a BIG sock.

I know another late post, but I'm trying to play catch up here. Give me a break! -PJ

After knitting FOR other people. I decided it was time for me to knit something for myslef. I asked my fiancee what I could knit for myself.

"You should knit me a sweater," she said.
"What?! I just knit you a beautiful scarf!"
"Well, you could make a matching hat?" she smiled.

I rolled my eyes and thought about it some more. A bright light dinged and i shouted "A SOCK!"

"A sock?" she questioned me like I was retarded.
"Yes a sock? Why not?!"
"What are you going to do with 'A' sock?" she replied back with a sarcastic look on her face and a hard emphasis on "A"
"Fuck you! You know what I mean!" I stuck my middle finger up in realization that I completely set my self up for that one, while she laughed and chuckled in victory.

the BIG sock

Red Heart - Sport Weight - 100% Acrylic - Camouflage: No dye lot

I was able to find a lot of resources online about knitting socks, but most of them were for using double pointed needles. I actually ended up figuring it all out using 2 circular needles. I found a neat pattern in one of my books that I decided to follow. Of course with some videos from youTube, I was able to get through the heal turns and the gusset.

This project was knit with 2 size 7 circular needles. I didn't bother guaging since I was more concerned about learning the technique than the end product. The yarn I used was definitely not a sock yarn. Instead of using a fingering yarn, I went with the yarn Katie picked out - Camouflage. Not only was it NOT soft, but it was 100% Acrylic. The sock of course ended up being really enormous, hence the name.


Throughout the project I often put the sock on to sample it, and decided that instead of using it as a 'military' themed christmas stocking, it would be a sock slipper. I still wear it, but because it's so big, it falls off sometimes when I walk around.

I was very excited after I finished my first sock, but once I cast it off - I had another one to do . Next time, I'm going to learn the knit 2 socks together technique. That will definitely make it even more fun. The socks took about a week to finish working on it on and off. After I finished, I threw it in the laundry to hopefully shrink it, but instead it just got a little soft - which was still a win.

Next time, I'm most definitely GAUGING!

A Christmas Knit.

I know that this is a late post, but I didn't want to spoil any surprises for the gift receiver. -PJ

This year I decided to knit my mom and sister something for christmas. After completing my first ribbed k2p2 project, I decided to do another one for my family. However this time around, my goal was to explore the world of color knitting.

The Red Scarf

Color A: Lions Brand - Wool-Ease: Chunky - Mulberry: 630-188
Color B: Lions Brand - Wool-Ease: Chunky - Wheat: 630-402
(Natural with tiny strands of black)

I knit this scarf with a knit 4:purl 2 pattern. I also knit this with a size 17 needle. I was quite happy with how it turned out.

The scarf is really nice and thick and very warm. I was actually debating on keeping the scarf for myself, but of course I couldn't do that. I figure I would just make myself one another day. However mid progress, a couple of my coworkers who seen me work on it really wanted to take the scarf too, but I was able to fend them off by threatening to stick my knitting needles into their eyeballs. The project took about 2 days to finish and took about 2 skeins of the main color to finish. I finished the scarf with some white fringes. Although weaving in the extra yarn proved to be really annoying. Thick yarn + Many weaves = Lumps! I tried to hide it as much as I could, especially when they were so close together but I guess it still turned out okay.

My mom really LOVED the scarf...but so did my sister! I'm sure she'll probably sneak into my mom's closet and wear the scarf. I should have made 2!


The Pink Bowler Hat.

Color A: Red Heart - Soft Yarn - Light Grey Heather: No Dye Lot
Color B: Caron - Simply Soft - Soft Pink: No Dye Lot

The hat was knit with 2 size 10 bamboo circular needles. I was not happy with the bamboo. It had too much drag, so now I try to buy non-wooden needles.

This was my first project knitting rounds. I did my research around the internet and found that I would probably and most likely hate using double pointed needles...I also found out that I was not alone! I decided instead, that I wanted to learn how to knit in rounds using 2 circular needles. Needless to say...I'm glad I went with my instincts.

