My hobbies are expensive!

I was listening to an old Bookrageous podcast the other week and Rebecca made a comment that reading is her hobby - she spends money on her hobby.

Well...my hobbies are expensive.  And, let me tell you, yarn is hard to pass up (books, too, but that's another story)! Between this weekend and the last I'm pretty sure I've gone past SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy) at the rate I've been knitting.

Last week's trip to The Knitting Shoppe yielded two skeins of Mountain Colors Crazyfoot:


Headwaters



Lilac

Today I stopped by Home Ec Workshop for a bit of fabric and to eyeball their yarn selection.  Eyeballing turned to buying of course.

I'm intending to make more drawstring bags for storing bits and bobs. when I'm using my totebags so I picked up two cotton prints:

I also picked up a sweet little print to use in a gift for my new little nephew (his room has an elephant theme):

This is from a Japanese company whose name I didn't quite catch but all their prints were terribly whimsical and sweet.










And then I got captured by the yarn.  I couldn't pass up this beautiful colorway from madelinetosh:

This is Tosh Sock in Robin's Egg.  Perfectly evocative of an actual robin's nest.











I also was captured by a beautiful lace-weight from Juniper Moon Farm.

Findley in the Bloom colorway.  I am in love.  I had just finished reading through the new Interweave Knits' publication Jane Austen Knits Summer 2012 issue and found a beautiful shawl pattern: Anne Eliot's Fichu.  They used A Verb for Keeping Warm's Requilary II but I think it'll look gorgeous in Findley.

It's mine.  Mine, mine, mine.


Sorry.  Yarn fumes.  I gotta put my credit cards in a vault or something before I get anywhere near a yarn store in the future.  Ack!  But it's fun!

The Craft Crawl is done, man!

I finished out my 2011 Craft Crawl with a visit to Common Threads, the quilting shop here in North Liberty.

In a snowstorm, of course, but Common Threads is on my way home and besides, you get to see Hank while you're there (he is literally the shyest dog I've ever met...the only reason he approaches me is because I smell like kittehs).

Although I don't quilt (it's just not very portable as opposed to knitting), there are shelves and shelves of pretty quilting cottons.  So I picked up several yards of two kinds of fabric to make into either a needle roll or book cover (I got enough in case I make a mistake, I'm not as practiced at this whole sewing thing):

I think the tea rose print for the outsides and the blue flower print for the insides, no?

And then (because I missed the debut due to work), I picked up some yarn on sale at Common Threads:

 BugSnugger Sparkle Sock in Water - sooooo pretty.

Bug Snugger yarn is made by Diane Pals in Marengo (Ravelry profile).  This yarn caught my eye because it is a) fingering/sock weight, b) blue/blue toned, and c) SPARKLY.  There's a little bit of silver spun into the yarn.  Pretty sure I'll make a lovely lacy scarf/shawlette out of this - it shouldn't be hidden in my shoes as socks!

And that's my Craft Crawl - I turned in my card at Common Threads - it was a lot of fun and I can't wait to see what they do next year.

(For all you non-craft people, I promise there's a book review or two percolating in here.)

It's Craft Crawl Week 2011!

Seven Iowa City-area craft stores are hosting the second Craft Crawl this week: Beadology, Ben Franklin, Common Threads, Fired Up, Home Ec, The Knitting Shoppe, and Shields Sewing Center.  All you have to do is visit each business during the week, make a purchase of any size (Edyie will sell you a button for 40 cents), and get your Craft Crawl card stamped.  When your card is full, you get entered in a drawing to win a $50 gift card from each business.  I have a time crunch this week, so I managed to hit six of the seven businesses today (Common Threads is only a few blocks from my house so I can visit later in the week).

