GingerBread Party 2006, Part 1

Phew. My feet hurt. Let's get that right out of the way. Now - on to the good stuff. So far, 7 guests, 6 houses. Some twisted and sick, others traditional and adorable.

Ahva and Rita got right down to business - Rita's first time at one of these things. She managed to stick 20 lbs. of candy on a 2lb house - absolutely amazing. Ahva went with a more traditional cottage - very cute, in pastels and of course, heavy on the pink!

One Thing I Am Thankful For

I don't usually get sappy - just not that type of person. But during these holidays I especially miss one person who always adds life and energy to every day, and to watch her during the holidays is a blessing I have enjoyed for more than 15 years now. I have watched her grow up from a little girl who cried because she thought she wasn't pretty to become a gorgeous, talented, self-assured young woman who lights up the room just by walking into it.

And she is in Brazil, with her extended family, and missing Thanksgiving at home. So I just wanted to let her know that even though she isn't here with us this week, she is in my heart and can't wait for her to come home.

Grand View. Whew. Still Recuperating.

Wow. What a weekend. From Friday night to Sunday noon, 12 absolutely insane women knit, drink, munch, gab, sing, crack jokes, and occasionally sleep. Where? The Grand View Country Store in Randolph, NH is a yarn store for yarn stash-aholics.

Everywhere you turn, there is yarn. It's enough to convert anyone from a "I'm just coming with you to scrap" type chick into a "OK, this scarf is almost done, what do I do for a second project?" chick.

Case in point.

CroptoberFest 2006

It's a little late, but I really want to thank Melissa for holding an excellent CroptoberFest. It was great to be able to bring Gina, Chris and Lisa, and scrap allllllll day. I made great strides on Aunt Joyce's birthday album - it's almost done!


The girls came to visit during dinner, and Nora, the shy retiring little Junebug she is, visited everyone, asking about their pictures and their pages. What a freakin cutie! I managed to convince her it would be AWESOME to put bug stickers on our noses - I had to do it first to push her over the edge.
Lisa wanted to go outside and get some pictures for her albums so I got to play photographer - she so pretty, huh?

Upside Down Evil Kitty

Nuf said. Cutest kitty ever.

Really.

EVER.


Discuss.

Coming Up.....GBP2006!

YUP - it's that time again! My annual Gingerbread House party is scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This is Jess from the 2004 party - since she can't be here this year, she can at least strike a pose to advertise GBP2006.

Every year for about six years now, I invite friends and their kids to join me at the house - they bring undecorated houses, or pieces to assemble, and some candy to share for decorations. I provide lunch and munchies all day, and lots of cement - royal icing - to assemble their masterpieces. I also use sugar cones, royal icing, and green sugar to create snow covered pine trees for everyone's house.

The day is exhausting - usually the first guests show up early in the morning, and I boot the last ones out the door around 10:00p.m. - but it is such a blast. Last year, more than a dozen houses were completed over the course of the day.

Still thinking about the menu - I usually make a crockpot full of a yummy soup or stew, and throw a roast and veggies in the oven. I'm open to suggestions and recipes!!

Even now, when vacuuming, I come across candy bits from previous parties - and once in a while Abby will be freaking out in the kitchen - it turns out she found a particularly roll-y piece of candy to bat all over the place.

So are you thinking of joining us? RSVP - space is at a premium, which is why the party runs from morning to night.

Kids who want to decorate are always welcome - and I can put kidvids on the 55" screen TV for the kids who tire out and want to chill in the living room.

And there are a few rules to abide by:

1. If you can see it, you can eat it.
2. Before you leave, I MUST be able to take pictures of you with your finished house.

Can you deal? Than give me a call! I look forward to seeing you there!

Goin' to the Fayuh - Deerfield Fair, 2006

Mark and I headed to Deerfield early, got there about 9:00ish. Which was a good thing, because by the time we left, just after noon, the crowds were UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE. It was a beautiful day, and Sunday promised to be mizzable, so everyone in New Hampshire decided to head to Deerfield on Saturday. I swear, you couldn't fart without knocking someone over.





Anyway, got some fun pics of piggies and sheep and goats and stuff - and the Fiber tent, which was full of good stuff, but nothing that really blew my mind. I was a little disappointed, or maybe just too particular, I dunno.

Found It!!!!

Found my digital camera, after tearing apart the living room. It was in one of my 30000 knitting bags. Anyway, my birthday was this past Thursday, and lovely Gina sent me these - I promised her they were blog-worthy, and so they are!!

