Sir Sprout + Lady Lavender

The past week has been nonstop knitting, with very little sleep. Presently, it's 11:35am and I've yet to go to bed. This morning was a mad dash to finish Sir Sprout before meeting Sara and Debbie for breakfast at 8:30. Sir Sprout and Lady Lavender are gifts for Sara's soon-to-be-born twins, Brody and Lily. Of course before I could give them to her, I had to set up a little photo shoot, completely with miniature lemon cupcakes (with sprinkles!) on my colorful espresso saucers.

[ raveled: sir sprout. ]
[ raveled: lady lavender. ]

Feeling Sublime

Before:
After:It had been a solid year since I'd gotten a hair cut (I've been trimming my bangs at home, which is fine when you're desperate, but doesn't actually look so great), and the last time had involved dyeing my hair dark brown and adding carmel-ish highlights (see the funky blonde patches in the 'before' photo?). My hair was, for me, incredibly damaged. Lots of split ends, tangles that would NOT comb out, and a lot of uncontrollable frizz. I visited my lovely hairdresser today, and she worked her beauty magic, trimming about an inch off the length and thinning out my hair (and evening up my mangled bangs). It's so shiny & silky now! Tomorrow I'm going to buy some rollers and experiment with curling my hair.

Also: today I went to my LYS and discovered that she's no longer carrying Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK! Oh nooooooo!! But she has added something new...Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK...and it's soooo yummy. Sometime in the next few months, I want to knit myself a bunny with one of the several lovely shades of pink she has in stock.

Also also: I stopped by Hobby Lobby to pick up some polyester fiberfill, and they had all of their Christmas stuff out! It was heaven. I found Drosselmeyer and Mouse King vintage-style mouth-blown glass ornaments to go with the Clara I got a few years ago. (My Clara ornament looks exactly like the one in that picture, and my Drosselmeyer and Mouse King are the same in style but different in color. They had the Nutcracker ornament too, but I didn't like it because to me it doesn't look much like the Nutcracker!) I'd really like to find a good Sugar Plum Fairy ornament someday. Hallmark has one this year, but it's really big and really expensive, although it does play "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," which is quite lovely.

Giovanni's Squishy New Friend

About a bazillion years ago, when dinosaurs and woolly mammoths roamed the earth, I started knitting this elephant. And last night, I finished it. It didn't really take me eons to knit this little bugger--only about a week, actually. But I became endlessly frustrated when trying to pick up stitches for the ears (I was really worried that they wouldn't be symmetrical), and I buried him in a knitting drawer, under thirty or forty half-finished socks. He probably would've remained there until the next ice age, but I guess I promised him to a little bambino named Giovanni. And he just couldn't make his trip across the sea without ears! So I faced my fears of asymmetry, and actually I think I was worried about nothing, because he looks pretty balanced to me. And even if he isn't, wonkiness is a bit cute anyway, I think. Oh, he's so Italian...already drinking espresso!

[ raveled. ]

In other knitting news, I've finished the first of my Unnecessary Distraction socks (the second probably won't be knit until October or November):


For those who wonder about these things, up next I'll be knitting Ysolda's Sophie and Otto, for my friend Sara's twins. I'm going to try to find some little plastic rattle thingies to put inside them. I'm thinking lime green for Otto and purple for Sophie...

The US State Department + Me = BFF

I've re-prioritized some of my projects (in order to justify working on my unnecessary distraction), and my future living arrangement woes are back where they belong--in the future. My stress level has gone way down in the last few days, with the help of beautiful weather, fresh flowers, and a new CD from the Ditty Bops. Oh, and the arrival of my passport! For those who don't know, I just turned in my application on the 6th. Of August. What?! When I saw the envelope in the mail this morning, I thought that it was my application being returned because there was a problem with my photos or the fact that I spelled my mother's middle name wrong or something like that. I can't believe that they actually processed my application and mailed me an actual passport in just 10 days. My faith in the US government has been temporarily restored.

P.S. These are the greatest shoes of all time. All time. And I think I should get this bag to take as my carry-on when I go to Italy. It would also be pretty useful for the short trips we'll be taking during my visit (as opposed to lugging my suitcase around with me)...including a little trip to Venice!! And maybe Murano too. I'm pinching myself to make sure it's all really real. The only thing that could possibly make life any better is this cake.

