FO Socks

My Mom is visiting, the Things are on vacation, and we've been busy. But I did finish a pair of socks for my Mom:

The yarn was, I think, some Mountain Colors from my stash. The pattern is Thuja from Knitty (thanks, Emily! :-)). Thanks to the relatively big gauge (I used size 5 needles) and my Mom's size 5 feet, even I was able to finish these in a jiffy. This is a nice easy pattern that's not too boring.

More pottery

Last night was the last night of the session for my ceramics class. I took several things home.

The vase thing above is actually probably my favorite thing I've made so far. I really like how the glaze turned out. It's a pretty big piece--about 8" long and 6" tall.

This piece is a smaller variation on the same theme. I'm not sure why I put a hole there. I guess I just like holes. And I like the glazed/unglazed effect on this piece, too.

It's hard to capture the color of this dish--it's actually a slightly irridescent, purply red. I'm very fond of it and will use it on other pieces. This dish lost one of its feet in the kiln and is now lopsided, so I'm going to have to glue something on to replace it.

I'm going to miss the class, but I do plan to sign up again for the next session, which begins in late January.

!!!!!24!!!!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the very last Lizard Ridge block:

Of course, Lizzie's not yet an FO. The blocks need blocking, then sewing, and then the whole thing will need a zillion miles of (shudder) crochet edging. But the knitting is done.

Over the weekend, I made peppermint bark with the Things, to give to T2's teachers as a gift. T2 was Official Stirrer and Product Tester.

Twenty-Three!

Just 1 more Lizzie block to go! And man, I love this colorway (40, I think).

22, Dora, and a holiday miracle

Voila--Lizzie square number 22! The next to last block is on my needles already.

Thing 2 received a learn to sew kit as a Hanukkah present. The kit makes a felt Dora puppet. She really enjoyed sewing it, and here she is enjoying the fruits of her labor. She's sitting on several pillows, in what we have named the Princess and the Pea Method of watching TV.

Incidentally, see that Ikea stool next to her? One of these days I'm going to explain why I think these stools are among the Best Products Ever.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that Tuesday night I received a FedEx package of Recchiuti chocolates. I'd ordered a couple boxes as gifts for friends, plus one for myself. I have to make it through the end of the semester somehow. Well, yesterday I received another box containing the exact same items as the first. Apparently, through some hiccup they'd shipped a duplicate of my order. I called them today, and the very nice person said I get to keep the duplicate for free. It's a holiday miracle. ;-)

Random Wednesday Thoughts

• Last night the Fed-Ex guy delivered a package to our house at 9:50 pm. Which was okay with me, because the package contained Recchiuti chocolates. If I could have only one kind of sweet for the rest of my life, it would be Recchiuti fleur de sel caramels.
• I am currently eyebrow-deep in final exams and term papers. I was trying to grade papers today for my scientific evidence class while eating some noodle soup for lunch, but when I got to the part in someone's paper where she was discussing the rates at which dead human brains become semi-liquid, I decided to eat first and grade later.
• It's a hazard this time of year: I'm daydreaming of vacations. We try to take one big family trip a year. In 2007 it was Disneyworld, and 2008 will be a Disney cruise in the Caribbean. We haven't settled on a 2009 destination yet. What would you all suggest? It doesn't have to involve Disney. :-) In 2009, the Things will be 9 and 6. My best ideas so far: Montreal, Hawaii, or a Mediterranean cruise with maybe a stay in Barcelona.
• Winter Knitty is up. Several of the projects have my interest.
• Read this on Yahoo! today. All I can say is, thank goodness it wasn't my kid.

21, makover, and tea request

Here ya go--Lizzie block #21. Just three more to go. I've been doing these blocks between larger projects, but I'm not sure whether I have the patience for that now. I just may knit 'em all up now.

Thing 1 went to a birthday party this weekend. The girls went to someplace at the mall called Libby Lu's, and returned with fancy hair, glittery makeup, polished fingernails, and assorted girly loot.

And I need your help with this. I received some of this tea via a swap, and I've become totally addicted. And this is my last bag and I can't find a source for this stuff online. If anyone knows where I can get more of this stuff, please let me know!

Hanukkah Loot

Yay, two posts in one day! Here are the Things enjoying some of their Hanukkah loot. T2 loves the alligator mittens her grandmother knitted her. "Hey!" she said. "I could have a puppet show with these!"

