A little Vogue Knitting Love…

Ok, so Vogue Knitting is not typically my favorite knitting publication. Not because the designs aren’t beautiful–because they are stunning.  I just tend to lead a more casual life then the glamorous knits shown on their glossy pages.  It truly is the knitting world’s homage to high fashion.  I can absolutely appreciate the Vogue voice amongst the ranks of knitting magazines, I just don’t usually find knits that call out to me and  make me want to cast on that very minute.  Until now.

Their Winter 2011/2012 edition is really phenomenal.  I don’t know what it is, it just spoke to me.  More than once a co-worker at Jimmy Beans and I have drooled over this skirt.  Come on!  How gorgeous is that?!?

And this short sleeved bulky sweater?  Already planning to make it!

I am just going to show you all the rest of my favorites…

So that’s it.  I bought it.  It’s currently taunting me from my coffee table.  Soon.  Soon.

Ok, done with the Vogue love fest.  Happy knitting!

Kristen

Swans Island KAL at Jimmy Beans Wool

Hi ya’ll!

I just wanted to pop in to let you know that I am hosting a Swans Island KAL (knit-a-long) over on the Jimmy Beans Wool Blog and Ravelry Discussion Board.  We are using the beautiful “Anna Cowl” pattern designed by Breean Elyse Miller for Swans Island Yarns.  I am knitting mine in Swans Island Worsted, color Garnet.  Here is what the finished project will look like:

Isn’t it purty?  I’ve gotten a pretty good start on it.  Here’s my progress:

I hope all of you fellow knitters will come and join me!

Happy knitting,

Kristen

Embracing the quiet…and…a new place to hang our hat…

Hello everyone!  It’s been a busy fall, and I can now safely say that the craziness that was this summer has finally died down.  Lots and lots of big changes were afoot this summer such as: Nick’s Borders store closing and his subsequent new job, my place of employment–Jimmy Beans Wool– moved to a larger awesome new space, Nick’s new work moved as well shortly after, and all the while we were involved in trying to purchase a home.

Our cute little home...

We put in the offer on June 30th and finally closed on the house on September 26th.  The day after our 1st wedding anniversary!  It was a long 3 months of waiting and signing papers, and waiting some more and we finally did it!  We bought our own little piece of land to call our own!  So of course, with the home purchased, that led way to a very busy fall season as we moved out of my in-laws and into our new place.  We are still unpacking boxes, but for the most part we are settled in.

It’s been such a crazy 6 months, and I am so glad that things are finally winding down a bit.  Work is calming a ton with the addition of more staff in my department and I am finally able to be a manager/leader and deal with internal improvements which I’ve not been able to do since I took on that role earlier in the spring.  Even the holidays aren’t getting me all worked up this year.  I’ve done a good job of planning for them this year and I think I should have plenty of time with my gift giving plans and such–plenty of hand-made goodness.  It’s gonna be a good season. So all of that said, I wanted to share with you some of the pictures taken in preparation for our housewarming potluck last month.  The house is a work in progress but you can definitely see the potential!

Bunting banner!

Living room.

Dining area and side board and my very sad Rubber Tree plant.

Patio.

Fire pit and shed.

"The ladies"-- Enid and Esther.

So that is the short tour.  It’s still a work in progress and we are so excited to put our mar on the place.  As you can see, the previous owners did a ton of work on the place and needs very few modifications, just  a bit of our personality and my crafty touch!  I’ll post more (and hopefully better) pics as we do just that.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!  I know I have a lot to be thankful for this year.  I am looking forward to spending the day with my family and avoiding the chaos of Black Friday by crafting the day away.  I hope you all have a fun and safe weekend as well!

Kristen

Random summer happenings…

Here are some of the random things I’ve been up to this summer that don’t really need a whole post:

Knitting, lots of it.  Many projects.  Too many really.  Here’s a few:

Endless Possibilities KAL- "Larch" by Tinks and Frogs Rue

Rust and Stone test knit for Miljaska...I have to finish this by the end of September!!!

This cute little garter for Marian's wedding...

The beginnings of an Aestlight Shawl by Gudrun Johnston.

A Catkin. I am determined to finish this by the holidays.

Lots and lots of these vintage style dishcloths. I'm loving this free pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting!

Cooking.  Sometimes.  Less than I would like actually, but all efforts have been a success.

Quinoa burgers/patties (my new favorite) with Cilantro-lime yogurt dressing, sauteed zucchini and fresh tomato and avocado! Yum!

Baking fresh bread--my skills are definitely improving!

