{Christmas Decorations}

I've done some new things with our decorations this year and I wanted to share with my friends and family who live far away.  So here goes!

I'm very happy with the buffet this year.  You can imagine it smells amazing with the wreath, the rosemary and the mint all right there. The little bud vases were a steal from Pier 1 last week and I adore them.   The little silver bowl has jingle bell ornaments that I can't trust my cats to not climb the tree to get. hehe

This is the front door of the house as seen from our living room.  The natural garland came from the farmers' market and I cut out all those snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling.  The little wreath hanging from the bookcase was an experiment from last year.

And finally, the Christmas tree with all the gifts wrapped and ready to go underneath.  We tried some new things this year: we used 5 strands of tree lights instead of the usual 2, and we used silver beads instead of the fluffy garland.  This last one felt kind of like betraying everything I've known about how to decorate a tree since the day I was born.... but I kind of like it as something different.  We'll see if we keep it going next year or not.

Tomorrow I'll come back and show you how my knitting is going, but if you're just dying and can't wait, I've uploaded new pics to my Ravelry project page.

{On break, finally.}

Christmas break is finalllllyyyyyy here! yay! I'm not going to lie - this end of semester push was the hardest I have ever had and it nearly drove me insane. By the end I was a mere shell of my former self and it's taken me about 3 days to really comes to grip with the idea that it's over.

Lots of lots of knitting therapy.  Really, even more than the knitting, I think I needed a few days of just doing nothing to get it through my head. lol

I managed to get these bad boys out in just about a week!  They are called the Daina Mittens,by Tuulia Salmela. 

I knit the first thumb in the same pattern as the rest of the body, but there just wasn’t enough room in there for the 3 yarns and my thumb, so I had to rip it back and do it in a single colour. Kinda disappointing.  So instead I did something crazy and made the thumbs two different colours: one's green and one's orange. :)

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about some house decorating!

{Winter Knitting Update}

Man I really wish Winter would hurry up and get here.  The weather outside still feels distinctly of fall and I'm getting antsy for the gray skies and icy mornings.  It can hold the ice until after finals though (10 days from now!).

So yeah... blogging. hehe Recently I was visiting Virginia's Blog called Virginia is for...  and she was asking for volunteers to take her back issues of Interweave Knits.  Since it's my favorite of all magazines I spoke up with a "Yes! Yes! Yes Please!" and she was kind enough to send me all she had along with a very sweet note:

So incredibly cool! I love Interweave and there are  always a couple projects in each magazine that I want to knit.  I had a subscription last year though so now I have doubles of each of the seasons from 2010, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  If anyone would like them I'd be happy to pass them along. :)

Meanwhile, I'm knitting a sweater to prepare, and hopefully to bring good MoJo, for cool weather.  I bought the pattern for Cromarty by Heather Dixon the instant I saw it because I even had yarn for it!

photos from Army of Knitters

Isn't it perfect!  Going to be gorgeous when it's done, but I have some tinking to do first.  I was tired and I blew through about 3 rows of lace when I wasn't paying attention. I'm not sure how I did it since there's lace on EVERY row, but there ya go.  The yarn is pretty big so it shouldn't take too long once I feel like doing it. lol  The pattern is super well written (so totally my fault, not the designer's) and there's even a knit-a-long on Ravelry if you're interested.  The pattern is kinda steep at $9, but since I already had the yarn for it... oh and I also was in LOVE with it, I splurged.  Consequently, when you pay good money for patterns they're usually super well written and easy to follow. Who knew? hehe  This one is no exception to that trend.

Speaking of Interweave, have you looked at the Winter 2011 yet?  I'm kind of obsessed with the Briar Rose Tunic.  Go there and find out why.  I probably wouldn't knit it quite so long, but otherwise i'm all up ons that pattern.  I need to get my hands on that pattern for sure.

I've also finished a project oh about... 2 months ago that I haven't written about yet.  School and all, blah blah blah. lol It's almost done! Then I can be back to blogging regularly! hehe

I called this the Forest for the Trees cowl.  I just made up a pattern of alternating cable and lace and cast on enough stitched to go around.

The colour is a deep pumpkin and I love love love  the yarn, Fluffy DK from Gaia's Colours (discontinued), but to tell you the truth... I'm just not sure cowls are for me.  I can't figure out how to wear it to look right.  I like it under a coat, but I'm struggling to make it look right after the coat comes off.  Do you guys have any hints for wearing cowls?

Well, I think that's it for me. :)  You folks probably won't hear from me again until after finals, about December 10th or so.  Wish me luck!

{Holy Crap an FO}

Yep, you read that right: I've finished a project!

gloves from the Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns

  When I found this yarn for sale on Ravelry, I pretty much fell in love with it.  Then when I went looking for a pattern and couldn't find one that excited me, I pulled out this book of patterns. It's super handy!  The patterns are all very basic and given in table form where the gauge is down the vertical axis and the size is across the horizontal axis. Pretty brilliant!

  But just because you have a pattern for worsted weight gloves doesn't mean you SHOULD knit them.  The fingers are different lengths (doh) and I didn't manage to close the gaps between the fingers very well.  There are too many hand stitches and not enough finger stitches, too. lol  I'll wear them because they're warm, and I like the yarn, but geez.  I think the next gloves I try will be in fingering weight. lol

Warning: Whining about School Ahead

  So, you may have noticed that I've been missing for a little while too.  Do you want me to tell you about my last month? hehe  This semester has been a KILLER. More than any before. I am a math major, and I never thought it would be *easy* but I seriously considered dropping it as my major and I only have 1 semester left to go.  I just didn't think I could do it anymore.  I've spent fits crying and I've been stressed out of my mind since pretty much the second week of class.  In order to finish on time, I had to take 3 math classes this semester, which is just too much. 

