the hour before i go to bed

i have been working a lot lately. more than my usual "a lot" usual, that is. when i work a lot i get home late and have to decompress for an hour or so.. some what of what i do with the time i should be sleeping....



rW and i finished our 750 piece puzzle.
it was fun. i used to do puzzles with my mom when i was a kid, and we always had a good time. she is a very "make your own fun" sort of person, a quality rW also possesses.

now, i don't think i am going to devote myself full time to puzzling by any means. i still find knitting more relaxing.



after the big old 750, we put together two 100 piece puzzles. they came as part of a ten puzzle set (two 100, four 300, four 500). roll of tape shown for scale. they are very small, and both of them took us less than an hour.

sure are cute and americana.



and finally a farewell.
last weekend, i bought a pumpkin at safeway, and tonight i was going to draw a face on him when a sad discovery was made.... he has the cancer.

one small spot of rot on his bottom where his skin was pierced, probably in transit. it does not seem like much, but he will spoil quickly. Owloysius tried to comfort the little guy but he looked decidedly nervous when i placed him on the ground level windowsill outside rW's building.

R.I.P.
Lil' Punkin


i am in tech this weekend, so busy times and little time to report back. i hope to ave pictures of this show to share. it rocks.

the fun part of the full week. sorta.

rW and i have made some good progress on our puzzle despite only working on it intermittently. we did most of it last saturday and another hour of puzzling on one week night. we mostly have water and rocks left... some trees.

i did all of the sky at once.
go me.

i may have already bought a new puzzle. maybe. ahem.

i can tell you i bought new sneakers yesterday. all of my shoes are dying, and i needed something to replace the 4 pairs of canvas/rubber combos i pitched over the last few months. i also threw out a pair of real sneakers yesterday, but i may have to ask santa for some of those.

last night we went out to the beer store and discovered they had 7oz shorty high life!

high life is my favourite cheap beer. i got the 8-pack of shorties for $3.49. these may be the most perfect thing ever because i don't always want a whole beer.

meet Owloysius. he is a fan of the champagne of beers too.

i have done a lot of knitting on the shawl this week because my car had to go to the doctor and i had a lot of time on the metro. also, i sat (knit) through a first rehearsal of one show and the design run for another. i finished up the body of the shawl, knit the eyelet border, increased to a multiple of 8, and started the knit-on edging.

the edging experience has been a doozy. many false starts and corrections, but i think i have it now. 3 repeats down 51 to go!

holey wow.

this is piece of unblocked lace. um. that's why it looks so goofy and relatively bad compared to other projects i have shown here. don't worry, it will be pretty before the end of next month!

this is the christening shawl for my future nephew. mama knows i am making it for the bambino, but i hope my FBL doesn't tell her i posted a progress photo. ahem. this project is really giving me a run for my money.

i am a new lace knitter, and this has been a learning experience.

i have decided that non-repeating patterns are difficult for me. i can't memorize the knot motif so i am glued to the chart row by row. i would be in agony of i were knitting this to a full stole size with repeats of the knot chart.

but i am not!
and it will be beautiful and worth all the careful chart reading when i have knit the last stitch, blocked it so it looks like something and a new wee person is wrapped up in it.

in other news...
i finished rW's tie. it is beautiful. i don't have modeled photos yet because we have both been very busy this week. i had 2 first rehearsals, 2 production meetings, 1 nineteen hour work day, 3 shifts at the shop, costume fittings, and a partridge in a pear tree. i'm glad it was only a 4 day week!

after the crazy week, rW went out for dinner last night. it was fantastic. we went to Franklin's in Hyattsville (why do they not have a website? or why is it so hard to find?) and i was pleased this go around. i used to go there all the time in grad school, and it was great, but over the last year, it was really sucking. i was pleased to see that this time we had good food, fast service, and a wonderful server.

this last point is especially important to me. i have had the lamest servers there every time i have been in the last year and a half.

we had a relatively simple dinner. beer (yay brew pub!), fresh made rolls, and salads. my salad was mix greens topped with grilled peaches, rd onion, blue cheese, pecans, and a sherry vinaigrette. rW had a salad of mixed heirloom tomatoes, red onion, and slices of feta cheese finished with a lemon dressing.

i cannot even describe how delicious the lemon dressing was on his salad. it is even difficult to describe the dressing itself, it was so unusual.

we went to the attached general store after dinner, and it inspired us to buy a puzzle. a jigsaw puzzle. yes, we are preparing for our geriatric years now.

