Busy, Busy, Busy

Things have been so busy lately. I have not knit in over a week and am going through some serious withdrawals. This week I found a part time job. I will be working for a lady who lives here in Broomfield and sells jewelry. I will be helping her make the jewelry and doing sales as well. She does several trade shows, including the Creative Festival so that should keep me quite busy. I am pretty excited to have this new venture. I was getting a bit bored now that Anthony is in school. The hours are very flexible and I can even do some work from home, so it should be a good thing all around.

Here is the picture I gave Anthony for our Anniversary, just thought I would include it so this post was not picture less.

So, for the next few days I plan to be a busy little bee. I have movers coming today to the old house to move the remaining furniture to the new house. I decided not to leave stuff for staging after all. We didn't have that much stuff to leave anyway, and I miss those items. Then this evening we have to rush to get ready for Anthony's client's holiday party. It is at Buca De Peppo, which means I need a strategy. Every year they serve so much food and I am full by the time the entrees roll around. So this year I am going to concentrate my efforts on salad and desserts. And wine.

I am crossing my fingers that the knitting gods will shine upon me this weekend and I will have time to go to knit knack to meet up with the girls and get some knitting in. I will not be able to attend yet again this Tues, since I will be working, so I am anxious for some good adult conversation as well.

Monday the kitty is getting de-clawed. I have held out for as long as I could, clipping his claws and the like, but he is tearing up our new home and dh has put his foot down. Aww poor kitty. Coit is also coming that day to clean our grubby couch. I didn't realize how dirty it was until we moved out of the cave and into a house with light.

Besides working on Tues. the rest of my week will be spent preparing for Santa Lucia which we are hosting at our house this Thurs. I have no idea how many people will come but I am preparing for a large crowd. Luckily my MIL and Anthony's Aunts will be helping with the food. It is funny that this Italian's family's tradition is to eat tamales on this holiday. Now I can cook some mean Italian food but when it comes to the cuisine of my heritage I must admit I am a bit lost. Wish me luck.

After all this preparation, the rest of the house should be unpacked and ready for more pictures. My craft room is coming along nicely and I can't wait to share! Until then...

Our Anniversary

Sunday was our anniversary. A year goes so fast, and yet I am glad we have made it past the first year. Everyone says it is hard no matter how long you have been together. And while it was a bumpy road at times we have weathered the storms and are eager to begin our second year of marriage. Sat. night was our Holiday party and afterwards we went to the Westin where we had spent our wedding night. We arrived right at midnight and were greeted by champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. It was quite romantic.
Anthony bought me several books, some knitting and spinning, some to help our marriage and a lovely desk calender which features different purse everyday. He knows me so well. I drew him a picture in prismacolors taken from a photo he took of me in Santa Fe early on in our relationship. (it was the year for paper after all.)
Sunday morning we had breakfast in bed at the hotel and spent the rest of the morning snuggling and the like. :) It was a wonderful anniversary and I look forward to many more.

Spinning my heart out.

Well with all the expenses taken on: new house, fixing old house, little A's surgery, holidays etc. something had to go. So I cancelled my Stitch N' Beach cruise. Sometimes it hurts when you have to make adult decisions. But there is always next year. To help cushion the blow I was able to use some of the money I had saved up to buy this beautiful Lendrum spinning wheel. It truly is a joy to spin on. And I have been busy putting it to use.

This is the yarn that I made from the fleece I posted previously.

Our last day of class was dye day. We used all natural dyes: onions skins, walnut husks, kingwood chip and cochineal . We also used three different mordants (iron, alum and copper) which resulted in three shades from the same dye.
My favorite was the color achieved by using the cochineal. Who knew that little bugs could create such lovely colors. I think I will use these small skeins to make some slip stitch hats.
This is the Brown Sheep roving I spun as well. I really like how it turned out, but I have decided that from now on I will only spin roving that is not also available as yarn. It just seems silly to spend all that time spinning something you can buy.
For example, this lovely soy silk merino blend I spun. This is one of a kind yarn that can not be bought anywhere. I love how it candy caned into such pretty combinations.
I ended up with 245 yards of what I would say is sport weight. I want to use it for socks but don't have quite enough. I think I will spin some bright pink to match and use for the toes and cuffs. I think they will be such fun socks.

