Well, in terms of finishing my Olympic project, I’d say I won a pewter medal at best.  But in terms of learning a new skill and finding out that it’s not nearly as difficult or as intimidating as I had expected, I personally think I’m a gold medal winner!

Here’s where I am so far

And here’s a close-up of the fair isle work

I was cruising on this while at Stitches, but then I got back home and reality hit… house hunting is nearly a full-time job.  Every night after work we went through listings.  Then, this past Saturday, we finally went out and looked at a bunch of places.  After which I promptly got a massive migraine.  Needless to say, I haven’t done a lot of knitting or spinning.  I’m getting to the point where I want to buy a house just to have some free time.  But then I remind myself that buying a house is just the beginning.  At some point we have to move.  Again.  Yuck!

By the way, I know you’re all waiting to see the loot I brought home from Stitches.  Well, I hate to break this to you, but… I didn’t buy a single hank, skein, or ball of yarn.  Sorry!

Airfare into San Jose: $250

Hotel for 4 nights: $240

Car rental for 4 days: $70

Finding out that my sister is as much of a spaz as I am: Priceless

I don’t honestly think I’ve ever spent four entire days with my sister non-stop.  I discovered that my sister has as many neuroses as I do.  (By the way, I have tell you about an exchange I had with my hubby just now.  I was trying to determine how to write that last sentence, so I asked my hubby “What would you call those little things I have…?”  Without batting an eye, he responded “Neuroses.”  When I said “that’s it!” he was amazed that he was right, seeing as how he was being a smartass, and I had never actually finished my question.)  On top of the neurotic tendencies, she also has “isms” like I do (my hubby has a list of Nancy-isms that he has kept over the years).  Although there were a lot over the weekend, the one off the top of my head, right now, (I originally had this written as “on top of my head” but my hubby caught it, thankfully) was when we were sitting at the airport in Phoenix waiting for our plane, which was an hour late.  Speculating on why the flight was late, I told her that I heard an announcement about how another flight coming in from the Bay Area was late due to traffic.  My sister responded with “I didn’t notice any traffic on the way over.”  (Which would have made sense if our plane had been driving here from San Jose.)

All kidding aside, we had a blast at Stitches and even managed to get out of the convention center a little bit.  I have a few pictures, but very few because my battery died and then I discovered that my backup battery was sitting somewhere at home.  So, without further ado, here’s my abbreviated pictography of Stitches West 2006.

This picture was taken from outside the convention center.  This one was really just taken to make all of my friends and family in Arizona jealous (not only were there clouds, it rained too!).

 

It’s me!  At Stitches!

 

Wearing Gus on my t-shirt!

 

After running out of money on Sunday afternoon, we tried to go in search of animals whose fleece I could shear for cheap.  Just kidding!  While Stitches is a lot of fun, we were ready for a change of scenery by Sunday and made a last minute decision to head up to Pacifica.  This picture was taken in the park that I used to train in for the 3 Day Walk.  While I took lots of nice photos of the deer, I love nature in it’s non “posed” state.

After watching the deer and going on a short walk, we went in search of the alpaca ranch that’s a short drive South.  The only problem was that I couldn’t entirely remember how to get to the ranch.  We found the main turnoff easily enough.  But the next turn I took ended up in someone’s driveway.  While I was attempting to back up and get turned around, a dog came out of the house.  A very stern looking dog.  A very stern looking dog that was pissed and attempting to charge our car.  A very stern looking dog that was pissed and attempting to charge our car that stood about a foot and a half high.  A very stern looking dog that was pissed and attempting to charge our car that stood about a foot and a half high and was a black puffball.  No joke!  This little puffball was seriously mad and wanted us to leave right then, if not earlier.  After I had finally gotten turned around and was driving down the street I looked back in the rear view mirror and the dog was following us!  There are lots of pictures I regret not taking, but this has to be top on my list.

