JamPackedBusyWeek!

It is going to be and already has been a busy week! I finally finished the mittens for my Mom that match the hat I made her for Solstice. I made her the Sugar on Snow hat/neck-warmer. I made the mittens out of the same yarn, using the same baby cable rib on the wrists and then mitered the tops. This being my first pair of mittens, I used the Bernhard Ullman pattern and then adapted it for aesthetic reasons. The yarn knitted up into a very nice dense fabric and should really keep her hands warm. As I was finishing the second mitten, Gabe and I were on the couch and he was napping on my shoulder. It was very sweet so I didn't want to disturb him. But because of that, the second mitten is one or two rows longer than the first since it wasn't near enough so I could count the rows. Oh well, you can't really tell. All in all I really like how the turned out.

Yesterday, though, I decided to take a break from knitting mittens and knit something for myself! I haven't done that for awhile, so I grabbed some really cool yarn that my sister had sent me and quickly knit up Insaknitty's Wham Bam Thank You Lamb neck-warmer! I used size 13 needles and some bright green Thick & Quick with a strand of some bright pink Caron acrylic. The effect is pretty cool. Talk about immediate gratification! And of course, today it was a bea-uutiful 60 degree day! I'm out riding around on my bike (shopping for Gabes B-day!) and I totally didn't need the neck-warmer!

But here's the best news! At work on Friday, I was talking to Roger the cigarette guy. You know, the guy that goes around giving out free packs of cigarettes? He told me that he quit the smoke job to start working full time at his store.

"Like, a brick and mortar?" I asked him. He said yes, that it was downtown. (Downtown! What?!) And that he and his friends owned it. It's called Jugrnaut and it's 'lifestyle' store, full of clothes and accessories and shoes. It is a cute place! Roger noticed I was knitting (I always knit behind the bar) and we started to talk about cool knitwear. And we decided that I should knit up some wristbands and things with their logo on them. It's a relatively straightforward logo so knitting it into a wristband or a glove would be easy. So I'm making up prototypes this week! I have some tricks and ideas up my sleeve so hopefully this goes somewhere! In the meantime, check out their Myspace page - myspace.com/jugrnautchicago

And as I mentioned earlier, its Gabe's birthday coming up. It's two days after valentines day! Luckily we don't get giddy about that Hallmark holiday so it's nothing to worry about. But! What to get, what to get! I think he wants a wristband which is easy peasy but what else! I have very little time and even less money! Can't afford the big wowza and don't have time for hand-knit socks! I have 5 days to figure it out!