Myrtle Beach was awesome!!! No knitting got done, but I did get to spend some quality time with the family. We spent most of the time at the beach or just hanging in the pool at our condo. My nieces spent some time body boarding in the ocean.

You'll notice that in the above pictures the girls aren't out very far, but they were so darn cute riding the waves! My sis and I got into the action, too, but no photographs are going to make it to blog with me (or her) in a swim suit.

The hat made it down to the beach, though it mostly got worn by my nieces.

And on the day I had to come home... I woke up with strep throat. I guess all the excitement wore me out. So I'm home now, and I'm fairly miserable. But I'm knitting! The summer sweater is on hold because of the lack of yarn. Plus, my cats kind of got hold of it while I was away. So the yarn is a little tangly. And I'm in no mood to untangle. So I'm working on a seed stitch scarf.

This was supposed to be a scarf for my best friend Rhonda, but alas, I loved it so much, I'm keeping it for myself. Granted, I started it before Christmas last year, but I'm on a yarn diet, and there's no making anything new til I finish up the WIPs. Or at least work on them a little bit...

Vacation... had to get away...
If anyone knows who sings that, wonderful!  We need to get together and share CDs.

I'm still awake, and I need to be sleeping, because tomorrow morning, I'm hauling myself out of bed earlier than normal and hitting the road.  I heard from someone that the I-95/Beltway interchange was down to one lane this weekend.  This could be a total rumore, but I'm not taking any chances.  Sure, I could take time out of my busy life to look the truth up, or possibly call the proper authorities and ask if that is, in fact, true.  However, being the lazy person that I am, I'm getting my butt up early.  Plus, who doesn't want to get to the beach in time for prime sunshine?  I mean, really...

On to the knitting... there was much progress on the summer sweater at Knitty Mid-Mid-Meetup Meetup.

I finished the decreases for my armhole.  And they don't look as bad as the back.  How do you do nice looking bind offs?  I still have NOT mastered that.  I'm thinking of frogging the back down to the beginning of the decreases and attempting to get them to look nicer.  There are two reasons for this:
A.  The armholes for the back seem HUGE.
B.  I'm going to run out of yarn.

Yes, I know... always buy an extra skein.  Well, I thought I had PLENTY.  The pattern called for less than 600 yards.  I have 620 yards.  Granted, the pattern was also written for Lion Brand Cotton-Ease, on a smaller needle.  But I really thought that I'd have enough.  I think that I'll have just enough to do the mock turtleneck (rather than a full-blown turtleneck) which is exactly what I want.  I mean, really, a shell with a turtle neck.  Are you cold or hot?  Hot or cold?  Make up your mind!  But... since I have the wonky bind offs on the back, I also wanted to put a ribbed border on the sleeves.  I know I don't got enough yarn for that.  Soo... to Woolwinders I went, looking for the beloved cotton fleece in Nymph (Brown Sheep's Name, not mine).  And what color does Woolwinders not have in stock?  And what brand of yarn is Woolwinders going to stop carrying?  Yup, Nymph.  Yup, Brown Sheep.  So I'm out of luck as far as getting more goes.  I'm going to search for yarn shops in Myrtle Beach, and see if they have the color I need.  If not, I have a few options, but I'm not giving up!  I will search the entire Eastern seaboard for this yarn!  Well... maybe I'll drive down to Springwater next weekend if I don't find it at the beach.

The laptop is coming on vacation with me.  They say there's no better way for two individuals to determine if they should truly be together than to travel together.  Laptop has been bad lately.  Laptop and I need to break up, so I'm giving him this one last shot.  If he doesn't behave on vacation, he's going back to the IT department.  I'm swapping him for a new one.

The beach bag is done.

Well... almost.  I still have to sew the bottom support into place.  Taking a cue from Stitch N' Bitch Nation's Saucy Tote, I decided to use plastic canvas as the support for the bag bottom.  The pattern called for cardboard, however, I think that would have slid around a bit.  With the plastic canvas, I can use the holes in the canvas, along with some thread, to hold the canvas in place.  Good call to the designer of the Saucy Tote.  I think I might be adventurous and attempt to embroider something on the bag while I'm tacking the plastic canvas.  That way, I'll have a saucy beach bag.  By the way, the pattern for my beach bag can be found here.

In knitting news, I finally did some work on the summer sweater.  Just more mindless stockinette stitch.  It was so nice to sit down and knit tonight, though.  The past few weeks have been pretty crazy.  I finally caught up on some shows tonight, while knitting... then purling... then knitting... then purling.  The cats decided that they'd had enough of me running around, too, so they camped out on my lap tonight.  When the knitting... then purling... then knitting... got to be too much for them, they cuddled up on the couch for a nice nap.

***

And I don't even have to pose them like that!

***A little disclaimer... I took that picture a few weeks ago, however, they were in that exact same position tonight.  I swear!  My camera is apparently seeking emancipation from my computer, so no downloading pics to this PC.  The work computer is the only one my camera is speaking to, and I'm not going to work just to download pics from the camera.  More kitty pictures to come, though.  I promise

Hi.  My name is Amy.  Its been a week since I last picked up the needles.   I'm starting to feel anxious, like I don't quite know how to fit into society any more.  I'm hoping that soon, someone intervenes and puts those sticks back in my hands.  Someone needs to lead me to a yarn store, so I can fondle the angora and mohair blends.  I feel empty without yarn and knitting needles.  Its a pain that goes deeper than anything I've ever felt before.

