hi there! My semester is finally, finally over. I have some tiny things left to do (burn a project on CD for my professor, that sort of thing) but mostly I'm done. and it feels NICE. ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I even had time to finish the Mingus socks! I gave them a bath last night, and they are blocking on a towel right now. Once they are dry, they will be traveling to see Miss Emily, woo-hoo!!!

I posted on Flickr, and the thumbnail apparently looked like I was washing spinach. or maybe kale. hee.

I am so happy with these socks. I am also glad they are not in my size, so I'm not tempted to do a switcheroo and send Emily so Wal-Mart tube socks instead of these. (I AM TOTALLY KIDDING.) And these are officially my FIRST finished object of 2008! isn't that insane? Hi, it only took me almost 5 months to completely knit something. I AM SLOW.

So, I picked up an old unfinished object so my next finished project will be gratifying and quick. It's Anais. When you last saw her, she looked like this:

This is a front.

I'm now up to the shoulders on the back, and then I'll be seaming her up. I'm still trying to decide what to do about the sleeves. I'm not really feeling the sleeves on the original pattern, so I'm thinking about some cap sleeves instead. Or, maybe just making it a sleeveless top? Opinions?

Speaking of opinions, let me get yours on another little situation. A fabulous blog friend from back in the day (thanks, Vanessa!) emailed me this week because of a little sign she saw when she was shopping at AC Moore:

Wait a minute....

This is a sign advertising their knitting classes - notice the Carrieoke cartoon on the sign?

Now, my dear friend Mary Jessica drew that for me years ago, and it's been on my blog for a long time. At first we were like, HEE! that is funny. And then we thought about it...and they should've asked, ya know? Mary Jessica is a writer and an illustrator, and her work belongs to her. I'm totally assuming the best here and thinking that whoever downloaded the cartoon just didn't realize that it wasn't free clipart.

So, what should we do? For starters, I'm going to make it clearer on my site that the illustration belongs to Mary Jessica, and that it's not okay for people to take. (I think I might add a copyright statement to the bottom of the actual image.) And actually, in this case, I probably would've been okay with it (after checking with Mary Jessica), as long as they credited MJ at the bottom of the image.

But, I think we should communicate to whoever borrowed it that it's not okay to just download it and use it, just so they know for future reference. It seems like a letter would be the best way to go about it - what do you think? I do think it's cool that they liked the drawing enough to want to use it on their sign, BUT, they should have asked.

So. bizarre!

Well, I'm off to enjoy this lovely Saturday. I'm going to knit some, and maybe even put a border on my quilt. It's so awesome to not have schoolwork to think about. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

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 (10)

...for a quickie raffle.

Here's the deal. This weekend, I'm participating in a charity spelling bee: The Spirited Spell-Off Spectacle. Oh yes, a spelling bee. It's a team spelling bee with my twin sister Cathy and my friend Chip. The event is a fundraiser for the Athens Clarke Literacy Council. They promote and support adult literacy in Athens, Georgia, where I live.

As a former English major and a big nerd, I am REALLY excited about being a spelling bee. (I may possibly still have all my spelling bee trophies from grade school.) My equally nerdy sister, who is a high school English teacher, is also really excited. Our team (The Triplets) has been vigorously training for this event.

However, even the best spellers will sometimes meet a word that they can't spell correctly....( For example: 'bouillon'. Eighth grade. Archdiocesan spelling bee. Not that I'm bitter.)

That's where the raffle comes in!

At this team spelling bee, the six teams that raise the most money for the Athens Clarke Literacy Council are granted a mulligan, which means you can miss one word and still stay in the competition. So, we've been raising money to support our team. Any amount you can afford will help us, and it all goes to a great cause - promoting and supporting adult literacy.

So, here's what I'm thinking. Every $5.00 donation will get your name in a drawing. At the end of the raffle, I'll randomly pick a name, and I'll knit the winner a pair of socks in your favorite colors. All the money donated will go directly to the Athens Clarke Literacy Council.