Spicy tomato bisque soup made from tomatoes fresh from the garden! Yummy in the tummy!

Pinterest.  I’m obsessed.  Everyone should try it.  Do it, we can all be friends.  It’s where I found most of the recipes above.

Pickling.  Here’s a photo, but you can read about all of my pickling adventures with the gals at JBW here.

Pickles!!!

This awesome all women’s music festival put on by some friends that took place here:

Virginia City, NV

And one other big project that involves this:

Hmm...

and this:

What could it be...

More on that soon…

-Kristen

My best friend’s wedding.

July brought with it beautiful weather, and the long awaited union of my oldest friend and her beloved.  Marian and I met in pre-school.  We weren’t in the same class, but we somehow became friends over sharing the sandbox for digging or something like that. We lived on the same street and she was my marching buddy in the annual pre-school parade. We wore paper grocery bags and construction paper crowns that we decorated ourselves. We totally rocked those outfits.

This is actually a picture of the shirt she made me for my bachelorette party of us in pre-school in that parade. She has one with her face circled too.

Years and years later, we’ve maintained a close friendship.  I moved to Oregon when we were 9 , but because our parents were friends, we stayed close and visited often.  It helped that all of my family still lived in the small town in Central California that we hailed from.  We saw each other at least 3 or 4 times per year.

Marian wearing her awesome shirt.

More importantly though she’s always kind-of been the sister I used to ask my parents for.  She was an only child, so my brother and I provided her with the sibling companionship that she’d always wanted too.  My brother and I actually fought over her constantly to the point where she would have to sit between us to keep the peace at all times.  ”Marian in the middle” became the running joke.

"Marian in the Middle" at my wedding.

Marian went to THE Ohio State University for college and moved all the way across the country.  I visited when I could and so did she, and we’ve managed to maintain our relationship over the years.  Four years ago, she moved to the Washington DC area for a boy, and the rest is history.

At Marian's parents retirement party in 2009, Marian and Sean are the two blondies in the back row.

She was my maid of honor last year in Nick’s and my wedding.  My oldest friend stood beside me as we said our vows and supported me in every way throughout the process. Shortly before Nick’s and my wedding, Sean her wonderful fella, proposed to her!  We simultaneously celebrated her engagement and my wedding, both so excited for one another.

Post-ceremony hugs!

Another "Marian in the Middle."

Of course, I was asked to be in her bridal party and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. And that’s how I found myself, on a beautiful afternoon in July, all gussied up and ready to celebrate with my oldest friend.  I even made her this cute little garter to wear under her gorgeous dress.  (I’m still working on their actual wedding gift, which will probably be done just in time for when cold weather strikes.)

Marian's darling little hand-knit garter.

The beautiful bride and her parents!

Congratulations Marian and Sean!  May your lives together be awesome and fun and full of love, laughter and light!

Me, pretending to be an artist...

4th of July weekend and Nick’s Birthday.

So, Nick’s birthday is the 4th of July.  Every year we try to get out of town and do something special to celebrate, but it’s funny how that weekend, everyone else seems to be doing the same thing.  We are always looking for fun places to trek to that are not overly crowded.  Last year, we went backpacking in Tahoe and amazingly enough were the only ones out there.  This year, we wanted to car camp so we headed 2 hours South down the 395 to Bridgeport, CA.

On the road into camp.

Now Bridgeport has a pretty big hometown 4th of July Celebration of sorts that involves a parade among other things.  We were more interested in getting out into the backcountry and finding some hot springs.  We settled on Buckeye hot springs and campground.

Self photo...hurray for camping and gettin' dirty!

Surprisingly far back in the woods down a dirt road, the campground was beautiful and not overly crowded.  We’ll definitely be going back.

Our campsite at Buckeye.

We hung out, relaxed, went for some short hikes, read (I was finishing up “Game of Thrones” by George RR Martin–so good!), and played plenty of Dominion (a fun card game we are addicted to).

Playing Dominion-- I let Nick win a few games... since it was his birthday and all.

Sadly, the water levels were too high this year, and the hot springs, which are situated in the river, were actually too far under water for us to enjoy them.  When we got too hot, we drove up the road to Twin Lakes and found a beach to enjoy.  Situated far back in a gorgeous glacial hanging valley, Twin Lakes were just what the doctor ordered, clean clear cold water.  And boy do I mean cold!  Burr!

The very upper end of Twin Lakes.

Beautiful but cold!

Relaxing and reading on the beach...perfect way to spend an afternoon!

Enjoying the sunshine!

Wallace had fun at the beach too!

