'Tis May!

Man, I'm pretty bad at keeping up with this blogging thing. I had wanted to do it every week, or at least every other week.  Though I guess monthly is better than never.

Cruise Shawl

There's not a super whole lot to report I think I've only finished two or three projects since I last wrote. I finally finished the shawl I started on my cruise. It came out very nicely, but it doesn't want to stay in the shape I blocked it to. I might have to try it again.  I've gotten a lot of compliments on it, though, including a bunch of random ones coming from people at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival last week.

I finished the self patterning spiral-y socks a few weeks ago, too. I'm very pleased with them. They're very warm and comfy as well.

Spiral-icious

Another project I did was for my coworker. She found her hands were getting cold so I offered to make her some fingerless mitts.  Not just any mitts would do. She's a sassy old broad and she needed some sassy classical mitts. I made her some red and black victorian style fingerless mittens. I don't think she's really worn them yet, but she sure liked them!

Sassy Mitts

Another piece of news is that I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival for the first time last weekend. I didn't really find any yarn that I HAD to have, but I did buy 2000 yards of some Virginia-made cotton/wool blend for ~$50. There are a couple patterns I want to try out with it.  I also got a yarn-bowl and some size 1 circulars for making two socks at a time.

My loot

Speaking of two socks at a time, I'm working on  my first set of 2-at-a-time socks using the String Theory Caper yarn and the Haleakala pattern from February's edition of the Cookie A Sock Club. They're coming along pretty well, but I'm dreading the point when I have to rearrange everything for the heel flap. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I'm going to have to transfer the stitches to dpns then back to the circulars. Should be fun!

From the work side of things, we had our spring celebration/Search Dog Foundation fundraiser on Thursday. It went really well despite our guests of honor, John Stewart and canine Lani, arriving about an hour and a half late.  But they got there and it was good.  We managed to raise $3000 for the organization in one night! My colleagues did a great job of organizing the silent auction and the part as a whole.

Now all I need is for my Yankees to come back around. They haven't been playing very well recently. I hope our favorite catcher-turned-DH gets it together soon. He's losing the mental game and I know he's better than that. Maybe Girardi should put him in as catcher every once in a while so that he gets some confidence back. He's one of the pieces of the heart of the team, and you can tell that his struggles are weighing a lot of folks down. I hope he finds his mojo again.

Cruise Recap and other catch up shtuff



St Maarten port from my stateroom's balcony
 (I upgraded - totally worth it!)

It's been a month since I was on my cruise and I'm just now getting around to write about it. The cliffs notes version: I had a blast. It was my first cruise and will definitely not be the last.  I loved everything about it. I loved being able to get chicken fingers at all hours of the day/night. I loved upgrading my room to a balcony and sitting out there, watching the world go by. I loved the heated tile lounge chairs in the spa. I loved being in the warm sun of the Caribbean.

I definitely recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines. Of course, it's the only cruise line I've been on so far, but the ship was gorgeous. It was well taken care of, clean, spacious, interesting. I could be social when I wanted to be and had my "me-time" when I needed it.  The staff was wonderful.  I got to see the Blue Man Group, Second City, St. Maarten/St Martin, St Thomas, St John and waved at the port of Nassau as we passed it by. The customer service was awesome. I accidentally left some clothes on board when I got distracted during packing. I got them back in the mail last week, clean and in one piece!



Cruise shawl



The only thing missing was any kind of lap pool. I LOVE to swim and wish I had the opportunity to really swim some laps. The only pools they had were wading pools and the hydrotherapy pool, nothing where you could really swim.  I was able to go snorkling in St. John - a last minute decision and one I'm very happy I made. It was a gorgeous day aboard the catamaran from St. Thomas to St John's Honeymoon Beach. The water was warm and the sand was white and fine. I would've loved to have spent more time snorkling, but they do two sailings a day!!! I'm also glad I did it because our port of call in Nassau was cancelled due to wind. I had a snorkeling trip planned for the Bahamas and would have been incredibly disappointed had I not been able to snorkel at all!



