Ouch

I've been standing up all day. Seriously, this is the first time I've had the chance to sit for more than about 2 minutes since I got up this morning. I had to clean the house, bake some really delicious cookies, go to work, come home and get ready for my pumpkin party, and then actually have the pumpkin party (which was really fun). Then, after the pumpkin party, because my dog is really sneaky, I had to chase her down the street and up an alley and corner her in some strangers driveway while waiting for my dad to bring reinforcements (peanut butter).

In the dark.

She is a black dog.

Bad combo.

Especially on aching legs.

Anyway, now that I'm sitting down (without my beer, dammit, I don't want to get up and get it), I thought I'd show you a couple things.

Pretty sweet pumpkins, right? The third one from the left is Mariah's first jack-o-lantern (she thinks). Yeah, I'm a twenty-something and I had a pumpkin carving party, what are you saying?

Mine is the one on the far right, it's the Grim Reaper (or Death, if you read Discworld). Pretty awesome, right? That's cuz the pumpkin kits my dad got had templates in them. Pretty much amazing.

Also:

Almost a whole, entire mitten! How exciting! And it fits. And it doesn't pucker (which I always worry about with colorwork). Yay! I haven't cast on the second mitten yet. Not because I have SMS-second mitten syndrome-but because I finished it kinda late last night, then had to sew the ends in and then I had a busy day and and I'm too stupid for colorwork. But never fear! I shall do my best to cast on tomorrow.

And now, my dears, I'm going to soak my aching legs in the hottest water I can stand. I was going to spin, but I don't see that happening.

Brrrrrr!

That's what I woke up to this morning. I was expecting it, but it was SUPER cold and I had to be up and out early for work. I wore my favorite new scarf, the Brisk shawlette that I made this summer on the never ending road trip. It's perfect. Very cute, and you can wear it wrapped around your neck for outside, and draped casually over your shoulders inside, for just a little extra warmth.

Despite the fact that all I wanted to do was curl up inside with the dog and my knitting, I had to actually focus today. As if it's not enough that I had the longest weekend ever, and forgot to turn in my homework, I also had an accounting test tonight. And I didn't get any studying done this weekend, so I had to study today. Not that it helped. The test sucked. But other people thought so too, so maybe I'm not the only one who failed miserably. Hopefully.

Moving on. Want another view of what I saw while I was trying desperately to study for a subject that I struggle with?

There ya go. Doesn't it just make you want to grab a big blanket and some hot chocolate and just burrow? Me too.

On a completely different note: know what I'm doing on Friday? I'm having a pumpkin-carving party. Yes, I really am a legal adult and could go out drinking. I'm choosing to host a pumpkin-carving party instead. It'll be way more fun. Apparently Mariah has never carved a jack-o-lantern before. And who doesn't love scooping pumpkin guts? Weirdos. Wanna see the pumpkin I picked out? Of course you do.

Now I just need to figure out what kind of face he wants to have. It's gotta be a good one. Thoughts?

Return of the knitting

Man, I am still exhausted from this weekend. So tired I nearly nodded off at work today. And I needed an energy drink to get through class, because I don't want to embarrass myself by snoring through someone's presentation. I'm not that rude.

I did, however, knit my way through class. I started a hat:

That's the first inch or so of Pasha, in Lorna's Laces Honor in color Poppy. I decided that I needed a new, excitingly colored hat. Which is totally not true, but it makes me happy to lie to myself. It'll be pretty, though, and extra warm because it's wool and silk. Which also means luscious. Yay!

The reason I cast on Pasha is because these are not going the way I want them to:

That's version 2 of those fingerless mitts I was trying to make. I've decided that the wrist is too short, and the thumb is too long, so I'm frogging them. Because they're clearly just not meant to be. I'll just let the yarn sit and stew on its fate for a while.

Also, the Rainbow mitts are not very portable, since they involve changing colors every 3 rows at this point, and they involve 8 colors. Not hard to knit, just hard to keep track of the colors and what is going in class at the same time. However, I did get a fair amount of cuff done last night:

Very exciting!

Want to know what came in the mail today? Of course you do. Who wouldn't? My mailbox is an exciting place

That's the Toboggan Hat and Mitten kit from Knitpicks. They had them last year, and I didn't order in time, so they were sold out by the time I was ready to order. Which made me le sad because I really wanted the blue kit, but they weren't getting any more in and you couldn't get the pattern by itself... anger. Anyway, they have them again this year. I went back and forth between the purple and the green kits, Caitlin told me to get both and make one up for her, but I decided to just go with purple, since I don't own a lot of green winter gear. We'll see how I like it. Now that I have the pattern, I could make all kinds of colors of these little buggers! Not that I need them (see the hat comment), but I could.

