Archive for the ‘ABC-Along 2010’ Category
I Is for Independence
Yes, I took my I photo that long ago and I’m finally now getting around to posting it.
H Is for Husband
H is for husband, and here is mine, enjoying a fantastic Mexican breakfast of meat, meat, and more meat!
G Is for Gods (and One Goddess)
I was really racked my brain for a G, and I think this one works.
A carving of a Maya god at Tulum.
It looks like just a plain old snake, but this is a representation of Kukulcan, the feathered serpent god of the Maya. You may also know him as Quetzalcoatl, as the Aztecs called him.
If I remember correctly, this is a carving of the god Chaac, the Maya rain god.
This doesn’t look like much, but it’s all that’s left of the temple of Ixchel, a Maya goddess. The temple is at Punta Sur, on Isla Mujeres, which means “island of women.” Punta Sur is the furthest east point in Mexico, so the sun hits here first every day.
F Is for February Baby Sweater
Pattern: February Baby Sweater
Source: Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac
Yarn: KnitPicks Simply Cotton Organic Sport
Colors: Malted Milk w/ Ginger trim
Needles: US4
I love this little sweater so much! It was just shipped off to its recipient yesterday, so it will be waiting for her when she makes her big arrival.
I made a few small changes to the pattern to personalize it. For the tie closure, I just used a yo k2tog tow to create eyelets and then threaded a contrasting color icord through them.
The cuff edging is a basic crochet shell edging. I really stretched my crochet skills here with such fancy stitchwork.
The rest of the sweater is edged in a simple single crochet edging, in the same contrasting color.
Yes, I somehow managed to screw up garter stitch. That little mistake is a lot more glaring than I thought it would be, but I’m mostly okay with it. I’m going with the idea that it was a purposeful mistake because only the gods can create perfection. Yeah, that’s it.
The great thing about cotton yarn is that it’s machine washable and dryable. For babies, that’s essential, so this organic, undyed cotton seemed like a perfect choice. It will only get softer with washing.
I love how this turned out, and I can’t wait to see photos of Baby C wearing it. If I could change one thing, though, it would have been to knit it in DK instead of sport weight yarn. It ended up super tiny, so she won’t get to wear it for very long, sadly. That’s alright, though, because I’ll just have to knit her a bigger one as she grows.
E Is for Eyeglasses
As in new ones, I has them. It’s been years and years since I got a new pair of glasses. Fortunately, my prescription hadn’t changed much so the old ones were fine, but it was time for something new. I loved these instantly. The little blue flowers with the rhinestone centers did me in as soon as I saw them.
D Is for Desperation
Let me begin by saying this: I do not collect decorative spoons.
For the 2008 ABC-Along, I wrote about the cow cookie jar we bought on our honeymoon in Aruba. I briefly mentioned that the cow was purchased on the last day of our trip, when we suddenly realized that we hadn’t bought any souvenirs the whole time we were there. It wasn’t until I was cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen last week that I remembered that we also bought this, the decorative spoon.
Have I mentioned that I don’t collect decorative spoons? I just grabbed this thing in an act of desperation so that I would have some record of our honeymoon. Some proof that we actually went to Aruba, since we also weren’t really photo-snappers in those days and have very few photos from that trip. I’m sure that I thought it was some sort of ironic purchase somehow, but looking back, it was just stupid. Now I have this decorative spoon cluttering up the kitchen and I don’t know what to do with it. Maybe I should display it with my ironic collection of shot glasses.
C Is for Chocolate
My mother’s birthday was the 2nd and I sent her a box of these chocolates. Then Scott happened to see a Vosges store in O’Hare when he was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago so he stopped in to pick up a box so we could try them for ourselves.
Let me just tell you, if you have a chance to try these truffles, do yourself a favor and get them. They’re weird, but delicious.
A Is for Alive
Alive as in “holy crap, I haven’t killed this thing yet.”
I’m not good with plants. I never have been. Even those plants that are, everyone assures me, easy to care for and black thumb-proof, even those I kill.
A cactus in my care once died from neglect. Yes. I killed a cactus from neglect. Who does that? Another died from too much attention.
This thing, though, this angel vine topiary my mother-in-law sent me for Krismas, this thing is still alive. Not just alive, but thriving. It’s going completely insane, and I’m afraid it will soon start twining itself around the kitchen window latches and become a permanent part of the kitchen. I’m currently tryint to decide whether to let it keep going nuts or whether to attempt to trim it back into its original ball shape. I have to admit, I’m tempted to let it go, because its current hairiness makes it look like some alien creature.
To me, anway.
Oh, and yes, I’m doing this year’s ABC-Along. I wasn’t planning on it, since I failed less than halfway through last year, but I decided to give it another go. I am, of course, already late, but that’s not much of a surprise.