750 pieces of pretty coastline. i think it is an italian sea town. i will keep you posted as the puzzle develops and my grey hair comes to visit.

la mer

last week during previews for my latest show i was forced (really, my arm was twisted) to start a new project i could knit in the total darkness of a theatre. voila! new tie for rW in the works. it is knit in 100% italian silk making it a treat for both of us.

i think this color will be very nice with his eyes.

before i retreat

me and jess at her baby shower. you can see the very top of the belly bump.

i forgot to share something that happened at the shower.

i am sort of the official shower assistant. i write down who gave what and make sure we save all the pieces. i did it for her wedding shower, so i was elected for this too. well, our grandmother sat next to me so she could see the gifts better (she's 90, distance = not so good).

at the end of the gift portion of the afternoon, jess made a short a lovely thank you speech and then we all went for refills. that's when she made her move. my grandmother grabbed my arm and i thought she just wanted a hug so i gave her the hug and we had the usual "good to see you/love you/etc".... then!

THEN!

grandma: hopefully we will be doing this for you in a year or two.
yvette: (!!!!)
grandma: i just want you to be happy.
yvette: (!?!?)
[long pause]
yvette: um, okay.

i escaped.
i had to. i even had to avoid he for the rest of the day because she tried to go back to the topic with me, and she went to my mother as well. i feel bad because she is 90, and i live far away, so it is not as if i see her every week. bu i think it took me at least 12 hours to fully recover.

yet it does beg one question... what exactly did my grandmother mean by "doing this for you"? because we were at a baby shower. not a bridal shower. maybe i am not giving her enough credit, but i just don't see my grandmother being that progressive.

okay.
thrift stores will be awake. off to shop my show. almost finished! see you when this beast is more complete.

three ohio things

this is my new friend. i met him outside my favourite yarn shop where my mum shops. isn't he cute? when i walked to the fence, he came right up to me and said hello while the other alpacas and llamas continued to frolick. i think he believed i was bringing him food, but i will just go on pretending we are pals.



these guys were also outside the yarn shop. they were chasing around a white rooster until i came up to them. i am sure they thought i had corn or some other yumminess.



Marblehead Lighthouse is about 15-20 minutes form my parents house and about 5 minutes from my fav yarn shop. i cruised by but i didn't take the tour because i was on a schedule. i have never been up inside the tower--someday.

argh!

i HATE our ftp server.

i am trying to write a bunch of blog posts for the store blog and schedule them to roll out over the next week or so.... i want to get this done before i go into tech so that it can 1. get paid. and 2. not have to worry about the blog while am up to my eyeballs in my "real" job.

boo.

boo on images and ftp servers!

shower craft

saturday i attended my cousin's baby shower. for the forthcoming bambino, i made a few crafty gifts. not all of them were yarn craft, but there was some of that as well (as always!). first, something we have seen before.

bambino is a little boy, and he will have the cashmere bootees i knit a few months ago. i added a blue ribbon to each to make it a little more "boy" and to help prevent him from kicking them of his little feets.

at the shower we had to pass the bootees around because everyone wanted to touch the cashmere.

in addition to warming his piggies, i made something to adorn the bambino's nursery walls. jess liked the winnie the pooh gang a lot when we were little, so i decided to make some pooh themed wall hangings. these four little guys are about 2 inches tall in their frames.

very cute and super fun to make.
each one took about 2-3 hours to stitch and frame. i have not done a lot of cross stitch since 2000, so this was a big change of pace for me. i enjoyed it a lot once i got the hang of the technique again.

finally, i created a "least common denominator" craft--iron-on transfer. i was at jo-ann's a few weeks back and saw these iron-on transfers and could not resist. super cute on blue onesies. they were a pretty big hit

there may be more shower and/or ohio pictures to come.... BUT! i am entering tech this weekend, so updates will become sparse soon.

out of town

i am i ohio right now visiting with my family and attending my cousin's baby shower. right before i left, i finished my dad's sweater. about freaking time.

i know it didn't take me long to knit it, but it felt like a dog's age because there were so many unexpected mistakes in the numbers. i was following the pattern carefully, and then it stopped following itself. and there is no errata for this pattern!

boo.

the project...

i ::heart:: my dad
a.k.a. Unisex Knock-Around Cashmere Pullover
by Teva Durham
published in Weekend Knitting

size 44". knit in Cascade 128 Tweed (7 skeins #7622 olive green, 90% Peruvian Wool, 10% Donegal.) on size US 10 needles.

started: july 24, 2008.
finished: august 11, 2008.

let me start by saying that this sweater is beautiful. let me also say that i really enjoyed making it up until the last 20% or so. and let me conclude this initial assessment by posting my ravelry notes into the blog.

it had such a positive start...

i have started my christmas knitting. i work on this project around my boyfriend because i get distracted easily by our conversations, and this pattern is very simple.

i am considering modifying the sleeves.

