Are you a knitter ready to break out of those scarves and hats you keep making? Interested in trying out felting but unsure of the results? The class that I'm going to be teaching for the next two Saturdays may be for you!

The slipper can be made as a loafer style, as in the photo, or in a plain ballet flat style. While billed as slippers, I think that soles could be sewn on to wear these as shoes. The slipper is knit in one piece with NO SEAMING. The only sewing is done on the loafer style after felting to sew a button detail on to the strap.

Call Knit Happens to sign up! 480-941-3898
7777 E. Indian School Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://knithappensllc.blogspot.com/

The class is from 10:30 - 12:30 on two Saturdays (4 hours) and costs $60
You'll get a 15% discount if you buy your class materials at the store.
You will need:
US size 17 / 12.75 mm circular 24” needles
wool yarn that will felt, Super Chunky/Bulky, 110 - 140 yards, for size small (5-6), medium (7-8), large (9-10)
gauge: 10 stitches and 10 rows = 4 inches in stockinette

Other upcoming classes that I am teaching:
Intarsia Flower Felted Bag (4 hours) $60 Saturday, April 3 and 10 10:30 - 12:30
Fair Isle Cardigan (4 hours) $80 Thursday, March 25 and April 8 7:00 - 9:00
Magic Loop Socks (6 hours) $70 Saturday, March 6, 20, and 27 10:30 - 12:30

One of the gals from the SnB group set up an Etsy shop to help with the Haiti relief effort. Craftspeople have donated the items for sale, and all proceeds are being donated to Doctors Without Borders.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/crafthope

It's not a tax write-off, but if you have gift-buying to do anyway, your shopping will benefit a good cause.

After the the Stitch 'n Bitch at the Duck & Decanter last night, I hung out in the corner at the new goth music night, Nox, at club Mardi Gras and knit in the semi-dark. I was going to knit more either way, why not do it while my friend, who is the DJ, spins the tunes at my neighborhood bar instead of watching TV? While my DJ friend visited, people would come by and ask me how I could knit in the dark, and I said "I'm just that good." ;-) They probably thought that I was a weirdo, but being a weirdo amongst weirdos is a good thing, right?

My new-to-me 2007 Prius in Driftwood Pearl. While she's not the color of preference (Pine Mica was what I wanted), she's got great mileage (just over 20K), clean interior, and I only went $400 over my budget after tax and registration and fees and crap.

Now that's taken care of and I can concentrate on taking care of myself! I have an appointment with a neurologist on Friday morning.

Sorry that I've been out of touch, LJ peeps. This car accident stuff has been sucksville. I've had migraines and back pain since the accident that make it hard to do things for an extended period of time. There was a lot of progress for the better in the first week after the accident, but I feel like my condition hasn't changed much in the past week. When I saw my doctor a week ago, she said "It just takes time". Well, time doesn't seem to be doing much for me right now, so I'm going to ask her to get me additional help.

I also need to deal with finding a new car, and I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around all the research I need to do for that.

It took me forever on Sunday to re-write the cable owls pattern to convert from bottom-up to top-down and into a cardigan for a class that I'm teaching tonight, and I had a raging headache afterward. That kind of thing wasn't a problem for me before.

I've been jotting down little notes each day about how I feel. At some point, I'll transcribe them to post here.

News for 2009:
-Still working at the same job.
-Timmy has grown up to be a handsome and silly kitty.
-In the spring, I started teaching knitting classes at local yarn store Knit Happens. They are really happy with my classes and continue to schedule me to teach more.
-I took road trips to San Jose, CA for a wedding, San Diego for Comic-Con, and Valencia to Six Flags Magic Mountain.
-Over the summer, I commenced efforts to lose weight and get healthier. To date, I have lost 50lbs and am down 3 clothing sizes.
-In December, I chopped off my long locks and am sporting a new short haircut.
-On Christmas Eve, I was in a car accident, and am thankful to be mostly ok.

