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Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2011

first days of wedded bliss

Keith and I leave bright and early for Nova Scotia tomorrow, and we are just now getting around to packing.This week has been spent sleeping and settling in to our new apartment, and we're both really grateful to have gotten the rest before the honeymoon! Plus it's almost like having two honeymoons: our first week as newlyweds, and our week of travel.

Our professional pictures haven't arrived yet, but Facebook album by Facebook album, pictures are being uploaded to the internet. So before we head out, here is one of my favorite guest photos from the wedding.



God bless. :)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Yarning Excitedly Along

Permit me a moment of exuberance*:

This is my LAST YARN ALONG AS A SINGLE WOMAN!

So it is only fitting that I blocked my wedding shawl last night, just in time for this post.

(In other words, if your name is Keith and you are reading this, I recommend that you stop. Although Keith has confessed that whenever he sees a blog post of mine about yarn or knitting, he doesn't really read it anyway.)

Blocking is the only knitting-related thing I've been doing lately; everything is off the needles. Which is a good thing. It is a cloudy day here, but I managed to enlist my dad to snap a few photos.



I was a little worried about the color, because when I soaked it last night the water turned bright blue. I absolutely loved working with sweetgeorgia yarn, and the colors are delicious, but now you and I know, dear reader--they bleed. (At least, the colorway "Riptide" bleeds.)

However, the yarn itself seems to have retained its vibrant color. It's greener than in these photos, a beautiful rich teal color. Some of the photos on my Ravely page show it better.

(Edited to add: aren't the nupps BEAUTIFUL? I am so glad I did them! Yippee!)

And yes, I will hopefully upload photos of me wearing it in my wedding dress.
I may not post much til then--nor read, nor knit.

I am getting married!!



*I always thought that exuberance ought to be spelled with an 'h' in it, and for a while did so, to the chagrin of Word's spellchecker.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Four.

There was something a little crazy last Wednesday when we were ten days out from the wedding. The last day of double-digits--what?? And ten, while being a nice round number, is also so small, considering the countdown started at over 200.

Even crazier is that tomorrow it will be three days until I'm married. Three. I can't quite fathom it.

Today I finished seaming the flowers for the tables; my wedding shawl is blocking as I type this; tomorrow I will put together favors.

I talked to my cousin yesterday and she remarked on how I didn't sound very stressed. In general, I'm not--not from moment to moment, although I get stressed very easily when stuff happens, like trying to figure out who's driving what car from church to the reception hall as the bridal party rides in the limo.

There are two things I keep repeating to myself as we pull the last details together.

1. I cannot control everything. Or everyone.

On a conscious level, this is perfectly reasonable to me. But somehow I keep finding myself trying to control things, and getting immensely stressed because there's no way I ever can. Especially when it comes to people.

2. I cannot make everyone happy.

This is kind of related to #1, but it needs to stand on its own because I need to remind myself of it often. So many people are asking for things, either outright or in a more subtle way, without realizing how much extra stress it causes. I can either scramble around and try to make everyone happy, or get angry at them, or ... let it go. I can't carry those things around with me.

All that matters, all that will matter at all come Saturday afternoon, is that I am getting married. To Keith.

Pax.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Something Blue (and teal, too!)

Between wedding-planning and not having a camera, it's been a few weeks since I last participated in a yarn-along with Ginny. But that doesn't mean I haven't been knitting or reading.

On Tuesday I started on the final book of Stephen R. Lawhead's Dragon King Trilogy, The Sword and the Flame. As I mentioned before, my Dad read these to me as bedtime stories, and this is the first time I'm reading them on my own. I'm greatly enjoying them, although I'm moving somewhat slowly due to wedding stuff, including the teal flowers and rehearsal shawl that will (hopefully) all be finished by the 14th.



In the meantime, I have yet to block my wedding shawl or the remaining bridesmaid stoles (although that may change tonight). I did finally end up taking pictures of the second stole, including a crappy one of me modeling that does justice to neither the stole nor myself. But I have uploaded it to the Ravelry project page nonetheless.

The green of the bridesmaid yarn is pretty hard to capture without washing it out, but it really is very pretty. And I am quite happy with my choice to go with the teal for myself.


Looking forward to seeing what others are knitting and reading.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Twelve.


1. Happy fourth of July, everyone. Happy last-holiday-as-a-single-woman, self.

2. This is how I count things. In terms of holidays, of tubes of toothpaste, of how many more times a certain day of the week will come and go. (One more Sunday, two more Tuesdays.) I have five multivitamins remaining in the pill bottle. They won't last me into my marriage.

3. This weekend we have created a seating chart; started the ceremony programs; ordered place cards and favors, all of which will hopefully arrive by the end of next week, or the beginning of the next; had a trial-wedding-hair-run, in my case; filled out the paperwork for the marriage license just before the office closed.

