The Sock Grows

So, instead of casting on for another quant yesterday, I decided to work on the sock some. Here's the progress that was made:Yeah, it's not a very good picture, but that's what you get at 7 AM when it's cold and I would rather be hibernating. I'll probably work on it some more over at Erica's tonight too, so it may grow a little bit. I'm stalled out on the baby blanket because I need to buy more yarn for it. Note: Knitting a baby blanket with three skeins of Blue Sky Cotton may work, but at least double that amount if you're crocheting.

That's about it for today. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I am rather boring at this time. I'll try to have something better to post tomorrow. Worse-case, I'll post Spooky pictures :oP

Knit on...

Finished Quant (Good Timing)

Well, I finished Quant at lunch yesterday and talk about good timing. We had some rain come through last night and now it's 15 degrees outside with a wind chill of 2. Fun fun. Could be worse though, could be in China! Oh wait, that's where DF is right now! He decided to go visit some of his friends and old students in China while he had a two week break from classes, plus it was pretty cheap to head over there since he was so close. I heard from him this morning and he's not caught in the travel nightmare too much. He's just cold since it was -11C there at the time he was writing. He also emailed me and wanted to know why my blog is on the banned list in China :oP China bans a lot of blogger stuff, but now I know :oP

Anyways, here's Quant:Side A: Ignore the fact that I am currently bundled up like the Michelin Tire man. It's 15 degrees outside and I was about to leave for work. Here's my stupid frontal face shot:Wow, I look scared in that pictures...flame away in the comments :oP
Last side. They almost ended up matching with the colorways.

So, the Quant review:
It's an OK pattern. It's a simple three diamond entrelac pattern, but it keeps you interested long enough to finish it. It's a little bit big on me right now, but I'll be felting it some probably either tonight or tomorrow and we'll see how that makes it look. All in all, it was still fun to knit, but I like my calorimetry better.

Lastly, I leave you with a picture of Spooky, going for the jugular on the toy rabbit. I think she won that fight:And I might add that she then drug the rabbit under the bed. I'm not sure, but Spooky may have also been a bear in a past life :oP

Knit on...

Best Laid Plans Never Come to Fruition

Yep, so I had planned on finishing Quant last night while I sat at the laundromat. Little did I realize how fast those high capacity washers were going to run, so I ended up getting to the last section of Quant before packing it all up and heading home. Trust me, I'd rather not finish my knitting and be done with laundry sooner than to finish it and have to sit in a laundromat longer, so no complaints from me. Here's a terrible picture of the WIP:Tonight I will get better, much more well-lit pictures of the wrap. I'll hopefully be done at lunch time and will be able to hand felt this thing tonight before SnB and I can join the Quant club :oP

I would have finished the thing last night, but I needed to make lunches for the next few days. I've been trying to plan my foods ahead since I am attempting to lose weight. So far, so good. This new med is working pretty well and it seems to be allowing me to shed some weight without absolutely starving myself. So last night, I made brown rice cream cheese sushi. I had to taste a piece and it was good as of last night, so hopefully it'll be good for the next two days!

Knit on...

Back in the Groove

You know, there for about a week, I wasn't feeling the knitting. I just didn't want to knit, crochet, or do anything crafty. Matter of fact, I didn't really want to do anything except drink coffee and eat asparagus, but I forced myself to work on the baby blanket some last week, and that was about all I was able to work on. For some reason, it clicked again this weekend. I realized one of the reasons I wasn't digging the knitting last week was that I hated one of my projects. That fixation sock? Yeah, it's frogged. I have two balls in a springy colorway that are free to a good home. Just email me if you'd be interested. I just really don't like the yarn.

So, instead, I cast on using some yarn that was still new to me. I cast on with the Cascade Sassy Stripes and decided that they are going to be another pair of Jaywalkers. I thought I got out of the Jaywalker groove, but apparently that's not the case.I didn't get very far along on the sock this weekend, but I did finish the inch of ribbing. The main reason I didn't get anymore knitting done on the sock was that I was inspired to start another project. Since my calorimetry is sitting in Korea right now, I decided that I needed a new ear warmer. So, I noticed that there is a newer pattern out now that has formed almost a clique in the SnB: Quant. Yep, you have either made one, or you haven't. I think that Kaye and I are some of the only ones who haven't made one. So, I sold out to the popular crowd :oPSorry that the picture is really dark. For some reason, that seems to be as bright as the camera wants to go with it under the florescent bulbs at work this morning. I'm using Noro Silver Thaw that I got for Christmas. I think I'll probably slightly felt this when it's all said and done since the Silver Thaw is a little bit inconsistent in the spin. I'm using my new Harmony tips to knit this too and I'm glad to have the little extra grab they provide since the angora in the Noro is rather slippery.