I came home late that night, and the FTS box was sitting on the front steps. It was a great way to end what had been a crappy day. Daisies are my favorite flower, in case you weren't aware!!

She also included some Maxine refrigerator magnets - very cute.

The daisies have opened up beautifully, and are enjoying a few more days on the bay window. It's too bad cut flowers don't last longer.

Thanks, Miss G!

Cut Off at the Knees!!!

No, I don't need a handicapped plate - although they do come in handy at Christmas. I can't find my freakin digital camera! It's here somewhere. I think Abby took it so I wouldn't keep taking pics of her and Pud. So here are some older ones anyway.


So I have a few projects on the needle, including two Jaywalkers - one using Opal Petticoat, and the other using Gina's watermelon sock yarn. Both are coming along - I just started the heel flap on the Opal sock last night. Or maybe it was this morning - haven't been sleeping so well. But I can't PROVE it cuz the frigging camera is no where to be found.

Also still working on my aunt's birthday album. Will probably finish it up at Melissa's Creative Memories OctoberFest next month to be able to give it to Joyce. But can I show you that? Noooooo!

Is it Hot in Here?

Yes, here it is, my long-intended post about the famous Cheetos sweater from Hell. This has been on the needles for over a year now - luckily the recipient is done growing, I think / hope. So this blog entry is for you, dear Jess. Read on, lucky readers, and learn the story of the shrug.

This is Jess daSilva, by the way - she just graduated from RISD, and was a phenom on the Providence Roller Derby circuit. When she comes back from Brazil next spring, she will go back to the team. Her game name is daSilva Bullet. Freakin beautiful, or WHAT???

I picked what looked like a simple pattern from the KnitPicks catalog, the Bolero shrug, to make for her. I figured - hey - I have been knitting for a WHOLE YEAR - of COURSE I can make the leap to a sweater. And she's small, so it would go quick - right? What I didn't remember is that I hadn't produced much more than partially finished hats and a few scarves. It sucks to work full time plus and try to learn a skill that, for me anyways, takes some concentration and patience. I am not spatially adept - can't just look at a pattern and see what the results will be. And learning new stitches? HA! At LEAST three demos from increasingly impatient expert knitting buddies.

But I digress. So I sent Jess an email with the KnitPicks Shine yarn URL, which they recommended to make the shrug with, and asked her to pick a color. She chose, of all things, the Apricot. What a surprise - this girl has gorgeous coloring that would go with vomit-color. But Apricot? What about that beautiful Cherry? But whatever she wants....! I'll tell you though, the color gives me hot flashes whenever I work with it. Apricot schmapricot - it's the color of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or Cheetos.

The knitting went along very well - I learned new skills, like increases and decreases, that I hadn't used before. I could see it taking shape, and the yarn, color aside, is sooooo soft. Try Shine sport weight. It is 60% Pima Cotton, 40% Modal - I don't have a clue what that is. But the yarn is so easy to work with.

And then the leaf edgings, the final pieces. The right side came along, after about a dozen trips to the frog pond until I understood the pattern. But the left edging stumped me. No matter how many times I read the pattern, it seemed like what should be a 10 stitch row decreased to a 9 stitch row after the first row - definitely not the same as the right edge. Well, after sending emails to KnitPicks and then learning the very weird and uncomfortable purlwise yarnover as first stitch, voila. The edging is finally done.

So now I get to assemble. Did I say yet that the mattress stitch is boring and frustrating? Not liking it. And I may have to rip a whole side seam out and start over because the pieces aren't lining up. But this think is almost done - I can smell success.

Jess emailed me a week or so ago and hinted that she would be pleased to receive the finished shrug while she is still in Brazil. She added that the girls down there often wear shrugs like that with nothing underneath them. Yeah, right - like that will make me run to the post office! I've known the kid since she was 5! She'll get the sweater when she comes home in March!!!

(Project pictures are coming - bear with me!!)

Booga-Mania 2006

Hey - I just realized we are in a month that ends with an R. You know what that means? It means that Christmas is coming. You know what that means? It means I promise myself that I will try to make as many awesome gifts as possible for the people in my life - and then fail to achieve anything close to that. Two years ago I promised my self I would knit cute little wrist warmers for all the folks I supervised at work - because it can get mighty cold in the winter in our office. They are still waiting. If I wait long enough, maybe turnover will take care of the issue. Sigh.