4. This week I will pick up the marriage license on Tuesday; stop by the jewelers at some point with Keith to pick up the rings; fetch my wedding dress and veil on Wednesday.

5. Although we've had several minor mishaps, things nonetheless seem to come together. I just have to keep reminding myself that when I get stressed. I would like every moment of stress to become, instead, excitement for the day that's drawing near, so quickly and so slowly.


6. I have been busy knitting--a rehearsal dinner shawl, because I am crazy, and many many teal flowers for the tables at the reception. (See photos!) None of them have been seamed together yet, so they all have loose threads hanging from them. I need to make at least four a day to finish on time, which is about an hour's worth of work, maybe a little more. I also still have to block several shawls. More on this Wednesday.

7. Keith is growing a beard until the day of the wedding, at which point he will shave it off.

8. I just finished Alice von Hildebrand's By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride, and may pick up The Temperament God Gave Your Spouse again this week.

9. One of the aforementioned mishaps was that my makeup artist bailed three weeks before the wedding. I don't want to do my makeup myself, and I don't want to place that responsibility on a friend's shoulders either, so there was a mad scramble to find someone else. This is a story unto itself, but in the end I found a lovely Mary Kay lady with a devotion to St. Therese, so I feel that my favorite saint once again has stepped in and sent beautiful gifts my way.

10. Yesterday Keith and I went to dinner with some friends. Since I am currently living with my parents, this was probably the last time I'll see most of them until after the wedding.

11. The schola is, after all, singing at our wedding. Partly in Latin.

12. I've had a story accepted at the wonderful literary journal Dappled Things. And because it's getting printed after the wedding, it will be published under my married name. :)

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Thirty Days

It is my second to last real day in this apartment before I pack up some things and move back with my parents to await the wedding. When I come back—save, maybe, a night here and there if I need to be in the city for some reason—it will be with Keith, and it will not be to this corner bedroom, with its sunny windows and desk in the corner. I am both glad of that, and a little nostalgic.

Right now I am knitting nupps for my bridal shawl, and it isn’t the horrid struggle so many knitters complain of, but a peaceful process. I sit here, all the blinds drawn open, surrounded by trees that wave through the windows, as though I myself am sitting in their branches. There are passing cars and muffled voices, but those tend to fade into the background of my awareness. There is also a chiming from someone’s windcatcher, a series of high, melancholy notes that follow one another sometimes at a distance, sometimes on each other’s heels, and I think I should like to write the story they are telling, the one that pulls at something in my chest and the corners of my eyes.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Detours and other mishaps ...

Sadly, my camera is still in need of batteries, so no new yarnalicious pictures. (Like that word? I'm sure someone has used it before me.)

Just this old one from last week.



To be honest, the shawl doesn't look that much different! Just bigger. I've finished the flower design of the body, and have moved on to the edging, not without a few detours along the way.


Detour 1: I wanted to knit 13 repeats of the flower design to make it a bit bigger. But after reading other people's project notes on Ravelry, I knew it would be a tight squeeze for the amount of yarn I had. And I wasn't about to spend almost $40 on another skein. (Sigh, I wish.) So after the 12th repeat, I gave myself a lifeline and began the 13th, using my mom's food scale to weigh the remaining yarn as I went.

I'm not sure that the food scale was much help, seeing as the space between 40 and 30 grams was about the size of a fingernail. :-P But I chickened out/realized I was being foolish, and so had my first experience of ripping back to a lifeline and picking up all the stitches.


Detour 2: Resigned to having only 12 repeats, I set about knitting the border chart. Nupps were still several rows off, and the pattern was easy to memorize and knit while reading. Until row 5.

That was when things stopped matching the pattern below it in the way I thought it should. But what did I know? Maybe the pattern was supposed to look all random and raggedy at this point, despite the neatly aligned rows of stitches before.

So I kept on knitting, until, halfway through the row, I realized there was no way I had the right number of stitches. So I tinked (unknit stitch by stitch) that half a row. And then the purl row before that. And then the whole row before that, where I had been adding two yarn overs to every chart repeat, resulting in 64 extra stitches. Whoops.


I am now past that point and on my first nupp row, so all is (relatively) well.



As for reading: I am almost finished In the Hall of the Dragon King. Sadly, I have *cough* broken a second Kindle, which means I'm finishing it on my computer screen. Argh. This one wasn't my fault, really. I can't believe it. These things are EXPENSIVE. Sigh.

Anyway, I am off to plan class and pick up a bridesmaid dress and look at wax models of wedding rings and take a dance lesson. Blessings to all and happy yarning along with Ginny!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Yarn Along :)

Unfortunately, it seems that my camera is in need of new batteries. But I managed to grab a few pics before it gave up on me.


