Oh yes, the baby knitting parade has still been going on between burst of sock knitting.

I am plowing along on this alpaca plum and green one. Here’s what I have so far:

It’s quite a chipper little knit, isn’t it? I think it would be just a bit better, if I got that sides to match in length. So much for making up the pattern as I go. To the frog pond you go, little sweater!

And then there is the sweater for Andrea’s little boy. For some reason, I just can’t get the pieces to fit together, so I’m doing a lot of ripping and reknitting, which as we all know is SO. NOT. FUN. Ah well, that is the life of a knitter, no?

Go hang out with that purple and green sweater in the frog pond, little sweater!

And lastly, here is the yarn for my friend at work who is expecting her first baby–a girl–in early July. Well, I fell in love with this darling lilac that was on sale at the Knit Cafe and am determined to do some pretty little picot-edged gathered at the waist matinee-style jacket thingy for her.

And then I’m going to take a little break of baby sweater knitting. I’m getting most restless to knit something for myself.  And that Kim Hargreaves thing is perfect for that! Or perhaps I’ll finally knit up that Remembering Honey sweater from Interweaves Knits.

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I’ve been really into socks. What started as that innocent class I took a month ago has already netted several socks! Now, I will look at every yarn store differently–as in what kind of cool self patterning sock yarn do they have–kind of way. 

I knit this lovely yellow pair I knitted recently as break from the baby knitting madness. A friend told me that the socks make my feet look like candy-corns. Close enough to a compliment for me!

My parents came to town to suss out some wedding stuff. Much misc. stuff that is oh so boring except to me, so I won’t bother discussing it here. But when my parents did come to they admired my socks and I offered to knit them a pair of socks too.

So, here is the sock I knit for my mother:

And here is a close-up of the picot edge that I think is so darling feminine:

It is the most diving Lorna Lace sock yarn I bought while I was done in LA at the Knit Cafe.  And I did the green accents with Pearl yarn, which supposedly is Kiogu in disguise. MAN, was is yummy to knit. I knit this up on size 1 needles–I think that is the best way to go with knitting socks.

And this is what I knit of the sock my father asked me to knit. He wanted red sock with a black toe. But he is allergic to wool, so I trotted down to Beverly’s and bought this nice 100 % polyester yarn for him. And my dad likes his socks long. So, I’m destined to spend a good six hours in ribbing hell for each one of these socks.

Here’s what they look like so far–pretty unispiring, I know…

And there is a good chance that I MIGHT stop by a yarn shop very soon and see if there are any other cool yarns that need to be knitted.

To be fair tho’, It is a good little thing to knit in cars and during season finales, when you can’t take your eyes off the TV to find out that Harold won Top Chef, or that Desmond is back on LOST! You know what I mean…

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We interrupt this knitting blog for late-breaking cuteness…

So, the other night I went out to support my fellow Devil-Ette, Teacher’s Pet who has one of the loveliest singing voices ever. And she’s also one of the funniest girls I know too. Because of this, I like to call her “the package”–she’s got it all, as well as a love for single malt scotch and hella smart to boot! So Universe, please explain to me why she is still single?

Anyway, she belongs to this great band, the Specs, but I love it when she sings the hits of eighties bands with wry twists on their names. For example, I saw her Holland Oates act, where she dressed up as a little Dutch Girl and sang “Private Eyes”.

Pure. Genius.

So, I had to go see her perform as Princess–yup, a tribute to Prince–at the last Hodge Podge Lodge at El Rio in SF. To hear her angelic voice light up those oh so naughty lyrics that Prince wrote. Well, it’s just wonderful.

I love you Katie!  This picture doesn’t even capture all of her cuteness.

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I’m out of control in my yarn buying. From this point on, I’m on the South Beach Yarn Diet. No carbs of fluffly yarn for me!

Because, kids, I was naughty. Oh yes, oh, so naughty. You all know about my Knit Cafe bonanza, yes? The one that has me bringing lunch to work for the next three months? The one that means I’ll be wearing a polyester wedding gown instead of silk because I spent so much money on yarn?

