Knits Craft Beer

On my way home I realized how crafty I really am. Not only in the actual meaning of craft, and artsy, but crafty creativity. I went to a meeting tonight (at James Street! Oh how I've missed it there. Order the pierogies, do it.) and am volunteering my time to work with Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week. I'm pretty stoked. I may be going for overachiever here, but I picked to be on the social media committee. I thought it'd be best because look at me already promoting!? Haha, I have much more to learn, and rather excited to be a part of the in crowd to help make it more known. So first things first, it's April 25th through May 4th. MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!! That's all I have for now. I'm sure I'll speak more of this in the future.

Yesterday I told you I'd share with you my crafts, and that I am sticking to.

Now this is conflicting because a lot of the things I am working on now can't really be explained or talked about too much. What I can say is this is a sewing project for someone as a gift to someone else. I don't want to give too much away! Luna loved helping me at the sewing machine though. And just look how cute she is! Haha ;-)

I tried to be a wonderful photographer but it's hard! My darn camera loves to flash and take a while to actually snap the pic. I think I may just use my phone, but alas. This project I can talk about a little bit more. It is for someone that is having something pop out of them in a few months. If you can't figure that out, puzzles are NOT your strong suite ;-). She said greens and blues would be great for the boy and I made sure to use a yarn that is machine washable. It can actually go in the dryer too. Double #winning. The reason there is even grey in the picture is because the border of the blanket I will be making grey.

Again, I'm getting too artistic for my own good. THIS yarn is what I want to make THIS shawl with. Alpha B Yarn's Sexy B in colorway, The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit. Can the name of the yarn get ANY cooler?! I think not ;-)

This yarn, Destination Yarns, is quite lovely. I get it at the yarn shop near my Aunt & Uncle's during Thanksgiving trips. She's been on vacation from her etsy shop for a while so I'm not sure if she'll be doing any new batches, but truly the yarn is gorgeous. The pattern for this hat is also quite lovely. I wanted subtle cables and this offered just that. I also got some male perspective to make sure the recipient would like the hat as much as the female maker ;-). Again though, can't give too much away now.

These socks (SOCKS THAT ROCK!) I have recast on just once, thank goodness, but they follow no pattern. Just a guideline of how to structure the sock. I like that it is self striping now but also a little sad that it's not as speckled. We'll see how this one pans out but I'm sure Handsome will enjoy them either way ;-).

Now I've done this shawl before, Mix No. 3, and I'm doing it again for someone I care about dearly. I think it'll be a classic piece that she can wear with a lot of things. I do get some beef for knitting the same thing more than once, but why let that pattern go to waste so fast. I bought it for a purpose and that is because I loved it. I wouldn't make something I didn't love. I'm just not done loving this pattern. I don't love my cat eating through my yarn, but that doesn't mean I don't love my cat. It's all about perspective.

So I have 4 knitting projects on needles and in the works. One for sure to be cast on in the immediate nearest future. And just one sewing project, that I can't share too much, but as much as I can.

Until next time, stay warm and craft on ;-)

<3 Carly

Ice Festivities Continued

I realized after I had posted my last post that I forgot to post pictures of the other carvings! How dare I?!

I'm so sorry, let's continue from after the park.

So this is NOT an ice carving but after driving up to State College in the rain, and no snow up there, I was ex-tactic to have some snow on the ground =) Just look how lovely!!!

Here is the main street, South Allen St., right before the carvings began =)

This is very focused in on my man's carving, Budda. So there is one of these that is out of order, but how they do this is they take the template, the drawing, and iron it on. It makes a fun sound that basically sounds like it is suctioning onto it. They then use the chain saw to carve the shape of the sculpture out. Including main lines and what not. Using the different power tools and the chain saw to create all the fine lines and details. After it is done, they brush off all the snow and torch it. Yes they torch it. It makes it so you can actually see how clear and clean the ice is.

There my man is! He's on the right with the multi tone knit hat, that I ironically did not make... He wears his one that's all dark blue navy at times, but I guess I need to make him more options for the work hat. A tight and not floppy one. He prefers the floppy just for warmth and style ;-) hehe.

