Things I Love

I had originally planned to post this on Valentine's Day and then I had planned to post it last night but life kind of got in the way. Instead of moping about how it sucks to be single on Valentine's Day and how Hallmark can bite my butt, I thought I'd share some things I'm in love with right now. Oh, and I really don't hate being single on Valentine's Day (it's an excuse to eat lots of chocolate and watch crappy movies) and I most certainly don't want anyone to bite my butt. Just sayin'.

1. Grad school
Sure it takes hours of time to read all the material and do the postings each week and yes, occasionally the text is super dry and not very exciting but I love it! I love learning about how people think. I love learning how to help people stop thinking incorrectly. I can't wait to be out there helping people for real.

2. My charity
I love seeing the donations as they roll in. I love reading the thank you notes about the children we are helping. I love getting mittens like these (from Marcy):

I love knowing I'm doing some good in the world. It makes me want to go knit something really warm.

3. My company
I love that I get to play with color. I love knitting up swatches and seeing how the colors play together. I love seeing customers happy with their purchases.

4. The weather
It's been about 64 degrees F (18 Celsius) all week. I'm sitting on my porch enjoying the late afternoon sunshine right now. After record setting snowfalls this winter I'm glad to have a little spring.

5. Bing energy drinks
They fuel me.

6. Knitting
Duh. This is a given but I felt bad leaving it off the list.

I hope that you had a lovely Valentine's Day and that you're experiencing a little bit of spring wherever you are too.

What a Way to Start/End My Week

Today was my first day back to work after being gone for a week for grad school. I was in Jacksonville, Florida as part of my residency program. I'll have two more over the next year and half. It was an amazing time! I made some awesome new friends, learned so much about counseling and psychology, and just enjoyed the time away from the regular job. Unfortunately it was back to reality for me today. And it wasn't such a pleasant reality either. My students had been horrible while I was gone, I wasn't really sure if the sub had followed the lesson plans, and I found out the administration was dissolving one of our classes and, because of that change, I would be getting another student. Which means I'm back at 21 students. Oh, and I spent almost 2 hours with 30 kids in my class today due to some of the teachers having to test. On the way home I sat in traffic for over an hour and half (my commute is usually 30 minutes). It was like Monday and Friday rolled into one.

Which is why tonight I will be making more little baby booties.

Easy. Quick. Cute.

Maybe I'll get around to these mittens too.

But, you know, only if it won't stress me out too much.

That's a Big Surprise...

I had to go back and look to see when the last time I blogged was. I didn't realize it's been over a week! I took this yarn from last post:

And turned it into a pair of mittens.

The color is a little off but you can see the cable a bit better. These are the No Swatch, No Gauge Mittens by Jean Gifford that I have fallen in love with. I knit these with a strand of Cascade 220 in a light pink and some DK weight pastel multi-colored held together on US size 6s. It made for some super thick mittens but it was a little difficult to knit on such small needles.

As soon as I finished these mittens I started a new project.

Which is more mittens. I know that surprised all of you.

It's Here!

The weekend is here! Finally! I feel like it's taken forever to get here. On Thursday I thought for a brief moment that it was Friday. But, of course, it wasn't. Now it's here though! And I can relax. Or at least my version of relax. Which involves dyeing yarn and making discussion postings for school. Oh and doing laundry. But you know, it's not the 9-5.

I finished one of the fingerless game knitting mitts.

I even started the second one!

Since these are only about 6 inches long they are quick knitting. But the short rows make it fun. I can't wait to see how blocking loosens these up and relaxes some of the stitches. They are a little tight on my hands but I think that once they are blocked they'll fit nicely.

On a side note: I think I might be terrible at guesstimating mitten/fingerless gloves sizes (like, will these fit a kid or an adult?). I think because my hands are on the small size. I guess I should actually check a chart or something.

Now that I have an almost finished pair of fingerless gloves I'm about to turn these:

into, you guessed it, some mittens! (Mitten Madness total: 4.5 finished, this will be my 6th pair (once finished))

I love the weekends :)

Must. Make. Mittens.

