whoops

ummm, ever, uhh, forget that you have a blog?

shyeah.

so, slow moment in between projects at work so I thought I'd update.

the main problem is that I've been finding precious little time to knit these days. I manage to keep acquiring yarn (durr), but not actually knitting it up.

still doing arowherearowthere on Barney the purple cardigan. but I did finish the back (hooray) and am currently on one of the front panels. I might start bringing it to work on at lunch.

recent yarn purchases:

mountain colors twizzle for either Zib's Ella or a fallish Clapotis. It's the same colorway as the branching out I made for my aunt.

I have two sets of yarn for either two tubeys or a tubey and a something else. one is knitpicks andean silk and the other is karabella aurora 8.

but, when it comes down to it i'm unbelievably swamped right now and knitting is not a very high priority. I need to finish researching and write a paper by the end of the semester or things will not be going well in Granolaville. and my second job is driving me nuts and eating my time.

when it comes down to it, (this sounds horrible) I wouldn't mind if the temp job fired me right now, a month off would be a godsend. but then I couldn't afford to move.

oh, and for those who were following along, that house I wanted to rent is being rented to someone else. gnar.

so, knowing my current rent is $X for a one bedroom, and I have a cat which limits my choices, and I'm a grad student,

would you go for

a) x-$100/mo for one room in a 2 br apt with a roomie and all the amenities (cable included in rent) with the situation being that the complex is VERY undergradute oriented, but new, and each roommate has a seperate rental agreement with the management. (no haggling people to cough up their share of the rent)--downsides: undergraduate, roomie, probably partyoriented.

b) x+$75 for a one bedroom in a nice building in a small town not far from Granolaville that is way less studenty, has most of the amenities (no w/d in unit)--downsides: expense! and 20 minute commute + traffic delays in town.

c) x+$105 for a two bedroom in the same building as b). possibility of roomie to share rent. downsides: having to find roomie possibly myself. plus having the roomie in the first place.

long long time ago

... it seems since I knitted these things. just a couple of pics.

a hat for my sister for christmas, this is Rorshach (what do YOU see in this hat??)



and a sideways knit scarf out of Manos for yeself. yes that's the 'Nola modelling it (badly) in the second picture.





sorry if quality was bad.


had a pretty crappy week. We found out Thursday that my mom's first cousin was killed in a car accident in mid-December. She lived in England, and I met her at the end of my year abroad in the UK in 2001. She owned a former forge, a seventeenth century building that she had turned into a B&B.



anyone know how to write a condolence letter?

Dear Sue,

haiku night at the old homeplace

oh, my branching out
your yarnovers stretch in loops
.....must.... give.... you..... to...... aunt.....

second branching out:
tweedy purple goodness but
acrylic blend? Shh!

sister's blobby hat
funny when pooling happens
o rorshach knitwear.

blasted cardigan!
knit up faster or else the
addi will get it.

*fondles heaping stash*
one day I'll organize you
meanwhile, repel m*ths.

royal blue cotton!
what the fark are you going to
grow up to be? Hmph!

Eight skeins merino
not enough for a sweater
too much for a scarf.

oh sure, a ribby
pattern won't get boring, nooooo.
what was I thinking?

stockinette's faster
but purling with circs sucks &^$$
no leverage, see?

Moo Shu, I love you.
why did you attack that hank
of yarn. Bad color?

a distinct pattern:
lately I seem to be knit-
ting in purple. hmm.

howdy, ufo's
y'all knit yourselves kindly or
leap into frog pond.

cats are aloof! Right,
have you met Moo Shu, he's the
cat glued to my lap.

fugly brick red yarn.
you were really expensive
what's up with the fug?

do the flu boogie!
party down with your virus
cough notwithstanding.

goodnight dear readers
all one and a half of you.
*crickets chirp-chirp-chirp*

christmas is coming, the goose is getting hot

please to put a penny in the old man's hat.

sigh. well, all the xmas knitting that is going to be finished will be soon finished, I'm making fingerless gloves for my dad out of manos. it's a cool pattern, lengthways garter st and seamed. so it goes quite fast, I'm up to making the thumbhole on glove 2.

Barney is languishing in a bag somewhere. I did make a step-by-step manual on How to Knit a Christmas Igan... (half a cardigan) to present to mom with the partial Barney.

sisty gets her hat, it was done a couple weeks ago. looks nice, but some strange pooling of the mountain colors yarn has resulted in the hat being named Rorshach.

The manos gloves for dad, are in a dark evergreen variegated. I had thought to call them Tannenbaum, but knitted up, the variegated looks like knitted camouflage. so they are Dwayne and Wayne, the Redneck brothers. Dad will love em. I hope.

