Swivel Base, Where Art Thou?

This past Christmas, Timothy received a very nice electric water kettle. It's the Capresso H2O Plus. It's swank, it's modern and much better looking than the cheap plastic one we've had for several years. There are two pieces, the kettle and the accompanying swivel base that plugs into an outlet. We've used it about three times. In a mad rush to clean the apartment in time for a dinner party, I seperated the two pieces. I placed the kettle piece in the cabinet where it belongs and the swivel base...well, I cleverly hid it so that no one would be able to find it. Isn't that fun? So, it's been about a week and I still can't find it. Yay, for fun ideas!

I feel so terrible. I've looked everywhere for this thing. Timothy was so excited for his new water kettle. Finally something classy that we can leave out on display. And what do I do? I lose the piece that heats up the water. I called the company to see if I can purchase a replacement base. They said that they don't sell that part alone. They sell the kettle, but not the base. You know what the whiz-kid customer support person suggested? She said, "I think you should just have the person look and see if they can find it."

Really? Is that your suggestion? To look for it?? Okay.

I shouldn't cast stones. I'm no more of a genius than she is. I mean, I did in fact separate the two pieces. And the worst part is that as I was doing this, I remember saying to myself, "This isn't a smart thing to do."

For some reason, my hands completely ignored my brain and went off and did their own thing. After that, my mind went blank. I should try hypnosis.

Anyway, I'm still searching high and low. I suppose I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a new kettle *sigh*.

Welcome 2010

Wow, it's been about a year since my latest post. I've been neglecting my blog duties. So what was 2009 like? Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Started knitting a shawl, got laid off, summer started, stopped knitting a shawl, joined Facebook, updated resume, found another job, Michaels, TJ Max and Whole Foods opened up across the street, got a hair cut, went to the Bahamas - overdosed on conch, went to a funeral, went to a friend's wedding, visited my friend 8 hours after she gave birth, had a terrible Halloween, went to another friend's wedding, had an early Christmas in Denver, and last but not least started writing in my blog.

I'm sure there are lots of things in between that I've omitted. If I remember, I'll be sure to add it in.

I haven't knitted in over 6 months. Now that winter smacked me in the face, I started getting an itching for yarn. Today's high is 28-degrees, perfect weather for knitting a chunky baby alpaca scarf. As soon as there's progress, I'll post pictures. For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a stash of Donegal wool. She actually bought it in Donegal, Ireland - where she lives. My father-in-law, gave me a gift certificate to the Lamb Shoppe. Chritmas has treated me very well.

I'm hoping the new year will provide blog-writing inspiration. Here's to 2010. Happy Holidays everyone!

Christmas Gift Finally Complete!

Yes, I know. It's mid-January and I finally finished the Christmas gift I was knitting, as mentioned in my Nov 17 entry. It was a present for Timothy. The good news is, it's a scarf and we're still in the dead of winter. So, it's not that late. Late would be giving it to him on Palm Sunday. So yes. He was very happy with the gift. Especially since he had to borrow my scarf for the past few weeks. It was a much needed gift. There's nothing worse than getting a knitted gift from someone that you absolutely can't use. A pastel-pink toilet paper doily in the shape of a French Poodle, for example. I try to keep my gifts practical, whenever possible.

The scarf has a great pattern that has an old Celtic feel. It was easy enough for me to get through, but intricate enough in detail to impress. There are a few minor mess-ups, but the pattern is so forgiving that you hardly notice them. And with my subpar record for fixing knitting mistakes (see previous entry), it was better that I just moved on.

The hubby loves it. And I'm very happy.

Frogging the Gloves

I am fuming. Fuming! I started knitting some fingerless gloves for a birthday gift. They come in handy in the office for keeping warm, while freeing up your fingers for typing, filing and similar "digits-required" activities. The birthday is coming up this Wednesday. According to the pattern instructions, you can knit these babies in one weekend. Great. Sounds like the perfect gift to me.

I started knitting on Monday. Since I had the day off, I spent a good portion of the afternoon on my project. Hey, not bad. These are coming out pretty nicely. I was about 70% done with the left glove and then all of a sudden, something terrible happened. Honestly, I'm not exactly sure what. I just know that I ended up with too many stitches. Not only too many stitches, but they just didn't feel right. It was very strange and a little difficult to describe.

I'm not very good at ripping out stitches and fixing my mistakes. If I can't make it through all the way in one shot, I'm doomed. Of course there are some minor exceptions. If I knit where I was supposed to purl, I can certainly go back and fix that. If I screw up the pattern on the current row, I can take it out stitch by stitch and fix that. Anything more complicated than that, well, like I said, I'm doomed.


