MAJOR UPDATE

Eric just found out that he was awarded a fellowship from the National Science Foundation!!!!!!!!!! Sooo cool, and it's a friggin fellowship with NSF, which is a HUGE plus with PhD programs! So we're off to celebrate tonight! YIPPIE!!!!!!!!!

Now this is social action knitting

Found these pics recently, they've been floating around the knitting blogosphere. The location is in Copenhagen, and there are more pics with a description (without translation) at the woman's website...
I am completely tickled by the pompom on the gun, the best use of a pompom I've ever seen!

In the Spirit of Spring

What's better that a dyed easter egg? Tee hee a dyed sheep! These people have a lot of patience, as well as a lot of dye. And the sheep's pretty understanding as well...

Turkeys...mother nature's special animal

So I am sitting at my computer the other day, writing one of 4 papers due the next week, and look out the window. Oh cute, here are the turkeys again! Now these turkeys are not your average elementary school ditto cut out turkeys. They look more like the turtle-ducks from super mario brothers...waddling around in a cluster, pecking at the ground near the garden. Notice that I say near the garden. These turkeys are eating all sorts of dirt and grass and stuff, and to watch them I have to look around the bird feeder at the edge of the patio. Now, I know turkeys eat grain and stuff. Even our 5 year old neighbor knows this. Too bad for the turkeys, they don't know this. While they are toiling away the day searching the yard in V-formation for whatever they can find, a food mill is 3 feet from them, thanks to the spring birds. Dumb birds don't know a good thing when they walk around it.

So we are back from easter weekend with Eric's parents. We didn't really go there for easter, but our new niece came up with her parents, who happen to be Eric's brother and sister in law. The baby is super cute, which I can only say cause she really is. I think most babys are rather ugly, especially after the whole squeeze-a-football-through-a-watering-hose thing. But she is not misshapen nor marked in any way. She's awesome, and has a hell of a head of hair already! So we got to spend the weekend drinking wine and watching baby-TV (cause you just can't help it, it's like those animal shows on tv-they're generally not interesting, but every once in a while something really exciting happens). Good weekend all in all!

Mrrow

Silly kitties...it doesn't matter how interesting it looks out there...your staying in here. And yes, Zora really does lay like that all the time. It's her downward dog pose.

Knitting + Bus Ride = yuck

So I did not get much done on any knitting on my 12 hours on the bus to and from Montreal. While I did finish the back and cast on the front panels, connect them, and knit 1 cable repeat, this took me off and on the whole trip up. Why, Sarah, you ask? That's only 5 inches of knitting! And your using bulky yarn on 13's! You should have been flying! What?!?! You didn't even use the two new sets of needles you bought for the arms? Why not? You spent 1 1/2 hours and three different yarn stores to get them! I have discovered that while I can knit on the bus, I can not read. At all. While I am quite sure that the pattern is difficult, I have a hard time believing it is as hard as it seemed while reading and careening 60mph through the NH countryside. Okay, I do think the pattern is not written as well as it could be. Confusion ensues when you combing a cable pattern repeat that has decreases written into it and use that as the cable repeat for the entire garment, NOT all of which has decreases. Part of it has nothing. And part of it has increases. But...in their infinite wisdom, the designer did not simply make one set of directions for the cable repeat and one set for the various shaping needed. They combined them in a wierd way and thus led me to read repeatedly, comparing the back shaping to the front shaping (assuming that they should at least be similar). And I guessed. Yep, I had to guess how to knit the pattern. An educated guess, but still...I will be PISSED if I discover that I did it wrong. I actually may run off to knitty coffeeshop and see if anyone else has made this sweater and can guide me...

Ribbit ribbit

So I finished the whole back to my sweater in two days...then frogged back to the armpit! I am DETERMINED to find a decrease that I like on this thing, and I think I just found it, with assist from my fav folks at knitty coffeeshop. I'm doing K2tog tbl, but slipping the first stitch over then back to untwist (or twist it? it just looks like it lies nicer) it...looking okay so far. I tried to just do k2tog but since there are 4 decreases in a row it gave me a ridge. so I'll probabally finish it again tonight. I'm going to Montreal this weekend with some school friends, so hopefully the 6 hour bus trip won't give me enough time to finish the front too, cause I want to do the sleeves on circulars and I don't have that size. Okay, I'll definitly finish it. No chance it's gonna take me more than 6 hours. Shoot. Where do I find needles a) on my drive to school or b) in Montreal. Hmmm...if I leave work a bit early I'll have just enough time to swing through a yarn shop and make it to the bus on time... I could just get them in Montreal, but I can not drag my friends to a knitting shop cause I'm a poor planner. Besides, there's always Eric's sweater...