07/27/08: finished both center panel sections. i have sewn them together at the side seams and picked up the stitches for the bottom of the sweater to knit in the round rather than picking up separately and seaming later.

me = lazy

i should not have been lazy. or i should have done a bit more thinking. i picked up the total number of stitches for both sides and knit them. well, if i had been thinking, i would have taken away stitches for the seams. two stitches on each side get used in the seaming, and i had no seams.... so my bottom section of the sweater flared out.

in the end, i decided to seam in darts on each side to reduce those stitches--flare taken care of.

07/30/08: finished bottom portion of the sweater body, picked up stitches for front body and sleeve increases.

08/04/08: finished the top front/front sleeves. i was knitting away and thinking “wow, this is taking a long time” until i looked at the reality of what i was knitting–the top of the sweater body and both sleeves at the same time. silly knitter, trix are for kids.

i am a little nervous about the collar looking good!

nd my nerves started at the right time. my knitter's spidey sinse was tingling because it got tough from here on out.

08/06/08: i knit the collar last night, and it looked good, but despite carefully reading the directions, my collar is about 5 stitches too far to one side. in this bulky yarn, that is more than an inch! gah. i need to go back to being a sock knitter.

08/07/08: i fixed the collar yesterday and it is now in the correct spot. for the life of me, i could not make the pattern numbers work, so i just employed my old pal logic.

08/09/08: i knit the back following the instructions, and it is all sorts of jacked up. i cannot even describe the absurdity.

08/10/08: okay. i managed to fix the back by completely ignoring the directions and decreasing the sleeve stitches MUCH sooner than the pattern recommends. i did the 3 needle bind off written in the pattern, but it looks assy, so i am riping it out and redoing.

i have had such a hard time with the last haul on this pattern, but there is no errata on the pattern.

i am dubious.

08/11/08: sweater is done. drying from the blocking. pics to follow soon!

i ended up pulling out a second three needle bind-off and simply binding off the back section and sewing it to the back center panel. it looks much better.

as if the pattern problems were not enough, i was thisclose to running out of yarn!

my final problem with this pattern is the serious amount of extra yarn i needed. i am glad i bought two extra skeins because th pattern called for 660 yards for the size i made and my skeins totaled 896 yards. that is more than 100 yards over the amount called for with the next size up.

i used all but the tiniest scraps. i have one 4 yard piece and 4 pieces of yarn longer than 8 inches. the rest is the clippings from the ends.

08/12/08: blocked and photographed. thank you to rW for standing in as a sweater model.

in the end, i can say... i like the sweater. it is very pretty, and i hope my dad likes it and actually wears it. i can also carve another notch on my knitting belt. i have now officially knit a man sized sweater! yeah!

more when i return from ohio. maybe even some non-knitting craftiness.

blargh!

there is something seriously screwed about the pattern from which i am knitting my father's sweater. it was smooth sailing until i hit the final 25% of the knitting. then the pattern numbers stopped matching up in the book, and all sorts of chaos ensued.

the collar was in the wrong place, and then the backs of my sleeves and the back of the body suddenly became too long well before they should have been "done". i think i need a break from oddly constructed sweaters that are made all in one piece.

when you have to rip back, you have to rip back a lot.

let's look at a few things that were not headache.

froggy
designed by Lion Brand

crocheted in Berroco Touche (3/4 of a skein of green tea and scraps of bleach, 50% cotton, 50% rayon) with a tahki cotton classic embellishments with a size H hook.

started and finished: august 4, 2008.

this guy is super goofy. he takes very little skill to create, and he is a very fast way to get the crochet fix. he has other friends from the same set on the lion website, and i plan to give him some company. i may gift the frog and his future friends as a whole menagerie or parse them out to people over time. we shall see, but i am pretty sure he will not be mine forever.


piggy
designed by Lion Brand

crocheted in Mission Falls 1824 cotton (3/4 of a skein of #408 Foxglove 100% cotton)and mystery pink stash cotton and tahki cotton classic embellishments with a size H hook.

started and finished: august 5, 2008.

