A Nice Day for a White Wedding

THE WEDDING IS OVER. I am so happy about this. It was a grand time, but I am utterly exhausted, even after our trip to the mountains. But, dear reader, I am happy to announce that I am done talking about wedding-related activities and can get back to the fun stuff: knitting, spinning, crochet, etc.

That being said, I really didn't get that much knitting done on our trip to Gatlinburg. The view was pretty outstanding, and I managed to get a new digital camera (a Canon Powershot 720 IS). I love the mountains! And, the temperature was at least 15 degrees cooler up there. It was around 95 degrees on the day of our wedding (did I mention that?) Gross.

I'll definitely have more pictures of the wedding on my Flickr in the near future if you'd like to check those out.

And finally, I'll leave you with the best meal we had while in Gatlinburg, at The Trout House:

I'm still standin'

Fear not, I'm still alive, dear reader! This whole wedding nonsense is really getting to me! It's less than a month away!

I returned safe and sound from Buffalo from the shower (flew up, drove back with the parents). You'll be happy to know that I finished the dishcloths AHEAD of schedule and here's the final result. They were a complete hit! Coupled with my mom's coasters, it was the craftiest shower I'd ever seen!

I'm fortunate enough to have such lovely friends, and now I'm stocked! 5 air bake cookie sheets! When I opened my red Kitchen Aid Mixer, everyone applauded. It was a delight!

While I'm not a fan of shower "games' my mother, unbeknownst to me, made everyone go around and tell their favorite memory of me. My neighbor, who's known me all my life, said that when I was three, I used to waddle up to her husband in the driveway and offer him a beer. I would also roll up on my tricyle and ask if they had any good cookies. I must have been a charming child.

On the regular knitting front, I can't seem to get anything done, as I'm feeling so spastic with all this wedding planning. I am trying unsuccessfully to knit some socks for my mom for Mother's day, but that is just going horribly wrong, as I seem to be falling asleep on the couch every night.

Oh me.

If I can survive this month, I think I'll be okay. Most of the planning is done, by I fear my sanity may be lost forever.

stress knitting

A year ago, when I first endeavored into the wild and crazy world of sock knitting, I never would have guessed that it would now be known as my comfort knitting. Last night, while watching the US men's under 23 soccer team team play, and I tried to sort out who to invite to the rehearsal dinner while I emailed the wedding photographer, in between crocheting those freaking wedding shower dishcloths, I looked longingly at Nancy Bush's Knitting on the road : sock patterns for the traveling knitter as it sat sadly on my shelf. So, what did i do? i stayed up, with my frazzled nerves and attempted to knit the sock that looked like a whiskey cask until midnight. Well, gentle reader, it didn't. The vikkel braid is not to be trifled with past a certain hour in the evening, I'm afraid.

I did, however, through the glory of ravelry and its free pattern browse, find the Nutkin Sock and shall start on that this weekend. Even though my sage coworkers are advising me to keep on keepin' on with the dishcloths, they do not understand the soul-crushing power that working with that much cotton can bring. Also, there's some sort of peace and solace that concentrating on starting of on that first sock brings, before you get the pattern down. It's just really nice and calming, and just what this over-stressed, planned-to-the-max lady needs!

This + a cup of tea = heaven, this weekend

the harder they come

stats:

• 12 dishcloths completed
• 1 callous developping
• 1 hole in finger
• need to stretch hand on a regular basis
• overwhelming sense of pride that i may actually be ahead of schedule

bummers:

• still have to weave in ends (blerg)
• still have 32 to go

i wish i could say my callous was some rockstar related injury, but alas, it is not. no, it is not from shredding my axe. it's from my US size 8 susan bates needles.

now dear readers, i need some advice. i am planning to finish these dishcloths in the near future, not only to be an industrious knitter, but to also save my sanity. as i've mentioned before, i come from a crafty family, and hand knit thank-you presents would be the perfect gift for the 3 ladies throwing the wedding shower for me. 2 of them are terribly talented quilters, and the other is a jack (jane?) of all crafts. also, if anyone suggests i give them dish cloths, i may just shut this whole operation down (ok, not really).

shawls? i don't have enough time for log cabin blankets, do i? i'm dreamin' big! we can blame that on on glen campbell. he once made me (well, his song did) drive to bowling green, ky just because i was enamoured with that song. ok, so i got lost and ended up in a not so great part of town, but whatever.

PS - don't forget to vote!

40 days and 40 dishcloths

So, it's been a good while, hasn't it? Well, let's just say I have a wedding shower coming up (for yours truly), and I volunteered to knit 40 dishcloths for favors. My mother is sewing some really cute and functional drink coasters. When she mentioned this, my crafty DNA kicked in, and I volunteered to help out. Who doesn't love handknit items? Anyway, I did the math and this means I pretty much have to crank out one of these suckers every night.

Here's the thing: it's the easy peasy dishcloth pattern my grandmother taught me.

Thus far I have 4 done.

36 to go.

Wish me luck.