Curated By Shelley

So this weekend is Stitches East . In all my years in Harrisburg I never made it down to Baltimore for Stitches. But then it moved to Hartford just before I did, so I went to market place last year, and plan to go to marketplace this year. This brings something to mind. I do believe I've failed miserably on my 2011 plans to control increases to my STASH! In 2011 there were a few large contributors to this - two of them heavily tied to Ravelry. 1. Twisted Limone on etsy. I think I first saw TL looking at a friends activity on Ravelry . Its really pretty ironic because she was talking about how she loves striping sock yarn, and I was a bit appalled. But as I looked, some of these gorgeous striping yarns, like the TL, are VERY different from the self striping yarns I would see early on in my knitting life. And they are BEAUTIFUL! I've gotten several stripes from a few different yarn companies, but the major increase in my stash in the form of self striping yarn has been Twist...

So earlier this year I was really feeling like I had lost my knitting mojo. I know if you read some current posts you may ask "really?". But really!!!! I wasn't all that motivated. I think in part its because I was working on things that were taking so much time I wasn't having much fun. Plus as much as I said I wanted to curb the casting on of new projects - that is part of what keeps me motivated! My mojo started to return when when I knit up a couple of sweaters for Elphaba. They were small projects that I could start and finish in a matter of a few hours. That had me feeling like I could ACCOMPLISH something again! Next, I signed up for Camp Loopy with The Loopy Ewe . Camp Loopy is a series of one month long knit alongs. The first was June 15 to July 15. We had to knit a scarf or shawl - something to keep us warm at night. I went with a heavier weight yarn because I was terrified of not finishing in time. And I decided to knit Terra by Brooklyn Tweed. Can I ju...

As part of my sock craze of late, I've designed my first sock pattern! I needed something with cables for a knit a long I was in. But I still wanted something simple and quick. The answer: my Orchid Cabled Yumminess! Okay, so the pattern itself I'm just calling Cabled Yumminess. The Orchid comes from the Sundown Orchid Dream in Color Smooshy I used. Here's a picture. I'm hoping to get a few people to do a test knit for me and then to publish the pattern!

I've seriously been a sock knitting fool lately! I've always enjoyed socks. And did have a January back around 2007 where I made 2 pairs in a month. But now I've made three pairs in three weeks. And I need to cast on my Camp Loopy #2 project - which may well be socks (need to hurry and decide since I need to get knitting!). So why is it I've been knitting so many socks so quickly? That crazy afterthought heel makes it super easy. And the striped yarn makes it fun looking without the added work of the cable or lace patterns I've been doing. Not much to remember on the afterthought heel. Just knit! Here's pair number 1. These were knit up in knit picks felici in the "Goth" colorway. Less than $10 for a pair of socks! I made these a touch longer than I probably should have for my legs - at least without doing increases to accomodate my calves. But they are gorgeous. These babies are what I worked on from June 25 to July 2. Pair number 2. Also kni...

Though not on my original list for this year's knitting goals, I taught myself something new! You see, one of my friends has been obsessed with knitting striped socks. And the more pictures and things I see the more intrigued I get. I'm waiting on a couple of gorgeous orders from Twisted Limone . But I was getting impatient. I was on the Knit Picks site looking for new cables to replace a few coming apart in my interchangeable set and while browsing came across the Felici . At that super affordable price I ordered enough for 4 pairs of socks. :) I cast on for my first pair about, um, 10 minutes after the mailman delivering my package on Saturday June 25. I finished Saturday July 2. That MAY be a new record for me. Though the real record is I finished 1 sock in just over 24 hours! Anyway, here are the finished product. I did lots of reading online to get some inspiration on how to actually go about doing this. Yarn Harlot has a blog post on this, but I wasn't sure I ...

So 506 days from now I'll be disembarking from the Disney Dream with my WDW Radio Disney friends on our second WDW Radio Show Cruise . What is so special about this you may ask? Well, that same day will then start the beginning of my 10 day 35th birthday trip to WDW! As I mentioned before mom and I have been wanting to get to WDW for holiday decorations for a while now. And we finally settled on doing so in 2012 in conjunction with my 35th birthday. It was a completely unexpected surprise that the second WDW Radio cruise would be immediately before we were planning on going. No seriously - if we really thought this was a possibility we would have re-booked while on the first cruise and gotten a better deal and an on board credit. But I digress! So, 506 days from now I'll be about to hit WDW for a 10 day long birthday celebration. Mom and I had chatted about how there are so many thing we want to see/do that we haven't really done our last few trips because of money, o...

