As I was with my Husband and friends who were non-knitters, I didn’t really stress out about it too much, they helped me look and we didn’t find, and that was that.  I knit and crocheted at the campsite and got a few positive comments from other campers.  I did however find Stitchlily’s crochet tent (didn’t think to take a photo of course) but I missed her- she was up at Body and Soul, where we had just come from, and were going back to, and we didn’t get to meet. Ah well, what can you do.
I wore my Princess Leia “hair” and that went down really well with lots of EPers. I got a few “oh Im such a huge star wars fan”, lots of people saying look, Princess Leia as I went by or while we were queueing for things, one guy just had to try it on and get pictures taken of himself with it on,

while another converstaion went like this:
Girl: chat chat chat about totally irrelevant stuff
Me: return chat, thinking, someone is totally out of it
Girl: Chat chat,…… whats that on your ears?
Me: Eh…have you ever seen Star Wars?
Girl: Blank look
Me: You know, Princess Leia?
Girl: OOHHHHH! Princess Leia!! I thought you had ear warmers on!
Me: ?

Later on when we came back to the same place, we bumped into her again and she greeted us like long lost friends…in a galaxy far far away…

More pic’s to come. Wordpress is not liking me wanting to add more pics tonight.

Ravelry has taken over a lot of my time and Ive been neglecting the blog a little, so trying to  get back on track with it. I have lots of FO’s to show, and I suppose a picture or two from honeymoon may be nice also? Just so I remember that it only happened a few months ago, not eons ago like it feels! So watch this space…

One of the things Ive been involved in on Ravelry is the Ravelympics, I’m a part of Team Ireland, and have been a very bad contender, as until Thursday I wasnt even halfway through my ravelympics project. Still, I’m trying to remedy that, I doubt that I will cross the finish line before the end of the olympics but I will be one of those stragglers you see running around the track after everyone else has finished the race, determined to cross over the line at some point!

We had our regular local knitting group on Tuesday, and both myself and Caroline  (sorry, Ravelry link) had been feverishly working on FO’s for it. 
Why? Because one of our members Marina (oops, another rav link, sorry), who appeared at the previous knitting night, after not attending for a while, was very obviously pregnant and had said that she hoped to make the next one for the last time before having the baby.  We heard she was having a baby boy so both myself and Caroline plotted as we left that night….
Fast forward to Sunday and I suddenly realised I was running out of time fast and had nothing done for her! I cast on for a pair of saartje’s booites but wasn’t getting good gadge- yeah like I usually check gadge with baby booties- i don’t, but it just seemed rather large, so i frogged and cast on for my other regular knit- the seamless circular baby booties- again, they seemed huge so frog frog frog again.
then it hit me- oh yeah! More crochet hearts for baby bunting!

i had some of these done already as was starting to work on stock for my etsy shop, so i just expanded on it. I did 6 hearts only, as I knew they would be enough, and I was still crocheting at lunchtime on Tuesday, and when I came home from work. then the ribbon needed to be sewn on before I left for the group (oh yeah, and change and eat dinner!).
Caroline,  Miss Aine, new member Emma and myself sat chatting and knitting for what seemed like ages, then Marina appeared- Yayy. WE actually had started to think she wasn’t going to make it.

Caroline had made a lovely soft and snuggly baby jacket- apparently she was doing a bit of what I was doing before the meeting- desperately trying to get it finished before coming down to the meeting. All in all, I think Marina rather liked her mini baby shower!

Evidence that there was once blue skies in Ireland…..

We had a surprise baby shower for my sister R on Saturday.

I crocheted hearts for baby bunting and sewd ribbon on the backs to hang it up.  I got a little carried away and made 20!

Hopefully R will be able to use it in the babys room.

I liked the way it turned out.

I will be doing some for Etsy so watch this space.

The shower was a complete surprise for R, she had texted our Mum the night before saying that she doesnt feel that nesting instinct yet but thinks it may have passed on to her husband as he was cleaning like a mad thing.  Only a couple of hours beforehand I had bumped into her in Tesco’s, our local supermarket, and she didnt seem to think it strange that I was standing here with 20 hotdogs in my hand!I know my hubbie likes them but 20 of them….
the morning of the shower, they had gone carpet shopping and my BIL was texting us to see if people had arrived etc, we told him to stall her as some of them hadnt turned up yet, then to drive slower…and she was going mad at the slowness of his driving..little did she know!