That's it! Wouldn't you love a pair of handknitted socks that you don't even have to knit? If so, just click the button below and buy yourself a raffle ticket.

------------------------------------------------
THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your donations! I'll post about the bee and the raffle winner on Sunday!
----------------------------------------------

(The paypal link will say chip@athenstown.com - that's us!) Once you've donated, please send an email at carrieokeknits@gmail.com and let me know your name, email address, and the amount of your donation. The raffle will be open until Saturday morning at 9:00 am EST.

Thanks for letting me use my blog for shameless spelling bee fundraising.

Spelling Nerds!

Posted by Carrieoke at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

It's been two weeks since my last post. I think about posting all the time - things I want to say, pictures I want to put up, hilarious anecdotes that I want to share. Har. and then I have to, like, work.and study. and sleep. I really, really want to post more for a totally selfish reason: I like to look back at my posts and remember what I was doing a year ago. When I only post twice a month, it's not really a good picture of what was going on. I used to post like every other day. Geez.

So, that's my story about how I want to post more. The End.

Jacob and I just got back from a park - the Athens Astronomical Society set up some frickin' huge telescopes and we watched the lunar eclipse. It was fabulous. One of the telescopes was so huge that you could actually hold your camera up to it and take a really nice picture of the eclipse.

We forgot our cameras. D'oh! But Jacob had his iPhone, so we have one kinda okay picture from that.

Eclipse.

Hooray! The moon was a really pretty tea color. They also had a telescope on Saturn, which totally looked like a sticker someone had slapped on the end of the telescope. Very cool.

In others news, my progress on the Drops sweater has sort of stalled. The sleeves are bothering me, and I don't feel like figuring out how to fix them. There are tons of ends to weave in, and I haven't picked out buttons. Harumph. I think I'm going to let it sit for a little while and come back to it. I've been working steadily on Jacob's sock, bur I think it's time for a new project.

so, what to knit? I want to make something I can wear to work. And I want to make something that's with worsted weight (or thinner) yarn. It also needs to be not 100% wool, because it's just not a realistic fiber for Georgia.

I really love the Minimalist Cardigan in the Fall 2007 Interweave - [ Ravelry link ], but hi, the body is moss stitch. I don't know if I can handle an entirely moss stitch sweater. I think I would wear the crap out of it, though. hmm.....need to check the stash.

Any suggestions for a new spring-y knit?

I've been posting to Flickr lots - I'm doing 365, which means I post a picture of myself every day for 365 days. I started on January 2, so even in this leap year, it's still 365. Here's today's:

Lunchy.

Things I've learned so far:
1. Natural light is good.
2. Flash, not so much, usually.
3. I have wrinkles around my eyes.
4. I know nothing about how cameras work, or taking good pictures.

But, I guess that's why I'm doing 365, right? To learn how to take better pictures?

Posted by Carrieoke at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

So, our dogs got into it again. Both dogs are fine - albeit a little scratched up. Gah. and also Sigh. Bella has been trying to get at her wounds, and consequently, she has to wear this:

Bella is mad.
(sorry for the psychedelic black and white, but the lighting was bad and I wanted you to see her face.)

The vet recommended putting a t-shirt on her. I promise I didn't do that for my own amusement. Although we did giggle. A lot. Poor schmoo.

I'm not going to talk about the doggy situation because I'm sad and it's lame and that's that. Harumph.

I will talk about socks instead.

Stripey socks for my sock pal! The Fiber Denn yarn is turning out fabulously. I lovelovelove the stripes...

Green + black = STRIPEY FUN TIMES.

I'm actually even further than this now. What do y'all think is a good length for socks (from the ankle up, I mean?) I can't decide. I'm about 10 stripes up the leg right now. I love these socks! I might be a toe-up convert, for real. And the fun thing about this yarn is the striping looks so nice that it's almost *better* with a plain old sock.

The sock also went to band practice with me on Monday:

Rock out with your sock out. Har.

