Midwest Fiber & Folk, and Family

These past few weekends have been a tad crazy. Crazy in a good way though.

I’ve been working hard on my OWL for the Harry Potter Knit & Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. Here’s a picture. I have maybe 10 inches left of knitting the lace pattern, and 8 for the cowl neck. The ‘sleeves’ are just an inch or two of ribbing. Yay for drop shoulders! And this needs to be finished by Friday, July 31^st to count. I should be able to make that if I work hard tonight and all day Wednesday.

I was hoping to wear this thing this last weekend…but we’ll get to that in a sec.

Two weekends ago I was at the Midwest Fiber and Folk show in Crystal Lake, IL. I was helping out my friend Bev and her knitted jewelry business Knitter’s Journey. She’s on Ravelry and she has a website showing all of her kits. Here’s a few pictures of the set up. This took more work than you could ever see from the pictures.

See those pretty baskets? Yea…we kinda forgot to pack those in the SUV. And we didn’t realize this until we were already at the show and setting up! Believe me…we couldn’t have all those bags hangin’ out without a basket. So we grabbed some pizza, drove the 2 hours home and then the 2 hours back and got up early to set up the rest of the booth on Friday morning. I think we made good time and got things set up nicely. Needless to say next time I think a checklist will be used to make sure that all things are in the car. ^_^

I picked up some yarn at the show as well as a few of Bev’s kits.

This green yarn is from Frontier Fiber Mill in Indiana. They have their own fiber farm complete with Alpacas and sheep and other sorts of things! This is 400 yds. of worsted Alpaca. It’s sooooo soft! I’m thinking mittens, though it might decide otherwise.

This here is 925 yds. of laceweight wool for $18. Pretty good deal huh? I love it. Sunset colors. This one might have to sit in my stash for a while before I decide what to do with it.

This next yarn boggles my mind. The lady that spins this yarn is blind. BLIND! That means she just feels the yarn. And her tag has Braille on it so that she can tag them herself. I should have gotten a picture of her and her husband. They are such a cute couple and he completely supports her. (She also had a pretty neat calculator that spoke to her so that she could take care of sales.) I’m making the Sylvia Cowl. It’s a light pink thick and thin yarn(ranging from laceweight to a light worsted). I’m really liking how it’s turning out.

Wow lots of pictures!

I left the festival early to go to Festa Italiana at the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds. I felt back for leaving Bev all day Sunday and for her having to pack up alone, but Festa Sunday is a family tradition. We attend church and walk in the procession into the grounds to get in for free. Once that’s finished we promptly walk out of the grounds and eat lunch at the Italian Community Center.

Lunch was a little disappointing. I mean…Italian Community Center…it’s been that for years! I’ve always loved their food, but this year the pasta sauce was terrible. I mean…it was like tomato soup with a little basil in it… I was sad. My German Fiance can make better pasta sauce than that! He actually makes great pasta sauce…so that’s not really fair. I swear he was Italian in a former life.

Other than a disappointing lunch it was a great day. I scored an Italian soccer jersey for $28! The last few years they’ve been rather expensive since Italy won the world cup in 2006. I’m excited for the games next summer. I make a point of watching soccer during at that time. It’s like how I only watching basketball during the College March Madness. I choose when to enjoy certain sports.

That was the end of that weekend. This weekend was an engagement party for Steve and I. Honestly, I was dreading this party. My father wanted to have this party so that people from both sides of the family could meet and socialize before the actual day of the wedding. Sounds like a great idea in theory…but I was scared that it would just be a big segregated party. Thank goodness for Steve’s parents. They really got in there and got to know everyone! I was so grateful that everyone was talking. My father’s brothers and sisters tend to stick to themselves and they were also very good about talking and including everyone. I don’t have pictures of the party…my mom was the paparazzi for that. I’ll have to ask her for some pictures. It was really a lot of fun.