Now I cannot forget about the other carvings! Here we have the polar bear couch that Rob did. Very cute indeed.

Now this dragon was done by the family that lives in State College. It was a complete family effort and I loved watching them carve together. Gary and his daughter were working on those details, covered in snow and I just love how it turned out.

Dick and a new guy, Caleb worked on the 2014 together. I was able to get the progress of these throughout the day.

James worked on the Giraffe and I am so mad at myself that I didn't take final pictures of all the carvings. I am kicking myself now. It turned out great I promise!

I will post pictures of all the ice sculptures once mister handsome sends them my way. He may of forgot, or he is just that busy. He actually is just that busy, he has carved 40 blocks this week. That's not normal, that is a lot of work! He is going to be exhausted.

Now Joe also did a carving. It was a swallow but it looked a lot like a mocking jay (you know, the symbol from the ever so famous catching fire/hunger games series). I'll post a picture of that later too.

Rob didn't just do the polar beer couch, he also did a dinosaur. And I may get a picture of it after it was brushed off and torched or I may not, but at least this one is done too! Haha. I'm so sorry! Gosh darn my hunger of going to breakfast instead of walking around.

That's it for the ice festival in State College. Oh wait, we had to celebrate New Years?! Haha ;-)

And that we did. Happy 2014 everyone!

I'll update you on all the knitting and crafting tomorrow. There's a lot. =)

<3 Carly

Ice, Yarn & Hot Meals

Just got back from the New Years Ice Festival at State College, First Night. It was another fun year of venturing the cold, checking out the town with friends, and lots of ice carving =).

My friend Cory came up the first day. Now because it felt like a weekend, I may get all the days wrong, but I believe she came up Monday, and I drove up Sunday afternoon. I got in just in time for Sunday super. Monday was a big set up day for building blocks, and carving the piggy bank, wishing well, and ice slide.

There it is! That slide is lots of fun. The kids mainly ride it, but the adults should so take advantage, it is a ton of fun.

Cory and I also got to check out a local yarn shop and picked up some yarn. The project I'm working on is kind of a secret, but I'll so a picture anyway ;-)

With no written pattern, I am just doing a copy cat of what I see in this pattern. I think it's adorable and super simple, yet still interesting enough to look at. I also made sure to get yarn that can go into the washer & dryer. That is important for the type of blanket I am making... I just kind of gave it away, but the pattern does anyway. Haha

I'm working on a few other projects but my hands do not move fast enough for how fast I want to knit and give the knitted items. I started Handsome's socks and I needed to rip them out and start again. I am too loose of a knitter and I would prefer my socks fit, so I understand making them fit him. Just all that time knitting them and ripped it all out. It was fun to knit, but sad to rip out :-P

Now these hot meals, they are wonderful. I made Chicken and Rice for dinner Sunday night after a long night of grocery shopping. It wasn't long because I hadn't gone grocery shopping since before Christmas, but because it was a Sunday and today, the day I got a snow day off from work (or should I call it a cold day off?), it is below 0 degrees. It's currently -3 degrees out. But the mad rush of everyone shopping and why it took so long was because the store was out of EVERYTHING and so I had to go to another and they were low on things too! I was just shopping for food because I hadn't in so long. Everyone else was because they were stocking up for the polar vortex.

Anyway, I like packing lunches so I packed a salad and the leftover chicken and rice for Monday. Made for dinner last night a carrot cream soup and eggplant parmesan. If you have read this blog before, you know I tried this carrot soup before. Well my mother got me an immersion blender for Christmas and it worked wonderfully. I also cooked the carrots to become very very tender. It was actually good this time. I was so proud of myself. Then The eggplant parm was delicious, as it always is ;-).

Thus far today I have made a smoothie from Pioneer Woman's, A Year of Holidays. I made the purple one. It's pretty good. I did spill it already but it also took a while because everything was so cold and I have a cheap blender... Haha, not the immersion blender, a regular blender. I let it rest a while to warm up, then it smoothied right out ;-) see what I did there?

