My Family Is So Classy.Me: "Hey, Bro, Want to Hear Some Good News? You're Going to Be an Uncle!" Bro: "So, What? You Got Knocked Up?"

Yep! I've joined the ranks (sisterhood?) of pregnant knit bloggers. It's quite surreal, even though having a family of my own is something I've wanted since I was a little girl. I'm at the very tail end of the first trimester and holding on to the hope that what everyone says is true: once you hit the second trimester, you regain your energy and feel human again! (oh please oh please oh please!) Wouldn't that be something? To have the energy to knit and blog again? Wow. In the meantime, pass the orange juice and saltines. Cheers!

Giving Thanks

I'm thankful that I have so many loving friends and family members that live near me.

I'm thankful that I have a job that pays me well enough to live in relative comfort and warmth, and that feeds my soul at the same time.

I'm thankful that the children I work with are generous, considerate, and caring; they are wrapping up their annual canned food drive and I've just packed up a sack of food to add to their contributions.

I'm thankful that I have a warm roof over my head, electricity and gas to keep myself fed and warm, and a cozy bed to snuggle up in at night.

I'm thankful that I have a warmhearted, kind, and thoughtful husband with whom I can do that snuggling!



We'll be sharing Thanksgiving with my in-laws this year. Here's what I'm contributing to our dinner: two of my favorite recipes from Bon Appetit. If you need something to bring to a dinner, both of these recipes are fabulous and quite easy. I often double the potato recipe if there's going to be a big crowd.

Cranberry and Dried Cherry Sauce
Scallop Potatoes With Gouda and Fennel

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American pals! I hope you'll spend your day with those you love.

Score!

Yay! Mail!



Have you ever shopped at the ArtFibers site? It reminds me of a friend of a friend who is an absolute artistic genius and who put her own portfolio together. The portfolio is chock full of Gorgeous art and Unique designs, but could have been stapled a little tighter or the pencil marks erased a little more completely. I'm so not complaining. I loved browsing their stuff. They use Flash, which is so cool, but the site doesn't perform quite as smoothly as it could.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I decided, after all of your input, to make the Corkscrew Scarf from Loop D Loop for my favorite future SIL. I thought it would be perfectly lux in some ArtFibers Kyoto. I decided that simply via word of mouth. I've never seen the stuff, just googled and read other folks' reviews and took their word for it. I hoped there'd be a pretty turquoisy blue, which is FFSIL's favorite color. I picked the blue that most appealed to me... wasn't really turquoisy looking, but I thought I'd chance it anyway.

Look at what I got:



I couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect combination of fibers (silk/mohair/wool), gauge, color, texture for this scarf. It's So Rich. It's even better than I hoped it would be. It's the perfect shade of turquoise, too. Sadly, photography (indoors in the evening in Seattle) does not do this yarn justice. Thank you so much, ArtFibers!

See, just like the genius artistic friend of a friend, the product is even more than I could have imagined, website/portfolio wonky or not. And maybe it was just my Mac that didn't like to interface? Who knows. I'm thrilled and will go back for sure! I can't work with this fabulous yarn without coveting *something* out of it for myself!

Bring on the Diamonds

Your Birthdate: November 14

You work well with others. That is, you're good at getting them to do work for you. Maybe that's why I became an elementary school teacher....? It's true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy! You're dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around. But you're so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long. Your strength: Your superstar charisma Your weakness: Commitment means nothing to you Huh? This about the girl who could never bring herself to break up with awful boyfriends and always wants to make things work out? Thank goodness I met my husband; he's stuck with me forEVER!! Your power color: Fuchsia Your power symbol: Diamond Your power month: May It's true, I'm always attracted to those dang Tauruses Taurii Bulls.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

ISO: Perfect Scarfy Gift

So my future SIL (in all of our dreams, BIL will finally decide to settle down with wonderful, amazing, best thing that ever happened to him, girlfriend) alluded to the fact that she'd love a knitted scarf for Christmas.

She's a mid-late twenties, indie/emo type of girl, who bartends and goes out a lot. Favorite color is turquoise. I'm thinking, she needs either something "cool" or something "bulky/soft", but definitely not something twee. Any ideas?

I like Diana's Steam pattern and I think it would be great in some soft Alpaca or wooly goodness.

However, I am *very* open to suggestions... help?