Tonight I received my first birthday gift of the year. It is all kinds of awesome.

Look at that eye candy, would ya? It’s a BFL handspun for me by Kim, the colors are fantastic and SO me. I just love it so much. Thanks, Kim!

The big 33 is actually tomorrow. Normally I would have spent some time thinking about the past year and all that has happened and maybe even tried to come up with something entertaining to talk about. But not this year. This year I’m just going to celebrate tomorrow and look forward to the upcoming year with hope. And maybe feel up my yarn some more.

Lakefest, Part 2.

So, the big news from the trip? Four of us went together and got tattoos. It was a little wild, a little crazy, a little impulsive, and a lot awesome.

(Could I look dorkier in this picture?)

Somehow it came up that Sal had always wanted a tattoo and wasn’t sure what to get. Cassie said she’d do it with her if she wanted. Then Kate and I said “Yeah, we’re in”. I’m still not sure when it went from discussion to serious idea, but after the afternoon in Frankenmuth, I looked up a local tattoo parlor in the phone book (there were 3 in the whole county) and we took off to Sensitive Touch in Sandusky, Michigan.

About 2 hours later we were all inked up.

Another non-tattoo anecdote from the trip. On the way to dinner on Sunday once we were back in Detroit, we drove through Grosse Pointe. I couldn’t help but feel that I should be riding shotgun with John Cusack waiting for Dan Akroyd to show up with a gun and a dossier file on me a la Grosse Pointe Blank. The area itself was beautiful, though - right on the lake with lovely large houses. So nice.

On Friday morning I woke up bright and early to catch a morning flight to Detroit. When I got there, 2 of the Stonecutters picked me up so we could head to a little cottage on Lake Huron to spend the weekend with 5 other Stonecutters.

First of all, I have to say that the weekend was amazing. It had been almost 3 years since we’d had a gathering and I was SO in need of it. These women are amazing and to be a part of this community for the last 7 years has been so fantastic. I’m reminded of that every time we get together - to spend time with the Stonecutters is to remember that there’s a group of women out there who totally have your back, no matter what. Women who, when one of you has a crazy idea, says “Yeah, I’m totally in” and goes with it until the end, where it becomes something wonderful and awesome, even though it’s still a little crazy. Even the girls who weren’t able to travel and be with us were there in spirit.

So, enough with the mushy stuff and now for the trip.

(photo heavy, so follow the jump) Read the rest of this entry »

After countless hours of knitting, then crocheting*, Lizard Ridge is finished. Finito. Done.

I have no idea what to do with my knitting time now.

The border itself took a long time - I spent the better portion of Sunday crocheting it and I had started the first row after seaming was finished on Saturday night. I may have crocheted the edge too tightly, but since I’ll be using this as a throw, I don’t think it’s anything to concern myself with.

I used mattress stitch to seam the squares into rows, then used the same principle to seam the rows together. I wasn’t able to figure out a good way to seam the rows together so the seaming didn’t show, so in the end I just went with it.

Once it was all in one big piece, Ziggy tried to help. Well, he tried to sleep on the blanket no matter where it was, including on my lap with crochet hook in my hand.

This last picture was taken before I washed it last night. It’s still laying on my air drying rack drying. In the bathtub.

The Details:

Pattern: Lizard Ridge from Knitty
Yarn: about 21 skeins of Noro Kureyon (colors 180, 165, 92, 170, 131, 148) & Silk Garden (colors 86, 84, 87, 221); Cascade 220 for seaming (color chocolate) and border (color 2433)
Started: sometime in June 2007
Completed: June 15, 2007

*After I learned how to crochet, or at least how to single & double.

When I was in Gunsmoke on Tuesday, I noticed that one of the local “landmarks” is now closed. The Magik Market was a popular place in town, especially on Friday and Saturday night - it’s parking lot was our turn around and stop and chat place. It was also responsible for my friends and I ingesting more caffeine and sugar than should be legal in the form of Jolt cola.

It was conveniently located, right on the corner of Main Street and, um, whatever other street that was there. In fact, I stopped there not 6 months ago to pick up a soda during one of my trips into town. Even then, though, I noticed MM was in decline. Still, I am sad to see it go.