I am mightily sore, but thankful. My beloved Prius, Suki, was trashed this morning by a man in a Suburban. I feel like I was hit by a truck, because I was! I was struck, driving southbound on Hayden Road at 8am. My car rolled completely over. Bystanders forced the door open and helped me out of my car. I was sore and shocked and let the EMTs take me in a neck collar, strapped to a board. But, tests at the hospital didn't show any major injury. Poor faithful Suki, however, has been totaled. Sue took me home and shuttled me around to get the stuff from my car and get a rental. I am so thankful for those kind bystanders who helped me and provided statements to the police that I was not at fault, thankful for my co-workers who called and texted to check on me and offer help, thankful for my friends who give me support, and my brother who tries to look out for me.I am thankful to be alive. I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday!

My extended weekend started on Wednesday night at Cherubini in Tempe for coffee. BrienBear, Brian, Marc, Travis, Josh, and I sat on the couches, which were comfy, but the splashy sounds from the fountain in the middle created a little challenge for easy conversation.

Thursday morning was for general slack, sleeping in, and playing with Timmy. In the afternoon, I did do some research for a new incorporation client and paperwork for that, then went out to Lonnie’s to sell my old stash of silver scrap, then got the oil changed in my car. Later, I went to the Duck & Decanter for the weekly knit night.

Friday started out slow, but became busy as the day went on. I headed out in the afternoon to stop by Lonnie’s to get a check, swing by Trails to get cartridges for my whipped cream canister (ironically, to actually make whipped cream, as last I checked, Trails was less expensive for them than Williams Sonoma), then to Switchblade Salon to get my big haircut. After the shearing, I went over to Jodie’s. We went to Harley’s for dinner, where I had some tasty gnocchi. We went back to her place for her to change and to wait for her husband, Ben, before schlepping to Laveen for her friend’s party. It was a pleasant time, we noshed, played Guitar Hero, and chatted with artsy folks. Jodie had to go to bed at a reasonable hour since she had to get up early to set up for a work event the next day. I decided to take a chance on stopping by at Tranzylvania to catch Dark Mark’s DJ set, but just missed it. He seemed happy that I dropped by to try to support his efforts.

Saturday, I had a hard time getting up and motivated to make pie. Finally, I broke it out and had some yummy results to share at the Winter Festival of Pie at happinesstogo and Al’s. I arrived there around 7pm, and the party was already in full swing. There was a higher percentage of sweet pies to savory this year, so I was afraid that my pie wouldn’t be finished by the time I wanted to leave to meet BrienBear for his birthday celebration at Dave & Busters, but it was pretty well decimated, so I consider that a success. The pie had a chocolate sugar cookie crust with a thin layer of dark chocolate, filled with caramelized plantain and banana and dark chocolate coffee custard, topped with honey vanilla whipped cream, fresh banana, and dark chocolate chips. I got to D&B just as Brien & co. were walking out the door. We lingered and chatted a while before everyone dispersed.

Sunday afternoon, I left the house early to stop by to see the incorporation client’s office before going to Dad and Ellie’s holiday open house. He wasn’t there, and just left his stuff for me to pick up. So, I ended up at Dad’s awkwardly early. Ellie is very particular about things and had a hired helper, so she wouldn’t let me help setting up anything and I kinda stood around until other people showed up. Luckily, that didn’t last too long. The party was actually not unpleasant for once. The yentas who usually give me the tsk tsk for not being married yet were completely distracted by my weight loss and new haircut. I had to send emails out this morning to some of the ladies that kept asking me for more info. Gregg is pissed at Dad for not helping him out last weekend when he had a kidney stone attack, and I really don’t blame him. Gregg was in enough pain that Dawn was going to take him to the hospital, but Dad didn’t want to take a break from doing their party planning tasks (for a party a week later) to go over there and watch the kids for a while. Dad said he could only do it if Gregg brought the kids to their place, 20 minutes away in each direction away from their closest hospital. So, they called a neighbor who helped them instead. Dad mentioned it to me while I was helping him open wine bottles, and I told him that I thought Gregg was totally justified in being mad. Gregg is doing better, and on medication now, so it was nice to see him and Dawn and the kids.

My new haircut, when just washed and left to air dry.

Got my long tresses cut off yesterday!

I've been working on knitting samples for the next set of classes at Knit Happens. I'm pretty excited about doing most of the projects, so I hope that those classes book out! On the schedule are two more sock classes, a fair isle pouch (photo in this posting), a cabled owl cardigan, felted ballet flat slippers, a felted bag with an intarsia flower motif, and a fair isle cardigan.

