Because I’m still 12 years old at heart.
11 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized, Weekend Update
Guess what we did today?
Did you guess yet? Ok… try this one:
I love this one too:
Retreat
04 Apr 2011 1 Comment
in Adventures in Travel, Knitting Content Ahead, Weekend Update
The last two weeks have been very stressful and less than pleasant. So it was with a decent amount of anticipation that I headed out this past weekend to Nebraska City, Nebraska for the Sunflower Knitter’s Guild Spring Knitaway at Lied Lodge. A weekend of knitting and spinning was just what the doctor ordered.
Most of the weekend was spent knitting and spinning in this beautiful lobby.
We also managed to take a detour to Omaha and participate in a little retail therapy. We visited both String of Purls and Personal Threads. I might have died a little in the second. Please excuse the blurry camera phone photo of the wall of Koigu. This might be what heaven looks like.
And I even made a dent in my first April sweater:
Now I just need a weekend to recover!
Spinning my wheel(s).
11 Oct 2010 3 Comments
in Groovin' to Tunes, Spinning a Yarn, Weekend Update
This was a fabulous weekend! On Saturday Wes and I went up to the Weston Irish Fest. Weston is a cute little town outside of Kansas City, known for its antique shops, it’s street market and of course it’s Irish Festival. Every year at O’Malley’s pub, Weston stages a 3 day Irish festival replete with bands on three stages, Irish fare and, of course, beer! It was quite warm during the day (almost 84), but we sat in the shade and enjoyed corned beef sandwiches and beer (just ask Wes about the Guinness) and listened to fabulous music. We arrived about 1pm and left about 10pm and I’ll definitely be going back next year.
On Sunday, a friend and I drove out to Harveyville, Kansas to visit the Harveyville Project and pick up some spinning wheels. I rented an Ashford Joy and will be practicing on that and maybe owning it at Christmas! Nikol, who runs the project with her husband, is super sweet. She spent a few hours with us letting us try out spinning wheels and offering reasonable prices and a fabulous rental program (half your rental fees go towards your purchase price if you buy the wheel you’re renting!) Of course this means I’d rather be spinning than working, but we won’t talk about that too much!
Now I’m sure everyone needs a little Monday pick-me-up. This one tickled my funny bone:
What I did this weekend: Evicting the fowl.
16 Aug 2010 3 Comments
in A Home of Our Own, Domesticity, Farm Fresh Foods, Finding my Green Thumb, Weekend Update
When Wes and I saw this house, we really fell in love with it. We did not, however, fall in love with the kitchen. In fact, we both agreed that the kitchen would be the first area of the house to see a little improvement. You might be wondering why. Well see, the previous owners liked roosters. A lot.
I’m sorry, you probably can’t see it quite well enough. Let me show you a closeup:
The night after we closed, Wes and I drove down to the house to see how easily the wallpaper might be removed. We peeled a bit and low and behold the vinyl portion of the paper just came right off. Starting to look better already.
Saturday, after a BIG trip to Home Depot we got out our DIF blue goo and smeared it all over the walls. A few hours of scraping and we got all the paper removed. What was underneath? Well burgundy walls of course!
Yeah. We don’t get it either.
Sunday we primed and painted. Our walls our now Cancun Sand, which basically means a nice cream color. Tape comes off tomorrow so this shot will have to suffice for now:
Of course the other fun thing about our house is that the previous occupants were serious gardeners. This means we got lucky and get a bit of the end of the season produce. We watered today, and collected an enormous zucchini, a squash, a couple peppers, okra, tons and tons of tomatoes (the cherry ones are SO good – and I don’t even like tomatoes!), blackberries and concord grapes. YUM!
ETA For more pictures of the house visit the whole album here.
Spring Fling!
29 Apr 2010 6 Comments
in A Picture's Worth 1000 Words, Fabulous Friends, Knitting Content Ahead, Off the Needles, Weekend Update
This year I was lucky enough to get into The Loopy Ewe‘s Spring Fling! The Loopy Ewe is a great online yarn store that is housed in St. Louis. Once a year it hosts “Spring Fling” which is a knitting event for 125 knitters featuring classes taught by knitting authors and designers and yarn dyers. It’s basically a long weekend of immersion into the knitting world. In addition to classes, there’s great food, lots of friendly knitters and a shopping trip to Loopy Central (the yarn store!).
So last Thursday my friend PlazaJen and I piled all of our stuff in the car and headed for St. Louis! We arrived around noon, checked in, and started meeting the knitters. The interesting thing is that, with popularity of Ravelry these days, I knew many of the attendees from online before I ever met them. I even roomed with someone I had met through Ravelry!