The fourth and final bridesmaid stole is cast off. Now it needs blocking--probably not until after this summer course is over next week. Two stoles to block, and then the bridesmaids' gifts are finished! The shawl pins I ordered to go with them were waiting for me when I went home last weekend, so I will have to take pictures of them at some point.

I just finished Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri--it's way overdue at the library, unfortunately--and have started In the Hall of the Dragon King by Stephen R. Lawhead on my Kindle. I know I read this years and years ago, but I've forgotten all of the first book. Actually, I don't think I read it myself--it was my dad who read it to me as a bedtime story. As I read it for myself the first time, I am realizing that this book really shaped the way I wrote my first novel back in high school, though I was basically unaware of it. (No, I never finished the novel, but I got to 150 single space pages. I started rereading it recently. Good times.)

Last but not least ....



.... I have cast on my wedding shawl!



The pattern is Echo Flowers, the yarn sweetgeorgia cashsilk lace in Riptide. Gorgeous .... I'm on the 8th repeat of the body pattern. Not sure if I'll do 12 or 13 total. We'll see when we get there!

(Also cast-off a hat for Japan, but sadly, no pictures.)

Linking up with Ginny.

Friday, June 3, 2011

I shall not be dismayed ...

... by other knitters' intense dislike of nupps.

For non-knitters (or just non-nuppers), a nupp is when you increase my knitting multiple times into the same stitch--usually making five or seven stitches out of one--and then on the next row you knit or purl all those stitches together. If you have the wrong needles, or your stitches are too tight, or the yarn is slippery, it can be pretty difficult to get all those stitches knit together.

Which is why so many people hate them, including my mother. :) I had a bit of a hard time with them on my Annis, but then I got the hang of them a little ... and no, they didn't look the best, but practice makes perfect, right? And while the Raspberry Dream stole didn't have *nupps*, it did have k7tog which is pretty darn nupp-like--and I had no trouble with it.

So.

Now for my real reason for posting:

My two choices for my bridal shawl are the Swallowtail and Echo Flower shawls. Which should I do? (Imagine them in teal. :) )

I want to cast on today or tomorrow but I can't decide ... so I'm gathering opinions.

Monday, May 16, 2011

A Wave of Weddings

Early on Friday morning, after a busy week of teaching and grading and getting my wedding dress fitted (!!) and sundry other tasks, I will pack up my things and head off to Philadelphia for my cousin's wedding.

Now, Theresa is a few years younger than me, but she is beating me to the altar by a little less than two months. I am okay with this. ;) The crazy thing is that our other cousin, Genevieve, just entered the convent last month for her three-month discernment period.

Of course, the youngest of the lady-cousins, Regina (Genevieve's sister), has us all beat: she entered the convent in 2008 and was invested as a novice last July.

But now the remaining three of us are going down with one fell swoop, so to speak. Walking into our lives, following the footsteps of Christ into our vocations as women.

I have this feeling that going to Theresa's wedding is going to make the eight weeks until my own feel very, very long. But it has been such a gift, the two of us being able to share this time of preparation together. And I am so joyful for her, and cannot wait to stand by her as she makes the vows that will transform her life.

(I think I intended to say much more here, but the things are too big and near yet, and I have a class to plan.)

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Life of Crazy Goodness

April is going to be one heckuva month.

In addition to finishing up the semester (what, three more weeks to do all this work?!), I'll be getting ready to teach a summer class, move out of this apartment, and take care of some vital wedding business with Keith. Invitations, rings, meeting with the DJ, getting my passport and making sure I'm insured for the month and a half between wedding and fall semester. And oh yes--knitting. I've halfway decided that I want to use my beautiful "Hush" yarn on a stole for myself to wear to the rehearsal dinner with the beautiful white dress I bought yesterday. Yes, that does mean completing three and a half big lace projects between now and July 16. Haha. We'll see what happens, right?

However, despite craziness, all of these things are good things. I'll be rushing around taking care of wedding stuff because I'm getting married to an amazing man. I'll be planning a class because I got offered a class during the first session, after all--originally they offered me a teaching position from June-August, which ... well, I'm getting married then? Not to mention going on a honeymoon? But that worked out.

And I've also found someone to sublet the apartment. Which means yet more work for me this week, as I check with all the utility companies to make sure they can be switched from my name without any snags, communicate with the landlord and the subletters about dates and deposits and such, etc. But I am excited--it is an older married couple (in their fifties? sixties?), so they seem pretty responsible, and are very pleasant to work with. Praise God!

Things are falling into place. We settled on the reception menu last week (Prosciutto wrapped melon! Orzo! Champagne and sherbet!) and received proofs of the invitations, which looked lovely (despite the fact they mispelled both mine AND Keith's last names--but that's what proofs are for).