Anyway, it's all very exciting on the knitting front, and I'm going to have to exercise self-control (not a lot of that around here these days) in order to keep from being buried in a pile of WIPs. Or being committed to the sanatarium because my parents think I've finally lost it. Wish me luck!

In which life returns to normal (whatever that is)

It's official. Shelby and Chase are married, and all of the wedding events are over (except for opening presents, they haven't had the chance to do that yet). I can now return to my regularly scheduled life. It was a pretty hard core weekend. Lots of fun, lots of driving, lots of silliness. Not lots of sleep, unfortunately... but who needs sleep when you're making memories?!

Heads up: this post involves no pictures of knitting, and very little knitting information. Scroll to the bottom if you want to read it, though.

We started out by getting our nails done, then running some errands, and then we went to meet the lady who would be doing our hair! She did a lovely job, day-of:

That's Caitlin's head, because I can't take a picture of the back of my own. And Shelby's hair was mostly covered by the veil. Just in case you were wondering, that hair style is a result of 45 bobby pins and 2 clips, and a ton of hairspray. That's how we roll.

Then, Shelby and I loaded up in my car and hauled ourselves down to the location of the bridal shower. Which was lovely, and Shelby got many pretty presents. The themed shower was a great idea, and I think everyone had fun. Hopefully. I didn't get many pictures of the shower, I was busy leaping around and giving people clothespins, or offering them drinks, or writing down the names and gifts as Shelby unwrapped them. She did get quite a few ribbons, which made a lovely ribbon bouquet for the rehearsal:

After the shower, we headed into Denver for the bachelorette.

We had SO much fun. Lots of dancing, no mishaps, everyone got home in one piece and, as far as I know, no one suffered a hangover, which is more than I can say for the groom. Good times all around!

The next day, we had kind of a lazy morning, I failed to send a fairly important homework assignment in, and we packed up all of Shelby's shower gifts into my car with all our luggage, and trooped back to Fort Morgan for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which I don't really have pictures for, since I was kind of busy at the time.

Then, it was wedding day!







Doesn't she look lovely? This is how she decided to sit on the floor so we could play some cards. Silly games, of course, because we didn't have the attention span for more difficult games.

Caitlin looks totally relaxed, doesn't she? 

Every 30 seconds this happened:
Despite the lovely job that the hairstylist did, my hair is very opinionated, and didn't want to stay put. There was just this one curl that kept popping out. Caitlin did her best to restrain it.

The cake was agreed to be very pretty, and perfectly acceptable, and we didn't have mountains of cake left over, so that was all good. I'm not saying there were no leftovers, just an acceptable amount.

And, since Caitlin and I were completely done with our responsibilities, other than making sure the bride had someone to hold her dress occasionally, we indulged ourselves:

The sad part? We drank most of 2 bottles of champagne, and didn't even get buzzed. No clue what was up with that. Oh well, it was fun, but remind me to never try another marathon wedding weekend. It was exhausting. And going back to work is so hard. I guess it could have been worse, Shelby and Chase had to be up at 3 the next morning to make their plane that was taking them to their honeymoon cruise. Poor buggers. I hope they're caught up on sleep by now...

One result of the busy-ness of this weekend was that I didn't have much time to knit. I think I did all the thumb gusset stitches for the little mitt that I've been working on. But otherwise, mostly nothing. And I'm not even knitting on those things that I already have started now. Know what's sitting next to me on the couch right now? Rainbow mittens! *Wiggly eyebrows*

And it begins

The wedding event countdown is finally upon us. I am currently ensconced in Caitlin's "cozy" apartment, thinking that I'm gonna have to get up pretty early tomorrow in order to make my manicure appointment with Shelby. But that's ok, because it means that I'm done with work and school for the week! Huzzah! I was totally unenthused for being responsible this week, and now I can be done. Next week isn't going to be any better, but we'll just ignore that for now.

On the knitting front, I finally sewed up the chunky sweater. It's pretty good stuff, and the sleeves fit perfectly! Which I was worried about, but now I can just relax about it. Wanna see it?

Yay! I'm so excited to wear this. I'm gonna need a tank top to go under it, though.