Sunday was our annual Cefalu Family Reunion. Umm….but only half. There are two sides of the Cefalu family. Our side of the family, which is corralled by my cousin Dave for this event, and the other side. We only see the other side at this event every year. Mario is in charge of gathering this side of the family(can’t tell we’re Italian huh?). We missed the reunion last year to celebrate Steve’s Dad’s 60^th birthday, but I guess Mario’s side didn’t show and they did a repeat of that this year. I learned that Mario’s side of the family tends to get into feuds every few years. Not feuds with us, just feuds within themselves. So I guess it might be a few years before we see them again.

It was a good time. A huge softball game with players ranging from age 6 to age mid-forty-something. It was fun to watch. I was playing with the real little guys because of my shins.

Steve and I have started running in the wee hours of the morning. We already woke up at 6 in the morning, but now we have a 5:15 wake up call. It’s been alright getting up, but staying awake the rest of the day was pretty hard last week. This week has been better. My problem now is that my right shin hurts bad enough that I’m limp running…that does not seem like a good thing to me. Today we took a break because it was raining, we slept bad, my leg needs a rest, and we’re a bit lazy. I decided that if my leg feels alright later that we’ll take a walk…if it doesn’t feel better it may be time for me to get it checked out. I’ve already changed shoes, taken a break for a day or two and iced. It doesn’t seem to be getting much better.

This is what I'm busy working on at the moment.

It's much longer...That needs to be finished by tomorrow!! (wow...just realizing that tomorrow is the 29th...crap!)

and then my OWL...which is also a lot farther than this picture. I'll have to do a better update later...but this is what I have to work with at work...

This is a long post…maybe I’ll need to insert pictures here and there to make it more interesting. That really concludes my entry. I need to send some of these pictures to Bev…maybe I can get that finished here at work. We’ll see if I can access the pictures. If not… I’ll add them tonight or tomorrow.

Later this week…how work is screwing us out of money.

Update

So things have been interesting. I've finished a pretty good amount of projects and that's made me happy, but it's all because of the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) on Ravelry.

I have no finished my shawl yet...that kinda went on hold after the sorting and new classes for HPKCHC.

I was sorted into Slytherin! And I'm also on the Quidditch team as a beater! It's all very exciting.
Here is what I've been working on!

For Ancient Runes I'm working on a Rose filet.


For Charms I'm working on Quetish's House Crest bag (in slytherin colors of course)


For Herbology I made a super cute mandrake with an Ipod!


I made a really neat hat for Arithmancy (fibonacci sequence anyone???)


A washcloth with a Dalek on it for Muggle studies.


And a sweet hat that I can stick my ponytail out of for Defense Against the Dark Arts


And...I have also started an OWL. This is a 3 month long project. Hopefully I will be able to get cracking at this soon.


Other than all that crazy stuff things are going well.

Lauren finished her sweater! I have been mentoring her while she is learning the Mattress stitch (i think that's the name...invisible stitch up the side of a sweater?) And she did a great job! Here's a picture of her with her sweater! (now that it's finally getting warm outside...she just needs to add some kewl buttons.)


And...I lied...there is more...

I had an allergy test today. This is what my arm looked like 30 min after the test was finished...it's all shiny from the lotion they used to help make the itching go away.

I have found out that I am allergic to grass, weeds and TREE POLLEN! all the spots on the top row that are big are from tree pollen. The largest one on the right is from Birch trees. I now understand why I was so miserable. (thank goodness we too our birch down this last weekend)

I also got some shoes from this great Lady named Bobbi from HPKCHC. She gave them to me just because they didn't fit her feet and they do fit mine. She will be getting some yummy yarn in the mail soon!

pink isn't usually my color, but these are super sexy shoes and they will get some use!

That's all for now!

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I still have quite a few things to do on my to do list. I finished a lot of things, the short term things obviously.

I actually took quite a while to get my laundry done. I only did one load every 5 days or so. I finally caught up. I have one load to do tonight, but that's from the weekend because we spent a night at Steve's parents' house and then were busy all day on Sunday.