My band is playing at Athfest next weekend, so we decided that a practice was in order. (The Bling Boyz do not have any sort of organized practice situation. Bless their hearts.) I discovered that the leg of a purely stockinette toe-up sock is the BEST practice knitting ever. I might have to knit on stage.

If I knit on stage, I will hopefully look much cuter than this.

In other news: I'm taking two summer classes, and they are keeping me busy. I'm taking two this summer in hopes that I can only take one in the fall (or maybe none) when I'm about to get married. We'll see how it goes...

Posted by Carrieoke at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (28)

I'm very, very close to finishing BigHeadSchmoo's very first handknit sweater: Trellis.

Seaming.

And here is a sock monkey wearing an almost finished Trellis.

All I have left to do now is pick up the stitches for the cute seed stitch collar, and put some buttons on it. And take a gazillion pictures of my nephew wearing it. OH BOY! His first birthday party is this weekend... It seems like this was only yesterday.

Time flies.

In other crafty news, I may have been dabbling in some sewing. Er, quilting. Well, I'm not quite to the quilting part yet. I guess I'm piecing. A while ago, my lovely sister Michelle gave me an enormous stack of Amy Butler sampler squares, and I'm using some of them to play. Disclaimer: I don't know much about quilting. For now, I'm just practicing cutting things and sewing in a straight line.

Log cabin. Sort of.

Pieces.

One day, I will actually make a large quantity of squares, sew them together, and make a quilt.
Until then, I will play and cut and sew, and maybe make a pillow. Or a dress for a sock monkey.

It's been very nice lately: work is quiet, it's hot outside, our flowers are blooming, and most major decisions about our wedding are made. That leaves more time for knitting and playing the Wii with Jacob. And watching ridiculous amounts of television. That's what summers are for.

Now, if you're feeling curious, click on the extended entry for 8 random things. I was tagged by Jeanne of Knitty Banter, and I'm feeling sort of random today, so here ya go!

Continue reading "Finishing" »

Posted by Carrieoke at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (38)

It was so beautiful this weekend! I had lots of schoolwork to finish up, but that didn't stop us from doing some gardening. People, I love to plant things. When Jacob mentioned going to shop for some stuff for the yard, I almost didn't go with him because I immediately thought, BO-RING. But hello! So. not. boring! and now I can't stop researching flowers to put in flower boxes and thinking of new thing we can plant in our yard. ohboyohboy.

I'll spare you the pictures of our newly planted flower boxes (although I'll probably post some once they're blooming.) I actually have pictures of a finished Morehouse Merino shawl...

It's about time I took at picture of this.

and here's the wingspan shot:

I actually already have another Morehouse kit on the needles - it's just knitknitknit, which is just the kind of project I like to carry around in my purse. Knitknitknit.

And here's what else I've got on the needles...

Trellis for the BigHeadSchmoo.

My nephew is about to turn one - can you believe it? For his first birthday, Aunt Scary is knitting him his very own fabulous cabled sweater. I hope it fits! One sleeve and two fronts to go.

And I couldn't resist the call of the chevron:

Chevron Scarf in Socks That Rock.

I was inspired by Ashley's first Chevron scarf, and then I happened to win some mediumweight Socks That Rock in Ashley's blog contest, and then I saw this lovely version on Domesticat. Non-curling edges? I'm sold.

I'm using Socks that Rock in Nodding Violet and Rare Gems. These colors are working so beautifully together - I want to turn all of my variegated sock yarn into yummy delicious scarves.

Yes, I know that's three different projects. I can't make up my mind sometimes. I have two sweaters I really want to finish too (my Kim Hargreaves kit and my Must-Have) but I just can't handle sweater knitting when it's getting hot like this. My KH sweater is a cotton blend, so I might just work on that after this Trellis is done. So many choices...

This weekend: family reunion and silent auction. Good times.

Posted by Carrieoke at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

So, I started training for my second half-marathon in January (as mentioned in this post). My training started out pretty well, and I ran at least twice a week mostly and tried to keep up with my long runs, but life got busy (wedding planning and school and other life-in-general stress) and I lost track of how much time I had before the race, and I didn't feel ready. (Not feeling ready could also be a teensy bit of laziness on my part. Just a TEENSY bit.)

