Gold me, baby!

But first, some free yarn!



This is the yarn for my June Mag Knits design. So now you've had stitch pattern and yarn pics - know what it is yet? Yeah, I don't think so! This yarn was so very generously donated by Pam at Spirit Work. If you're in the Rochester, NY area, go check her out! She threw in that great clear tote and a nice little card - totally unexpected!

Now, what you've all been waiting for, the Olympic Shrug! As we look at the shrug pictures, let's reflect on the 2006 (non-knitting) Winter Olympics. I just love the Olympics, both summer and winter, but winter always captures my heart in a way the summer never will because of my childhood aspirations of alpine skiing greatness. My favorite Olympic events? Besides the alpine skiing (I love all of the race events - slalom, GS, Super-G & Downhill), I love short track speed skating for the sheer craziness, ski jumping for the connections to my Finnish heritage (and sheer craziness), biathlon because who can say that skiing and shooting aren't a totally logical combination, and curling because it's great fun (if you ever have a chance to try it, do!). I've also discovered this year that I really like ice dancing. I never used to, but this year I finally got the connection between ice dancing and ballroom dancing. It's really neat to watch them do dance steps on the ice. It's a nice break from all the jumping around and waving of arms in the regular figure skating (which I also love - don't get me wrong!).



Get it? A shrug? Har-dee har har. Blame Bill for that one.

Here are a couple of back views (please ignore my inexplicably baggy butt):





And one more shot of the front:



Scroll down to yesterday's post if you want to see close-ups of the stitch detail. Again, for those of you just joining us, this is the Cabled Shrug from IK Fall '05, in Knit Picks Elegance.

Since the camera was out, we used the opportunity to snap some pics of the small fry. Here are my impeccably behaved, expression-free Stepford children.



Okay, this is more like reality, with everyone going different directions:



And because I just couldn't help myself, I decided to make Karen's gift yarn into my first pair of toe-up socks using the free Knit Picks pattern.



I can't help but think that the socks on circs, flanked by the two balls of yarn, strongly resembles a uterus and ovaries. Is it just me? They are some MASSIVE ovaries, for sure!

In exciting family news, my brother-in-law just got a permanent job, a couple years after being laid off from his last one (he's a graphic designer, and the market is pretty poor for designers here in Portland). He's been doing contract work for awhile but just landed his dream job with the top design firm in town. He's incredibly talented, so it's about time that this happened. If any of you know Smith (sunglasses/ski goggles/etc), he designed their logo (upper left corner of website) and many of their ads. He's actually doing a logo for my design biz, which will be unveiled soon, and it's so much fun working with him and seeing just how talented he really is. Anyway, congrats, Chris! We went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse last night to celebrate and had a little touch of irony in that Meat is Murder by The Smiths was playing on XM as we were pulling into the parking lot. It didn't stop us from tearing into some seared flesh as soon as we got inside. Sorry, Morrissey, but we're a family of unabashed meat-eaters here!