Around 3pm we could get our registration materials and our goody bag and of course the cupcakes! Each year Laura and Leslie of the Knit Girllls start the weekend off by picking up cupcakes from the Cupcakery. Ever want to know what almost 15 dozen cupcakes look like?
The goodie bag this year was FABULOUS. It featured a sock pattern by Wendy Johnson, a skein of Wollmeise yarn in the exclusive colorway Femme Fatale, a Loopy Ewe Spring Fling Mug, a Loopy and a few other extras all delivered in a Loopy Ewe Messenger bag!
After registration 67 of us headed over to the mexican restaurant for the newbie dinner. Holy Margaritas Batman! Then we headed to the conference center for the dessert reception and knitting time. Then it was off to bed!
The next morning we got up early, breakfasted and began the day’s activities. My first activity was a Sweater Class with Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. Jared was friendly, knowledgeable and a great teacher. He spent the class teaching us how to design our own sweaters, getting into the nitty gritty of how to measure yourself and how to do the mathematics and achieve the sweater you want. I can’t say enough good things about this class – I learned a lot and I can’t wait to apply some of his tips and tricks to my next sweater.
After the morning class, we had lunch and then I had a free afternoon of knitting. I got to hang out with my roomie and work on a variety of projects, including an Ishbel for myself! More details on that near the end of this post!
That evening we headed over to the Drunken Fish for sushi and drinks. Then it was back to the conference center for an evening talk on how to better photograph your yarns and knits led by Mr. Loopy himself! The talk was really interesting and gave me some tips that I applied when I got home taking pictures of my new stash. Also notable for the evening is that my roomie’s husband brought us Ted Drewes, which we had all been craving. (For those who don’t know Ted Drewes is a St. Louis tradition – frozen custard!) We were trying to fly below the radar so we didn’t set off a riot, so imagine my surprise when a picture of us ended up on The Loopy Ewe blog!
I could barely wait for the next day because I got to go shopping at Loopy Central! Sadly I didn’t take any pictures in the shop so you’ll have to be content with pictures of what I got! While there I managed to pick up an extra sock club kit including a skein of Wollmeise in the Guide to the Galaxy Colorway! I also picked up enough Madelinetosh Tosh DK in the Cherry colorway to do a delicious cabled sweater in the fall. My last two splurges were a skein of A Swell Yarn Shop‘s Duets DK in Merlot Spritz and a skein of The Sanguine Gryphon‘s Skinny Bugga in Tarantula Hawk that I had been lusting after for a while.
After shopping I returned to the hotel for lunch and another free knit period. Then we had a full group picture. After that, those of us who had knit stripey Vesper socks go together for a photo op. Remember my melons? Can you spot them?
For dinner we went back to the Mexican restaurant for more margaritas (that might be where I was “hanging around”). Then it was on to the final evening party. There were door prizes and fabulous cake balls!
All in all it was an amazing weekend. I met so many people and took so few pictures I can’t believe it’s already over. One last souvenir, however, is the shawl I completed while there. (Yes – I knit a shawl in just over 4 days!) I’m calling it my Spring Fling Ishbel!
The Pattern: Ysolda Teague’s Ishbel
The Needles: US 6′s
The Yarn: Wollmeise 100% in Rhabarber
The Verdict: LOVE LOVE LOVE this shawl. It’s the third one I’ve made of this pattern, but the first for me! I had enough yardage to add some extra lace repeats and make it a bit bigger and I think it will be the perfect summer shawl to throw over my shoulders when the office gets a bit chilly or I’m out in the evening. And every time I look at the shawl I will remember how much fun I had with my friends while knitting it!
Unexpected.
06 Mar 2010 3 Comments
On Friday afternoon, I went to lunch at the yarn store, a last hurrah of sorts. On the way there, my car started acting slightly odd. I decided that the smart plan was to get it towed to the local dealer and see what was up. What I wasn’t expecting was the phone call 2 hours later to tell me that my transmission was gone. Dead. Done.
Now I had the choice of ponying up $4,000 or so to fix the transmission or I was looking for a new car, STAT. Because my car really wasn’t even driveable, my options were limited. I could take what the dealer would offer me for it “as is” or I could find someone else who would tow it, appraise it, and start again. Add to that, that I owned my car outright and was really enjoying NOT having payments on it, and that we are hoping to buy a house later this year.
A little over 24 hours later, it’s all said and done. My Rav4, my first car that I purchased on my own, is no longer mine. I loved that car, and I can’t help it, I don’t love the new one quite as much.