In the meanwhile, I still have projects that I haven't finished from fall, which really kinda bothers me. But my new class obligations make me have to work on other things. I hate having multiple unfinished projects. My mom was a chronic non-finisher, so I really have a compulsion to finish things.

I decided on Tuesday that I would take today and tomorrow off from work. Since I have been dieting and teaching and such on and off the past few months, I haven't gone on any vacations since Comic-Con in July. I'll be dieting for the first 3 weeks of January, and don't have a break in scheduled classes until the end of February anyway. My boss will be on vacation for the last two weeks of this month, so I can't take any time off then (I'm the only other full-time employee in my unit). So, I decided to take a little break while I could. Weekends have been busy with holiday stuff, so I took some time today to run some errands. Nothing exciting, but needed to be done.

I had a pleasant first night of Hanukkah dinner at my brother's house on Friday. Dad & Ellie were also there, and Alex's therapist, Dominic. Gregg made some Dad-friendly (aka gluten-free) latkes which were very tasty. 6 adults nearly decimated 5lbs of potatoes worth of them. The kids are picky, and mostly ate the rotisserie chicken. They were really happy with their two big gifts, the new Super Mario Wii game from me, and a Fit Plus from Dad & Ellie.

After dinner, I stopped by Dave & Buster's at Desert Ridge to try to catch the tail end of the reunion gathering of former co-workers from RQA (worked from 2003-2005). I saw half of the attendees, just as they were leaving. When I walked up, one of the ladies exclaimed, "Oh my god, Chris! You look just the same! You haven't changed at ALL!" I replied with a chuckle, "Well, yeah, what am I supposed to look like?" "Well, older, at least!" I didn't bother to tell them that I had gained 40lbs over the 4 years since I'd left and lost 50 in the past 6 months. I just took the compliment with her hug.

Still feeling surprisingly energetic, I decided to meet some people at Tranzylvania for dancing and such. It was an entertaining night.

I wanted to get up and go to the farm market Saturday morning, but reset my alarm to sleep until 10, when I had to get up to meet for brunch at Chompies at 11. After brunch, I stopped by Tempe Yarn and Fiber. I had just responded to her text message when Jodie walked through the door of the shop. I hadn't planned on hanging out, but ended up staying and chatting with Jodie and Sam, and contributing a little to the Big Sock Project.

Saturday night, I met up with Jodie and her husband at their neighbor's Chrismukkah party. We socialized for a while, then went back to their house to play Rock Band for a while. Another fun but late night.

On the way to Wendy's house Sunday morning, I stopped at the Asian market for some supplies for alternate pierogi fillings; sweet potato, Japanese yam, and taro root. At Wendy's, I peeled and boiled, seasoning the sweet potato with cinnamon and fresh nutmeg, and the Japanese yam and taro mix with cardamom and sugar. Julie cranked out the dough while the rest of the crew filled the little pockets, starting with classic potato and cheese. I chopped up some prunes for some sweet filling. Wendy and I worked together to boil and fry the dumplings to yumminess. We all joined in on the tasty eats. After all was cleaned up, Sue and I stuck around and watched Julie & Julia, and I worked on a knit sample for class of cabled owls.

Snap, snap, his fingers crack
Doesn't add meaning to speech
Just syncopation

Fight to stay awake
Room warmed, filled with dreamy words
Hot air from his mouth

I was mulling about ways to get myself to work on getting more fit with the weight loss, and on Black Friday I found a good enough deal on a Wii with Fit Plus combo that I ordered it. It arrived on Friday, but I didn't have time to set it up right away, so it sat, unboxed, until Saturday. I ended up staying in Saturday night and setting up and playing my new toy. I played it again last night, I set up custom routines. I played it so much that I have a sore right arm today! I may have to switch setting for lefty from time to time so I can use both arms more! My best rated game (based on my score) is Super Hula Hoop, which is not surprising to me, since I can use my old belly dance skillz for it! Just need to build up the stamina again!

