KateOhKatie blogs

Yarrrrnnn

I have been knitting! Really!  Thing is, though, that most of it has been appearing on Ravelry instead of here.  Oops.  So, to make up for it, sit back and behold…

My pride and joy:

A hooded scarf in a simple 4×4, reversible C2F cable pattern (you’re right, Alissa–it is easy! ), made of Soy Wool Stripes.  <3.

Close-up of the seam (which is visible on the inside).

My Ravenclaw house scarf from PoA and GoF.  I CO 76 then just knitted in the round on a 16″ sz. 10.5 circular.  Yarn is Lion Brand wool in “midnight blue” and “pearl gray.”

It’s going to be so cozy and warm. I <3 it!  And, I’m about halfway done…the end will soon be in sight!

My “Invisibility Shawl” from Charmed Knits.  Jaggerspun zephyr 50/50 merino silk laceweight.

I’m maybe 20% in on this one now.  It’s going very quickly, and the lace is super easy–no charts!

I made these for Jeff for Christmas, also out of Lion Wool (that stuff really is decent, and it’s within my price range).  The pattern is Ken, by Berroco.  Not the greatest, but it got the job done and yeah, these were my first pair of gloves!  I think I can handle socks now.

That’s not the correct color at all; here’s a better representation:

That, clearly, is from when they were still in progress   I sort of wish I’d gotten a set of the shorter DPNs in the size, also–those long ones got rather unweildy up on the fingers:

See?  Deeply offensive.

I crocheted this shawl for my grandma out of Caron Simply Soft.  She’s allergic to wool, and would honestly be offended if I used a fancy yarn on something for her.

The pattern was All-Season Shawl by Priscilla Hewitt, and it worked up really quickly…maybe 10 hours of work?

I haven’t made it out to Sumner to give it to her yet, but I’m sure she’ll love it

I also made a pair of Fetchings for myself, but am not all that happy with them.  They’re (surprise surprise) Lion Wool.

Aside from those charming little cables, I guess I just don’t see why everybody’s all agog over this pattern. I think I need to take them apart, add anohter round of cables, and then just do a straight bind-off to reduce that curl-back.

Like I said, charming little cables.

I also did a bunch of other random stuff for my preschool’s fundraiser–scarves, hats, y’know.  Skating Queen is done, apart from putting elastic into the waistband so the damned thing’ll actually stay up.

I’ve got lots of other exciting projects queued up for the new year…here’s to knitting in 2008!

We’re back from our grand tour of Missouri (in which we encountered rain, sleet, snow, ice, and sun.  Aah, Missouri).  Yay!  Tomorrow, a very substantial picture post will appear (magically, perhaps?) but in the meantime, I thought I’d post Jeff’s Comprehensive Law School Application List:

(in no particular order)

University of Chicago
University of Michigan
Washington University–St. Louis
University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign
University of Virginia
Northwestern University
Vanderbilt University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Missouri

After the new year, he may add a few odds-and-ends schools to the list:  Cornell, Columbia, Minnesota, uh…I think that’s it

I, meanwhile, have done my part by researching common apartment listings and yarn shops that are near the schools in question   (never mind about, y’know, finding a career or anything )

I made these last night, for lack of anything more worthwhile to do (except, y’know, working on Christmas cards, or packing for the trip to St. Louis and KC, or adoring the cat, or brushing my hair 100 times so it shines like the stars)

They’re just my basic sugar cookie recipe; each cookie cut from the rim of a Crown Royal glass.

Each one is decorated differently.

Even these three loners:

(yes that’s a star of David.  Mostly because I’ve had “the Dreidel song” stuck in my head since I sang it for the kids at preschool on Friday).

And they’re so good.  Oh, so good. The recipe has been passed down through the generations via the Johnson Baking Gene, and if you don’t already have it, well, you can’t get it…

just kidding.  I’ll post it soon.  It’s worth waiting for

Some of my favorite cookies:

Does this look like a knitted cable at all?

Rather mediterranean, like the tiles that line the walls of my favorite Greek restaurant:

In honor of our wedding:

Very modern.  It was supposed to look like a snowdrift.  Yeah, I know

For indeed, there is nothing better than watching Christmas Vacation on TV, with your husband, decorating cookies on a snowy Kirksville night .  Except maybe presents.  Presents are better:

They’re almost taller than our monumentally-huge tree!

