You say its your Birthday...

I had a wonderful birthday this weekend. When I checked my message board I found that the amazing people over there remembered my birthday and wished me a wonderful stitching filled day. Unfortunately I was not able to get any stitching time in because I had an online class that took the first half of the day. The second half was spent with my sweetie doing a little shopping then to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Dinner was really good! We has the Aussie Cheese Fries, I had the Wallahalla Pasta with chicken and carrots while he had a steak(I can’t remember which one) and for dessert we had the Chocolate Tower cake. This cake was one of the best I have tasted in a long time! It was rich and was served with raspberry sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. YUM! Afterwards we went home and I opened my wonderful gifts:The stuffed monkey was built at Build-A-Bear workshop to which I received a card for my birthday for a free stuffed animal because my birthday landed on “Go Banana’s Weekend.” So I introduce you to Collins the Harley-Davidson Monkey! The card in the bottom corner is from my sweetie and it is just too cute. He gave me a Serendipity Frrrozen Hot Chocolate set, the “Corpse Bride” on DVD, Train’s new cd, “Rent” by Jonathan Larson, (which by the way is a beautiful book with every single word to the show and wonderful interviews with everyone involved in that wonderful production) and FIVE skeins of Socks that Rock!
From left to right: Philosopher’s Stone, Queen Rock, Rolling Stone, Lapis and a Rare Gem. A Rare Gem is a skein that doesn’t quite turn into what was expected so it is changed into something wonderful. No other skein will ever be like this one. I already started knitting it up in a Jaywalker pattern. I love that pattern for two reasons: it fits so well, better than any other pattern I tried(and ripped out because it didn’t fit well) and the second reason is that I have committed the pattern to memory. I don’t have to fuss with and pattern notes while knitting this.
This picture is close to what the colors look like when it was wrapped up like this but once I started to wind it into a center pull ball I was able to see the beautiful colors that were hidden inside. This Rare Gem is a beautiful mix of greens, blues, purples, reds, browns and a little bit of peach here and there. I couldn’t wait to start, I’m almost ready to turn the heel.

This is a picture of my sweetie wearing the sweater I knitted him for Christmas(which is also his birthday). I finished sewing in the zipper at 2 am on Christmas morning. I cannot remember off hand the specs of sweater. I’ll look later and add them. Isn’t he cute? The sweater is a little short and a little too big around his stomach but he loves it anyway.

-Chrisitne