Happy Holidays!

Hey guys, hope you're all having a happy holiday season! I myself am not... I have strep throat, I think, and I'm MISERABLE, but bored out of my mind because I can't be on the phone... So I'm posting pictures of myself! And other people too... really. But first off, look how cute my hair is!

And here it is again, in the sweater my mil got me.


We spent the day before Christmas Eve at my sister's house, to exchange gifts and have dinner together. Look how cute Austin and I are.

And then Zach and I... he's such a brat...

I love those kids more than anything else I know... I got Austin a gameboy game for Christmas, and when he opened it he said "Aunt Krystal, it's just what I wanted!" and jumped up and hugged me... and I cried. :) How was everyone else's holiday?

Jingle Ball

So, Wednesday Adeana, Emmy and I went to Jingle ball, which is basically a Christmas concert with a bunch of different bands. We saw Blake Lewis, One Republic, Colbie Caillat (if that's how you spell her name...) and the Backstreet Boys. It was pretty fun. Not as much fun as Hanson but... nothing could be. :) Wanna see some pics?

Here we all are. I look high... lol but I swear I hadn't even started drinking...

This was probably my favorite pic of the night. We're labeling it "Caution: Emmy's cold!" Cause she looks cold, and she was, but then that sign behind her.. it was funny.

Did you notice that Adeana's wearing the multi-directional scarf? I gave it to her for Christmas.

NOW we've started drinking. Well, not Emmy of course...

Hey look, another sign for my collection. :) If you want to see the rest of the concert pics, go to my myspace page... and if you're not my friend and you want to see them... well, then, I guess you'll just have to add me now, won't you? :) The link is in the sidebar, so, go nuts.

Long days

Ok, so I know you'll all be happy to know that I finished my garden path socks! Yay! I posted about it at yarn mafia, you should go look. We'll wait.

Back? Ok, good. I went to see the movie Enchanted yesterday, and it was amazing. I would seriously recommend it to you. It's not a kid movie at all. Well... maybe like, a 8 or 9 year old, but not younger.

Anyway, this post is really about the cause. Angie and I are finally taking action in the aids cause. We (ok, she...) is making up a pattern that we could make socks from or sell the pattern, and we're also going to design a t-shirt and sell it on cafepress.com for the knitting community. I'll let you all know when it's up, but I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. Hopefully we can get the shop up in the next couple of days so that people can buy our stuff for Christmas! :)

Yarn Mafia!

Just wanted to let everyone know that my friend Angie and I are creating a co-blog. It's called Yarn Mafia, and it's going to be so much fun! I'm still going to blog here, but I think I'm going to shift the focus of this blog to more personal things, while posting knitting things at the yarn mafia page. So anyone who likes to read my blog, please visit us! Thanks for your understanding guys! Ok, now go, go see the blog. I already posted today!

Ugh, it snowed

I hate snow. Really hate it. Like... it's cold, and wet, and I just... ugh. The ONLY time I like snow is Christmas day lol. Maybe I'm a little weird, but that's how it is... Seriously though, it's DECEMBER and here in Ohio we don't get snow until at least January. We hardly ever have a White Christmas. Look at this.

That's not normal. Seriously. But the puppies love it.

They were attacking it. Storm loves to chase snowballs and eat them. And Mattie just enjoys diving into the snow as fast as possible.

So Branching out is officially blocked and ready to be gifted. See?

Oh man... ok well it was ready to be gifted. Now it needs to dry some... duh Krystal, lay something in the snow, it will get wet... Would you like a close up?

Pretty... I love it. I hope the person I made it for likes it as much as I do. If she doesn't, I might just take it back... Anyway, lately I've been working on socks. Garden Path...

Still getting there. I'm about halfway to the heel. I may in fact be the slowest sock knitter in the world. Maybe I could be in guiness book... Anyway, and today I started my mom's second sock. So there, second sock syndrome be damned! Ha!

Ahem. Ok, back to your regularly scheduled blogging. I bet if we pray real hard and keep our fingers crossed, Angie will blog. She has some cute baby pictures I know she's dieing to share with the class.... what about it Angie?

Fun times, pictures, and knitting content! Whoo!

Ok, I know I know, I'm a bad bad blogger. But you'll get over it. I have PICTURES. Isn't that exciting? First, last week, Emmy was over, like usually, and we had lunch at Burger King.. and I have to document it because it was likely the most fun ever had by two adults at Burger King. We took a couple of pictures when we got home.

I'm not exactly sure WHAT was so funny but... great fun was had by all. Even the guy sitting at the table next to us...

I love the crown. I'm keeping it forever. LOL anyway... Then, Thursday, as you all know, I went here.

And as you also know, it was the most amazing special thing ever. Here's photographic evidence that Zac actually talked to me.

The most HORRIBLE picture of me but... that's ok. He was actually like, a foot away but when I started talking to him he moved closer. It was awesome. He's so cute... anyway, here's an action picture of the finished Icarus.

That's the last one for a while, I promise. It's just... so... pretty! I want to share it's prettiness with the world. Today, this evening in fact, I finally got around to blocking the Branching out I did.