  I came to this University with a perfect 4.0 GPA from my community college, so I'm used to being above average academically speaking.  More than that I'm used to above average coming to me fairly easily.  This has been a real struggle to face a task where no matter how much effort I put in, I don't get the results that I've become accustom to.  In all my other not-math-courses I have earned A's, and they have been harder to get than Community College, but dang.  These math courses are kicking my ass.

  So I was freaking out about my plummeting GPA, knowing that someday I want to go to Grad school.  I also would kinda REALLY like the latin honours on my diploma, which is questionable now whether that will happen.  I spend about 3 weeks not thinking about anything else other than if I want to drop this math - a goal I have worked toward for almost 3 and a half years.  I talked to top women CEOs in the Roanoke area that I had made connections with at a conference, and they all told me to follow my heart and no, they really wouldn't care if I had a math minor or a math major beside my business degree.   But Mr. Pie was still holding out that he believed I would be disappointed if I quit now, but he understood and was supportive of whatever decision I landed on. 

  I was all set to walk in to my math adviser's office and tell her that I was dropping it but after talking wit her she strongly urged me to consider it for another night.  I was only two 2-credit classes short of a bachelor's degree, and no, they really wouldn't be as hard as I was thinking, and do I really want to quit so close to the end?  So I did what all rationally-thinking adults would do and I called my mommy.  She pretty much didn't even let me finish my sentence when I told her what I was thinking of.  She made an analogy that made sense to me: I'm like a marathon runner in the 21st mile and according to her, I couldn't be trusted to think rationally about this right now because I'm so tired and so stressed. 

  So with the opinions of the two people who know me best in the whole world, I decided to have faith in the system and stick it out.  This is going to be so. so. hard and I'm so scared that I'm not going to be able to do it.  Next week I'm registering for my last semester of undergraduate classes EVER.  I'm not sure how I feel about it - not excited, but maybe more resigned to my fate?  If I can make it through just ONE more 12-week stint and I'm done.

May 20th (graduation day) can not get here soon enough for me.

{Knitting News of All Kinds}

Today I have an FO, an imminent cast on and also knitting patterns to share with you!

First: Patterns! Because the new fall Knitty is out!!  Do you all have your faves picked out? The first one that caught my eye was the Tenney Park Pullover.  I love love love the entralac in the front, especially since it's been on my list to learn for ages now!  I'm imagining my version having a slightly lower neckline and a little less contrast in the colours chosen for the front panel.

 

 The Auguste Pullover is a good style for Mr. Pie I think, though I wish I could see it on some dude other than Mr. Twilight Fanclub  that they have it on. (hehe)  Mr. Pie is pretty boxy and large across the shoulders, so the open neck will work well on him I think.  It's also a fairly small gauge so it wouldn't turn out to be a super heavy sweater, which is important because he's practically a furnace all by himself.

 But for me the one that steals the show is the Vignette Cardigan.  I adore the turquoise with the red buttons! The deep V is perfect for me and I love the detail down the arms.It is knitted in pieces and then seamed though, which might be something to keep me from knitting this particular pattern in stead of just say... using it for inspiration.  I can totally hack that lace pattern, right?

In other news entirely, I finished a languishing UFO! YAY!  In you're interested in seeing it, and you're not family to me, then you can go to my Christmas 2012 page at the top of the blog to see pics and details of the latest gift knitting. :)

So with that one off the needles, I think I want to start a new project!  I've foobarred the lace sweater really good and I need to decide if  I really REALLY want to tink back 5 rows (in the round) to put the waste yarn for the arms at the appropriate place.  While pondering my next project, my friends Anna and Jenny informed me they were both knitting the Brandywine Shawl, so I thought I'd hop on board! It's a Rosemary Hill pattern, so I know I'll love knitting it.  I have a semi-solid with quite a bit of contrast in primarily a very dark brown (almost black) from the Unplanned Peacock, so I'll be using that. :) 

{A New but Older FO}

Do you remember me mentioning my Shrug This cardigan that I knit AGES ago during the summer? Ravelry says I finished it on June 30th and I guess I believe it. hehe

Well I wore it today!! I was SO excited when accuweather.com told me it was going to top out at 59 degrees today!! YAY!  I had Mr. Pie take a few pics before I left this morning:

(oh and I also cut my hair this summer. Wattaya think?)

I'm loving this! Over the summer when I tried it on I wasn't digging it at all but just over a black t-shirt and with jeans it's perfect. It's super warm but without full-length sleeves it wasn't TOO warm for hiking around campus in. Perfect!

The yarn I used was from Unplanned Peacock, Superwash Merino Aran and then the edging was a Gaia's Colours yarn, Fluffy DK which is now discontinued.  This one is certainly going to be worn. I got SO MUCH compliments and even another friend of mine asking what it would cost for me to make one for her! I hope the price didn't scare her too much! LOL

And just so you don't think i've been doing NO knitting, I'm getting ready to connect up my lace weight top down sweater together below the neckline. lol  It's a little slow-going.

{Seriously... lace?!?}

What was I THINKING when I decided to knit a sweater in lace weight yarn?  Yeah... I haven't even reached the increases around the neckline yet (working from the top down).  This is going to take a while.

In other news, I'm completely up and running with school and even though the first day was only a week ago it seems a distant memory.  With 9 months left until I graduate from college - does this make it the first week of my first trimester?

Send some good mojo my way, won'tcha? :)