But, we got a good deal on it. It’s a 2009 Toyota Corolla in a bright cheery Barcelona Red. I think I’ll be obeying all speed limits in this one, eh?
PS: For those of you reading along at home, I passed 80,000 miles just a couple of weeks ago. Her final mileage? 80,409. 
RIP.
The wild wild West.
30 Nov 2009 Leave a Comment
in A Picture's Worth 1000 Words, Fabulous Friends, Family, Weekend Update
Happy Holidays all! We just returned from my very favorite family holiday, the Stashbuckler Family Thanksgiving. There was beautiful weather, lots and lots of food, visits with friends, and catching up with family and it was much appreciated!
Wes and I took off a week ago Saturday to drive out to Los Angeles. With no major mishaps we headed cross country and hit Vegas on Sunday night. We spent a night at the Venetian in an amazing room, and then hit the outlets in Primm (getting almost 100% of our Christmas shopping done!) and reaching LA by late in the day on Monday. We had a brief stop to get cleaned up:
Monday night, we had dinner at my favorite Japanese place with Bel, and got to catch up on all that I’m missing in LA. Tuesday we went to lunch with my dad and then saw New Moon with Sean. (I enjoyed it purely for entertainment value…the boys weren’t convinced!) Wednesday we had breakfast with my old roomie, and then helped mom prepare for Thursday’s meal. Wednesday night, my sister and her fiance arrived and the family was complete!
And then just like that the holiday was over. On Friday morning we had breakfast with my aunt, uncle and cousin at the Christmas be-decked Mission Inn. And then we were on the road again.
We arrived into Kansas City this afternoon, and did our grocery shopping and laundry. Then we came home and put up the tree – my very first tree! I decorated with a few ornaments I’ve been collecting and then spent the rest of the evening wrapping gifts! Now I’m settling in to catch up on what I missed being more or less away from the internet for the week. Tomorrow I’ll share photos of the knitted gifts for my family since they all have them now!
Baby Surprise Jacket
23 Aug 2009 1 Comment
in Farm Fresh Foods, Geocaching, Knitting Content Ahead, Off the Needles, Weekend Update
No, I’m not pregnant! But many, many of my friends are and it has kicked off a season of baby knits. For the past few weeks I’ve been cranking out a cute little EZ classic!
The Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Baby Surprise Jacket
The Needles: US 3′s
The Yarn: Artyarns (Teal & Brown), Dream in Color Smooshy (Romeo Blue)
The Verdict: This sweater is a quick knit with an interesting construction. Garter stitch lends itself to movie theatre knitting which is where I’ve been working on the bulk of these! I can also customize each with fun yarn and cute little buttons. I have a few more planned for September and October babies!
In addition to catching up on current movies (Harry Potter 6, GI Joe and Inglorious Basterds!) we’ve also been geocaching. Yesterday we headed down to Paola, KS to visit The BBQ Shack (featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!) and did some geocaching around Lake Miola. We were kept from a couple caches by Muggles, but we managed to find 2 out of 3! (which ain’t bad!)
The garden is still growing. So far our biggest successes have been the peppers – we’ve had half a dozen green peppers and a bunch of jalapenos! We’ve started the cucumbers again and are just getting some spiky buds. Our tomato plants are finally producing blooms and little tomatoes after we got our act together and got both tomato cages and fertilizer. I hope to have pics of those to show you soon!
Otherwise we’re cleaning the house today, doing loads of laundry, hitting up the grocery store, and one of us is trying to squeeze in some knitting. My current project? Sleeves. Badly in need of sleeves:
A weekend away.
10 Aug 2009 1 Comment
in Family, Knitting Content Ahead, Weekend Update
A while ago Wes and I decided that we were going to take a little mini-trip for our first anniversary. So on Saturday we packed up and headed to the Little Niangua Campground at Lake of the Ozarks. I hadn’t been to the Ozarks before but as soon as I looked at a map I realized how big the place actually was. The Lake actually snakes out in a million different directions so there’s lots of waterfront. We stayed in the south on this trip!
Originally we had decided to go to the Ozarks for some kayaking. We had chosen this particular campground because it sported cabins boasting air conditioning. The pluses were that we were right on the river, we got to stay indoors in a cute cedar cabin and we were fairly far away from the tourist bustle of the marinas. The downsides were that we had campsite facilities (community toilets and showers) and that we were way off in the middle of no where. Unfortunately it was really hot this weekend (think 90′s with heat indexes of over 100′s) but we managed to keep busy.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and dropped our stuff and headed out to explore. After lots of driving around we ended up at The Horny Toad for dinner. The food was fabulous and there was live music that was great as well. We even got to sit on the marina for a bit and enjoy the evening as it cooled off. We arrived home late that night and crashed.
