Busy Bee

Wow. What a weekend.

First, the most important addition to our house in years:

A new washer and dryer! We've been without for close to 10 months now. It's a horrible long saga that I will summarize in one statement: Do not, under any circumstances, purchase any appliance from Haier America. Not only did we go through 3 of their machines in as many months, we also had to put in a DAILY phone call to their customer service department to move things forward in the refund process. Not so much fun. 10 MONTHS LATER....

New machines!



My parents drove in from Rochester to get us up and running with the installation. We had to redesign the area. Shorten the counter, install new cabinets, etc. Dad was a champ and fixed it all up real good for us. Go Dad. I'm searching throughout the house to find things to wash...it's so fun.


Boston Knit Out

The Boston Knit out was Sunday. I took my mom and friend Jess over to check it out. It was fun. I have never felt like such a big nerd with the woman in the background singing songs about knitting and woman every where all in love with knitting. It was pretty funny. Although, I must admit the song lady was a bit much (Mom says there is an equally cheesy "quilting singing lady." Apparently these two have the market cornered). I got to touch all kinds of beautiful yarns, see my knitting ladies from the bookstore, and say hello to my long lost workshop ladies. You couldn't purchase anything at this event. Which is good...because there was much there to tempt me. Fun was had by all. I think I've convinced Jess to take a knitting class so she can join the fun!

New project

There is one major thing that sucks about being poor - no money for yarn. Well, here is a temporary work around. Tell your mother you'll create a handmade, lovingly stitched, specially designed scarf just for her. The catch? She has to pick out and buy the yarn. So we were off to Circles (lucky me, it's right around the corner!). It turns out mom has pretty great taste. I'm excited for this project. I've swatched (see this post for a disclaimer) using size 10 needles and with any luck in a few days/weeks I should have a 12" wide caplet a la Champagne Caplet made of this...

Interlacements Yarn Periwinkle Petite hand dyed yarn. 300 yards, 8 ounce skein, 99% wool, 1% Nylon. Color #218. 4 st./in. on #8 needles. What weight is this? Hold on I can look it up on my greatest weekend purchase. This is the greatest gift for a new knitter. Why look, this yarn is a Worsted Weight Yarn. Click here for the Knitter's Review review of the yarn.

I just need to name this project now. What are the rules here? Everyone seems to use names of people for their projects. Shall I do the same? Susan, for my mom? Vinnie for the punk down the street? Where do I go with this?

In other news...

More progress on the shapely tank. I'll get the details of this project up sometime this week. I'll be traveling public transportation to work for the next few weeks. I'm pretty excited - more knitting and reading time for me!

Our bookclub met this week...we're reading a Drink Before the War for our next selection. The Bone People has left me feeling very melancholy so I've decided to set it down for a few days. The characters are all just being ripped to pieces. It's too powerful for me to get through all in one full swipe. The mark of a good book - it hits you so hard you have to take a break.

Like any good weekend, this is how it ended.

Dad in the hammock.



Robby on the big chair (note the Browns Jersey, they won!).



All for now!