Its that time of the week again...

That's right... time for more Meatlocker Monday madness! Hopefully this lovely gentleman will chase those beginning of the week blues away - I give you, Karl Urban!

FO Friday the second

My wedding invitations are finished and ready to be sent out! Woot!

On other fronts the phones are dead at work (for now) so I forsee a lot of knitting and listening to VNV Nation on grooveshark for the remainder of the afternoon.

Check out Tami's Amis for more FO Friday updates!

WiP Wednesday part the fifth

I'm still working on the same projects - those two Harry Potter scarves - and while I'm still enjoying working on them, I'm sure you readers are getting quite bored of hearing about them. Unfortunately, I still haven't found my H crochet hook, nor the missing skein of yarn I need for that cowl, so you're stuck with another Harry Potter scarf filled post.

(I probably should have chosen a better background for this picture)

I bought some new amigurumi patterns last week, so, if everything goes well and the push to get all the wedding invites out by Friday doesn't kill me, I may have something different to feature next week *crossing fingers*

(check out more WIP Wednesday updates at Tami's Amis)

Finished Object Friday the First...

I'm one of those people who doesn't think it's the next day until after they fall asleep. However, I was so excited that I FINALLY had a finished object to show off that I just had to share it tonight. Meet Cthulululululululu;

I actually started this guy back in November (or around there, I remember it was after I finished my first ever baby blanket for a friend) The pattern came from Creepy Cute Crochet and it was actually a lot less intimidating then I thought it would be (are we noticing a theme here with my crochet and knitting? I always think it's so tough only to find out that it isn't) In fact I was done with all the bits in a day. The reason why it took me too long to finish it was because I didn't have any stuffing. A friend loaned me some in January, which I lost during the move, but I was able to figure something out last night and viola! He's finished!

I think my only issue with this pattern is the fact you have to start off with a magic circle, which looks nice, but it's a serious pain in the you-know-what to do. Oh, and the wings are a bit funky - however I was able to make them work and look pretty:

I'm so happy he's finally done! He's so cute! I can't wait to make more Amigurumi's once I'm done with my Harry Potter and baby blanket fix!

Go visit Tami's Amis for more FO Friday Goodness!

WiP Wednesday the Fourth

It's been a week since my friend passed away, and let me tell you, it's been tough. Thankfully I've had my knitting to keep me busy and take my mind off of things.

So I frogged the Gryffindor scarf last week and promptly started on trying to knit it in the round. However, between me being such a newb to knitting, and the needles not being the best quality, the yarn kept getting snagged and then the stitches would get twisted and... *insert frustrated sigh here*. When I finally dropped a couple of stitches I went ahead and frogged the new scarf too. I started a K1P1 version, but the needles were a bit too large and it wasn't looking the way I wanted to, so the scarf was frogged for a third time. I eventually started another K1P1 scarf on smaller needles, but ended up not liking that one any better. The scarf was frogged yet again.

Then on Saturday I decided to give the other circular needles I had a try. I had ordered from the same company as the first pair but a close inspection revealed that the plastic joined to the bamboo a little more neatly, so there was nothing for the yarn to snag on this time. To my surprise, I was able to get the first 5 rows done without any issues - and I've realized that once you get those first couple of rows done, you're pretty safe from screwing up, except if you drop a stitch - and now it's three days later and I'm halfway through the first yellow stripe!

In between knitting I also ended up stuffing wedding invitations into envelopes. Fed Ex Copy and Print did a fabulous job on the actual invitations; not only where they perfect, but they got them done quickly too! Less than a day! Fed Ex also proved to be a life saver; I had bought a bunch of flat cards intending to print the response cards at home. At the last moment, my printer decided that it didn't like the cards and refused to print them. So I went to the Fed Ex website, uploaded the design, told them what size I wanted the cards to be, and by that evening they had printed them! Seriously, I cannot sing these guys enough praises right now.

Unfortunately I haven't had time to take pictures of them yet, but I swear I will have it by next week. Oh, and I might actually have something for FO Friday!

How are your projects going?

Check out Tami's Amis for more WIP Goodness

Meatlocker Monday

In honor of my friend who passed away last week (who was, among many things, a HUGE hockey fan) I am going to share a few of the hockey players who she loved, adored, crushed on, or loved-to-hate and hated-to-love.

(Stanislav Chistov - the Russian who knew English a lot better than he let on and Steph's first hockey player obsession)

(Joffrey Lupul - the second ever player that Steph ever liked but also hated on some level, it's a hard obsession to explain)

(Rick Dipietro - I still don't know why she liked him since she was a diehard ducks fan... but somehow she found out about him and a crush was born. Such a big crush that she was upset when she went to DC and bought tickets a Islanders/Capitals game only to find out that he was injured)

I should add that this is probably the weirdest memorial for someone that anyone has ever seen, but if you knew Steph, you'd understand :P

It wasn't supposed to end like this...