Maybe T1 could provide the musical accompaniment to the puppet show with her new iPod shuffle. I'm going to be happy not to have her begging in the car to listen to the pop music station she likes.

Of course, Ruthie got gifts, too. And she helped the Things open theirs. She's a very helpful dog.

They look happy, don't they?

On an unrelated note, Ruthie's been limping lately. I took her to the vet this morning, and he says she has arthritis in one of her rear knees. He prescribed some meds that we hope will help. Poor girl.

FOs in three media

After an FO drought, I've managed to finish a few things in the last couple days.

I decided to try making an Artist Trading Card for a swap on Swap-bot. It's my very first ATC. I entitled it "Daydreaming." I can see how these little guys could get addictive:

Next up, a finished pottery dish. The blue splotches are melted glass. I quite like how this dish turned out. I'm developing a problem, though: most of my pottery isn't nice enough to inflict on others as gifts, but I'm too attached to it to throw it away. Our house will soon be buried in the stuff. For now, this piece is sitting on my kitchen island, where it will inevitably attract Stuff. Our island is like a giant Stuff magnet.

And here's this scarf, knit from some beautiful alpaca Knatolee sent me. I love the color, which is this soft gray-brown. The lace pattern was really easy--perfect for knitting while watching season 1 of Dexter. And the scarf is now ready just in time for what passes for winter around here.

Vase and Books

This is the vase I posted about yesterday. I'm very happy with it. :-)

And today a nice person in Israel sent me a children's book in Hebrew, as a surprise because she learned I collect kids' books in different languages. Several other people have generously sent me books, too. Here's the collection (well, most of it--the Things have secreted some favorites in their bedrooms):

I've picked some of these up during my travels, some came from friends and family, and some came from swaps. I love the diversity of languages: Hebrew, French, Korean, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese, I believe), Romanian, Portuguese, Czech, German, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Malay, Catalan, Japanese, and Dutch! The Things and I all enjoy looking through these. When T1 was about 3, the Russian and Czech alphabet books were some of her very favorites, and T2 currently is extremely fond of a couple of the Chinese books. I can manage to read and/or partially understand some of the books, but for the most part we just enjoy the pictures. I also like how sometimes you can learn things about a culture just by looking at the pictures.

Fun Day in the City

Soon (but not soon enough) this semester will be over, and I'll have a few minutes to breathe. And maybe knit. Currently, I'm making snail's pace progress on a scarf in beautiful grey Canadian alpaca.

Now, I did take yesterday off--I spent a wonderful day in San Francisco with some friends. Some highlights of our day:

• We went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. It's a really nice museum with beautiful gallery space.
• The museum was hosting an artisan fair, with maybe 18 or so artists selling their jewelry and glassware and the like. As soon as we walked in, I was very excited, because I spotted Joanna Mendicino's table. One of her ceramic vases had just been featured in Sunset magazine, and I liked it so much, I'd torn out the page to use as inspiration for my (much less accomplished, obviously) pottery. Not only are her vases even nicer in person, but they're affordable, too. So I now own one of my own. And she is very nice, too. When I told her I've been taking a ceramics class, she was quite supportive. Another artist there, Cuong Ta, also had some really nice pottery, and he encouraged me, too. :-)
• Later, we were walking by city hall just as an anti-AIDS rally was finishing up. We walked across the square across the street, which was empty aside from a small group of cops and a guy in a suit. We walked right by them, and a moment later, one of my friends casually mentioned that the guy in the suit was Gavin Newsom, the mayor. So I turned back and took a more careful look, and sure enought, it was him.
• We had dinner at a Korean restaurant in Japantown. Japchae and kimchee. Mmmmm.
• Then we walked over to Yoshi's, which just opened on Fillmore a couple days ago. We had tickets to see Taj Mahal. The venue itself is quite nice--every table is a great seat, and the acoustics are really good. We had some dessert there before the show: chocolate cake with a scoop of caramel ice cream, with bits of caramel corn and nori (!) sprinkled on top. Strange as that sounds, it was delicious.
• Taj Mahal was fantastic. He puts on a great show. He's been performing for 40 years, and still seems to enjoy it. It was supposed to be a 70 minute set, because we were at the 8pm show and there was another show at 10, but he didn't finish until nearly 9:45.
• I didn't get home until 1am, and that's later than I've been out in a long time. When I arrived home, everyone was asleep and Hubby had cleaned up the kitchen. :-)