We did seek out some lovely hot springs– Travertine Hot Springs, and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset (and tons of mosquitos) one evening overlooking the whole valley.  Sadly my camera died as we got there, so you are missing out on some awesome pics of me covered in mineral rich but very stinky mud, and an awesome rock that the hot water pours out of that looks slightly indecently like lady-parts.  :)

After a few days of fresh air and sunshine, we returned to Reno refreshed and rejuvenated.  How did you spend your 4th of July?

-Kristen

The Reno-Tahoe Odyssey– an adventure to remember…

Ok, so back in June I posted a picture of my RTO team the Gold Diggers.  For those who have never heard of the RTO, it’s a 178 mile road relay race.  You run with a team of 12 people and keep running until you run all 178 miles!  Sounds crazy right?  Well, when you break it down, each person averages just under 15 miles broken up into 3 sections over a 24-36 hour timeframe.  I actually only had to run about 13 miles, and my longest section was only 5.8 miles.  Not too difficult right?  Well, not until the middle of the night exhaustion sets in at least.

Us at 4am after 3 hours of sleep ready for our final legs!

It sounds pretty funny… a bunch of running hippie girls calling themselves “Gold Diggers.”  Well, to be honest, it was sort of ironic in a lot of ways.  In others, the name lent itself to a fun mining theme with great costume potential.  All insinuations aside, we had a fun time with the theme.

All of us sassy Van 1 Diggers at the start of the race.

We probably expended more energy dancing and cheering at the exchange spots than anything else.  We also passed out tons of “bling” to other runners and gave plenty of “go get ‘em tiger” butt taps with our gold toy shovels.

Diggers in action!

I swear I'm only this sassy when I wear gold!

The race was held on June 3rd and 4th starting on Friday morning and ending mid-day on Saturday.  We had such a blast!  And to top it off, all of the other teams voted, and we won most spirited team!  Out of 210 teams!  How cool is that?  We were elated to win that coveted award.

Van 1 cheering on runners on the last leg...

We are already planning next years race.  New team shirts and jackets.  Hopefully faster running times…we’ve even made arrangements for our Army “Digger” to run via satellite from her deployment post in Afghanistan.  So awesome!

Fried chicken break..."Gold Digger" fuel...

These ladies I ran with are truly some of the best people I know.  Some I’ve known for a long long time.  For example my best friend Elle who I’ve known since Jr. High, and Jenny who I’ve known just as long–we all had 8th grade French together with Monsieur Martin.  Danielle, Ali, and Renee are all gals that I’ve known for years, are some of my closest pals, and they are so dear to my heart.  Maresa, I met through Jenny in college and she’s been a good friend ever since.  Years later when I met my husband, it turned out his best friend from high school is Maresa’s younger brother!  Small world.  These ladies are more then just friends to me, they are family.  And there is no other group of women that I would want to endure this extremely challenging race with.

Celebratory Bloody Mary's from the Bucket of Blood Saloon at the end of Van 1's last leg in Virginia City, NV!

So here’s to the “Gold Diggers”, the Reno Tahoe Odyssey 2011′s Most Spirited Team. May next year be even more spirited and fun!

All 12 of us at the start of the race.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Kristen

Fall is upon us!

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while.  Yes, I’ve been having quite a busy summer.  Mostly consisting of working.  A lot.  But other then that it’s been really good.  I’ve decided that in order to catch you all up on some of the summer happenings in Marinade-land, I’ll do a series of posts over the next few days to catch you all up.

Today I am going to share with you the bounty of our summer garden!  Back in the spring, I took a few pictures of our newly planted garden beds.  This is what they looked like then:

And this is what they look like now!

I’ve never had such a successful harvest!  It’s so exciting.  We’ve been eating so much good squash, tomatoes, peppers, beans, rhubarb, cucumbers, and various greens… so yummy! We have so many tomatoes right now we hardly know what to do with them all…I’m making fresh tomato soup tonight for sure!  This is one of our enormous summer squash’s that we ended up with.  Crazy!

I’ll tell you though, I am so glad that fall is on its way!  I am ready for winter squash so that I can make yummy soups and of course my favorite…butternut squash gnocchi! Cooler weather is a bonus too!

I’ll see you all again over the next few days as I share with you some of my summer adventures!

-Kristen

Little Red in the City

I am so excited to share with you a new little bit of awesomeness I acquired last night!  I managed (thanks to a generous boss and coworker) to get my hands on an advance signed copy of Ysolda Teague’s book Little Red in the City!  Oh so very exciting, as I’ve been a huge fan of Ysolda and have been following her blog since she started designing.  Working where I do sure has its perks as the book is currently still on pre-order, but should be arriving in stores soon.