the pig was designed as a buddy to the frog, but i did a lot of modifications to the pattern to make him cuter (in my opinion). he has a real snout and a tail in my version. he also looks more like pig and less like a ball.... his body instructions are actually identical to the frog.

now you can see how much i modified him.

whew.
i feel better now. i think i may have it in me to put the stitches back on the needle and then... suck it up and deal.

beet dis... RAK!

i joined the Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) group on ravelry. in the group forum you post a wish list and other people post a wish list and if you can fulfill a wish, you do. they can be knitting related and non.

my non knitting related wish was for people to send me beet recipes, which they have!

i told rW about this and he sent me a RAK as well. sort of.

arrrrrrtissssst

ps- marat/sade

oh, yes.
opening went well!

the post threw me a bone, and some other critics liked it quiet a bit. i'm not in the mood to find reviews and link.

you can check out some pictures here, here, and here. that lasts set has one of me showing my typically well concealed goofiness and anime eyes.

show cntinues to run through next weekend, so get your tickets here.

i'm nice to my boyfriend

first the catch up.

long time no blog. i have been busy busy with starting the first 5 shows of the new theatre season, opening Marat/Sade (my final show of last season), helping on season selection for one theatre company, working at the store, teaching crochet class, seeing a friend whom i have not visited with since 2001, and completing the wedding gown i designed for another friend.

she is getting married today.

congrats to R. and her man D. i hope she feels (and looks) like a million bucks today, and even more than that, i hope they have a long and happy life together.

i may post a picture of the drawing of her dress after the big day is over. i will put a photo up once they get the professional shots back. that will probably be in a few weeks.

now the yarn projects.
while i have worked on many things, all my finished projects have been for rW, as this post title suggests.

rW's Rockabilly Bathmat (and Atomic Radios Shower Curtain)
designed by kittything

knit in many skein bits of random cotton from my stash (doubled) on size U.S. 10.5 needles.

started: july 3, 2008.
finished: july 9, 2008.

rW. moved into a new apartment on july 1, and he was blessed with a bathroom that had a manly 1960s pink tile renovation. me being that polly-anna, lemons into lemonade sort, i made him some accessories that made the place a little more his style.

it started with the atomic era radios shower curtain. i bought some yardage at the fabric store and sewed it to the correct dimensions and added grommets. voila! $20 bucks and an hour at the machine is much better than $40 and an hour at Linens and Things.

to go with the pink tile and crazy colored curtain, i took all the scraps of pink cotton in my stash and paired them with the black cotton bits and made a random stripe bathmat. very straight forward and a fast knit.

now that i have given it a chance, i think i would like to try crocheting a bathmat or other rug for myself in the future.

the other nicey nice thing...

The Great Green Sock Tie
aka Koigu Tie
designed by Maie Landra

knit in Hand Jive Knits Nature's Palette Fingering (1 skein NP122 "spring grass" 100% wool.) on size US # needles.

started: june 17, 2008.
finished: july 24, 2008.

this was a fun and easy knit. if i had been more focused, it would have taken me much less time, but this was tv watching, commuting, long meeting type knitting. whenever i had the right combination of silence and good lighting, this project got ignored in favor of the cables or lace haunting me currently.

one last picture to show some stitch detail....

finally.... remarkable things!

1. rW asked me to knit him this "sock tie". (!!!!)
2. he picked out the yarn himself with minimal guidance from me.
3. he wore it within 48 hours of completion, and he is already talking about "the next tie you make me...."

someone knows ow to get a knitter to make them gifts.

the next big thing....

and this time it is a revolution.

cast: Steve Beall, Joe Brack, Jonathan Church, Katy Carkuff, Parker Dixon, Alice Anne English, Danny Gavigan, Michael Grew, Ashley Ivey, Emre Izat, Lisa Lias, Meg Maxwell, Eric Messner, Christine Millette, Richard Ernest Owens, Helen Pafumi, Barbara Papendorp, Colin Smith, Jesse Terrill, and Andrew Vergara.

the rest of us: Andrew Griffin (lights), Yvette Ryan (costumes), and Matt Soule (set), Matt Ripa (assistant director), Jenn Carlson (stage manager), Christine Millette (ASM), Hannah Hessel (dramaturg), Cliff Williams (fights), and Joel Reuben Ganz (movement).

tickets here.

many days of busy

stuff i have done since my last post.

1. start and brought to 90% completion a new knitting project.

2. helped rW move across state lines.

3. attend 2 fun 4th of july parties.

