The view from here...

pretty frickin' sweet.

To the East

To the North...

To the ground...

A tribute to Finland

According to my flag counter, someone Finnish has been visiting my blog. Whoever is visiting my page from Finland, come back, especially if you're a knitter!

Finnish knitting patterns are by far the best!  Here are some of my favorites:

Aili's Mittens.  A few lucky people might get these as holiday gifts!
Basilika. Somebody finally translated this into English.  If i didn't have a million other sweaters planned I'd love to make it!
Kainuun kukkalapaset.  I'm told Finnish is a hard language to learn.  No kidding. Look at all those double consonants.

Then again, with the title of this blog, maybe the Finnish person was looking for these guys:

I <3 the Bassist.

So to all my Finnish friends, enjoy your saunas, beers, and hockey.  Because I love those things, too.

Addendum:



It was my original desire to have a metal knitting blog.

What's good?

What a series of amazing, bizarre good luck.  Its a great week I've been having.  The best one in two years maybe?

Saturday morning our neighbor made us these:

Monte Cristo...It could probably tunnel out of prison?

The Monte Cristo is a Double-decker French toast sandwich containing ham, turkey, smoked Gouda and Swiss cheeses, fried then crisped in the oven.  Normally I avoid foods like this due to the amount of treadmill time it takes to work off the calories, but when someone offers to brunch you, it is unwise to say no.

Jesse hard at work in my kitchen working his sandwich magic.

...And yesterday I received a package.  And I'm pleased to say that this is all that is left of it:

Tart Nenas for my wedding?  

It took me 10 minutes to devour exaclty half of Ms. T's cookies and all my strength to save the other half for Zach.  

...And in case you were worried that all my great times revolve around junk food: tomorrow I have a test and an interview to work for the US Census bureau doing ongoing survey work.  And then an interview to be a volunteer at OMSI.  And then next week an interview with H&M.  And if those don't work...Walgreens?  Tomorrow I move into a new apartment.  This should be good.  I should also mention that it is one month exactly until I leave for Pittsburgh to visit friends, family, and to get legally married, and see four other people get legally married!  I can't wait, the third week in October is the best all year in Pittsburgh!  Then there's hockey season, sweater season, I could go on.................

Turn of luck?  Maybe, but I'd love to pin it on this free coffee I've been drinking from the leasing office....

First Fall...

This month I actually finished a knitting project!  Here are the "I Love You, Chuck Taylor" Legwarmers.  I started them in green before I realized I was going to buy red boots.  But thankfully, at least my rain boots are plaid and should match nicely.  They look easy but the mini cables every four rows were MADDENING by the end.  I might make them again, as soon as I forget how much I hate to cable.  I just have one more sweater to finish (I've been working on it since July!) until X-mas knitting begins.  What does everyone want?

For lack of better things to do, I have started collecting teacups.  My collection has a few criteria:  they must be "bone china", they must be made in either England or Japan (though I have considered ones from the US before) and they must have gilded edges. Each cup with matching saucer is about 5 dollars at the Powell St. Goodwill, but they bring endless joy during tea time.  Here they wait anxiously for a future tea time with friends.  I think I'll look for some fancy little spoons to go with them...they should have something like that at Marshall's...