Sensational Saturday

Being the early bird I am, I was in the car by 7:30 a.m.to start my Saturday morning errands. First stop, gas and coffee, next W @ l m @ r t-I love going there first thing in the a.m. before it gets busy!! Then, I hit the road headed for the farmer's market. Even though my instincts told me to take a longer route in order to avoid construction, I didn't listen and instead hopped on Loop 410 and yes, got stuck in 3 lanes down to 1 lane/detour to access road type of traffic..sigh...but I decided to use the wait time to call Mom up in MN and had a great chat with her (probably wouldn't have called had I not been stuck in traffic). I finally arrived at the farmer's market.

I didn't feel comfortable taking a pic at our intimate Farmer's Market, so this was taken as I drove by on my way out. There were about 10 vendors set up. I bought from 7 of them. Here's my score:

I went with the idea I'd buy what looked good and work with it. Here are my plans, the zucchini will go into soup and some bread, tomatoes and onion will be used on our hamburgers we're grilling today. Cherry tomatoes(the sweetness explodes in your mouth), cukes, and other tomatoes will be used for snacking and salads. The potatoes will be roasted with garlic and rosemary as an accompaniment for steak, the green peppers will be stuffed for a mid-week dinner, and finally the salsa for dipping. I love this time of year at the farmer's market. Since I was in the area (somewhat),I decided to head down to one of our LYS's that I don't get to very often. I knew given the time I'd run that chance it might not be open, but decided to risk it anyways, it wasn't that far out of my way. Sure enough I pulled up and not a car in sight except for a van at the back door, I decided to see what the store hours were and got flagged down by the owner confirming they weren't open yet and wouldn't be for another 45 minutes-bummer. But much to my surprise after some visiting and reassuring her I'd be back another day, she decided to let me in the back as long as I'd be quick so the early bird needle pointers wouldn't get mad because she let me in early-I even had to park behind the building so no one would see my car. What customer service!!! I knew exactly what I wanted (Cascade 220).

I think the fact I knew exactly what I wanted, she loved what I had planned on making with it, and shared my excitement from going to the farmer's market, she decided to let me in. I was in and out in less than 10 minutes withs lots of chatting during that time.
My last stop of the morning was my favorite grocery store which also ended up being a nice relaxing experience-going early is a good thing! Plans for the rest of the day? Well, knit some more on my Everlasting Bagstopper bag.

Even though it looks as if it could rain, we're hoping to grill, and enjoy the rest of the day.Hope you have a good weekend too!

Some Progress

Just a friendly reminder for "k" who suggested a delicious pork stew for my lunch contest to check out Amanda's etsy store and let me know which yarn you would like. You can email me at amysatx "at" y a h o o "dot" c o m so I can get this to you ASAP. If I don't hear from "k" by next Sunday I'll have a second chance drawing (I still have the slips with names).

I have actually started making progress on a knitted item. Here's where I'm at with the Everlasting Bagstopper:

Either the hemp has softened up or I've gotten used to it, but either way, it hasn't been bad to knit with at all(other than some shedding). The teacher in me wonders if I should worry about knitting with "hemp" at school when the drug dogs come to visit.

I realized again yesterday how knitting can be exasperating. It took me 3 tries at picking up the frickin' stitches on the base before I realized what I was doing wrong. It's so frustrating to read about what an easy pattern it is and you can't get past picking up stitches...grrr... I finally figured it out though-it was so stupid what I was doing I don't even want to tell you-let's just say it was looking more like a moebius. I just don't know what I was thinking...sigh... It really IS an easy pattern once you get passed the picking up of stitches and the first few rows at knitting in the round.

I'm up to 4 W.I.P.'s and have devised a system. Rather than pick certain projects up whenever I felt like it (I never seemed to get to my fish). I'm going to focus on 1 project a week and see how that goes. Here's my schedule for the next 6 weeks:

Week 1: bag
Week 2: fish
Week 3: hedgehog
Week 4: fish
Week 5: fingerless gloves
Week 6: fish

It will be interesting to see how well I stick to it. The good thing is if I stick to this schedule, I should pretty much be done with knitting the fish. during my "fish week" as long as I've done my fish for the day, I can work on another project (my loop hole).

