Swallow this!

I'm totally amazed at how fast I was able to finish this one. It's the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. Only took me a little over a week to do, not counting the blocking. I'm so glad I was able to make something productive out of the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn I originally bought to make the Boteh Scarf. I really thought I could like crochet, but it just looks so yucky to me. So, I went back to knitting and had to find something besides socks to knit with this yarn (since I HATE knitting socks). Yeah, I know, there are all you sock freaks out there and it's great that you love it. But it is the only thing in knitdom that I don't enjoy. I could go into detail as to all the reasons why, but it's not that exciting.

Back to the project, I say! Here it is, on my new IKEA table no less!

If anyone is interested, this is colorway #107, Red Rover. And yes, nupps are evil but I did the 5-stitch nupps called for in the pattern. Thankfully, I knit Continental so I was able to hold the YOs and Knit stitches in place using my right index finger, keeping them nice and loose for the dreaded Purl-5tog on the WS. And I used a size US #5 needle.

So part of the reason I had all this time to knit is because our little girl got spayed last week, so I've been hanging out with her and watching the first week of tennis at the US Open. To keep the dog from licking their wound, they sent us home with this E-collar. We were glad it wasn't the hard plastic kind because it's so irritating for the dog (and therefore, us). But the soft E-collar has it's disadvantages. For one thing, it gets destroyed very easily! I wouldn't even say that Fergie is a fussy dog, but man, her E-collar was ripped up and coming apart at the seams by the end of the second day. So what do her parents do? Yeah, that's right - the good ol' American fix to many household problems... duct tape.

I just had to share the dichotomy between her cute fluffiness and the horrible, ugly duct tape patches all over her giant lampshade/sombrero/lizard hood.

I'm busy...

...and lazy! I've been slackin' on the blogging lately, but I have some good excuses, really! We went to Boise for my sister-in-law's wedding. It was up on the mountains above Boise at Bogus Basin. The color of the sky at night was incredible.

We stayed in downtown Boise, though, so we had to make the 45-50 minute trek up the hill on the very zigzaggy road every day. It was quite nauseating... literally. But the view was worth it, and I also liked staying in town. Wouldn't you know it, there was a cute yarn store right next to our hotel! I picked up a couple balls of Jaeger Silk yarn after seeing the store display of the Shetland Triangle shawl from Wrap Style. Gorgeous!

The weekend before, we met up with Brian of Apizza Scholls in Portland. He generously invited us to come into his kitchen and watch him make dough. Like a total food nerd, I took notes. I've been dying to take another stab at the homemade pizza, but we've been so busy lately that I haven't had the chance. Brian's advice was so helpful and informative, and he even gave us a lovely (and tasty) parting gift! Thanks again, Brian. :)