I have been taken by a strange desire to knit mittens and mittens only lately. I'm sure this has nothing to do with Mitten Madness. Or the fact that I can churn out a pair of basic mittens in two evenings. I finished the cabled fingerless mittens two weeks ago while watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for class.

I thought these were going to be too small but they actually fit me quite well.

And they're warm because they're 100% wool. The pattern is the Mock Cable Wristers from 60 Quick Knits.

Saturday I started a pair of plain mittens using the No Swatch, No Gauge Mittens for Kids pattern by Jean Gifford. I finished them up on Sunday, soaked them Sunday night, and they have been drying since earlier this morning.

This is really a pattern I can get on board with. You use whatever yarn you have and whatever needles you need to make a dense fabric. The resulting mittens are great for charity since they are guaranteed to fit someone. The yarn is some Classic Wool in the colorway Bird of Paradise. I will probably use this pattern as a template for designing some patterned mittens or for game knitting.

Since I finished the classic mittens I had to start a new pair of course.

This is some of the left over yarn from the No Swatch mittens. I'm making some more fingerless gloves. This is using a game knitting technique.

When a predetermined action happens in the show you are watching you wrap the next stitch and turn. The whole mitt ends up being made from short rows. I must say that I'm really loving the game knitting ebook that I bought. I would highly recommend it. It's given me lots of ideas for knitting projects and since I watch t.v. while I knit it's a great way to incorporate the two.

I guess that I have done some other knitting besides mittens. I'm still working on my Red Dragon socks. I'm past the heel turn but I don't have a progress picture to show for it. I also finished the pink sweater.

I think it's adorable. This isn't for anyone, it's actually for sale in my shop. I plan on adding a few more baby things and washcloths over the next few weeks. For now though I have mittens to knit...

I Have Thumbs!

Ok, so I've always had thumbs (both of them, thankfully) but now my mittens do as well! In the span of a week my charity mittens went from this:

To this:

Yay! One set of mittens for Mitten Madness complete! Of course that means I had to start another pair. I decided to do some game knitting fingerless mittens/ninja gloves. I started with this:

And ended with these:
"Front"

 "Back"

 Me modeling one.

Game knitting is a lot like a drinking game. You watch a show or movie and whenever a much expected action or line is performed you change the way you're knitting. The game knitting booklet that I purchased has a bunch of base designs like these mitts and a few hats and scarves and such to choose from. The real fun is the various ways you can mix up your knitting. I chose to change the ribbing pattern on these as I watched Family Guy every night. It was pretty fun and definitely quick knitting. Next I want to try a short row hat. In addition to making a lot of knits for charity I've also been working on my Wyvern socks which I decided long ago to name the Red Dragon Socks.

Started with these:

And now have these:

Which look almost exactly the same. I never said I was quickly knitting on these. Just a few more inches and I'll be ready for the short row heel. I know I've done a short row heel but I don't do it very often so I can never remember the particulars of how to do them. At least I still have a little time to look up the directions!

Tonight I'm dyeing some yarn for the store. The online store will probably go down for a few days but while I get the new yarn photographed and listed but it will be back shortly. I had a major problem last night with my skein winder, 3 cones of sock yarn, and a my digital scale so that's set the release of my sock yarns back a little bit but they will be coming! In the meantime please follow the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project on Twitter and learn about all the cool things we have coming up :)

Holidays

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and will continue the good times into the new year. I had a wonderful Christmas filled with family, food, fun, and a lot of laughter. All my secret Christmas knitting got finished in time. I'll share those projects with you tomorrow. There is one that is especially epic in nature that ended up being finished just in the nick of time.

I got a lot of wonderful gifts this year: a trashcan, some new slippers, a beautiful sweater, new shoes, several cozy blankets (including one that was made by my very talented sister-in-law), some home decorating items, a good book, and...

a photo box! This will really help in photographing finished objects and items for my store. I plan to begin taking pictures of the yarn that I have in stock tomorrow so that I can begin updates before the end of the week. I tested it on some socks that I (finally) finished.

The Ron Weasley Banana Holder socks (a.k.a. the Skew socks). I had to rip back to the heel on the right sock twice before I figured out where I was going wrong (the beginning of the round started on the back side instead of the front). Thankfully it no longer has the weird, sharp turn like they used to. I also took a picture of the mittens in progress.