All I want to do now is finish the Quant. I'm about 3/4 done with it and intend to be done by tonight. If I get done with it, I might work on the sock, or I might make another Quant if I have tons of yarn left, which I'm thinking that I will.

Knit on...

Catching Up on Pictures

As Erica reminded me in the comments, I left out one of the funnier stories about Wednesday's teaching the kids. The first group that came by was fascinated with the bubbles and one kid looked like he was in awe of it. Well, turns out that wasn't awe on his face, that was nausea and he then proceeded to turn around and hurl more than I thought his little stomach could hold. Poor kid. But anyways, we became known as the booth with the bubbles and the booth where the kid threw up. I quickly got a janitor and the kid sat down for the rest of his trip. I'm just thankful that it didn't start a chain reaction of kids throwing up when they saw that.

Anyways, here's some pictures of the animals I was sitting next to all day:Here is Mr. Loud-arsed Kookaburra who constantly drew the kids' attention away from us. He was a pretty cool bird though and his call was very pretty to hear. I was able to get this one picture until he had enough and started trying to get away.

Then we had a rat kangaroo which is highly endangered apparently. He wanted to hide more than anything.At least he wasn't making any noise. Lastly, there was a spotted python that all the boys wanted to play with:Sorry for the blurry picture. The snake was on the move and rather wanted to be away from the large woman with the flashing camera.

I also have a WW find for anyone who is on it or just wants a very good low-cal snack. They are Kahiki vegetable egg rolls. Only 1 point each. 70 calories, 2g fat, 1g fiber. And they're big full-sized egg rolls. Erica and I found them at Meijer, but I'm not sure where else they might be sold.

Knitting will be up on Monday. I've been lazy and haven't been doing much knitting or crocheting this week. The blanket has grown, but it looks about the same. I'll hopefully work more on it this weekend and will be able to have pictures on Monday.

Knit on...

No, You Can't Touch That

First off, I would like to thank my mom for sending me coffee and a nice stainless steel canister to hold said coffee. Have I mentioned that Mom rocks? Well, she does. Thanks, Mom!

I would show you a picture of said coffee and canister, but sadly, I forgot the little device that allows me to get pictures off my memory card. I blame CO2 fumes from yesterday.

Yesterday was actually pretty fun. I was teaching kids about CO2 and showing them some of the things it could do. I showed them that it can suffocate a flame, and in turn, could suffocate a kid if you got close enough to it. I showed them that it's heavier than air by floating soap bubbles on top of the layer of CO2 gas. I even showed them it was a gas by adding it to a bottle of water and watching it blow up a balloon. The kids seemed to enjoy it, even if we were sitting next to the live animal exhibit with the rat kangaroo and the kookabura (sp?) and they kept glancing over there, knowing they got to pet stuff when they were there. They weren't allowed to touch stuff on our table because it could burn them (dry ice burns).

It also made me realize how much I enjoy teaching kids, especially kids who are around 4-5 grade. They're young enough then that they're still cute, but old enough to really start grasping concepts of things.

Anyways, pictures tomorrow when I remember to bring in the card reader thing.

knit on...

This Just In...

I've got to fill in for a co-worker today, so no lengthy post today. I'll catch up tomorrow. I did crochet more on the blanket though and it has grown. Tonight will be Donegal's turn I think.

Knit on...

Snow!

Yes, we finally are having a little snow this morning that will stick. It's only about an inch so far, but schools have closed and the roads are pretty slushy. I didn't know it was snowing until I walked outside to head to work and saw this:I know it's not very impressive, but it made me smile. I don't know why, but I have been wanting it to snow enough to actually stick. We haven't had a good snow in a while and I have a camera that I want to play around with, so snow shots could be fun.

Knitting-wise, not much was accomplished this weekend. Saturday, I cleaned and had lunch with my grandparents before heading over to Erica's to get her used to playing Magic again. Sunday, we went to the Magic: Morningtide pre-release and ended up going 3-3 for the day. Not too bad considering it was Erica's first tournament. After that, we went to visit her sister who lives in Louisville and ate lots of greasy food before finally getting home at about 1 in the morning. Monday, I cleaned a lot and read Eragon. I'm almost done with the book and I would like to finish it this week.

