste, and then seam.

I also started a new knitting project. I am a big fan of Joan McGowan-Michael, the woman behind White Lies Designs, knitting patterns that are classic and elegant and just a little bit sexy.

It's the start of a little something that most people won't see me wearing in person.

The second of the pair

The second of the pair
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

Yup, I started it. See the little martini charm I'm using for the stitch marker? I've been wanting to make my friend some socks and was given the go ahead. But since I told myself that I can not start a new pair of socks until I finished this second one...I got started.

Labr Day Monday

Next set of house work pictures are here. I pulled up the carpets Saturday afternoon. Found a lot of beads on the floor. Overall it was quick work. I also included a picture of the wall sockets. It's one of my major annoyances about this house. You can tell which rooms I've worked through because those rooms don't have socket plates. I've taken them and thrown it out because previous inhabitants painted over the plates. There are layers of paint so I have to take a knife and cut it away from the paint on the walls. I will be replacing all of the plates in this house slowly. And when I am done, I will be calling in an electrician for a couple of jobs and having him replace every socket in this house that is covered with paint.

I also realized I was a bit over ambitious to have this entire room done this weekend. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I weren't running and biking this weekend or getting together with people...but it's still a lot. So I think I'll be painting next week and playing with trim.

Saturday afternoon progress report

When you start a workout with the Nike+ system, you can choose "Basic" (run until you tell it to stop), "Time" (set a time goal, say, work out for an hour), "Distance" (I want to run 10 miles today), or "Calories" (I feel like burning 2000 calories today). Under the "Distance", there is a preset group of distances (think your average race distances) along with a custom option. I was thinking, as I crawled out of bed this morning, that 12 miles might be a good distance. But when I went to go set my work out, I was too lazy to take the extra 30 seconds to go to custom and instead just picked "Half Marathon". 13.1 miles...close enough to 12. Conclusion of the run. My body was fine through 12 miles. I pushed myself through the last 1.1 mile. Ow I hurt.

And now, I go tackle the carpets. Experience from my room has taught me a bit and I had 13.1 miles to plot out exactly how to execute the plan today. Seriously, I spent the run thinking "I will pull up carpet today. Must stop by Home Depot on the way home to get some paint color samples. Should take no more than 4 hours to get all carpets, tack strips up and the floor cleaned. I can slap on a layer of primer tonight and paint when I wake up in the morning. And I shouldn't bother showering immediately when I get home cuz the carpet padding and dust is just going to stick to a nice showered body so I might as well stay dirty." Yeah, so all you people, stay away from me today!

Weekend goals

It's Labor Day weekend! I have 3 days off, though I'll probably have to monitor work slightly. Whee! I thought I'd make a list of things I'd like to accomplish this weekend, just so I have a reminder.

• Run 10+ miles Saturday mornining


• Bike the full Mt. Vernon trail


• Get my entire yarn stash into pictures so they can be loaded into ravelry


• Organize the larges batches of beads


• Start putting all my necklaces up on etsy. Yup, that's right all. The ones I don't want to part with might be marked a little higher...but that's cuz I don't want to part with them as much


• probably a little much but pull up the carpet in the room upstairs with the yarn and beads

If I can do all of that, I think I will be happy.

Labradorite Earrings

Labradorite Earrings
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

And sometimes, I just need new jewelry.

A border on the pinwheel sweater

A border on the pinwheel sweater
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

I figured that I should probably post a progress picture on something to do with fiber. I mean, I still owe you people socks of my finished Monkey socks knit with Schaefer Anne! This is the Pinwheel Sweater. The crochet border feels like it's taking forever. I have been working on it while surfing ravelry.

Finally!

FinishedOrchid
Originally uploaded by jyiu7

After making 4 other orchids (Anne, Amber, Beth, Bead Obsessions), the 5th one is mine. This is the one that is shown in the orchid instructions. Class is Saturday. Pattern will become available on the site on Sunday. Before this year is through, there will be at least one more orchid. Next in queue is one for my friend Reshma.

Orange Julius Anyone?

Chill Out at Orange Julius. Aug 18,19,25,26. Saturday, noon to 4. Sunday 1 to 4. Free smoothie!

Things you can do with duct tape

Fun with duct tape. My house one of these days? Who wants in?

Knitting...a sweater!

I finally figured out why I've been so uninspired with knitting all summer. It's because I wasn't knitting with wool! So, I restarted the Mom's Lace Sweater from Shelridge Farms and have been happily knitting away for a week. I've finished the back and am now working on the front. After that, I've got the two sleeves then I knit the collar and seam.

When I originally started this, I was concerned about the raglan seam because my row gauge was a little tighter than what the pattern called for. I think I've got it calculated out correctly. The worst that would happen is that I'd have to reknit the raglan decreases and remove some rows...which is fine because then I would have leftover yarn rather than attach more yarn for a couple of rows.

What's hidden under that carpet?

This weekend's fun included pulling up the carpet in my bedroom. When I bought this place, I knew that there was hardwood floors underneath all the carpeting (except in the basement). I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was pull up all the carpeting upstairs, I had just never quite gotten around to it. When I painted the room a couple of years ago, I had left a purple ring on the carpet where I had accidentally dropped the lid to the paint can. Oops. Recently, I had gotten sick of the carpet. I also have long hair so the ones that fall off add to the carpet. There's a layer of hair on the carpet that I picked out a couple of weeks ago. Eww. So...in the beginning, we had:


And I worked my way across the room. I was going to pull it up in 3 strips and after I did the first one, I realized that the roll of carpet was too big for me to move on my own so I cut that in half and created 2 rolls. I decided that I was probably better off cutting it up into 6 pieces instead of just 3, especially with the bed in the way.

After starting into the middle third, I could start to see large expanses of floor. It was starting to look good.


That's one of the "finished" pictures where you can see the floor. Not bad eh? I think eventually, I will have someone come in and refinish all the floors. You can see score lines where they cut the carpet padding (insert mad Judy here) and there are a few nicks on the floor. But over all it's in good condition. Now I'm waiting for Monday night when I can put the rolls of carpet out for the trash. I think what I would like to do next to the room is to add some shoe mouding and some crown molding. After that, I will hang some pictures and decorate some more.

Thankfully, the weather cooperated so that it was a nice cool 80 something degrees this weekend and not too humid. I could keep the windows open to let the room breathe. My eyes and lungs were a bit irritated by Saturday night and also due to all the dust, I ended up taking a shower and avoiding entering the room. I slept in the basement last night. The futon is not comfortable to sleep on if you don't open it out into a bed.

You can see the rest of the pictures here

Yes, I'm slowly settling in. I just realized that this month makes it 3 years in this house. That's the longest I've kept an address in the last 10 years.

Mmm...watermelon

The stone is an ocean jasper. It was given to my by Patricia a year ago from her trip to Quebec. I didn't know what to do with it for a long time but one day it came to me after seeing some watermelon tourmaline in her shop. I love (LOVE LOVE LOVE) the watermelon tourmaline. Those would be the pink stones that make up the bracelet. I have a 6 inch wrist. It is a beauty and it is not for sale.