I started out bright and early by stopping at Shields and Ben Franklin for quick purchases (I bought a seam ripper and a corner punch, respectively).  Then I stopped at The Knitting Shoppe to peruse the yarn and chat with Edyie (ps, Edyie was recently featured in the local paper).  We chatted in-between customers and I found some yarn that would be perfect for the Camellia Shrug from the most recent KnitScene:

Silky Wool from Elsebeth Lavold (45/35 wool/silk) in a pretty blue (color #10).  This should have a really nice drape around the neck when worked up.













And then I found more sock yarn (what else is new).

Mountain Colors Crazyfoot in Thunderstorm.  I luurrve sock yarn.

Especially the variegated kind - so many possibilities.

(Just an aside: Edyie is teaching an angora bootie class February 20, 1-4pm, and a class on linen stitch February 27, 1-4pm, if anyone is interested.)

I snagged some lunch and headed to Fired Up, which is such fun because you get to paint your own pottery (Fired Up provides the blank pieces, you paint/decorate them, and then Fired Up fires the pieces in the kiln).  Last year, I made food and water bowls for my kittehs so this year I decided to make something for me; I painted a giant coffee mug...tee-hee.  It will be ready in a week after it has been fired (picture then).

I stopped by Beadology to grab some seed beads.  I don't work with beads much (jewelry-making is too fiddly for this knitter) but I do like to free-hand designs on projects. 

So I got some white, green, and grab-bag colors.  Kinda pretty.  Not sure what project I'll use them on, but I'm sure I'll think of something.


I stopped at Home Ec on the way to the store (I had to work today at 3pm, boo, otherwise I would have just finished the Crawl today).  I heard a rumor that they had got some new stock of project bags (ok, ok....I read it on their FB page).

 Seriously cute draw-string bags made by JennieGee with the "Keep Calm" logo.  Of course I had to buy a blue one.

And then I bought more sock yarn - this time by Lone Tree Wools (Betty Shreeve in Lone Tree, IA).  It's a pretty, soft blue-grey-brown color. 

Now to get all my new yarns entered into Ravelry (which reminds me, I've acquired some books and mags I need to get logged, too).

I'll visit Common Threads this week then my Crawl will be complete!

What I do when I'm not reading (or working)...

Reading has been hard as of late - whenever I sit down to read I fall alseep in about 2 seconds (the last several nights I've fallen asleep with the bedside lamp on, Pandora streaming through the Blu-Ray, my nook on my face, and the cats snuggled under my arm only to wake up when my alarm goes off and wonder what idiot left the TV and light on; I blame the cats for activating the "sleep" neuro-chemicals).  I do have two reviews to finish writing but I've been so busy with work and knitting I haven't had much time to write.

Speaking of knitting....

I finished the shawlette for my boss (shhhh.... she doesn't know that it's for her).  I have to get it blocked out - challenging because this is a curved piece so I don't have a straight edge to pin out first.  Edyie gave me some pointers so we'll see how it goes.

While I was in the yarn shop I was captured by yarn fumes.

Cashmere yarn fumes - they held me ransom until my debit card freed me.  Araucania Trauco Cashmere in a beautiful berry colorway.  It was on sale, not quite half off, and I can't wait to see what I can make from it.

Then I bought my Christmas present to myself because it also went on sale.  I've been salivating over D-SLR cameras for quite some time.  My little Canon point-and-shoot is nice to just take quick pictures/videos but it never quite satisfied for taking really nice shots; nothing came out looking quite like how I saw it.  I learned to take pictures using my Dad's 35mm camera with it's lenses and manual aperture/exposure settings so I wanted a more "professional" level camera.  I stopped in at Best Buy to see what early holiday deals they had and the Canon EOS Rebel XS/1000D I'd been looking at was ON SALE!  Merry Christmas!  I already tried it out on the shawlette and cashmere yarn, but I got the cats into the act....

and they weren't quite up to cooperating, choosing instead to come and "love" the camera lens (I felt like I was on Wild Kingdom with the animals ganging up on me).  They kept licking their noses when I clicked the shutter:

Dante finally let me take a nice profile picture of him. 