Knitting should be done tonight at SnB, so there'll be pictures of that tomorrow.

Knit on...

Countdown

T minus 7.5 hours until I get to watch the Dragonlance movie. I'm taking it over to Erica's to watch on her big screen HDTV to maybe make the animation more tolerable. I doubt it though. When one of the co-authors even says that the animation is lacking, it's probably not going to be good. But, I've been reading the books for 12 years now and it's something I just have to watch. Maybe this will be the stepping stone to getting a live action movie made. We'll see.

Knitting-wise, I worked some more on the blanket, but there hasn't been much change that I felt justified another picture of the same thing, so you'll get pictures on Monday. This weekend though, the Magic part of Knitting Magic Girl gets to come out and play.

Yep, Morningtide. New Magic set, pre-release on Saturday and Sunday. Erica wants to go, so we'll go play in the 2HG tournament on Sunday. It's not going to be the same without DF there. We never really got any good cards in the few 2HG tourneys we played in, but it was always fun to play as a unit together. Talking to Erica last night, it sounds like I'll basically be playing two decks and she'll be holding cards, but it'll be Magic and it should be fun. It's been forever it seems since I played (October to be exact).

Anyways, pictures on Monday and more knitting content. Plus the weekend report from Magic. Hopefully I'll have wireless on Monday and will be able to post pictures. No work! Woot!

Knit on...

It Arrives Tomorrow in My Mailbox

Will it be good? Maybe. Will it be bad? Probably. Will I watch it 500 times to make sure? Yup.

Tracy Hickman even commented that he thought the animation rather sucked. It's not good when the author of the book says the animation is bad. He did say that the music is wonderful and that the voice acting is actually pretty good.

I think most Dragonlance fans are just hoping that this is a stepping stone to get the books made into a live-action movie series. If they can do Lord of the Rings, they can certainly do Dragonlance.

More Blanket

So last night, I decided that I wanted to work some more on the blanket to see how far I could get with the three skeins I bought of cotton. That will give me a better idea of how much I need to pick up to finish the thing. Hopefully two more skeins will do it, but I have a feeling that I'll need three more. We'll see. Anyways, here's the progress on the blanket:I'll try to work on it some more at lunch and then I'll have a good idea of how much I'll be needing. I'll probably hit ReBelle tomorrow so that I can have the yarn for the long weekend. I'm rather looking forward to having a day off on Monday. Of course, I think everyone always looks forward to days off from work.

Tonight I'm going out with Erica to a Korean BBQ place in town. DF and I ate there before, so I know it's good and since I was talking about Korean BBQ to her so much, I figured I would just take her there. Plus, I have to admit that I have been craving Korean food since I left. Not so much the kimchee though, but man is that bean paste good.

Knit on...

Sheepy Nightmares

Yeah, so last night the SnB group decided to have a movie night and watch the movie Black Sheep. It's a B horror movie with lots of gore, man-eating sheep, and quite a few twisted moments. I can handle B horror movies OK. Certain horror flicks scare the bejebus out of me (Saw: don't ever watch that alone again), but corny ones I can handle, even if this one was a wee bit gory. Anyways, we knit, we watched, we ate good food. It was a fun night.

Since I really didn't want to work on Donegal last night during the movie because I could just see color work going horribly wrong and I don't want to do any ripping if I can avoid it, I ended up casting on for a baby blanket for my cousin. My great grandmother commissioned the blanket and said she wanted it to be pink and white. Those of you who know me well know that I despise pink. Maybe it's because I can't see it too well because of the colorblindness issue, or maybe I just don't like pink at all, but I could seriously see myself going crazy having to crochet a whole blanket out of pink. So, while at ReBelle yesterday, I picked out my version of pink and white, which everyone assures me is much bolder than a normal pink, but still looks girly:Plus, this way the baby will be able to see the blanket. Babies apparently love highly contrasting colors because their eyes can see them better. So, specs on the blanket:

Blue Sky Cotton in what people assure me is dark pink/rose and a very pale pink (I thought it was white). I think it'll turn out fine. I do think I'll be needing another skein of the darker color though since I'm almost through with the first skein and only have about 8 inches done on this so far. I would like it to be big enough to actually cover the child.

Size L hook I think. I'm too lazy to look at it right now.

Modified half-double crochet stitch to make it smooshier (yes, smooshier should be a word).