Well, the sinning continues. In the form of a Kim Hargreaves sweater kit. Oooh, the shame!

And shopping karma is already kicking my ass. I still love love love the pattern, but the yarn. Ick! I mean, it looks gorgeous and knits up quite prettily, but oof! what a pain to knit with. It’s the Rowan Summer Tweed, which is 80 percent cotton and 20 percent silk. So, you’d think it would be heaven right? Alas, no.  I feel like I’m knitting with corn husks! Or strips of burlap sacks! Or something that is really icky to knit with and has NO elasticity! Yeah, like that! Yeah!

Anyway, I shouldn’t even be THINKING about knitting it, right? What with all of those cold babies out there that are begging for their hand-knit sweaters, right? Uh, yeah…

Here’s a picture of the swatch. I promise that it is not such a poopy looking color.

OK, going to hide my shame and knit the baby stuff. RIGHT NOW!

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I swear, I haven’t forgotten about my beloved little blog–it’s just that I’ve been rather busy the past week with my parents in town doing all sorts of wedding related stuff. And I’ve been slammed at work as well. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have some nifty posts coming up this week! I’ve been knitting away on socks, baby sweaters, and swatches, so keep your eyes peeled!

But I must admit I have spent a good deal of my downtime trying to finally finish Mr. Norrell & Mr. Strange. This-oh-800- page book with small small type! I know I’m being terribly petty, but really, it’s been tough! I started it in January and I must admit that I did read other books in between, but now I’m down to the last 40 pages and I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to finish those precious last few pages, since I’m booked solid until the weekend. BAH!

I promise more fascinating posts very very soon–full of my B- photography to boot! Oh YEAH!

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Well, I spent the majority of this week at E3–Electronic Entertainment Expo–a huge crazy event in LA focusing on video games.

Of course I had to bring a couple of projects. Like yarn for a baby sweater, half a knit sock and a desire to finish the sweater for Andrea’s little new baby, Everett. I’ll report how far I got on them over the weekend.

Eventhough it is located in Downtown LA, I had to stay in a hotel in West Hollywood… A couple of blocks away from from the Knit Cafe run by Suzan Mischer who recently wrote this lovely book that I bought less than a month ago.

After a most hectic day at the convention, I stopped by the Knit Cafe and fell into knitting Nirvana.  Please forgive the lack of pictures–no working camera in LA, which is a bummer of course, but I assure you the Knit Cafe was absolutely lovely.

Everyone was so lovely and charming. Suzan hired some great helpful people who want to talk and inspire knitters and Suzan is absolutely delightful. I love everything about her from her voice tenor to her awesome style of dressing.

And the yarn. Oof! Delicous. Like $400 delicious. Yeah. Kinda broke the bank on it. Like basically cut into my wedding dress fund for it. I completely fell in love with this sweater:

But I’ll wear this sweater more than the wedding dress. Hmm.. that didn’t sound very bridezilla. Ha!

But seriously, the yarn I bought was so yummy! A beautiful heathery green and then I’m going to tip the sweater in this beyond luscious ballet slipper pink yarn, which is my guilty pleasure favorite color since I was in 8th grade. I think I called it champagne pink then.

But enough knitting chat, I must get back to work and crank out a press release.

I promise to post pictures of the yarn next week and reports on knitting.

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Over the past couple of weeks, I took a toe up/circular needles class at Article Pract, the most delightful store in Oakland. I have been knitting socks for about 16 years on DPNs and I just couldn’t understand why people love knitting them? And this class made me fall back in love with sock knitting. 

I used KnitPick’s Elegance which is a mix of Alpaca and silk. I had one last ball from a pink baby sweater I knit earlier and a ton of the brown from a sweater I haven’t knit yet. Shocker. The yarn had a nice sheen to it, but I must admit, the yarn didn’t seem to have much live.

