So. You know my pretty lightbox picture of my sweater? I'm really glad I posted it, because I realized after reading my comments that I was knitting the Minimalist Cardigan WRONG. oops. I guess I should read the pattern, eh? I read about it on blogs/Ravelry and I kept reading seed stitch, seed stitch ... so I just forged ahead with regular old seed stitch.

That is not right. It's a seed stitch pattern. D'oh. I emailed Veronique to thank her for her comment and I think she felt bad - but seriously, I'm glad! I love the way the cardi looks with the actual pattern as written, so I'm glad I realized it now instead of later.

So I r-r-r-ripped that sucker. And I read the pattern. and started again.

ahh. that's better.

This is my take-everywhere knitting, so it's slow going, but I love it.

I've also been knitting away on Emily's Mingus raffle socks. I've got two socks done to the heels, and I've turned the heel on Sock One. I love this pattern! I think they are going to be awesome, and I think I might have to knit a pair for myself. Like that'll ever happen. But a girl can dream.

Let's see. What else is new? I went to Mississippi last weekend to see Jacob's grandparents and his mom and celebrate Easter good times. Here's what I learned in Mississippi this weekend: if you go to the grandparents' church on Easter Sunday, you might have to sing a special. Don't try to avoid it. Just sing it.

Practicing for the special. I played the piano and sang low harmony, and my sister-in-law Alison sang lead. We're like a family band.

We also ate dinner at Catfish Country, which features an all you can eat buffet (with catfish), and lots of friendly people. One waitress was so friendly, in fact, that she and her family sang a spur-of-the-moment song for everyone in the restaurant. The video isn't that great, but listen to the audio...

Dude. They were rockin' awesome.

My stomach has almost recovered from all the Mississippi fried goodness. Now it's back to work, and school, and lots and lots of Flash programming. Soooo much Flashy flash, for both work and school. At least I'm getting better at it. There's also been lots of Ravelry, and lots of TV (who's watching American Idol? Carly is my favorite. and oh we started watching BSG. LOVE.) and quilting too.

I have actually quilted my first little quilt, and I'm trying to find the time to do the binding. I did it on my machine, used a walking foot and everything, like a fancy pants machine quilter. SO FUN. I can't wait to do the binding and have it finished and then start the whole process over again.

I've been taking lots of pictures, too, since I'm doing the 365 Days project on Flickr. Here's a recent one that is very representative of my week:

I need coffee. EVERY. MORNING.

It's been a long week, but tomorrow is Friday and I'm going to see Girl Talk and sew and knit this weekend! yayayayayayay. Now I'm off to lurk on the Rav forums...

Posted by Carrieoke at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Seriously, Georgia, WTF? This weather is incredible. Last week we saw 60 - 70 degree temperatures, followed by tornado watches, followed by snow flurries. It is insanity. March is usually a pretty stormy month in Georgia, but this is weirdness. I know there are some massively dangerous winter storms out there right now, so I pretty much have no right to complain, but it's just WEIRD. And I'm really, really scared of thunderstorms and tornadoes, as are both of my dogs.

I'm also just ready for spring. The cold and I, we are not friends.

Sigh. At least there have been some outrageously beautiful days in the mix.

I have been so busy with school and work! Luckily, I've had some cool projects at work lately, so I'm okay with the busy. I sort of like the busy, even. Tomorrow, I'm taking pictures for a client, and I needed a way to get some great macro shots, so I got to do something I've been wanting to try for a while - make a lightbox! I used this tutorial and was very inspired by Lolly's tutorial also. In my work, we often need very clear macro shots with backgrounds that are easy to take out, and this seemed like the way to go.

I used stuff that we had laying around the office - some foamcore, shipping tape, and a box cutter. To set it up, I grabbed one 650 watt studio light and just start shooting to see what things looked like. Of course, I used my knitting for some test shots. :)

My Minimalist Cardigan

yay! full disclosure: the color is WAY OFF in this picture. The actual yarn is a burgundy red. I'll have to play with white balance and camera settings to make things look just right. But overall, this was the effect I was going for. I'm excited about using it tomorrow for work (and continuing to test it by bringing some more of my knits in for a photo shoot. hee.)

And, as you can see, I started knitting the Minimalist Cardigan. I decided to brave the seed stitch, and I'm so glad I did - I love the texture. It does move really, really slowly, though. It's good bring-everywhere knitting, and also good TV knitting (as long as I look down occasionally to make sure I'm not knitting ribbing instead of seed stitch).

I'm also working on the socks for my raffle winner! After we emailed, I decided to knit her a pair of Mingus socks. Dude. I love this sock pattern. It took me a little while to get the hang of the pattern - and I definitely still need the chart - but it's super interesting and gratifying, because the longer it gets, the cooler the pattern looks. I hope they turn out well!

Mingus progress.

I'm about 1/4 of the way done with Jacob's second sock, but I put it on hold for the Mingus socks because I needed my size 1 Addi Turbos. I think I'll be done with these pretty quickly though - they are fun, so they go fast.

Well, I'm off to finish the laundry and play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii. I'm not usually good at fighting games, but I loves me some Super Smash Bros.

Posted by Carrieoke at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)

You guys are freakin' awesome.

Our spelling team, The Triplets, raised the most money of all the teams at the Spelling Bee! We raised $705 for the Athens Clarke Literacy Council. The folks from the Council were so excited -and we totally earned our mulligan for the Spelling Bee.

The Triplets thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated. There were eleven teams in the Bee. We were the only team in the Bee that wasn't officially sponsored by an organization, and we still raised the most money. (We decided that we should've said we were "sponsored by the Internets".) THANK YOU THANK YOU!

The Bee! Well, we didn't win, but we DID come in third. The competition was fierce. We used our mulligan on the word empleomania. (We started it with an 'i', dang it.) Then, we got out on the word escutcheon.

Spelling is serious business.

The winning team spelled the word 'kwashiorkor' correctly. DUDE. the last round was super hard - the two final teams kicked ass.

So it was a blast, and we totally want to do it again next year. I was SO nervous - but after we realized we weren't going to be the FIRST team out, we felt better. And of course, it was all for a really awesome cause!

Right before we got eliminated.

Now, on to the raffle!

I put all the names of the donaters on a spreadsheet. For every $5 you donated, you got your name on the spreadsheet one time. (So $15 = 3 times, etc.) Each name had a number by it. My sister Cathy went to a random number generator, and we randomly generated a number to select the winner.

And the winner is:

(drum roll..............)

Congratulations, Emily! I'm sending you an email to get your foot measurements and other important info so I can start on your socks.

Thank you again to everyone who donated! Next time, we'll return to our regularly scheduled knitting blog - I might show you a finished man sock and the start of a cardigan.

Posted by Carrieoke at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)