The color is finally right in this picture! Almost ready to start the thumb gussets. These should be clipping along now even though I'm already wanting to start another pair of socks since I finished the Skew socks.

Redneck Christmas

I'm about to admit something to you all, I did a terrible job with my outdoor illuminations.

When I first hung them up it was really cold out so I just kind of threw them up. Plus, I was lazy and didn't want to pull out a whole other pack of lights. So yeah, it looks like I should be out there with a PBR in hand spying on my neighbors.

I was successful in making mac and cheese for our family get together on Sunday.

Just like grandma used to make (until she commissioned me to make it instead). Our family get together was lots of fun. And my dad got a little exercise in.

It's very important to make exercising part of your Christmas wellness routine.

I have finished objects that I can't show you yet because they still need to be given as gifts but I started those crazy coral colored mittens.

Still can't get the color right in these pictures but they are bright! Looking forward to working on these after the holidays.

Naughty List

I'm trying to not to get myself on the naughty list but...

I know I should be knitting on Christmas stuff but I have an overwhelming desire to make a bunch of little mittens out of this:

I realize it's Red Heart.
I realize it's acrylic.
I realize it's bright (brighter in real life if you can believe it).

I don't care.

For now, though, I'm staying on the nice list...

Breather

I thought I might take a little break from knitting for awhile. Nothing more than just a few days. See, I've been working really hard lately. Doing what? Getting all this ready to ship:

Those are all items for the Project Hope Christmas drive. Some of the items I've had lying around for awhile waiting for an opportunity to come up to be shipped off. Lots of the items though, were knit with this campaign in mind. You'll notice I even managed to finish this guy off in time:

There are still some tweeks I could have made to the collar but after making this sweater I feel like I have a better grasp of raglan construction. Especially from the bottom up. I don't know that I will be trying my hand at design again any time too soon though. Well, especially not on something so complex as fair isle. But I was able to make the sweater wearable and it will go to a little boy who was going to miss out on getting anything because his designated knitter got carpal tunnel :( I guess there was a reason I made this too small after all.

So, like I said, I was going to take a little break from knitting. Work on the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages website and get ready for some up coming campaigns. Maybe organize all the donated yarn I've been getting.

I was going to do all that...

But my hands just needed something to do.

Settling In

The move last Saturday went really well (according to all the people who had moved substantial households) and now I'm in the sloooooow process of unpacking boxes and finding homes for my stuff. Some days I get really motivated and will tackle whole sections of a room. Other days I just feel plain lazy and maybe get one box done before I have to take a nap. The best part of the new apartment is that it has 2 bedrooms. The second bedroom is the office/music room/yarn storage area. I'm super excited to have a designated space for my yarn. Somehow those boxes managed to get unpacked fairly quickly.

The brown box is some gifted acrylic yarn from my aunt. In the clear totes are acrylics, miscellaneous odds and ends and started (and forgotten) projects. The major part of the stash is on the shelves. To the far left (not pictured) are actually 3 totes that I use for yarn and fiber that goes in the store. My swift and ball winder are set up against another wall and the skeiner is currently residing on my desk. I'm hoping to get a large folding table to take to shows. I can set it up in the office as well and use it for the swift, ball winder, and skeiner.

The office is also home to my music collection, desk, computer, and other craft related items. The closet is all for storage of lesser used items like the pilates ball and luggage. The only downside to this room is that it has no overhead lighting. I'm thinking of putting in a ceiling fan though to remedy this.

Once the yarn is unpacked the only logical thing, of course, is to get it out and use it. I finished the hat and mitten set from the Wool-Aid KAL.

I went down from a size 9 needle on the hat to size 6 needles for the gloves because I saw they were turning out much too large (had to rip back the first one I started). I also striped the thumbs of the mittens as I'm anal retentive about things like that. Please note that I'm still working on the fine art of pom pom making and, while results are getting better, this one is still a little on the sad side (I'm thinking I need to invest in a pom pom maker). None the less the pom pom kind of makes this hat so it's staying.