Anyhoo, after we were able to stop laughing, we did eventually find the alpaca ranch.  And before my camera battery died, we got a picture of my sister with them.

 

And then… just as we thought the battery was going to die… just when we thought a last picture was hopeless… we got a picture of………. me!

 

(Yeah, I know I’ve used this joke before.  But, c’mon!  It’s funny!)

I had intended to write a real post before leaving for Stitches, but I’ve been running around packing (and the usual unpacking and repacking) and I just realized that I have to leave for the airport.  Like, right now!

I’ll be back on Monday.

If you’re going to be at Stitches West, be on the lookout for me.  I’ll be wearing Gus on my t-shirt!  And if you’re not going, well… I’ll give you a full report!

Have I ever mentioned that I don’t do well with instructions?  I’m the kind that when I buy a new gadget, instructions be damned!  I’ll play with the new toy until it’s on the brink of being broken before I’ll finally admit that I have no idea what I’m doing and turn to the instructions.  And even when I do look at instructions, well… I’m not too good with the details.  My favorite example of this was during my first semester in library school.  I was taking a library management class and we had a research paper that we had to turn in at the end of the semester on one aspect of library management.  I had chosen motivation and wrote this 20 page paper on different motivation theories and how they affect employers and employees.  (Have I mentioned that this was a library management class for library school?)  It wasn’t until the day after I turned in the paper that I re-read the directions that said the paper must relate back to library management.  Oops.  Thankfully my professor was very kind and only dinged me a few points for this ginormous mistake. 

My point is (and I do have one!), I cast on for my fair isle tote yesterday (in the Olympic spirit!).

** At this point let me warn all non-knitters that your eyes will begin to glaze over if you continue reading.  I promise I’ll try to be back soon with some non-knitting content for you! **

Ok, so even as I began this, I thought to myself that the pattern instructions were a bit odd.  Basically, I’m creating a base for the bag and then I pick up stitches for the body of the bag.  Great.  So I purl the first row of stitches and then I’m following the instructions for row two which say (paraphrased) to knit the first stitch, slip one stitch, bring the yarn forward, and knit a stitch.  Repeat to end of row.  Now, I’m thinking that it’s odd that they would have me making an increase on every other stitch, but I figure the pattern writer knows more than me so I keep going.  I get to row four where they have the same instructions, but this time I start out by knitting two stitches and then beginning the increases.  Hmmm… I start to think that maybe I should see how many stitches I’ll end up with before I finish.  That’s when I realize the pattern says to continue the four rows until I reach five inches.  Now I’m really confused, because the pattern should say to continue until I’ve reached ‘x’ number of stitches.  Thankfully I stopped working and really looked at the pattern (which I should have done before starting).  That’s when I saw where the little comma (the comma is really a very important punctuation mark, I must say).  The comma comes after the instructions for the slip one and before the next knit one.  I’m sure any other knitter has figured out that what I was supposed to be doing was knit one, bring the yarn to the front slip the stitch, bring yarn back around to back and then knit another stitch.  I ripped everything out (to the amazement and/or horror of the woman sitting next to me on the bus) and started over again.  Ahhh… much better!

With that said… LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

 (By the way… judging my how well my casting on has gone, does anyone actually think I’ll finish the entire tote by the 26th?  Yeah, me neither.  But I’ll have fun trying!)

As everyone knows by now, the Steelers won the Super Bowl!  I have to admit that I’m a Steelers fan by marriage.  So while I love that they won the Super Bowl, I was nowhere near as neurotic about the game as some people.  The thing I love most about the big game is all the great food you get to eat before, during, at halftime, in celebration, well… I think you get the idea.

While the Steelers won a big ol’ trophy, they aren’t the winners I meant in my title.  Remember a while back I walked a few miles for breast cancer?  And perhaps you might remember that I kept talking about raffle prizes?  Well, I finally, finally, picked winners for the raffle prizes!  (About damn time, ‘eh?)