So I decided not to run the race. I would go to Atlanta, and cheer on Anne Marie and my friend Cheryl, and just be a spectator. Cathy would be a spectator too, since she is just recovering from bronchitis and really shouldn't run 13.1 miles right now.

Yesterday was that half-marathon.

And I totally ran it!

I think I was scared to run because I knew I wouldn't improve from my first race, and I didn't want to feel like a failure. But my sister Cathy (that sneaky, sneaky girl) was all, "Why don't we just run a little, and see how we feel? We won't run the whole thing..."

Here's me and Cat before the race:

Yeah. She tricked me.

And then it was just FUN. Beautiful day, beautiful course. We took it easy, not running too hard, pushing ourselves every now and then. It was so much fun, laughing and running with my sister, watching all the other runners and the spectators. We kept a good pace, and Cathy didn't let me slack too much. We even got to see the lead runners because the marathon course crossed paths with the half marathon course at several points - that was AWESOME. Dude. They were kicking so much ass - it was really motivating. At mile 8, Cathy wisely decided to stop, and so she did. But she was like, "Finish the race." And I kept going. And I finished!

Here's my medal.

I might have more pics of the race eventually, but I didn't bring my camera -- I assumed I would have access to it later since I wouldn't be finishing the race. Ha. Next time, I'm going to be more serious about my training, but it was nice to do a race in a very stress-free sort of way.

[Note: since I'd done a half before, I felt okay running it even though I didn't feel completely ready. I am in NO WAY advocating just waking up the morning of a half-marathon and deciding to try and run it. You gotta train, baby. I guess the point is: I wasn't motivated to run it, even though I physically was ABLE. And my sister and Cheryl and AM helped me get motivated -- that morning!]

In general, that's the kind of runner I am. I don't like to get caught up in my time because I'm a slow schmoo, and if I'm not enjoying something, I'm just not gonna do it. So, I try to keep running fun and light and not a competitive thing. (Now, that's just me. My friends (coughcough Cheryl and AM and Cathy coughcough) who are fast schmoos do things differently, and I like that. Cheryl rocked the half, and AM rocked the FULL, and I'm so proud of them. Cheryl finished almost an hour before me and when I was coming around that last bend, I saw her waiting, and she ran me into the finish line, which totally rocked. She even cheered me past a couple of runners.

Woo-hoo! Team Schmoo rocks.

In other news - knitting news - I've been knitting a little opera scarf with my Noro Silk Garden Lite, and I ripped it out. It just wasn't working for me. (Although, I will say that I love that pattern, and I'm going to knit it again, but with a swingier, drapier yarn.)

Here's the farewell photo:

Farewell, opera scarf.

Instead, I decided to copy Molly! and make a mini clapotis with it.

Yum. I love this yarn.

And the Forecast? She is literally 20 sleeve rounds away from being done. I'm predicting a finished post by next week. No promises, though.

Posted by Carrieoke at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (45)

So, Forecast? Not gonna happen by Wednesday.

Here's why:

Swollen.

The short version is that our dogs accidentally met each other in the backyard, started fighting, and when I jumped in to help Jacob pull them apart, I got bit [edited to add: Bella bit me, not Chili. Neither of our dogs are usually people aggressive, but Chili's never bit a human before. ] Really, really hard. I'm okay. We ran to the ER, got fixed up. The dogs are fine - neither of them had a dang scratch. Note to self: don't put your hand in a dog's mouth as a method of stopping a dog fight.

Ahem.

Anyways, my arm is really swollen and sore. I've spent all day resting, trying not to type and I actually didn't knit a stitch. I just relaxed. So, I guess no Forecast in NY. Maybe I'll finish it there, but I probably won't get to wear it. Very soon, though.

Now, here's a rare picture of my nephew looking serious:

He's v. serious about being happy all the time.

