No idle hands

Or, in other words, explainin' where I been...

DC came home last week, after having spent a fortnight in Africa (+ nearly 2 days' travel each way).  Just in time to celebrate the 4th of July.  Which is also our Y1 anniversary.  Luckily, he broke me in to his summer rovings by taking a monthlong trip to Europe when we first started dating last summer, so two weeks really was nothing.  It gave me some time to do stuff around the apartment (rearrange, again) and work on my gift.

The idea that We. Must. Have. A. Logo. got into my head a while ago, and stuck.  So, with the idea of getting the image in my head down on paper and framing it, I sat down with Microsoft Word and my extremely mediocre design skills.  I wanted something plain and graphic, and was going to put it over layers of security-lined envelopes of different patterns.  After nearly an hour of making text boxes, scaling, and aligning, I got it the way I wanted, and hit Print. 

Then I decided that it'd be better to print on the laser printer at work (shhh!), so I saved it to a thumb drive. 

Then I decided to print on my cotton blank postcard stock, so I dove through my stationery stash to find it. 

Then the idea came to me to do a cutout, so I traced the logo onto the blank card, and got out my knife and ruler.

Then I decided to make the cutout circle of the "d" into a heart.

Then I decided to do another "frame" of the security envelope pattern around the outside of the logo.

Then I chose the background color (chose the black over baby blue, to highlight the heart).

Here's what the final product looks like:

Not what I had in mind at the beginning, and certainly not perfect, but organic and spontaneous -- which reflects us.  The second part of the gift is the requirement to take a picture with it every July 4th!  I'm thinking of making a smaller version that we can take along on our trips, too (he doesn't know this yet, but will be happy to oblige, I'm sure!).

* * *

Whenever DC is away, I take out his letters and read through them again.  Not only does he write beautifully -- both in penmanship and content -- he shows his creativity, too.  Here's an example, which I'd been meaning to frame for a while but just got to recently:

[with new succulents!]

It's a little puzzle he made for me, using a coffee cup sleeve!  Cute, no?  I used another security lined envelope innard for the background, it's a subtle gray color that adds the right amount of texture.

For my Y1 gift, though, DC completely surprised me with:

[lovely! green!]

After exchanging gifts, we headed out to meet our parents for brunch.  Interesting way to spend our Y1 anniversary, don'tcha think?!  We celebrated in the evening -- just us two -- with wine and sparklers. 

* * *

In my last post I mentioned that I was already putting the Kacha-Kacha Counter to good use.  I got to over 100 rows much faster than I had time to take a picture, and then got to the point where I don't need the counter anymore!  This morning I finally snapped a couple of shots before heading out the door.

This is Forecast, by Stephanie Japel for Knitty W05.  Yes, I have wanted to knit it for that long.  But I was daunted by something sweater-sized and held off.  For a long time.  During which I knit shawls and socks and other little things.  One day, a couple weeks ago, I decided to cast on, and from there I kept going.  And now I'm almost done!  I got some knitting done during lunch, and am over halfway done with the ribbing on this (second) sleeve.  If I don't have to stand on the bus ride home, I think I can finish by the time I get home today!  So I can start picking up stitches for the button band.  Which shouldn't take long.  Which means I will have an FO to show you shortly!

The full story when the time is right.

Happy belated 4th of July!  I hope yours was good, too!