Pardon the awful pun. It’s been a tough day, but it was capped off well. I’m not going to say anythign more about the day, but if you just want to know about the contest stuff and skip the sewing, just scroll down some

Tonight was the 2nd sewing class of the 6 week course. We covered seaming (hence the corny title). I took some notes and everything we did made sense. I’m hoping for some time between now and next class to practice what we did and to review my notes – tonight wasn’t so much about technique – we did sew and all, but we got lots of pointers and tips and I find that re-reading (and ok sometimes rewriting too) my notes makes things stick better.

Turns out though that practice sewing and tips don’t make for great photo ops…

Here’s two anyway:

This is the 1st seam we did – thrilling, isn’t it?

Look! A ruffle! We learned about basting, and the different things (including ruffles) it can be used for. I know many of you who have been sewing for years and those of you who have no interest are rolling your eyes or nodding off to sleep, so I’ll get to the good stuff…

Today is the 4th anniversary of the day I started this blog. I am also X number of comments away from 3000. So, in honor of both, I’m doing 2 giveaways. Whoever posts that 3000th comment will get a thank you gift, AND everyone who can tell me (leave a comment on this post) how many days in that 1st month I posted multiple times in one day (What the heck was I thinking back then?) will get tossed into the hat (knitted of course) for a drawing. To be clear, you just need to tell me the total # of days I posted more than once in a day, not how many total posts.

Prizes? Yes, there will be prizes, but more on that tomorrow (I’m not working tomorrow so I plan to post in the afternoon which will let me take daylight pictures)

Obviously the 3000th comment thing only goes until I hit 3000, but the anniversary part will stay open until, eh, a week sounds good – St Patrick’s day it is!

4 things – and no, no lizard (with a nod to “Blink“)

Anyone else get their butt severely kicked by the time change this go-round? I sure did, and from what I’ve seen around the Plurkiverse, I’m not the only one. I’m hoping tonight is better, it’s almost like losing all the ground I’ve gained in the last week or so.

Tomorrow is the second of 6 sewing classes. I’m looking forward to getting into more that the introductions and guidelines we went thru last week. We’re supposed to be addressing seams, and as part of our homework, we were supposed to buy 1/2 a yard of a cotton fabric that we could tell the difference between front and back.

I got this because the little daisies made me smile

I think the back qualifies

When I was waiting to have my fabric cut, the girl in front of me was buying 3 yards of another fabric. The clerk started unwrapping the bolt, and there was a little over a yard orphaned. The pattern is outside my usual color scheme and style, but there was something about it I really liked.

Guess who’s starting a fabric stash to keep the yarn stash company?

Third thing is a thank you. Today at work I had a very sad thing happen to my keyboard. Now this may sound crazy, but I really like my work keyboard. The key touch is “just right” and it doesn’t have the delete key in a weird place and the enter key is the right size (yes, I have issues. So what?) Anyway, my friend J, who also happens to be our IT guy (he was my friend 1st – we worked together in a place otherwise known as Hell, and became friends. Luckily, we work together again) came to my rescue. He fixed my keyboard and made my afternoon much better. Thank you J It’s the little things in life…

And finally, thing four – Tomorrow is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I’m also approaching a milestone in comments, so I think I’ll tie the two things together and do a giveaway of sorts. I’m not sure yet what the prizes will be, or what the actual qualifier is, but by this time tomorrow (ok maybe a little later, I have to get home from sewing class and post it) we’ll ALL know what it will be. Just thought that if you read thru this far you deserved a little head’s up.

Carolina’s beating the Rangers, so there’s hockey to watch and knitting to do (ahhhh the road to the playoffs – I love this time of year, regardless of how badly and pathetically my team did AGAIN) – catch ya tomorrow!

Happy St. Patrick’s day! In keeping with theme of the day, I’m going to jump right in and say “Maith thu’!” (loosely translates to Good on you! or very loosely to Congratulations) to Michelle and Jared for making the man & I laugh the hardest (Hey Jared, he’s STILL laughing at your winning entry!) And (by virtue of his sheer number of entries!) No Blog Tim won the random drawing.

You can see the winning entries here, here, and here, or look at the whole set here. Each entry made me chuckle, and I’d like to thank those of you who played along. The last week has been challenging, so coming home to these entries has really been great!

Prizes… yea. I never did get around to posting those, did I? Well, since I had initially decided upon 3 knitting prizes, and only one winner is a knitter, I’ve decided to give Michelle all 3 of the knitting prizes. Jared and Tim, we’ll figure out your payoff (I’m leaning towards gift certs, but am open to suggestions from you both)

So, Michelle, if you email me (use my handy contact form) with your snail mail address your prizes will be in the mail by the end of the week. Oh, you want to know what you actually won?

1st edition Friday Night Knitting Club

Manos del Uraguay in colorway 102

Lorna’s laces in Amethyst Stripe

I hope you like everything!

WIPs… yea I know it’s not Wednesday, but I’m not all that great at coloring in the lines either.