Setting the World Record in Multi-Tasking

Another week of very little to post. I've got a hundred billion projects in progress right now, which leaves little time for making food, much less taking & posting pictures of food. I'm trying to knit three blankets and two sweaters by the end of September (yes, I am this crazy...but at least these are all baby-sized things!), working on a super secret project for a guest post on the soon-to-launch Simple Makes (whose temporary home can be found here), reading (I finished two books last week), watching the Olympics (more about this in a minute), and totally, like, freaking out about where I'm going to be living in six months. This is all on top of working 40 hours a week. Needless to say, I have not been getting enough sleep.

Part of my lack of sleep is due to the Olympics, which I'm totally psyched about this year. It's been a long time since I've actually watched the Games. The last time I really watched them was maybe 2002, the Salt Lake City winter games. This was probably just because they were in the US, though, because I didn't watch the 2000 summer games in Sydney or the 1998 winter games in Nagano. No, the last time I was this absorbed in the competition was the summer of 1996, when they were in Atlanta. Typically I'm much more into the summer competition than the winter, although I did watch some of the snowboarding and skiing events in 2006 at Torino. And of course ice skating. No matter how bored I get with the other events, I always watch ice skating in winter and gymnastics in summer. Anyway, back to my original point: because of my work schedule, I miss out on the primetime showing of the events that I love (swimming and gymnastics). But the re-airing is always at the exact right point that I want to see when I get home at 2AM! So I stay up until 4AM, watching Michael Phelps win another gold and break another record, enduring the stumbles and falls of the men's and women's gymnastics teams. And by 4AM, I'm too pumped up from all of the nail-biting tension to go to sleep.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm in the process of cataloging my mother's expansive library? This is a Project with a capital P. She's got so many books, almost every surface of our dining room is covered with them. I've been at this for an hour, and I've barely made a dent.

Emma's Second

Today I'm starting a new knitting project (shhh! don't tell my WIPs!). Last night, while messaging back & forth with my sister-in-law, I learned that my little niece Emma has lost her security. Well, her security blanket, that is. When Emma was born in the spring of 2003, shortly after I learned to knit, I made her a little blanket. Recently it seems to have fallen into a state of disrepair. So...it's time for a new blanket. It's such a simple construction, knit on the bias with eyelet increases and k2tog decreases forming a cozy garter-stitch square. And although the yarn, Lion Brand's Homespun, isn't my favorite...it's soft and easy to care for and, of course, what Emma has become so familiar with.

In completely unrelated news, this morning I was checking flights to Italy in late October, and I think the prices have actually gone down since the last time I checked! Since when does that ever happen?! Also, less than 36 hours after starting it, I'm more than halfway through Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn. (This is truly a feat for me, as the book is over 700 pages long, I'm a slow reader, I've watched two movies, and I've slept twice!) I have to say, I certainly wasn't expecting the kind of plot this book has delivered, but obviously I'm liking it so far. But browsing the reviews on Amazon, I see that I may be in the minority.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Today I finally delivered on my nearly week-long promise to make the Blueberry Crumb Bars from Smitten Kitchen. Holy crap, why didn't I make these sooner?! The original recipe, from allrecipes.com, doesn't feature lemon...but truly, it's my favorite part of this recipe. I love the way fresh lemon makes my kitchen smell, and I also love the way the scent stays on my hands for hours afterward. Bonus? These really could not be easier to make unless they came from a boxed mix (and then they wouldn't taste nearly so wonderful!).
I went to the grocery store again this morning, when it wasn't so crowded, to really explore the new produce. Kumquats, lychees, four or five different kinds of bananas, baby pineapples, champagne grapes, rainbow chard, baby bok choy, Italian parsley (we really didn't have this before!), shallots (we didn't have these either!), white grapefruit, taro root, homegrown tomatoes, prickly pear, shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms...plus hummus and cannoli and fresh bagels and so many things! It's incredible.

Purple + Green

Quickly, before I dash off to work...they've remodeled my neighborhood grocery store! Actually, the remodel isn't complete yet, but the expansion has been opened. There are so many more flowers in the floral department now, the produce department is HUGE (French green beans! hydroponic lettuce! mushrooms of all shapes & sizes!!), and there's a sushi bar! Oh, and TOFUTTI!!! I'm in heaven. Anyway...top row, L-R: dead carnations, hydrangea; bottom row, L-R: seaweed salad (my lunch), pompoms. I bought some lovely white snapdragons too, but of the four stems I bought, three turned out to have some sort of rot on the stems. It was slimy and pretty much gross.