Merry Christmas!

I finally finished my Christmas knitting yesterday while in the car on the way to the inlaw's. The last gift finished was a cowl for Mom, and we didn't get to her house until this morning. The fact that I finished her gift yesterday was fantastic, especially since I've had to finish gifts in front of her on the actual holiday more than once.

I finished DH's Jacques Cousteau hat last Tuesday. I worked on the majority of it in front of him, and he was still surprised when I plopped it on his head shortly after weaving in the ends. He had forgotten that I said I'd knit him a hat, and so I won Christmas this year.

Pattern: Jacques Cousteau Hat
Yarn: Cascade 220 in 9465
Needles: US7
Rav Project Page

Sorry about the mess on the island behind DH. I've been an adult for 10 years, but I can't figure out if I'm supposed to keep every bill statement that comes in the mail or not. Since everything is digital now, I suppose I can just shred them. But I'm still scared that something bad will happen if I get rid of them, like somehow I won't have proof that I paid the bill or something. I'm weird like that. So I stack them on the island and pretend they don't exist. Moving on.

I finished the second of the 54 hats last week around Sunday or Monday. The second looked the same as the first and both fit the girls. They seemed to like them, so that's good. Both hats together took less than a full skein of Malabrigo Worsted.

Like I said earlier, I finished Mom's Stacked Eyelet Cowl in the car yesterday. Mom wanted a "manly" color since she's pretty much a tomboy, so I picked Malabrigo Silky Merino in Smoke. She liked it as well, and it fit.

Pattern: Stacked Eyelet Cowl
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Smoke
Needles: US7
Rav Project Page

I came across the most adorable little pattern on Friday night for a mini snowman. I made one in the car on the way to the IL's, although I had to finish it at their house. I think it's so stinking cute that I almost can't stand it. When I make the next one, I'm going to make sure to make the arms lower so that they won't be covered by the scarf.

Pattern: Minimochi Snowman
Yarns: Lang Jawoll in White, Tempted Good Grrl in Onyx, and Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Pool
Needles: US1 (I thought I was going to snap them several times)
Rav Project Page

I started the Palouse Mitts back in October during a bout of startitis. I've completely lost interest in them. I'm not sure why though. They're cute and everything, and I haven't had any problems with the pattern. Could it be the yarn? I think this is the third time I've tried to use it-it's Madtosh in Green With Envy. I guess I'll wait to frog them and see if I can get motivated again to look at them.

Speaking of frogging, I finally killed the La Digitessa Socks today. I'd lost my place when I accidentally deleted my stitch counter app, and if I remember correctly, I don't think the row counter jived with where it looked like I was anyway. And they didn't fit.

I had a bit of stash enhancement this week. I got several minis, but I don't want to try to show you all of them and explain what they are lol. I also got my Tempted Burlesque package. This is the debut of the Feisty Grrl line (100% SW Merino). The colorway is Blue Blood. I really like it, but I'm not sure what I'll make with it.

It's finally time for the blanket. I've managed to knit 8 squares since yesterday, so I averaged 1 square per day for the week. Since it'll require 720 squares if I do the size I've planned, I need to do at least 2 per day to finish it within a year. I'd like to have it done in 6 months or so, so I need 4 squares per day. Now that Christmas knitting is done, I'll have more time to devote to it. I measured it on the floor today, and it is 55" across, so it is 7" longer than intended (1st square=2", so 24 squares should equal 48"). I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't make it as I've planned. I'm going to need to buy a lot of minis, that's for sure.

# of squares done: 38
% complete: 5%

Christmas is coming, whether I like it or not.

For Christmas this year, I only had to knit 5 items: 2 Stacked Eyelet Cowls, 2 "54" hats, and 1 Jacques Cousteau hat. Christmas is a week away, and I have finished 3 of the 5 (1 cowl & both "54" hats). That stinking blanket sucked away my desire to knit on anything else. However, I have all week to finish the Jacques Cousteau hat for DH (I'm approximately 75% done with it), I'm off on Friday (and maybe half of Thursday), and I have a 4 hour drive to the IL's on Saturday as well as all day Saturday to knit the cowl for Mom. I'm not too incredibly worried.

