Thanksgiving and Mittens

Well, this Thanksgiving Ry and I had the pleasure of hosting the big meal at our place. Ry's parents went to Colorado for Thanksgiving to be with his sister, so we invited some friends who couldn't go home and see their parents for Thanksgiving and voila! Thanksgiving at our place! Ry and I made the Turkey, mashed potatoes, appetizers, and pies. Our friends J & M made the dressing, sweet potatoes and brought bread and pumpkin pie; and our friend C made a traditional English trifle. We had so much fun! The food was wonderful and I made bacon turkey
with maple flavored bacon on top and pear gravy. YUMMY! Ry and I and all of our wonderful friends had a great time, and it made Ry's first Thanksgiving away from his parents very special.

In further news, I finished one mitten for my swap partner, and am diligently working on the second one. It's turning out nicely, although it's a tad snug to put it on, but once on, it's absolutely perfect! Here's a picture of my progress:
I am really enjoying this project!

Well, I hope all your projects are going well, and that your Thanksgiving was full of much love, joy and fond memories.

Vermont Weekend

Well, I am about 97% done with my little beret! Just in time, too because the weather is finally starting to act normal again, so I can wear my sweaters and hats now. Hooray! In other news Ry & I went to Woodstock Vermont on Sunday. What an awesome day! Vermont was so pretty, the leaves were all turning and Woodstock is such a quaint little town. To begin we walked through a little park area where people could walk their dogs. As we were walking through there I smelled something odd, but ignored it. Then we wandered in and out of these little art galleries admiring some of the works, agreeing on some things and disagreeing on others. Ry really made the effort to talk to me about what he did and did not like, and why that was so. I continued to smell something weird, so I asked Ry to check his shoes. Nothing. So we wandered on. We had lunch in a fabulous little restaurant we were fairly ravenous so we both finished our plates, and we had some Long Trail Blackberry Wheat Ale. Delicious! There was an old covered bridge that was still in use and some gorgeous old houses that we both wished we owned.




Later we had ice cream from an overpriced little shop (ahem, $5 for a cone), then sat on a bench looking at a babbling brook and eating out ice cream. Later we went to Quechee and saw the Quechee Gorge and a HUGE hot air balloon.



It was at the gorge that I discovered the source of the weird smell. It was MY shoes. Not Ry’s, mine. Did I think to check my own shoes? Nope, I just assumed it would have to be Ry’s shoes, because my shoes are so cute, they would never have stepping in something as gross as poo. Boy, was I wrong. Well, I managed to scrape it off on a rail thing and there wasn’t any in my tread, thank God, but I wonder how much was tracked in and out of those galleries…Anyway, the gorge was awesome and we saw it from both sides of the bridge. Apparently Ry had been passing over the gorge to go skiing since he was a kid, but had never stopped to see it, so it was a first for both of us. We also stooped at a cute little place that sold local cheese, handmade furniture and all things pickled. For instance there were pickled eggs, regular pickles, pickled cabbage. You name it they had it, and it was pickled. They also had flocks of sheep, bears and cows. Ry and I took photos in the midst of each! On the way back we stopped at a rural gas station/general store and there I saw the BIGGEST apple pies in my life. I ended up buying a blackberry pie, which is now gone, but was delicious. That pie must’ve weighed ten pounds, it was delicious and worth every penny we paid. All in all it was a wonderful weekend.

Laziness

Well! First and foremost let me just say that I have delaying the blogging until I could get my pictures uploaded! Why did it take me so long? Laziness, pure unadulterated laziness.


Now, that I’ve fessed up to that, a lot has happened since I last blogged! First there was Easter. I decided to make roasted poblano peppers with a shrimp filling and shrimp fajitas for dinner on Good Friday (Ry is a Catholic so no meat!). It was delicious, roasting the poblanos gives them this beautiful smoky taste which contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the shrimp an corn filling. (I’ll post the recipe, relax!) The shrimp fajitas were pretty darn good too, if you like fajitas. If you don’t, the poblanos would go well with a nice steak cooked on the grill. After we digested for a bit, we decided to color eggs for Easter.



I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that the last time Ry colored eggs was when he and his sisters were little. Where’s the childlike joy and enthusiasm for Easter? Well, anyway we had a lot of fun and got creative with out little wax crayon and 3 colors of dye. (I messed up & bought the wrong kit, oops!)





Saturday was a day of rest and relaxation followed by a trip on Easter up to his parents’ house. Ry’s two sisters were both there, S & K. The visit was a lot of fun and very relaxing, K & I started in on the wine early, and I forgot (as usual) that when in the M household, you have a bottomless glass of wine. So needless to say I got a little toasty, and poor Ry had to drive us home! (again) The week that followed was not a good one for me mentally. Let’s just say I’m questioning some life decisions right now, and due to various circumstances I’ll be taking at least a year off of law school. I’m still not feeling so great in my mental processes, but I’m doing better.


Spring

On Saturday I noticed that the crocuses were in bloom and felt like it was actually starting to turn to Spring and then on Saturday we got rain followed by slush followed by snow and then finished off with some more rain. But I did get these great pictures of the crocuses. On Sunday I went to the SWTC Sock Boot Camp event at Webs. (Ahem, that means that I finally found Webs. As in, I did not get lost this time) It was awesome to finally be with a group of knitters!! I sat at the beginners table and chatted with the ladies there. Although it was a sock knitting event SWTC did not send enough sample yarn of the new TOFUtsies line, so we all ended up knitting a fingerless mitt. Still, it was nice to get the hang of knitting with sock yarn and on small DPNs. I was at the thumb gusset of the mitt, when I realized I could not live with so many imperfections in my knitting, regardless of the fact that it was only for me, so I ripped the whole darn thing out and started from scratch. I’m done with the ribbing & so far have no mistakes (knock wood). While I was there I explored the warehouse (LOVE IT), the front of the store, and their selection of needles. I must go back! Especially since there are some patterns that they have, that I want/need/must have. I also bought some sock yarn so I could finally make something for Ry, he was very excited about the prospect of having some lovely hand knit sockies! So that is a quick as a bunny rundown of the past two weeks.

In other news I finished the Sexy Little Sweater, tried it on & decided that a) I am a chub-a-lub and b) I’m not in love with the sleeves on it.


Sleeve Gap


Close up of sleeves

I think I might have to rip it out and re-do the ribbing on them. Ry thinks the sleeves should be shorter too, so that it’s almost a sleeveless top, I’m not so sure about that. (I have upper arm issues.) I wanted this to be a Spring/Fall Sweater, something to wear on the kinda-warm-but-not-really days here in New England. I was thinking about an inch of 2x2 ribbing done on smaller needles and decreasing the total number of knit stitches for a snugger fit. Any suggestions?