I promised last year to make Booga Bags. I mean, how easy can it get? Hell, I can knit in the round in traffic, and make i-cord in my sleep. So how many did I make? One - and didn't even felt it. It's the multi-colored one above, in Kureyon Karaoke .

So today was a mizzable rainy day, and time to make my empty, futile promises. But due to the weather and my husband's rare lack of interest in annoying the shit out of me all day (he even took a nap), I even got some work done. I finished one Booga, minus the i-cord, and started a second.

This one is ready to felt. The bottom is a bulky cranberry - the remains of the yarn I used to make the scarf for my husband that is displayed in a previous blog. The white and green are Cascade 220. I'm hoping the thicker cranberry will make a sturdy base for the bag.

The thing I like most about the Booga Bag idea is that after you make one, you really don't even need the pattern. You can improvise to make smaller, or larger bags, and try different strandings and patterns as you knit in the round - which goes anywhere. It's brainless, and so unless I am chewing gum, I have a fighting chance of not screwing it up. No real need to check gauge, no real need to even measure. I figger what ever size comes out of the washing machine will be just fine.


This is the beginning of bag number two. I crocheted (I hear GASPs from the knitting snobs, but bear with me...) the bottom to have a round base - the rectangles are getting boring. This is Lopi evergreen, which I picked up in a quickie visit to Patternworks yesterday with my sister-in-law, the lovely Anita.

She had never been there - it was fun to see her have a little yarn-stiffy as she wandered around the store. But she didn't buy anything. How sick is that? I had to raid the sales bins, and still in a Booga frame of mind, had to pick up some Lopi. Yes, I have Karaoke at home. And butt loads of Cascade. So what.

Anyway, this bag is now in its knit phase.

I am alternating with Lopi gray green, first in a stripe, and now have moved on to a 5 stitch checker pattern. Somehow I managed to come out exactly even on the repeats, without even counting the stitches first. That will NEVER happen again. I don't deserve such serendipity twice.

So, back to Booga. Next posting will be all about the Cheetos sweater from hell.

Scrappin' at Mel's

It has been a LONG time since I sat my butt down to do some scrapbooking. It's not like I don't want to - it's just that there never seems to be enough time to set up alllll my tools and then pick the project to do, and then do it, before something else interferes.

But yesterday, my friend Melissa had an all day crop at her house. Mel is a Creative Memories Unit Leader, and has a great workshop downstairs in her house. The crop ran from 9:00 to 9:00 - wow - can't use the "no time" excuse!!

I arrived around 9:30, and was still the first one there, besides her beautiful mom who lives right behind Mel in an addition to the house. Got right to work, because I had the project - the album I promised my Aunt Joyce. All the pics from the party will fit quite nicely in the yellow Kaleidoscope album I picked for her. All the pages, for the most part, will be in yellow, Joyce's favorite color.

I had everyone who came to the party write birthday wishes to her on scrapbooking journal boxes, and will combine their messages with pics of the at the party. Some were serious, some, not so much!

I really like the kids' notes - they took this assignment very seriously and showed off some mad art skills.

The pictures were taken with my digital camera and with some Kodak disposables. My cousin Sue also forwarded the ones she took. So yes, I actually end up in some of them - blech. Isn't it funny how scrapbookers never actually like to be in the picture?

So back to the workshop - about 10 more people came over the course of the day - some stayed just an hour or two, others were in it for the long haul. And guess what? Miss Lisa was able to tear herself away from the family long enough to come up and play with me!!


Deb B. was a great surprise - hadn't seen her for at least a year, probably two.


(Mel is checking out Deb's album page, here.)

Deb brought her friend Beverly, who immediately made great friends with Nora, Melissa's youngest. She was absolutely adorable in her Cinderella nightie (Nora - not Bev!!!). And wouldn't you kill to have that hair?

Melissa has a gorgeous pool, and it was so humid today that I wish I brought my suit. But, we did sit out by the pool for a bit and watch the guppy - I mean Claire, swim like she has scales and fins. Can she be any cuter?













I actually got quite a bit of work done, but Lisa and I left a bit early - it was just too warm. Figures - every other day in the past week has been cool and crisp - perfect. But anyway, a nice air conditioned dinner at Pizzeria Uno was a great end to a great day. Sangria - yummmmm.

OFF the Needles - for a change...