There's a close up. It's a weird angle... you can't really see the leaves. Weird. It blocked out to 63.5 inches, which is about perfect, so... that's all the news for now.

Hey, go see Crafty Andy and wish him well, his dog Buster recently passed away. Go on. You're excused. :)

P.S. Man I'm an idiot, send you to see Andy and don't send you a link... there, go. :)

Not much of an update

But it's still a blog post, right? I haven't posted in a couple of days because... well... I don't have much news. I'm knitting some but not a lot, I'm a little out of my grove. The concert was ABSOLUTELY amazing, so many good things happened. So so so many good things. I can't begin to describe it on here. Let's just say I talked to Zac Hanson, I held hands for a minute with Taylor, and... it was just amazing. The sound quality wasn't very good, but it wasn't their fault. The place was TINY and it's hard to get such a big sound into such a small room. Anyway, I'm thinking about either knitting something for a charity related event or coming up with a pattern to try to sell. I'm thinking maybe something that isn't over done... like... handwarmers or... hell, I don't know what. PLEASE let me know if you have any ideas, ok? Thanks guys!

My good news!

So everyone, you'll all be happy to hear this. Or maybe you'll be like "who cares, seriously..."But guess what I'm doing on Thursday? I'm going to Bloomington, Indiana, with Emmy's not boyfriend Richard. Would you like to know why?

That's why! We're going to see Hanson! I'm sooooo excited! I know I know, I just saw them, but... I don't care! Do you know how happy I am to see them again? Extremely. Soooo happy I feel like screaming! :)

Anyway, Saturday night Emmy and I babysat my nephews. We also got to spend lots of time playing with these two munchkins...

Their names are Punky (on the left) and Bella... but, unfortunately for Bella, she's a boy lol. They're thinking about calling him Jazz, or Jazzy, like from Transformers, but they're not sure. They're both so sweet... my sister's mil had them living under their trailer, and my sister was trying to find homes for them... and she found one lol! With her! Look at the cuteness...

They LOVE to be held and cuddled... except by the kids, but can you blame them? When Emmy went in the basement, she found the two kittens underneath of a toy shopping cart, trapped like they were in a cage...

So then I was tracking down Bella, or as she's now known, Jazzy, for a picture, and I finally found her here, hiding out. And, just for size comparison... this is my sister's cat, Tia, who is HUGE, next to Punky.

Isn't that funny? Anyway, here's a picture of my sister's dog, Coty. He's blind. He's only been completely blind for, I think, a couple of weeks.. isn't he so sweet looking? They have another pekingese named Tana, but she was mia while I was taking pictures lol, I'm not sure where she was...

On Sunday, Emmy and Dave and I cleaned, rearranged the living room, and started to put up Christmas decorations. Here's my puny little tree before decorations...

While I was taking that picture, Emmy and Dave were doing this.

Trying to find a way to rig our candy cane, since the suction cup thingy broke. And then, when it was all hung up (thanks to Emmy and I, not Dave... lol) I got a nicer pic of Emmy.

Anyway, Emmy and I tried the ribbon thing.

It looked dumb. (I especially like, though, the puppy under the tree...) So we undid it, and put the rest of the decorations up. Now, I don't do garland, I think it's sloppy looking, and I don't do tinsel because of the dogs, so keep that in mind...

It's so cute though, I like it. While we were doing all that, this is what Mattie was doing.

Working hard, I'll tell you... Anyway, over the weekend, some knitting did get done. Rocketober sock number 1 is finished...

Here's the ribbing, which is actually almost too big... next time I make socks, I may decrease some before the ribbing.

Strangely enough, the striping pattern changed when I got to the ribbing... proving, once and for all, that my gauge is SUPREMELY different in knit and purl stitches... and, you all remember the garden path sock, which I was actually almost done with the first pattern repeat of, right? This is what it looks like now.

Yeah, I wasn't liking the way it was working out. So it's getting restarted.

Anyway, I know you haven't seen NEARLY enough pictures yet, right? Ha ha.... but that's all for now. Hopefully I'll get the garden path sock and the rocktober socks really going in the 4 hour car ride to the concert. I'll let ya know!

Update and blog fodder

Good news! I'm almost finished with my mom's first sock! I have about 2 more rows of ribbing and then I'm binding off.

Isn't it pretty? I like the medium-weight. It's warm. This picture is the ribbon we're thinking about using for the Christmas tree. (Read: we were going to but didn't... lol). If not we can use it for Christmas presents or something.

I also bought some more of this.

For a fake isle hat, for myself, when I finish Christmas presents. I also bought this yarn...

For, I'm thinking, mittens for my sil Linda. I'm not sure though, it might not want to be mittens. Or maybe I don't want to do mittens. It might want to join another skein like it and be a scarf. Hmm...

I also started that up there, which is Garden Path sock # 2.This next picture, my friends, is a definite keeper.

It's my nephew, Zach, in his preschool picture. If you look closely, you can see the puffy eyes, and the look of pure hatred in his little tear filled eyes, and the snot on his shirt... he was NOT happy to be taking that picture. My sister said it's ok though, because that's exactly how he feels every day when he goes to preschool. Anyway, after Thanksgiving dinner, I went to my friend Emmy's house, and we were going to play her N64, but she couldn't figure out how to hook it, or the dvd player, up.