On Sunday morning we got up early to beat the heat and got in the water. The water was really clear and slow moving. It gave the whole body a glassy look and the reflections from the trees and cliffs and sky were beautiful. I managed to get a number of great shots, but this is my particular favorite. We stayed in the water a little over 2 hours and then it started warming up so we headed in (well ok I also got tired… I’m a wuss.) It was in getting out at the shore that I managed to dump myself out of my kayak for the first time. Wes is still chuckling at that!
After a shower and some breakfast we decided to relax outside on our front porch for a bit. Between the shade and a bit of a breeze it wasn’t unbearably hot yet. I, of course, knit for a while and Wes read for a while. I couldn’t resist photographing him.
When it got too hot to sit outside, we got in the car and set off in search of entertainment and food. I knew that there were some caverns and caves around the Lake and had figured it would be a good cool excursion on a hot day. We spent a little time trying to find the place, but we ended up at Bridal Cave for a tour. It was nice and cool, and a pleasant hour underground viewing some of the recordbreaking onyx formations in the world. The cave apparently got it’s name back in the 1800′s when some Native Americans were married inside the cave in front of one of the formations. Today you can still book the cave for a wedding ceremony! The picture is where people get married – they call the structure The Pipes because it looks very much like an organ (and since most of it is hollow, sounds like an organ in varying tones as well!) For dinner last night we relaxed at a more “beachy” resort, Captain Ron’s. Finally we headed back to the cabin for another nights rest.
We had planned to get up this morning and kayak but about 6:30 a huge clap of thunder broke and the great storm started. It was still pouring by the time we packed up and left around 9am. Now we’re home, basking in the post-vacation glow, trying to get laundry done before we have to face another week.
If you’re interested in more photos, I posted the full Flickr set here.
More on my knitting projects to come soon!
Why hello there!
19 Jul 2009 1 Comment
in A Book is a Woman's Best Friend, Off the Needles, The Boob Tube, Weekend Update
Thanks to my six die hard followers who keep up with me even when I’m less than faithful about posting. You’d think nothing noteworthy was happening, but well, that’s just not true!
Summer is in full swing here and (shhh don’t tell anyone I said it) the last few days have been GORGEOUS. Warm but not hot, breezy, not too humid… almost like an LA summer! We’ve been enjoying time both indoors and out.
This weekend has been a quiet one. Wes was gone all day with friends, which gave me the time to wash and block quite a bit of what I’ve been up to lately. It also gave me time to tend to our garden, clean the house in anticipation of a houseguest next weekend, and of course, catch up on more t.v. and knitting.
So here are the projects:
The Pattern: Transition Hat, my adaptation of the Transition Gloves
The Yarn: Dale Baby Ulli in Black, Collinette Jitterbug in Salty Dog
The Needles: US 3′s
The Verdict: Love it! This was a work in progress forever, and this month I finally just sat down and did it. It goes with the Twilight Mittens I posted here.
The Pattern: Clapotis
The Yarn: Collinette Jitterbug in Salty Dog
The Needles: US 6′s
The Verdict: Another from the Work in Progress pile that sat forever, but was done in just a little over a week. Now I have a matched set with the two projects mentioned above.
The Pattern: Pooling Scarf, mine with a little help from Barbara Walker
The Yarn: Socks that Rock, Mediumweight, Colorway: Chapman Springs
The Needles: US 4′s
The Verdict: This one took a little finesse. The scarf is knit width-wise so the first trick was figuring how many stitches to cast on (and in what pattern, on what needle size) so that I could get the colors to stack. I had some great help/guidance from the Ravelry community and I’m happy with this for my first try. Next up… a pooling stole!
I also had a 4th project, but leave it to me to ruin it in the washing. (It wasn’t pretty… I don’t want to talk about it).
What’s next? Oh yes: the garden!
We have a variety of green peppers:
Several Jalapenos:
And we harvested our carrots! (They’re kind of small but tasted great!)
Otherwise we’ve seen Transformers (Punk ass decepticons!) and I’ve caught up and finished Harry Potter Book 7. I’ve got a new shawl and a new sweater on the needles, as well as a second sock and a wrap in the works. And I’ve re-vamped what I’m doing for our wedding afghan (which apparently won’t make our first anniversary either!). Otherwise we’re loving summer and the extra daylight.
More soon!
