Happy 4th of July and a bit of rambling

Happy 4th of July (even though I've 2 hours to go)

So tomorrow, I have work form 10-am to 3 and then a party/bbq/welcome home at my best friends place. I'll probably trade out the beer for yarn. But we also have company coming over to go to the party and they'll be crashing here. I still wish I was strictly a house wife so my house could be *pristine* like it was when I wasn't working versus spending the last 2 days or so making it look like I have. -_- Or something along those lines. Anyway the house guests are 2 guys and one's wife. Whom I met before, but she had brought along her girlfriends so it wasn't like she was talkative with me. Awkward silences much?

It really pains me to admit this because it's so goddamned catty, bitchy and dare I say spiteful, but I totally want her to see my home and wish her's could be like mine. See? I'm a total bitch. I feel bad about it because hello, her and her husband still live with 2 other marines, and gods know they are not the cleanest creatures on the planet. Sigh. Does anyone else feel like this? I mean, it is also about taking pride in my home and thinking to myself, "This is awesome" but do I need to be so damn catty? Where's my bowl of cream?

Ok farm girl stuff (pat, have you joined? you should :P). I've always wanted a country/cottage themed home but the red's and gold's and green's (or bright cheery yellow's) never quite appealed to me. And I was looking at the curtains at target (because let's be honest, it's more cost effective to buy $40 curtains than $100 material to make curtains-that's allot of knittin' time there) and I was literally stressed out. Back and forth on the colors. Should i grab the plum colored faux silk ones that I loved so much or the green? I couldn't see how I wanted the house to be decorated and it was driving me nuts! Not to mention the other guy coming over helped my husband hang the curtain rod in our "dining room" last time he was over and I wanted to make sure he knew I appreciated his efforts.

ANYWAY... It then hit me. As I was walking through Michael's (I bought the plum curtains-purple is my favorite color ever) fake flower section I realized that what I had gotten was PERFECT. They have started putting out fall stuff in the flower section and I walked by an arrangement that had the deep red, gold, brown and PLUM colors-all fall and harvesty. Hot damn! Wait, where was I going with this? Oh! So my country theme will simply be red's gold's and purple's. :D The Curtains btw? Look amazing.

I'll have to post pictures later, but for now I'm off to finish cleaning....meeeeoowww.

HenCircle and my Inner Farm Girl

Hello!I'm not sure who's reading from where, but I joined the Plurkett Sisterhood (ie: http://www.moderngypsy.com/farmgirl/ ) Enjoy that btw, I am. So to my fellow sisters:

My name is Alexis, I'm 23 years old, Married to a U.S. Marine and trying to find a way to cope and deal with the world around me (sounds profound eh?). I have to be honest, I'm scared for the future for the world (terrified and depressed might be better adjectives) and how we'll all be able to deal,but the energy from people *Waking up* is amazing and beautiful.

I got into knitting little over a year ago and it has saved my sanity time and time again. If it wasn't for knitting I wouldn't have found Lime and Violet's podcast and they saved me from 2 major breakdowns, and probably many more. It's interesting to see how parallel my life is with others, I've wanted to knit for forever, sew (I got a sewing machine xmas 06 and looove it), make my own essential oil smell good things and oh, all sorts of stuff for as long as I can remember. Now I found people who want the same!

As for my inner farm girl, I live in an apartment in So Cal with a cement slab for a back yard (it's prettier than that really, check out my Feb 08 blog posts). Every summer I used to visit family out in Southern Illinois and would get to play on various family farms (but mostly indoors, bugs and heat I like not) and even got to pick and shuck corn one year. I've never grown anything myself and while I can for sure try (I almost said do-best not tempt fate) the potted plant thing on my patio, the trees outside are COVERED in spider webs and I'm arachnaphobic. I have a feeling those bastards would try to make a home on my plants. OH! And i only get about 3 hours of direct sunlight a day.