I am celebrating. Last night, after busting my fat ass on stuff for work all day, I decided I deserved to FINISH something. Anything. So, I finished Mark's scarf. He picked the two colors, a cranberry and a forest green, from a wonderful vendor at the NH Sheep and Wool Flood - er, I mean, Festival back in May. Of course, I can't find the vendor's labels, so I can't give much deserved credit where it is due - yet. I will definitely update this blog once I have the info!

Anyway, this is just a plain garter stitch scarf, but as you can see I knitted it the long way, so the stripes are vertical rather than horizontal.

My model is a bit on the skinny side, but the colors suit him, no?

Don't be fooled - this is only the tippiest tip of the unfinished project iceberg. From the half done Knitted Babe to the never even started Knit Pick lace cardigan I was supposed to start back in January, there are too many things to work on and not enough time to do them. Don't even mention the Cheetos sweater from hell - I'll start growling.

The Reunion, Part II

The guys from Grand Rental Station came over to pick up the tent and the chairs and the tables and the grille today. I kinda liked having them in the yard - it felt like we could have a party at a moment's notice if we wanted. But, reality is setting in, and we go back to work tomorrow. Blah.

Here are more pics.


Three generations of beautiful blondes joined us - do I remember their names? Nope. Do I have any clue who they are related to? Nuh-uh.

Thanks to Sue for the much needed fill-in-the-blanks!

"(this is ) Jill, her daughter Amanda, and her niece (Jill's granddaughter) Brianna. Brianna is the daughter of Jill's oldest son David who was white water rafting. Jill is my mom's sister Sharon's second daughter. "









This is one of my favorite pics. This is Wayne - I remember Wayne from when I was a kid his daughter's age - and now he has two beautiful girls, Hannah (pictured here) and Abby.












This is Sue's lovely daughter Michelle - way cool, too cool to be in pictures while she is scarfing mud cake. At least that's what her expression is telling me. Wayne called my mud cake "Sugar Stew." He wasn't far from wrong. But damn is it GOOD. I think I will end this for tonight and go scare up some. Maybe with a banana - health food, doncha know.

The Reunion (subtitle: Pics of People You'll Never Meet)

Well, after much effort cleaning and prepping for the party, it went off without a hitch on Saturday. It's over. Phew. I think everyone had a good time - it seemed like the kids did, anyway. My cousin's son Nick never left the pool - he had fins by the time they got him into the car to go home!

So, for those billions of you who weren't lucky enough to attend, here are some pics...

The real reason for the party was my Aunt Joyce's 70th birthday. She thought it was a Brown family reunion right up until she saw members of her side of the family in the yard. Actually, except for my sister Lisa and me, everyone attending was from Joyce's family. The Maine folk weren't able to come down, the Florida folk weren't able to come up. Oh well, they missed a great time! (And there was SOOOO much food!!)

This is cousin Sue, Joyce's oldest daughter, with her daughter Amanda.

And these two babes are cousin Karen (Joyce's daughter) and Lisa, my darling sweet and oh so elegant sister. Aren't they purty?

And the sausages look GREAT, don't they? Emeril's chicken and apple snausages. Yum.

I wish this didn't come out so dark, but here are all Joyce's kids with her - the requisite family shot. Karen the carrot-thrower (only one had to be retrieved from the pool) on the left, Sue ("I'm in my bathing suit!!") hiding in back, and Jeff better-late-than-never-and-I-already-ate-before-I-got-here on the right.

More in the next posting!

Totally Off Topic - My New Bathroom

Just had a family reunion this past weekend - in preparation for about 40-50 people coming to my house, I managed to whine and nag enough to get my DH going on some long awaited projects. My favorite outcome was the new look in the downstairs bathroom. Here are a few pics from the BEFORE and DURING(blech):



The floor never looked clean, even after those few and far between times I actually washed it. The wallpaper was blah and BORING. The only cute thing in the whole room is Abby. At least the wallpaper was cooperative - I peeled it off fairly easily, in big sheets.

Now, the after. Are you sitting down?




The new floor looks like tile. It still has brown in it, but so much more that even if it is filthy no one will know. But I like it so much I Swiffer it like a mad woman, so that won't be likely!









The new wall color is Honey Toast. My oh-so DH calls it piss yellow, but it's HONEY TOAST. A nice, warm yellow that really brightens up the room without being too obnoxious.









And, above the toilet, instead of the blah wall paper, I hung these shelves and added the candles and bottles. Again, Mr. No-Taste thought the African art belonged in the bathroom - it was removed from the shelf before the reunion so that the children would not ask embarassing questions all day. And no, it's not going back in there - not even as a toilet paper dispenser. NO.