In the meantime, I ought to avoid further craziness by getting work done in a timely fashion. So I am off to plan a class, and to write an author imitation (bleah) about bonsai (yay).

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Blogging Break! (of dresses and cracked kindles)

I need to get away from this mountain of essays for a while, so here I am.

I'm halfway done the second stole. It's knitting up much more quickly than the first, mostly because the pattern uses size 7 needles. But each row takes forever. This particular pattern is knit lengthwise, which means I have 278 stitches on my needle. Hence the bunching. (It was supposed to be 289 stitches, but apparently I can't count and ended up with 274. I was sneaky and added a few more on in the third row so the number would be right for the pattern.)

I also finished the cover for Keith's Kindle, though the only picture I have of it is on the needles. (You can see the flat spot on the left side where I forgot a cable ... whoops.)

Of course, I managed to break my own Kindle after owning it less than a month. By falling on top of it. While folding laundry. I'm assuming I'll find this amusing later in life, but right now I'm pretty upset, since it was a Christmas gift from Keith's dad.


In a happier vein, my cousin has ordered her bridesmaid dress for my wedding, and I am now in possession of my bridesmaid dress for her wedding. (She is beating my by a month and a half, the stinker!) I brought along a hank of yarn from that I ordered from Knit Picks as a potential for my own bridal shawl, to see if it matched the dresses. Nope--too green. I'm thinking it will be easiest to go with white.

Although I am in love with Sweet Georgia's Cashsilk Lace in Riptide, and it looks closer to the right color.

I don't mind at all splurging on yarn for my wedding, but I can't spend money on skein after skein just to to see if it's the right color. Even though I wouldn't mind owning all of said yarn ...

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Opinions please?

Not to post three times in a row about knitting, buuuut ...

As I debate which pattern to cast on for the next bridesmaid stole, I'm also starting to think of a wedding shawl for myself, most likely NOT to be worn during the ceremony, but afterward, at the reception and perhaps for pictures.

On the one hand, I love the idea of it being white: the symbolism behind it, and the loveliness of the look of it.

But. I also think having a color could be fun. A teal to echo the bridesmaids, or a shade of purple to (theoretically) echo my bouquet. Of course, my shoes are already teal--a fact that makes me immensely happy--so perhaps that is enough "fun." And yet teal and purple are both colors that are dear to my heart ... (The notion of the shawl being "something blue" has also crossed my mind, but I don't think I'm leaning in that direction.)

Opinions?

Monday, January 17, 2011

almost done ... bridesmaid stole #1: "seascape"

The next batch of Rowan Kidsilke Haze arrived a few days ago, so I can start the next bridesmaid stole soon. Depending on whether I decide to try out a different pattern (as opposed to having all the stoles be the same), I need to buy a new pair of needles first. In the meantime I've been knitting a cover for Keith's Kindle to take a break from all the lace. (He carries it around everywhere in his coat pocket.)

I've been waiting for a sunny day to take pictures, and it appears that the angle of light through the window was too sunny and a bit blinding; but there are pictures nonetheless.


This pattern is called "Seascape," and it's fairly easy once you get into the flow of it, although repeating the same chart seven times for the middle got a little boring. (This is why I'm contemplating switching things up a bit for the next stole and trying a different pattern, such as Dancing Cranes.) The picture above gives some sense of the size. (And of the general state of our living room: my books and papers all over the place.)

You can see that it's sort of lumpy and rumpled looking, as opposed to smooth and fluid. That's because I haven't blocked it yet. This will involve soaking the stole until it's good and thoroughly wet, carefully rolling and squeezing in a towel to remove the excess water, then pinning it out and letting it dry. It opens up the lacy openings in the fabric that make up the pattern--which means that it will get a little longer and wider in the process--and will make it look less ... well, "homemade," and more like this. (Except I'm also afraid it will make my mistakes more obvious. But practice really does make perfect: most of my mistakes are in the first half of the stole.)

I'm debating whether or not I should wait to block it so that I can use the unblocked size as reference to make sure any other pattern I choose to knit matches up. But I also want to make sure I'm happy with the blocked size ... and just see what it looks like.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Accomplishment!

Shortly after Keith proposed, I decided what I wanted to give my bridesmaids. Lace shawls, handknit, by me.

This is because, since knitting Keith a hat for his birthday, I have become a knitting enthusiast; and I had just started knitting a lace shawl for myself, after spending hours drooling over patterns on Ravelry.

It is quite possible I will regret this decision as July draws nearer, but for now I am quite happy with it: I just finished the first one.

Even though classes started last Wednesday, I've been knitting away the past few days, pushing forward to the end. (Something I can still get away with it since it's so early in the semester.) Now it's bound off the needles, and the last knot is tied, and all that's left is the blocking process to open up the pattern.

Pictures shall come as soon as I get a little bit of sun to take them in.