Busy Bee

I've been busy during classes this year:

So far completed are a number of scarves.

Webs Crocus Shawl worked in Brooks Farm Yarns, I'm not sure which one. It's a lovely blue and there are 50gm of the yarn left, so I'm thinking I can get wristies out of the remainder.

The Noro Sock yarn scarf from the fall Interweave Crochet. The covered ring fringe is a little annoying to work, but so much fun to play with. This one will be a Christmas gift to someone, I'm just not sure who.

And I'm 4 balls of Plymouth Boku into a granny-square baby blanket. Apparently I don't want to give away the green Encore one until I've made a replacement for my stash of baby gifts. How odd.


And, since I've not blogged in forever, here's the rest of the finished projects I can think of from this year:

Last spring, right after I shaved my head, I finished up a simple cowl in a super-bulky white yarn that I think had Blizzard in its name. It was from a Secret Pal exchange, originally tried to be the croched edging scarf from One Skein, but there just wasn't enough yardage.

Before that I worked up a (one, two?) skeins of Auracania in a beautiful red into a travelling rib cowl of my own "design". I'm really not sure that you can call picking a stitch pattern that works over the relevant number of stitches designing. It went to my sister for her birthday. Ideally I'll get a picture of her in it.

Early last summer, I finished a pair of mitts in a vibrant green sock yarn. That pattern was from Knitting New Mittens. The sideways garter is so easy, and they're surprisingly fun to work for such mindless knitting.


Projects in progress that are worthy of note:

I'm still working on the Cobblestone pullover for Tcepsa. We're still getting married next August. That's definitely a project in progress. Planning a wedding is scary stuff. I'm horrified that I'll forget something important.

Anyways, that's enough rambling for now, especially since I sincerely doubt there's anyone still following this. Though bloglines is a wonderful thing, so there may be an audience out there... hi!

A is for Arisia

A year ago this weekend (well, last weekend, they moved the convention a week so it could fall across the three day weekend), I drove to Boston for a con, Arisia to be precise. I wanted to see a friend from Washington (state, not DC), who'd moved to Boston for college (a long time ago), and the convention sounded like fun.
Tcepsa popped up and said he'd be there, sent me his phone number and we decided to try to meet up over the weekend. He popped up while I was registering, and we spent pretty much the entire weekend together.
Insert a full year, the first 3 months of which were spent saying that we were looking for fun, a relationship, but not a serious one, the next three months of which I spent in Seattle (home for the summer) talking on the phone almost daily, and a conversation that started in early November regarding the symbolism we'd be laying into a pair of bracelets he was making for us (the conversation was put on hold when I asked "so is this something normal people would be symbolizing with a ring?" neither of us was ready to deal with the answer we both knew was most appropriate for that question). The conversation ended over Thanksgiving break this past year with us becoming engaged.

So, A is for Arisia. Where I met this boy.


They also have a wonderful stairwell which I do not (yet) have pictures of.

Socks.. or rather Yarn!

I have picked yarn for my sockapalooza socks.
I still haven't picked a pattern. Bother. I can default to one of my oldy but goodies, but I don't want to.. I want to try something new and interesting.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I'm scared of doing that.
I'm making a pair of socks for a friend that I realized a couple weeks ago at knitting group may well be far too large. Next week, I'll have her try on one of my finished socks to see if I need/want to pull hers all the back to a ball of yarn. Eek.

The other reason this may well happen is because I'm going to run out of yarn well before the toe, but could probably stretch it to something that looked reasonable if I did contrasting cuff, heel and toe. This obviously involves ripping back to re-do the cuff. I think I've already actually made a decision and will be ripping this sock. Whee... Good thing I'm a process knitter, right?

Giant doily!

For the NWRSA fiber exchange, I'm crochetting a shawl. It's the cover picture on Amazing Crochet Lace by Doris Chan. In other words, I'm crocheting a giant doily.

Only I don't have enough yarn to do the whole thing, so I did the center section in the round, and folded it in half, and then am working the leaf pattern around a smaller section. I have just over one half the number of leaves because I wound up with an odd number of sections and as written, each leaf required two sections for its base. So I centered the odd one and made an extra leaf with only one section at its base. I hope I like how this turns out.

For those of you who read Spin-Off, it's the same technique employed by Regina Rooney in the Four Generation Shawl (Spring 2007). I would have loved to do that shawl pattern for this project, but I didn't make the yarn thin enough, or even enough. Alas. Perhaps I'll do it out of commercial yarn at some point, or maybe I'll get back to the spinning with a different fiber.

Procrastinating

I should be studying anatomy for the final tomorrow. But I don't want to. So instead I'm updating my blog on the progress (or lack thereof) that I've been making on my knitting.

Yesterday I unknit about 1200 yards of Zephyr from the gauge swatch shawl from forever ago. I did get it all knit and cast off, but it's squarer than would be ideal for its actual size, so I decided to reclaim the yarn. Amusing how much faster it came out than it went in. Maybe I'll do something with it this summer. Then again, maybe not.

In the spinning front, I'm still working on the yellow wool and soysilk barberpole yarn that I'm making for the NWRSA swap. Yes, I realize that I'm very much pushing the deadline on this one. The conference (which I am not attending) is at the end of next month. At the moment, I have about 200 yards of roughly fingering weight yarn and am thinking that I can get the spinning wrapped up this week and start crocheting in classes. I do hope so.

My class knitting has been a pair of socks for Mary, in a lovely purple koigu. The cat has only chewed the yarn apart twice. Bad Kitten! Blessedly he likes the yarn better than the actual knit fabric. I'm going to try to get this first sock knit past the heel before I get home in May so that I can have her try it on. That said, I'm uncertain enough about the fit that I don't feel driven to get very much farther than the heel. Target finish date: end of this summer.

