then why did i run 14 miles last night??? oh, i know why, because i took the whole week of my birthday off from serious training and now i'm tryin' to play catch up. and i'm so competitive. whenever anyone passed me last night while running around the rose bowl, i thought to myself, "huh, they think i'm a slow runner, but how many miles are they running tonight? not 14!!!" it actually wasn't as bad as i imagined. i much prefer running with a group on anything longer than 10 miles, but i wasted the weekend at sunset junction. it took 'til yesterday to detox from all the drinking to be able to even dream of running 14 miles. gotta get some more cycling and swimming in before the next triathlon on the 16th. then it's more mileage in preparation for the nyc marathon!!!!!
what's been up with the backblog comments lately???? bummer. i wanna be adored by my loyal fans!!!! hee hee.
started on the second baby ensemble that i need to finish by the weekend. i picked a thick slubby yarn that knits up really quick on #13 needles. the colors are perfect for these funky parents who i would never dare knit anything pastel for. no picture yet. i can't download anything to the computer at work as it's on the los angeles airport network and i wouldn't dare that either. maybe when i get home this afternoon.....
finishsed the baby top tonight. now i need to add a hat and start a whole other ensemble for another shower this weekend!!!
here it is before seaming
all put together
detail of the buttons
the button holes came out a little looser than i would have liked, but all in all, i think the new parents will dig it!!!!!
i must really be desperate for knitting time. today, on my way home from the new part-time gig, i completely spaced out on the gas gauge. ran out on the freeway in front of staples center. managed to get a few more rows done on the baby top before the tow truck came with a gallon of gas. now how's that for knitting in public?!!!!
there were three different lots of this yarn up for auction. i went for the first one, but told jen that if i didn't win it, i would go for the second one that ended a minute later and possibly the third which was 10 skeins and more than i needed. i ended up winning the first lot and jen won the second. yippppeeee!!!!! can't wait to see what jen makes with hers!!!!
monday morning at my new part time job with a hangover. fun!!!!!!! i had a blast at sunset junction. drank way too much, danced to some great bands including isaac hayes(!!), and ran into a bunch of friends i haven't seen in forever. i wore my sumire top and got lots of compliments as well as requests for knitting lessons. all in all a great weekend with great friends. and now that it's over, i'm dumping the booze to give myself the best shot at finishing this last triathlon next month. serious training from here on out. and it's about time to ramp up the mileage in preparation for the new york city marathon!!!!!!! i should have done 14 miles on sunday with my group, but the junction beckoned, so now i've got to do it all on my own sometime in the next few days after the liquor exits my system. it shouldn't be too bad. i've done up to 20 miles on my own before. it'll be an opportunity for me to zone out and meditate on the next career move.
so i'm a pseudo librarian now for four and a half hours each morning. i literally sit in a room by myself with no other tasks but to make available some public records regarding the expansion of the los angeles airport, and hardly anyone comes in to review them. gives me lots of time to knit and check up on blogs and babysit auctions on ebay. i'm eyeing that noro yarn that matches the stuff i'm already making a sweater with and need more of. funny thing though. my virtual knitting group member, jen, bid on the same yarn before i even jumped in. we talked about the possibility of this happening in our group and someone came up with a brilliant idea for a database of all our ebay names so we could look out for each other. thanks, jen, for lettin' me go for it!!! if it weren't for the fact that i REALLY needed it, i wouldn't even bid at all. i'm gonna send her whatever leftovers i have from the sweater.
i must finish the baby top and matching hat and get started on another one for a baby shower that's THIS WEEKEND!!!! i do love how quick baby stuff knits up. and expectant parents seem to be the most appreciative of the hand knit gifts. it is freaking me out, though, how many friends of mine are becoming parents!!!!
an early morning surf session for my birthday. the break was crappy and i didn't even catch one wave, but i saw a school of dolphins and a pesky seal. what more could a girl ask for??!! then a quick little shopping jaunt where i picked up a lovely top on sale that i'll wear out dancing with friends tonight.
came home and received this lovely card created by a graphic designer friend of mine...
and did you think i wouldn't knit today??? not a chance. i needed a cute skinny little belt to go with my top tonight. we're going to a reggea club so i got the green top and red flip flops. had to complete it with a yellow belt. so i quickly whipped this little yellow number up with some cotton ease from the baby top i'm working on.....
ooh ooh. i forgot about this. on sunday while waiting in the car for my dad to finish at the bank (he has yet to use an atm), we were parked just a block down from the el rey theatre. this is one of my favorite places to see live shows!!! anyhow along came this guy walking down the sidewalk!!!!
i just about lost it. he's really gray and non chalant, but a ROCK GOD nonetheless. why do i never have my camera????? no one's gonna believe me until i have actual photos!!!!!
