Bad blogger!

As I stated on my running blog, I suck at blogging. I've given up on keeping track of everything I've knitted, which isn't much lately, btw. I have a full-time job, I'm marathon training, and I started an ASL interpreter program in August. My time is incredibly limited right now, but I love being busy. I start to go a little bit crazy if I'm not busy.

I made a second Cerus scarf. It's finished, but I don't have a finished pic posted on Rav (or on my phone). If I wait until I get home to post this just so I can take a pic of the finished one, I'll never finish this blog post lol.

Over the summer, I participated in a Christmas in July gift swap. I had big plans to buy a gift for my swap mate, but then I saw the pattern for the Bigger on the Inside. Of course, I didn't see it until mid-July, less than 2 weeks before the deadline. Being either an eternal optimist or flat-out delusional, I decided to use that for the gift. I ended up delivering it a month late. I think the recipient liked it though, because she's a huge Dr. Who fan. I modified the project a little bit and made it a scarf with some daleks in it.

Bigger on the Inside

I started a Carlina in June, but then I needed the needles for the Dr Who scarf. It's still sitting on my ottoman, in this exact stage. I'm devoting all of my scant knitting time to the next project, so I imagine poor little Carlina will stay there for a few more months. The yarn used is Malabrigo sock. Fabulous yarn, despite the ridiculous acrobatics you have to do just to wind a hank of any kind of Malabrigo into a skein.

Now for the big project. I'm knitting the Argonath for my Mom's Christmas present. Because of time constraints, I am way behind on it. The last time I calculated it, I had to knit something like 4.5 rows per day in order to finish on time. I'm counting on Christmas break to have a hope of finishing it before January. The yarn is Madelinetosh tosh sport in the Norway Spruce colorway. I'm about 3/4 finished with the second ball of yarn; I have 8 skeins total. You can see my lifeline about 4" from the top; you can guarantee that I'm always going to have at least one lifeline in this sucker. I don't have time for mistakes. I really need to put another one in soon.

This will probably be the extent of my knitting for the rest of the year. I'd love to finish Carlina, knit a few cardigans since I have to dress nicer for school, maybe make a few hats.... but none of that is going to happen because I am already cutting back on sleep. My marathon is Nov 24, and after that I won't be running much for a few weeks, so that alone will give me some more knitting time. The fall semester ends on Dec 16, so I will have about a week of nothing but knitting time (and netflix and hulu catch-up time). I think I'll take the week of Thanksgiving off from work, and maybe the week of Christmas as well. Priorities, ya'll.

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!

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.

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%

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%

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/

On A Roll **SWAP SHAWL SPOILER POST**

It's only halfway through January  February, and I've already done twice as many shawls as I finished in 2010. I am participating the Knitgirllls Small Shawl Swap on Ravelry, and I finished my shawl last night!

The pattern is the Leaf Shawl from the book Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn A. Clarke. When I started asking my friends if anyone had the book, everyone kept telling me that the book is a "design book." I had no idea what that meant, so I stubbornly decided that I was going to do the pattern anyway. Once I got into the book, I finally understood what they meant. The book has 4 or 5 different lace patterns, and you can put them together in various ways to make different shawls. If I wouldn't have been so hell-bent on doing the Leaf Shawl, this would have been a great opportunity to "design" my own shawl.

The yarn is Tempted Good Grrl. I had the pleasure of helping Stacy dye it on my weekend at Tempted Estates in mid-Jan. Stacy did most of the work by dying it green; all I contributed was the light brown spots scattered throughout the yarn.

DH is my post office mule. I sent it and a secret project with him and they were mailed out this morning. I really hope that my swap partner likes it. The partner list has been posted in the spoiler thread on Ravelry, but I don't know if my partner looked at it. I decided that I would just peek at the list to see who got my name and not look at their project. My grand plan failed, but I am THRILLED with the results! Lala of the Knitigirllls is knitting for me! I've seen the shawl on the podcast and I can't wait for it to come.

Happy Valentine's day! DH is buying me yarn and maybe a barnes & noble giftcard on Friday for Vday. I made him a Mexican casserole and looked pretty yesterday for his gift. I'm down to 5 WIPs. I'm trying to knock out the Aragorn socks next since they were intended to be a birthday gift last year. I need to finish the second sock by the end of March, and I'll give her one sock for last year and one sock for this year.