balls

My roommates in college were incredibly attached to a particular video game. They played it obsessively and often a good time on Saturday night meant having a few drinks and playing Dr. Robotnic's, or as my friends liked to call it: balls.

Today I finished my torts my final. It is an absolutely wonderful feeling, even though I have no idea what sort of grade I'll get. But to celebrate I made balls.


A different sort of balls than my friends, but way more to my liking since I was never any good at video games, except for Mario 3. But aren't the balls pretty? On the left is Ultra Alpaca and on the right is Knitpicks Shimmer in Happy Dance. It took me three episodes of Grey's Anatomy to do them both. Most of the time though was devoted to the Shimmer, since hand winding 440 yards of lace weight yarn apparently takes a while.

A Christmas Story

You know what? I had absolutely no intention of knitting Christmas gifts for anyone this year. Everyone was going to get UConn law gear and that was that.

But then I remembered that sweater I had started for my sister and still hadn't finished. I felt bad, not bad enough to try and figure out the sweater, but bad none the less. So I made her a scraf out of some purple mystery yarn I had. I made the scarf and I thought I had used up all the yarn, but then I discovered more of the mystery yarn. So now I feel compelled to make a set of matching hand warmers.

Then I was ordering some new needles off of knitpicks, and they were having a sale. I just couldn't resist a couple of hanks of lace weight yarn. "I'll makes scarves," I thought "One for me and one for Mom." Perfect.

But then I went home for Thanksgiving. I wanted to make sure that my mom would want a scarf. In my mind the conversation we would have went something like this...

Me: I should make you something. I haven't knit you anything in a while.
Mom: Oh that would be lovely.
Me: Anything, in particular you'd like?
Mom: Oh no, I'd love anything you make me.

The actual conversation was remarkably similar, which is odd since my imaginary conversation generally bare no resemblance to realisty. However, there was a key difference. Mom said she wanted a hat. A hat. Ok I love knitting hats, I can handle that I said. It was then decided that we need to head to the LYS to get yarn for said hat, and as a bonus they were having a sale over Thanksgiving weekend. All the more reason to go.

But my brother was home for the holiday and rather than sit at home and try to will all those leftovers to go away he decided to come along too. And while we were there wondering around I was seized by an explicable urge to ask him if he wanted me to make him something. It was probably being surronded by all that yarn, it does funny things to the head. Rob decided that he would also like a hat so he picked out yarn too.

So here I am in the midst of finals and somehow I decided that making everyone gifts was a good idea. You know how much I have done?

About this much:


I have half a hat, a torts outline, and half a contracts outline.

Everything will be fine. I will not panic...

a sentance of sorts

Look at this! Who wouldn't want to go to school here?!

But the beauty of campus aside, its been pretty busy. Silly law school professors want to make me learn things and this has cut into my knitting time.

Luckily, I am a master procrastinator. For the past couple days my method of choice has been watching "Chuck" online and working on a new pair of fuzzy feet. My old pair have a giant hole in the toe. They've been well loved and I still do love them. However, since I now have to pay my own heating bill holey slipper socks simply aren't going to cut it. I've just started the toe decreases on the first one. Hopefully I'll be done soon because my place is pretty chilly.

shippin out to boston

Yay my beloved Sox won the World Series!

In celebration I'm considering knitting a pair of red socks.

musings

For months now I've had an intense desire for a brown cardigan. Why? Well, maybe because my little black cardigan gets so much use, and I just want it to have a buddy. Perhaps a brown cardigan seems like it should be wardrobe basic, and my wardrobe is just incomplete until I have one. Or it could just be because I got a pair of super cute brown flats a couple months ago and I just want to expand the options of what I can wear with them.

Regardless of the exact reason, I've decided that my next big project should be said cardigan. After months of looking at patterns and dreaming up the features of the perfect cardigan (seriously I put a lot of thought into this) I've deiced upon Chicknits' Ariann. I've even picked out my yarn, Knitpicks Andean Silk in Chocolate.

But I'm not going to start it quite yet. I bought all this yarn in October and I've decided that I simply must do something with some of it before I can start a new project. The red yarn is Malabrigo in Vermilion to make Foliage and the gray Lamb's Pride is to make a new pair of Fuzzy Feet. Sadly, my old pair had a giant hole in the toe. I over felted them so they wore a bit quicker than they should have. The pale yarn is Malabrigo lace weight in Bluesurf. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with that so I won't worry about it quite yet. But I want to make at least one of the above projects before I continue my brown cardigan quest.

However, before I even get to that I need to finish this hat for a charity auction in a couple weeks,

all for swinging you around

There she is! All done and just hanging out drying is my tilted duster. I tired her on before blocking and she was quite cute and cozy. However, the duster was not without some battles. The sleeves are set in which I've never had to deal with before, and my sleeves seemed a little big for the armholes. But with some basting action and then several attempts of careful seaming I was able to get everything to fit. I think I redid the first sleeve three or four times before I was happy with it, and it was definitely one of those experiences that I feel would have been much better if I had a little rum in diet coke. So the seaming isn't perfect, but I don't think anyone will notice but me and it doesn't bother me enough to rip it all out again and do it over.

But for some seam-free fun I started Knit and Tonic's Le Slouch so that I could answer the eternal question: do Irish girls look good in berets?

And the answer?

Well, maybe. I'm not completely sure I like it yet. Its not that I don't like it, I think its pretty cute. However, I also think its just a touch too big so I'm considering frogging it and making it again with smaller needles. But then maybe Irish girls and berets just don't mix after all.

suffer for fashion

I'm done! I have loads of civ pro homework to do for tomorrow, but the important thing is that I'm done! I just finished the Tilted Duster from the Fall IK. Unfortunately, none of the batteries for my camera feel like working right now. So pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.

So what's next? Well, I'm also working on Le Slouch in a pretty purple, and that should be finished soon if they stitches ever stop slipping off my dpns. Luckily, I've started the decreases and this shouldn't be a problem for too much longer.

I've also done some major supporting of my new LYS. I have projects in my mind for all the new yarn so I don't feel too guilty about splurging a bit.

Pictures coming soon, I promise.