Well with this lovely time to myself, I will continue to knit and drink my smoothie. I haven't really disrupted Luna's day. She is as happy as a clam napping everywhere, hehe.

Stay warm my East Coast Friends!

<3 Carly

December Knits

When December and the holidays hit, all I want to do is knit. You have no idea how badly during my wasted space time I want to just knit. I should start knitting at lunch. That might ease the tension of the addiction ;-).

Just look at my Luna Bum the last time I went out to a knitting night. She has gorgeous eyes that are not captured enough. But look how well they play off the colors of my knitting, the basket and the book for that matter! They are luscious.

Now some of you may be wondering what it is I am working on now, and some I could say proudly. My traveling project is currently my tosh socks with a pattern called Monkey. I do like them and cannot wait to wear them more. They are so close to being done. This is what is distracting me most. I need to get that project done before I can cast on the other projects I want to do. I want to make my handsome a pair of socks again, no worries, he never reads this, haha. BUT I NEED THE NEEDLES I AM USING!!!

Here we are after our Thanksgiving at my family's in Cleveland. I know I know, Pittsburgh native going there for turkey? Trust me, they're that awesome ;-).

The other projects I've been dreaming of are with just beautiful beautiful yarn. I want to do a cable hat in a gorgeous blue and green variegated yarn I picked up in Cleveland, Rivers Color Studios. They have a local dyer that I love because she basis the dyes off of locations. She hasn't dyed yarn in a while, so the selection was slim in that category. Her line is called Destination Yarns. But the other options they had were gorgeous. I caved with some Shibui. I don't want to give too much away because those yarns I got I want to make gifts for like now. My fingers cannot move fast enough and time just goes by so quickly.

I also must admit to my reading habits. I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour as well. I try, I really try. The sun just keeps getting up at a later time and he makes me made because I need his help in waking up!! But the book I've had for a bit but not enough time to enough is The Book Of Wool. For a knitter that loves wool and fiber as much as I do, and friends and family will understand this, this book is fabulous. It outlines the essence of the wool, what makes it up, why it's so good! People that shop at Michael's and Joann's, stop. I love crafting, they have great prices, but really, stop buying that acrylic yarn right now. It's not natural, it feels awful to the touch and just stop. It's so flammable!!!

I could go on too long with that type of rant so I will spare all of you now. The other reading that I must and want to accomplish is still my Harry Potter reread from the summer(I'm on the 4th book. We all know how big that thing is. Gosh. It's like carrying around my socks that aren't done yet... IT MUST BE DONE!! Haha). Work makes you a lot busier than I though, but now I want to read the Hunger Games series as well. I saw the Catching Fire midnight showing and oh boy, I think it's best I read the books now. SO GOOD! Go see it now.

Now I must leave you. I would like to enjoy the rest of my evening with some knitting, already had some hot cocoa, but Luna needs some more loving while I knit. She is a wonderful snuggle buddy, hehe.

Until next time,

<3 Carly

Carrot Soup & Some Insight

I don't know where I've heard this but what I've heard is Baseball is 90% negativity. I'm starting to think my life is about the same. Maybe not that drastic but Life in general has a lot of negativity.

Let's start with I am a recent college graduate. I lived on a wonderfully close knit downtown campus. You know just about everyone and enjoy all your friends down the hall, a few floors away or a block away in a very close building. The hardest thing to get together with your friends would be seeing who would be the one to truck it through the snow to get to the others place. Now I live in an apartment I rent in the outer suburbs of Pittsburgh. I do enjoy the location but friends (the ones I talk to), aren't always willing to truck it all the way out here. I live far.

Let's go to the other new basis of my schedule. I am used to taking 6 classes, usually 1 or 2 online, 2 or 3 at night and 2 or 3 during the day. My weekends consisted of Thursday night, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I never had a class that started earlier than 9:40 AM and my most common class met from 6-10 PM. Now my schedule is get up at 6:30 AM and be in the office until about 4 or 4:30 PM. Let's just say I'm not used to being a morning person in just 2 months. I think it takes longer. I love seeing the daylight, I love enjoying breakfast, these things take time and when I get up at 6:30 AM and hit the snooze, it just doesn't feel like I'm enjoying it. I must stop hitting snooze. It's bad for you to hit snooze anyway. I have heard or read that as well.

