Block Party 2009

This weekend was our 2nd quarennial block party. That is, the second in 4 years, and this one every bit as fun as the first, if not more. We truly have great neighbors. My bro-in-law set up the kitchen, grilled all manner of comestibles to perfection, and made an amazing paella.
Some friends were kind enough to join us.

Things are starting to gear up here. I bet we had about 40-50 people stop by.
The road was painted,

and so were faces.

When it got dark one neighbor brought his fire pit over to our driveway and we built a fire and brought out the instruments. We had about 5 guitars, 2 fiddles, a bunch of drums, a keyboard, a flute, a trombone, an accordian, a harmonica, and an extremely cool bow-like percussion instrument that I'd never seen before. Seriously fun.

What I've been doing instead of blogging

According to the wise Dave Barry, it's a thin line between hobby and insanity...

You can't see it very well, but the red pair above was my first foray into patterns (it's a diagonal lace). Here is my second attempt, Bamboo Walking Socks:

And my masterpiece in progress, Azure. I just wish the yarn was a little less brightly colored so the pattern would show up a little better.

This weekend was the amazing Sock Summit, where A and I helped break the world record for the most continuous knitters at one time and I laid in the supplies for my next few projects:

...and got some fancy new clogs to show off all my lovely socks, self-horn-tooter that I am!