I spent Thanksgiving eve at my brother’s house again this year. Dad and Ellie went to her sister’s house. They didn’t have any other friends over, so it was just the 5 of us. Sort of like my regular dinners over there, but with a lot more food. Also, more labor-intensive foods! Gregg made a tasty smoked turkey on the grill, along with grilled asparagus. Dawn made the stuffing and mashed potatoes. I made mashed sweet potatoes, sweet potato pie with a plantain crust (a new experiment that was tasty), and German butter cake. We all have fond memories of the German butter cake that we’d get in PA, but have never seen since we moved to AZ. My office-mate, who is also from PA, had a recipe that her mother had cut out of a newspaper in 1966. She scanned it and sent it to me. It took a lot of time to make, boiling and mashing potatoes for the yeast dough, and letting it rise 3 times before baking. It was a taller cake than we remembered, but it was yummy.

I had to go to work on Friday, but I got little done. Well, little work for work done. I spent my time socializing, eating from the giant spread of leftovers that Myrna brought in, and shopping online for Hanukkah presents. I also ordered a present for myself – a Wii console with Fit Plus bundle and an extra controller. I was thinking about how I could increase my activity level to keep the weight I’ve lost off. I’ve had fun playing the Wii at other people’s houses, so I think that I will be more successful with this than going to the gym. Plus, I can have other people over to play. Friday night, I met Lissa and Tom, Sarah and Matt at Prankster’s Too for beverages and pool. They tried to go to Mickey’s Hangover in old town, but it was closed. The place is right around the corner from my house, and better then I remembered it being. They at least had a good selection of beer on tap.

Saturday morning, I met Helen and isoebella at Lo Lo’s in Scottsdale. Unlike when we went last Sunday, there was no wait. Mmm, chicken and waffles. Afterward, we went by the handbag speakeasy, but we didn’t like any of the bags. I bought a silver anchor pendant. Then we went over to TJ Maxx to look for tights. I’ve been on a big tights kick this season to freshen up my wardrobe while I wait on buying other clothes. Saturday night, I opted out of a big party to hang out with irena_seraphina and James. We had a nice soak in the hot tub, then watched Bruno.

Sunday morning, I finally experienced Matt’s Big Breakfast. I met Carl at 11, and he got there 10 minutes before me and put our name in. At 11:55, we were seated. We shared two plates, the salami scramble with Maytag bleu cheese with a side of yukon gold and caramelized onion homefries and sourdough toast with strawberry jam, and a Belgian waffle with pepper bacon. The food was delicious, and served speedily, and there is a wait at even the crappiest places on a Sunday morning, but I don’t know if I would be up for the hour wait very often. We finished in plenty of time to head to the Phoenix Art Museum for the showing of Trust us, this is all made up, a film about an improvisation team based in Chicago. We both enjoyed the film. Sunday night was spent watching episodes of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. A nice finish to the weekend.

Having taken Friday off after the Magic Mountain jaunt, the week flowed right into the weekend. Friday afternoon, I baked a butternut squash pie for the monthly D&D n' potluck at Doyle's. I experimented with this concoction, making up a flax meal and buckwheat flour crust, altering my sweet potato pie recipe for the extra moisture in the freshly steamed squash, and making a dark chocolate cinnamon sauce to serve with. It was a success. I brought home an empty pan at the end of the night of gaming and eating fun.

Saturday morning, I had to get up at my regular work time to go to Knit Happens for a teacher's meeting. We're putting together a list of classes for winter session for happinesstogo to schedule. Of course, I’ll be doing sock classes again, but the owher has left my other selections pretty open. I know what I want to make, but I don’t know if other people like the same things! I'm having trouble deciding.

That night, I went to Darenna and Kristin's to play Wii and hang out. Darenna made these dates that were stuffed with gorgonzola wrapped in proscuitto then baked in the oven. Those things are delicious!

Sunday, I schlepped up to Carefree to meet Dad and Ellie for a free light jazz concert at El Pedregal. The band was pleasant enough, the weather was nice, and I brought some knitting to work on, so it was not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Unfortunately, with all the tasty eats, I've gained 5lbs back. I'm back within 2lbs of my last injection weight, after eating better for a few days, and my recently recovered clothes still fit, so I'm not gonna freak out. Just need to make some better eating choices.

