Still Busy...

Just as the title says... I swear I haven't been so busy in a LONG time! Lots and lots and lots of research work. I haven't had much time for myself, which sucks, but I know that at least after the presentation is over (2 weeks!), I'll be able to take a deep breath and calm down a bit. At that point, I'll fly to California for a mini-vacation and to pick up Hitchcock!

On a happy, and political, note, Obama's inaugural speech made me tear up and flat out cry in parts. I know he's a politician, so I'm taking it with a (small) grain of salt, but I have so much hope for the next four years and I really wish for change for this country. It needs it! Also, having it be Bush's LAST DAY EVER was just beyond amazing too, of course! :)

In between all my business at work, I have been able to start and work on my super-secret lacework project! And I'm so happy to be able to unveil it in all its work-in-progress glory. So, without further ado, my very own Girasole Blanket!





Now I know what you are all thinking: is this girl in love with Jared Flood or what? And the answer to that is hell yeah I am! His projects are beyond cool and full of awesome cables and lace! I totally have a secret crush on him (in a very platonic way, of course) and I'm excited about moving to Brooklyn next year just so I have a bigger chance of running into him on the street. Yes, I've thought about this and I promise you I am not a crazy stalker... or am I? *shifty eyes*

Ahem, moving back to the Girasole... Not only is it a lot of fun to knit (though the rows are SO LONG and only going to get longer - 640 stitches... ack!), I just love love love doing lacework in heavy worsted weight yarn. I mean, who doesn't?





I am making it in Rowan Cocoon and it's wonderfully soft. The mohair in it is also going to give it a nice shimmer once it's done too... I can't wait to finish it, though blocking it will be a bit of a problem in a small, 1-bedroom New York City apartment. I mean, where am I going to PUT it to block??? LOL!

I was so busy taking pictures of the blanket, I didn't notice anything around me. Then I looked down near my feet and found this little cutie looking back at me:



Now doesn't that just melt your heart?

Busy busy busy

Work has been really tough lately... lots and lots to do, meetings coming up, presentations, posters, blah blah blah. Basically, I've had more than my share of things to work on outside of work time and that has eaten up my relaxing and knitting time, which sucks. But at least it will keep me busy until we go get Hitchcock! In other words, I'm not going crazy waiting like I did when I was waiting for Kubrick. ;)

Golden Globes were on tonight and I'm so happy that Kate Winslet won twice! I think she's wonderful and totally deserved those wins, IMO. Other than that, I have yet to see Slumdog Millionaire (though I really want to) and Vicki Christina Barcelona (also really really want to see), so I don't really have an opinion on those. I really do need to start watching movies again. We used to go once a week every week and stopped due to wedding stuff and after we got back from the honeymoon things got busy at work and we haven't really been able to get back into it. I think we'll try to start again this weekend, hopefully! :)

Oh and I am so so so excited! I have received my personalized set made by Karatstix and the items are just beyond awesome! I had her make it a photo, knit, dog theme. Do you recognize Kubrick? If you click on it to look at the larger size on Flickr you can see it in greater detail so you can get an idea of just how awesome it really is!



Also, I completed one more neckwarmer, this time in blue - yeah, yeah, I know you want something new! ;)





I have been knitting on my new "secret" project - which won't be secret for much longer - and I am so far loving it! It's lacework, which I really enjoy doing, and I love the yarn I'm knitting with too! Will post pictures of it next time, I promise, though it probably won't look like much unblocked, you can still get an idea! Meanwhile, I will try to keep warm (Wednesday is supposed to be a high of something like 20 degrees (that's Fahrenheit for anyone not in the US) and below zero with wind chill! Brrrrrrrrr. Hopefully I won't freeze to death before my next post, LOL!

To end this on a cute note, here's the latest Hitchcock pic for you all. Isn't he just SO cute?

Goodbye 2008, Happy 2009!

I can't believe that 2008 is over... it flew by, but I'm actually pretty glad that it is gone, done and over with. There were some really bad times and I'm looking forward to 2009 with the hope that it will be wonderful! Of course, there were some great times in 2008, and some new things tried (it definitely wasn't ALL bad), and I wanted to go through and post all the good things that were accomplished in the last year (thanks Yarndancer for the idea!)... and yes some of it will incorporate pictures as I love me some pictures!

- I got to visit my family in Brazil and spend some relaxing days in beautiful Bahia.



- We went to Europe for the first time in my life and got to visit beautiful Romania (first pic) and gorgeous Paris (second pic)!





