Weddingy type things

I finally have some knitting pictures to share, but they are on my camera at home and I am on campus, so they will have to wait. I just want to say that the Saartje bootie (I only have one done) is adorable!! The yarn did pool a bit, so that was disappointing but it doesn't look as bad as I thought. Maybe not the best yarn pick, but certainly usable.

On to wedding stuff... things continue to come together nicely. I have picked the bridesmaids' dresses and ordered my shoes. Well reordered really. They already came once but turns out I only needed a 9.5, not a 10. w00t!

Bridesmaid dresses... the Sophia short silk dress from J.Crew. Going with the espresso (aka... brown). Their shoes are up to the girls themselves, I really don't care what their shoes look like. Plus, that's just one more thing to stress about and I am trying to choose my battles wisely. Therefore, if I don't care about it, I'm not taking responsibility for it.


My dress... I still occasionally have flashbacks to the gorgeous french lace gown in Rochester. I still sometimes wonder if there isn't a prettier, more vintage-y dress out there somewhere that I would like better. So I may have to go put it on occasionally just to reassure myself that I do actually like it. I will say it looked better when I had my hair darker so I will probably recolor it again just before the wedding (like just a few days before... not JUST before. obviously). but anyway


and my shoes, which i may possibly be even more excited about than the dress. Well, maybe not really. But I do like them a lot. Got them from Steve Madden online.

Picking up the mat for the guestbook tonight and leaving for NY tomorrow morning. We are meeting with the caterer tomorrow and the cake people on Saturday. I think I'm most excited about the cake. And maybe I'll have some pictures of the ceremony site when we get back.

In the meantime I should probably go to class... so that I can work on my koolhaas hat.

at last...

...something knitting related. really, i did start this blog mainly for my knitting. right now its sort of a knitting blog cleverly masquerading as a wedding blog. but i finally have some knitting pictures to share.

first off is some knitpicks essential in meadow multi for some saartje booties. i really like this color combo, but variegated yarn can be weird, so hopefully i still like it once its knit up.


this is the Reynold's Whiskey for Mr. Z's Koolhaus hat. We've sort of run into a dilemma with that project, hence no progress shots still. While my gauge is now better on the smaller needles, the yarn is lacking the soft fluffiness it had when I knit it on the larger needles. Soooo, i may frog it yet again and put it back on the larger needles and just adjust a bit for the gauge difference. i know the two will work, i just need to get the yarn and pattern to play nicely together.


and a finished object that has actually been finished for a while but i don't think i have blogged its completedness. shooting a decent picture of a wrap without an assistant is very difficult.

Pattern: Feather and Fan (co 164 stitches and work in pattern until desired length)
Yarn: KP Shadow in Campfire Heather, just under 4 skeins

And here is the progress on the second wrap. same yarn, but a slightly different pattern. I am almost through the second skein of yarn. it will probably use up four skeins since it is a bit wider than the first one.

Pattern: Fishtail Lace Scarf free pattern from Knitpicks.com (cast on 180)
Yarn: KP Shadow in Campfire Heather

We've also settled on our wedding invitation design and even figured out how to print them on cardstock that has already been cut to size using Mr. Z's work computer. Now I just have to finalize the RSVP card and the sheet with all the location information on it, but knowing that we really can make it print the way we want to has been a real relief. And I've found some fabulously unique jewelry on etsy.com that should match my dress. One of the jewelers has agreeded to make me a necklace to match the earrings (that were already in her shop) that i really like. YAY! I'll share pictures when i get them.

huzzah!

my knitpicks order hath finally arrived. i can now restart mr. z's koolhaus hat. you may remember that I blogged about starting it and then it disappeared. turns out my gauge was a bit off and i needed to to restart it on smaller needles, BUT a certain dog ate my smaller needles. henceforth, all needles must be metal because the bamboo has proven too much for poor kodiak to resist. he hadn't chewed anything in a really long time so i got lazy and left them on the couch and returned home to find the ends all mangled :( lesson learned, until the next time i forget i guess.

so hopefully i should have some koolhaus pictures to share soon. I will say, the first time around I decided that I HATED the pattern before i'd completed the first row of the lattice. that cabling needle is so bloody awkward. then i remembered something i'd read a long while back... i googled "cabling without a needle" and Voila!! things moved much more quickly after that and i actually started enjoying the experience. I'm also enjoying the Reynold's Whiskey, it knits up nicely.

My order also included one skein of KP essential in meadow multi for the knitting of the saartjes booties. Even though the only pregnant person i know is my hairdresser, whom i've only been to twice and therefore probably don't know well enough to knit for. but they are so cute and tiny, i'm just going to knit them anyway.