My hat count for this summer is now at 3 (which sounds rather pitiful considering it's been 2 months since I starting working on hats). I need 2 more for the EEROP/Project Hope drive plus a pair of socks (kid sized thankfully) and a little boy's sweater. Oh and some kid's mittens as well. All by mid-September. Where did my mad knitting mojo go? At least I was able to start on hat number 4 last night (and got fairly far).

It's three skeins of Berroco Cuzco. I'm using Grumperina's jog-less stripes technique to knit this. The only thing I wish I'd done was to cast on all in one color (instead of equal portions of all three). This will be a plain hat so I don't anticipate this taking me too long to finish. Let's just hope I don't eat those words later.

Finishing Up

There are lots of things that seem to be coming to a close around here. Most notably is my time in this (old) apartment. I move on Saturday which means this week is for running around throwing still unpacked items into boxes in the most organized manner possible before the moving truck pulls up. I can barely walk through any room now as they all have at least one open box waiting to be filled. I'm also slightly concerned about the amount of boxes in the living room vs. the weight load of the living room floor. We may be nearing capacity and I fear many of my worldly possessions may end up in my downstairs neighbor's apartment if I add anything else to the stack.

Also coming to an end is the Summer Mystery KAL via Wool-Aid. I finished the hat portion

and started the first mitten.

The next to last clue came out today and the last clue will come out this Friday. I love mystery KALs and have been trying to stretch my (sadly defunct) design legs by thinking up a mystery KAL for EEROP members. I must say that I love how the hat in this KAL came out. I didn't take gauge and I'm not entirely sure I used the right sized needles but I actually really like the slightly slouchy look that I managed to get. I plan on making this set of hat and mittens again with the reverse color scheme. This is a great quick knit!

The final thing that I'm finishing up (at least for the next few weeks) is dyeing. I packed up the last of

my dye stuffs today and they won't be out for at least the next week. But I did post three new lace weight yarns that I had previously dyed up in the store today.

Lemondrop

Midnight

and Frosted Raspberries.

Since today has been about packing and working and generally getting lots accomplished I'm going to spend the rest of the evening relaxing with some knitting. I think I'm entitled :)

Happy Good Friday everyone! And happy Spring Break to all the GA teachers and students :) Today is my 1st full day off of Spring Break 2010 and I couldn't be happier. I'm trying to get some cleaning and laundry done so that I don't have to worry about it for the next week. I've got a lot of stuff to catch up on but I already feel productive this morning. I've finished getting everything together for my taxes, paid lots of bills, done 2 loads of laundry, and updated a few things on the EEROP forum on Ravelry. Speaking of...I've added a little EEROP button to my blog. If you are a member of the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project group on Ravelry please feel free to use this button on your blog as well (just right click on the image and save it to your computer). If you aren't a member of the group but want to support charity knitting for orphans click on the button and join our group on Ravelry. And speaking of charity knitting...I finished up some big mittens for H to H International.
These go with a matching hat and slippers and make up the second set of charity items for H 2 H that I've made this year.
The goal was one set a month. This was supposed to be February's set but, obviously, I'm a little behind. I expect I can catch up during the summer months. I'm still trying to contribute 1-2 items a month to other charity organizations as well. Like this sunny little vest.
This is a vest that will go to the Adoption Center of Washington. Again, a little late on this vest as the ACW was the chosen organization to knit for during Feb. and March. I currently have a lot of ideas and thoughts concerning charity knitting floating around in my head but I'll save that for another post after I can organize my thoughts.

Ok, so now something totally different.

I finished a really good book the other night and I thought that I would share it. When I was a kid my passion was reading and I still love to do it though I find I have less time and there are less books out there that I want to read. When I was growing up I loved collections like the Baby-Sitters Club because there was always a new book coming out, and yet, many of them could stand alone (meaning you didn't *have* to read the book before it to understand what was going on). There aren't really any book series out there like that for adults. Which is a shame. Anyways, I often find myself picking up young adult lit because it's an easy read but, if you find the right book, well written. The book I finished was an example of such.
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale was delightful. It had the strong female lead, a touch of young, innocent romance, trials to overcome, and a few plot twists at just the right time. By chapter 18 I ended up staying up late at night reading the last 8 chapters to see how it would end. Highly recommend.

Off to finish laundry!