ok, so i didn't win the yarn. i lost out in the last few seconds by a buck and some change. you gotta be fast with these yarn sluts on ebay!!! they'll cut your throught in the last seconds!!!! it's so funny how anxious i get watching the last few minutes of an auction. my heart starts pounding!!! but it really had gone way too high, not much cheaper than buying it from an online store. and the shipping would have been another 12 bucks since it's coming from the u.k. and the reason i babysit these auctions is to get deals and steals. so it wasn't meant to be. but after that i found some yarn i'd really been needing. a few months back i bought some noro yarn on ebay and thought i had enough for the pattern i was going to start with it. just one skein in, i realized i had read the pattern wrong and was going to be short, and they don't make this yarn anymore. i've been looking for a complimentary yarn weight and color to do the sleeves of this sweater with, but low and behold, more skeins of it have shown up on ebay from a different seller, but the same dyelot!!!!! now cross your fingers i get it this time!!!!!
look what was waiting in the mail for me from sharlyn when i got home today!!!!! i had sent her a belated birthday gift of the leftover sumire yarn. she sent me this beautiful kureyon and a pattern for a felted purse!!!!! oh the noro possibilities!!!!!! what a great birthday treat.
speaking of noro and birthdays..... among other clothing splurges this past weekend to celebrate my birthday and a little weight loss, i signed up for a membership to the ymca today to keep the momentum going. it's such a great facility with a gazillion classes that i want to take including yoga, pilates, and brazilian dance!!!! i mainly signed up to keep up the training for this last and hardest of the summer traiathlons. i need to do some extra spinning work to strengthen my leg muscles in addition to riding with a new cycling group tomorrow morning. here's the kicker though: i was going to go back tonight for a pilates class, but i don't want to miss the end of an ebay yarn auction!!!!!! turns out i'll have enough time to get home and still make a final bid for it. oh god i want this yarn so bad!!!!!!!
****remember, if you copy the graph, be sure to omit the last stitch of the last row of the left finger. i should probably redraw it.****
i'm moving along on the baby top. here's where i'm at
and i'm anxiously watching some beautiful yarn on ebay. i don't want to say what it is and jinx myself, but i'm not gonna be a happy knitter if i don't win this stuff. cross your fingers for me.
and good news from stef!!!!! she made it to germany with a few bumps in the road. and she's found a yarn store already!!!!!
well, here it is. what d'ya think??? i've never done intarsia before, so it took me a few rows to get into the groove of it. that's why it looks a little weird at the bottom.
******* i did make one slight adjustment to the original graph. i left out the last row/last stitch on the top of the left finger. it was starting to look a little like E.T.*********
went to a free concert at the pier last night. sidestepper from london. it's one main guy and a band that he's put together of afro latin influence. completely infectious!!!!!!!! couldn't stop moving the entire time. and here was my view from the side of the stage:
now if only i could figure out how to knit and shake my booty at the same time. someone's eye would definitely get taken out. now would it be from a knitting needle or my booty??????
here's what i've come up with for the IRO graph. i haven't knitted it up yet, but i can't wait to try it. cross your fingers. no, what i really mean is SPREAD YOUR FINGERS WIDE AND CLAIM YOUR RIGHT TO ROCK!!!!!!!!
and a big bon voyage wave from the dock to one of the rockenist knitters in the crew, stefanie of glampyre fame, who leaves today for germany for two years!!!!! i feel like i'm going to miss her even though we've never met, but she'll be up and blogging from deutchland in no time!!!!!
and as soon as i was done with one project, i moved onto another. couldn't stay out of the yarn store long. i bought my first balls of lion's pride cotton ease. i really like how it knits up. i'm using it to knit this baby ensemble for a friend.
i'm using the bibbed pullover and square hat patterns from the domestic sphere. they're having a girl, and they don't want everything to be pink, so i opted for the cherry, orangeade, and pineapple colors of cotton ease to use in rows. baby stuff knits up so fast!!!!!
as soon as i finish this up, i've got to re-do projects:
1. the rebecca redux
remember this disaster?????? i still need to re-seam it into something respectable.