Internet shopping orders have been arriving here left and right, though the majority are wedding related. The most recent was a paper cutter to aid in the putting together of our invitations. I experimented by cutting cardstock to make a sign to accompany our guestbook. The "guestbook" is going to be one of those picture frames with a giant mat for people to sign. So, while i assume people would instinctively know what to do, I thought it needed a clever little sign to accompany it.

totally stole the pine cone idea from another fall wedding on craftster

i love the little pail for the pens. it was a JoAnn's find

at last...

we have FINALLY gotten leaves glued on all the centerpiece candles. they look really good, so hopefully the adhesive sticks and they still look good ten months from now when we actually need them. now my concern about the arrangements is having enough large leaves to scatter around them and the tables. i've found a place that has fairly realistic looking ones that i may order if the need arises. Here is the final product of all that sticky work...


turns out our basement actually has better light for indoor photography than any other room in the house. who knew??

And all my books have finally arrived. I treated myself to several craft books using christmas giftcards/money and i can't wait to put them to use.

Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts - Joelle Hoverson and Anna Williams
Knitting Without Tears - Elizabeth Zimmerman
Handknit Holidays - Melanie Falick
The Complete Book of Sewing - DK Publishing

someday i will be done with wedding crafts and will actually be able to do other fun stuff. someday...

change of plans

went shopping for bridesmaid dresses with ashley today. the separates at david's did not look as good as i remembered, or at least was not as flattering on ashley. and there was really nothing at david's that was appealing. so we moved on to alan ray where we found "the dress."

oh yeah. lime green with purple accents. (this picture just doesn't do justice to the brightness of the green) the hilarious thing is, ashley totally rocked the dress. at least she did from the waist down. the bust was way huge but the rest looked really cute. so lime green and purple it is.

which i guess would make these candles we did for the centerpieces very much the wrong color.


ok, now that these are dried and the glue is finally off my fingers, i think they look really awesome. this is the shortest of the three candle sizes. i finished 8 of the 12 middle sized candles this afternoon before my fingers were too stuck together to continue. the leaves are from multiple sources. We preserved a whole bunch of really pretty ones this fall by either drying and pressing them (those HUGE pharmacy books are finally proving useful) or soaking them in glycerin. if anyone is interested, the pressing maintains the colors far better, but the glycerin preserved ones are more flexible. they both seem to work fairly well on the candles. in case we did not preserve enough, we also got two variety packs from Nature's Pressed

i got the giant pack of 48 candles (12 in 4 different sizes) from candles4less and they are decent. there are a few that have dings or slightly smashed spots along the bottom edges, but they are hardly noticeable or can be hidden by a strategically placed leaf. the leaves are put on using spray adhesive, and there is probably a better way that wouldn't result in everything sticking together, but the spray works well enough.

back in the ring

nothing is as much fun as working in a pharmacy at the beginning of the year. its the time of year when companies are changing insurance companies left and right and the average citizen has no idea what the hell is going on with their health care. honestly, i probably spent a total of two hours on the phone today calling insurance companies to find out people's ID numbers and group numbers and carriers and person codes and all sorts of other information that is contained on handy little cards that people never bother to bring in. and half the time, they come in to pick up their prescription and don't even know that they have completely different insurance carriers than they had last year and that we've tracked down who their new carrier is and wasted ten minutes of our day finding their new information, just so we don't have to call them at home and listen to them insist that they do not, in fact, have new insurance.

not that i'm bitter or anything, i actually rather enjoy my job most of the time. but it has its frustrating moments.

i don't really have much to share on the crafting front today, though i do have lots of things lined up to do in the near future. there was some progress on the candle centerpieces last night. and by progress i mean my fingers were pretty much glued together and ken gave up after one candle. and there was some un-knitting of the wrap when i discovered an error during class today (yes, i happily knit through the first day of class). i have tomorrow and saturday off though so hopefully there will be some more time to work on things. tomorrow afternoon, though, is to be devoted to looking at bridesmaid dresses and probably drinking with lunch.

since i don't have any crafts to show, i'll borrow a page from knittycrafter's book and share a food picture. ken made these a while ago and they were so cute i had to take a picture.

Recipe: Individual Blueberry Cups
Woman's Day (some back issue that i've cut all the recipes out of)

mmm... they were tasty. its pretty much a cornmeal mix, some sugar, and some blueberries, all baked into warm, crumbly, deliciousness.

The crafting continues

here are the finished flower girl baskets, which i think look much, much better than they did before. i think they look pretty darn good, considering they were a total of $1.18 at Goodwill. moral of the story... when you can't find what you want, find something else and force it to conform to your wishes. or something.

ken laughed at me for looking up instructions on tying a bow

also got the unity candle set (and some spares) put together using some ribbon and a couple of the leaves that we preserved with glycerin. the spray adhesive works really well on the candles, though it seems to end up all over my fingers, which results in me having bits of ribbon, leaves, and dog hair stuck all over the damn place.





(not the best focus on these, forgot how crummy my lens is when its all the way open)

tomorrow is the last day of break before school starts back up again and i don't have to work, so maybe i'll work on the centerpieces. and i guess at some point i ought to actually clean the apartment, instead of just talking about how i should do it...