I just finished the second of the 2 hats for my friend's daughters. I'm a little concerned about them fitting, but they both fit on my head, so I think it'll be ok.

Pattern: "54"
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Gerino
Needles: US9 dpns
Rav project page

I think I'm going to start a thing called Blanket Sunday. It'll be an easy way for me to watch my progress on the blanket. I doubt I'll post every Sunday, but hopefully I can be somewhat regular with it. Since my first blog about the blanket was last Sunday, I'll count that as the first installment. Here's the blanket as of yesterday (haven't worked on it since then):

# of squares done: 30
% complete: 4%

The blanket was supposed to be 4 feet wide by 5 feet long. The first square was 2" wide (in square orientation), so 24 squares should be 48". However, the blanket is wider than I am tall (I'm 4'11"). I haven't actually measured it on the floor, so maybe the weight of the squares makes it stretch enough to make it longer? Either way, this blanket is going to be huge. H-U-G-E.

Stash Expansion Extravaganza

I may have gotten carried away with stash enhancement this month. I just wanted some self-striping yarn.

My new babies, L-R: String Theory Continuum Self-Striping in Coronal Mass Ejection (bought from a destash on Rav), Spinning Fates Toula in Sam The Snowman (Etsy purchase), Lollipop Yarn Feelings in Shazam (Etsy purchase), and Gynx Yarn Sock in Oil Slick (fantastic Christmas present from Gnome). Clearly I need to block Etsy on my computer.

I don't think this one counts as a self-striping, so I photographed it alone. I love the colors in this skein so much-I can't believe no one bought it before I did!

It's Another Crafty Girl's Strong Sock in Hideous Zippleback (another Etsy purchase... sigh). Finally, Tempted is offering a 20% off Christmas sale, so I convinced DH that I really need more blue yarn. Sidra came home to me.

Then there was the yarn that I bought for Christmas presents. I personally don't think it should count as stash enhancement since it won't be staying here for long, and therefore shouldn't count towards my total number of skeins acquired. Just sayin.

First up is another skein of Malabrigo Silky Merino. I'm going to make the same cowl that I made as a Christmas present for one of my friends (I'll show you that here in a bit), the Stacked Eyelet Cowl. My mom is a bit of a tomboy, so I got her a manly color, Smoke (per her request, nothing "pretty").

I'm also going to knit hats for my friend's 2 daughters, so I bought some Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the Gerino colorway. I think I'm only going to need one of them though-the first hat didn't take much.

I finished a Christmas present about a week ago. I am awful about keeping presents until Christmas, so the recipient already got it. She loved it. :)

Stacked Eyelet Cowl
Needles: US 7
Yarn: Malabrigo Silky Merino in Blackberry

I've finished one of the hats for my friend's daughters. One more to go.

Pattern: 54
Needles: US9 dpns
Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Gerino

I'm knitting the Jacques Cousteau hat for DH's Christmas present. I've knit on it in front of him and he hasn't even noticed. Since I have until Christmas to finish it, I've set it aside for now while I work on other Christmas knitting (I need those hats done by Thursday, 12/15). I have somewhere between 4 and 6 inches. I start the decreases when I get to 8 inches or so.

Jacques Cousteau Hat
Needles: US 7 dpns
Yarn: Cascade 220 in 9465 (aka dark brown)

Finally, I have a shameful confession. I've jumped on the sock yarn blanket bandwagon. I started Shelly Kang's Sock Yarn Blanket last Monday. I have a small OCD problem, and I agonized over the decisions I had to make with this blanket. Do I knit it in diamonds like the original? Or in squares? If I go with diamonds, do I live with the sawtoothed edges or do I knit triangles to fill them? If I go with squares, there is a nice solid border. Regardless of orientation, do I knit a border? I had to start over 4 times before I finally decided on the square orientation. I still haven't decided whether or not to knit a border around it. The thought of picking up all of those stitches is a tad bit intimidating, but I do have a 60" knitpicks interchangeable cable. I also need to decide how big to make it. Each square is 2" wide or so. I think I'll probably want a 4'x5' blanket, so that'll be 24 squares wide by 30 squares tall. That'll be 720 squares. Sheesh. It's a good thing they're fun.

