One quick post

We had a wonderful time at Church of Craft on October 22nd. Just a news flash for you out there in blog land: the next C of C meeting will be on November 12th at Sugarbutterbex in Highland Park (just up the street from me--hooray!). Thanks to Becca for making this possible.
And now, on to some pictures.

Here's Shele modeling one of the beautiful necklaces she made that afternoon. I'm very impressed that she made two whole pieces of jewelry while I only finished a few rows on the bag (see below)!
Here's Joyce with another of her creations (and a yummy looking iced chai).
Lorelle was working on a knitted scarf, I think. We talked about the dangers and joys of knitting with monkey fur (note--not real monkey fur) yarn. It's so slippery and tangles easily, but it's incredibly soft. I made a scarf for David's Aunt Susie one year. I was almost in tears with all those blasted tangles.
And here's Sonya working on a cute tank top for a friend's baby. Turns out she works in a business school, too. It's weird how crafts and business can go together.
And, finally, here's the dreaded laptop bag laying on my office floor near the trusty printer. It's not quite the required 50 inches, but it's close. I like it, but I'm very sick of knitting it. I sure hope my parents like it and will actually use it once it's finished and felted.

Soon to come--pictures from our volunteer work weekend and from Dia de los Muertos in the park.

Monkey Update & Snazzy Pictures

The nightmares are over, and the three-armed cyclops monkey is finished. (Truth be told, he's been finished for a month, but I just haven't posted any pictures yet.)
This is the inaugural picture from my new camera. Woo hoo! Many more pixels. Zoom. Wondrous tools. No more dark, fuzzy pictures.

Here he is relaxing on one of our bookcases. (We have SO many books!) David hasn't named him yet. I'll let you know when he does.

In other knitting news, I'm working on what will be a felted laptop bag for my parents with yarn my dad picked out at Tierra Wools. I'm REALLY tired of knitting it and only halfway through. I'll post a picture of that sometime soon. The stripes look nice--it's just very dull to work on.

Here's a picture near the Alumni House at USC. I like to eat lunch on one of the benches near the roses, so one day this week I took this picture. The building is the back of Doheny Library. Working at a university definitely has its advantages.
Last weekend, our friend Craig and I did the AIDS Walk for what we think was the fourth year in a row. I was allowed to join his work team, and we joked that I was a sleeper cell.

I don't normally wear baseball hats, but it had our team name on it. What would I do? My big regret is that I didn't get one of the ice cream bars they were handing out near the end. I talked to somebody on campus who had done the walk. She said the ice cream was delicious, but it just felt wrong to be walking 10 kilometers while eating ice cream. I guess I made up for it last night at the ice cream social at That Yarn Store. Mmm--Cherry Garcia!

Anyway, for the AIDS Walk, I've been able to surpass my fundraising goal already thanks to Ana, Ravi, and Elaine. Thanks, guys! If anyone reading this wants to donate a few bucks, just email me. There's still time.

You don't really get a sense of the sheer number of people in this picture taken from a very slight hill. They said 30,000 people participated this year, but we were out way ahead of most of them and didn't feel crushed at all. (Such was not the case in years past.)

Church of Craft is tomorrow, so I'll try to post some pictures from that!

My New Mexico Odyssey, Part 1

Once again, I've been away and neglectful. But I have some great pictures to share from my recent (well, fairly recent) trip to New Mexico.

Here I am in Las Cruces with my grandma and my "new" cousin Elizabeth. This is the day of the tornado warning and hailstorm that pitted Elizabeth's rental car hood and broke its windshield. (My uncle's little Honda hybrid was in even worse shape with a completely smashed back windshield and lots more damage.
Here I am diligently working on David's monkey despite the Biblical weather outside. See, David? I promised I'd get the monkey done. (And I did--more on that in another post.)

Here is Elizabeth and me (man, you're short, Elizabeth!) in Old Mesilla for a dedication of a historic house.


We took a trip to White Sands with Elizabeth's two sons, Chris and Joey, plus Elizabeth's sister Prissy and her two daughters. I had a lot of fun experimenting with my mom's calendar while the "kids" buried each other in the sand. Here's one of my self portraits.

After the trip to Las Cruces, my mom and I drove back to Aztec. The three of us (Mom, Dad, and me) drove up to Chama and Los Ojos, for yarn and sightseeing. My dad even bought me yarn, but it's actually for a laptop bag for them, so I'm not sure that counts as gift yarn.

They'd just done a bunch of dyeing the day before, so we got to go back and see all the beautiful colors drying. Beautiful, huh?


And here I am trying to decide what to get. I think what I finally decided was that I wanted to go back and take one of their five day weaving classes where you take a class all day and then get to stay in the cute casita out back. Man--check out Tierra Wools. It's amazing!

One happy knitter!

I'm going to post this, but I have many more things to write about. Finished monkeys, the LA County Fair, another leftover party at That Yarn Store. Stay tuned!