I haven't named my branching out yet. Hmmmmm.

in which barney attacks and branching out is in bondage.

I've got BO.


Finished it this weekend!! it was a fun knit to do, very easy to remember the pattern after the first ten or so repeats. the fifth repeat I think I tinked four times. gaah. but it was worth it, I didn't let any errors stay in there, and I'm very proud of the result. my only previous lace attempts being an (as yet unfinished) sock and the Top Secret Scarf. Having learned yarnovers from SnB, this was harder than it sounds.

This is a Christmas present for my aunt.

It was done in mountain colors "twizzle" in wilderness, which is predominantly green with pink, purple, and gold highlights. I was a bit worried at first that the variegated yarn would overwhelm the stitch pattern, but it looks good!

here it is, all stretched out on the rack (ironing board) and ready to spill its guts:



in Other Dilemmas, the saga of the Christmas Cardigan from the Nether Regions of Hell continues. I've bought the yarn for it three times. Count 'em. First I got Blue Sky Alpaca cotton yarn. But I didn't like the color, and then found that the yarn shed like crazy. So I ordered Brown Sheep cotton fleece from a small lys over the net. Bad Idea. they didn't have enough in stock and it's literally taken over a month for them to GET the yarn to send to me. In the meantime, I ordered a third batch of yarn from Webs which came like, instantly. Poof. I heart Webs. But........

this yarn is PURPLE. really purple.

really really purple.


Really. Really. Purple.

but I swatched it in the drop stitch pattern for the classic elite sweater:



now I'm all emo that it won't suit mom, that she'll hate the color, or it will make her look sallow, but I'm knitting like an (emo) madwoman anyway because the Sweater Will Be Finished By Christmas Or There Will Be Hell To Pay.

I Don't Know Wherefore I Capitalize Everything.

so despite all my virtuous daughterknittingawayaltruisticallyforherdearmotherness, the sweater is Barney. of course it is. some things just name themselves.

Barney Happens.

decisions decisions

well, having agonized for months, practically about finding a substitute cotton yarn for Samus from the fall knitty, I finally settled on... a completely different pattern. sue me. it's called the 'miracle drop stitch cardigan' from classic elite yarns fall collection, and I'm knitting it in brown sheep cotton fleece, in prosperous plum (actually more of a purple than a plum). I swatched tonight, it's currently drying on moo shu's kitty fort, i.e. the box the yarn came in. the color... isn't quite what I had in mind, so I teastained the swatch and will see what that does for it. if it works I'll just teastain the whole finished sweater in one swell foop.

(somebody reassure me that mom won't look like barney the purple dinosaur in it?)

anyway, the drop stitch pattern is much more fun than boring stockinette. it's like a 2x2 rib with occasional unravelling. as a born frogger, I figured it was my kind of pattern.

^^^not my handiwork, mind you.

this is it in a rust, but it's much much prettier in person. I fell in love with a knitted sample in my lys. the yarn it was meant for is nummy too, a microfiber/alpaca blend, but alpaca is too warm for my mom. but the cotton fleece seems to have swatched up nicely, and any blooming can be dealt with by the ribby nature of the pattern.

squeee!

in other news, I finished the branching out for my aunt christine, hope she likes it! haven't blocked it yet but will get pictures up soon. it's in mountain colors swizzle which is a really soft silk and merino blend.

soo, the only things left on the christmas todo list are a hat for my sister, a hat and fingerless mittens for my dad (those won't take long at all) and the cardi for mommo which hopefully will go quickly. one of the reasons I decided against samus was the time consuming cabling. I'm not a fast cable knitter at all.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

and I got a second package from my sp! can't believe I almost forgot about it, it was wonderful to come home to, didn't know what to open first, the box of yarn or the sp envelope.

I got a knitting kit: a notebook for projects, a case for all my knitting doodads (full of candy no less), a little flippy flashcard thingimadoohickey... it was wonderful. this to top off the hank of manos and the card stuffed with tea I got last week.

my mailbox runneth over!

love me sp!!

some crappy FOs...

nothing too special.



dropstitch "rabbi scarf" (the drop stitch stripes make it look like a tallit) this needs fringe, but then it'll be done, it's for my sister for xmas.



kureyon scarf and hat set, aka the Top Secret Knitting Project, now revealed in all its wooly goodness. this was a giftie for a dear friend, who is funky enough to pull off a rainbowy scarf.



big ball o yarn that the lovely morgsarah gave to me...



and a landscape.