Soon

I will be headed into my last exam for the semester in a couple of hours.
There are lots of things I want to share, and hopefully soon I will be able to do so. I've been working quite a bit, and not just for school - I've finished 4 Odessa's, a pair of slippers for my mom. I started another hat for my cousin - and I need to make another for his brother. I started on the Butterfly frill, though haven't picked it up again since Thanksgiving. I'm to the hip shaping on my Simple Knitted Bodice, although that too is worked on only sporadically. I bought the yarn for Sahara (and would like to rave about Sarah's yarns, which will also have to wait for a while).

Tomorrow, I will be making a holiday dinner for my friends (or those who haven't left for home yet). The turkey (all 22 lbs. of it, the largest Kroger had) is defrosting in my refrigerator. I will be making another grocery run after the exam gets out, even though I'm technically suposed to go to work. Tonight will be devoted to cleaning my long-neglected condo, especially my fish's bowl, and Berkley's litterbox. If I'm good, I'll make it to an end-of-the-semester celebration at some bar (Scorekeepers?) later on, though I pretty much celebrated that this weekend (premature, I know).

So, soon I will post photos, descriptions, more progress reports. I have been busy, I promise - too busy, in fact, to stop and describe what I've been doing.

In just 4 hours

Pathophysiology will be finished forever!
Mwahahaha!

(That's not to say that I am in any way prepared for the exam...)

Die evil patho book!

Why?

Why did the new Knitty have to come out now?
I have three exams and a paper due this week.
I have a half-finished simple knitted bodice staring at me, along with a just-begun butterfly frill and a long list of Christmas presents that need to get made.
And I have to learn half the body's systems (and how they can go wrong), be able to comprehend ANOVA charts, memorize the history of breastfeeding/nutritional interventions AND describe why a peer-reviewed journal can still publish crap.
Meanwhile I still don't have a tree or lights, and haven't even begun to think about Christmas cards.
It's a cruel cruel world, I tell you.

New Yarn!

I've been waiting and waiting and it's finally here!
I ordered this back in August after agonizing over yarn type and color choice for ages, then patiently waited. I eagerly rushed home to the mailbox each day, checking (fruitlessly) for the squishy shipment. After two weeks, I called the distributor, only to find out that the color I wanted was backordered. Did I want to switch?
It had taken so long to choose the color in the first place, there was no way I was going back, I would wait for it to come in.
Flash forward to November, after making countless progress calls and waiting for weeks, the miraculous happened, the shipper had been restocked! My order was on its way!
And on one faithful trip to the mailbox, shortly before Thanksgiving break (and my birthday!) the package appeared. I rushed inside and carefully opened the envelope, gently removing the tissue-paper (aided by the not-so-gentle Berkley), and found inside that which I had been waiting for so long...


It is everything I had hoped for; soft, smooth, with just enough sheen. The color is the perfect shade of peacock, not too green but more than blue. It's stronger than Kidsilk Haze, though lacking the fuzzy halo. It is destined to become the luminous Butterfly; my first real lace project.


The yarn is 1890 yards of laceweight JaggerSpun Zephry, a 50% merino 50% Chinese tussah silk blend in Peacock. I ordered from theknitter.com, and aside from the delay, I am very happy with them - they were extremely helpful, I talked to one of two people each time and they always remembered my order and always gave me status reports, offering to exchange it in order for me to choose something that was already in stock.

I am so excited! I've already started on the frill, and though it is extremely time and attention consuming, it's very rewarding. I'll update on that soon.

I'm headed into finals, it's a little scary when I look over the amount of stuff I have to do in the next two weeks. I'm going to have to lock myself into a room/cafe for days in order to make a dent. But on the bright side - after the 13th, pathophysiology is out of my life forever! (or at least for the rest of my masters program)

Berkley's Bed

Continuing in the vein of catching up with old FO's, I present you with Berkley's Bed!

Berkley's Bed

Pattern: Princess Snowball Cat Bed from Stitch and Bitch
Yarn: Whatever the pattern called for, I forget now, in yellow and red
Needles: Again, I followed the pattern, bamboo circulars
Comments: I made this right after getting Berkley (sometime this August). He was so in love with my fuzzy blanket that I figured he'd like a fuzzy bed of his own. It was very easy to make, especially after coming off a bout with the terrible lace/cabled poncho (the same yarn later became Sophie). The only thing I did differently is stuff the sides instead of just folding them over. I then sewed the bottom together with some extra yarn to keep the stuffing from seeping. It gives the sides a stability that they lack on their own. Unfortunately, the most action the bed saw was during this original photo shoot. Since then, it was briefly a thing to bite, and now is pretty much ignored. This is partially my fault as I moved it to a space he doesn't go to often. I should probably move it somewhere else, though it tends to get in the way.