Here is my blanket as of 10 minutes ago:

I've had to make myself put it down in order to knit Christmas presents. When I finish a gift, I get to knit on the blanket for a while. As long as I do 2 or more squares per day, I'll have it done within a year. I hope to be done by May.

Starting this blanket made me realize exactly how few sock yarn remnants I actually have. I could have sworn that I have a lot, but I don't. After joining the blankie mania group on Ravelry, I discovered the world of sock yarn mini skeins. People apparently divide up skeins into mini skeins of ~20yds or 5g and then sell them or swap them. There are Etsy sellers who sell them as well. Since starting this blanket, I have bought.... 28 mini skeins. I've received 9 of them in the mail so far. I have to stop myself from buying more. Here's what's come so far:

2 mini skeins of Colinette Jitterbug in the Jay colorway. I have approximately 40yds total, and have already knit a square with one of them.

Next up are 7 skeins of Sunshine Yarns Sock Yarn in Deep Within, Peacock, In Bloom, Biosphere, Be Thankful, Everlast, and Bella. They are 6g each, totalling approximately 155yds. I've already used Be Thankful and Everlast in the blanket.

There should be some kind of warning on these things about how addictive they are. Good grief.

Stilwell

I had a very lovely long weekend (I've been off since Wednesday), and I put a lot of knitting time in. This is what my Stilwell looked like a week ago from today:

By last Thursday, I had progressed to this:

I finished the sweater on Friday (although I didn't weave ends in until after blocking). I discovered that I don't have a stopper for my kitchen sink, and I didn't see the point of filling up the tub for a sweater. Therefore, I pulled out our cooler, wiped it out, and gently washed the sweater in it. I'm not sure if I should feel resourceful or hickish lol.

I pinned it out on the blocking mats and promptly waited forever for it to dry. I don't know why there are stripes in the sweater; they are not visible when it's dry.

Finally, after the application of a fan, the sweater dried today. :D

I knit the sweater out of Jo Sharpe Silkroad DK Tweed. It took a little over 4 skeins of the blue (and I mean a very little over 4) and less than 1 of the white. I used a US9 needle for the stockinette sections and a US11 for the colorwork. In retrospect, I probably could have gotten away with using a US10.5 for the colorwork because it's a tad bit loose. Not bad for my first raglan sweater and my first fair isle sweater.

I have made quite a bit of progress on another knitting project, but I can't show you until after I finish it and give it to the recipient (a blog reader). It's supposed to be a Christmas gift, but I seriously doubt I'll be able to hold on to it that long. Since I'm nearly done, I'll be lucky to keep it for another week. I've also made a point to pick up reading again so that I have an escape from the stress of life. I've decided to reread a favorite childhood series of mine, starting with All Creatures Great And Small by James Harriot. So far, it's just as lovely as I remembered.

An FO and Startitis

I finally have another FO. I finished my Hitchhiker Scarf, made from my one lonely skein of Wollmeise.

I've been teaching my friend Kristie to knit, which has lead to a very serious case of startitis. I recently started the Palouse mitts using my skein of Madelinetosh Sock in Green with Envy. I got it from one of the Loopy Ewe clubs from last year.

I've also started Stilwell. I bought the yarn for this sweater (Jo Sharp Silkroad DK tweed) almost 2 years ago. I managed to hide that yarn purchase from DH until I started the sweater last week. :D

I'm a little bit concerned about the tension in the fair isle section, but I'm choosing to ignore that voice in my head for now. It's good practice for learning to ignore the rest of the voices anyway.

Annoying sidenote: while looking at the picture above just now, I realized that there is a glaring error in the top section of the fair isle. I can't believe that I didn't even notice it until just now! It's bad enough and obvious enough that I can't let it go. I'll have to figure out where I went wrong too. Boohiss.

I also started a hat in an effort to placate the startitis (it didn't work since I started Stilwell after I started the hat). It's the painted forest hat on size 15 needles. I can't remember what the yarn is-berroco hip hop or something like that. I bought it when I was a brand new knitter. My wrists hurt for 2 days after I worked on it last, so who knows if I'll finish it. I may just do one row every now and then until it's done.