Isn't it nice?  No "lazar kitteh eyz" in sight.  All the pictures are wonderful and I just need to learn about all the bells and whistles on my new baby (I already figured out that if I fiddle with the "White Balance" I can take pictures that are blue - wicked!).  I plan on taking TONS of holiday pictures (this is also part of the plan, if I take the pictures then I don't have to be in any of them, hah).

Surprises in my mailbox!

The mail carrier delivered two fun surprises this week.

On Friday a mostly-flat brown envelope arrived....

It's from Norton & Co (Twitter @NortonAnthology) - they sent some buttons out to those of us who tried to be the first to answer a trivia question.  I can't even remember what the prize for winning was and this is pretty darn cute.  I have it on my name tag at the store (and I do like footnotes).

On Saturday I had a large, puffy envelope from Minnesota - it was from Sharon (aka The Yarnista and @threeirishgirls) of Three Irish Girls!  Sharon makes beautiful custom, hand-dyed yarn in dazzling color combinations and I was recently lucky enough to win a skein of Sharon's McClellan Fingering (sock) yarn.  So pretty (Sharon surprised me by picking the colorway)! 

 

Sharon also included a Three Irish Girls tape measure (very handy), some very cute Susan Bates sock-shaped point protectors, and a lovely card.  Thank you, Sharon! 



Did I mention the name of the colorway?  Oh, I didn't?  Well, it's called "Brown Eyed Girl"...appropriate, yes?

Thanks again, Sharon, I love it!!!!

Iowa City Book Festival 2010: Sunday

Today was the "A Day in the City of Literature" portion of the Iowa City Book Festival.  All different book discussions or book-related activities were spread out all over downtown - I was having trouble figuring out the times on everything (plus parking downtown is a pain on Sundays because of the special parking on the street for churchgoers).  I decided to go to the Book Crafts event at Home Ec Workshop since there's yarn and fabric there, too (I could have gone to the bead shop for a book-making demonstration - I think that's what was there but I really don't use beads much).

The book craft activity wasn't anything terribly special - you could color/sticker your own bookmark or accordion book, so it was like a kids' event we have at the bookstore - so I decided to look through the yarn instead.

I found:

Malabrigo Worsted in Sotobosque - a really beautiful pink-brown-black kettle-dyed yarn.  It reminds me so much of an Iodine Clock demo, only pink instead of yellow.  I think I'll make the DNA Helix cable scarf out of this instead...maybe.

I also came home with some (more) sock yarn.  Malabrigo Sock in Primavera - pretty, no?


I didn't find any fabric I liked there - I was looking for something specific and, while Home Ec has great cotton prints, I didn't see anything in the color I needed.

So I went to Jo-Ann - which is turning into Wal-Mart, I am not kidding.  There are ketchup and mustard refillable containers for sale and a bin of cheap flip-flops near the door.  Really?  I understand that people like to decorate flip-flops but the containers and other crap are a bit much especially considering it took me nearly an hour to find good quality fabric.  Then I had to find the right color, also not easy because the selection of good quality material for dressmaking/couture sewing is pitiful; if I made quilts I'd be in business because they've got everything under the sun in cotton quilting fabric.  I miss my Hancock fabrics. *sob*  I want to go to Mood!

What I really needed was a nice, smooth fashion fabric to make a sash for a new dress (dress is ready-made but the sash that comes with it leaves something to be desired).  Since the dress is such a unique color green I wanted to use a darker shade of green instead of matching directly (if I had to, I would have used black, but I got lucky in the end).

The dress color is on the left, the new hunter green fabric is on the right.  That will definitely look pretty as a sash.  I got 3.5 yds so I'm going to cut (very)wide bias strips, fuse them with interfacing, seam them end-to-end with flat seams, and then sew the sides together to make a nice sash without any wrong sides.  It should be long enough to wrap around my waist twice before tying it off.

And we all wonder when those skills our moms taught us will come in handy!

