Babies, Sweaters and New Yarn

I'm back! It's been a few weeks since I've posted an update. I knew this was going to happen when I got a job...between being sick and having a million things on my mind I just kept forgetting to write :( Anyway, I found out a few weeks ago that my cousin's baby is going to be a girl and can hardly wait to knit tons of girly outfits! Haha, I know I'm going to get carried away too, I picked up two baby knitting books last weekend - "Vintage Baby Knits: More Than 40 Heirloom Patterns From The 1920s To The 1950s" and "Vintage Knits For Modern Babies," and am itching to make everything in both books! On another knitting-related note, I have some new yarn purchases! My local yarn shop had this yarn I've been itching (no pun intended) to buy for a very long time but it was always so expensive - it's this wool/angora blend made by Classic Elite Yarns called Lush (picture below). I can't wait to make a pair of fancy mittens for next winter!



I also picked up this adorable baby yarn but will not be showing a picture, as it's going to be turned into a gift for my cousin's daughter-to-be :P Trust me, there will be plenty of pictures of the finished product when the time comes! Alas, I won't be starting on any baby knitting for awhile though... I've reached the long and tedious task of seaming my sweater, but more about that later!

Well, I think that's about it for tonight, but as a final note - if you haven't seen the movie "Kick Ass" yet, go and see it! I saw that today and it was well worth the $9.00 matinee price (yes, MATINEE price!). Though it was much more violent and sadistic then the theatrical trailers let on, it's thoroughly entertaining :)

Happy Birthday Lady Gaga!

I normally don't listen to pop music, or anything that's on the radio in general, but there is one grand exception to the rule - Lady Gaga. I've been known to have a few random obsessions with various performers, but I haven't had one this massive since my fixation with George Michael and Wham! Generally, I am considered an "indie chick" because my musical tastes tend to run to artists/bands such as Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie and Beirut, so an artist such as Lady Gaga doesn't exactly fit in. For a long time, with that same assumption, I sneered my nose down at her too, figuring she was just another Britney Spears. That is, until I happened to see her on SNL. Too lazy to turn the mute button on during the musical performance, I was curious when I saw her come out there wearing well, one of her usual numbers but was even more surprised when I realized that she can actually sing! Being a fashionista myself, I was already familiar with some of the buzz she had created with her eccentric fashion sense, but didn't really have a reason to care until I realized that aside from the silly lyrics of her songs, it has a really good beat, just the kind of music I was craving at the time! It took me another 3 months to get the guts up to actually purchase her album (thank you iTunes, I was able to purchase the digital album and hence, only my roommate was aware of my loss of indie cred). I swear, I have been unable to take that album off my mp3 player since I bought it 5 months ago! INSANE! Well, there you go, for an amazing performer, who really seems to be pretty down-to-earth and doesn't forget her fans despite her enormous fame and her natural singing talent, not to mention her keen sense of fashion and artistic heart, have a great 24th birthday!

Now in an effort to feel indie again...I got the new She & Him album yesterday, can't wait to give it a listen!

I Made It!

I made it through my first day at work that is :) I have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be very exhausting but that also means more knitting and wine to relieve the stress!

I wish I had more to put here tonight but am still trying to wind down, these long days are going to take some getting used to!

Tomorrow's The Big Day!

First day on the job tomorrow! I'm so nervous, my stomach just keeps churning...then again that could be from the beer and leftover Chinese food from earlier. To be honest, I'll be happy when it's here so I can stop fretting over it. I always get really worked up before stuff like this but once I'm at that point I'm cool as a cucumber, so I'm hoping this holds true this time as well :)

Didn't do much today, had the apartment to myself since my roommate is out of town. I didn't realize how hard it is to fill the time when you have an entire day to yourself. I wanted to be motivated to clean and do something productive but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't even get that much knitting done either; instead I just stuck in a DVD and kinda spaced off for three hours. After spending all day doing pretty much nothing and waiting for some kind of human interaction why am I exhausted out of my mind?

Sweater Update #1

Well, it's my last Friday before I start my new job on Monday and boy have I been productive on the knitting front! I finally started the fingerless mittens/arm warmers that I'm making for Ashley and this morning finished the back of my pullover :) Granted, I still have a lot to do before this is even close to finished but it's starting to look like a sweater now! Unfortunately, one of the armholes looks longer than the other, but I'm crossing my fingers that once I seam everything together it won't be noticeable :/



Also, I totally ripped out a scarf last night that I had been working on with this really crazy novelty yarn I bought a few months back that's imported from Turkey (pictured below). I'm thinking that maybe I should make a pair of leg warmers instead? Maybe I'll even try my hand at creating my own pattern for them since it will require HUGE needles to pull it off. I bet they'll look awesome though!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Kiss me, I'm er, American of distant Irish heritage! Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone, regardless of your ancestry. Speaking of such things, researching genealogy can be very addicting. Over the years I've gone back and forth between obsessing over my family history and it had been awhile since I had delved into it. That was of course before seeing that new show on TV called "Who Do You Think You Are?" For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, every week they have a different celebrity on there and they basically follow them as they research their family history. Last week was the first show and they were showing football player Emmit Smith research his family roots. It was really heartbreaking to see him discover all the horrible things his ancestors had to endure from slavery to segregation. Granted, I doubt my family history could compare, but it lit that fire back in me to look it up again. Anyway, I started to build my family tree again based on the knowledge I had from previous research I'd done and it's unbelievable how much more information I was able to come up with! First, I was able to trace the Millen line (my surname) to a specific town in Kent, England. That's not even the most fascinating stuff I found though; my paternal grandmother's lineage, the Yates family, I was able to trace back to this county in Virginia called Pittsylvania. They were the first settlers in the area after receiving a land grant from the king of England in the late 1600s. One of my direct ancestors even opened a tavern that was used to hold secret meetings against the loyalists during The Revolutionary War which is now a bed & breakfast and also the oldest standing historical landmark in Virginia. Crazy stuff, eh? On the down side, given that this family was a large land-owning family in the south, that also means that they were slave owners. It's pretty sobering to read copies of the wills of my ancestors and seeing with my own eyes their words promising people to their children upon their death as if they were giving away pieces of jewelry or land. Words can't describe how to come to terms with that kind of feeling. All in all, genealogy can be both a very exciting yet heartbreaking experience - I think I'm pretty tapped out for now, but I doubt that I've reached the end of my search for my family's story in history :)

On a different note, finally did my taxes today! I really shouldn't have been drinking though, entered one of my figures two decimals too far to the right and about had a heart attack when I saw that my taxes were calculated as me owing $438,000 to the IRS! LUCKILY, I caught my stupid mistake and am in the clear and have a decent refund coming back, PHEW!!!

Beware the Ides of March!

Haha, I couldn't help it - being a bibliophile, of course I'm going to make a reference to Julius Caesar today :)

So, today marked the beginning of my last week of freedom before starting my new job next Monday. Given how sleepy I've been today which I'm sure is due to my body still trying to adjust to Daylight Savings Time, I'm VERY thankful for this extra week! I'm hoping I can get some more work done on my sweater which is surprisingly coming along quickly and also getting a start on a pair of arm warmers that I mentioned earlier...fingers are crossed I can get some quality knitting time in while I still can, I'm sure once I start working a lot of it will have to be pushed to the weekend (at least until I make the initial adjustment to working again after 3 months of unemployment).

Okay off to watch Gossip Girl - Steamy scene of Serena and Nate with whipped cream, cherries and other random articles of food, can't miss this! :P