Secret Projects

I never post about secret projects until I can show them because I HATE when people say, "I have a secret project I'm working on, but I can't show you for 3 months." Why do people do that to me? Don't they know I hate suspense? I'm the person that refused to read any Harry Potter books until the last one was published long enough to be readily available at the library. I was not willing to wait even a week to find out what happens next, forget about years.

Anyway, back to the secret knitting. After many years of practicing (wink, wink), Paula from my SnB is having a baby! Yay!! A few of us got together last night to shower her with all kinds of yummy handmade goodies. Here's my contribution to the loot:

It's a Jasper's Pucksack, aka Baby Kicking Bag. I, of course, didn't know about the "aka" part until last night when Paula opened Audrey's gift and it was the same exact pattern. Heh, heh. I'm a little slow.
Obligatory monkey shots:


At least I was original with one thing--I was the only one who made her Nine Inch Nails onesies!

The yarn on the baby sack is Happy Feet by Plymouth (I love the crazy zig zags it made!), and the onesies are just Gerber Organics with a homemade iron-on made from a Googled image. I'm sure there's some copywright violation involved somehow, but I didn't earn any money from them, just big smiles from Paula. :)

On another note, I got Custom Knits in the mail the other day, and am having the hardest time picking out what to make first. I like all of the patterns, and LOVE most of them. Any suggestions?

FO: Twilight Mitts

Check it out! I'm a gold medalist in Colorwork Cross-country!

My Ravelympics project was the Winter Twilight Mitts from Knitting Daily. I had some yummy purple Koigu in the stash for the purple parts, but had to track down some good solid black sock yarn for the "trees" parts. I found some Jawoll at Creative Fibers on my lunch hour one day and decided to give it a try. I'm officially a fan. It has this little spool of matching reinforcement thread inside the skein for heels & toes. Too cool! I didn't need it for this project, but it's good to know for the future. Oh, right, you want to see the FO:

The pose is a copy of the Twilight book cover, in case you don't get the reference.
The front view:

You can kind of see that one is slightly longer than the other. I didn't knit any extra rows, just kind of knit a little more loosely on the second mitt, so now I have one that's slightly bigger than the other. I don't mind. I'll use that one on my right hand so I have more dexterity on that side.

By the way, I have a cute story for you guys. A few months ago, the weather was changing, which made my sinuses go crazy. I was out fabric shopping, and I stopped to get some Sudafed so my brain wouldn't implode. I just threw the Sudafed in a bag with my fabric purchases and didn't think about it again -- until last week. I woke up with a pounding headache and could not get out of bed to get myself anything to help it. I asked Joe to get up & get it for me & had to try to explain where I thought the Sudafed might be. After the 7th (!!) bag, he finally found it, but it was too late; my fabric stash was totally exposed. I have a feeling some sort of motorcycle parts purchase is in my future now so he can get even with me. ;)

Playing Catch Up

Hi there! I was going to wait to make a new post when I had a new FO to show, but since there are none, I figured I'd post what I've been up to in the meantime. I entered the Ravelympics on Team Twilight with the Twilight Mitts from Knitting Daily. Here's how much I have so far:

I have also been working on the ever-exciting stockinette in the round Salina, when I can stand it:

That's about it in knitting news. My sewing mojo has taken a hiatus for some reason, so nothing at all to show there.

In other news, Joe & I went to Virginia last weekend for my mom's 60th birthday *surprise* party. She was surprised to see everyone she knew, as she thought she was just going to a casual cookout at a friend's house. HOWEVER, when she saw Joe and me, she SCREEEEEAAAAAAAMMMED bloody murder! She screamed for like 15 seconds solid. This gave her a migrane & she had to go lay down. So, no more surprise visits from Joe & Jenny. Next time, we'll warn her. Here we are when it was still funny:

For her gift, I made her a little hat that she saw at MD S&W that she had a fit over:
We stayed a couple days more in VA and then came home for Joe's birthday on Thursday. I got him Kid Rock/Lynyrd Skynyrd concert tickets, so he was a happy boy! Then on Friday we went to Cape Cod & Martha's Vineyard for the weekend. We had the motorcycle trip from HELL on Friday getting there (thanks a LOT, weatherman! "isolated" thunderstorms? for 4 hours straight? HA!) But once we were there, we had a really nice time. I loved the little gingerbread house village on MV:

So cute! And, we both LOVED Nancy's clam shack in Oak Bluffs:

I took this picture so we could remember where to go next time we're there. So, I am sufficiently tired and sore from riding the Harley for 3 days straight and just might take a nap under my desk if no one is looking. ;)
Other than the Kid Rock concert, I have no plans for the next 3 weekends, so I should have some sewing time coming up. I'm dying to finish my purple swimsuit top, as I have it all cut out & ready, but have had zero time to do anything with it. Stay tuned!