In the past when I’ve moved away from someplace that I’m not coming back to often, I spend some time going around town and taking pictures to remember it by. I did it when I left Cape Girardeau, I did the same thing when I left Macomb. When I left Gunsmoke, I didn’t. I knew I’d be back occasionally and I assumed that everything would stay pretty much the same. Or at least that places wouldn’t disappear into the mist.

Tuesday when I drove into town, I felt for the first time that Gunsmoke wasn’t my home anymore. I haven’t lived there for 2 years, but moving away never felt permanent. It wasn’t that I wanted to move back there at any point during that time, I guess I just felt like part of me was still there. But now that I’ve settled into my apartment and have a place that’s completely my own in the city, I feel less attached to the town where I spent my formative years. I still have fond memories of Gunsmoke and family that lives in the area, but it’s no longer where I lay my head. It’s odd when the place you called home for so long becomes just the place you go to see family.

So, life has been very busy lately at Chez Kara. It’s been good, but I do miss the down time a bit. Things should calm down at least a little after this weekend, so that’s good.

The things that kept me busy were, as I said, good. Last weekend, friends Brent & Shanon got married. Wednesday night was the low-key (read: kinda quiet), but fun bachelorette party. We had dinner at 1111 Mississippi, followed by drinks at Bailey’s Chocolate Bar.

The festive table decorations
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I’m feeling the need to spread the love, people. So here in no particular order are some things I love right now.*

• Lollyphile. Seriously, y’all. I had actually bought some of the maple-bacon lollipops, but the sugar crystallized and they turned into maple-bacon candy on a stick. They were still tasty (and I ran around yelling “MAPLE CANDY” a la Friends), but I figured I would just let the folks there know that something was just a little wrong. Dude. Jason from Lollyphile got back to me the next day (even though I’m pretty sure it was a Sunday) offering to do whatever he could to make it right. He totally went above and beyond. So awesome. I love when companies have good great customer service. And I would totally recommend getting yourself some lollys. I’ll be waiting patiently to see what flavors they come up with next.
• My new duvet cover (that I use as a bedspread) from Ikea. It was available in multiple colors, but I went outside the box that has me buying everything in pink and went with the blue. I like it.
• Scoop Away Plus Crystals kitty litter. This is possibly the best kitty litter I’ve found for odor and scoopability. Which means, of course, that Target quit carrying it and replaced it with the new Scoop Away Free version (which I will try, but the crystals really help with the odor control).
• I am still totally smitten with the Noro Kureyon yarn. I will probably wax poetic about it when I actually finish the afghan.
• My new lab coat. Keeps me from freezing my butt off & makes me look more professional when I’m wearing jeans at work.

That is all for now. I had a busy weekend, which I will talk about after I get a chance to look over the pictures and upload them.

Speaking of Lizard Ridge, I’ve been working on it monogamously for the past month or so. Once I picked up the needles to finish the third square (which had been languishing in my box o’noro for probably 6 months), I just couldn’t stop casting on & knitting squares.

Square 20 of 24 is currently on the needles. Earlier this week, I had laid the whole thing out on my floor to take a look at what it might look like finished. It will be smaller than the pattern suggests since my gauge is tighter than called for, so it will make a lovely throw-sized afghan. I briefly toyed with making it larger, but after letting that idea marinate for a few days, I’ve decided to just go with the 24 squares as called for.

I am so close to the finish line with this large project! I can’t wait until I’m able to finish it and toss it casually over the back of my couch just in time for summer. In Missouri.

Noro is a funny thing.

In the ball, I wasn’t particularly fond of this colorway. Yes, I know I bought it, but once I got it home and let it simmer for a few months, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore.

But the blue worked perfectly with the other squares I’ve knit for Lizard Ridge so far. The blue seems to be the common thread in nearly all the squares I’ve knit. So I went for it. I made the square.

And now? I’m a little in love with this colorway. The green is fabulous, the pinks are bright and vibrant, the blue is (as expected) perfect. All of the colors together make for a fantastic square.

Because I’m doing so well coming up with things to talk about here, I thought I’d join in with a group of Stonecutters to work on a new food-related blog. It’s mostly about cooking and (for me, at least) trying to figure out how to cook for a single.

My first introductory post is here.

The group as a whole contains a lot of fun and interesting women, and we are from very diverse backgrounds. It’ll be a good time.