Babies make everything better sometimes, don't they? It's been a very emotional and stressful week so far. I'm about ready for a trip.

Posted by Carrieoke at 12:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (49)

So, the Pants had a birthday was November 28, and we did lots of fun things : went to the casino, hung out with his family, ate yummy food in Athens. We also got up at 5:30 on a Sunday the weekend before his birthday to obtain the best birthday present EVER: a Nintendo Wii (pronounced Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!).

The man loves his Wii.

We managed to get one on release day even though we didn't camp out or pre-order. We just got lucky. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. And dude, I was not all about getting up early that morning, but I am all about the Wii. It is SO MUCH fun. One of my favorite parts is that you can create a little character called a 'Mii' (hee) that you play the games with, and you can make them look like you. So, when Jacob and I play Boxing, it's a tiny Jacob on the screen boxing a little tiny Carrieoke. funfunfun.
Here's Jacob's:

Tiny cartoon Jacob.

Doesn't it look like him? I heart technology. And I heart my Jacob.

Anyways, now that things are starting to slow down at work and my schoolwork is done for the semester, I am really looking forward to more nights like this: right now, I'm sitting on the floor in my den with Jacob and Bella watching Tivoed Studio 60 by a roaring fireplace. Seriously. Jacob had to clean the chimney before we started using it and I'm so glad he did. Chim chim chireeeeeeeee.

Cute. Schmoos.

I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy and Christmas-y tonight, so I think I'm going to go knit and relax with my schmoos. Ya'll have a good night, and go give your loved ones a squeeze.

To the family: I added a link to my holiday wish list on the left sidebar (under the Carrieoke cartoon).

Posted by Carrieoke at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Halloween was fun times! Athens is seriously the best town EVER for Halloween. People get SERIOUS and dress up -- doesn't matter how old you are -- and there are always super clever and super weird costumes. Last night, I happened to think my friends had the best costumes ever...

Bling played at the Georgia Theatre, and we all dressed up as characters from Alice in Wonderland.

This is the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, and the King of Hearts.
with Silent Bob hanging out in the back.

Here's Alice (that's me!) and the Mad Hatter.

Here's me with my hot Viking date...

And here's Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth, all the way from Hawaii...

It's Alice and an HEJ!

Here's that hot Viking again with a chrome devil....

So. Sleepy. I hope I can stay awake for Lost...

p.s. I'm trying desperately to combat the spam barrage that's been happening lately, so I've added a word you have to type in the comment posting form. Let me know if you have any trouble with it!

Posted by Carrieoke at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)

Yay for blog comments. They don't bring Jacob's camera back, but they do remind me that people are nice and good and not all meanies who take things that don't belong to them. And apparently knitbloggers are easy targets for car robberies...

Now it's time for a list of things that make me happy.

1. The new Ipod shuffle. Um, have you seen it? It's SO. CUTE. It's like an inch long. It clips onto your belt. It wants to get in your pocket and hang out with you ALL THE TIME.

Tiny clippy cuteness.

2. Bella.

Bella, gazing in adoration at Jacob.

3. Pam from Lick My Sticks totally helped me get the Purling Puppies webring back in working order! I had a really long queue and didn't have time to deal with it, so I closed the ring for a while, and Pam offered to help me check the sites. So. Nice. So now the webring's open again! How cool is that?

4. THIS JUST IN! The insurance company is going to be able to reimburse us for Jacob's camera. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY. and also YAY. Renters of the world, get renter's insurance.

5. I'm so going to knit this: [ Intolerable Cruelty ]. I know, it's a knitted skirt, but it's a sexy knitted skirt. If I'm going to have a booty, I might as well show it off. Rachael's gonna knit it, too!

6. Currently, the Pants is listening to Axel F on his computer. And giggling to himself. I love him.

So, hooray for good things. My Somewhat Cowl is coming along - I'm doing some waist decreases right now - and I might swatch tonight for the knitted skirt. Hee.

Thanks again for all your comments! It's almost the weekend....

Posted by Carrieoke at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)