Grad School

I can officially say that grad school is a major time suck. That's all I've done for the last 2 weeks: grad work. Grad work and getting ready for SAFF. And going to SAFF set me back on really accomplishing anything. Not that I didn't enjoy going of course. Thus, I have declared this weekend to be a Do Nothing Weekend of Freedom. The only thing I have scheduled is a massage with my massage therapist on Saturday (at my house so I don't even have to leave) and church on Sunday. The rest of this weekend will be for accomplishing long neglected tasks such as laundry, washing dishes, logistical/business stuff for the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project, watching Interview With the Vampire, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, designing a vest for a mystery KAL that starts Monday, making s'mores, reading blogs, knitting, making placinte, sorting yarn, and organizing my online finances. That all sounds like a terrible lot of stuff but it's all stuff I actually want to do, crazy as that seems. Well, maybe not the laundry or washing dishes so much but I do need some clean clothes and dishes (oh when am I going to find a man to help me with all these menial tasks....). I'm so glad this weekend is finally here. I may not be able to sleep tonight from all the excitement....

Including 2 of the whooping 5 pictures I took at SAFF.

 The full booth, which was TINY! 6ft by 8ft. But Steph and I made it work.

 Me in the booth. Get the full effect if it's tininess?

Where to Start

Ok, so I have a very limited time to do a post. I've got to hit the books tonight and do some work on papers and discussion postings. So, where to start...

Got a huge package in the mail the other day from a member of the EEROP group. It was stuffed to the brim with the following goodies:

9(!) hats,

fingerless mitts,

socks for Socktober Madness,

and 2 great sweaters! I love the little toggles and believe me when I say these will keep a child warm in the winter.

I finished another hat for Teanne and her mission trip in December.

And this was my view yesterday as I was working on grad school stuff:

Love this weather!

SAFF Confessional

So, I have to confess something...until yesterday I wasn't really looking forward to SAFF.

I know, I know...sacrilege! Before you string me up by my toes let me explain.

1. I'm going this year as a vendor. This means I won't have as much time for perusing wares. And everyone knows I love a good fiber festival. But me in a room full of yarn and I'm like an alcoholic in a brewery, I just have to have some.
2. I'm not a salesperson. This sorta hurts the whole vendor thing. It's not like I won't tell you everything you want to know about my yarn but you have to ask first. I'm not about to hard sell you as soon as you come within shouting distance of my booth.
3. I'm not competitive. At least not in the sense that I'm looking to be the next Sanguine Griffin or Holiday Yarns or Miss Babs or any of a dozen other indie dyers. I work an 8-4 job everyday. I'm starting a non-profit. I'm involved in my church. I go to knit nights. I'm a full time grad student. Oh, and one day I'd like to have a social life.
4. I'm a Knitter. With a capital K. Not a Dyer. Dyeing is my hobby. I just happen to dye a lot so I have extra to sell. Not as much as someone who spends hours a week dyeing, week in and week out. But more than a healthy hobby should accumulate. And I'm ok with that. But see #3 above.

So basically I was feeling all uninspired about going to sell my yarn and feeling like everything I dye is sub-par and just being super critical of myself. This, of course, did nothing to help my enthusiasm for heading to a major fiber festival.

And then I booked my room.

And I starting thinking about the North Carolina mountains in the fall.

See more breathtaking photos here.
And I remembered the alpacas.

And the llamas.

I love this picture so much.
And the bunnies.

And the market.

And then I remembered the best part of all...

the fair food.

Suddenly I'm ready to go.

Weekend

I've had a very busy weekend and it's not even Sunday yet! My grandmother moved from Arkansas to Georgia early, early, early this morning (I think they got in around midnight) so I went to her new house yesterday to help my mom put the finishing touches on things. Of course, I was late getting there because I was waiting on a parent to pick up a student until 4:20 at the school (lesson here: do not try and drive anywhere in or around Atlanta at 3:00 on a Friday). I stayed until a little after 11:00 at my grandmother's place sweeping, attempting to put magnetic closers on cabinet doors, putting together a bed, blowing up an air mattress, and cleaning. This morning I woke up earlier than I would have normally for a Saturday and drove to north Georgia. I have a friend who works at a boarding school/farm on the weekends and I went to help and meet some of the kids. I'm thinking about volunteering up there some so I wanted to get a feel for the place. I had the random chance to ride a plow horse backwards while I was up there! Bareback too nonetheless. Which is just as weird as it sounds. After getting home this evening I took a shower and put on my pajamas. All before 6:00 p.m. I sat down for a few minutes and finished sewing the edging on the prairie hat.

