The ILLUSION is done!!

I never thought I'd finish the Illusion Scarf, but I actually did! I finished last Thursday, just in time to get it packed up and sent to my swap partner. I really didn't anticipate how LONG it was going to be... this scarf ended up being 8 feet long! Considering that I usually make my scarves 5 feet long, this was a huge difference. Luckily, I was using size 9s and some bulky yarn, so it didn't feel like it took that long. I'm working on other scarves that are taking me much longer...

Here are some pics of the finished product!

One reason I like doing scarves (I like scarves, I'm weird) is that I get to try new techniques on something small, so if I have to rip anything out, its not painful, as it would be on a sweater, or even socks. In addition to Illusion Knitting, I got to do the Three Needle Bind-Off for the first time with this scarf. I have always been afraid of the TNBO, but its actually not bad at all! Looky:

You have two ends on two needles. In this case, the middle of the scarf. Then, you insert your needle as if to knit into the first stitch on each needle, like so... I included two pics here, what it looks like normally and then I spread them out so you can see better:

Then, you knit them together! You just wrap your yarn around like usual, and pull it through. Here's a pic of the wrapping around part, I am not crafty enough (yet) to get the pic of me pulling it through

And then you do it again and slip the first knitted stitch over the second, just like a regular bind-off. Keep doing it all the way across (like a regular bind-off) and you will have two pieces nicely bound together!

I have a new respect for anyone who takes pics of their knitting WHILE they are knitting. Its tough!

Nice day for a white wedding...

This past weekend was the wedding of Fawn, one of my friends from high school. She got married at the Park Street Church across from the Boston Common, which I believe is the first place that "My Country 'Tis of Thee" was sung for the first time. Sadly, we didn't sing any patriotic songs, but the ceremony was still beautiful. The reception was at the Commandant's House in Charlestown, and everything was awesome. The tent was gorgeous, the food was delicious, the band was great. Everyone had a good time!

I feel very lucky to be so close to my friends from high school, I feel like not many people hold on to those friendships for very long. Actually, I met two of those friends in 5th grade (when I was 10!). I attribute these friendships to our strong personalities, similar morals, and the comradery that we developed from going to an all-girl, Catholic school. Yes, I wore a uniform. For YEARS. My four years of high school were the best years of my life, and I feel so lucky for that. Its amazing that we're in this phase of our life where we're all getting married, having babies, etc. Especially when I look back not too long ago to a group of girls who were just figuring out who they really are.

As at any function that we are at, there were plenty of cameras around! We all got some great pictures, we probably have about 500 group photos at this point, but they never get old to us!

Brady was a ringbearer, and I snapped this cute shot of him watching the action at the ceremony

Here's me and Erm

Here's me, my parents, and Erm

And last but certainly not least... Melissa (and baby Alex!), me, Fawn, Kelly, and Katey

Congratulations, Fawn and Bjorn!!!

More baby cables! And... food

So apparently I have a new addiction. I can tell its something I may be addicted to because I have said many times that I won't knit the same thing more than once. That was before... baby cables! This is my new favorite gift, I'm sure of it. Its adorable, its small, and its CABLES (which I do love). My coworker had his baby (well, his wife did) and he was 11 days early! You don't hear too much of that for a first child! But, he came regardless and I wanted to have something for him when Dad got back to work today. Here's my newest and one of my fastest projects

My real favorite thing about this hat is the decreases at the top, I love how one cable gets tapered all the way down before the other. Looks like there's a cable there, but there's not! I'm sure this is common in cabled hats, but I personally haven't seen that many of them, so this is new and exciting to me. I took a closeup:

In other weekend news, we had dinner with friends Friday night, and their two kids, one of which had a great time feeding Erm about 25 green olives. I think he's set for a bit. Saturday night we also had dinner with friends, a more adult dinner, but we were still home pretty early. We are poops. Yesterday was a very rare occasion... we had NO PLANS. This hasn't happened on a weekend in a very very long time. So, true to form, we filled our morning up with a trip to the mall to pick out more registry stuff, grab a couple of other things and get home to put ribs in. Mmmm I love ribs. Especially Erm's ribs. He smokes them for hours, then finishes them on the grill. It gives them a great smoky flavor, and they fall right off the bone. Complete with my homemade baked beans (which are delicious, I must say) and some broccoli (to be healthy) and its perfect football food! Enjoy!

Baby Cables!

This past weekend I went to the baby shower for my good friend Melissa. I always love seeing the knitting gifts at baby showers! She got some great blankets, I think a sweater or two... and I made her this hat!

Well, I made the hat for the baby

The pattern is Cabled Baby Hats and I made it out of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk, just under one skein. It is SOOOO soft. I can't wait to take a picture of baby in it! I love it so much that I am going to make one for myself for the winter. I highly recommend this for a baby gift!

Vacation? Where did you go?

I feel like it was just two weeks ago that I was getting excited for my vacation. Oh wait, it was.

So in addition to teaching Brady to do "cheers", my vacation was spent dress shopping for my flower girl and my mother (on different days), playing 27 holes of golf with Erm, and spending some time with my aunt. I don't have pictures of anything I did for my whole vacation! Labor Day weekend was spent putting on Kerri's bachelorette party and I don't have any pictures of that either! What was I thinking!?

I DO have pictures of my Blankie. I need to take pictures of my other projects so I don't have to keep putting pictures of Blankie up here. They're quite pathetic. But, they are showing some progress! Ever since I got that package of sock yarn balls, I can't stop! I promise after this, no more blankie pictures! (do I really believe that?)

Sorry about Joey's head... he can't help himself. He, too, is drawn to the Blankie...

I was thinking about that list I started, back in July... and wanted to see how I am doing on it...

1. Gift #1 - I don't even remember what this is. But I know I'm not done with it.

2. Gift # 2 (I can't say what the gifts are, for the same reason that I don't badmouth people, you never know who is reading your blog). - Don't remember what this is either... I need codes for these anonymous gifts.

3. Red Sock #2 - Done!

4. Erm's Sock #2 - Had some of the cuff done on this, then realized it was doing this weird separating thing on one side, so I frogged it. Need to start over.

5. My poor, neglected Rusted Root - Lets be reasonable here. This one is in hibernation.

6. My Sock Yarn Blankie, which needs a new name and definitely won't be done until after my first wedding anniversary. Big big ongoing project. - This will get done little by little... but there's no pressure, which is nice.

7. My mohair shawl - This is no longer a project

Well... I guess I'm not doing too badly. Those anonymous gifts are constantly being worked on, as well as the Blankie (which has no ETA), and Erm's sock. Kind of. I took RR and the shawl out of the mix and finished the Red Sox, so I'd say I'm in pretty good shape!