So that was my day in the City of Literature!  And here I sit at my blog, typing away and knitting madly instead of reading.

I can't wait to see what they do for the festival next year!

Iowa City Book Festival 2010: Saturday

The Iowa City Book Festival was bigger and better this year!  This is what happens when your city is designated a UNESCO City of Literature (only the third in existence, after Edinburgh* and Melbourne).

Audrey Niffenegger kicked off the Shambaugh lecture series by reading from Her Fearful Symmetry and then taking questions.  The organizers allowed for about 40 minutes of questions which was great.  Audrey talked about how she came for a workshop at the IWP summer session and at that time The Time Traveler's Wife was plotted thematically - after workshopping TTW she restructured it more along Claire's life chronology and then it made sense.  She also talked about her visual artwork and, in response to an audience question, said she purposely gave Claire an art preference/style/type that she herself wouldn't have to make so Claire could be conceptual and readers could imagine what they liked.  She also said she liked to ground her books in reality as much as possible using real places and modelling her characters on real people since her plots all center around a very "unreal" concept - ghosts, time-travel, etc.  She signed books afterward and I took Jackie's copy of TTW to have it signed for her.

Great Audrey quote: "I'm decadent, but I'm not that decadent" when asked if she reads purely for pleasure (she's currently reading an advance of a book about coffins/death rituals or something like that - she says it's very good).

I did some knitting while hogging my seat in-between discussions (I missed Ash from English Major's Junk Food when she presented her "picks" out in the lobby - she posted her picks here on her blog) .

Jane Smiley spoke next and let me tell you - she is a riot.  She did her doctoral work at the UI and taught at ISU so the audience was filled with people she knew from around town (her daughter, Lucy Silag, is in the IWW).  She read two passages from her new book, Private Life, including one about a charcter named Pete who was inspired by a Russian man who bid on the right to be a character in her book (a racing thoroughbred charity benefitted from the auction).  She told a lot of funny stories about living in Iowa City or working at Iowa State (she pled the 5th when asked if Moo was based on ISU - she said that Moo was inspired by the idiosyncracies of the land-grant university).

Great Jane quotes: "Wikipedia is great for authors because it's often "wrong"...characters must have a point-of-view" and "You can have a favorite horse because the other horses don't care".

She also signed books after her talk:

[Now, I bet you're wondering why there's only this picture here - my computer crashed and lost all the pictures from this day, none were terribly dear, but it makes me mad just the same.  So I have author quotes instead of pictures.]

After getting A Thousand Acres signed I wandered around among the vendors, publishers, and groups set up outside.  I didn't last long because the heat and sun started bothering me so I retreated to the bagel place for lunch and something cold to drink.

I went to the yarn shop instead of back to the festival (I know - naughty).  I was looking for something to use to knit the DNA helix pattern Christina wants me to teach her when we're at Conclave.  I found some pretty Noro Kureyon at The Knitting Shoppe:

I was captured by this single odd-ball skein.  I'm thinking one won't be enough for a cable knit scarf so I found two skeins of this other colorway and there's enough overlap between the three that I can put the odd-ball skein between the other two and make a scarf. Yay!

And then I had to go to work (boo) - but I had a lot of fun at the book festival!

*Whoah, my bad, I had Dublin listed as a City of Literature, it's not - I meant Edinburgh, Scotland, and it was the first one!  Thanks to Lizzy for catching that one! :)

World Wide Knit in Public Day 2010

Knitting outside today was a wash.  Literally.  We had rain all morning meaning the event at the Farmer's Market (even though sheltering in the parking ramp) was not in my future.

So I started my KIP day at Bruegger's with a bagel sandwich and a cast-on.  I decided to set aside my blue sweater (which sheds everywhere) for a more summer-y project.  Hence, Icarus (Miriam Felton's "Icarus Shawl" from The Best of Interweave Knits).  I have some super-pretty blue "Silky Alpaca Lace" from Classic Elite Yarns.  Yay!

