2009's Knitted Christmas Gifts

Green and Yellow Hat and Scarf Set.

Made for the lovely Jenny of Creative Cooking: Gluten Free and Mia Cara Photography

The scarf is a double rib and I can't remember how many stitches I casted on but it was a lot!  The hat is pretty basic with a double rib at the bottom, I believe I casted on 70 stitches in a round. I used Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton Yarn.  My absolute favorite yarn out there.

Black Hat With Ear Flaps.

Made for my younger step sister, Casey.

I believe I did 70 stitches in a round for this hat as well.  I started with seed stitch at the bottom and then just knitted the top. I adapted of the Stitch'n'Bitch pattern for the ear flaps   to make them longer at the top and use a knit stitch on the last two stitches on each side to keep a cleaner line.  Then I i-corded down 12 inches and attached little pom poms. This hat was also made from Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton.

Black Hat With Ear Flaps and Multi Colored Pom Poms.

Made for my future cousin-in-law, Monica

This was 70 stitches in a round and I alternated knitting and purling each row to get the look of the base of the hat and the ear flaps. The top is just knitted. I again, made the ear flaps longer than the Stitch'n'Bitch pattern and either knited or purled the two last stitches one each side depending on which alternating row I was on.  The black yarn is Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Cotton and the multi colored yarn is Araucania Patagonia Nature Cotton (my other favorite yarn).

My Favorite Wedding Blog

I've been following a lot of wedding blogs since we got engaged.  This may or may not be a good thing.

However, in the case of A Practical Wedding, I believe it to be a great thing.

I just found this post;  Love & Choice & Power.

And it was just what I needed to read this morning...

It pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about weddings.

The Rumors Are True

freckles and blondie (aka Zeke and Adina) are moving to Seattle, Washington in March 2010!

I just recieved my official offer for and accepted a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Region 10.  I will be working in the National Preparedness Division as a Training and Exercise Specialist.

So 2010 is going to be an exciting year with a new state to move to, new jobs for both of us, and of course, getting married!

In Todays Mail

Swatches for my dress and the bridesmaid dresses!





Le crueset mini casserole dish which we recieved as a gift for registering for a certain number of le crueset items at Williams and Sonoma.




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Breaking News Update #1

While amazingly we were able to find contact information for the owners of the Peace Barn thanks to the help of one of our friends, we found out that they are no longer hosting weddings on the property.

It's a private residence and having events with large numbers of guests really takes a toll on it. Totally understandable, but a bit sad :-(.


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Found: The Elusive Peace Barn

Right after we got engaged I saw pictures from a wedding in Bolinas at the Peace Barn. It looked perfect to me, Zeke wasn't so sure, but I've had it in the back of my mind ever since. The only problem was that we had no idea where it was. It's like a secret!

Then the other day we went to bolinas to look at another venue and we drove right by it! Zeke liked it much more in person.

So now we have what we think is the address of the site so we're going to write letters to them and hopefully get some more information!




If anyone knows anything about this place or who the owner/operators are please please please let us know!

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Oh the Venue Search Continues

So we still havn't had any luck with a venue that feels right for us.  We checked out the Historic Sand Rock Farm in Aptos and while their wine cave was very cool and the house itself felt very homey, their fields (which we had high hopes for) were more like glorified parking lots covered with wood chips.

We did check out the Big Sur River Inn and were impressed by the restaurant and decks that we would use for the reception.  The ceremony site was also nice but not quite what we are looking for.  However, since it was a really neat place, we're going to keep it in mind. One thing that was neat was that the Inn itself has only 20 rooms, but right next door and within walking distance is the Big Sur Campground and Cabins, so that would give our guests more lodging options.

Right now we're trading e-mails with Mayacamas Ranch to see if we could have the kind of wedding we want there.  Their ceremony site has the kind of expansive view that we are really hoping for.

I also just rediscovered VRBO today, which stands for Vacation Rental By Owner.  I read about another wedding where someone found their venue on there so I started looking around for large estates or homes with a lot of property around them and found a bunch of things from down south in Carmel Highlands up to Napa and Sonoma. I'll be checking through those more thouroughly tonight to see if we have any potential sites to call!

Also...keep tabs on the updates in the coming weeks and months because I heard a rumor that may be adding some additional non wedding related updates to the blog! :-)

Bay and Harbor Series (The Last Set!)

We started out our day with some photos at the harbor. Both Zeke and I absolutly love boats, specifically catamarans, so Zeke came up with the idea of taking some photos at the harbor in Monterey. 

Here are my favorites;

First Brick House and Garden Series

This site was also unplanned but happened show up when Jenny suggested we go to a garden nearby where we had been taking pictures along the path that goes from Old Wharf to Cannery Row. Turns out it is the First Brick House, which I'm guess the first one built in California, but I'm not sure... There was also another historic site with a garden nearby that often gets used for wedding receptions.  I actually ran across it in my searching for venues.

So here are some of my favorites from this site;

Photos From Pacific Grove

Okay, on to the next site, a coupld of coastal stops in Pacific Grove.  The day we took pictures also happened to be a day with a forcast for some pretty serious waves.  At Asilomar the forcast called for waves up to 39 feet!  We mostly saw waves around the 20 foot height, but it was still amazing to see them crash against the shoreline.  A couple of times we got a bit of mist from the really big crashes.

So here are my favorite shots;

We didn't plan on taking any photos here originally but because the Dennis the Menace Playground was just packed with kids, we had to find somewhere else to wear our matching American Apparel hoodies!

My Favorite Shots From Asilomar

So you may have gotten a look at some of the engagement pictures on Flickr already but I wanted to post some of my favorites from each spot. 

First, my favorite pictures from my favorite spot; the gazebo at Asilomar.  For those of you that don't know this is the exact spot that we got engaged and we wore the same clothes that we had on then for the photos.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from that day...

What you don't get to see in these shots was how increadibly chilly out it was when we took these.  Poor Jenny had her hood up and was jumping up and down to keep warm.  After each series of shots she would run up and throw our matching hoodies from some of the other shots to me so I could wrap them around my legs to warm up since I was only wearing a pretty small and very thin dress. But it was all worth it in the end, because it was a beautiful sunset and Jenny took these amazing photos.

More to come later from the other locations!

Engagement photos!!!!

Well everybody they're here! We're super excited about them and can't wait to see the rest. Jenny did a great job with them! (it's to bad she's going to be a bridesmaid and can't shoot the wedding :-p)

WOOOOOHOOOOO

Keep checking back, because there are more comin'!!!