30

Today I turn 30. Wow. Where have the last few years gone?

10 years ago I was still in college.
9 years ago I met my husband and he was with me to celebrate turning 21.
8 years ago I received the Goldwater Scholarship, and got engaged.
7 years ago I graduated from Alma and got married
6 years ago we bought our first house
5 years ago we adopted our first dog
4 years ago we started taking karate at Shaw's
3 years ago we bought our second house and our first new car
2 years ago we bought our second new car

This year a whole lot has happened. We got our blackbelts, saw my parents celebrate their 40th anniversary, welcomed a third grandchild into the family, had a few low points but even more high points.

Really, turning 30 isn't that much more of a milestone than 29 or 28 or 27. . . It's just one of those big round numbers that looks scary in type. I like how my life goes from "I" to "we" after getting married.

I'm greatly looking forward to this evening being surrounded by some of my closest friends, and doing little other than the usual hang out that's just so fulfilling. Drinking wine, eating ribs, telling stories, and just plain living.

Whatever the future holds, it is friends like these and the family I love dearly that will keep us afloat during rough times, and celebrate with us during the good times.

A few for me. . .

I've been knitting a little for myself lately, as a reward for all the awesome handmade presents that went out in the last couple of weeks.

I made some monkey socks for myself. I loved the texture of the monkey socks I'd made for Mom, that I just had to have a pair for myself.


I also combined a couple of different patterns. These socks have the toes from a very nice Berroco book Mom got me, combined with the heel from a Cat Bordhi heel. Trust me, they're some odd heels, but I have to say these are probably the best fitting socks I've made for myself to date. The gussets may be in odd places but then again, the heel is a fairly strange piece of human body architecture, if you think about it.

Last is a cute little shrug that took me less than a day to make. I had found myself riding in the car and, having finished the toe socks, I had nothing left to knit. Now, mind you I had just gotten that PILE of yarn from a couple posts back, but my husband being the expert packer he is had packed them safely away in the car. . . so I couldn't get to them.

Fortunately I had at hand another new knitting book from Mom, 101 one-skein wonders. I also happened to have in my knitting basket an already wound skein of my first three-ply handspun. It was fate.


And it is cute! I need to find a cute, thin long-sleeved shirt to wear this with!

I think she likes it!

I made a really basic, but pretty handknit sweater for my SIL for her birthday.



I'd say by the smile on her face, she likes it! The sleeves are a bit short, but I can fix that easily.

Looming Crafts

Jeff, as mentioned earlier, received an Ashford 20" knitters loom from me for Christmas. I will admit that it is a somewhat selfish gift, as Jeff is a completely unselfish person, which means it's nearly pulling teeth to get him to buy/make something for himself. So this means anything I want woven, I'll be able to simply buy him the yarn and he'll make it. However, he has been wanting to start some sort of hobby which leaves him with a physical object when he's finished. As brilliant of a D&D planner as he is, it's what a vocal director called transient art. Once it has been done, it is passed and cannot be replicated.

This way I get a nice cotton stole.

Here he is warping the loom at my parent's place, which has a fantastic granite countertop that 's over 6' long, so plenty of room for a nice long warp.

It took him a total of 2.5 hours to warp the loom, and about 4 hours of weaving.

Awesome.

Christmas 2008; the presents

In the unfortunate wake of a LYS going out of business, Mom ended up buying me enough yarn to provide me with stash for at least a year. This is partially Christmas and partially for my *gulp* 30th birthday. . .

I have plans for some of it, and the rest I'll let speak to me.

This will become a Samus.

This pile of 100% alpaca will become a soft lacy cardigan.

This pile of alpaca/merino/silk will be a tomato sweater, but with different stripes

Socks

Socks

And more socks!
I don't have any specific plans for the various single skeins of Cascade, but Mom also got me 101 one-skein wonders, so those go well together!

And Mom Kass got me some seriously awesome yarn, it's called Kauni and it has super long color repeats. There's a pattern for a sweater which uses two skeins simultaneously, alternating and letting the colors change against each other. It'll be easier to show, once I cast that sweater on!

Merry Christmas 2008: the projects!

Merry Christmas everyone who reads this blog!

Mom got her monkey brain socks, and loves them.



She also got back her quilt shown in the last post along with some extra quilt pins. She was thrilled, and said something to the effect of "it feels like a real quilt!" :) I'm going to help her trim the batting and even up the backing. She's planning on simply pulling the backing around to the front for binding.

Dad got his earl grey socks plus these cute fishook slippers I made based off of the Fuzzy Feet pattern from Knitty. He also got a neat tool Jeff picked out. Amazingly, we actually found a tool Dad didn't already have.

Jeff got his black/green socks he's been wanting for a while.

Mom and Dad Kass haven't received their Christmas presents yet, so I won't spol it here, in case they read it!

Amanda got a handknit sweater, and Ally got a handknit hat, which I am promised pictures of soon.

Jeff got a loom from me, for which pictures are forthcoming. I'll give the pictures of that its own post. I'm so excited by this. Just how much he's enjoying it, and how he's asked me to go ahead and do all the shopping for him for yarn. Me? Shop for yarn? Oh, the torture.

Jeff got me an Ashford drum carder, which I have already played with, but didn't take pictures of yet. I have already made a few fun and pretty batts. I'm going to greatly enjoy playing with my new tool!

Title of the blog. . .

Let's see. According to the title of this blog I knit.



Check



And I quilt





Double check




The first is my much-loved Danish Tie shawl. The main reason I haven't posted a picture of it sooner is I'm always wearing it, and I'm terrible at taking a picture of myself!


The second I can't take full credit for. It's a friendship quilt with blocks made by the ladies from my Mom's quilt guild up in Michigan, and finished by Mom. Well, there may have been a little prodding on my part to work on it, but really the work is hers. The only problem is she doesn't care for machine quilting. So I offered to quilt it for her. It turned out great, and only took one long evening to complete. My neck is rather sore, but it's done! Mom's going to put the binding on and do some hand quilting in the two center squares (They're both appliqued). I am, however, contemplating wrapping this and putting it under the tree!



Oh, I would also like to point out the particularly awesome quilt displayer I have. His name is Jeff :-D


The only drawback? Now I want to quilt. . . Anyone know where I could get a few extra hours in a day?

Finished

They greyhound wheel is finished, and I couldn't be happier. Eric did a fantastig job on the woodburning, and the staining went very well. I have captured pretty much every common color for a greyhound here.

The wheel still spins fantastically, I've been getting used to the quirks, and getting those around me used to the whirr whirr as it goes. It does have moments of silence, where it's still spinning, but for some reason blisfully silent. I have to figure out what's doing it and if I can make it do that more!

Oh, and with as much work as I put in to this wheel, I decided I really needed to name it. So in keeping with pulling from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" for naming greyhounds, I am naming it Whiffler.