We had a great day.  The BBQ we had planned for after the baby shower with the lads invited this time, turned into an indoor one, but that was fine. 
Meanwhile, around us it rained, and our village was flooded, we had no idea it was so bad until the next day when we saw reports of the flooding on the news, and saw a woman canoeing down the street in the very next neighbourhood to ours….

(Picture taken from the Leinster Leader)

Believe it or not, I actually wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, intending to post it here, then promptly forgot about it until I met with Isobel and Holly during the week, and during our chatting, it came up, and while I was telling them about it, I was thinking, didn’t I blog about this?  Maybe they didn’t read it. Nope, I wrote it, saved it, and just plain forgot.

We were given “special treatment” when we went through security in SF. 
I still think it was because when we checked in at the self service check-in desks, we were given the option of putting a next of kin person down in case of emergency, and I said we should, so we put my parents down.

What exactly is special treatment, I hear you ask?
It means that our boarding cards had a symbol on it which declared that we needed to be screened for bombs or bomb making/explosive materials.

This meant we had to go into this special chamber which blasted air at us for a second, then we had to go and have our hand luggage searched in a special area.  Searching the hand luggage involved wiping down the insides of the bags, and several items with a cloth which would show up if we had been handling explosive materials.  At least thats what we thought.

The people searching the luggage ignored us the whole time and chatted to each other, the man searching my hunny’s case asked him if there were any sharp objects in it before he opened it, the woman searching mine did not.
So I didn’t volunteer the information that I had 2 sets of dpns in my handbag, which was also in the case.
It didn’t matter, she didn’t even seem to notice them (too busy chatting perhaps?) and my dpns got through scot free.  As did we.
It was as we were walking away with our luggage intact, and our dignity somewhat bruised, that I noticed that there was another area where they were pulling people in, seemingly randomly, and searching their cases, but this was in full view of everyone passing by. This made me feel a whole lot better!

So, my needles got through, luckily for me, as our plane was 4 hours delayed. Joy oh joy.
I cast on for the ill-fated socks and spent a good while knitting in departures. I knit on the plane, and no-one even mentioned anything.

On the way back from Aruba, I had my knitting threaded onto a piece of yarn, and my dpns lying flat at the bottom of my handbag and had no problem getting them through. I picked up where I left off.
We had a highly enthusiastic and slightly demented man sitting beside us on the last leg of our journey from Newark to Dublin, and he got very excited about the fact I was knitting and commented on the fact that they let me onto the plane with such obvious weapons……I must say, I had my own ideas about what I could do with those weapons towards the end of the flight, when he was insisting on showing us his overly decorated passport with only 4 pages left in it….and claiming that Ireland was the only country who took up a FULL page with its visa stamp, all the while showing us his passport with loads of full pages taken up by a stamp from other countries.
Oh the fun of travelling!
Don’t you just love it?
I want to go again!

The baby knitting season seems to be upon me again. As well as my sister, I have a friend who is due in 4 weeks, and another friend who is about 7 months gone. I keep thinking there’s a third friend but can’t put my finger on who it is (maybe a premonition eh?!).

I know that I showed booties yesterday. Thats allowed, it was hunnymoon knitting.
Here’s a sneak peek of the latest FO:

Yarn is from Artfibers, 100% cotton so it can be thrown into the machine.
I love this pattern!
I have just bought some celtic aran from tivoli and am planning on knitting the same pattern again in it.

IN fact, I can see many many knits coming from this pattern…
Damn it, why can’t I show you!!

Everyone was SO generous with their wedding presents also, I still feel a little overwhelmed by it!I’m going to be working on thank you cards over the next while and get them out to you all. 
I bought a gocco for my sister for her birthday last year, and I think I may try and persuade her to let me use it/help me with it to make some personal thank you cards. Failing that,(or my poor attempts at it) it will be bought ones…watch this space!