4. cut my finger badly (hampering my knitting badly) at work. try to slice a bit off my thumb cooking dinner. scratch the heck out of my arm carrying (wait for it....) empty moving boxes to storage. bruise my shins at both work and the move. and acquired a mystery bruise on my elbow that is roughly a 2" oval and presents a different variety of colors daily.

5. 10 successful costume fittings in under 2 hours.

6. experimented with claritin and benadryl to relieve my intense allergies.

7. slept more than usual for a pre-tech week because said allergies make me tired. i love oxygen.

8. attended a season selection meeting for one theatre company.

9. began designing a season opener for a university theatre.

10. finished the paper designing of a season opener for one of my favourite companies.

11. sewn two mock-ups of a wedding gown.

12. made a straight jacket. custom sized. hell, yeah.

13. stitched a shower curtain out of late 1950s atomic style radio print cotton.

14. organized my yarn stash: 1 medium sized tub of planned projects. 1 under-the-bed tub of scraps, odd balls, and leftovers. 1 freezer (small!) door of sock yarn.

15. made plans.....

i now long to clean out my books, sort my grad school leftovers, and sew myself a dress out of 1950s toaster print material i have been schlepping since 2002.

sometimes i make my own stuff

but this is not one of those times. when i am at the store i tend to work on store models. some i have been asked to knit, and others--like this one--have been abandoned by those who were originally asked to knit them. like an aluminum can on the side of the road or a funny looking dog at the pound, i scoop them up and take care of them.

i actually finished this silly thing about a week ago, but i needed a picture for the blog before i aired it for all to see. i have started anther model in the shop. this one is a new little gal... i am knitting the strawberry pullover from Roo Designs. i'll report back on my first foray into intarsia.

Marshmallow
a.k.a. Baby Cardigan (and Hat) P630
by Plymouth Yarn Design Studio

knit in Plymouth Oh My! (5 balls turquoise, 100% nylon) on size US 10 addi turbo needles.

started: june 4, 2008.
finished: june 18, 2008.

this was another orphan project. it was abandoned about a year ago by a collegue who just got tired of knitting it. on one hand, i don't blame her, it is a simple (boring) pattern knit in a goofy yarn. but then again, i inherited it with the back and most of one side finished, and i knit the sides, sleeves, collar, and did all of the finishing in about 6 hours.... so why not tough it out?

either way, i feel more informed about this yarn. it is all nylon and pretty slick. people seem to like it a lot, but now i can see why the other ladies are always trying to steer new knitters away from it. you really can't see the stitches and it is a pain to seam or otherwise finish.

it feels like what i imagine knitting marshmallows would feel like.

but it sure is cute, no?

model knitter

at the shop, we get paid to knit store models. i took on one that should have been very easy. big needles, very little shaping, no sleeves, simple stitch. the only catch seemed to be that i was knitting the third size instead of the smallest size (which is what we usually do a model in) because my boss wanted to wear it after we stop carrying the yarn.

that was back in march. i finally finished the beast today. to be fair to my laziness, i finished the sweater over a week ago, but i tried to get the seaming done at work. we were too busy for me to get it done (which is good! very good!) so i put it off until today at home. but now Lyn is back from vacation and there is no more letting this sweater sit on the back burner.

Lyn's Tank
a.k.a. "#6 Ribbed Tank"
designed by Rosemary Drysdale
published in S. Charles Collezione, Spring/Summer 2008

knit in Lana Grossa Cambio (5 balls #8 teal, 70% cotton, 30% polyester microfiber) on size US 10.5 and US 5 bamboo straight needles.

started: march 15, 2008.
finished: june 24, 2008.

i know, i know, it did take a long time. it was really hard for me to knit. the yarn on big needles hurt my wrists a lot. i had to wrap it so much and hold it with so much tension that my hands would ache after only an hour of knitting.

boo.

i learned that when knitting a yarn on a needle that is much larger than the yarn calls for, it is better to use straight needles. when i tried to work this on a circular, the yarn would snag on the cord joins and often it got too tense to slip easily back on to the working needle end.

i also learned which needle i needed to use by trial and error. i started out on metal needles, and they were waaaaay to slippery. i switched to birch, but they had too much drag. i finally settled on bamboo, and it worked pretty well.

i hope i can get a picture of this on Lyn because on me it looks very silly and dress-like. the yarn has a lot of vertical stretch knit on the big needles, so the arm holes are almost to my waist and my lack of curves "up top" mean the top stretches to mid-thigh when i wear it.

the effect is that of a chainmail dress.
yeah.
awesome.

in sock tie news, i have completed the length that hangs down from the tie knot and the decreases for the neck portion. i am now knitting the neck and tail. yay!

baby things are also moving along, but i have been on the tie more than the baby things. i'll need to do switch up on those soon!

socka socka socka

conditions under which you can knit a sweater for a man...