And lastly this is what I am currently spinning. It is a nice super wash wool that I bought when in Buena Vista. This will probably end up as socks as well. I think it will be some time before I spin enough yarn to make a more substantial project. But for now I am just having lots of fun!

Our new home part two

So I promised I would share pictures on the house now that we are moved in. What follows is the rooms that are currently clean and mostly unpacked. Once I convince the kids to clean their rooms I will post those and if the office and craft room ever gets unpacked those too will be shared. As for our bedroom, well that all depends if the never ending pile of laundry on my bed ceases to be. The entry way. I love all the curtains in the house and the nice big windows.
This is the fabric on the curtains which I just had to share in my delight of their gorgeous red color.
The family room.
We bought the paintings from the previous owner since she had them custom made for that space and I had no idea what I was going to put there. I also don't know what to put in the space where the TV is now once Anthony puts our plasma on the wall above it. Any ideas?
I love these built in shelves in the family room to showcase all our knick knacks.
The island in the kitchen which came with 5 stools. Fate I tell you.
More of the kitchen. Yes those are dirty dishes, pardon me.

The dining room. We still have to move our buffet over from the old house. Along with the piano and Anthony's desk for his office. We will have to use movers since those were the pieces of furniture that were too heavy to move ourselves. So in the meantime I have not unpacked all the things that go in the buffet and we are drinking wine out of juice glass. Oh how gauche. *snicker*
The formal living room. Read wasted space. I was going to put the couch that we are using at the old house for staging in here, but am reconsidering. I think some nice big comfy chairs with a table and a good lamp would be nice and then it can be the library. The fore mentioned piano will go in this room as well.
The back patio area.
The deck. I love the built in lights.
And finally the back of the house. The awnings will be particularly nice in the summer. I am so glad the yard is landscaped already. They did a really nice job. We are so thrilled to be living here and it is starting to feel like home.

Halloween Blog

Better late than never right?

We had a wonderful Halloween, complete with mucho trick or treating in our new neighborhood, which I must say is full of generous people. Anthony made out with quite the haul.

He went as the green Power Ranger and looked awfully cute, I mean tough.

Big Anthony went as Dog the Bounty Hunter and I could not stop laughing, I do believe that at one point I really was rolling on the floor.
Maddie was the cutest little devil I have ever seen.
She did shop for her costume in my closet and I think I have come to the realization that if the corset fits Maddie I will never fit in it again.

Anthony and myself. I was a candy corn, simply because I have no imagination. I was unable to get a picture of Ian since he left in the morning before I was awake and then refused to put the costume back on for pictures. But I will report that he was quite entertaining dressed in a giant foam penguin suit. It was a very merry Halloween.

So much spinning so little blogging.

I know I have been a bad blogger lately. My life has been pretty busy and last week I was sick most of the week. :( I miss my knitting group and am excited to see everyone tomorrow night. I still have yet to post pics from the weekend in Buena Vista but wonder if it is perhaps too late? What do you think, have you seen enough pics from that weekend or should I go ahead and post some?

I finished my spinning class on Sat. It was so much fun and I really learned a lot. I have been spinning so much lately that my knitting has fallen behind. I will post some pics on a future post of my yarn which I am quite proud of. For now here is what I am knitting currently.

This is the Minimalist Cardigan in the Fall Interweave Knits. I am using Mountain colors Twizzle and love love love this yarn. Of course it is my favorite color, it seems I have a lot of red yarn projects in my quere.
This is the cute little Buster sweater in Rowan Babies that I am making for a friend's little one. I hope to finish it this week and ship it off. I am still not sure if I like intarsia.
And here is the jawbreaker that I failed to post pics of when I finished it back in Sept. Boy I really am behind. My darling 5yo took this pic. I ran out of yarn so the sleeves are shorter and the collar smaller, but I do love this sweater.
Up close.

