Camera+Cat+Halloween=FUNNY

Ha ha.....not

Fall foliage

These photos are of a tree in my backyard. The first two are "normal" exposures; the second two are "artsy" slow exposure shots while slightly moving the camera.

Photos and more photos

My Dad and sister Amy enjoying a free tan from their flaming birthday cake


Our (my Mom, Grandma, and I) trip to Long Grove was soooo much fun! Look at this beautiful fountain--I came very close to buying it for my office. It had mist and trickling water, and the clear crystal on top twirled as the water flowed over the pink crystal


Here is the LYS in Long Grove--"I'd Rather Be Knitting". I really liked this store, they had tons of yarn, and a big table in the middle (of the other room) where about 10 people were sitting around knitting yesterday. The only bad thing was I had a saleslady that was a little too pushy...when I go to a yarn store, if I ask where something is I want to be pointed to it, then left alone. This woman stood in my way and I had to ask her to hand me the colors so I could look at them! Ugh


Yummy yarn purchase. Isn't the color fabulous?! It's called "Snoopy's Crayons" (Shaefer Yarns Elaine) 99% merino wool, 1% nylon


Knitted fruit lounging in the store window

I got a lot done on hubby's sweater yesterday, the drive was 2 hours each way. I finished re-doing one sleeve and hope to have the other sleeve finished by this weekend. When it's done, I'll try to bribe him into modeling it for me!

Quiet on the home front

Boy have I been bo-ring lately! No knitting, just cleaning and working....but I'm getting my hair done tomorrow, which means a little over an hour of knitting time. I think I'm going to work on Clapotis and try to get it done (or very close to). Then I have to get hubby's sweater done before I start Creatures of the Reef. Promise.

Hubby and I are coming up on our one-year wedding anniversary (November 7). He has been asking me what I want as a gift, because as I mentioned around birthday time, he has absolutely no clue what my taste in anything is. So I have to tell him what to buy me, ruining my surprise factor but insuring I won't want to return/exchange the gift. Meanwhile, he is too easy to buy for, and his gift is not an "anniversary" gift per se, but it's something he wants, and I think (hope) that's all that matters.

I made halloween cutout cookies for hubby to take to work tomorrow. I loooove to bake. I also got started on my Christmas cookie doughs, freezing two batches of cutout cookie dough and three batches of Kolacky dough. I still need to make two batches of banana cookie dough, one batch of raspberry-frosted candy cane cookie dough (another cutout cookie), one batch of lime crescents, and one batch of chocolate cherry pinwheel dough. Then in early December I will make praline wafers, lots of fudge (in cookie cutters to give as gifts), spiced pecans, cashew corn crunch clusters (try to say that three times fast), and raspberry truffles. Too much?? :)

My friend Jenny tells me she's due in less than four weeks! Yay Jenny! I want to make something to send to her, and I have a question....are Ugg boots unisex? I've seen lots of bloggers making the Ugg baby booties and they're really cute, but Jenny's having a boy and I don't want to show my Ignorance of Ugg. I have two other "items" I'm going to make (I'm not tellin' because she reads my blog!), so if Uggs are for girls only, no biggie--but I need to know!! I'm planning to get the yarn Wednesday when The Girls (my Mom, Grandma, and I) go to Long Grove for shopping--yarn store: I'd Rather Be Knitting!, other must-have: apple cider doughnuts!

Yippee!

I got a package in the mail yesterday...it was the Creatures of the Reef shawl kit! I don't mean to sound like it was a total surprise, its just I ordered it by snail mail, and it took quite a while to come. Now I need to rearrange my WIPs on my Denise needles so I can start it. I had a fleeting thought of going to my LYS and buying another set of Denises, but I can't afford it right now.

P.S. I heart Fiddlesticks! If you're thinking of ordering from them--spend spend spend! When I ordered my kit, I asked for the kit with white yarn (to go towards another project), and ordered one skein of aegean blue, asking for a specific dyelot (which I wasn't expecting, since I got my other two skeins from Elegant Ewe @ Stitches Midwest) but they were able to match the dyelot! Awesome.

Stitchin' (my knit group) meets tonight, so I'll finally get back to knitting. I've had plenty of time the past few evenings, but I just haven't felt like picking up the needles. Does anyone else feel that way after going a while without knitting? Like you need prodding to get going again? Then you do start knitting again, and you're like a crazy person, rearranging your schedule so you do nothing but knit, thinking "How did I go so long without knitting"! Hehe.

Reverse progress

Here is the lovely finished collar. I have to stress (to myself, mostly) that something has indeed been finished recently on this odyssey of a sweater.


Amputated arm. I'm having to frog back further than I need, so I can re-shape the arm otherwise it'll be too poufy at the bottom.