I have my MATC e-mail, but I'm having trouble logging into the computer database to sign up for classes. I might have to make a trip there on Wednesday to get my classes before they are closed.

I haven't even touched all of my junk that my sister brought over, and the only time i did anything with my dresser was when I got dressed in the morning. So that still needs to be done. i might have to do that tonight while Steve watches Scrubs. That's really starting to drive me nuts. I pretty much spend my time sitting on the couch listening to it and working the HP scarf for Peter. I'm getting pretty far pretty fast on that thing, hopefully I can finish it before the movie comes out. That would be perfect. I'm almost done with one of the socks that I'm making. They are a little bit big for my feet, so I'm thinking that I might give them to my mom or something. That would be kewl.

I haven't touched the blanket or the plastic canvas things either. Those are things I tend to work on when Steve isn't around. I don't want to start those duck or goose pictures until I have more of my other stuff finished or more organized.

I've done quite a bit of going through the knitting and crocheting sites and playing my game. Maybe I'll have to do that tonight while Steve watches Scrubs. Sometimes he'll play with me too, and that's always fun.

I haven't found my camera to take pictures yet. I want to find it before we go up north this weekend. I think it would be nice to have my camera with me.

On another note...I'm looking into getting hermit crabs again. I love them so much, but I don't think that Steve is really a fan. It might have to be something that I keep in the "crafty room" so that he doesn't have to see them. I don't want to get them until after we get our fish though, and he doesn't seem to enthusiastic about that either. I want to eventually go to furniture deals and steals and see if we can find a table that would work for our walkway to hold the fish on. It's going to have to be able to hand quite a lot of weight and have to be relatively thin so that people can still walk into our house.

I miss having crabs because you can actually interact with them. They don't talk back or anything, but you can hold them and feed them and stuff like that. I still have my set up from the crabs at my parents' house. I think that I will definitely need to take the car this Wednesday and go home and get it while Steve isn't there. I might want to see if there's anything else at my parents' house that I need. Maybe I'll have to make some Banana bread to take up north. That would be a great breakfast thing. That would be wonderful. I know that if i go to the pet store I will end up coming home with a new crab but I can't do that. Not when I'm going to be going up north for the weekend and won't be able to take care of him. Maybe I"Ll be able to find one while I'm up north and convince Steve to let me take him home. Or I might have to sneak him home. That would be interesting.

Well yea...I guess that's all for now. That was quite the scattered post. But that's how my brain goes.

Internet and Other Stuff

So I finally got internet at my house on the 9th, yet I haven't written on here since the 7th. Things got a little crazy when our air conditioner crapped out on us. That and I don't really feel comfortable writing on here when Steve is around. I know that he would be able to find it no problem. It's not like I really say anything bad about him, it's just nice to have something that he doesn't have to be involved in all the time. I know that he would ask weird questions and other things if he was reading this all the time. It's not like I'm really talking to anyone on here. I doubt anyone that's stumbled across this site has even stopped to read past the first two sentences of one of my blogs.

I really want to start getting pictures up on here. It would really help if I could find my camera. It would be great to find it so that I could take pictures of the few things that I've finished knitting the past few weeks. I still have a few projects that are in the works that I just need to sit down and finish before I start something else. I would love to make some of these kewl socks that I found on the FreshIsleFibers.com Harry Potter section. It's something that I've wanted to make for a while but I can't seem to find the time or I forget about them.

I have to get up early tomorrow even though I'm not going to work because I'm going to go give blood. I really wish the Brown Deer Donation Center would let me donate plasma. It's just more efficient than donating whole blood. We'll see though. I can't keep driving out to Waukesha all the time with gas prices going up so much.