In no particular order, here are the winners…

The buttonhole bag

which the Knitlette was nice enough to make and donate as a raffle prize goes to (drumroll please)… Nancy!

Next up, staying in the bag theme, is a felted purse kit

And the winner is… Becca!

I hope Dympna, one of my BAWDies pals, likes the felted kit theme, ’cause she’s the winner of this felted flower kit in a cute chinese takeout package.

The last, but not certainly not least, prize is neither a felted kit or a purse (although it’s technically a bag)…

this “bag ‘o novelty” is a good fit for my BAWDies friend Sandy (who is currently blogless, but a wonderful person nonetheless).

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to draw the names for these raffle prizes.  And, although only four of you won prizes, you’re all winners in my book.  I really appreciated everyone’s support last year, because I couldn’t have done the walk without you all!  (Literally. If I hadn’t raised the money, a big bouncer would have thrown me out of the walk). 

I wish I could say that I’m tearing myself away from my new wheel in order to write this, but I’ve actually been running around all day today. 

 First, I had to bring my cat in for her vaccinations.  I repeatedly warned the receptionist, the vet tech, and the vet herself that my cat hates all vets (I don’t think this applies to war veterans, just veterinarians, but I don’t personally know any war vets so I can’t guarantee this) and would probably need a muzzle.  However, regardless of the fact that my cat growled and gave warning bites, it wasn’t until after the vet was bitten so badly that she had to go put several bandages on that she listened to me and put a muzzle on her.

After bringing my cat back home, where she proceeded to act as though nothing happened, I went out and drove by a couple of houses for sale and discovered that the descriptions and pictures provided online are, ahem, creative.  I realize that current homeowners who have been through this already know this.  But other than knowing that “cozy” really means “small and cramped,”  I’m new to this.

THEN, as my hubby and I were collecting financial documents that the mortgage lender wants to see, we came across the requirements for breaking our lease (which isn’t up until August) and realized how expensive this could be.  We aren’t sure, though, if this cost would be off-set by the interest rate we can get on a mortgage right now versus waiting until August after the rates have increased (which they will).

And that brings us to me writing this blog post in which I finally get to tell you about my new wheel.  As you know, I opened up the box Thursday night after our realtor left.

After taking all of the parts out of the box, this is what we had.

After staring at all of the parts, I started reading the instructions and decided it might be best to wait until Friday when I was fresh and able to concentrate.  So, I put all of the pieces back into the box.

When I came home from work on Friday, my hubby, who knows that I’m mechanically challenged, helped me put the wheel together.  Thanks to him, within an hour, I was spinning!

My hubby took several pictures, but here’s my favorite.

I know that many spinners name their wheels, and I’m no different.  I knew that I wanted a name that would make me think of happy fiber thoughts.  My hubby suggested several names, but they wouldn’t result in “happy” fiber thoughts (although some of them were funny).  But then I remembered my trip to the alpaca ranch in California (I’d link to it, but blogspot is down and for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the place) and the wonderful alpaca that I met.

Her name is Jolie.  My hubby looked her name up and it’s a French name that means pretty.  How appropriate, huh?  So, here’s the first official portrait of me and my new wheel Jolie.

 

My wheel is here!  It’s still in the box right at the moment, however, because my hubby and I met with a realtor tonight to start the whole house buying experience.  (Ack!  We’re actually going to buy a house!  Ack!)  After the realtor left, I opened the box and discovered that there are a lot of pieces that need to be assembled.  So, it looks like I’ll have to be patient and wait until I get home from work Friday night.  Have I ever mentioned that I am not a patient person?  sigh…

By the way, I know that some folks are having problems subscribing to my RSS feed (if you have no idea what this means, then you probably don’t need to worry about this).  In any case, I do have some subscribers in Bloglines, so it seems to be working to some degree.  If you’re having problems, try using the Bloglines button that I have over in the sidebar and see if that works.