2. completely frog the bns and knit it into another summer tube/tank thangy
the front shows my belly just a bit. and as you can see, i don't really care about a little bra strap no matter what the controversy is. the back is a little shar pei-ish, but maybe if i shorten the straps that'll help. the whole thing looks a lot like the chic kami but i swear, i made it up myself. i learned a lot from making up my own pattern. i learned to love frogging, and now i have somethin' i'll actually wear!!!!! i think now i'll go back and completely frog my bns and make another tub/tank thangy out of it. that'll keep me outta the yarn store for at least another few weeks!!!!!
i have two and a half balls left of this stuff. more than what it took me to make this. i'm gonna send it to a secret pal. hee hee
i tried the top on again to check the armhole shaping and realized i had started it too soon. the fit is a little short and would probably be fine, but i'd be conscious of my belly possibly hanging out of the bottom. i'm really hell bent on making sure this fits comfortably so that i can wear it all the time. so you know what that means........
that's right, i'm frogging back to where i started the armhole shaping and adding another two inches for comfort. i'm gonna get this right if it kills me!!!!!!
teresa requested more pics. i don't blame her. being a photographer, i tend to be pretty photo heavy on my blog. i've been so busy with work lately that i haven't taken as many pics of the knitting. so here's where i'm at as of this morning on the sumire top.
it's finally starting to look like something more than just a blob!!!! i should be able to finish this by the end of the week. just in time for my birthday and sunset junction!!!!!
started the split up of the stitches on the sumire top last night while watching a rerun of law and order. and now i'm doing armhole shaping on the front half. i'm realizing that it's turing out much like bonne marie's chic kami. but i think i did more of a blouse look at the bottom. i really wanna finish this thing and wear it!!!! then maybe i'll actually do a chic kami!!!!!!
frances conroy the beloved and querky matriarch of the fischer clan on six feet under. saw her while having thai lunch yesterday afternoon. no digi cam again!!! but i wouldn't have bugged her while she was eating....
finally making some progress on the sumire top after frogging it twice. it looks like a big lump on the circs, but i've taken it off the needles many times to double check the fit. i love it!!!! i was planning to just make it a tube top and add i chord straps at the top, but i'm re-thinking that now. i think i'd feel like i was falling out of a tube top, and i definitely can't go without a bra, so now i'm considering splitting the stitches in half and just doing a small armhole decrease and adding some more real estate to the top and then adding the i chord straps. what do you guys think?
last night i went to a benifit for a dj friend of mine who is having brain surgery for an arachnoid cyst and doesn't have insurance. it was a true hollyweird affair that reminded me why i don't go out in this town anymore. i did reconnect with some friends i hadn't seen in a long time though, so it was worth it. also in the mix were
vincent gallo of buffalo 66 fame
ahmet zappa of the frank zappa kids (wearing cowboy hat)
and richmond arquette (far right) probably the least known of the arquette clan, but famously featured as the guy who delivers brad pitt his wife's head in the middle of the desert in the movie seven
again, i left my digi cam at home so no live pics. they were all pretty boring anyway. just sittin' and standin' around.
so today i'm taking it easy since i had planned to be on jury duty. still sore from the triathlon. gonna make some headway on the sumire top.
my jury duty saga, which has dragged on for over a month of postponements now, is FINALLY OVER!!!!!!! but not before they had me sitting in there all day until 3:15 when they finally called us into a jury pool. i sat there just waiting to be called onto the case (because that's just how my luck has been running), but alas, they never called me up to question me before they had agreed on the sitting jury. i got a lotta rows done on the sumire top that i'm now starting over for the third time. i guess no one detected the bamboo circs in the metal detector!!!! there was another woman in the jury room crocheting. i had also brought a book and my latest copy of spin that came in the mail in case i got fed up with the sumire top. i couldn't understand the people who didn't bring anything to do. no book, no magazine, no nothing. how crazy is that??? imagine sitting in a waiting room from 8:30am 'til 5:00pm just staring at everyone else and not doing anything. now those are some people i wouldn't want on my jury.
warning: this entry has nothing to do with knitting!!!!! hope you don't mind.
completed the all ladies triathlon yesterday. this was my very first triathlon last year, and i placed 4th in my division. i was aiming for 3rd this year, but i guess all the competitive athenas showed up yesterday morning cuz i came in DEAD LAST!!!!!! but wait, there's good news. i shaved 10 minutes off of my time from last year. 10 minutes is a huge amount of time in a race so i have to be happy about that personal victory. next up, the malibu nautica race in september. this is promised to be a very hollyweird affair. it's the race that david duchovney does every year and they always show a picture of him in people mag. so i'll be on the hunt with my digi cam for those celebs to bring to you direct on the blog. they won't be knitting though.........
monica, 33, single
photographer / running coach
live in los angeles
2 dogs, ella (lab) and ruby (dobi)
learned to knit when i was 7, but recently picked it up again in december 2002
...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
i've thought about this one before. i'd call the restaurant "whateva's cleva" and change the menu every day with all my favorites including, mexican, indian, soul food, veggie friendly, etc.
...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
yarn, duh!!!!!
...wrote a book, what genre would it be?
biographies are my favorite, but i can't imagine that my own would be a top seller. probably a crime story.
...ran a school, what would you teach?
tolerance
...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
oh, again, that's a difficult one. i'm a musical schizophrenic. some punk, some funk, some metal, some rap, and at least one sappy love song
how come this little pixie never looks like me????