Then I went to The Knitting Shoppe (of course, since knitting in public was kind of a bust) intending to get some stitch markers then leave...but I was captured by sock yarn.  Again. 

Schaeffer Yarns' "Anne" in colorways "Gloria Steinem"

and "Elizabeth Zimmerman".  Then I stayed to knit and chat with some of the other ladies (and spoil Milo, a therapy-pug-in-training who was visiting the shop with his human).

Then I went to work where I KIP'd in the breakroom.  And now I'm home.  Don't forget to KIP all week! 

I finished my first knitting commission!

This week I finished two knitting projects, one of them being my first paid commission ever. [Technically, I was asked to make a neck warmer for someone's boyfriend last October and I don't like that boyfriend ... so I'm procrastinating.]

My paid commission came from one of our secretaries (I like her quite a bit and she helps me out a lot); she wanted me to knit a poncho for her 1-year-old granddaughter, who is a sweetie and rivals Cindy Loo Who in cuteness. I'm not a poncho fan, mostly because it's like a shawl you have to pull over your head and at that point you should just wear a sweater, but poncho it certainly would be if I'm going to be paid for making it. I've posted previously on the travails of making this poncho (Knots, Knots, Knots and Frogs, Frogs, Frogs) but I had it finished by mid-July; it actually took me forever just to scrape together enough time to get the steam iron out and steam block it before giving the poncho to Martha.

The pattern is Lilliana's Organic Cotton Poncho from Barbara Albright's lovely book The Natural Knitter and it knitted up very nicely in Cascade Sierra. I have been told I didn't ask for enough when I was paid for knitting the poncho. I only asked for an amount large enough to cover the cost of the four skeins of yarn used plus a little bit for me in commission; I don't think my commission for knitting something for a friend should be very large and I do like to knit as my hobby not my profession.

My next finished item is the little cardie I made for my friend Rebekah's not-quite-arrived-yet little girl (little one is giving mom some fits right now). This is the first actual sweater I've ever made with set-in sleeves, not raglan ones, so I was a shade on the nervous side. It turned out just right.

This is made from Dale of Norway's Stork yarn (which I hear is discontinued, boo) in a pretty turquiose with white bunny buttons. The pattern uses most of the Classic Yoked Cardigan from Erika Knight's Knitting for Two but I changed a few of the instructions to make a bit more sense.

Chaucer decided that a picture of a cute baby sweater was ever-so-much-more-cute with a super cute kitty in the shot, too. He was being such a pill that evening/morning (it was about 3am when I finished the cardie's seams and took the pictures; the baby shower for Rebekah was only 8 hours later).

Since I was in a yarny mood last weekend, I dropped by the LYS on Saturday to use my birthday coupon and got 5 skeins of forest green Cascade 220 The Heathers yarn to make myself a cardie (16-Button Cardie pattern from Interweave Simple Style) and some Mini-Mochi sock yarn before Rebekah's shower; it was a good "acquire stuff" day in general because the mail carrier brought me the copy of Between the Assassinations I won from a Simon and Schuster Twitter contest. I also figured out why Flickr and Ravelry were having a massive disagreement so on Sunday I updated my Ravelry page with photos of my yarn and projects before winding up the new yarn and heading to the movies. It looks very pretty now (I'm "balletbookworm" on Ravelry, too).

Current books-in-progress: Foucault's Pendulum, The Pickup (for LbW August) and Frankenstein (for LbW September), The Embers, and Under This Unbroken Sky (for First Look) PLUS my turn came up to read the ARC for Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry so that's moved into the #1 slot for reading

Current knitted item: new forest green heathered Cascade 220 to make up into a cardie for myself.....mmmmmmmm

Current movie obsession: Too many!!! This is the first evening (Tuesday) in weeks that I'll not be at work so what should I watch first? Videodrome, Sleuth, Trainspotting, Disney's Robin Hood....oy

Current iTunes loop: Lady Gaga's Fame (heard enough tracks off it to go out and buy the album)

Knots, knots, knots

Bollocks.

