I knitted about eight rows of the Little Lambs baby blanket while I was in Hutchinson, Kansas for Christmas. I mostly read a lot while I was home. I knitted a bit while watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding with my family one night but my hands were bothering me while I was home. I would have been working on it in the last several days, especially while watching The Sound of Music on Saturday night, but I left my knitting bag in Kansas. I’m waiting to receive it in the mail.

I’m currently reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and am finding myself wanting to read more than knit. It’s an amazing book! Don’t let the 518 pages scare you. I started on Friday night and am nearly half way through the book.

I’ve knitted about 10 rows on the Little Lambs baby blanket in the last day or so. I find myself knitting the stockinette rows really quickly, like my hands won’t move as fast as I want them to. My hands are tense while knitting these rows because I want to get to the next set of lambs. The lambs aren’t easy to knit, I think partly because I’m using cotton and aluminum needles and I’m really gripping my needles tightly. I haven’t knit this much in a while and I think I just need to relax a bit. I’m sure that having a deadline of two blankets by the end of January also makes me a bit more tense.

Saturday, Meredith and I went to the yarn store to get yarn for two baby blankets I’m making and a scarf that she’s working on.

I started the Little Lambs blanket from Vogue Knitting: Baby Blankets on Saturday evening. I have knit one set of the lambs that are part of the blanket, there are a total of five sets of lambs. It’s really cute. I’m knitting it in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece Sunburst. It’s bright yellow, but it’s perfect for a baby.

After I finish the Little Lambs blanket or when I get the yarn, I start on the Giraffe baby blanket on the cover of Vogue Knitting: Baby Blankets. I need to finish it before the Little Lambs blanket, so I probably start it as soon as I get the yarn.

What an amazing time we had this past weekend. Bryan took me to Inn Serendipity for my birthday! It was so wonderful! It’s a bed & breakfast, as well as, an organic farm. It’s near Monroe, Wisconsin. We drove up Friday afternoon and had a beautiful sunset. Friday night, we went to the Peppercorn Cafe for dinner. For an appetizer, we had a good swiss cheese fondue with pretzel bread. I had butternut squash ravioli in a maple syrup/walnut sauce. It was excellent. After dinner, we drove through the town square of Monroe, which was all lit up for the Christmas parade that was that night. Then we went back to the b & b and went to bed and read for a while.

Saturday, we slept in. We went into Monroe for a while, had lunch, visited the library and walked around the downtown. At a used bookstore, Bryan bought a book about stress to use for his collages. Since it was a cold day about mid-afternoon, we decided to go back to the b & b and sit by the fire. When we drove into the farm, all of the farm cats would come running to see who was coming. It was quite a site to see all of the cats run up to the car. These photos don’t do it justice because it took me a minute to get my camera out. And, of course, the really friendly ones wanted to be petted, one in particular was pawing at my coat. There were lots of little kitties and I would have loved to have hung out with cats all afternoon. They were all so cute! I exclusively worked on the Hobo sweater the whole weekend. I think I knit about 20 rows, which on that sweater is a lot! There are 167 stitches per row on size 3 needles! We also took a nap and then got ready for dinner at 209 Main in Monticello, Wisconsin.

Sunday, we had a lovely breakfast at the b&b and then the owners gave us a tour of the farm they have. We also met the llamas that are on the farm. They are raised for their wonderful coats that makes beautiful yarn.
The wonderful inn owners - Lisa, Liam and John.
I came into work on Monday, December 8 and the girls at work had decorated my desk (a Powerpoint presentation). I had made a comment a while back about how I didn’t like Bruce Willis or John Travolta, so of course, they put up pictures of John Travolta and Bruce Willis around my cubicle. I have to put them in my scrapbook.

I have to send my knitting resume to the North Suburban Y for review. I’ll probably teach something in the spring. I’m also teaching at the Fremont Public Library in January. It will be interesting. I’ve never taught a large beginning workshop before. It will definitely be an experience. I’m starting to explore other teaching options, other than knitting for income. My goal is to be out of the corporate world in three years!

Here are a few engagement photos that Bryan and I had taken about a month & a half ago.

