Scarfing along

I started a new scarf! The Cerus scarf is a lengthwise linen stitch scarf (not to be confused with linen yarn lol). I'm knitting it with my only skein of Anothercraftygirl's strong sock yarn, in the Hideous Zippleback colorway. I originally started it on August 14, but I made a mistake and knit the same row twice after about 6 rows, thus giving the scarf a border.

I had resigned myself to living with the error and planned on doing the same thing on the other side, but I decided that the scarf was too short at 411 stitches, and frogged it. The length issue was probably just a convenient excuse to get rid of the mistake.

I casted on again on 8-28-12, this time casting on 655 stitches. It took me two times to get enough tail for my twisted long tail cast on. I thought I had at least 600 stitches after the first time, but nope. I had exactly 411, again. It took me well over an hour just to cast on an adequate number of stitches.

Here it is, as of last Wednesday:

I've probably knit 4 or 5 rows since then, but this colorway is very difficult to photograph. I really love this scarf!

Ravellenic Games are done

Once again, I didn't finish in time. My goal was 24 squares on my sock yarn blanket (1 row). I had 1.5 squares to go at 5:59pm, the deadline. I finished at 6:38pm.

The finished row:

I don't know if you can see it or not, but I used one of the wonderful mini skeins that I got from my friend Joani in a Christmas in July exchange for the first square of the row. :D

Here's to next year!

Let the Ravelym... Ahem. I mean Ravellenic Games begin!

Team Sprout is up and running for the 2012 Ravellenic Games! I am going to do 1 row on my blanket (or 24 squares) as my project, entered in the Modular Relay Event.

Here's the starting pic:

The 6th row will be the one that counts for the Ravellenic Games. :D

I finished the color affection

I finally finished my color affection shawl. I can't believe that it took me 3 months to complete! That just shows how much my free time has diminished.

Pre-blocking:

Post-blocking:

A coworker's mother was diagnosed with aggressive Stage IV breast cancer back in March. As soon as I heard, I wanted to make her something. I wanted to make something different-a lot of people make chemo caps, and those are greatly needed. But I wanted to make her a shawl. Her favorite colors are purple and green. Because of the garter stitch, I felt that this shawl would mesh well with my current schedule (meaning I could multitask and watch tv or read while knitting it). I finally finished it last week. My coworker said her mom loved the shawl, and that it is perfect because she gets cold a lot. It made me really happy that this shawl is comforting her in what must be a very very difficult time.

The stats:
Yarn:
Grey-Madtosh tosh sock in Tern
Green-Madtosh tosh sock in Green with Envy
Purple-Tempted Good Grrl in Deviant Behavior

Needle: US 6 circs

Pattern: Color Affection

I'm also (slowly) knitting some baby leggs for our pregnant secretary. She's already gone on maternity leave due to preterm labor, but I'm going to mail them to her when I finish.

I also got the last Tempted Burlesque Club yarn shipment. I love it! It's Luxe Grrl.

I don't know what I'm going to do with it, besides petting it fondly.

Color Affection Update

I've been working on the color affection when I have time. I just finished the short row section last night. I counted the stitches and was very happy to get the correct stitch count. Just an FYI-the short rows section does not go all the way to the end of the shawl. I thought maybe I was a pattern repeat off or something, and expected my stitch count to be off. But everything is hunky dory.

Here it was a couple of weeks ago:

And here it is today:

I wanted to start another and get it to the short rows section for the ravelympics WIPs event, but there's no way that I'll have time for that. You have to stop working on WIPs on June 1 in order for them to count. I think I'll probably do 30 squares on my sock yarn blanket.

Um, blanket Sunday on a Tuesday. Or something like that.

I think I mentioned on here that I'm working 2 jobs now (we're trying to pay off our debt so we can buy a house in the next few years). Working 70hrs/week doesn't leave me a whole lot of time for the blanket, unfortunately. I should be doing 2 squares per day; instead, I've done 2 since my last post. I'm still growing my mini skein stash though. I've managed to knit on other projects, but the blanket is now big enough that it isn't very portable.

I took a pic of the blanket before knitting the last square that I did. I don't have the most up-to-date photo, but I figure I should blog while I can, current pics or not. At the time, I was a whole 3 squares from the end of the row. Now, I have 2 left.