Mememememememe

My first one...
Four Jobs I've Had in my Life:
1. Bartender...outdoors, in the Old Port, no liquor (so it's pretty much idiot-proof). Fun job last summer, so much fun that I'm going back this year!
2. Multipacker in shipping...indoors, at christmas, at everyone's favorite Maine retailer. Good $$, decent people, solid end date. The perfect temp job!
3. Activity Therapist...for brain injury rehab and child/adol psych. GREAT people, good work, if you block out the constant threat of state cuts and the resulting inevitability of being fired (yes, at both jobs!).
4. Pool and spa attendant...basically paid to sit and read in between cashiering. Pro: free membership. Con: being at work at 5:30am. The membership was worth the wake up for two years off and on!

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
1. Moulin Rouge...how can you not watch it over and over?
2. Strange Brew...yep
3. James Bond...especially the Sean years
4. Harry Potter...but NOT Goblet of Fire. Suckie. The director should be fed to Fang. (I reserve the right to take this back if they decide to release the much more sensible 5 hour long two disc directors cut)

Four Places I Have Lived:
1. Falmouth/Portland Maine...home now. I consider these one place. This is living with a purpose aka grad school.
2. Brattleboro VT...this is home forever. There is nothing so amazing as feeling the mountains hug you when you drive through them. Eric and I met in Brattlevegas, and we will live there again someday when it's right.
3. Springfield MA...for undergrad. I try and forget this, being secretly glad that I was not a) shot, b) mugged, c) arrested, or d) actually less intelligent upon graduation.
4. Barrington RI...born and raised.

Four TV Shows I Love:
1. CSI
2. Sex in the City
3. Family Guy
4. Simpsons

Four Places I've Been on Vacation:
1. Moab UT...Our "honeymoon" getaway.
2. Ireland...coast to coast in a week with my bro and his future wife. Can't wait to go back!
3. Portland Maine to San Fran...cross country in a yellow VW bug with two of my girlfriends. Thelma, Louise and Louise (but without the murder and car chase part).
4. British Virgin Islands...with the family on a catamaran. Truly amazing (but without the unfortunate wakeboarding crash/ACL explosion disaster)

Four of My Favorite Meals:
1. Sushi/shashimi
2. Lobster, oysters and Cold River Vodka
3. Artickokes boiled and dipped in butter
4. Anything cooked by chef friend Chris.

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
1. Knitty Coffeeshop
2. My own blog, so I can link to all my favorite knitters' blogs
3. You Knit What?!?
4. Yahoo for e-mail and middle america dumb people news

Four Places I'd Rather be Right Now:
1. Ireland
2. Utah...hiking and to visit my little bro and his wife in the bus
3. BVI...just Eric and I
4. Anywhere I don't have to do school reading or papers

A Very Guilty Cast On...

So tonight I start the Penryn Sweater...for me! This will be occurring at the same time that I have not yet finished Eric's sweater. I know I told him that no other major project will be knit before I finish his sweater. I justify my decision because the darn cabled band is taking a light year to finish. I am almost done with the front piece, then I still have to do the whole back piece. The pattern takes much concentration, so I can't just use it as my CSI/Sex in the City knitting. So I am casting on for a more boring stockinette sweater in addidion. I try to not feel bad. Much of my guilt is currently being drowned out by my excitement of knitting something on size 13 needles (aka very fast and instant gratification). But, once I settle into the couch I know his sweater is going to start heckling me...yoo hoo, I'm over here...I won't get finished sitting in the corner...by the time I'm done it'll be winter again...it's only 30 inches of three inch wide cable...your so close yet so far away...
I'll work on it soon, I swear.

The Incredible Adventures of the Recycled Sweater

Here's the yarn I got recently. It was inconveniently knit up already in the shape of a XL Mens LL Bean sweater. I decided that it needed to be a zip up cardigan instead. It's a really pretty double strand twisted rust orange and red, with some green flecks in it. The knitted close up is very close to the real color.