My new cotton yarn is trying to wind itself into knots while I knit. It's been giving me fits since I got home with it. The blue skein wouldn't wind itself up nicely - got all twisted on the swift and then the knob on the ball winder kept popping off. The white skein wound up beautifully. Joy. Then I casted on with the wrong color (white). Sigh. So I had to pull it off the needle and cast on with the other color (blue). Then Dante tried to make off with the skein of blue yarn - while I had it wrapped around my hand trying to get the 1x1 rib started.

Dante's hiding behind the bed now. He got yelled at.

And now that I've got about an inch knitted the yarn is trying to twist into snarls/knots. Sigh. At least this garment isn't for me - it's a poncho for one of my UIHC co-worker's granddaughter (she's only 18 months, the baby, that is). I finally got the handles crocheted onto the linen evening bag I was working on; the problem now is the dratted thing keeps gaping open so I'll need to make/purchase/sew on a fastener of some sort.

I forgot this part recently:
Current book-in-progress: Emma, Wives and Daughters, The Wars of the Roses, and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (for First Look)
Current knitted item: Red socks and Karma's poncho
Current movie obsession: You've Got Mail (this is my go-to movie)
Current iTunes loop: I've been listening to audio books - Harry Potter #1 is currently playing in the car

Yarny Saturday

I made a trip to the LYS to return a left-over skein of Cashmerino from the beret project and came home with two more skeins of sock yarn (another each of Kureyon and Bearfoot) and a yarn swift/reeling machine, depending on how you classify that. It was a little more expensive than I thought it would be ($58) but Edyie swears by that brand and I've been promising I would buy myself one after the last yarn-winding debacle. So, yay.

The purchase of more yarn also prompted an afternoon of cleaning out my office/spare-room closet. Talk about scary, over-stuffed, and disorganized. Eeek. I decided to take the remainder of my binders to work (they're full of class notes which might see more action in my work office than at home in the closet), decided I really don't need the extra sewing machine that Mom thought I should keep "just in case your grandmother's breaks" (ha!, maybe Mom can ask if there's a charity through the church that could use one), and pitched about three garbage bags full of old boxes, packaging, obsolete computer stuff, and a manual for my twelve-year-old graphing calculator (which, if I could find it, I'm pretty sure it doesn't work anymore). I also made a side-project of cleaning out the bottom of the linen/hall closet (packed with about 800 disposable razors from some idiot company who thought the AXS house in town was a sorority - oops - and left us about 4,000 promotional razors; the girls in the Fraternity divvied up the boxes); the room I gained in there allowed me to relocate the Spot-Bot from the front closet along with all the steam cleaning products from the office closet (and the pet stain-fighting spray bottle which was buried under the pile of razors). As a result of the de-packratting process I actually have empty space on the shelf in my closet and I was able to re-arrange the storage containers to actually make better use of them.

I then sat down to attempt an update to my Ravelry account. Now, Flickr and I still have an ongoing disagreement about whether or not it will upload my photos, but I was able to get most of my open projects into my Ravelry queue, updated my stash of yarn with all my sock yarn (at least the yarn I'll admit to - I gained back a storage box while cleaning and promptly filled it with the cheap yarn I'm too ashamed to admit I own and can't find a use for), linked up my projects with my stashed yarn, linked my projects with my blog posts, and updated my knitting book library.

That took a whole pot of Earl Grey. What shall I do with the remainder of the afternoon before I go to work at 6pm (it's now 4pm)? With a headache....guess I'll pop a Tylenol, make a salad for dinner, put my reading glasses on and knit. I have several projects I should finish.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I'll be wallowing in my date with my knitting.