And with that, we’re going to load up the sleigh Grand Am and drive to the North Pole suburban St. Louis to await Santa’s arrival!  I hope he can find me, especially after that nice note I wrote.

Bullets, because transitions are for wimps.

~I fell on my bum yesterday at preschool.  It hurt.  I think I now have a bruise.

~Preschool is out for Christmas!  Yay!

~Today, I bake. My 2nd round of sugar cookies for this season.  They’ll be good, and pretty…just you wait!

~We did stockings last night.  I gave Jeff a Ray Bradbury book and an ornament:

Two cardinals in a nest, because it’s our first Christmas married…so we’re like the cardinals in our nest.  Corny, I know.

Oh, and that bit of yarn tied around the one cardinal’s neck?  It’s because female cardinals are brown, but both of those are red, so I had to ‘feminize’ one 

Jeff gave me this:

Which nicely rounds out my Barenaked Ladies catalogue collection,  (though in putting in all those links, I realized that they’ve got a new album out which I’m missing.  Darn!)

and this:

I love this man   And not because he shamelessly fuels my yarn habit

What shall I spend it on?  I fondled that new line of Bernat luxury yarns…bamboo, alpaca, and cashmere blends.  Though I could always do with more Lion Wool, perhaps to make a Ravenclaw scarf?  Choices, choices!

Anyway, back to this bullets thing…because I just remembered, I’m not supposed to be coherant.  Oops!

~I have another baking tutorial queued up for y’all, but it might have to wait ’till we’re in St Louis, or even ’till after Christmas.

~To do before we leave:  finish one Christmas gift, wrap 4 of them (the big icky ones that I am not looking forward to wrapping), fold and put away all the laundry I did yesterday, do the aforementioned baking, clean up from the aforementioned baking, and tidy the house.  We’re going to try to leave tomorrow first thing in the morning.  Wish us luck!

~Which reminds me.  I think I am going to make Jeff stop by the Target in Columbia on our way to St Louis; I saw something there that now I *really* wish I’d gotten him…I think I’ll try to

~The parents at the preschool gave me a gift certificate for a pedicure, and one for a local bar and grill.  Woohoo!!!!

And now, to crochet…

…because I opened it much too quickly to stop and take pictures, the first time

Graduation gift from Mom and Dad:

I love Tiffany blue bags.  And I love “That 70’s Show” on in the background.  And I love laundry on the floor.  And I love the edge of Othello’s head just visible in his cat bed on the right there.

I love Tiffany blue boxes inside Tiffany blue bags.

I love untied white ribbon on Tiffany blue boxes inside Tiffany blue bags.

I love “Tiffany & Co.” written on Tiffany blue boxes under untied white ribbon inside Tiffany blue bags.

I love Tiffany blue drawstring bags inside Tiffany blue boxes inside Tiffany blue bags.

But most of all, I love my new necklace from…where did thy get it from again?

Oh yeah, here.


I love this necklace.  Love it.  More than the world.  OK, maybe not more than the world (that designation is saved for Jeff). But definitely more than one or both cats at any given momet.  OK, maybe not that.  But definitely more than I loved my old favorite necklace.

I wore it to preschool all this week; every day a kid will notice it, usually when I’m holding him/her.  They like looking at the shiny.  So do I.  Maybe we’re all just crows.

Sometime I’ll get around to posting a picture of myself wearing it.  But suffice to say, that my ugly mug detracts from the beauty of the necklace .

PS>If I’d known I was geting this for graduating college I would’ve tried harder to graduate even earlier

Yeah, we graduated.  Yeah, it was as painful as I’d anticipated.  The ceremony, not the whole day.  I don’t do ceremonies well.  Exhibit A:  my wedding ceremony video (which contains evidence of me clearly NOT LISTENING to the people talking).   Exhibit B:  there is no exhibit B.  But hey, cut me a break…I’ve got like 60 or 70 more years to embarrass myself

I forgot to tell my dad about holding down the button halfway to let the camera focus.  And about holding it still.  Oh well.  That’s me and Jeff, in the back row, on the far right.  He’s the cute one.  I’m the blurry one.  ::sigh::

Professors.  Getting my doctorate would be worth it if it meant wearing a bonnet and giant hood and marching around all solemn-like.  Mm-hmm.

Me and Jeff walking up to the stage:

There we go, phonetic name pronunciations in hand:

Shaking somebody’s hand.  Heck if I know who.  See?  I suck at ceremonies.  Truth be told, I spent most of the time twirling Jeff’s wedding ring and thinking about the celebratory cheesecake that was awaiting me back home.