But I'm so energized and excited to start getting in touch with my inner farm girl. I want to make aprons (though the only one i wear is for work at the restaurant), bake bread from scratch, learn to cook in general, decorate my home, keep my sanity while Matthew goes on deployment, craft, create, inspire, and regain my spirituality.

And now, let me leave you with a dose of farm girl zen (My knitting nook).

Swapy Goodness

So i was involved in the Loopy Ewe Swap over on Ravelry and my awesome partner (not sure I can say who she is) completely, totally, utterly spoiled the freaking rotten out of me. No, seriously. Check this out!


That is a whole bunch of stuff right there. SO here are the edible goodies:



matthew totally jumped on the honey and claimed it for himself (I think he was feeling left out...the box was freaking huge):


Then we have the fairy and moon bar soap (the detailing is amazing), soak wash samples (yum!) and a cute sock blocker key chain (which is on my key ring as we speak):


A namaste pouch (love, love, love) and Punky's Place bag (the cute one with the handel) a tape measure with butterflys and flowers on it, and gorgeous stitch markers:


Here's the close up of the stitch markers:


BUT! That's not all! (I save my two favorite's for last because they are A-freaking-mazing). Twisted Flower Sock's by Cookie A. done up in ChameleonColorworks color Cobalt (I own a skein of it myself) and they fit like a dream!! I want to be as talented as her for she knit me socks that are to die for!!


And Oh. My. God. My head EXPLODED when I opened this:


She spun me 300yards of Crown Mountain Farm's roving in the Layla colorway. For me. Hand spun yarn (and a ton of it) for me. I may have teared up a little (I'd explain why but then we get into that whole self-esteem crap) and the color is exactly what I would have picked. And it's so even! I could totally make a pair of house socks out of this (if i knew how many stitches to co in sportweight and on what size needles.
I can't believe how amazing this package was. My head kind of exploded with I had finished opening it all (which is why it took me so long to write this-I totally had to calm down).

In other news I finished another pair of socks but more on that next time, I've been chatty enough I think. Happy knitting!

Just a quickie

So, I'm still too hyped up on my swap package I got so I'll finish editing those pictures tomorrow and write a blog post worthy of my AWESOME package. :D

But i wanted to make sure I got this up for my plurketts:

Here are my first finished pair of socks for Summer of Socks 2008. They are knit with Yarn Pirate (I want Candy) and I used Cookie A's monkey pattern. I have it memorized now. lol. They are all wrapped up and ready to get sent to the person I made them for. :)



YOu can see them from space but I love the colors.

Wherin I get Sucked Back to the Land of the Living

So ok, I finished my shrug a week ago. Yes, a week ago. I've worn it twice, once to a going away party (where I got allot of complements but no pictures) and once to knit night. Love. It's so soft and comfortable. But what kept me away from here was plurk.com Eeevil site that is. (If you scroll down this page you can see some of mine) So, without further ado, my b0obalishis shrug shot!



It is so comfortable and soft. It's Debbie Bliss Cashmerio yarn in a dark navy blue. I don't think I've updated with pictures of my new yarn, but that can wait for another day I suppose. Tonight is the kick off for the Summer of Socks 08 and I'm itching to start....

..which reminds me Summer starts tomorrow and I've done nothing in preparation. bah.

I'm almost done with the Two Toned shrug (in one color) that I CO on friday. Yea! Pictures as soon as I can get it done!

Stitch and Pitch

I went to a baseball game. Yes me. No I'm not joking. I know! Me! Sports! And I had fun (mostly). It was for the LA Dodgers Stitch and Pitch game againist the Colorado Rockies and we won 8-1 (It had to be the knitterly mojo)! I even have proof!


And here is Loopy and my complementary S&P hat:


We were fairly hight up though and so he never really turned around:


And because I'm so eloquent today, here is my current project (sock stash busting blanket) at the game and then at home:


I'm actually working on the Two Toned shrug from Stefane Japel's book Fitted Knits again. Anything to keep me from knitting socks right now. :)