We met up at irena_seraphina Wendy's Tuesday morning and got on the road westward from there. Along the way, we stopped to check out the Robotic Dinosaur Museum advertised on the roadside, but when we figured out that it was a creationist front, we didn't want to financially support them by paying admission. Ride entertainment consisted of Brett's MP3 player and games of 20 questions that included our newly-created "mythical" category. We gained an hour going there, so it was still relatively early even after eating dinner, so we decided to see a movie. Wendy hadn't seen Zombieland, and the rest of us didn't mind seeing it again, so that's what we went for. I guess that it was appropriate, since the finale is set in a California theme park. Back at our budget motel, we braved the heavily chlorinated hot tub for a bit before showering and going to bed.

In the morning, we hit Denny's for a light breakfast before heading to Six Flags Magic Mountain. We got there about 20 minutes before the scheduled gate opening time. As soon as we were through the gates, we power-walked to the queue for X2, purportedly the most popular coaster in the park. Others had the same idea, but the wait wasn't very long. The ride was pretty nuts. It was a good thing that we did that ride first, because we could see that the line was FAR longer as we stumbled out of there. Next, we sailed pretty quickly to ride Viper, then a little longer to ride Tatsu. I thought that the other rides would pale after X2, but Tatsu was just as wild. I was feeling wonky and dehydrated so we grabbed some water on our way to wait in line for Terminator Salvation. That line sucked the life out of me. I really wanted to stab someone after being forced to listen to teen pop, country music, and corny announcers. NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TERMINATOR until you are shuttled in groups into the building for the ride. Could it have hurt them to get the licensing to show the movie on a loop on the end-of-maze video screens? Play the movie soundtrack? For f's sake! After that, I needed a break. We stopped for water and snacks. I wandered the park on my own while my pals went on Déjà Vu. They were rattled after that ride. We slowed it down with a little old school log flume action, then Brett and I did the Goldrusher, a mild but respectable old coaster. Brett was refreshed and wanted to go on Scream. Nate went along, but Wendy and I opted for a Ben & Jerry's treat. By this time, the sun started to go down. Our last big hurrah was to be the classic wooden coaster, Colossus. The line was faster than expected, Brett and Wendy ran off to cram in two more rides, Batman and Riddler's Revenge, getting on the last run of the night of the latter. Nate and I had a leisurely wander to the park exit. We closed out the park, leaving the gates some time after 6pm.

We were all pretty spent at this point, and decided to get a sit-down dinner instead of fast-food. We spotted a Red Lobster, and someone exclaimed "cheesy bread!", so Wendy veered the car into their parking lot. The wait was longer than anticipated, and the service was slow. We grew a bit restless as the tiredness set in. Brett and I conked out on our respective ends of the back seat during periods of the ride home, playing the name game with Wendy during periods of increased coherence. Nate managed to stay the course, driving the whole way home, with one break for gas and snacks. We lost an hour with the time change on the way home, getting to Wendy's a bit after 4am. After driving home from there, I got into bed at home around 5am. Timmy was demanding some attention, so I had to kick him out of my room at 7am. Thankfully, I took Thursday off so I could nap on and off for the rest of the day! I decided on Friday morning to take that day off as well.

Realized that I am along for the ride today.

I checked out the new farm market at Skysong in Scottsdale on Thursday night before heading to class. Friday night, I went to Coach & Willie’s for happy hour with co-workers, then to Casey Moore’s for a “welcome back” dinner and drinks for anderale. Saturday morning, I got up fairly early, picked up anderale in Tempe, then drove out to Casa Grande to see some adorable alpacas. I dropped her off, then went to the Buy Local Festival at the Duck & Decanter. I met up with happinesstogo and Stepahie there, and enjoyed lots of tasty food samples from local restaurants and live music from local bands. After a micro-nap, I headed northward to Cave Creek to hang out with my friend, Alice, for her birthday. On Sunday, I stopped at the Sanrio store in the Mills mall to peruse the sale items before going to a crafternoon at Kat’s house. Our friend Jaime asked me to teach her how to crochet. She picked it up pretty quickly. I was at Kat’s until dinner time.

Tomorrow, I’ll be taking off for an overnight trip to Cali with irena_seraphina to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain on Wednesday! I’ve never been, so it should be fun.