Since I'm doing a lot of work related to music right now, I got my I Am RadioU shirt today. RadioU is a freaking fantastic Christian rock radio station. You get the shirt for donating to them during their Unleash the Music fundraiser. You can stream them online or use the app for iphone & android if you'd like to listen to RadioU (they are an actual radio station-90.5 in OKC-check their site to see if you can pick them up where you live). So here I am in my shirt today, although it's a bit big:

My year of concerts continues on-this Thursday the Rock and Worship Roadshow is coming to OKC. I'm most excited about seeing Disciple, Group 1 Crew, and Hawk Nelson, but MercyMe, Jars of Clay, Trip Lee, and Matt Maher will all be there. The best part is that you get to see all of those bands for $10. The drawback is that it's open seating and I had a bit of crowd anxiety at an event I went to on Friday. I think I'll be ok this time though. I'm excited! I love concerts so much.

\m/

I have a good excuse...

...for why I haven't blogged in almost 4 months. Do you want to see? I present to you my life for the last 4 months, in a series of photos.

First I saw Maylene and the Sons of Disaster in OKC at the Conservatory. This is my lifegroup leader Vern, the lead singer of MATSOD Dallas, and Eva from 91.online.com:

I go to the northwest OKC campus of Lifechurch.tv, and I help out at the hospitality area. We do a series called At The Movies every July, and sometimes the pressure gets to us and we have to goof off:

We decorated our campus in a Tron theme. Please note that I barely made it through the original movie and didn't bother with the second.

My lifegroup leader does a top 40 countdown show for 91online.com. Sometimes we go hang out with him at the station. Did I mention that I needed to be a princess in order to be brave enough to talk on the air?

This was the summer of concerts for me, and on Aug 13 I saw Switchfoot at Frontier City:

Next up was a Beckah Shae concert. This is my lifegroup and Beckah Shae. We really need to find someone who knows how to focus an iphone camera.

Then Labor Day weekend rolled around, and as always I went to the Choctaw Labor Day Festival. This year the Sunday headliner was Third Day. I sat in my seat for 8 hours to get front row seats. I could have sat for far less time, but I was also avoiding my in-laws. Multitasking for the win.

Oh, and did I mention that I got a pic with Mac Powell? I did.

Less than a week after we got home, I was driving home one night and a very nicely intoxicated idiot who was driving without a license while on a suspended sentence for robbery decided to fail to yield on green at an intersection. I broke my car and he went to jail. It was 3 weeks before I got my car back.

So Icon For Hire is my favorite band. I listened to their cd exclusively on repeat for a full 2 weeks after it came out in August. When I heard that they were playing in Shawnee on Sept 13, I freaked out. It was pretty much the best concert ever. It was poorly promoted, and only ~20 people showed up. I was right in front of the stage and pretty much got a personal concert. It.was.awesome.

Then I decided that the time had come for my next tattoo. Here is the before pic:

During:

The finished product:

I have been knitting a little bit. I've been doing a whole lot of band research for my lifegroup leader, so I've spent most of my free time putting together spreadsheets and band contact info. Because of that, my knitting output has been a tad bit scant. But here is the first sock of my skull socks. If you remember, I had to frog the whole sock because it was too tight. I started over using US3 dpns:

Here is my Hitchhiker scarf out of my only skein of WM:

It's a tad bit longer than that now.

There were more concerts this weekend. This time, I went with a mission: to interview the lead singers of the bands to ask them specific questions about Christian bands and their message. First up was a fantastic band called Fight The Fade. Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of them, but trust me, they are awesome. The headliner was Spoken:

Saturday's lineup was Blood and Water, Nine Lashes, and I Am Empire. This concert was so poorly promoted that it was a joke. Only 3 people showed up, and all of them were with me! Never schedule a concert on a OU football night in a small town.
Blood and Water:

Nine Lashes:

And, I Am Empire:

I got to interview the lead singers for all 5 bands! It was so exciting! Now I still need to transcribe the interviews, along with about a dozen other tasks for my lifegroup leader. So now you know why I haven't knit much, or blogged much, or plurked much... etc etc.