1. he is your father, brother, grandfather, or a really awesome and appreciative cousin or in-law.

2. you are married to the recipient or have been together long enough to be considered common law.

3. you have signed a pre-knit-ual agreement.

4. you want to end your relationship.

even though rW is a sweater wearing, knit-desiring, pretty-awesome guy, he does not fit into any of these descriptors. however, i am a total sucker.

very few knitters have men in their lives that want to have things knit for them... let alone a tie. yes, a tie. people are pretty evenly divided on knit ties. either they hate them or they love them, and most people who i know who love them have no one to knit one for.

this is my first knit tie, and it has been fun to make so far. it goes faster than you would expect for fingering weight yarn on size US 3 needles. i find that i can get in a rhythm with the linen stitch after a few rows and it moves.

rW calls it a sock tie, which i think is a funny name, but i guess it is accurate because it is knit from sock yarn. the truly silly thing is that despite calling it a sock tie, last night we were looking at knit ties on ravelry and he didn't like one we saw because it looked "too much" like a sock.

silly!

too much. (part II)

see that fine pair of preppy bags*? yeah, i only own one of those. the other sitting next to it belong to my #1 girl... my cousin. she drove out thursday for a very last minute visit.

it was great!
while this visit was the exact opposite of my mum's in terms of amount of stuff smooshed into 2.5 days, it was just as enjoyable. highlights...

i took jess to Plato's Diner in College Park. she declared their ravioli The Best Ever.

we shopped. well, window shopped. very little buying was done. we just looked at baby stuff at buybuy Baby and Ikea and hit The Container Store as well. there was some buying at Ikea. jess thought it was pretty amusing that she (the pregnant lady who doesn't even really like wine) was buying wine racks.

i bought an underwear drying hanger thingy that looks like a green octopus. it is absurd, but i love it.

speaking of absurd things you love, we had a nice visit with our aunt, uncle, and cousin. we even bought along rW to be judged by them. (ha.) there was dinner and conversation. and wine. we took a trip to the "art gallery" to see our little cousin's photos from her art show, and rW got to look at a box of old 45s my uncle had in the basement.

speaking of rW, he took jess and i out for italian on saturday night. he and i don't usually have pasta so we sort of had to hunt to find a place. we ended up at Ottelo's in dupont. i think the whole Ottelo's experience need its own highlights section.

• through a series a judgement errors, we ended up in dupont on the day of the Pride Parade. this would have been fine, and maybe a little fun, if i had not been confused about the location of the restaurant. we had to cross the parade twice because of my 'oops'.
• our aunt called in the middle of our wandering and confusion and left a message saying she hoped we did ot get caught in the parade. thanks, AUnt C. but at least jess can go home saying she saw drag queens, lesbian hot-rodders, and the gay square dancers.
  
• by the time we got to Ottelo's, it had started to rain and we were sort of soaked. it took us some time to recover, and the wait staff seemed too anxious to make us order 3 minutes after we waked in the door dripping.
• my arugula and radicchio salad was the best ever.
• did i mention the attentive wait staff? they were super friendly and great, but i found them edging on annoying. we had 2 waiters, the host, the water server, and a runner from the kitchen all after us. and they were making me feel self-conscious and high maintenance because they would bring me things i didn't ask for like i was acting like a princess to get them. at the same time, they were teasing me! i am not a fan of being teased by people i don't know.
• all that being said, the food was good and they were super nice, so i would probably go back. i think i would just not wear a dress and hope more frumpiness would help.

finally, i am excited jess got to come out now because i wanted to see the little baby bump. she didn't look pregnant the last time i saw her, so this was sort of cool. i should get to see her one more time before the big arrival day. it seems silly, and i know she is having a baby, but seeing the change makes it sink in more.

oh, yes. and reminds me that there is a lot of knitting to be done! the knitting updates won't be as frequent because some of this baby goodness is going to be a surprise.

which reminds me, i have finished the knitting on 2 store models. now i just need to sew them up. yay!


*for the record, there is nothing wrong with owning a preppy bag. i will say the preppier navy and green belongs to jess and the cream one is mine--a gift from jess at her wedding rehearsal dinner.