I was able to do some knitting on board. I started a shawl - the Sea Foam shawl in my "Caribbean Blue" linen lace. It was the perfect project for a cruise - nice and light and inspired by the sea. I'm still not done with it, but it's getting there. I was working on it during the plane ride from Miami to DCA and the flight attendants were so impressed, they let me move into an empty row so I could have more room to maneuver. They were so sweet.

Spiral-y!

I haven't finished any projects lately. I've had a severe loss of what we call my "knitting mojo." My motivation to knit had left me for a while. I'm just now starting to get it back.  I have put a few more inches on the Cruise Shawl. I finally turned the heel on the first Ribbelmuster/Spiraleta socks in the Plymouth Sockotta self-patterning yarn. A few more inches down the foot, decreases on the toes, and one more sock to go! I'm going to teach myself how to knit two socks at a time so that I never have to suffer from "second sock syndrome" (knitting socks one at a time and getting bored after the first one, thereby never knitting the second). It hasn't plagued me as yet, but the way my mojo has been going in and out, it wouldn't surprise me if it does.

I missed one of my big New Year's resolutions. Opening day of baseball was last week and I'm no closer to finishing the World Champion sweater than I was in January.  Oh well. I might see if I can pay someone to knit the sleeves for me.  Or rip out the first one and do two at a time.  It's just a lot of boring stockinette in sock yarn - so it takes forever to even do an inch.
I'm still fairly good on my other resolutions, though. I've only had three Starbucks coffees since January. And I've only been to fibre space twice - one of the times, I didn't even buy the yarn!!! I did falter last week, but it was for good reason. Miss Babs Ausherman was in town and I attended her color workshop. Her yarns are wonderful and I got four skeins of sock yarn. I can't wait to knit them up!

Putting my feet up

I am going to there.

I really have been delinquent again on my blog-writing. I guess once a month is now a reasonable goal as things continue to be busy. Work is getting much better and personality conflicts with new colleagues and clients are starting to improve. What has made it even more bearable is that I've got a vacation coming up! Next week, I'm leaving on my first cruise!  I'm leaving out of Miami on the Norwegian Epic and hitting St Maarten, St Thomas and Nassau. I cannot wait. I've been needing this break. I'm looking forward to the sunshine and being able to "switch off" completely - no cell phone, no computer, no work. I will be able to do whatever I choose.

Caribbean Blue indeed!

I've already been planning my knitting for this vacation. I plan on taking the linen lace I got from the fibre space stash club and making a shawl. It really is meant to be as the colorway of the yarn is "Caribbean Blue" and the shawl pattern is called "Seafoam."  It should be beautiful!  I'm also taking a pair of socks, the World Champ Sweater (which I still intend to complete by Opening Day!).

I haven't finished much for myself recently. The last thing I finished for myself were my Pomatomus/Mermaid Socks. They came out beautifully and I LOVE to wear them. I'm now a devotee of Wollmeise. I'm still working on the self-patterning socks. The spiral-y pattern I've picked is a little tricky, but it makes the knitted pattern interesting without taking away from the dyed pattern. 

The main reason I haven't finished much for myself was because I was making a bunch of things for my colleague, Donna.  Last month, we met up on a Sunday and I introduced her to fibre space. She fell in love with a hat in the window and bought me $100 worth of Spud & Chloe yarn to make it and whatever else I could make out of it. I wound up making her the hat, convertible mittens and a really long, randomly colored scarf.  They all turned out beautifully and look fantastic on her.

On a more serious note, my gmail account was hacked last week and a spam message was sent from it telling everyone that I was in London and that I had been robbed.  The perp set up forwarding to a yahoo account and changed my passwords. Thankfully, my friends were quick to alert me to the intrusion and facebook was able to disable my account before he/she got to it and I was able to get it back up again the next day. It was terrifying. I hope others can learn from this mess and take the time to change their passwords and make sure their security settings and software protections are in place.