Back in January I wrote on the yarn-love blog and here about my knitting challenges and goals for 2011. I thought as it is nearly mid year it was a good time for a progress report. Goal number 1 was Lace. Although I have found a few possibly patterns I have not started knitting lace with lace weight yarn yet. Goal number 2 was Colorwork. I'm happy to say I finished the Corrie Vest I started working quite some time ago! Of course I finished it in late spring and the weather has warmed up so I have yet to get a chance to WEAR my Corrie Vest. The two colors at one time part was easy since I am able to knit continental so I just had one color in each hand. The steeking (ie cutting my knitting, on PURPOSE) was the scary part. Until I did the reinforcement that is. My sewing machine is having issues so I went for the crocheted reinforcement for my steeks. In the process of doing this I was able to see exactly what I was catching, so my fear of my knitting running lessoned greatl...

Hope you enjoyed the previous post on the things I really liked about the Disney Dream . Before you think I'm just a negative nelly, I LOVED the Dream. I can't wait to sail next year on both the Fantasy and the Dream. But there were just some things I was not crazy about...so...onto the things I was a bit disappointed in. Animators Palette Technology I’ll preface this by saying that although I think the Turtle Talk with Crush exhibit at Epcot is kind of cool, it is not one I have gone too after the first time. So for me, although it is kind of cool that they brought this technology into Animators Palette, I didn’t find that it wildly enhanced my experience. Our table wasn’t near a screen. And the screen we were nearest, I found it hard to understand who Crush was talking to. And the random swimming of characters that you would see the exact same thing on 2-3 screens at a time was far from magical. Fingers crossed that the new technology show for the Fantasy is more enterta...

Having now been on 5 Disney cruises (3 Magic, 1 Wonder, 1 Dream) I thought I would take some time to talk about what I liked and didn’t like on the Disney Dream . For now I’ll focus on the likes and I’ll post about the dislikes later! Midship Detective Agency This game is probably the most fun new activity on the ship. I found myself wishing for additional mysteries to solve. For those wanting to see more about what this is check out the Allears.Net site. For those who don’t want to go to Allears right now, in a nutshell Midship Detective Agency uses the ships Enchanted Art to help you solve a mystery. There are two “cases” you can solve, one about missing puppies (Dalmatians of course) and one about missing paintings. You pick up a “map” at a sign up location as well as special card you use to activate the art. You then use the map to find the art pieces that will give you a clue. You use our card to activate the piece and then follow the directions to uncover your clue or fi...

Today started with another early morning at the Boardwalk Bakery so we could be at rope drop for DHS - must hit Toy Story Midway Mania first thing you know! Touring Plans Crowd Calendar had DHS as a park to avoid today. But it also had the lowest number - less than 1 for park crowds. In the future...I will do what I can to obey park to avoid suggestions. Believe it or not, I don’t think it was the Wide World of Sports weekend that was the problem, although there were definitely a lot of people there for that. But there must have been a bunch of schools in town and the damn high schoolers were outrageously obnoxious. Like the group of 30, clearly together, who got in the single rider line at Rock n Roller Coaster in front of us. Have you ever heard of a 90 minute wait in the single rider line? We would have been better off to go standby! Anyway, we enjoyed repeat rides on all of our favorites which was great. We ended up in line behind fellow WDW Radio Cruisers (we’d not met them on th...

Today started off with yummy yummy Boardwalk Bakery breakfast. Mom fell in love last year with their Mickey Mouse Muffins and I quite enjoy their cheese danish. Breakfast was early so we could be at the Magic Kingdom by rope drop. We don’t usually hit Fantasyland first when in the Magic Kingdom, but we knew that we were supposed to be able to get a view of the construction from riding Dumbo so we wanted to get back there early since Fantasyland is generally busy all day except first thing. I definitely recommend getting there first! Even Peter Pan we walked on in just 5 minutes. Unheard of! At Mickey’s Philharmagic we spotted a hidden mickey We also accidentally caught a parade we didn’t know about....which was really exciting because Sebastian was in it! My favorite Disney character is rarely seen so this was quite possibly the highlight of my day! Lunch was at Pecos Bills. We’d heard such good things about the Taco Salad (and how fun it is to fix it at the fixin’s bar) but didn’t get...

Our disembarkation day started off with a not so good bang for me. As we got to Royal Palace for our final breakfast, I turned on my cell phone. I had three voice mails from the PetHotel and a text message from a co-worker reading “Call me. Problem with Elphaba”. I have to say, that was the most scared I’ve been probably since 2002 when mom was sick. I left the noisy restaurant to go listen to my vm and try and call people back. The voice mails from the PetHotel indicated a problem with one of Elphaba’s eyes and tests the vet wanted to do that they needed my permission for. I tried calling the PetHotel but it was before 7am and I was getting no answer. I was also wondering why they hadn’t called me local agent (a coworker in the area). Turns out they HAD, which is how my other coworker knew something was going on and texted. I tried calling coworker but he didn’t pick up either. Called PetHotel again and that time got an answer. Turns out whatever WAS wrong seemed to work itself out. D...

