Bach’in’ It

I’ve had less than three days of singlehood, and the house has already totally transformed into a bachelor pad. There’s tons of ice cream (which I eat right out of the carton) in the freezer and various forms of chips in various places throughout the kitchen-type area. There are books strewn throughout the place. And the living room is covered in yarn. My poor husband would cringe if he saw all the yarn. But it’s my house this week. Ha!

Mostly, I’ve been working my butt off this week, which means that I haven’t had any time for the traditional girly-movies-and-wine nights. I’m hoping I’ll get to that later. Right now, my schedule is more like this:

Get up
Shower
Work while eating breakfast
Make coffee
Work
Work while eating lunch
Work
Work while eating dinner
Work while knitting
Sleep

I did, however, manage to get an ad campaign set up on the site (for a new TLC show called Take Home Chef)—and I got our new contest set up (we’re giving away books—check it out).

And granted, reading and screening DVDs counts as work for me, so it’s not all bad, but it’s not like I’m watching DVDs that I chose to watch. And I have to take notes and pay attention and stuff. So it totally counts as work. But at least I can knit at the same time. If I hadn’t given Paul the digital camera, I’d be showing you progress shots of the Project Spectrum Blue cardi I’ve been working on. But I guess that’ll just have to wait.

But I’ve got more pictures from last week, so I’ll share more of my vacation recap first:

On Sunday morning, after finishing the lace swatch, I started in on the sweater swatch. Miraculously, my gauge was right on, so I started the sweater on Sunday afternoon. I worked on it on the porch. And in the boat. And out on the patio. I may have even worked on it in the hammock. It was glorious.

Also on Sunday, I finished the last of the baby ensemble:


The proud new parents didn’t actually make it for the weekend, so I sent a package (wrapped in doodled-on paper bag wrapping paper) home with the baby’s proud grandma.

My favorite uncle, Uncle Bill showed up for a while on Sunday and requested sweater vests. Uncle Bill loves sweater vests. So I made sure to pick up a copy of Knitting Pure & Simple’s Basic Vest for Men pattern from the store when I got back. Now I just need some nice light worsted yarn (machine washable, cuz he’s a guy) in a nice shade of khaki, and I’m good to go.

On Tuesday, it was a bit overcast, so we went into town, all excited to visit the LYS.


Unfortunately, (despite the OPEN sign in the window) they’re closed on Tuesdays.

So we picked up some cheapie stuff at the Ben Franklin, so it would give Mom something to work on, since she’d forgotten to bring yarn (obviously, Mom still has some learning to do…). Due to the cooler, cloudy weather, Mom and I took some time out for a knitting lesson. Previously, Mom just knew the most basic of basics. So we spent a couple of hours sitting at the kitchen table (while Paul and Dad snoozed) and went through purling, increasing, and decreasing.


She did such a great job that I started her out on a cool bias-knit scarf to help her practice her increasing and decreasing.

On Wednesday, it rained again. So Mom and I went back into town and finally got to visit the LYS. I knew I was on my way to The Uber Yarn Outlet on Thursday, so I refrained from buying (much to Paul’s surprise). Mom, however, got some cute discontinued stuff for a skinny scarf and some wool for her first felted bag.

Then it was time to get back to the cottage and start packing my bags – because we left on Thursday morning.