The next part of my life what brought me to think of this quote. My job title is a Financial Adviser. I want to help people that are awful with money, don't know what to do with their money, or someone that truly wants help from a financial professional. I studied Business Economics and Finance in school and although it was heavily economically weighted, it is really what I want to do. The company I work for isn't like most Financial Advisers and I enjoy that aspect even more. Yet again, I am still in sales. This is the negativity part of the job. People realize that it is an important topic. People realize that it is a necessity to discuss or prioritize. But somehow people are not wanting to take action. Everyone has a different situation, but there are 2 guarantees in life; Death & Taxes. What I do can help prepare for both and help you save on losing less! I know that sounds crazy but talk to a financial professional and see if they say any different. It's true.

What I'm trying to let you see is that being a post grad is not a walk in the park. You are still figuring out who you are. If you have a job, that is great! I'm so proud of you =). I'm really proud of myself and I deserve to be! You deserve to be proud of yourself too! You did it! WE did it. It doesn't mean we're all fine and dandy though. There is still so much more life to live. We haven't figured it all out and we don't know it all. The only thing I do know is I am the only me out there and I am going to be the best me I possibly can. It may sound silly, but it's not. It's who I am =).

So when I get like this and don't immediately type it all out, I watch this. I'm not being funny, but you can make fun of me for it, I don't care, but it helps me.

Now this Carrot Soup I was really looking forward to. I peeled my carrots, got the pot ready with the broth and other goodies.

I let them all simmer and get warm for 20 minutes just as the recipe says. Then I realized the stove barely got the soup warm and the carrots were still very much uncooked. Just look how many carrots there are! They were cut up by the way, didn't simmer them whole. Maybe I should have? Anyway, I turned the heat up because I have an electric stove so maybe that was effecting how it wasn't getting warm, and let another 20 minutes pass. The carrots seemed to be warmer and I just went ahead and put it all in the blender. Well, the blender didn't puree the carrots as expected. So I put everything back into the pot, covered it for a bit longer, put it back in the blender, and then it actually looked like the blender was working! Then I poured it back into the pot and I don't think it worked so well. I added the rest of the ingredients anyway and then poured half of the soup into the blender again. This was a process of back and forth and I either have too cheap of a blender, wasn't patient enough with the blender or really really just need an immersion blender. Hey everyone, Christmas is right around the corner, put it on my list! Haha, along with a rolling pin, a better blender and a bigger kitchen... Hahaha, I like space to move and If I could cook on more than the tiny little bit of counter I have, that would be kind of cool too. For my next place I will be looking for more space in the kitchen.

Now this picture doesn't look like the soup turned out chunky, but if you look at the side, you can see the chunks I'm talking about... It's ok I still ate it but I should have tried blending it one or three more times... Haha

Now you're all probably wondering how I am blogging 3 days in a row and the answer is I am not able to really work in the office. As I said before, we are moving offices and it wasn't really realized how hard it would be to work without computers and cubicles at once place, but no internet at the other. So I get to study at home and craft in between.

After I took a test at work (and got a 90%!!!), I came home to my little Luna and worked on fusing the quilt together. The adhesive has a warning on the can that says it may cause dizziness so I opened all my windows and made sure to not have any candles burning. The adhesive is also extremely flammable. After all the safety measures, I think it turned out pretty nice. My living room is back to normal and I am awaiting to finish the other side. I'm going to The Strip District tomorrow to have lunch with a friend and I think I'll grab a Steelers shirt or something PGH to put on the college side. Stay tuned! This quilt IS happening.

<3 Carly =)

Crafting Day Off

With the long Labor Day Weekend, I forgot to mention my office is moving. Not far, just a block away from it is now, but the cubicles are being moved today, so I wouldn't have had anywhere to sit if I went in. So I am taking advantage of the time and crafting my little heart out.

