I just had a thought – why don’t knitting bloggers have awards? Liberal bloggers do. We need awards! I should think up something. Or someone with more clout should. But wouldn’t awards be fun?

Now, on to the real topic of the post. Franz, Aimee’s Monkey from Austria, requested a cape after he found out that I’m drooling over the checked capelet in the latest Vogue Knitting. So, always wanting to make stuffed monkeys happy (have you seen them angry? Bad!), I knitted him one.

But Belle the Kitten stole it.

I told her she couldn’t have it, but she says she likes it. So.

Speaking of that picture, do you all notice something? Such as the fact that Belle is lounging on a bed that has Sheepy Sheets on them? Are they not the coolest thing ever?

After all, every knitter will, one day, find themselves in Tuesday Morning, trying to decide between pink, green or sheepy sheets. (They were really inexpensive, and really nice flannel sheets!) And of course, you have to go with the sheepy sheets. Plus, its a sign that I’m really secure in my relationship, since I cackled and immediately put them on the bed.

In other knitting news, I finished the first six repeats of my shawl. I’m concerned its not long enough, so I’ve been avoiding it. I should probably add in another two repeats to make sure it drapes right. A too short shawl is silly. No picture, because, really, it looks exactly like the last picture, only longer.

In very large adult bootie news, I’m starting the bottom of Kevin’s brother’s bootie:

I did make some changes to Lucia’s pattern. I cast on fewer stitches, mainly because I fairly arbitrarily decided that ankle circumference does not increase at the same rate as foot size. And I’m making size 12 EEEE booties. I also knit more rows for the ankle, because my row gauge is off what I told the program it was. But when I put int he right row gauge, it told me to cast on about 19 trillion stitches. So I decided to lie to it.

We’ll see what happens.

I bought pictures from Aimee’s wedding, but I’m impatient. So I turned off the javascript in my browser, and snagged some of the wedding pictures. Of course, now that I ordered, I found more that I liked! Oh well.

First, since this is my blog, here is a glamour shot of the shawl I knitted Aimee and some of her jewelry.

Here is Aimee wearing the shawl and looking gorgeous. I completely missed this picture, otherwise I would have bought it.

Here is my Mom, Aimee and I drinking heavily before the wedding.

The photographers snuck up on me to get this picture. I am incredibly unphotogenic. I freeze in front of the camera.

And finally, here is Aimee with her sweetie.

Aimee was married in Denver, and the photographer did a great job.

We interrupt this knitting blog to announce that Dee has a clean floor:

Isn’t it nice? She states that before her dedication and hard work, it looked like this. My floor, on the other hand, always looks like that link, except for right after the cleaners have been there. Me, not so good at living in a neat and orderly space.

I would also like to annouce that the using up of large amounts of picked apples continues with the creation and consumption of Apple-Chocolate-Butterscotch-Oatmeal cookies.

They were met with rave reviews, but Kevin would like more butterscotch, less chocolate next time. But that’s just because he loves Oatmeal Scotchies.

In knitting news, I’m still plugging along on my shawl. I don’t have a picture, but really, it looks pretty much like it did before, only a bit longer. I’m half way through the 5th repeat, so I’m on schedule for completion by November 7th. I hope. I may actually do 7 repeats for the first half instead of 6, but I’ll have to see how long I’m at.

In other knitting news, I decided that I needed to start knitting on the train if I have any hope of finishing projects by Christmas. I can’t work on my shawl on the train (too bouncy), so I cast on for Kevin’s brothers exceptionally large adult booties. I’m using Lucia’s Slipper Boot pattern generator to make a pattern. Here’s what they look like so far.

Fine, I haven’t gotten very far. Which is why I have to knit on the train. They are sitting on my desk at work right now because when I went into my purse to get the camera, I realized that the stitches were falling off the end of the needles. And yes, that is the cleanest place on my desk.

The pattern has you start with 20 rows of garter stitch, and then you switch to knitting in the round. I though I’d just knit them on double points back and forth. A swell plan, unless you have 105 stitches on the needles thanks to the enormous size of the booties. So, I stole some rubber bands from my coworkers.

I’m using Lorna’s Laces Sport Weight Shepherd Sock on size 4 needles, and I think the color is Black Watch. Very manly.

PEOPLE!

According to my statistics, at least 59% of you use Internet Explorer. You all really ought to stop doing that, by the way. Use Firefox.

See, I use Firefox, and so I didn’t realize that my blog looked like complete ass in Internet Explorer. The meta post stuff was massive compared to everything else. The sidebar started all the way down the page. You had to scroll over to see the site at all. I think I even look uglier in IE. It’s not fair.

Did anyone say anything? Like, “Gail, darling, I hate to say it, but your site looks like ass in IE.”

Anyways, I’m teasing. And the issues I found are fixed now. If anything else is ugly, I demand you all tell me immediately.

Friday, after a long, hard week at work, Kevin and I actually went to a movie. (Well, not that hard. Kind of your typical week, actually. But, anyway.) Kevin and I can rarely agree on movies to see. For example, I’d really like to see In Her Shoes, which is based on the book by the same name by Jennifer Weiner. The book was highly excellent, and the reviews for the movie have been excellent as well.

But does Kevin want to see it? Nooooo. Of course, I don’t want to sit through all 20 hours of the director’s director’s gaffer boy cut of Lord of the Rings, either.

Anyways, we went to a movie!

Yes, we saw the newest Wallace and Gromit movie. It was very good, and everyone should go and see it immediately. By the way, that picture comes from some French site, and its an actual figurine.

Saturday, I met up with mine and Lynette’s knitting group at Knitche. I bought the newest Interweave Knits special publication, knitscene. I’m not really the target market, but there were some cute designs in it.

I also worked on my lace stole. I’m 3 and a half repeats into it.

The first half of the shawl is supposed to be 6 repeats – I think I’ll need to do 7. It’s really going to stretch out, but a bit more length is probably called for.

Then, Sunday, Kevin and I went apple picking at Currans Orchard in Rockford, IL. We obtained apples. I love picking apples. Kevin likes watching me pick apples, so it always works out. Plus, they have apple donuts.

Those are Courtlands, Empires, and Blushing Golds. I used a fair number of the Blushings to make Brown Butter Creamy Apple Pie.

Yes, I used Sara Lee Frozen Crust. As you can tell due to the perfect machine nature of the crimping.

So, it was a lovely weekend. I have to go to work on Monday, which Kevin does not. And Kevin has already wandered upstairs once to try and convince me to head to bed, so I better do that.

Eek! Almost forgot. I have a new knittergail banner. Just look up! A friend of mine made it for me – is it not the best banner ever?