Jeff shakes the university president’s hand.  And yes, I realize these photos all look the same…a sea of black robes and a flash of freakishly-bright red hair, right?

So that’s the end of that.  Now here comes the really gorgeous stuff…

With Mom and Dad…it is here that I realize how horrible I look in the mortarboard.  And the gown makes me look fat.

Oh yeah, and I look like a total goon, in general.  But at least my mom is cute!

I should have worn this instead:

Anyway, apparently Mom doesn’t like Jeff as much as she likes me:

Yeah, we’re in love.  Yeah, I’m a goon.

I think I just figured it out.  #1:  Those earrings were a mistake, considering you could hardly see the shirt underneath–and really, the earrings need the shirt.  #2:  Both my ears are showing, with my hair down.  That hasn’t happened since, like, 3rd grade.  BUT in my defense, it was either that or a weird bang-y poofy thing and I figured that would be worse.  But you know what?  It’s too late to do anything about it now, so I’ll shut up, mm ‘k?

With our (empty) diploma covers:

Awww, isn’t Jeff cute?

He’s such a snappy dresser   (I picked out that tie…don’tcha like it?)

Hey!  I look *slightly* less goony here than I do in other photos!  Right, guys? (hint: lie to me)

And since I know y’all like pictures of my dad, here ya go:

Funny, you’d think he would seem happier about the fact that I’m finally done bleeding him dry, financially.  Hmm..time for grad school?

So, that was it! Jeff’s parents came into town that afternoon (a snowstorm had prevented them from arriving earlier…and in fact, it was doubtful for a while that *either* set of parents would make it at all), and we had a yummy dinner–I’d set out appetizers of pinwheels, cheese, crackers, Dad’s Chex mix, and Linda’s spinach artichoke dip.  Then we had a chicken alfredo casserole, salad, and my Red Lobster-esque biscuits, followed by Mom’s cheesecake, and champagne.  Mmmm!

My Monday anecdote:  Why I Never Believe My Mother.

When I was a kid, my brother and I were fascinated with stories about Mom’s childhood.  She grew up in the country, on a farm.  She even had a pony!  A real pony!

“Mom, didn’t you have a pony?”

“Yes, kids, his name was Sambo.”  (that wasn’t racist in the ’50s, by the way)

“What happened to it?  Why doesn’t Grandma still have it?”

“Well, kids, we were poor.  So we had to kill it and eat it.”

We believed that story for *way* too long.

I like to express the holiday spirit by showing a gratuitous crotch-shot:

I’m glad he doesn’t have a kitty cam…lawd knows what he’d do with those shots.

Monday night I finally got the Christmas decorations up.  If it were up to me, I’d have had them up the day after Thanksgiving!

Our coffee table:

Coasters I made:

I’ve since made 4 more…math majors, how many is that all together?   Just knitted them in garter stitch with two strands of RH held together; easiest thing in the world.

Top of our TV:

That cardinal is actually a tree topper, but you can see in a minute why we’re not using it on there…

Our tree:

So big I can’t even fit it all in one picture!  Here’s part II:

That star’s about 14″, 16″ across, I think?

OK, OK…in the words of one of my students…”You was just TEASING!”

The same student gave me this ornament last year, in fact:

And I got this lovely one from Shagpop!  Thanks, Secret Ornament Exchange buddy!

Isn’t it perfect for Mrs. Blueberry who had a star-themed wedding?   I adore it!

Finally, one miserable cat in a miserable sweater:

He still hasn’t forgiven me.  Doubt he ever will.

Do you have your Christmas decorations up yet?

Someone posted this on Ravelry today, and I just had to share with the rest of you guys…

But first, I have to warn you.  Do NOT look at these pictures unless you’re absolutely positive that you can handle the most awe-inspiring sight of your life.

No, seriously, I mean it.  These pictures are about to put the Grand Canyon to shame.

If you’re prone to squealing, I suggest removing the cat from your lap before scrolling down.  The claw marks that are now embedded on my thighs serve as proof of that lesson.

Oh, and put down your coffee, ’cause you might just spit it out.  Ready?  OK….

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But hold on a second.  Really, I can’t emphasize it enough….this will amaze you.