Berkley shows his appreciation

At least I got a couple of pictures out of it

Sophie

Pattern: Sophie

Yarn: Cascade 220, slightly over 1 skein (Originally intended for a poncho, then the SKB, now multiple Sophies)

Needles: Size 10.5 24" bamboo circulars, Size 10(?) bamboo dpns

Comments: This bag was super-easy to make. I think I may have done too many repeats, as mine used more than the recommended amount of yarn and is a little taller than the one in the picture. I still need to shave off the fuzzies and I'm thinking of adding some sort of flower or pin for decoration. This marks the beginning of Christmas present knitting, though I'm not sure to whom it is going.

Process Photos:

Before felting

Getting wet

No wonder my needles turned red...

Catching up, or: I suck

So I am aparently not so good at keeping up with the blog. This probably isn't a huge problem at this point, because as far as I know, I'm the only one who looks at my blog anyway. But I am going to try to be better, especially right now as I am avoiding studying for my biostats exam.
In order to catch up, I'm going to try and add all of my (photographed) fo's now.
Maybe one of these days I'll actually have a blog worth visiting on a regular basis, until then bear with me!

Lelah

Pattern: Lelah

Yarn: Knitpicks Andean Treasure, in Embers, 5 skeins

Needles: Size 5 (?) bamboo circulars

Detail:

Comments: I loved this pattern. It's the first non-flat thing I've made, as well as my first attempt at lace. It was relatively easy to adjust the pattern to match the gauge of my yarn, though at this point I'm not sure how many stitches I ended up casting on. I think I'll make this one again, potentially in a cotton for the summertime.

Lelah in action:

Sunday = Fun with Dye

I am way behind in studying pathophysiology. It's only two weeks into the semester, and I'm already behind. So I decided to do the responsible thing, and spent all day dyeing yarn. After reading through all 70+ pages of the Craftster forum on Kool-Aid dyeing, I felt ready to get my hands wet. A trip to Michael's on Friday with my friend Allison armed me with some basic supplies and itching to get started. A long night out stalled my plans, and Saturday was spent recovering.
And then it was Sunday, with nothing to do except a ton of reading and Epi homework. It was time to dye.

The Ingredients:
Paton's Classic Wool Merino yarn, Aran (on sale!) - 2 skeins
Wilton's Dye Gel - 1 bottle each: pink, violet, burgundy, teal
Vinegar
Plastic cups and knives left over from Thursday's Grey's party
Lots of Glad wrap
Pyrex baking dish
2 pots, intended for herb planting

The Process:
1. I wrapped the yarn around the two pots, splitting each ball into two hanks.

2. I tied 4 pieces of yarn loosely around each hank, in order to keep it from falling apart/tangling.

3. I soaked each hank in hot tap water and some vinegar (I guess one "glug" per hank), squeezing out the air. I let the hanks soak while preparing the dye.

(My helper is the one and only Berkelface, aka Berkley)

4. For the dye, I put a dab of color into each plastic cup and added hot tap water, mixing with the knife. For the first hank, I made the colors really strong, and had to make more in order to cover the yarn. I played with the ratios of dye:water for the rest of the hanks.

5. I squeezed out the yarn, and placed it into the Pyrex dish (for the first hank, I tried to stretch it out on plastic wrap and add the dye, but ended up with a leaky mess - it turned out, but definitely wasn't the easiest way to go).

6. I poured the dye from the cups onto the yarn in the dish, squishing it in with the knives (originally, I used my hand covered with a plastic bag, but again with the mess). I added a little more water to some, though there wasn't a lot of logic behind it.

7. I covered the dish with plastic wrap and poked holes in the top.

8. I put the dish in the microwave and nuked it for 2 minutes at a time, allowing it to sit for a bit inbetween (mostly because I'm lazy and didn't want to run to the kitchen all the time). I repeated the 2-minute cycles until I thought the water was mostly clear, or in the case of the first hank, decided nothing else was going to absorb. I let the dish sit for a while in the microwave in order to cool down.

9. I poured off the excess water and then put the yarn into a bowl with cool water and a tiny drop of dishwashing soap (mostly to try and counteract the wet-wool smell). I gently wrinsed the yarn until the water ran clear, and then squeezed the yarn dry.

10. I hung the yarn to dry. It took a while, about a day, probably because I had to hang them inside as the weather is iffy right now.

11. After they were dry, I wound them into skeins, and voila!

In the middle of this, Epidemiology homework did get done, though pathophys is waiting until tomorrow...

Why Barefoot Knits

My feet need to be free. They don't like being encoumbered by shoes or (god forbid) socks. My head and hands don't like to be covered either, but I especially need naked feet. My grandmother (Sito) was also a free-footed woman. For her funeral, we all wore sandals with our toes painted red, her favorite polish, in her honor (totally bare feet don't do so well in the Michigan fall). She was a knitter, chrocheter, and an amazingly strong woman. She is my inspiration. I hope to try and follow in her (bare) footsteps, and serve her memory well.