Anyway, I made a new friend on facebook the other day. He's really got one of the kewlest names I've ever heard. I found out after adding him as a friend that he's from Greece!! How awesome is that?! He's my sister's age. Just about 13 years old. It seems weird for a 20 year old to be talking to someone that young, but I think it's pretty kewl. It's not like I have any bad intentions, it's just nice to make a new friend. Maybe I'll have to start being a pen pal with him. That would be great.

I guess that I could try and find something to do here at work, but I just don't feel like working after that lunch I had. Steve and I went to a Chinese Buffet. It was excellent, as it was last time we went. That was back in May on the day of my interview here at DRS. That was a crazy day. Never again will I drink an iced coffee from McDonald's before going into an interview. That thing kicked my butt so far into high gear I was shaking all afternoon. And I only drank half of it.

Well I think I'm going to try and print off those patterns for those socks so that I have them in my hand when I get home tonight. I told Steve that we should have a no computer night and spend some time together watching a movie or something. I still can't sit still even when I'm watching a movie. So I'll make sure that I have something to knit while I'm sitting there. Hopefully I won't have to think too hard and I'll be able to make some kewl looking socks that I can wear sometime soon. Too bad I can't wear skirts at work, otherwise I could show off a bunch of kewl socks. Damn pants and close toed shoes rules. They need to clean this place up.

TWC and other stuff

So we're finally getting internet at our house! That means I'll be able to post more often.

That's if the internet works. We've used Time Warner in the past and they haven't done the best job. For almost an entire month we had some super shotty internet service. I didn't work early in the morning or after about 9 at night. If they were trying to do something to fix other problems it would have been nice to know about it.

I had a few mornings where I needed to finish a little something on the computer and all of the sudden the internet would crap out on me. It was really frustrating and stressful. I guess I don't really have that problem anymore. I'll have school, but it's going to be a lot easier now that I won't be at MSOE.

I really want to get a new computer, but it doesn't look like I'll have enough money for that. It would be great because Steve's computer is kinda dying. I've been keeping a look out for computer deals. I check nearly everyday, but I still haven't found anything really worth throwing $600 at. Anything less than that really isn't a quality computer. I'm not looking to spend a whole lot of money, but reviews online are very helpful. It's nice to look at what other people have to say about things and then hop over to the store and buy it.

I really can't follow a logical train of thought this morning. My friend Erin might be coming over for dinner tomorrow night. That should be fun. I hope that the guy from Time Warner is gone by then. I've heard they have a tendancy to show up late. Like 2 hours after their scheduled time. I really don't want that to be the case tomorrow. I'd like to have that all done before dinner is ready. He's supposed to come from 3-5 sometime, so if he is there on time he'll be gone before 6 without a problem.

We have a guy coming to service our air conditioner tomorrow too. That'll be around 1:00. I have to remember to have Steve write out that check for me. That should be a blast.

I should probably get back to work for a while. Maybe I'll have to write more later. I finished another knitting project, so now that I'm going to have internet I'll be able to post a picture of it!! yay! That'll be a good thing. I'll start to online scrap book my creations!!! woohoo!! OK, toodles.

Another Boring Day

Well,

Yesterday was interesting. I went to visit Steve at work and I wasn't planning on staying the whole time but he got really disappointed when I said that I was going to leave so I kinda had to stay. It wasn't terrible, but it was definitely boring. I feel bad that he has to do that everyday. That would drive me insane.

I brought my knitting with me, but I forgot a scrap of waste yarn, so I had to stop once I got to the thumb hole. I'll bring it with me again today though so that I have something to do. I'm also going to bring the other two movies that I brought down for him to watch. He forgot to take them with him this morning. I'm going to take the fishes with too because my chicken tastes pretty bad without something to dip it in. There was really nothing to lose by taking it though.

So hopefully I'll get a picture up of my knitting when I finish it. I have a camera here with me. So I should take a picture before I leave tonight and then don't have the internet for a while again.

Time for me to pack up my things so that I don't have to do it later. I want to watch the olympic trials without interruptions.