Clapotis progress (no reverse progress on this baby!)

I didn't get too much knitting done this week. I had to get stuff ready for the garage sale we had yesterday, which went very well. We made a few hundred dollars, which unfortunately won't be going directly into my yarn stash fund. The amazing thing was we set up at 8:00am, and closed up at 12:30pm! We sold most of our stuff first thing, and by 12:00, it had slowed down so much we decided to just pack up and donate the last of it. And there was one funny story related to the garage sale.....
About 10am, I went in the house to get the cat. I figured she could use some air, and would enjoy seeing some new people. So I put the harness on her and brought her out. She had walked under hubby's chair (after walking around a bit), pulling the leash taut. I checked on her once or twice; she was fine. I checked on her again, peeking under the chair, and I saw a buckle. I thought, "Hm, I don't think I should be able to see the buckle on her harness.....TAFFY!" She had wrapped the leash around the leg of the chair and pulled herself out of her harness! Thank goodness she had only gotten about 10 feet away, and when hubby went to get her, she just stood there and meowed. Phew!
Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Almost done

Well, I've been working hard on the sweater, and I'm so close I can taste it. I finished the collar last night (after making it a crew neck, then having to pull out the bind-off and turn it into a fold-over collar because hubby changed his mind). Now I'm in the process of frogging 1/2 the sleeves to re-shape and shorten them because they came out about 4 inches too long.
Needless to say, this has been quite the experience! I'll try to post photos soon...

As I'm writing this, the house is filling with the mouth-watering scent of grape pie. Yum! We're going to my parent's house to watch Monday Night Football on their big screen tonight (the Steelers are playing), and I thought a pie sounded too yummy. The diet can start tomorrow! I was going to post the recipe, but it's from a Taste of Home magazine, and I don't think I can. If anyone wants the recipe, send me an e-mail or leave your e-mail in the comments section.

Why I'm not finished with the sweater yet

Clapotis!
How much fun are these to make?! It's such a nice change from fighting the sweater, that I'm having a hard time going back. I did finish the buttonholes, and may tear myself away from my clapotis long enough to do the neck finishing tonight, we'll see. As you can see from the photo below, I did lose rights to the sweater last night, and I can already see Taffy and Brad fighting over this garment for years to come!

Awwwwww

Hooray!

Many thanks to Darcie for posting the codes here for making progress bars! I had to play with the codes a bit more because my bars were coming out a little wonky, and I'd like them a bit more narrow but don't know how to change that.
I'm just pleased as punch I've got them now! :)

Last night

My hubby and I went to see Richard Jeni last night at the Paramount Theater in Aurora. The drive there was uneventful, even pleasant, and the town is very easy to get around in (even with a festival blocking some of the downtown roads). We parked the car and went across the street for dinner. The place was packed, and the waitstaff didn't seem to be prepared for all those people, so we did alot of waiting, which was OK because we got there pretty early. The show was.....fantastic! Jeni's opening comedian wasn't anything to write about, so I won't, but Jeni was very funny. The downside was we sat in front of this couple that was obviously on their first date, and the guy was a very loud talker. So we got to hear all about the movies he's seen lately, the band he's in (which we both agreed was probably a line, because he had a coarse, grating voice, and he was telling her he was the lead singer. She asked if he played an instrument, and he said he played the tambourine and moraccas...WTF kind of shi**y band is he in?!), etc., etc.
So, the show's over, and we get loud talker and date following us back to the parking garage. I'm tuning them out by then, but as soon as we get in the elevator, hubby says with a big sigh, "I thought we'd never get away from them!" But we did.
One thing I noticed about Aurora, IL, is the incredible amount of spiders they have. No kidding. Walking to and from the garage, we walked over the Fox River, and in the openings of the railing were....spiders. On the decorative lampposts......spiders. And not little daddy longlegs, either. Big, grotesque, bulging spiders. On massive webs. How does the town overlook all these spiders? I was a bit afraid in the theater, thinking of the spiders that may drop down from the ceiling on us during the show, but thank goodness we were laughing and clapping and such, scaring the spiders off, I'm sure. Otherwise that's where they would have found us all, wrapped up mummy-like in our seats, with all the town's spiders feasting on us 'til then.
We headed home about 10:30 (with a bag full of White Castle burgers), and the signage said to get back on I-88 we had to be in the left lane. Fine, left lane. The next huge sign said I-88, so I assumed the turn would be coming soon. As I was passing the sign, I saw a teeny tiny arrow pointing to the left. We missed our exit. And had to turn around. Where were all the signs for us stupid people (or out-of-towners), saying turn here Turn Here TURN HERE?
Anyhoo, we got out of SpiderTown safe and sound, and today is a knittin' day. Can't get better than that, huh?