This hat would have been perfect if I didn't experiment. But how would you learn if you couldn't experiment?! Because of my experience with The Red Scarf, I was afraid that I would have the same problems weaving in the ends. Reading a few articles about color knitting, I found out that when knitting faire isle, one usually carries the the non-working colored yarn over stitches. However, I should have realized that the technique probably won't work well when used with Intarsia. I ended up having a really stiff chunk where the color was. Instead of frogging the whole thing, I just cut the carried yarn and did more weaving than I would have wanted! As a result there were a bunch of loose stitches. I crossed my fingers and stuck it in the wash and dryer in hopes of it shrinking (my lazy way of blocking). In the end, it wasn't too bad.

The hat took about 4 days to make, but it sat cold for 3 weeks waiting to be weaved in. My sister like it, but she really had her eye set on The Red Scarf.
Thanks to my fiancee for modeling the finished product.

What Happened?

This has been a crazy weekend. I can't even recall if there was a weekend. So let's recap the weekend shall we?!

After a long day and week at work, all I wanted to do was come home, check into work a bit just to make sure all my stuff were doing o.k. for the night and spend the rest of the evening relaxing and playing World of Warcraft.

I walk into my office and I stood there eye to eye with the infamous ...

"BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!"



SHIT! .... I scramble to my computer and press the power button. I wait for the restart and cross my finger. The computer screams at me, "Please insert boot disk..."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

I turn off my external hard drive and I am no longer surrounded by the soothing humming of a computer's harddrive, but I am surrounded by silence. The silence is suddenly overpowered by the strong beat of my heart when I realized that my harddrive was officially fried!

Friday, another long day at work. I enjoy the holidays very much and the thought of Christmas around the corner excites me. For most of the day, I listened to old and new christmas music on the internet radio - it never gets old. I try not to sing out loud at work. I'm sure it would probably merit for some weird looks from my coworkers so I usually let it all out in my head.

After work, Katie and I went out for dinner at the cuban restaurant near my workplace. We had my usual half baked chicken that we shared and a chicken soup called Asopado de Pollo - which was recommended by a nearby customer to be the best; and it was. We both enjoyed our dinner and promised ourselves to bring visiting guests to the restaurant. Shortly after we walked across the street to the mall to fancy ourselves with a little bit of window shopping while we held each other allowing our full stomachs to settle. I bought Katie's birthday present that night which is coming up this Wednesday - and we also bought a split queen box spring.


Earlier this year when we first moved to New York. We couldn't fit our regular queen box spring up to our apartment, so we had to get rid of it. We strategically placed wooden planks beneath our mattress to temporarily make do until we can find an affordable solution. Lucky for us, the boxspring was on sale because of Veteran's day!

On Saturday, Katie spent most of the day looking for a dress to wear for the company party at the end of the month. She also helped out our friend Merideth paint her dresser and armoire. Her husband Mark is my coworker and we were both working that day in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday. At the end of the day, Mark, Merideth, Katie and I had chinese for dinner and attended an adult storytelling session at the Rye Library. We heard folktales and poems from Ireland to Japan, from the native Indians to a heart warming story of a young woman and her unforgettable table cloth shopping experience with her father-in-law, during the mid 1940's. The rest of the night was well spent at a nearby Starbucks warming ourselves with hot mochas.

Sunday morning started with a filling breakfast to prepare ourselves for the long day of cleaning. We rented a carpet shampooer and moved all our furniture out of the carpeted areas. We spent most of the day shampooing the carpet and doing laundry. We were both exhausted by 9pm and were probably in bed by the time 10 o'clock rolled by.

Our long arduous weekend was liberated this morning when the first snow fell in our little town of Harrison. We were watching the morning news when I glanced out the window to see snow fall. "WAAHH!! IT'S SNOWING!!" I yelled as I kept pointing at the window like a boy standing in front of a candy shop. "No way, are you sure?!" she said. "YES I'M SURE! Let's go outside." But it was too early in the morning to be outside in the cold. So we decided to stare out the window and watch the snow falls before our eyes.

What a weekend!

Art by Kean Soo

Men == Knitting?