OK, enough of that... I think you get the drift that I haven't been knitting.  And it IS NOT a good thing.  I've been so busy!  I just got assigned to a big ol' project at work, and I have NO idea how to use the software, so I've had to work late in order to get myself up to par.  I'm also attempting to make a beach bag for vacation, which happens in less than two weeks (Look out Myrtle, here I come!).  The beach bag will be cute, but... I'm sewing it.  Not knitting.  I wish I were knitting the Kitchen Sink bag from knitty.  I just don't have the time to do it.  I should finish the beach bag by Thursday, though, so pictures will follow.  I didn't get to work on anything this weekend, as I travelled to Ohio in order to spend the holiday with my family.

The Ohio trip was AWESOME!!!!  Friday night I drove home.  I dealt with this for three hours, then decided to go a "new" way back.  What a trip that was!  It took me over 8 hours to travel what normally takes me six.  I was headed to Todd's 30th birthday party, so the trip seemed endless.  Saturday, I got to spend time with my sister and the nieces and my brother-in-law.  Rachel ended up losing one of her front teeth.

The other one is on the way out.  On Sunday, my parents and I spent the day lounging in my sister's pool.

And on Monday, I went to a picnic at my sister's... again, with the pool.  Rhonda and Todd came to the party, as well.

All in all, a good time was had by all.  It is now time to get back to the crafty grindstone and finish that summer sweater.  But first, I gotta get to beach bagging...

Amy out.

First off, I have the summer sweater that I've been working on.

This is the first garment that I've knitted. Well, truth be told, the first garment I started knitting was Mariah. I love Mariah. I began with the back of her, thinking that sleeves were just too much to tackle to start with. Mariah's sleeves have this awesome cable running up them, and since I'd never cabled before, I figured I'd start with something simple. I started off cabling using a cable needle, but quickly decided that wasn't for me. So I learned to cable without a cable needle. All was going VERY well for me. I almost finished the cabled rows, when I noticed that somehow, something was off. I can't tink back to that row. Too far down, and I'm not really sure I want to spend the time tinking cables. I was doing so well, using a lifeline, up until that point, but then I got a little too confident in my cabling abilities. Here is a picture of the cable that I turned wrong.

Its hard to see, and it really isn't that bad, but I don't like it, so I'm frogging Mariah at some point. I've learned one thing. NEVER GET COCKY WITH CABLES. It just doesn't work. So I've thrown Mariah to the wayside, and I'm working on the summer sweater

The back is complete, and it looks like I'm halfway through the front. A few more stockinette inches, and I'll start decreasing for the armholes. I'm definitely going to have to do something about the way the bind off decreases look. They really aren't pretty. I think I'm going to pick up along the edges and put a little ribbing on them to give them some flair. And I'm switching the collar from the pattern which by the way is from the Spring/Summer issue of Family Circle Easy Knitting. It calls for a full blown turtle neck. I'm making it a mock turtle. There should be no turtle necks in the summer. Unless, of course, you're in high school with an over zealous boyfriend. But even then, that's just tacky.

The second thing to share is the stash enhancement. It isn't the best thing in the world, but it does make me smile.

Lion Brand Cotton Ease. If I like the summer sweater, I can make another. Otherwise, I'm making a bucket hat. Or, if I'm really nice, I'll make something for the neices.

The last thing is the hat I'm working on. My family and I are going to Myrtle Beach in July, and I wanted something to protect me from the sun. So I'm making this hat.

I don't know if it's too "old lady" for me or not, but we'll see once its done. If it is, I'll just give it to my mom, who is starting to look great in "old lady" hats

Not a whole lot of knitting being done on the home front this weekend. However, I did get a lot of quality time with the parents. It was so great having them here!

Friday night, I picked them up from the airport and we went to Hotel Washington for dinner. The food… eh… it was alright. The parents liked theirs, but I wasn’t thrilled with my dinner. However, the view… the view makes it worth the trip. And it was the perfect night to be sitting outside, on the roof of a building one block from the White House. What a terrific night for it.

Saturday morning, we woke up and went to Arlington National Cemetery. After Arlington, we headed into the city and looked at the World War II Memorial and the Korean War Memorial. Both are astounding. I think the Korean War Memorial is my favorite. Its haunting how the carvings in the wall come out to get you when you look at it just right. We then rode out to Old Town, and sadly, didn’t get to visit Knit Happens. We were all hungry and opted for food over yarn. OK, so my parents opted for food over yarn. I’d never make such a crazy decision! Since neither of them are knitters, I didn’t want to bore them with fiber petting, though I’m sure a little bit of that would have turned them to the dark side.

The next day, we headed out to the mall. I told him we could go wherever he wanted and get him anything he wanted. He wanted a dress shirt. A PINK dress shirt, no less. So I bought my dad a pink shirt… I feel weird about that for some reason. But he can pull it off. He got a spiffy lookin’ tie too. After that, we just tooled around town, and then it was off to the airport. I came home and practically passed out on the couch, but not until after watching The 4400. It was an exhausting, wonderful weekend.

I have officially had this web site for over four months, and I haven't had the energy motivation inspiration to even begin putting it together. Last night, however, the inspiration fell upon me. I attended a Meetup with a group of awesome knitting bloggers. Vibegrrl (a.k.a. Lara) has the blog on which I discovered said Meetup. And at the meetup was Snargle Sarah and Paula, who might have an alias, but I haven't discovered it yet. Another Laura was there, as was another Sarah, though I didn't catch if either were bloggers.

More info about me, my knitting, and random things I heart to come later. Right now, its past midnight, and Mom and Dad are making the journey to DC this weekend. I'm psyched to see them, but I still have to rendezvous with the vaccuum before they get here.

Amy out.