- I got married and it was an absolutely wonderful day! Seriously, I know it's cliche, but it was the best day of my life so far and DH and I were so lucky to be able to have that. We're looking forward to topping it, though! :) The picture below is one of our favorites from the professional photographer's blog... our completed and enhanced pictures should be done by the weekend, and I'm really looking forward to seeing that!



- Our honeymoon in French Polynesia was so wonderful and relaxing, we loved every minute of it!



- I knitted more than I have ever knitted in all my years of knitting, LOL! I only finished 12 projects, but I was very happy to be able to do even that considering that I really didn't get back into it until later in the year. I even learned to crochet for the borders of two different patterns! Very proud of that one. :)



- I practiced my photography and am really happy with how much I've improved during the year and hope to become much much better in 2009!



- I sold one of my photographs as a print and hope to do some photography eventually on the side... maybe.



- At work, I have re-focused myself and got more accomplished in my project than before. Hopefully I'll graduate in 2 years now! :D Sorry, no picture for that one, haha!

I think I accomplished and did quite a bit, though I hope that 2009 holds lots and lots more great things for us! For this upcoming year, I am resolved to do a LOT more knitting, to do a lot of work on my research and hopefully get published, to get Kubrick a little puppy brother (it's in the works!), to run a 10K (DH and I WILL do this), to take lots and lots of pictures, to go to Brazil with DH so he can meet my family there, and most of all to have a wonderful first year of marriage with DH! I think I can accomplish all of this, or at least I'll try my hardest!!!

The new year is already beginning well as one of my pictures of my beautiful dog, Kubrick, was chosen for the Havanese Forum calendar! It doesn't take a professional to get a picture in there or anything, but I'm still happy that one was chosen. This picture was taken at Kubrick's 1-year birthday last year (April 30th, to be exact), and since he is my #1 photo subject, it makes sense to end this post and to begin this year with the picture that made it into the calendar!



What are you all wishing for and what have you accomplished? Hope everything you want to accomplish in 2009 will be done!

New Year's Eve is here!

So it's one day before the New Year starts and I thought I should get one last post in before it's 2009. My Christmas was pretty good, though not great. The food I cooked with DH's help was great, spending time with my husband and sister was wonderful, but considering that I was actually in pain for the majority of it, kind of made it not so great. I did try to overlook it, though. :) As for why exactly I was in pain, well, on Christmas Eve I headed over to Payard's to pick up one of their AMAZINGLY good Buche de Noel for our Christmas dessert and decided, in the interest of saving some money, to take the subway back home. Well, wouldn't you know it that of course with all the snow and rain I slipped on the stairs going down to the subway (note: I was wearing snow boots, not some slippery leather shoes or anything) and fell, sitting, with all my weight on my tailbone. I can't even begin to describe the excruciating pain. Seriously, seriously painful. To cut to the end of the story, I wound up with a bruise about 8 inches in diameter with a very large contusion (basically swelling the size of an orange) in the middle of it. It's been a week now but the pain is still completely there and the swelling is now the size of a kiwi instead of an orange, so it is getting better. The doctor says it's still going to take another 2 weeks for it to feel any better, though... isn't that wonderful? Blegh. So annoying! You never realize how important something like a tailbone is until you hurt it. It not only hurts to sit, I can't lay down on my back AND I limp when I walk since the contusion is stretching my skin and hurts when pulled so I can't extend my knee all the way when taking a step, thus the limp. Basically, I can't sit, lay down or walk. Standing is okay, but after a while it hurts too. It's a lose-lose situation. In order not to be too depressing though, I'm trying to look on the bright side of things and the bright side is that I was able to save the Buche de Noel from getting wounded during the fall and it really was incredibly delicious, LOL!

The other bad thing from this injury came from the fact that it was very difficult for me to knit... I was finally able to get cracking again about 2 days ago and now i have two other projects finished, plus my sister's sweater dress is blocked and dry - after a week! So, I have some new projects to share with you all before 2008 is over... yay!

First up, my sister's sweater dress which really was a complete PAIN to make. This pattern was absolutely horrible to work with for me, and I don't even know why because it's a really simple pattern... just not well written at all. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure there's no way in hell I'm ever going to do another Twinkle pattern. Just not worth the time and sweat spent on it. It did end up looking pretty good, though, and my sister is absolutely going gaga over it, so I guess it was worth it for that... just don't ask me to repeat it!





For hubby, I made Jared Flood's Habitat hat, which I just love! It looks amazing and I'm all set to make another 2 for my cousins. I wouldn't say it's an easy pattern at first with all the different cabling going on, but as soon as I memorized all the cables, it became quite easy. Anyway, here it is, still blocking but looking very good, if I do say so myself. I hope to get some on-his-head shots sometime this week.