Knitting has resumed in its usual intensity/ferocity.
Lots of people, even my Mum, thought I was weird to bring knitting with me on my HONEYMOON (said in extreme horror- you’re not bringing knitting on your HONEYmoon???), but you know, you can’t do honeymoon stuff all the time, I knew that we would be spending a lot of time in Aruba either by the pool or on the beach, and what about the flying time??
At my Hen party, Isobel and Diane gave me, among other things, a ball of cotton/wool sock yarn (Lana Grossa Meilenweit Cotton Fun) so that I could knit something lacy while sitting on the beach (you see- knitters understand!!).  I looked into a lot of sock patterns before I left, and had brought a lacy sock pattern with me, from the first yarn forward magazine, and cast on en route to San Francisco on the plane. It didnt work out for me gadge wise, and I only had the one pair of needles with me in my carry on (in case they were confiscated, they weren’t good ones) so I waited until we got to SF before casting on again with a smaller size.
Fast forward to Aruba and I had knit the sock pattern short so instead of a normal size sock; it would be an ankle sock. I should have realised at the time why I did this- I really wasn’t enjoying the lace pattern OR the sock, but I soldiered on and turned the heel. It was only when I resumed the lace pattern after turning the heel that I gave in and not very reluctantly frogged the sock.

Here’s where the amazing power of Ravelry came in.

I loved this yarn, it was light and airy and lovely to knit with, but I needed a pattern to do it justice. I knew of such a pattern, it was in my projects on ravelry and I knew I could get my grubby little hands on it as the hotel we were staying in had a business centre with 3 pc’s, access to the internet 24 hours and a printer!! Yay.
My sister is expecting, and is due the end of August/start of September, and before the wedding I was itching to get stuck into some baby patterns but held off as I needed to get the honeymoon wrap finished first,

so I told myself that when I came back from honeymoon, I’d get stuck right in.
I started early…

Love this yarn.
Love this pattern (if you can look at my ravelry page, you’ll see that!).
Decided to use the cable stitch in a matching accessory.
So I designed a baby hat to go with the booties. I’m test knitting it a second time at the moment, and then a friend is going to be test knitting it from the pattern I’m writing up and then I can release it.

We’re back !
Actually we have been back a few days, but have been catching up with family mainly and back to work today (serious depression!!) since. (Really should have tried to get a few more days off….)

The wedding was wonderful. Seems like a lifetime away now.
Everything went well, the rings were dropped on the alter, but that was it, our priest was immensely entertaining, everyone was talking about how great he was.
We got the best day of sunshine yet in Ireland this year!
The venue was great, I couldn’t fault them on anything.
Food was great, and lots of it, the speeches were entertaining, the band were brilliant and got everyone up dancing, and the DJ played all the songs we wanted him to play.
I felt that I hadn’t got talking to half of the guests but apparently thats something that all brides and grooms feel.
Reports back from friends and family have all been good though so that makes me feel good.
Bits of it are still a bit of a blur, and seeing everyones photos is a great way of bringing things back to us.  In fact we saw a little video the other night of us dancing, which was quite funny….it was towards the end of the night so we were all letting loose at that stage.

Its all over now.  Sigh.

I’ll put some photos up on flickr and give a link here when I do. Havent had a chance yet.

One of the sites that I visited frequently when we were researching our honeymoon is Virtual Tourist.
This is an invaluable source of information, for us in particular, as it doesnt just review hotels, it also gives you tips on places to eat in the vacinity, places to go to, things to see, things to do, things to avoid, off the beaten track tips, and warnings or recommendations.
So, after reading about others peoples experiences in San Francisco, and Aruba, and benefiting from their advice, I am in the process of putting together my own travel pages with our own experiences on our travels.
Thus saving you guys the tedium of reading all about it here, but you can still go and check it out on my profile. Its still a work in progress so watch THAT space!

I may still subject you to a photo or two here (evil laugh)

In the meantime, I’ll be checking out more photos, as they trickle in, and try not to feel depressed that its all over….

It went by so quick…and bits of it are a blur….but Ive seen some photos and it all looks good!

Very cryptic eh?

I got married on Friday…..

Best day of my life.

A couple of days off to catch up with family, and we are off on honeymoon tomorrow morning, far to early for me to be blogging about it all now. San Francisco and Aruba…here we come!

Until next time…