Here is the first picture, where I finished the whole sock without the heel–which is added last:

Here is a close up of the ribbing top, which is a little cable line in it. You just can’t see it!

And here they finisehd on my sweetie! We did the They turned out to be too big for me, but I’m going to give them to my friend Christiaan. Yes, I’m the meanest girl in the world not to knit for my sweetie. My belief in the sweater curse is so strong that I won’t knit anything for Sweetie until we are wed.  More on that later.

But they do look cute on him…

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So, last week was my birthday and my sweetie lived up to his name with some darling darling gifts.

As you can imagine with a nickname like Dottie, I cannot help but love all things covered in dots. And luggage is certainly no exception. Check out this sweet tote called “the Dottie Weekend Bag”. If that isn’t enough reason to go on a jaunt somewhere, I don’t know what is!  Note: Please forgive my absolutely lame expression on my face. I fear it makes me look like I’m missing at least 45 IQ  points.

Sweetie also knows my love of all things knitterly. And since I took this toe-up knitting class at Article Pract, I think he was particularly inspired to get me this book.

Hmmm… Both of these pieces kinda scream weekend road trip don’t they?

And then last but certainly not least is this wonderful little bracelet with the words, “as soon as I finish this row” on them. Pretty darn cute, eh? Although you can’t read them, they are there, just as sweet as can be.

Oh yes, and you can see my lovely engagement ring that has been resting on that finger for a good five months like it had been there all my life. They even let me wear it when I had surgery earlier this year. They taped it onto my finger. I love it. It’s vintage–from 1920 and it fits me like a charm. It was meant to be mine.

OK-back to birthday.  All of this topped off with a lovely dinner at Pappo, the fancy schmancy restaurant in Alameda. And of course a glass of champagne for the birthday girl!

Yay me!

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You know those afternoons.

The afternoon when you get off of work around 4:30PM on a Friday because the weather is actually decent and almost warm and go to a bar that has a beer garden in the back. And you get completely drunk off of bloody marys that are made in pint glasses where 10 oz. of the liquid is cheap vodka and the other 3 oz. are tomato juice.

Yeah, so here are some pictures of my interpretation of that afternoon:

Here is Karen with some delightful pink lemonades that were made with the same ratio as my bloody mary, but with 3 oz of pink lemonade. Deelish!

Here’s a lovely picture of my beloved carrot-topped maid of honor, Jen Otter! Don’t we look nice and drunk? This is a good two bloody marys into the night. And yes, I am that lame that I would wear a pajama shirt to work and call it a button-down… Oh and don’t worry–that fur coat Jen is wear is fake.

This one is my all-time favorite picture of Jen with her sassy sparkly top that she changed into to go to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert where she decided to also dump her lame boyfriend later that evening. Naughty bloody marys–this picture was taken at bloody mary #4.

No more pictures were taken due to complete and utter drunkeness.

I woke up the next morning and decided that it would be best if I stay on the couch and watch chick flick films in a darkened room.  Eating whatever the hell I wanted–screw you Weight Watchers–and knit knit knit!

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OK! BAM! Finished it!

Since Friday night was a blur of drinks at Zeitgeist, an biker beer garden in SF with my friends,  Saturday was spent on the couch recouping and watching girly chick flick after girly chick flick while knitting. I did managed to finish this little sweater. The stars didn’t work out, so I added little stripes and stuff instead. I used KnitPicks.com’s Sierra, which was a dream to work with. I will absolutely knit more stuff with it.

I also spent a good chunk of my quality couch time knitting up a pair of socks from this Toe Up Socks on Two Needles class I’m taking at a local knitting shop called, Article Pract. Truly–socks to fly on two needles. I would have had pictures up on the site today, but my camera battery finally died on me. So tomorrow or Wednesday, you’ll see the finished socks.

OK! Onto Andrea’s sweet little baby sweater. It’s going to be beautiful, but man, is it a pain to knit at times! Oof! 

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