Current book-in-progress: I bought a new book last night - Sex with Queens (hey, the same author wrote Sex with Kings and that was very interesting)
Current knitted item: Hmmmm, what shall I pick - I have red socks, that dratted scarf that I managed to finally make some headway on, a linen evening clutch, and a lacy top....
Current movie obsession: I need to finish John Adams (which is awesome, btw) but I've been watching the ITV Sense and Sensibility again
Current iTunes loop: My Chill Tracks Playlist on Shuffle (lots of John Mayer, Amy Winehouse, and Sara Bareilles)

Knitting Day!

I made today a knitting day because I needed a day of "finish-itis" not "start-itis" - but it had an inauspicious start. I hit up the LYS after fighting my way through the psycho Hawkeye-Nittany Lions fans (football game started at 2:30pm) so I could reach the other side of town. I got yarn to make a slouchy hat for myself (because I always have trouble due to the fact that I usually have my hair pinned up in the winter) and I got some more sock yarn. Noro has sock yarn, go figure!

I also got some Eucalan to send with my secret items.

After I got home from my bookstore shift I sat my little self down in front of the television and did what I do best - knit while watching college football. I had two choices - Okie State vs. Texas Tech or Notre Dame vs. Boston College. I really don't care about the Big 12 outcomes but I have no love for Notre Dame so I settled down to knit like a demon and watch BC pound ND into the ground.

I finished my yellow secret item (came out looking pretty nice, finally), seamed up the test for a brimmed cap (which must have a pattern error because the underside of the brim is longer than the top - it looks like of stupid so I'm not going to make a nice version) and knit a couple of inches on my variegated scarf. Tomorrow I'll start my cap - I got some pretty white Cashmerino.

Oh, and the Hawkeyes won. 24-23 over the #3 Penn State Nittany Lions - first win over a top 5 team since 1990. Hot damn.

Snow again

Yet again this winter I am stuck in my house. Not because the roads are terrible - they aren't great, but they aren't blown shut - but because it has taken all day for the snow removal team to show up and plow the lot. I tried to get out around 3:15pm to go to the store (Mother Hubbard's cupboard is a little bare) and that worked not so well. It took two neighbors to help me get the car back in the garage. And lots of shovelling. Three of us were trying to get out, one in particular because he needed to go to the drugstore because his kids were sick. We shovelled and shovelled and the guy with the 4x4 was able to finally get traction so he went to the drugstore for the other neighbor. I do actually have nice neighbors some days.

They are just now plowing the lot (4:30). Sigh. Maybe I can go to the store later.

We were supposed to have book group tonight and decided that we would postpone for a week, given that three people were coming down from Cedar Rapids and they got more snow than we did. So next week we're having a joint book-Oscar party. Yum.

In anticipation for what was tonight's party I bought a coffee table. Yay - I'd been looking for one for a while and finally found one (at Kmart) that didn't break the bank. I still had to put it together, though. Pain in the butt. Looks pretty nice. I have a picture of the cats laying on it before I even got the drawers finished since I obviously purchased the item so they have yet another flat surface to inhabit.

I also indulged in my yarn buying habit. Another skien of Mountain Colors Bearfoot (sock yarn, mmmmm) and four skiens of really gorgeous Cascade Pastaza Paints in a red variegated color. The cats chewed a hole in my red scarf so I have an excuse to make a new one, only slightly better and maybe a hat as well.

Since I'm stuck at home I guess I'll read and organize the yarn stash. It's starting to become unruly. A little coffee, some yarn, music, good book. Decent evening.

Current book-in-progress: The Club Dumas (I totally did not know this book was the basis for the Johnny Depp movie The Ninth Gate); after that dream I'm trying to finish more books than I start and that's really, really hard for some reason
Current knitted item: Well.....I'm still working on the blue socks but I started my new scarf (going to make it similar - half moss stitch, half something else with a reversible pattern)
Current movie obsession: I'm still working on the IPTV Northanger Abbey but I developed a minor obsession with Sense and Sensibility again (Kate Winslet might be the most beautiful woman ever)
Current iTunes loop: I've been on a pretty hard-core John Mayer kick today; his music seems to warm up a dreary day