1st up, what I am not so affectionately referring to as my Everlasting *Worming* Bagstopper. I loved how Aimee’s turned out (Ravelry link), so I ordered the yarn and have started making one of my own – I like the pattern a whole lot (nice easy mindless social or TV knitting) but this yarn (another Ravelry link) is making me CRAZY. It kind of worms while I’m knitting it…

Next up is the Hypotenuese scarf shawl. It’s a very nice knit. The yarn makes me happy, the color is wonderful and while it is only one full repeat in, I am pleased with this project. It’s mindless enough knit while watching a movie (American Gangster last night), yet interesting enough that I’m not bored to tears.

Thanks to Janet, you can all ignore the whining – I understand where I went astray, and can’t wait until after work to get back on track. Amazing how over interpreting a “ending k5″ with k5 cant screw things up The 3rd WIP, although I love it, brings me to the whining portion of the program. OK, all you Pi Knitters, I’m talking to you when I ask WTF???

OK, round 1 of the 1st lace pattern for the Pi shawl – (from the knitters almanac version)
If I have 144 stitches (which I do – triple checked) and I knit the round as directed, I come up with 2 extra stitches. I have Google’d and Ravelry’d my heart out and I seem to be the only idiot on the planet that cannot figure this out. What gets me is if I break it down by numbers, my problem makes sense – there SHOULD be 2 extra stitches. But no one else seems to think so, so maybe someone reading this can explain to me why my logic is flawed.

Ahem. OK, so if I have 144 stitches, and I follow a k5, *YO, k2tog, k10 repeat from * around, ending k5 I come up with 2 extraneous stitches. In my head, if I take the 144 stitches, and subtract the 10 border stitches (2 k5s) I am left with 134 stitches. Following the pattern of YO, K2tog, K10 means I am working with 12 stitches between the 5 and 5 borders, right? Well can someone explain to me how you divide 134 by 12 and come up with anything other than 11.16 etc???

Anyway, until I can figure out why I am such a thick headed dope, ARFP (Always Room For Pi) is staying put, right as I left it, as I scratched my head in disbelief. I’m bringing it with me tomorrow night when I meet up with Aimee, and Stacey and Cristi and Corey and her honey, and Knitterboy76 (alllll the way from Al) at Charlotte Yarn for some knittin’ and maybe some dinner later.

So I don’t end on a whiny note, I have pretty pretty yarn for you to look at. Remember wayyyyy back in February when I squealed with delight at being the winner of Trillian42’s January Hats for Alex drawing? Well I FINALLY have a picture to show! Now granted, it doesn’t quite do this yarn justice, because it was dusky outside, but trust me… it’s drool worthy.

Many many thanks for such a wonderfully generous prize, but also for all the work and efforts that go into making Hats for Alex a success. (Haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet? If the incredible prizes aren’t enough to entice you, go read about what this project is all about. Bring a tissue or 100. You’ve been warned.)

So there you have it – one LOOOOOOOOONG post. I have dishes to do and left overs to put away, and with that out of the way, some knitting to enjoy.

Oíche mhaith! (Good night!)

Yes, I know, it’s corny. Too bad.

Sometime last evening (but sadly not at 1:59), Aimee, Cristi, Corey and I cast on together for the Pi Shawl. Despite an obnoxious beginning (I know I know with practice Emily Ocker’s cast on won’t kick my butt – and I think if I practice once of twice with the pictorial I just linked, I will be fine – the image in the Almanac were hurting my brain), I am now knitting along happily.

While it may not look like much yet, it’s making me happy.

I have things to do today, places to go tonight, and quite frankly, I’d be happy to just sit home and knit. Tomorrow though – tomorrow is a nothing but knitting and couch day.

It will also be the last day for entries to the contest, and winners will be selected before bed tomorrow night (and announced on Monday)

No knitting content today, since I got home from work yesterday, made dinner, cleaned up and suddenly it was time for bed – and got nothing done! (Tomorrow there can be knitting content, there is Purls knitting tonight!)

I really don’t like Daylight Savings Time, and find it to be more counterproductive than anything else. If we HAVE to observe it, cant we at least have it go into effect on a Friday night so we have a bit more time to adjust before going to work? The sheer disorientation may be responsible for my wild rampage of purchases… (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

I finally went ahead and ordered myself a set of Options needles. And there may have been some purchasing of some Elizabeth DVDs. Maybe. And there may have been an Amazon book purchase or two. I guess time (and the mail lady!) will tell…

And since I have absolutely nothing else to offer, here is a picture of some wine I saw while wandering aimlessly through World Market recently.

Almost makes me wish I drank wine!

shameless contest plug here

I’ve been blogging 3 years now. Some months better than others, but overall, the past 3 years of my (mostly) knitting life have been decently documented. I generally don’t blog a whole lot about non knitting stuff, but from time to time, things happen in “Real Life” that I feel warrant a mention, especially when my knitting life can be impacted. (Before anyone jumps to conclusions, this is all good stuff – really!)