Are you sure you can handle it?  There’s no going back now.
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OK here’s ONE LAST CHANCE to turn back.  Don’t scroll any lower unless you mean it.  Really mean it.
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Are you sure?
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Here it is…

Yes, that is one real woman’s real stash.  Her name is Bonney, and I want her to be my new mommy.

Wool allergy-sufferers (and I do mean *sufferers*), beware.

I want to pile it all up in a huuuuuge pile in the center of the floor, and roll around in it for like 15 minutes, then spend the next several days carefully sorting it all out by fiber, then color, then weight, then alphabetically by brand.

Only way this could get better would be if you threw a pony into the mix, too.

I think I just has a yarn-gasm.

Not saying I’d ever really want this amount of stash for myself, but I sure as shootin’ don’t mind looking at it!

These photos were taken by Bonney’s daughter-in-law, and came from here.

PS>I can’t even begin to think how big the corresponding wine cellar would have to be!

Dear Santa,

All I can say this year is, I tried to be good.  You might have heard, I got married.  Yeah, he’s pretty amazing.  No, he doesn’t believe in you.  That’s what happens when you grow up, I guess.  But I’m working on him, Santa, I really am.  In the meantime, though, this letter is from me, Katie…solo.

I have a long wish list this year, Santa.  Most of it is from my cats–Othello and Macbeth?  I think I told you about them in last year’s letter.  I know that in Xmas 2005 I asked for cats, but Santa, really…couldn’t you have done a bit better than this?  I mean, I understand that you want to save all the cute baby kittens to give to little kids, but was it really fair to stick me with one 16-lb scaredy cat his 15-lb, stinky-breathed gay lover?  That’s OK, Santa, I know you tried.  And I love them anyway.  They asked me to tell you, by the way, that they want catnip for Christmas.  Their wishes are simple–catnip, and lots of it.  What they *don’t* know, is that in just a couple weeks they’ll also be getting their yearly shots.  Ssh!  Please keep the secret, Santa!

And even though Jeff says he doesn’t believe in you, I know there are some things he wants for Christmas, too.  I think “a good wife” is at the top of his list, actually.  Boy, Santa, you sure played lots of jokes on everybody last year!  Stuck me with rotten cats, stuck my husband with a rotten wife…  aah well, that’s OK.  Because last year I asked for a wonderful husband, and that’s sure what I got.  You’re pretty awesome, Santa.  And I think this year Jeff deserves something nice, too.  Did you know that his computer is about 6 years old?  Me neither, until recently.  I was going to buy him a new one, then I realized that a new computer costs slightly more than my car is worth I’ve got right now.  So I’ll leave that up to you, I guess.  Or maybe you just want to give him some DVDs or a video game or two.  I’m sure he’d like that, too.  And as long as he’s watching TV or playing video games, he doesn’t try to drag me away from my crafting–a win/win situation, Santa!  Oh, and I noticed the other day that Jeff’s jeans are pretty much worn out, so if you wanted to slip and Old Navy gift card in his stocking, I won’t tell anyone that I gave you the hint .  As long as you put a yarn shop gift card in mine, right?

While we’re on the topic of my list, Santa, I just wanted to say THANKS! for the sewing machine last year.  I’ve broken the Johnson family tradition of using our sewing tables as convenient storage for clothes in need of mending or ironing.  I actually use mine for sewing!  Not as much as I’d like to, admittedly, and here’s why…  I picked up on knitting in June.  I don’t know if you noticed or not, while doing your mid-year “Naughty or Nice” checkup.  It’s sort of an obsession of mine now, actually.  I wouldn’t say I’m good at it, but I do enjoy it.  I’d love to be able to buy some yarn and work on super-fun projects–perhaps you need a new hat, Santa?  But hey, if going into knitting stores embarrasses you  the elves don’t know how to spin wool, that’s OK.  You know I’m not picky about my gifts.  Cash, gift cards, a kick in the seat of the pants, it’s all good.  I just want to make your job easy, Santa.  But let’s face it, this year we need practical things.  Things that are useful.  Or, things from our wedding registry.  Like I said, just trying to make your job easy.

And finally–I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds here–could you put in a good word for Jeff at the University of Chicago law school?  #6 in the nation, you know.  I can send you a copy of Jeff’s transcript if you want.  He got a 173 on the LSAT–did you hear?  Of course you did…I’m sorry, I forgot who I was talking to for a minute, there.

Thanks for reading this, Santa!  And when you come visit us on Christmas night, please remember to close the front door behind you–the cat likes to try and sneak out.

Love and kisses,
Katie