Tatami has languished in her bag for the last couple of weeks, but is definitely going to be finished this summer. Speaking of which, I've started packing. The knitting and sewing projects are all picked out and packed. Nothing has been packed by way of clothes or other so-called necessities, but I have the important stuff taken care of.

Still knitting

*pokes head up from the hole I apparently fell into*

I've been knitting...
Doing a fair bit of it, in fact. Mostly in class.
What I haven't been doing, is finishing anything.
I think..

There are tickles in my brain of things that I'm done knitting, though I don't know that I wove the ends in.
Ooh, and the two things that I finished and gave away to Kappa Psi (fraternity) brothers.
But mostly, I've just been knitting, and getting distracted and starting new projects.

On the needles currently:
2nd sock of the trecking socks that had the first sock finished 2.5 times before actually being satisfactory on iteration 3.
Purple Koigu socks for a friend at home.
Tatami from Sundara in a lovely blacked purple.
Various and sundry other projects in various stages of being completely forgotten.

(Happy Kat? You asked, I posted.. So, neah!)

Re: Snow

*Written mid-last week*

Snow is lovely.. however, we should not get snow the day before I am planning to spend 8.5 hrs in the car driving across a number of states.
I realize that this is partly my problem for deciding to drive north in January, but still. We haven't had winter yet, would it kill someone to have it hold off for another 5 days or so?

It didn't stick, but when I looked up this afternoon and saw it my first two thoughts were, "Hey, neat, snow!" and "Aww, bugger, I don't want to have to drive in this, hope it doesn't stick."

It hasn't and hopefully it will stay that way.

Snow is fine, when I have a functional transit system to rely on (as in St. Petersburg, Russia), or when it is restricted to mountains that I (or others, I'm feeling benevolent) visit with the express purpose of playing with it. I suppose it's fine anywhere it doesn't get in my way, that's what this really boils down to.

For the history portion of this story. I've driven in snow exactly twice in my life. Both times were last December (2005).

The first I was at the fire department listening to people talk politics after a regular drill night when someone looked out the window and said, "guys, it's sticking, anyone with a drive better head out now." Given that I had an hour drive, I did. It was fascinating. Anti-lock brakes feel quite strange when they engage. But it was just loose pack snow, no ice under it and I got home just fine.

The second was that Saturday morning. I'd taken a red-eye flight to Dulles airport and as I started hearing the news in the terminal I realized that perhaps the Thursday's snow was a practice run for my drive to Winchester. It's very unnerving to go pick up your very first rental car ever, and have to scrape 4 inches off snow off of it before being able to depart. The radio was suggesting that everyone who didn't absolutely have to be on the roads stay home, schools were closed, etcetera. But here again I arrived safely. I claim blind luck and ignorance because on that trip I also discovered why it is a very good idea to also scrape the snow off your roof, but thankfully I did not run into anything while attempting to look through the that had (until I came to a stop) been located on my roof and was at that point covering my entire windshield.

So yeah, snow is only good if I don't have to drive in it.

*Post-trip addition*

Boston has come and gone. I drove back Sunday night in some less than pleasant rain, but blessedly there was no snow.

Yesterday the temperature here was 64 here, today the weather forecast is for a high of 34. A 30 degree drop in temperature overnight. Whee! And there are little flakelets of snow falling. They're so cute.

When it started snowing in Seattle last week, people started saying to the weather, "Go East where it's supposed to do this." I replied to many with, "No, not until after my road trip this weekend." It appears to have worked. Our very unseasonable weather held for long enough for me to get home and a generous margin of error thereafter. Thank goodness.

Kitten Approved Pictures: SP9 and Ornamental II

My parents and I went to Williamsburg for the New Year's. The wreaths they had on almost every door were quite fun to look at. Here's one of my favorites, the dried yellow flowers sanding out quite nicely against the green leaves and red wall.

I promised a picture of the lovely package my SP9 sent me forever ago. The kitty has approved both the package and the picture. I am looking forward to working up some washcloths with the cotton, but I am trying not to start any more projects before I finish at least one of the ones I already have on my needles. We'll see how long I actually stick to that resolution. At any rate, here's the package.



5 balls of Sugar'n'Cream in blues and greens, some fabulous chocolate. I ate the last piece just before the New Year's trip, it's the first time in a very long time that I've liked chocolate enough to ration it. It was in such perfect bite sized pieces to do just that. The raspberry hard candies are slowly disappearing, I don't tend to eat as much hard candy as I do chocolate, but they are quite yummy. Up at the top of the book, you can just barely see some stitchmarkers with fascinating square beads. I've not started a project with stitchmarkers lately, but I am looking forward to using them.

And now for the amusing part of this story. This is, actually, my third copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting. Kat sent out a request in her SP9 questionnaire, and I do believe that the powers that be decided that the entire family must have been in need of this book. I love this book and am very glad that this surplus allowed me to pass on the joy that is MDK, but I do find it laughable to have 3 copies of it in a one-knitter household. I am now down to the much more reasonable number of 2 copies having put together a very similar package for my SP when it was revealed to me that she did not yet have a copy.

(however much the kitten might like yarn, he does not knit)



Which brings me to my next kitten approved package. I got my ornamental swap package, a lovely box full of Wee's, all the way from Australia. Thank you, Belinda, thank you so very much! Aren't they cute? Their faces are so expressive for so little stitching.



Last, but not least we have the two ornaments that I sent out. They are the ones described in my ornament recipe from December. Quite fun to knit and take almost no yarn, but infinitely variable. Looking at them now I wish I'd thought to needle-felt some embelishment onto them, but I did not, alas.