Puppy Clothes

It's taken a bit to get the pics up for this (the green one) since most pictures of Jack look like this:
This dog just doesn't sit still! In the meantime, I had a chance to finish sweater #2 so now I have 2 FO's to show off when we had better luck with the camera today (I bribed him with bacon cheddar doggie biscuits). So I present to you the (mini) doggie fashion show starring: Jack!
















Sweater #1 is knit in Lion Brand Wool-Ease thick & quick in the colors of grass and pine and knit on size 15 needles. Pattern is by me. The original design had a V-neck but it looked funny on my small dog, so I sewed it up and now it has a plain front and a roll-neck collar in back. This was great because it was a SUPER fast knit (I'd say maybe 2.5 - 3 hours max). I'm going to try an adapted version of what I did in the round so I don't have to do seaming.



Sweater #2 is a very adapted take on Buster by Berroco. Berroco's pattern is only for medium-large dogs (and jack is on the xs side of small) so with some gauge change, stitch count change, yarn change and more really it just kind of looks like Berocco's but is pretty different in construction. I used some leftover Red Heart Soft Yarn in black and size 6 needles.

10 reasons the West Coast makes me happy

While still harboring much affection for my friends in Boston (or other parts of the world) I realize more and more that I am almost deliriously happy to be back in the Pacific Northwest. Thereby I present to you my top 10 reasons I'm happy to be back in the Pacific Northwest:

1. Trader Joe's is just another grocery store and not a place where "all the weird hippie people work."








2. My family is now a 1-3 hour drive away rather than a 1 week drive away.







3. Jack is the best puppy ever and has brought Joe and I tremendous amounts of joy. If we hadn't moved back I'd still be puppy-less.







4. People don't look at you funny if you pass a stranger on the sidewalk and say hi.















5. It's normal for people to talk to not only the cashier but also the people in line at the grocery store. (I was telling this to one of my Boston friends and her was response was, "People actually do that?!?" Why yes. Yes they do.)




6. Alpacas. There are a lot of them here. I don't think I've seen a single alpaca living in Boston.












7. It's kind of refreshing to be normal again (as opposed to "punk rock Carissa from Seattle"). Yesterday I wore a long sleeve shirt under a t-shirt, a fat ball-chain necklace, a chunky leather watch with buckles, a studded belt, my hair up in a ponytail to show off my tattoo and flipflops where my dark purple nail polish with chunky sparkles could be seen nobody looked at me funny. (Or made fun of the way I talk....but that's a different story)



8. Fall lasts longer here. The enjoyable weather lingers a bit longer before becoming quite cold and I think the colors last longer, too (or at least longer before they are covered in snow). Lest I be accused of making things up...yes, we really have fall here. In fact, this picture was taken yesterday while I was driving home.






9. Hooray for no sales tax! I think I save a significant amount each year by not having to pay sales tax.











10. Even though there are the same number of hours in a day, being in the Pacfic time zone makes me feel like I have more time. For example, it's 7:00 now, but it's 10:00 in Boston. Which means I've got 5 more hours until midnight, they've only got three.





***Only photos used for number 3, 7, and 8 are mine. All others found on Flickr. Click image to go to fullsize photo on flickr *****

9252

That's how many people are ahead of me in line to get into Ravelry.

And what kills me is not only can I not use Ravelry yet....but I can't even look at other people's stuff on Ravelry until I'm invited.

*sniff sniff*

Mama Mia!

Coming home from running errands today I began to ponder dinner. I had meant to buy turkey meatballs at the store but, alas, this store did not carry them. What to make for dinner then?

So far this week we had sushi, tuna casserole (not the nasty, runny tuna wiggle kind. This is amazing tuna casserole) and fajitas. I was feeling a bit like getting back to my [Italian] roots. I didn't want to make a plain old boring meat sauce and thought I'd do meatballs myself. I pulled out my family's top secret meatball recipe and got to work.

At first I thought the ingredients were a little odd. The recipe includes some things that would have never occurred to me to put in meatballs and leaves out some things I would think were "obvious." I resisted the urge to mess with it. I also resisted the urge to use my fancy Pampered Chef tools to make it faster and easier. I wanted to do it the old school way.

Then something magical happened. Standing barefoot in my quiet kitchen rolling meatballs by hand I felt this strange connection to my family thousands of miles and/or generations away. This is how my sister, mom, grandmother and great-grandmother (and who knows how much further back) all make these meatballs. It was almost like they were all there with me. I also felt very, very Italian (I mean, I am Italian....but I just felt like Super Italian). This is the first time this has ever happened to me and it was really special.

This also gave me an insight into the line of thinking some knitters have: that you do things to old school way, because that's how it's been done for thousands of years. Previous to this experience, this thought process seemed very, well, odd. But for the first time I understood. I still don't feel that way about knitting -- as far as I can tell, my family doesn't have much of a knitting legacy to pass down and that's probably why. But meatballs, stuffing and lasagna? You do it the old school way....because that's just how you do it.

I found this awesome sweater called "the Deep V Argyle Vest" from See Eunny Knit! The pattern can be downloaded here.


I think it looks great, is sexy and has kind of a punk edge to it. I nominated it for the next KAL over at the Sexy Knitter's club but it lost (to patterns that only fit if you're no larger than a small....ask me what I think about that). Anyway, I think I'm going to knit this anyway but was wondering if there might be sufficient interest in others to start a KAL for it?

If anyone else is interested, say so in the comments. Thanks!