Today I'm going to have another lunch SnB with Kim. I brought my Korean pictures, so I'll get to show and tell some today. Also, I upgraded to a flickr pro account, so I'll be posting all 300+ shots on there when I get a chance. I'll post a link when I do.

Knit on...

Half-Way Done (With the Ribbing)

Last night I didn't feel like doing anything, so I grabbed Donegal and worked on it for about two hours while letting Spooky have free run over my bedroom. It's too cold for the bunny now since she's not used to cold weather, so she's a little antsy since she doesn't get to run around outside all day. At least she can run around my room and not find too much to get into trouble with now that I learned to close the toilet bowl cover after she jumped into that once. Anyways, I made some progress on Donegal. I'm half way done with the ribbing on it. I'll be pretty happy when I get done with all the ribbing. I'll go much faster when I just get into the pattern itself and can have all stitches be plain knit. I also tried on the ribbing last night because it looked awfully small to me and I am not going to knit an Alice Starmore sweater and have it not fit. Anyways, it fits and surprised me at the amount of stretch it has. Here's the ribbing so far:I'm really liking the color choices I made too. the teal was the only one I was really worried about since it wasn't in that Heathers category, but even so, it's not obnoxious enough to make me try another color. I rather like the little bright streak that is in there. The yarn for this is all Knit Picks Palette in the heathers line. I saw someone on Ravelry had made the sweater with the regular Palette yarn and I felt it was too bold for my liking. The heathers are much more subdued and blend together rather nicely I think.

Tonight is SnB movie night. We'll be watching the Kiwi horror flick Black Sheep. Gotta love a movie whose concept is all the sheep in New Zealand running around and eating people. Should be fun with a bunch of knitters and munchies! Plus, maybe I'll manage to get close to finishing the ribbing between lunch SnB and after work. I'll probably work on the sock during the movie since I'll be wanting to actually see the sheep attacking people.

Knit on...

Christmas: Just a Little Later

Yesterday, I went over to DF's mom's home and we celebrated Christmas a little late courtesy of me being out of the country and then coming down with a couple of waves of respiratory crap. So, now that I am well and they have time, we decided to get together and open up some presents. They all really liked their presents from DF that were Korean-related and they liked the stuff I made them. I still want to make DF's mom another pair of socks, so the current socks may end up being for her. Speaking of, here's the sock in progress:I'm done with the ribbing now and am starting to work the leg of it. Hopefully it'll start going a little faster now.

So, this year when asked what I wanted for Christmas, I told DF's family to head over to ReBelle and that Robyn or Sarah would be able to tell them what kinds of yarn that I like and they could pick out anything there and I'd be very happy. They did that and I wound up with all kinds of yarny goodness this year. First up, DF's mom gave me Noro Silk Garden:Robyn or Sarah, whichever of you pointed them towards the Noro, bless you :oP Her boyfriend gave me a skein of Noro Silver Thaw which I have never used before, but I found myself petting the skeins absent-mindedly last night because of the angora in it:Then I was given some Online sock yarn from DF's aunt, cousin, and mom:
Last, but not least in the yarn gifts was two skeins of Lorna's Laces in the Purple Club colorway. I knew that they wouldn't be able to go into ReBelle without either Robyn or Sarah telling them about my obsession with Lorna's Laces and how I hoard it :oPTo top off the evening, there was a present from DF sitting at the house, waiting for me. I had an inkling about what this might be, but when I opened it, I was still in awe from the beauty of the present:This picture doesn't do them justice. It's the Harmony Wood Options needle tips from Knit Picks. Now, if you've been reading this blog for very long, you'll know by now that I am an Options pusher. I love these needles. They are the best thing that ever happened to my knitting aside from the day I learned to purl. They are sharp enough that I could seriously hurt myself if I fell on them and they really have sped up my knitting. When I saw that they came out with wooden tips, I knew I wanted those too. I normally don't like wooden needles, but these are sharp, they're pretty rigid, which is what I need since I'm notorious for bending even metal needles. These rock. DF is awesome. Last night was fun. It was like getting to open my own little mini yarn store for a night.

I'm thankful for all the good and loving people around me who know me entirely too well now. My parents fueled my photography bug this year by getting me a new Nikon D40x camera which I love and don't seem to want to put down. DF's family gave me yarn that I still want to keep petting. DF gave me beautiful jewelry, a video game, needles, and a pillow which really hit all my interests and likes. I didn't need to get gifts to know that all these people love me, and I'm thankful for that. I'm also very thankful for the gifts from everyone.