I used seed stitch for the edges which curled a lot less than the ribbing.

I also have been busy reading. While sick I read two books and just finished a 3rd today. They were all by Anita Shreve and although they were all set in different time periods the characters all lived in the same house. I had owned several of her books but had never read anything by her. I am now a fan. It has been quite some time since I have read since I am always knitting or spinning and have re-awakened my zeal for the past time. I am going to make it a point to try to read a book at least every two weeks from now on. So what should I read next? I think I will start A Thousand Spendid Suns tomorrow.

Back from Hiatus

Wow, I have really fallen behind in blogging. So be prepared for a picture heavy update. We moved at the beginning of the month. After much stress we are in and mostly unpacked. It is so nice to be in a much bigger house, a whole 2000 sq. ft bigger than our old one. But amazingly we have already filled it. Hence the necessity of the move. We were so squished. I love love love this house. It is so bright and open. The kids each have their own bathroom, I have a craft room and Big A has an office.
The fountain in the front drew me in the first time we looked at the house. It isn't that clear but it is a boy and girl under an umbrella.
This was our first meal in the gorgeous kitchen. Chipotle eaten while the inspection was being done.
And here is the first thing I knit here. The dream swatch headband, which I now realize I forgot to take pictures of the finished project. A fun fast knit. I will have to take more pics of the house now that we are all moved in. Perhaps Thurs after the cleaning lady comes. I just spent a weekend away and the house is less than spotless. Oh and about that weekend, it was heaven. I will blog on that tomorrow.
I have also been busy learning to spin. I love it! The class I am taking from Maggie at Shuttles is so much fun. I have learned an amazing amount in the three weeks we have completed so far. This is the fleece she sent us home with the first week. Boy did it smell like a sheep, which is not surprising given this is wool right after shearing.
Little Pablo gave it a good sniff.
And here it is after washing. Quite the difference indeed.
Oops I go the photos out of order and can't seem to fix them. This is it spun on a drop spindle which should come after the next two pictures. Crap, this is out of order too, this come after the next pic. These are the rolags that are a result of the carding seen below. These are then spun into yarn.

Carding.


And finally yarn spun on the spinning wheel. This week we are going to learn to ply it. And our final class will be dying which I am so eager to do. I have also spun some gorgeous ruby Brown Sheep roving that I will post pics of when it is plied. So that is a quick update. More to come soon.

Productive Weekend

Ahh the joys of moving. Nothing is more fun than fixing up your house for someone else. We spent the weekend putting a new roof on the house. Well we didn't put the roof on, we left that to skilled tradesmen under my FIL's supervision. He is the one manning the skid loader below. It is nice to have a family member who owns a skid loader, they come in mighty handy. Those pallets of roofing tiles weighed 1000s of lbs.
It is amazing how fast those guys worked. They had the old roof off in no time flat.



This gives you an idea of the before.

And the after.

I spent the entire time inside packing. Ugh. We have sooo much stuff to pack. About half of it ended up in a pile for a garage sale and goodwill. Little A is going to have to go to Grandma's for the garage sale so he doesn't see how many of his toys I am selling. He doesn't play with any of them so I know he won't miss them as long as he isn't witness to their departure. Not much knitting related news. I went to a friends house Sat. night to watch the UFC fights and forgot my knitting. :( It was tragic. I am not a big UFC fan, shocking I know. I was routing for all the cute guys to win and they all lost. Sunday evening after packing Maddie's room and most of the playroom, Maddie and I escaped for a couple hours of well earned knitting time at Starbucks. Today we have the inspection on the new house and I hoping to finish packing the playroom. I am starting to understand why moving is in the top 10 stressors list.