Lagoon Monkeys and Slough Puppies

I finally finished a new pair of socks for Morgan and the weather was cooperative so we shot some pictures this morning.

Then we took the kids, often referred to as 'the monkeys' to the park by the Columbia Slough. There was much swimming and wrestling and rolling in the grass.

I love Teasel!

Tempest had a good day at the park!

Back in Action

I'm back to the needles. I am only working on current, unfinished projects.
I visited the Naked Sheep today and purchased nothing. The stash is disturbingly large and I expect it to come to life any day now and swallow me whole.
Anyway, I have a few projects, finished in January that I finally got around to photographing yesterday.


Warm, double stranded hats for myself and the hubby for cold bus commuting mornings. Both yarns were cashmere wool blends that were leftovers in the stash. More details on Ravelry.

Rainbow Skull coffee cozy. I have been using this guy quite a bit so it is fuzzy. I buy coffee at work pretty often and often forget my cup and have to use paper. I thought at least if I carried this in my purse I could reduce my waste by not needing the cardboard cozies that protect your hand from the hot cup. It works well and I get lots of comments on it!
Once again, leftover Cascade 220 and Noro scraps, felted.


Finally my Glazed Carrot armwarmers. I made these before I went to Wisconsin and they definitely came in handy. If I were to do them over I might add a real tipless thumb but overall I am very happy with this improvised pattern. The yarn is Malabrigo worsted which is dreamy to knit and I picked the cable pattern out of one of the harmony stitch guides.
P.S. There really are two of these but no one was home to model them for me.

Life, etc.

I have been taking a little....break *gasp* from knitting. I'm spending some time being more physically active in the lovely early spring weather we have had in the Pacific Northwest.

A little gardening, swimming, lots of walking with and without dogs and....

I also started to Belly Dance again!

I convinced a couple friends to join me and we are taking a class at one of Portland's community centers. Our instructor is an amazing dancer and an even more amazing teacher.

I did pick up the needles today on an unfinished linen hand towel that was laying about.

It felt good to knit a few rows. I had a dream that I forgot how to knit. This actually happened to me when I took an almost ten year break from knitting.

It is like riding a bike or driving stick though, it will always come back!

Oh and the stash was near to enveloping my home and beginning to intimidate me. It had to be tamed and corralled a bit.

I Asked For It

...and I sure got it.

I have been joking about getting the full winter Wisconsin experience on this trip and the first part of it was mostly quaint; snow, relatives, beer football, etc.

Scooters in the snow, cute, right? adorable, what's not to love?

All that cute came abruptly to a halt yesterday as I spent the entire day in the Madison airport, lugging my luggage to and fro, in and out of security gates, re-booking three times to end up in Madison for the night eating sushi in a strip mall by the airport. (This last part isn't as bad as it sounds, though eating decent sushi in Wisconsin pretty much convinced me that I was hallucinating from exhaustion and frustration).
I will not bore you with all the sordid details but the worst parts were;

1) Sitting on the tarmac in a full plane of people for three hours going nowhere to then have the flight ultimately canceled.

2) Waiting many more hours for a much later flight (that was already 4 hours late) to be canceled again, this time because they had no crew to fly the plane.

Once again, these are the highlights of yesterday's hellishness. I am a patient waiter. I have knitting after all and I bought magazines and am working on my second book. What upsets me is being yanked about with all these false promises. If you know I'm not getting out of Madison by noon why lead me on?

I'm off to battle the airport again...did I mention the WiFi at the Madison airport is NOT free. I always thought Madison was such a Socialist place...what gives?

In The Land of Beer and Cheese

Snow, snow and more snow. I'm in Madison, Wisconsin and boy is it great knitting weather!

My cousins took me to Lakeside Fibers in downtown Madison and last night I taught Jen to knit and got her started on her first pair of socks!