But now I need to get to work I suppose. Lunch time will be more petting of yarn and probably working on Donegal some since I'll have an hour block of time. That sweater needs at least an hour block of time because of the color changes. Hard to justify just a few stitches here and there with it.

Knit on...

A Rare Evening Post

Yes, today you get a rare late afternoon/early evening post from my house. Sorry I haven't been blogging since Wednesday, but it turns out I had to go help out with meetings that were away from the office and my trusty computer where I would normally blog before work. Since I only have hit or miss internet access at my house worth anything, I decided that it would just be easier to be blogless for a couple of days. I'm in one of those hit phases of internet access at the house right now, so figured I would go for it.

The meetings are over, thank God. I don't mind working them, but for some reason all-day meetings wear me out more than any other job. I think it's just the knowing that I have to be on call for anything that anyone needs while the meeting is going on that makes me so tired. At least they're done and they seemed to have gone pretty good.

Knitting-wise, I am 6 rounds into Donegal. This is kind of pathetic until you consider that each round is 332 stitches currently. Right now I'm trying to debate if I should go to SnB tonight at the Bux of Star or if I should sleep. While I'm tired, I haven't had a chance to do any lunchtime knitting or much evening knitting for that part. I think I'll probably drag myself out tonight and go knit on a sock or scarf or something. I might need to make something simple right now. Donegal is not going to be a very travel-friendly project with the myriad of colors involved. It'll be pretty though!

Anyways, I better go try to sleep for an hour before going to get coffee and knit. Pictures on Monday or tomorrow if I get ambitious and have internet for more than 5 minutes.

Knit on...

It Has Begun

The project that will take me 10 years to complete is now on the needles. The first thing I did when I got home from work and ate some dinner was to separate colors of yarn out on the bed.Terribly dark picture, I apologize, but you get the idea. Lots of similar colors, but different, so I labelled each one as to what color and what color name it was supposed to be for the pattern. Then I cast on the monstrous 332 stitches and knit for about 2 hours and came up with about 1/4 inch of the ribbing done:Did that picture give away what I am knitting? That's right, I have begun to knit Donegal from Alice Starmore's Celtic Collection. This is truly a reminder that I am a glutton for punishment when it comes to crazy detailed sweaters. It'll take me forever to make, but I think it's going to be so gorgeous in the end that I won't care if I'm 40 by the time I get to wear it. The only thing that concerns me is that there are several shades of green in there and I'm green/red colorblind. I made sure to match up the color names and dye lots together and label them really clear on the label, but if they get mixed up, I'll have to call in people who can see what colors they really are.

The sock was stagnant yesterday. It got shoved aside by Donegal.

Knit on...

Unknitting and Knitting

I must actually be feeling quite more human now since I actually took out knitting last night. I took out the sock that I began in Korea and took a look at it. Anyone want to see what happens when I knit and cough and feel really sick?Yeah, the whole sock looks like that too. It's really quite sad too since this is how far along I was:
But, I refuse to have holy socks, so this is what the sock turned into last night:And because I couldn't stand to re-knit with the curly yarn (It's drying straight now), I decided to cast on a new sock and begin that.Cascade Fixation in some springy pastel colors. I only got a few rows done before I crashed for the night and fell asleep watching American Gladiators. Did you see that they brought that back? I used to watch that show as a kid and loved it. It was OK in the new series too, but I was sleepy and fell asleep.

So now my goal for today is to make it through my second full day of work and try and get caught up on all the stuff I'm behind on. I may even knit during my lunch break today. I'm starting to actually have the mindset to do some knitting again.

Knit on...

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

Just a quick post today. I've been sick. My respiratory crap infection rebounded with a vengeance and knocked me on my arse. Antibiotics are a good invention though, so hopefully I'll feel a little more human each day. I've been so tired that I haven't even knit. I haven't done anything except watch football on TV and watch the UK Wildcats suck at basketball. As I feel more human, knitting will come back again, but in the meantime, sorry that the blog has taken a rather boring turn. It'll get better once I actually get better!

Knit on...

Back to Reality

Yep, it's back to reality after a month of vacation. To ring in the new work year, we had snow and it's bitterly cold at 10 degrees with a wind chill of -3. Schools are even closed today, so it should be a fairly quiet day I think. That'll be good since I've got to see what needs to get done.

Tomorrow I will have honest to goodness real knitting content on here again. I've been a bad knit blogger and haven't even done that much knitting in the past month. Now that I'm settled in again back home, I'm sure that will change. Especially with it being this cold outside :oP

Knit on...