Delta Helps Monkeys by Hiring Them to Determine Airline Ticket Prices!

Has anyone else noticed that airline fares can not only be ridiculously overpriced, but make no sense either? Take my current situation for example:

I want to go to a conference in Cincinnati in January. I need to fly from Portland, OR to Cincinnati. Round trip tickets? Yeah, they cost more than $500. $500! To go to Cincinnati! I can fly to Mexico or Puerto Rico for less than that. So....I started exploring my options. Maybe I could juggle some one-way tickets and get a better deal.

This is what I found: On the day I want to fly, a one-way ticket from Portland to Boston is only $170. This flight has one layover in (you guessed it) Cincinnati. If I just want to book the leg of the trip from Portland to Cincinnati, guess how much I pay? $500! $500 for something they would give me and more for only $170. Yeah....that makes sense. Does anyone else feel like monkeys are the ones running this whole thing:
I do. So I called Delta. After sitting on hold for 15 minutes, I was transferred to a non-native English speaker who sounded like he had a thick Asian accent. While he was very polite, he wasn't helpful. When he asked if I was using the website to find these fares and I said yes, he said I needed to contact customer support through the website live chat. I didn't see a way to do this on the website, so I asked about it:

Him: You will need to contact my colleauge who is trained in these matters through the Delta website.

Me: Am I supposed to send an e-mail (I saw a link to send e-mail....and I didn't want to wait for a response) or is this live chat?

Him: It is live chat.

Me: Okay. Um....I'm not seeing where I go to find that. Can you help me?

Him: It's on the Delta website.

Me: Right. But where? What do I need to click on to get to that area?

Him: For your question you will need to contact my colleague who is doing live chat to assist customers on the website.

Me: That's fine, but how do I find this person? I don't see anything on the website about live online help.

Him: (obviously exasperated with me) Just hold on. I'll transfer to the person doing the live chat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I find it amusing I'm being transferred via phone to the online chat person. This person answers and has a British accent. She was nice and somewhat more helpful. I'll spare you the conversation (it wasn't as amusing) but in the end, there is nothing to stop me from booking my flight to "Boston" and then getting off in Cincinnati and not coming back. IN FACT she says that if I only take the first leg of my trip, I may have a CREDIT in the Delta system that I can use for up to one year.

Hmmm. So pay $500 or pay $170 and get money back? Gee, that one's hard. Why does this have to be so complicated? Why can't I just get charged a fair rate for what I want to do? So note to anyone looking around at airfare: don't just take the price the monkeys give you -- shop around first.

Wish you all a happy and cupcake-filled day,

Carissa

I caught the bug

Last night after Hubby went to bed (I wasn't tired yet) I was surfing the internet in search of cool cardigan patterns (a BIG thank you to ShadKitty who sent me some AWESOME ones). While I was searching I came across this:


Now as far as a scarf goes, I'm not sure it's immensely practical. It seems it would be a bit bulky under a coat, etc. That and I found the pattern difficult to understand. But I was inspired. I want to make this...but different. Same color, similar idea, but something totally different. I spent a while trying to ignore my intense longing to start knitting lots of garter stitch and after an hour or so I gave in. I found some yarn, did some swatching and knit to old episodes of Grey's Anatomy while garter stitching my little heart out. Then this morning as I was waiting for my brain to boot so I could do things that make money, I sat and knit this. This is where I'm at:

You can tell from the dictionary and other clutter on my desk that I was supposed to be doing something else while I was taking this picture (but that's besides the point). But I have this odd compelling NEED to knit this thing. I don't know why. I don't even like garter stitch. I feel in general garter stitch should be used only for dishcloths, cupcake tops and afghan squares but I'm making something I'm (gasp!) going to wear.....assuming it turns out okay.

But I've got to go. I need to go do some more money-making stuff before Husband comes home and I knit while watching Grey's. Hooray!

Pirate Cupcakes

Tell me this is not the coolest thing ever:


You can find it as a T-shirt on etsy by going here.

A Rant...

I am starting to get really frustrated. I like to think of myself and young and somewhat hip. When I started knitting I decided that I didn't want to be one of those knitters who knits something just because she can (and then end up with something ugly that one should never be caught wearing in public). I decided I would only knit things that I would have purchased should I have seen them for sale in store.

Things like this:



And the piece that I REALLY really REALLY want is this:


I love this cardigan. I saw it in a store the other day with my sister and decided I must have one. The only problem is I can't seem to find a pattern for anything even similar. Instead, hours of searching for cardigan patterns has turned up things that look more like this:



I have one word for you: blech. Now, these cardigans might be fitting for their designers or women with different lifestyles than myself but they are not for me and they don't look anything like this:
or anything like any of the other pictures posted above. Where have the young, hip knitting designers gone? Are they hiding somewhere? Are they secretly knitting cute things and hoarding the patterns? Why can't I find patterns for the kinds of things I want to knit?

I suppose I could go buy the sweater I'm jonsing for. Afterall, it would save me a lot of time and would probably cost about as much as the raw yarn needed to knit it. But it's the principle of the thing. Knitters aren't supposed to (gasp!) buy machine-knit sweaters. Then the same thing happens as happened the last time I broke down and bought something I couldn't find a pattern for.....everyone asks "Wow, I love that. Did you knit it?" And then I sheepishly look at the ground and admit I bought it (and then kick myself as they walk away). No more, I say! NO MORE!

So for all of you who know that knitting is sexy and who know where to find all the cute patterns....will someone fill me in already? Please????