It will be hard not to start anything new though! Especially since I stumbled across this pattern to use with some sari ribbon yarn I scored on clearance awhile ago. There's even some steeking involved-yikes!



Finally, I hate to disappoint my St@rbucks lovin' friends, but I am not digging the Pumpkin Spice Latte. It tastes like a slice of hot pumpkin pie in a cup. I realize to some that might taste good, but to me I like my pumpkin pie on a plate with some whip cream. I'll stick to my tried and true non-fat, extra hot, grande Caramel Macchiato.

What a Week!

I was so busy last week that these sat unopened for nearly 5 days-unheard of for me!!!


The larger box was a metal wall letter holder. I'd been wanting something like this to help organize my desk space for quite awhile and ended up ordering it on Ebay. I love it-and it already has some letters in it!



The smaller box was 3 skeins of aubergine #102 allhemp6 from the hemp for knitting collection.

Evidently aubergine is a highly sought after color since it was on back order for nearly 2 months. I love the color and think it was worth the wait!! I already used it to cast on for Everlasting Bagstopper from Knitty. I've seen several made out of the Sugar n' Cream yarn-we all have tons of- and plan to make more using that.



The yarn itself is a bit "splitty" and hard on the hands. I've read this gets better over time. I'm also using my Knit Picks Options needles for this and didn't know how fabulous these were!! Love them!!!

Here's an alternate bag pattern for those interested.

I also discovered on "The Office" knitting group on Ravelry that you can find fun office accessories such as these in the "dollar spot" at T a r g e t.


Lastly, I tried this new recipe today and it was declared a yummy success! My notes: I added green pepper to the onions, and topped the meat mixture with some slices of mozzerella cheese. Be careful how much Lawry's you add, mine ended up being too salty-my fault though.

Finally!!

I finally have an F.O. to show!


Pattern: Baby Blanket with Embossed Hearts which can be found here or here.
Yarn: Muench/GGH Goa. Used 3 balls each of White, Pink, and Hot Pink
Needles: U.S. Size 10 circulars- 24" (from my set of Denise's)
Finished Size: 28" X 28"
Learned Technique: Reading a chart! This was a great pattern for the first time at chart reading.

Notes:
I loved working with this yarn while knitting. Weaving the ends in was another story. I ended up having to split the ends so that the weaving in wouldn't look so bulky. When I washed the blanket I included 1 sheet of this:



As you can see, none of the colors bled. Love that!!!

Speaking of new products. I also discovered these:


They are yummy yummy yummy!

Some of my current W.I.P.'s:

I'm back to knitting fish:


I have 4 yellow, 13 purple, and 16 blue ones left to knit out of my 160. I'm hoping to get the yellow and purple finished this month and the blue ones in October.

I'm also still working on the Huggable Hedgehog:




AND

These glovelets:


These have actually been around since June but I haven't worked on them since being up at the cabin. I decided to join this knitalong to motivate me not only to finish this pair, but knit 2 more before the holidays.

And The Winner Is.....

Sophie helped choose the winner of my Lunch Idea Contest. Unfortunately, she pulled out four, so I chose the one that had a "kiss" from Sophie on it:



And the winner is....."k" who suggested a delicious pork stew! K, please check out Amanda's etsy store and let me know which yarn you would like. You can email me at amysatx "at" y a h o o "dot" c o m so I can get this to you ASAP.

I loved all the lunch suggestions and can hardly wait to try them! I know things have been quiet here. I finally picked up my knitting the other day after a 2 week hiatus (getting used to being back at work-and of course that pesky Ravelry!) and even then I only did some weaving in of ends. I am feeling the knitting urge (and much more energy) coming back. I no longer am exhausted at the end of the day with things starting to settle down at work. I'm heading to SnB tonight and will hopefully have some FO's to post before the end of the week.