# done: 118
# left to go: 602 (I'm so far behind it's sad)
% finished: 16.4%

The mother of one of my coworkers was recently diagnosed with aggressive Stage IV breast cancer. I decided to make her a color affection shawl. Her favorite colors are purple and green, which I luckily already had in my stash. I had to go buy a skein of grey. I'm using 2 madtosh tosh sock skeins-the Green With Envy that I got in one of their clubs, and the skein of Tern that I had to buy. The purple is Tempted Deviant Behavior. Here is the yarn:

Have you ever had a yarn pick its own project? I've tried to use the Green With Envy on 2 other projects, neither of which worked out (socks and fingerless gloves). I really think it was waiting for this shawl. Here are some progress pics:

As a baby:

Finally growing some stripes:

Finally starting the purple:

I really love this shawl. I think I'll make one for my mom for her birthday. I'm not much of a shawl person-I don't get the joy out of knitting them that other knitters seem to experience. But I love this one a lot!

On an unrelated note, I went to a fantastic concert on March 11. The lineup was Kiros, Nine Lashes, Manafest, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Red. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to! I'm going to subject you to pics just because. :)

Kiros: 

Nine Lashes: 

Manafest:

TFK:

TFK had a spinal column mic stand:

Red:

Nimroseita and me with Nine Lashes:

Manafest tried to make me look taller:

Me, sort of with Red:

Blanket Sunday-The Monday Edition

I haven't updated in a while, but that's because the blanket has sort of been neglected. I am really behind, but I've been busy, and I'm only going to get busier. I think I haven't really wanted to work on the blanket lately because I am on a strict yarn budget. Every other month most of the budget is taken up by the yarn club I'm in, so I only bought 3 minis this month. The lack of new colors to add makes me sad. That's my excuse for the past. My future excuse is this-I've started a part-time job in addition to my regular job. DH and I made a goal to get most if not all of our debt paid off this year, and so I took an extra job to help speed that along. We want to buy a house in 2014 if possible, so the debt needs to go away and we need to save for a down payment. I started my job on Saturday, and tonight is my only night off this week. Hopefully I can get a square or 2 done, but I certainly won't make my 2 squares a day minimum. I don't have any idea what I work Saturday, but I'm sure it'll be a full day.

But back to the blanket. Here she is, in all of her multi-colored glory:

I like the way it's turning out, although the overall color is a little too bright for my tastes. I should have been adding more black. Oh well. Maybe if I do a dark i-cord border, it'll make up for it.
Blanket Summary:
# of squares to go: 604 (116 done, but 56 squares behind schedule)
% complete: 16.1%

Here are the minis I got this month:

I'm going to be a stingy little trollop and not tell you where I got them so I can buy more of the rainbow color. Trollop has been reintroduced to my vocabulary thanks to a season 2 episode of Gilmore Girls. Gnome let me borrow all 7 or 8 seasons of the show. Good grief I'm easily distracted today.

Luckily, DH doesn't read my blog, so I can show you the socks that I'm knitting for our "first" anniversary. If you know me, you won't be surprised to know that I'm easily amused. We got married on 2-29-08, so this is technically our first anniversary. We're planning a big 10 year bash in 2048. But back to the socks.

DH, who hasn't read an entire book since the mid-90s, read all 7 Harry Potter books in less than a month. That thrills me to no end! So I picked Snape's Stockings as the pattern for his anniversary socks. I'm sort of on a time crunch, and DH likes ankle socks anyway, so I'm going straight from the ribbing to the heel flaps. I hope I can get them finished in a week. I really should have picked a toe-up pattern so I could do the leg length based on how much time I have left to knit, but I couldn't find any HP toe-up patterns that I liked. The yarn is Tempted Good Grrl in Mocha. I've had that skein for at least 2 years, and procrastinated on making DH more socks. The last (and only) pair he's gotten from me was the Diamond Gansey socks in 2009.

Finally, I frogged the geodesic cardigan that I started almost 2 years ago. I wasn't ever going to finish it anyway. I'll find something else to do with the yarn (Tempted Lacy Grrl). Maybe I'll make another clapotis.

100 squares

I just finished my 100th square. While awesome, I'm 17 squares behind for January (and 14 squares behind overall). I'm sure I'll catch up though and still finish the blanket this year.

# of squares to go: 620
% complete: 13.9%

I also finished a Mairi Tam last weekend. I love the pattern, but I think I blocked it incorrectly or something. I tried on Muriel's tam (she gave me the leftover yarn to make mine). When I wore hers, it looked awesome on me. Mine doesn't. Maybe I blocked it too strongly? It seems much loser than Muriel's tam. I guess I can reblock it.
Here it is blocking on the plate:

And on my head:

I never wove in the ends because I wasn't sure if I would end up frogging it and using bigger needles. It's sitting on my nightstand while I figure out what to do with it.

First FO of 2012

I didn't blog last week because I was busy visiting my friend Gnome in Texas and didn't have much progress on the blanket anyway. However, I finished my stripey socks last Thursday, so I have the first FO of the year!

