Little Wit Knits – Unplugged

…now you don’t. My friend Sparkli was awesome tonight and helped me to crop a person out of some of my engagement photos. I think she and D did a bang up job. Heck you’d never know something was missing if I didn’t show you the before and after. I showed the boy to get his approval before putting the pictures into the photo book we’re ordering for ourselves. I asked him if he noticed any differences and I swear you’d have thought he was reading an old Scholastic magazine. He managed to find every spot that I didn’t even notice. Except of course the one spot I was checking to see if he noticed. hah. I think they look great. If you’d like to play your own game of what’s different here are the pictures:

Before Picture

After Picture

I wanted to find a cute dress to wear for our engagement photos because apparently I don’t wear cute dresses anymore. I picked up one at Macy’s that I rather liked until I got home and realized it was cut a bit low for my bust. So I decided, hey I’m a knitter I will just knit a shawl of some sort that will mask that and all shall be well. After perusing through all my brown yarn I stuck with the Cascade Heritage. It was pretty much the exact same color as the ribbon on my newly acquired dress. Then I putzed around for awhile trying to figure out what type of cover I really wanted.

Finally at knit night a week and a half before our photo shoot one of the ladies suggested Wrapped in Tradition and one of the other ladies happened to have it in her car! How fortuitous! I borrowed the pattern and then hemmed and hawed for a couple of days trying to figure out how I would modify it since I didn’t have quite the yardage the pattern called for. I finally sucked it up and cast on.

With 7 days until the photo shoot, folks were taking bets as to whether I would finish it on time. I knit steadily each night and may have spent a whole afternoon watching football, starting with the OSU/Wisconsin game (hello both times were wearing the same color! That does not make it easy to yell who scored to your loved one when you’re only half paying attention and they’re outside manning the grill) and ended with watching Drew Barrymore host SNL for as long as I could take it. [SNL is not as funny as it used to be although I do love me some Drew Barrymore.] I did finish the shawl in time. In fact, I finished it on Sunday while visiting The Boy’s grandparents. We drove home, I blocked it and it was totally dry by the time we headed out at 1pm on Monday.

Full length of the shawl.

Description: Chocolate Tradition Wrap
Pattern: Wrapped in Tradition by Shirley Paden from the Wrap Style book
Yarn used: 1 skein Cascade Yarns Heritage Solid Colorway 5609 (75% superwash merino, 25% nylon) 100g / 437yds
Care Instructions: Machine Wash
Needle Size: US 6 (4.0mm)
Modifications: I only knit 15 repeats of the Alpine lace border. Then I did the lacey holes, one repeat of the Clover and Diamonds section, another repeat of the lacey holes and then the Trellis Diamonds section. I finished off the top portion with a repeat of the lacey holes, maybe 2 repeats of the Daintier Chevron pattern (I can’t find my shawl!) and then the picot edging.
Finished Size: It’s a bit narrower than the original shawl and it only goes to just below my elbow (which is where I wanted it) whereas the original shawl should go pretty much down to the wrist.
Date Started: 10/5/2009
Date Completed: 10/11/2009
Notes: I am actually debating ripping out the last section and re-knitting it with a couple less repeats so that the neckline has more shaping like the original pattern intended. Since I was making up the numbers (and possibly not knitting to the same gauge) as I went along I wasn’t sure how narrow I could get away with.

Close up of the Trellis Diamonds section with a big grin

Some detail of the Clover and diamonds section

Another shot of the whole shawl in action.

Oh and nah, we didn’t go to and meet at OU that’s just a coinky dink. Go Bobcats! Oh and yes, we may have the DVD with all of our Engagement photos in our possession now.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all the Veteran’s who have served and are serving for our country. We wouldn’t be here without you.

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Today we attended Pre-Cana – the marriage preparation course required by the Catholic Church – with one of our friend couples. The seminar consisted of 4 couples speaking on 5 topics important to creating a lasting marriage. There were some great demonstrations and lots of personal stories from the couples who had all been married at least 13 yrs and some who were much closer to their 40th anniversary.  Each topic also had worksheets that we would fill out and discus with our partners. The nice thing was that on oh 95% of the topics there were no great surprises. It makes me feel like the boy and I really know one another at this point – which after 5 yrs of dating one would think would be the case. The 5% of the time where we did come to a new realization now gives a great place to have some further discussion to work on strengthening our partnership. I know lots of people grumble about having to go, but if you go in with an open mind it’s not bad at all. Granted as with anything in the Catholic  church, it can definitely vary by diocese. Our friends that went with us also seemed to get a lot from the seminar.

Afterward we headed over to the boy’s parents’ home to say hello since we were on their side of town. We watched some OSU football and looked at knitting books from the 1970s. We also tried to inspire some local cub scouts to become eagle scouts and took a small load of stuff from their house. The nice bit while we were there was that they surprised us with some tools for our wedding reception. We now have a knife to cut the cake with and silver goblets to toast in that all have some family history. Hooray! (Plus that’s one less thing to buy – although we weren’t going to buy them anyway, because we’re rebellious like that.)

Now we’re off to a birthday day party for Rosie. Let the good times roll and the drinks flow.

Well we went and visited a location for the ceremony tonight. It’s really pretty and really fits our personalities. Hopefully we will be able to find a priest to work with us. After our site visit we met up with my mom at the bookstore in German village. I love love love that bookstore. Although my rumbly stomach meant we couldn’t stay there as long as I would normally have wanted to. Wish us luck