 So, as Friday is one of my days off, I took advantage of the sunshine and sat outside in the yard for a bit this morning to read and absorb the amazingness that is this book.  Ysolda takes sweater knitting to a whole new level in Little Red in the City by addressing the issues that plague many knitters…sizing and shaping to fit.

So many of us struggle with making garments that fit us properly.  My biggest issues tend to be broad shoulders, a larger than average ribcage and a long torso.  These factors make constructing garments a bit tough for me unless I stick to strictly top-down methods of knitting, and even then things can get a bit dodgy.  After reading through some of Ysolda’s informative book, I feel much more confident that I can construct a better fitting sweater.

You can tell that Ysolda put a lot of thought into each section of the book.  She spends good amount of time discussing the importance of yarn choice, swatching, taking proper measurements and doing your math.  I’ve heard all of this before of course, but she does a really great job of explaining in her voice, why these things are all important and can make or break a good sweater.

She writes in her introduction, “When you knit, you commit money, time and work, and after all of that you get to try the garment on.  If this book does one thing, I’d love it to help more knitters feel like the investment is worth it.  That they are going to reach that moment of trying a sweater on and fall in love with what they’ve made.”  Amen to that!

I don’t think I’ve read a knitting book so thoroughly in a long time.  It has a fun lightness and personal touch to it that keeps it interesting and makes me want to keep reading.  Not to mention that the photography is beautiful as well!

I’ve decided that my first project from the book is going to be the Lauriel Sweater (which the beautiful Amanda from Lorna’s Laces is modeling on the cover).  I have 10 skeins of Lorna’s Laces Green Line DK in my stash in a delicious berry color that will be perfect for this sweater!  I am so excited to get started, but I have 2 very important projects to finish before I do so.  My Larch Shawlette for the Endless Possibilities KAL that I am leading, and a very special wedding gift.  I figure by the middle of July I’ll be able to cast on!

I also plan to knit several more of the designs from this book (there are 7 customizable designs in 15-17 size options) including Cria, Chickadee, Melia, and Skelf which are all amazing and very well written designs.  After reading through “Little Red in the City” I feel confident that I can utilize the tools that Ysolda provides and apply them to other garments I make to refine the fit for my needs.  I’m so grateful for this beautiful book!  Many thanks and huge kudos to Ysolda for a job well done!

Happy knitting everyone,

Kristen

Spring knitting and recovery.

Hi everyone!  I know I’ve been absent here for a while and I’ve had a pretty good reason. As mentioned in my last post, I suffered a broken wrist on my birthday (April 1st) and needed surgery.  After a couple of months of rest, stretching, and knitting, I’m almost back to normal!  It’s lucky I had a doctor who recommended that I keep up the knitting during recovery, otherwise I might have gone crazy!  I still have a bit of physical therapy left to do to help strengthen and stretch even more, but I’m otherwise back to normal. Aside from this gnarly scar that is:

Franken-scar!

I’ve been working on a few knitting projects to keep me busy (although work does that on its own).  Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Finished my Mara Shawl!

Sandy from JBW blocked it for me and it looks great!

Knitting a “Corrine” sweater out of Lorna’s Laces Green Line Worsted in the Limited Edition color from April called “Royal Wedding.”

"Corrine" from Knitty, Spring 2011

Knitting an “Idlewood” by Cecily Glowick McDonald out of Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran with my friend Lynnae:

Almost done with the cowl neck portion!

Crocheting a “Calm Cowl”.  I’ve been having fun with crochet lately!  I was totally inspired by One Flew Over’s gorgeous version pictured below.  I had to rip mine last night (hence the lack of photo) and will start over a bit more loosely.  Apparently I’m a tight crocheter:

One Flew Over's beautiful Tosh DK version... doing mine in Tosh Merino DK

Starting the Larch Shawlette for the Endless Possibilities KAL:

"Endless Possibilities" in Lorna's Shepherd Sock

Running in a 178 Mile Relay Race around the greater Reno-Tahoe area with an amazing group of ladies:

The "Gold Diggers"!

Enjoying my new red crocheted Toms:

I am truly not a hipster...I just really love these shoes!

In all, it’s been a pretty good Spring.  I’m ready for summer though– camping, Sierra backpacking adventures, floating the river, swimming in the Lake Tahoe, live music outside, Artown, Farmer’s Markets on Saturday mornings,  the weddings of two good friends, maybe a road trip, and of course, lots of knitting!

See you all sooner–rather than later! (I promise!)

Kristen