Approximately a week and a half ago, Katie wanted to go to Michael's to purchase some frames for a few of her beautiful paintings she painted over that weekend. Originally, I wanted to pick up a new game for my PSP; due to a water main break, the gaming store was closed.

Try to keep in mind: Artistic/Crafty people in a Craft Store == A Child in a candy shop.

As we rummage through all the frames Michael's Craft Store had available to purchase, I began to wander around the store thinking to myself, "Hmmm, I need a new hobby" I found myself in an aisle surrounded by yarns of different sorts. I remember reading an article about Knitting....

"The idea is that it strengthens hand-and-mind coordination."

"Knitting is a wonderful way to look at life...

...You make a lot of mistakes and you have to learn to correct your mistakes. You have to tear it back down and start over sometimes. Like life, there is nothing you can do that is that terrible that (it) can't be repaired and come out with something useful.

Katie finally found me as I was stroking my chin with my index finger and thumb, staring aimlessly at the "Learn How to Knit" books stacked in front of me. "Hey, what are you doing?" She said. "I need a new hobby and I was thinking of knitting." She looked at me with a smile and said, "Knitting? That's great hun, you should do it. And you can knit me stuff -- hmmmm....get that book." And she pointed to a small book which also came with some starting needles and tools to get me on my way. Probably out of excitement in the realization that now she had a fiancee to knit her stuff, she dragged me back to the yarn aisle and started feeling and critiqueing each yarn. "I want a new scarf." she said. "I want this color so I can match it with mostly anything, plus it's soft."

As soon as we got home, I immediately plunged into the book, skipped the preface...Lesson 1. Cast-on, then Lesson 2. Knit Stitch, Lesson 3. Purl Stitch. I practiced each Lesson. It was actually a little difficult at first trying to decipher the archaic drawings into reality while interpreting what the heck the instructions meant. Soon, I found myself creating a small square of tightly knit and purled stitches. "WOW! Is that my scarf?" Katie yelped, after glancing a moment from her TV show. "No! This is just for practice. Your scarf will be alot bigger I'm sure."

I spent another day practicing the stitches and getting comfortable with increases and descreases and learned to bind off my stitches. I was ready to start on my new project to realize that I needed more YARN! Katie picked out a new color, and I am now working on my first project...a scarf. Each time I finish a couple of inches, Katie gets more and more excited for her scarf to be done.



It is my first project, so there are a couple of stitches that went awry. My coworker, Heather, is also a knitter. She helped and thought me how to get through the malicious stitches.

I'm hardly finished with this scarf, and Katie's already got the next clothing accessory determined.

Other Benefits I found researching about Knitting:

• It helps you develop a stronger hand-mind coordination.
• It relieves you of stress.
• It helps lower your blood pressure.
• It helps maximizing your time while you watch TV, travel, etc.
• It will help you keep your fingers limber if you are suffering from arthritis.
• It helps you stave off Alzheimer’s disease.

Of course slightly concerned about knitting and my masculinity I found out that more men are picking up knitting these days because of the health benefits it provides.

Upon furthur research, I even found a site which explains the history of men and knitting (If you get the chance, its a fantastic read!):
http://www.menknit.net/history.html

Till next time!

The fine lady in the picture

She is a big part of my life and definitely someone I cannot live life without. And half this blog might involve her in some way, so I figure I'd introduce her early on.

On May 12, 2007, on Ellis Island, N.Y.

Check out our wedding website: http://www.katie-and-paul.com
She designed the website and I coded it together. Enjoy!

Blog this and blog that!

Not exactly sure why I hopped on this blogging business, but the other day I said to myself, "Hey, why not blog!?"

What better but to broadcast parts of my life to the world. But really though, I'd rather think of it as sharing my precious moments with the world! What's a life to live if you can't share your life's memories with other folks.

I am not exactly sure yet what I am going to be publishing on here; I guess we'll just have to see.

I'm not going to bother and do a short introduction, I mean come on, why the hell are you reading this in the first place?! Blogs are almost like an epic novel version of reality T.V. - you will grow to love me or hate me as this "novel" gets bigger and bigger.

As for now! a tout a l'heure!