It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's .......

Finally the second sleeve of my silk shrug! I have officially completed the body and sleeves. Now all I have left is to sew up the seams and knit the ruffle that goes around the edge. I've never knit anything this big before and I'm really excited to see how it turns out :)

To finish the shrug, I need to use two techniques that I've never done before, sewing up seams and picking up stitches. That's not unusual since I had to look up how to increase and decrease just to complete the sleeves of this sweater. The knittinghelp.com website is great at showing all these different techniques and has really helped me learn and improve my knitting. I'm sure they will be able to help me now.

I must admit that the body of this sweater seemed to go on and on. Sometimes it felt like I would never be finished knitting. From end to end, it's almost taller than I am! I tried to take a picture to show you how long it is, but I couldn't fit all of it into the frame of my camera. Even though it's a little dark, I think this picture does an o.k. job of giving you a sense of it's length.














I love the color and feel of this shrug. It's so soft and since it's alpaca, I'm sure it will be very warm. Even little Ginny loves it! I could hardly keep her away from it long enough to take pictures. The ends of the yarn that haven't been woven in yet are her favorite :)

Life's been pretty crazy around my house since I came home from San Diego. I told you guys that I had some news to share on my next blog post. I'm happy to announce that during our trip to San Diego my boyfriend and I got engaged! We don't have any specifics planned yet, other than that it will take place next year in 2009. He moved into my house a couple of weeks ago and we're making plans to start our life together.

This past weekend was another race weekend at Thunderhill Raceway. My boyfriend decided to race into two different classes this time, so he had two races on Sunday morning. He looked great on the track and had a lot fun. Even though I was pretty far away, I was able to get a picture of him exiting the "Eagle's Nest." In case you're interested in more information about the racing, his team is Rent Money Racing.



I'm going to try and get the shrug sewn up this week so that I can start on the ruffle. I have promised myself that I would finish some projects before I start any new ones!

Missing in Action

This is part of the reason why I haven't been posting very much lately. This picture was taken just down the street from the beach house my boyfriend and I rented in San Diego (Ocean Beach) at the end of June. The vacation was amazing! After driving down late Saturday night, we had the whole week to spend in San Diego. The weather was great the whole time and we even avoided the smoke that was plaguing the Bay Area.

We started the trip by visiting Sea World. It was so close to the house that we could ride our bikes there. They had all kinds of animals and even a few rides that took us by surprise, in particular one ride that guaranteed you would be drenched by the end. Of course, we had to see a Shamu show, which exceeded all of our expectations. All in all, I think we spent more than six hours wandering around and looking at everything. Here are some pictures of what we saw.










The day after Sea World, we ventured down to the beach and enjoyed the soft, warm sand and the sound of the ocean for most of the day. We stopped by a great pizza place in the afternoon and hung out there for a while too. That night we also decided to check out a Padres game. We were able to take the Trolley to the ballpark, which was very nice since we didn't have to deal with traffic or parking.

One day during the trip, we took a long bike ride over to Mission Beach. I was able to visit a great store called the Needlecraft Cottage. I have to admit that it's one of the best shops I've even been to. They seem to have everything there, lots of yarn, cross stitch patterns and supplies, needlepoint projects, and so many other wonderful things. I walked away with three skeins of Malabrigo lace weight in pink frost and a Mill Hill kit called "Seaside Sampler" to commemorate the trip. I haven't figured out what I'm going to make with the yarn yet, but I'm anxious to start the Mill Hill kit because it looks like it will be a quick stitch and lots of fun.

We did see a very strange visitor to the beach while we there. He was wandering around like he owned the place. Even though he was very friendly, his exploration of some beach blankets did scare some beach-goers. His owner would also throw him into the ocean, where he would ride the waves back to shore and climb up onto the sand again. It was so funny! Probably one of the most interesting things I've seen at the beach in while :)


Now that we're on the subject of animals again, my boyfriend and I also visited the Wild Animal Kingdom. It was so interesting to see the wide expanse of land with all these African animals living together, minus the carnivores of course. It kind of made you feel like you were on a real safari. One of the best sights was the the lion exhibit. They had seven lion cubs that were almost one-year old. They seemed to follow their big lion daddy all around the pen, even when he went to sleep on the top of an old car!


I've been back home now for a couple of weeks, but it's taken a while to get into the swing of things again. There are some major changes going on around here, which I will announce in my next post. I promise there will be more knitting/crafting talk in the next one too because even though I haven't been home, I have been getting some knitting done.

Here is one last picture of the snowman I entered into the local county fair. I was surprised and delighted to learn that I'd received first place!