And one detail shot:



And just for fun, another neckwarmer... the last one in the Christmas gift series, and I do LOVE the buttons on this one... they look really cool in the light too. I still will make another 2 of these, one was a request and the other is for me. I'm still not sick of this pattern, though maybe you guys are, LOL!





And the cool button:



Now I'm gearing up to actually start making some non-Christmas related projects... too bad I still have 3 gifts left to do! I'm really looking forward to my non-Christmas knitting as I have some really yummy yarn and projects lined up.

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and that your New Year is everything you hope it will be! Happy New Year!!!

Wacky weather, teaching, work and Christmas knitting

EDIT: For some reason some of you have had problems posting comments with the word verification thing... I changed my settings now and hope you won't have a problem anymore. Let me know if you do!

The weather has been so insane around here! We had snow on Saturday night/Sunday morning - it was a high of 30 during the weekend and on Monday. Then today it was 47 degrees and now tomorrow is supposed to be 60! I have no idea what is going on, but it's really annoying to have to be switching around between winter and fall clothes. At least now I get to wear my fingerless gloves some more. So yay! for that.

So along with crazy weather, I've been dealing with students every single day. This is my first time ever TAing, and it's already more work than I had expected! I get about 6-10 e-mails a day from students and professors and the class only has 25 people in it! At least I only have another week and a half of it and then I'm done. In the meantime, work's been crazy busy, my boss is out of the country for the next 3 weeks, and pretty much out of touch as well, so if I have any problems, I'm going to have to either hope to figure it out by myself or wait and put my project on hold. Not that I have any time to SPEND on my project with the TAing, but a girl can dream, can't she?

In more pleasant news, I'm excited about getting a Christmas tree this weekend (woot!) and about my Christmas knitting as it's coming along very well! I have started my sister's sweater dress. I'm waiting for some circular needles to come in so I can start the body, but the sleeves only took me a total of 1 hour or so to make, so I think it should be a pretty quick knit, which is oh-so-helpful now that Christmas is near.

I have finished the Koolhaas hat for my stepdad and hubby was nice enough to model it for me:





I really like how it turned out, and I really want to make one for myself... of course I'll wait until AFTER Christmas to do this! The orange is just the right shade of orange, too, I think. I love it! :)

So then I decided to start on my neckwarmer knitting. I'm making a total of 4 of them for Christmas this year - one for my sister (yes she gets one AND a sweater dress... she deserves it), one for my friend, my sister-in-law and my brother-in-law's girlfriend. Since it only took me one day (!) to knit this up, I'm pretty confident that I will be able to get it done on time. It's a great pattern, and I love how it turned out. I did mess up on the scalloped edge because I mis-judged the button placement of the center button and it's a little skewed to one side vs the other. I don't think it's that noticeable at all, though, and I know my sister won't mind!







Oh and the buttons are awesome no? I got them from an Etsy shop. They are handmade porcelain buttons! And, of course, I now want one of these neckwarmers for me! Yet another project to be left till after Christmas...

And just to prove that Kubrick really DOES love to get into every picture, here he is (just his paw) stretching up on me - I was kneeling on the floor. Yes, he is a silly pup!



Hopefully the next post will have my Christmas tree in it... I hope we can get it Friday night. :)

Welcome to the Holiday Season

The Holidays have finally arrived! The lights are up all over the city and Fifth Ave is just gorgeous, as it is every year! We're getting ready to set up our Christmas tree and my wardrobe consists of primarily coats, scarves, hats and gloves. Yup, it's winter! But the number one reason I know the holidays have arrived: I've been knitting up a storm and the gift countdown is on! My list is pretty long and I'm not sure how many gifts I will be able to finish, but hopefully enough so I don't feel like too much of a procrastinator!

I actually have finished one item so far, but I did start it last August (haven't worked on it since August, LOL) and just needed to do the last 20% of it or so, so I guess it's not TOO much of an accomplishment. It's a baby hoodie and it actually is NOT done, I still need to buy buttons for it! I'm hoping to get the buttons this weekend and be 100% done with it (notice the sleeping Kubrick on the bottom left corner... he always wants to be in a picture! haha!):





I like how it turned out overall, though we'll see how it looks on the nephew! :)

Next up, I'm working on a hat for my stepdad. It's the Koolhaas hat, and I'm really loving it so far! I need to make more of these hats for sure, they are SO nice! And, yes, it's orange, haha!