I started off with more hearts for my bedroom. I have this wire thing I got from IKEA. It's pretty sweet. Anyway, I cut hearts out of paint samples and had them hanging in my dorm at school. I decided to make it a much bigger kind of project and expand it to my bedroom wall. I cut a lot of hearts and you have to make sure there is a heart on both sides so that you don't just see the back of the paint sample. You'd be surprised how often that is when you don't have another heart on the back, haha.

Luna thought she was helping out. I have found out she likes to craft too.

Now yesterday/last night I decided to really commit to the T-shirt Blanket and I am. I am working only on the "high school" side right now because I don't have the college side just the way I want it yet. I have some connections still at PPU and want to have more PPU throughout the "college" side. I only have 6 PPU shirts for the college side. That sounds like a good deal, but I counted 15 Lebo shirts for the high school side... So clearly I got more free shirts in high school/middle school, haha.

Here are the pieces I had done last night.

And here is where I am now. I must figure out how I want to attach the batting... I'm not a quilter by any means and this is all new to me. I think it'll work out just fine, but it is quite a process I must say. I need to go get some more fabric for the edging of the blanket. I completely didn't think of that. Also, I can't decide if I'm going to get just a little bit of fabric for the edging and just keep cutting it into pieces or get enough to cover an entire side. That just might be 2 yards of fabric though! That's a lot of fabric just to edge a blanket... This thing is massive, if you can't already tell in the photo.

I have also been knitting in between all these projects! Haha, I told you it was a completely crafting day.

Here is my sock I have been working on. The pattern is called Monkey =). Everyone is always in love with the color of the yarn. It is quite lovely and I'm not sure the camera caught it as well as it should. The pattern is from this book that I have an electric copy of. I really want to print it though. It has gorgeous patterns throughout it. Truly will be making tons of the socks from this book.

There is another knitting project I want to work on today because that would mean one knitted Christmas gift would be done. That would be fantastic if I could get that out of the way.

Then there is cooking. I think I want to make some carrot cream soup for dinner and take for lunch tomorrow. I have a bunch of carrots, all I need is some cream though from the store. I need to get some milk and eggs anyway so I'll double check to see if I need anything else for that dish.

Until next time, ;)

<3 Carly & Luna

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I'm not in school anymore and I must admit it was bittersweet not moving into the dorms or apartments and getting ready for classes. Just 2 weeks ago during my drive into work on the parkway there were the traffic signs tell good old Point Park students to get off at the Grant Street exit to go move in. I'm not necessarily saying I miss school, but it was definitely odd not to be packing up and moving in myself.

Now I have been meaning to blog, just as I always do, but much like how I always said while I was in school, I have really watch the time slip away. I have been at my job for 2 months now! That's crazy to think about. I'm thoroughly enjoying it though and very excited to be doing what I do.

With all the time slipping away though, I haven't been able to knit nearly as often as I wish I could. I am still working on my purple monkey socks, some xmas gifts and I'm really wanting to swatch/gauge for my swirl sweater. Remember when I bought all that madelinetosh? Still haven't started that yet. I am a yarn/knitting addict through and through.

I have been cooking still. Baking too =). Made some delicious chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and walnuts. They're very good and I've had too many, haha. I will forever to love baking for a crowd.

Luna is getting bigger, though whenever people meet her they say she's so small, haha. I say, you should of seen her when I got her! This is double what she was!

My apartment continues to get decorated with me and my crafting. I am thinking of going back to my t-shirt blanket and really beginning to work on that. That would be time consuming, but I want to get it down so that I can use it! It'll be a great big blanket.

My man is wonderful as always too. I keep thinking of more and more things I want to knit him but the time just slips on by and sprints passed me. I know how bad he wants those beer cozies. I'm thinking those will be good traveling projects. I will be starting them soon. I swear. I mean it is already September.

I promise the next post will have some photos. Of beautiful knit items and probably a picture or two of my Little Luna =).

Until next time,

<3 Carly