Our last day on the Dream was a sea day, so we decided to sleep in a bit. Then I headed up to Deck 11 for my latte and a little reading while I waited for mom. Breakfast was of course Cabanas again. We were joined by Paul and Lisa so that was nice to visit and spend some time with them. We headed over to Quiet Cove then for the caffeine meet. While LIsa and mom socialized Paul and I chatted. Mom went off to morning Bingo while I did some more reading and finished up our scavenger hunt. I turned in the answers and got a Dream ticket for turning them in. Tried to do some more reading but it was COLD out on deck 4! Ended up hitting up the store and finally found a vinylmation I wanted in the trader box so I got to trade in Madame Mim (villains series) for Miss Piggy (Muppets series). Yay! Ended up going to find mom at Bingo since I was too cold outside. We ran into Allison and Steve (friends from Magic in 2008 who are going on Fantasy with us in 2012). Chatted with them for a while. Then ...

We were up relatively early again today since we needed to have breakfast (Cabanas of course!) before the WDW Radio group picture. I got dressed quickly and headed up to Cove Cafe with my kindle to grab a latte and get a little reading done first. This was lovely because I got to sit in one of the fabulous round chairs at the Quiet Cove pool and enjoy the view of Cataway Cay off in the distance. After breakfast we headed off the ship with fellow WDW Radio Cruisers Eric and Jacque from Las Vegas. We took pictures in front of the ship and then made our way to the boat beach for the picture. Boy were there a LOT of WDW Radio Cruisers there! Mom and I with Sarah, Sandy, and Darlene waiting for the group picture Can you see us? Towards the front about ⅓ of the way in from the right After the group picture most people headed off to enjoy Castaway Cay. Now, mom and I love Castaway Cay just as much as the next family. But we also really love the Disney ships, and we thought this would be a gr...

Monday morning we were up relatively early so we could eat breakfast before the WDW Radio Welcome party. We went up to Cabanas for breakfast (have I mentioned how much I love Cabanas yet?). Mom was in love with one of the danishes and I quite enjoyed the croissants. This sounds really silly, but I also love the little hash brown patties they serve which are delightfully crisp! At 9am was the Welcome Party. It was incredible to walk into the Walt Disney Theater and see the WDW Radio logo up on the screen. Mom and I were among the first in the theater so we headed straight up front to sit in the first row. Lou and his family, along with the Mousefan group, were just off to the side of us. Lou took the stage, and I have to say, at least while he was standing behind the podium I couldn’t see him AT ALL! He really is quite short! Lou and Beci did lots of chatting and made some announcements. We were bummed we didn’t win the flag contest (Lou and Deanna had both raved about our flag when we...

At last! The day we had been waiting for since November 2009 was here! I don’t think I’ve ever had a vacation booked that far in advance..at least not since I started working since I have a weird random schedule and move a lot! We did breakfast at Sassagoula Floatworks again, mostly because, what else would we eat for breakfast? Our meeting time for the Mousefan bus transfer to port was 8am in the French Quarter lobby. So we went to breakfast with our luggage, in our Deck 7 Cool Kids tshirts. Duffy enjoyed his breakfast. After breakfast we headed to the lobby to meet our group. The first people we happened upon were Greg and Gerrie from Nashville - easily identified by their Deck 7 Cool Kids button (I was so mad to realize I’d left mine on the kitchen table in Connecticut!). Having thoroughly studied my Deck 7 Cool Kids floorplan I knew that Greg and Gerrie were in the cabin next door to us. We had a nice little chat with them as more started to gather in the lobby. Before we knew it,...

Today we woke up nice and early so we could be at Animal Kingdom close to park opening. We opted for breakfast at the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory Food Court at French Quarter. Although we liked the decor, and the seeming abundance of things to order - we weren’t crazy with the food itself. I went for an omelet. It had been pre-cooked and sitting under a heat lamp for what seems like an eternity based on the taste. Mom wanted beignets, which meant waiting in far too long of a line. Plus, the finished product was very heavy, not light and airy like she was expecting. Ceiling at Sassagoula Floatworks After breakfast we made our way to Animal Kingdom and got there just as they started letting guests in. We headed straight back for the Kilimanjaro Safari (doesn’t everyone?). Usually at park open this is nearly a walk on ride. Well it got hung up as we were about 2 cars back from getting loaded. And then they allowed fast passers in, so they took the first couple of cars once it s...