The first time Stephanie Grav and I met we were in Jr High and I thought she was crazy. I spent the first few times we talked just smiling and nodding because she was just so out there. And then I remember one day telling her about these books I found in the library Dragonsong and Dragonsinger and how they were just so awesome. She told me about her favorite book series, the Nightworld by L. J. Smith, and a friendship was born. Any time we found a new book series, we just had to tell each other about it, and share the books with each other (after we had read them enough to dog ear them of course)

I remember begging my Dad to let me spend the night at Stephanie's house (even though it was technically supposed to be his time to spend with me) and going to see Blade in theaters. I remember talking about Highlander and how cute Methos or Richie were. I remember writing fanfiction, back before we knew what fanfiction was, and writing each other into our stories. Stephanie is the basis for Malena, Sybil, and a whole host of others. I don't think there's a story that I've written that she isn't included in in some shape or form.

After high school I introduced her to hockey and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Now, not only did we talk about books and Buffy, but we also started giggling over hockey players, and waiting outside of the Pond and Disney Ice to meet them. Steph went a little crazy then, got a bit obsessive, and I did what I could to try to calm her down, but once she got going on something, she didn't stop, so all I could do was hang on and go along for the ride.

And what a ride it was.

Unfortunately, that ride ended tonight. Three weeks ago Stephanie had a stroke, something I thought she was going to get over, because she was doing so well when I saw her last. However due to complications, she passed away tonight at the age of 27, just a few weeks shy of her birthday, and suddenly the world seems a little less bright, and a little less crazy.

I will miss you so much Steph. I will miss you forcing books on me that I will never read but always smile and accepted because they were from you. I will miss you sending your texts to me at midnight about Sons of Anarchy or about how the Ducks where doing in this game even though you knew I had switched allegiances to the Kings five years ago. I'll miss hanging out at Bella Terra and Barnes and Noble. Running around Disneyland. I'll miss your smile, your laugh.

Rest in peace friend, and don't cause too much trouble upstairs before I get there, okay?

WIP Wednesday the Third...

I did it. I go so fed up with my coworker's HP scarf and how slow it was to Tunisian crochet it that I just went ahead and ripped the thing apart. If you are reading this coworker, don't worry - I have already started on your new scarf and it'll go MUCH faster than the last one since it's just row after row of knit stitch.

On other fronts I have started the grey stripe of color for HIB's scarf. It's looking quite schnazzy if I may say so myself!

(It's hard to see the grey in this picture but it's there!)

In addition to all the knitting, I went to paper source this weekend and bought the envelopes, response cards, and response card envelopes for the wedding invitations. We're still waiting for those to be printed, but in the mean time I've been cutting out the liners for the envelopes and sheesh! I can understand why wedding invitation envelopes are so expensive now! I would post pictures to show my progress on those, but the boys were being pains in the butts so I was too busy fighting them off to pull out my camera, and, honestly, there's not much progress to see - just a stack of red paper that's cut out to look like envelopes :P

Go visit Tami's Amis for more WIP Wednesday goodness!

Meatlocker Monday Loves Judas...

... Well... actually... I loved Norman Reedus long before he was Judas - I loved him back when he was just Murphy from The Boondock Saints - but seeing him in Lady Gaga's video last week was quite a pleasant surprise and was enough to tide me over until the next season of Walking Dead starts. How about you ladies? What do you think?

WIP Wednesday the second

I don't have as much progress to report as I would like; HTB and I are still in the process of unpacking from our move, and then Sunday we went out to visit the So Cal Renaissance Faire out at Santa Fe Dam (and if you've ever gone to faire you know how exhausting that is!) And the past couple of days I've been distracted by writing, so not as much knitting or crocheting went on this week. 

I ended up scrapping my hat. I needed the needles to work on HTB's Slytherin scarf, and, honestly, I wasn't entirely happy with how the ribbing was turning out anyways - I mean, how did they expected that to fit over my head?!? I know it's ribbed, so it stretches, but still!

I have started the next yellow stripe on my coworker's Gryffindor scarf - which is feeling a bit tedious now because I'm not knitting it, I'm tunisian crocheting it. Knitting, to me, seems to go by faster, and I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't try to learn how to knit earlier so I could knit this scarf instead of crocheting it. However, I'm too far in to begin again.

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of that to show you, but I do have pictures of HTB's Slytherin scarf:

It's a bit bigger now since I took this picture - I'm thisclose to starting the first grey stripe. 

How are your projects going?

Meatlocker Monday: Viking God Edition

Since Thor is coming out on Friday and looks ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, I decided that this week's Meatlocker <onday man should be the God of Thunder himself; Chris Hemsworth.