A swift and a cozy walk into a bar…

I hope your Christmas was FABULOUS! Please ignore the messy background and bask in the amazing yarn swift that my dad-in-law gave me.
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Isn’t it great? I was so excited about it that when we got back in town, I went out and bought two hanks of yarn just so I could wind them up! Don’t worry, I am not frivolously purchasing yarn, I plan on making a Thorpe hat for my sis-in-law.
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I also received a Nintendo DS Lite from the hubs, for which I immediately knit up a cozy. The first one I made came out a bit to big and I wasn’t crazy about the colors (blue/green variegated yarn), but this weekend as I sorted through my massive stash of yarn, I saw these three leftovers sitting together and it was the perfect inspiration for the most perfect cozy!
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The cozy was really easy too. It’s just a tube knits on straight needles, I think it’s called double-knitting. Basically, I used the technique shown here, but once I got to my desired length, I separated my stitches in half and bound off loosely. This gave me a nice opening for my DS to go in. For the pink and red color changes I just carried the colors on the side picking up the other to knit with every other row. I hate weaving in ends – this is the only way I ever do stripes!
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I’m just going to pretend like there isn’t a 5ish month gap since my last post.

In non-knitting news…

I got married in a pair of pink chucks almost five months ago. Being the tomboy that I’ve always been, I knew there was NO WAY I’d wear heels or any girly shoes on that day. Some argued, “but Queta, it’s you wedding day, the one day you should wear heels!” to which I countered, “but (insert name here), it’s my wedding day, the one day I should be comfortable and ME!”
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Ultimately, I got my pink shoes and everyone that knew me completely understood. A while ago, I started tossing around the idea of embroidering our wedding dates onto my wedding shoes. I kept stalling though because I’ve never embroidered and kept imagining that I’d leave many holes of errors in the shoes. Last week, I felt inspired by the Two Color Embroidery Tutorial at the purl bee and I finally decided to put aside all my insecurities about embroidery and gave it a go:
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I’m really happy with the outcome and I think it’s nice way to commemorate that special day and to um, you know…remember my wedding date! Although really, it’s impossible to forget the date since it’s the day before Louis’ birthday. In fact, the day after the wedding, his birthday, I let him open all the weddings gifts (OK – most of the wedding gifts)! Aren’t I such a nice wife? I think so.

Yarn Snob.

I fear that I’ve become a bit of a yarn snob. Last week, while perusing the yarn aisles at Michael’s, I heard some women gawking over how much they loved Lion Bran Homespun. That is one of my least favorite yarns in the world! I wanted to run up to them and tell them about the wonderful, better, yarns that were out there that could stomp on Lion Brand Homespun any day! Instead, I quietly continued on with my browsing. What is a yarn snob like me doing at Michael’s, you ask? Usually I buy yarn online because I tend to find that my LYS has high prices and I’m highly intimidated by their clique like regulars, I always feel like I’m in the way of whatever party is going on. I only go when they have a sale or if I am feeling desperate for non-mass produced yarn brands and have no patience to wait for something to ship… but I digress. I went to Michael’s in search of baby-friendly yarn for yet another baby sweater.
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I found some Lion Brand Cotton Ease and grabbed a couple of colors in hopes of making a striped sweater for a girl. I started a top-down raglan sweater, but I didn’t like it so much. The yarn is sitting in my kitchen waiting to be knit up, but I still in search of a perfect sweater pattern! To make matters worse, I am making this for someone that leaves at the end of this month! Ack, no pressure…
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Sadly I have no photos to share, so I will leave you with a picture of the yummilicious sushi my husband made a week or so ago:
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And yes, it was just as delicious as it looks!

Baby, baby, baby!

I have a feeling that I am going to get familiar with a lot of snuggly yarns as I start knitting for all the impending babies. I’ve done the math: I currently know about seven (yes – SEVEN) pregnant women! I will be knitting a little something for about five of them. There must be something in the water in this town, because last weekend I saw pregnant women everywhere I went! The mall, Ikea, Target, Chipotle – of course, a co-worker pointed out that those are placed you’d find pregnant women, but still. I feel like there was a “let’s all have babies in the Fall” meeting that I wasn’t invited to! No problem, I don’t plan on making babies for another few years.   
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Here is baby sweater #1:

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I just need to block it and sew it up – yay, my favorite part (are you sensing the sarcasm here?). It’s made form Blue Sky Alpacas cotton yarn which was a dream to work with. It’s so soft and smells really good. Who would have thought that a great smelling yarn would make it so much better to work with?
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I’m excited because there are so many adorable (and quick) baby patterns out there just waiting for me to knit them up! If you’ve browse through my queue at Ravelry you will notice that I have been queuing tons of baby patterns.
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Now I just need to do the research and find more baby friendly yarns to knit with. I’m staying away from wool and looking at working with various cotton yarns. The fall/winter weather is very mild in Southern California, so I don’t have to worry about making super-dooper warm knits.

Hooray for new toys!

Winding a new hank of yarn is not the funnest thing in our home. It involves me having my husband hold the yarn between his hands while I wind the yarn winder. There is a lot of pulling, tugging, and all around frustration involved on both sides.   
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A couple of weeks ago we did this again while winding a hank of Malabrigo yarn. All I did was fantasize about owning a yarn swift. The next day I did some research, the cost (up to $80 plus dollars, depending on the quality) is the only thing that stopped me from buying one in the past and I wondered, “is it possible to finding an inexpensive alternative?”
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Off to ebay I went, where I purchased this little gem for under $40:

(Please ignore the dirty floor!)
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It works perfectly and now I am able to wind yarn all by myself without wanting to strangle the husband with the yarn!

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I think it goes without saying that he is VERY HAPPY about the purchase. I am so looking forward to winding more yarn!