My Self-indulgent weekend

Our Super Supreme Uber-Geeky Game Night was canceled due to a lack of an instructor, so Pete and Traci decided to have a Regular Run-of-the-mill Game Night Friday night. I don't know what was in the air or if we all just really really needed to let off some steam, but, man, we were funny. Everytime someone opened their mouth hysterical things came out. I haven't laughed that hard, for so long, in years. None of it is all that funny in retrospect of course - you couldn't explain to anyone who wasn't there why these things were funny. Jaz did her best to document it (Looking at those photos I may have to reconsider the wearing of berets. Why was I wearing that all night?). What Jaz failed to mention was who won that marathon game of Apples to Apples. Not that it's at all important.... I don't care about these things... It was really all about the group spirit.... But just incase YOU care... I won.

On Saturday I slept later than I've slept in the past 12 months and then got up, made a pot of coffee and sat in my Flannel PJs reading a book until well past noon. Possibly the most decadant morning I can remember. Ok, maybe not, but still it was pretty good.

Over the holidays, I found myself jonesing to make a new scarf. Scarves are a knitter's bread and butter. The comfort food of fiberholics. And it's been a while since I made one. Saturday afternoon, I became obsessed with a scarf design I'd had in my head for several days. It's inspired by a conversation I had recently with an old friend. I could see in my head the cable pattern I wanted and was sure I'd seen it in a book somewhere. I pulled book after book off the shelves of my (unreasonably large) knitting library and scoured the internet with no luck. I even made a trip to Webs for a book that was missing from my collection (after IMing Tina to make sure it was in stock, of course). The pattern in my head wasn't there either, but there was one that would do as a starting point.

I scribbled and sketched and swatched and ripped. Somewhere in the middle I cooked a yummy dinner. All through Towelhead (Does Aaron Eckhart purposely seek out the skeeziest possible characters to play?) I swatched and ripped and ended the evening with a ball of yarn. I was convinced that this cable needed to be reversible and couldn't make it work.

Sunday I discovered the limits of my charting software, switched to Excel and drew what I thought was the final chart. I made a pot of chai and took it next door to swatch the new chart with Traci's moral support. We put on An Affair to Remember and by the time Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr's boat was landing in New York, I'd already started to suspect that it wasn't working (the knitting, I mean, not their affair, that was clearly working very well). I'd frogged the whole thing before the movie ended and we started arguing about whether Deborah Kerr was being stupid for not telling Cary Grant about the car accident or if she was just trying to be a strong, independent woman.

Meet me in 6 months at the top of the Empire State Building.
Just remember to look both ways before you cross the street.

I gave up on the reversible cable then. This thing is not going to be able to be looked at from all sides. It's one sided - my side. The original vision of it in my head. I charted it and started knitting. By the time I went to bed the scarf was 1/4 done.

A full weekend of obsessive knitting resulted in about 15" of scarf. Completely self-indulgent. I did exactly what I wanted to do and I have very little to show for it.

In other news, I am planning a new batch of the reusable (no-more-plastic) produce bags I sewed (Me! Sewing! It's crazy!) for friends and family for Christmas. I have not actually used mine yet having been away basically since I finished them, but apparently they're all the talk at the Winter CSA. I've ordered the fabric and should have more made in the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping to sell them on Etsy, but I've got no idea what to charge. Any thoughts?

(Picture stolen from Jaz because I've been too lazy to take one of my own....)