On the steps of the Art Institute


In the Art Institute Garden

In Grant Park near Buckingham Fountain

Friday night we went to another Metric show!! I got a TON of photos. It wasn’t until Bryan was looking at the photos on the digital camera on the way home that I realized how many I had really taken. He’s like, “Wow! Sixty-three pictures.” So I will get a fair amount of the good ones on my site soon. I need to take an entire three or four evenings just to get all of the concert photos on my site. I still have to put up photos for Erin McKeown, Innocence Mission and Neko Case. I will definitely have all of them up by Christmas!

So back to the Metric show. It was at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. We walked in and the three guys from the band, James, Josh and Joules were playing video golf. Bryan talked to James for a few minutes and then we sat and waited for the show to start. There were two opening bands, who we had never heard of at the time. Come to find out that my sister is friends with one of the guys in the opening band, Timeout Drawer. When Metric came on about half the crowd was there just to see them. They started out with the two songs they started out with at the Double Door - “IOU” and “Succexy.” Off of their album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, they played “IOU,” “Succexy” (as mentioned before), “Combat Baby,” “Hustle Rose,” “Dead Disco,” “The List” and “Wet Blanket.” Emily, the lead singer, introduced a song as “we’re going to play this for those that follow us around, I don’t know why” and then they played “Calculation Theme.” I didn’t like that song much at first, but it’s growing on me. I think they also played “Grow Up and Blow Away.” I can’t remember, I wasn’t familiar with the song until Saturday after the show, so I’m not the last word on this one. They didn’t play an encore, which I was bummed about, but there weren’t enough people there to make a lot of noise to get them back on stage. I think was also one of their few shows headlining. After the show, we went to the merchandise table and talked to Josh for a bit. We told him that we had seen them at the Double Door the last time they played in Chicago. Bryan said we were buying the Static Anonymity ep because we need more Metric. We also bought t-shirts. He was really cool and said, “hey, you guys need some buttons too, and how about a poster,” which he signed for us. Emily signed the poster too, so we now have two posters signed by Emily.

We got home late after the Metric show, it was definitely worth it staying up late for.

Backing up a bit, Thursday night we had Bryan’s nephew, Michael stay over at our house. We played a ton of hands of Go Fish and Old Maid. Friday, I went and bought CandyLand and Chutes & Ladders, which we played for several hours on Friday morning. Michael went home around noon on Friday. We hadn’t slept very well on Thursday night because Michael was coughing a lot that night, so we took a very long nap on Friday afternoon, we needed to be well rested for the Metric show that night.

Saturday and Sunday, Bryan worked, so I was home doing my own thing. Saturday, I slept late and read a good part of the day. Sunday, I spent a lot of time working on a birthday card for Susan for her 30th birthday. I will post it on my card page (when I get it up). I learned how to do embossing several weeks ago and decided to do embossing on Susan’s card. It turned out really cute. I can’t wait to hear about it from her. She’s been showing her friends the cards that I’ve been sending to her. :)

This weekend, Bryan and I are going away for my 30th birthday. He’s taking me to a bed & breakfast in Wisconsin called Inn Serendipity. I am really excited to be going somewhere that’s just the two of us, we won’t know anyone and won’t have to entertain. I’m hoping for a nice relaxing weekend.

Current music:
Metric Static Anonymity
Stars heart

Current reading:
Babyville by Jane Green
The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

Wow! I got so much knitting done last night. I finished the ribbing that I added to extent the bottom of the second sleeve. Then I picked up stitches around the neck on the Lang cardigan and finished the neck. I also picked up, knit one button band, and picked up and knit the second button band to the button holes. I don’t know what buttons I’m going to use so I only knit to where the button holes will be so that I can pick out the buttons and then do the buttonholes later. I’m almost finished with the Lang cardigan! I just need to finish the button band and sew on the second sleeve! I’ll probably have it done in about two weeks! I also knitted a few rows on the little brown bag. It’s all in seed stitch with nylon cording, so of course, I can only handle it for so long. Maybe while we’re traveling this weekend, I’ll work on the Hobo sweater.

I got the most adorable photo of Claire, Shannon’s daughter, in the little Rosier dress that I made for her this past spring.

I promise to get more photos up soon.