I was going for confused in that picture, but she caught me and laughed. Anyway, on black Friday, when I bought the yarn pictured above, I also went to payless shoes and got these.

I LOVE the way these shoes look but.. I'm not sure how much I like the fit. They kinda hurt my big toe. So we may be taking them back, I don't know yet. If I do I'll just exchange them for these other ones I liked that were the same price. Anyway, they always have bogo, so I bought these

Slippers! I love them, they're all pink and brown and warm... they're perfect. Anyway, that about sums those two days up. Stay tuned for scenes from this weekend!

Happy Late Thanksgiving

I wanted to write a post talking about how thankful I am for everything, all the good stuff in my life... but instead, my late Thanksgiving post is going to be about other people. Here's the deal. Lately I've been extremely burdened with the thought of all the kids in Africa and other places. I just wish there was something I can do but... well you have to be able to help yourself before you can help others, ya know? So I feel completely helpless and sad all the time for them. I want, badly, to adopt a baby from Africa but... do you know how much it costs? It's so unfair that it would be more than adopting from the US, because there are so many homeless kids there now. I know that there are people in our country, kids in our country, that need help too, but there are countless charities for those kids, and there just isn't much for those kids in Africa. Also, in our country, there are homeless shelters and things like goodwill where kids and adults alike can get things if they can't afford to buy them, but in Africa, they're lucky if they can scrounge together enough clothes to protect them from the elements. They need help worse than the kids in our country, because there just isn't any out there for them.

So... if you read this blog, I want to start SOME kind of knitting related charity... maybe make up a hat or scarf pattern, and sell it and all procedes go to them? Or SOMETHING. So if anyone, and I know you're out there, LURKING, has ANY idea, even if you think it's stupid, please let me know, ok? PLEASE. I'm begging you, because these kids need help.

If you want to help, and want to do something, anything, go to itunes and buy the song "Great Divide" by Hanson, it's only a dollar and one dollar buys like, 6 days worth of medication for a mother and her child, to help stop the transfer of the aids virus. It's .17 cents a day for that. That's ALL. And all proceeds from the purchase of that song go to help those mothers and children. Or go to www.tomsshoes.com and buy a pair of shoes. For every pair of shoes that you buy, they donate a pair to a child in need. Go to www.hanson.net for more information.

So, what am I thankful for? Anyone who gives their time or their money to help someone who can't help themself. Thank you just for reading this, it means a lot. Remember, every cent counts.

Quickie picture post

I don't really have time for this, but I'm doing it anyway. Look.


It's DONE! Dried and everything. Oh man I love it. With a deep violent passion.


Isn't it the prettiest thing, well... ever?

OMG!!!!! The day has finally come!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone who has ever ever ever read this blog, (since, oh, August or so) needs to sit down. Right now. Oh, wait, you're at the computer, so probably sitting... just making sure. Are you ready. Are you sure? Ok, here's a picture for you. See this?

This is a picture of my addi turbo lace needle. Why is this a big deal? Well, I bought this needle about 3 or so (is that all????) months ago. Since the day I bought it, it has been occupied. What has it been in? This.

This is my love, the most beautiful thing I've ever made with my own two hands. This, my friends, is my finished Icarus.

*squeal* Ok, when I bound off the last stitch, I may have hyperventilated. Only because I stopped breathing for a few minutes. I've never been so proud of anything in my life (except maybe, maybe, the raising from birth of my puppy... seriously. Anyway...), especially since I didn't use LIFELINES!!! So I feel like I can announce it to the world now! It's so beautiful.

And so BIG! It is officially... not the right dimensions. It was supposed to be 72'' and it's supposed to be half of that down the middle. Mine is 39'' down the middle... and 88'' across. EIGHTY-EIGHT INCHES ACROSS THE NECK!!! That can't be right. *remeasures* No, it's right. Holy... That's like... 7 and a third feet! That's insane. Angie was right, I DEFINITELY should've taken out a pattern repeat. Especially considering the whopping 520 stitches I just bound off... Here it is soaking.... and yeah, the dye bled a little, but that's ok, it's GORGEOUS!


Want the stats? Ok, it's Miriam Felton's Icarus Shawl, which I purchased from mimknits.
I made it with the suggested yarn, Jaegerspun Zephyr, in the color Claret, bought from Sarah's Yarns which is an incredible store, and I got the yarn at a really decent price, I'm happy about that as I'm on a budget... good yarn at a good price? Sweet!

It's not blocking as perfectly as I had hoped, as I didn't have the money to buy blocking wires until, well, today, and I wanted to wear it to Thanksgiving, just to show it off, so I didn't have time to wait for them to be shipped.

It took me nearly an hour to pin it out. But I'm happy with the results, even if the top edge is a little scalloped... it's ok. I'm not going to claim by any means that it's perfect according to pattern...

But I'm going to say that, to me, it's the most perfect, beautiful thing, EVER! I love it!

Please, feel free to comment and tell me how beautiful it is! I can't hear it enough, I assure you. Yay!!!!!!!!