Those of you who know me know that this last job I took back in October was the 1st in a very long while that didn’t involve call center management in some way shape or form. Without getting into all the details, it was definitely a smart move for me at the time, and one I do not regret making. The people I work with are nice, and the company is stable and all in all, it has been a good (almost) 5 months there. Then, this past week the chance to return to call center life presented itself in the form of an opportunity, a position and a salary that was almost impossible to turn down. It will be hard work and a different level of commitment than my current job, but I think it is the right move. (That’s not to imply I’m not committed to my current job, or that I haven’t been. It’s more that call center isn’t a 9-5 Monday – Friday type job. Or, in my current job’s case, a 7:30-4 M- F job). So, long story short, I gave my notice today, and will be jumping in to this new role very shortly.

The reason this may have an impact on my knitting life, especially in the beginning, is I will be pretty busy getting to know the company, and what the needs of this new call center will be. I won’t be working in South Charlotte anymore, so until I know what kind of hours I may be putting in, my alternate Tuesday nights and every Wednesday night knitting appearances may be spotty. I’m fairly certain it will just be an adjustment period, and it definitely will not mean an end to my knitting completely. Or my blogging!

Anyway, you’re probably wondering where this all ties in to my 3 year blogiversary contest. Well, in speaking with Aimee yesterday about the various ways one could give notice, she suggested an LOLCat – I think her suggestion was “Dis place iz not 4 me. kaithxbai” We had a laugh with some variations, and then I told her I wanted to have a contest, with 3 winners, for my 3 year mark but wasn’t sure what to run it on – I didn’t want a “Guess the # of _______ and win” type things, and she suggested having people submit their best LOL Cat ways to resign.

Now my 1st thought was to have folks just leave me a comment with their line, and on Sunday night, March 16, I’d pick my favorite, I’d let the man pick his favorite, and we’d use a random number generator for the 3rd. And that is still valid, HOWEVER, if you want to link to a picture, even better! You can either find one you like online, or make your own. Funny and creative are key here)

3 prizes will be awarded. You’re going to have to trust me that they’re worth it until later in the week. I will probably reveal 1 on Thursday, 1 on Friday and 1 on Saurday. And yes, my non-knitting readers (*cough* blogless Tim *cough* Jared *cough* George * cough aimee just cuz she’s got some lung-y issues) there will be non-knitting prizes shoudl a non-knitter win

So to sum it up:
Starting tonight (Monday 3/10/08) through Sunday (3/16/08), you can either comment with your suggested LOLCat resignation line,
OR
you can leave a link in the comments to your suggested LOLCat picture. This picture can be YOUR creation, or one you found online, so long as it pertains to giving notice/quitting your job.

Here are some links to LOL Cat generators – you add the pic and the text!
Big Huge Labs
LOLCats
icanhazcheezburger generator

Your comments should be to THIS POST (and I will link back here in each post I make this week) so I don’t miss yours.

Got it? Good! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

It’s not an entry, just an LOLcat’d pic of my boy OJ who I miss every single day…

Let’s skip past the whole guilty babble about not posting in forever, shall we? We all know the routine – meant to, wanted to, got distracted, life got in the way. But hey, I’m back. And in time to celebrate my 3rd year blogging!

Tomorrow (on the actual anniversary date), there will be an official contest post, and some news. (No, I’m not pregnant, stop that!) Today though, it’s mini catch up and a weekend review.

Mary was here this weekend, and we had fun. There was good food, good beer, and big laughs. “Big” & “laughs” are each linked to her blog because despite the fact that I posted at the very same time she did on Friday night, and the fact that Google Reader picked up my feed for that post, it vanished. Don’t ask, I don’t know. And no, I’m not going to try to figure it out – some things are best left a mystery. Here is photographic evidence of some of the food and beer though…

There was actually very little knitting – I wove in the ends of one of my March Hats for Alex on Friday night, and decided to step away from the needles on Saturday evening as they didn’t seem to be a safe mix with the Monkey… Even so, it was great having Mary here. Next month – her house!

Yes, there was an FO or two while I was MIA. I took 2 amazing classes at Charlotte Yarn last weekend, and learned SO much. Both classes were great fun (thanks to the cast of characters in both classes and awesome teachers) and really did a lot to kick my knitting drive back into gear. Aimee taught us Double Knitting and Jane taught us Fair Isle. The fair isle class had the bonus of steeking, and learning to knit backwards. I can not even begin to describe what that seemingly simple bit of knowledge did for me. Not only do I find my stockinette to be crisper and more even, but the hand motion will help me in learning to knit continental, as well as improve my ability to knit 2 handed when I fair isle.

I do have some swatch pictures as well as a shot of the fair isle hat I’ll send to Hats for Alex as part of my March batch.

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It’s much better than the 1st one I did a few weeks before Jane’s class, no doubt! It’s no where as awesome as Trillians amazing cardigan (ravelry link), but hey, at least I started! And someday, I too will create something as amazing!

I’m off to start something else (details during the week probably) and since it’s Sunday, that means it’s Netflix night with my honey. Such a great way to end the weekend! (even if we did lose an hour… can someone tell me why the change has to be in effect on Sunday morning, instead of Saturday morning, which gives us no time to readjust before we have to go back to work? Seems silly!)

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for contest details – it will be open all week, with THREE winners announced next Sunday. (yea, 3. It’s my 3rd year blogging, so it seemed appropriate)