I freaking love these socks. I think this is the first time I've completed 2 at a time socks (I could have sworn that I started a pair 2AAT before, but I must have frogged them or something). This is definitely the first time that I've done afterthought heels. I love how the socks are identical. I had to weigh the yarn and split the ball into 2 separate balls. The socks were on the needles together except for the toes and the heel. I increased the toes to 29 sts per needle; however, this became a problem when I got to the ribbing. I wanted to do 2x2 ribbing, but was short by 2 sts. After asking for help on Plurk, Wendy had the awesome suggestion of increasing 2 sts when I started the ribbing, so I did. I wish I would have thought of that lol. I have almost half of a skein of yarn left over, so I might make some fingerless gloves or something.
Pattern: I used Wendy's Toe-Up Slipstitch Heel pattern to know what number of sts to increase to, but I used The Knitgirllls afterthought-heel tutorial for the heels.
Yarn: String Theory Continuum in Coronal Mass Ejection
Needles: (2) US2 circs
Rav Project Page

A few months ago, I inquired about a destash for trade only on Rav. The seller agreed to put me as first dibs if she ever decided to sell rather than trade, and she made that decision last week. So now I have my second skein of String Theory Continuum, this time in Dark Matter. I like it.

My husband and I are trying to make a concerted effort to pay off our credit card debt this year, so I am on a fairly strict yarn budget from now on. Dreaming about having a house where I can just let the dogs out of the back door to pee without having to go with them is helping me stay motivated. In the meantime, I'm going to need minis for the blanket, so I imagine that's going to take up a fair chunk of the budget. Luckily, minis are fairly cheap and I can get 2-3 squares from each one.

The blanket is growing, albeit slowly. I'm slightly behind schedule now; since today is the 15th I should have finished 30 squares this month. I've done 25. So I'm not too far behind yet.

It would appear that I cannot take a photo in this apartment without either a dog or a dog toy getting into the pic. Before very long, I'm going to have to clear out the entire living room just to photograph the blanket.
# of squares done: 80 (640 to go)
% complete: 11%

Even-numbered years are always better

I am so glad that 2011 is over. I have a thing for even numbers, so I think 2012 will be better just because it's an even year. 2011 had a few bright spots, but overall I think it sucked and I'm ready for a new year.  Here's a few reasons why 2012 will be better:

• For starters, I was married on Feb 29, 2008, so I finally get to have my "first" anniversary.
• Secondly, I am so excited for the Red/TFK/Nine Lashes concert in Tulsa on March 11 that I can hardly stand it.
• My 10 yr HS reunion is this year. I'm not so sure that's a good thing, but hey. I'm gainfully employed, practice regular hygiene, don't have to worry about multiple baby daddies, and I'm sober. I've also never been arrested. That's more than several from my class of 24 people can say.
• It's an Olympic Year. Helllllooooo, Ravelympics and Team Sprout (the 2012 ravelympics group hasn't been made yet, so I linked the 2010 group)

I didn't quite meet my 2011 FO goal (22 in 2011). I came fairly close with 18 FOs though.  My 2012 goal is 24 FOs and to finish the sock yarn blanket. I'll also need to figure out something for a Ravelympics goal (beyond heading a team and keeping my sanity lol). I didn't meet my 2011 reading goal of 88 books either, although I came dangerously close to getting halfway there (I finished 42). If it weren't for the 3 months that I didn't knit or read anything, I would have certainly surpassed the knitting goal and could have met the reading goal. I think my reading goal for 2012 will be 60. I know I can do 48, so I'll make my goal 60 for a challenge and hope I make it. I made badges:

I started some fantastic stripey socks this week. I've always heard that vanilla socks made out of self-striping yarn are addictive, and it's true. I decided to challenge myself just a little bit and do my first afterthought heels as well as doing 2 at a time on 2 circs. So far, so good. The socks are approximately 2 stitches off from each other, color-wise.

I used Wendyknits' toe-up slipstitch heel pattern just to know how much to increase to (58 sts), but I'm using the Knitgirllls' afterthought heel tutorial. I'm using (2) ~24" US2 circulars. The yarn is String Theory Continuum in Coronal Mass Ejection. Here's the link to my ravelry project page.

And finally, blanket Sunday. All of the ends that can be are woven in. So far, I am slightly ahead of schedule. I started it on Dec 5, so I needed to make 52 squares in Dec in order to finish within a year. I've finished 55 squares as of 11pm CST last night.

I couldn't get Jake and Sadie to stay out of the picture, so I resorted to making funny squawking sounds so that they'd at least look cute for me.

# of squares done: 55
% complete: 7.6%