I think it turned out more Little House than I had originally thought. I think the original color of grey that they used in the book was what actually made it more sophisticated. Oh well, it's still cute. Just need to add the pompoms.

I'm still cranking away on the wave scarf.

I get a some time in every morning to do a few rows. I'm thinking 6 repeats of the 80+ row pattern should make it long enough.


Tonight I'm going to cast on for another hat so I can help Teanne when she goes on her trip to Romania in December. I'm thinking this one:

This hat is also from 60 Quick Knits. Speaking of charity knitting... I received some cute little socks from knitwitchery for Socktober! Can't wait to see what else starts coming in.

Coming Up Next

The next few months have some big knitting related things happening. First it's time to start thinking about Christmas knitting. Actually, I should have started my Christmas knitting 2 months ago but I prefer the pressure of a deadline. Especially a fast looming, completely set in stone deadline. Who said I don't like to live dangerously?

The next big thing is another Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project drive. This is collection is to help a member of our Ravelry group, Teanne. She is going to Romania in December on a mission trip and will have the opportunity to distribute hats to gypsy children and orphans. Every member of the EEROP Ravelry group is encouraged to knit just 3 hats. So simple and quick but if everyone donates just 3 hats we could collect over 300 for Teanne to distribute! I'm calling it the "Hat Trick" for Romania campaign because in hockey a hat trick is when a player scores 3 goals in a single game. Clever, huh? I'm going to cast on tonight for this hat:

I think it's cute and yet isn't too "Little House on the Prairie." The pattern is from this book:

I picked this up using my birthday gift certificate from Rare Purls. I'm already in love with this book. I started a scarf from the book just the other day.

P.S. This yarn is too cool. It looks like Noro but is softer than Noro. It's Classic Shades by Universal Yarn. My only complaint is that it's a bit splitty but I can deal for those lovely color changes.

The final big thing is that EEROP is also starting a month of sock knitting called Socktober Madness! We're collecting socks in all sizes for distribution with various organizations that EEROP supports. The person who knits the most socks will win some prize goodies :) There are more details about all the campaigns on the EEROP web page. I kind of got a jump on things and started (and finished) a little pair of socks.

Going to get started on that hat now. Have the window open, listening to the end of a thunderstorm and enjoying the cooler (finally) fall weather we are having this evening. Perfect knitting weather!

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.

Knit On

It's finally finished and I'm ready to talk about it now. The sweater that is. That's going to Project Hope for a little Romanian boy. And let me tell you, I'm super proud of this sweater.

When I started it almost exactly a month ago, I knew this was the sweater I should have been making all along. When I first looked at the pattern I had thought, this is the perfect sweater to make for Project Hope. But time got away from me and I thought the pattern would take too long to make. And I wasn't sure I had the right type of yarn for the project. But the pattern didn't take too long to knit up and the yarn I used was just perfect.

This is my sweater for Daniel, created from the Intrepid Pullover pattern with yarn I picked up while I was in Peru last summer. It's super warm and turned out really cute. I couldn't be more pleased. I knit through a lot of difficult stuff with this sweater and I was afraid there would be bad vibes in it but actually I think there are nothing but good vibes. I knit a lot of hope for the future into this sweater and positive thoughts that things would turn out ok. Out with the old and create with the new.

I kept the good vibes rolling by immediately starting (and just a few days later, finishing) some socks for the same little boy.

I did these two at a time using the magic loop method (of which I have become a total convert) and, again, they turned out better than I could have hoped for.

There is still one project that I'm starting tonight that will need to be finished up quickly but I hope that my knitting mojo is back. It's funny that it took some set backs for me to find it again. But then I guess that's what this picture is all about.