And finally, not Christmas Gift-related, but something I just HAD to share because as soon as it arrived, I started to drool. Drool, I tell you!



It's Tilli Tomas' Rock Star. 100% silk with glass beads. Just AMAZING to the touch. This one will be for ME... I'm too selfish to give this away after knitting it up! Close up:



Anyone jealous? ;)

Good luck to all the rest of you on your Holiday knitting!

Finished gloves and T-Day

Turkey Day is approaching and I am so excited! I absolutely love Thanksgiving. Making turkey, stuffing, yams, and so many other yummy things just makes me happy. This year there will only be 4 people here - compared to last year's 9 - but that's still fun! I have bought lots of good wine and a fresh turkey and now it's time to start working on my schedule for the day. I hate being behind on the cooking, so I'll make a very detailed schedule with what needs to be done when. I hope it will make me less stressed... that and a glass (or two) of wine while cooking!

It's been absolutely FREEZING here in NYC. It's very strange for this time of year, but it looks like it's finally thawing out to a normal November temperature. Though of course accompanied by tons of rain... blech. The good news is that it's not too cold so it's just the PERFECT weather for me to break out my finished fingerless gloves/wrist warmers! I am absolutely in love with them. My first pair ever AND I get to wear them this year too! Yay!





Kubrick decided that he just HAD to get in a picture... after all, mom was using his ball (and his bed!) for a shot and he wanted them back!

Officially married

We finally got our marriage certificate in the mail today! Exactly 2 months and 1 day after the wedding date. Even though I had to call to "remind" them about the fact that we hadn't received the license, I am excited anyway. Now onto name changing (I hyphenated), which should suck as I have to hit the Social Security and the DMV which are both notoriously slow at getting ANYTHING done. We'll see how long I stand in line... I'll make sure to take my knitting with me.

I have decided that I would really love to knit at least 80% of my Christmas gifts this year. However, starting so late, I'm not sure how much of that I will actually be able to do. Hopefully enough so that I don't feel like a complete slacker, as I often do with knitting! I think I will make socks for my stepdad, perhaps a shawl for my mom, a sweater dress for my sister (luckily she's very skinny, so she'll fit into the Twinkle patterns, LOL), a hat for hubby, a hoodie for the nephew, and I have no idea what else for my cousins, the in laws and friends. Not sure if I can finish even half of these projects, but I'll try! I have the hoodie well on its way and really all I have left to do is sew it up and man do I hate doing that! Anyone else just can't stand finishing things? I love the knitting part but sewing is just NO fun.

I'll finish this post with a picture of one of my last FO's (finished objects for those non-knitters). I will probably be leaving every post with a picture as I really am photo-obsessed. :)

This was a tank top made from the awesome book And So To Bed. It's supposed to be a PJ, but really, I think it's too cute to be worn to bed! I gave it to my friend's daughter but she also has a new baby, so I'm sure I won't get a pic of her wearing it for a while. I really loved how it turned out and it was the first time I ever crocheted anything in my life (the border is crochet) and I found it not so hard... much easier than knitting for sure!

Movies, Books and a Knit

So I noticed that I left out a very important obsession of mine out of my previous post, and that is my love of books and movies. Of course, I can't leave out the fact that these are two of my all-time favorite things to spend time doing: reading and watching movies. I will watch pretty much any movie - with a few exceptions... who in their right mind would ever want to watch, for example, RV or even Norbit? Books I'm more discriminatory about, but then again instead of wasting 2 hours of my life, I'd be wasting at least 10 hours, depending on the length of the book of course.

All this to say that I am really looking forward to Friday as that is when Quantum of Solace is being released! I am really excited about this movie, not only because I felt that Casino Royale was one of the best Bond movies ever made, but also because let's face it, Daniel Craig is an awesome awesome Bond. The ruggedness, the cockiness, the learning to become the smooth and charming Connery Bond. It all comes together beautifully. I am also excited about seeing it on Friday as DH and I will go to Rosa Mexicano afterward and I am a big big fan of their frozen pomegranate margaritas. I plan on getting at least a little bit drunk while discussing the awesomeness of Craig as Bond. Really, who could ask for a better Friday night?

To keep up with the title of my blog, I wanted to share with you my latest knitting project, a pair of fingerless gloves. I'm actually making this a little too late because winter is coming along and then it will be too cold to wear them... they might have to wait until Spring to make their debut. Regardless, I really love how they are turning out and the Peacock blue is such a great color, though the flash washed it out a bit. It's a little darker IRL.