So doomsday arrived and I sat staring at my work for about 15 minutes, trying to come up with SOMETHING. I tried taking out the first couple of rows and picking up the stitches. Didn't work. The stitches kept falling out of their loops. It was a mess. I finally decided to frog the whole thing. It was a sad moment. Very sad indeed.





The birthday is tomorrow and well, obviously, I won't have them done. I'm still determined to make them. But dagnammit! I wanted them to be done. *Sigh*

Michaels in the City

Such exciting news! Michaels craft store will be opening up across the street. No longer do I have to trek out to Queens for an exceptional variety of bargain-priced yarns. I was passing along the street with the hubby and noticed the signage by the construction site. It listed all the retail businesses coming soon. I pointed at the sign and said, "Oh, look. They're opening a Duane Reade, a Borders, a Chase Bank, a [insert quick inhale]."

My eyes widened. Timothy looked up, read the sign and said, "Uh-oh."

I grabbed onto his jacket sleeve and quickly jumped up and down. Not a comment, not a sound, just a spirited bounce that took over me for several seconds. I can't wait! I can't wait! I just hope they have their grand opening before my lease is up.

On another note, I still haven't finished my knitting project that I mentioned in my previous post. It's about 65% completed. It's going to be a very, very belated Christmas gift. I've actually taken the B train back and forth during my lunch break to get some extra knitting done. I'm so close, I can feel it. I promise to post it as soon as it's done.

In Donegal and not a single skein of yarn to show for it

It's four months later and I'm happy to announce that I still have knitting on the brain. Haven't given up the craft just yet. Now that winter is shortly approaching, I feel that I now have a little more incentive. I'm in the middle of a project right now, but I can't talk about it nor can I post pictures as it's a gift for someone who will most likely run into it on my blog. All I can say is that it's half way done and I hope to reveal it to you by the end of December. It's nothing huge nor terribly complicated, but still very cool looking considering my beginner's status.

Just came back from Donegal, Ireland. Was there for about a week. It pains me to say that I was in the area and didn't pick up a skein or two of Donegal Tweed yarn...but that's okay. I have plenty of others in my current stash and frankly, just don't have the room for any more. The trip was lovely, rainy and windy. But evenings were filled with live music sessions from the local pub. Timothy had the opportunity to sneak in a couple of ol' Irish songs during the "open mic" portion. Fun was had by all.

On two separate occasions, we enjoyed a couple dozen oysters fresh from Donegal Bay. Yum. The Guinness, I heard was to die for, but I'm not one to jump in front of a moving bus for a pint, so I just took everyone's word for it.

Hopping Back on the Knitting Bandwagon

Once summer kicked in, my knitting was suddenly put on hold. It's just not as easy to knit in 90-degree weather. My hands get sweaty, the yarn sticks to the needles - it's an awful mess. Unless the air conditioning is on full blast, I have no business picking up needles and yarn. I did however, find a small retreat under the wings of the ceiling fan in my dining room. Turns out it's the only place in the apartment where I can knit comfortably in 90+ temperatures.


With that said, I've started working on my 3rd pair of booties. I'm making it for a couple who I think can truly appreciate funky and wild color combinations. I came across these two yarns and thought, Eureka! This is what I'm looking for!

Together they didn't look so good, so I decided to combine the green with an orange yarn I recently purchased. Sounds funky, sounds groovy. I did one bootie but now I'm not sure if I'm feelin' it. It looks a little crazy, but not the crazy I was going for. But who knows...maybe it works, and I just don't realize it. What do you think? (I haven't seamed it up completely, so you'll still see some random yarn hanging out.)

I'm also in the middle of knitting a cushion. I started it about a month or so ago and as I continued to knit, I realized it was too big. I didn't get too far, only about 10-15 rows, but still enough to feel some pain at the thought of unravelling what I had started. I had to accept my failure, unravel, and start over. I started this weekend and hopefully all will go well. Inspiration for the cushion came from a "Jennifer's Sofa" subway ad. There was a striped cushion made of fabric and I thought...hmmm, I can probably make a knit version of that.

Cushion from the ad

Cushion from the ad (close-up)

In the meantime, I've got plenty of knitting to do and..OH! I almost forgot. Some lady on craig's list was selling a ton of yarn for $1 a skein. ONE DOLLAR! Nice stuff too! So of course I jumped on it and bought 22 skeins. About 5 different kinds. Fun! Fun! Fun! I don't know what I'm going to make with all of it, though. The hubby wants me to make a bikini out of the burgundy eyelash yarn. I dunno...we'll see ;)