Guess what else happened today? My parents returned from their little mini vacation, so the dog finally has enough human beings to cater to her. And my dad has finally been trained:

He brought me a yarn souvenir from New Mexico! Apparently he scoured Santa Fe for some fiber, since I have the new spinning wheel, but he was unable to find any, so he settled for some lovely yarn. I'm super excited to knit this stuff up. I'm thinking a hat.

Wish me luck on this marathon wedding weekend!

Guess what I did this weekend?

So, I may have mentioned that it's just me and the dog this weekend. As a result, I've had the time and the space to block some of my backlog of knitted-but-unblocked projects. This included my fabulous alpaca cowl:

Which looks a lot better now that it's not all rolled over itself. I also blocked the Haruni that I made over the summer, because I was unsatisfied by my first one:

Lovely, no? And the right size. I love it. It's a great pattern, but I won't be making it again for a while. It's a little monotonous. Which isn't bad, when you have something else to focus on. But I like variety in my projects.

I also blocked the big chunky sweater, but I haven't found the courage to sew it up yet. So it's still hanging around. The body is still a little damp, so I have an excuse. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And now, in direct violation of a self-enforced rule, I'm going to go cast on a new shawl, because I really want to.

Horns

Well, hello there. It's been a while, hasn't it? Maybe not that long, but it's felt like it. I feel like this was the longest week ever. Maybe because I had so much to do and not much time to get it done in. I got a lot accomplished this week, but none of it is knitting.

I did my management homework (boring), and some accounting homework (even worse). I went shopping for more pieces of present for Shelby's wedding events (T-minus 5 days to the kick off of the wedding weekend extravaganza), called a bunch of people for stuff that had to get done before, or maybe for the wedding. Oh yeah, and I worked. Busy busy week.

And it's not over yet. Oh no, turns out that I'd lost track of what is due when for my accounting class, and I need to complete the second take home assignment sometime before I leave for wedding-palooza. That'll be fun. Especially since I've got the house, and dog, to myself this weekend. My mother, the lucky woman, has a 2 week fall break, and she and my father are taking advantage of the time of by taking a little camping trip for the next 4 days. I don't begrudge her the time off. I just wish I had the same. I'm ready for a break. Anyway, it's just me, the dog, and my homework this weekend. It'll be fun.

I tried knitting some things this week! I really did. On Monday, during my online tutoring stint, I picked up the white chunky tunic. I made some good progress on it, but it involves pattern reading, and it's kind of large, so I can't bring it to work with me.

Then, I worked on the little gray sock when I went with Mom to pick Abby up from the airport. And somehow effed up the pattern. See that little line of crossed stitches? I reworked it like 6 times and couldn't fix it. So I continued knitting through the frustration. Probably not such a good idea, since I'm getting the feeling that I'm gonna have to frog back to try to get that situation under control. And make the heel bigger, since apparently I have body image issues and have no idea how big my feet are.


Can't see the line? How about now:

To avoid the frustration of the sock, and the pattern issue, I cast on a little mitt. It's a cute pattern, not too difficult, and it's made out of a yarn that I love for fingerless mitts. Makes an excellent fabric, pretty colors. Turns out this mitt pattern and this yarn are not well suited. So, I'm gonna have to frog that back too. And pick a different pattern for this yarn, and a different yarn for this pattern.

Which brings me to the point of this post (yes, there really is one). I need something to knit. I've got a busy week coming up, and I'm gonna want something to take the edge off. So it needs to be a project that I won't whip out in an hour. And it can't involve too much pattern reading, cuz that's hard to multi-task with. And it needs to be portable, so nothing too huge or involved.

I know, it's a tough challenge. I've narrowed it down to 3 types of projects: a hat, to go with my cuddly cowl from last weekend; pick a new pattern or a new yarn and try the fingerless mitts again; or a shawl, despite the fact that I have yet to finish the lace shawl from last winter (it's not my fault, the Yarn Harlot put the idea of a shawl in my head!). What do you think I should knit?

Look! A distraction!

I'm starting to feel the stress. And my favored method of dealing with stress is to not deal with it, and focus on something else. I never said it was a good method, just that it was my method. 

This weekend, we got our first snow! It's kind of hard to see, but I know it's there, so you can trust my word. It was really cold, and I finished the chunky sweater last week (it still needs to be blocked, but I'm giving myself a break), so I cast on a lovely new cowl. 

Pretty, right? I love cowls. They're so quick (compared to sweaters), and they can be either fairly simple or super complex, they don't involve any shaping at all, and you only have to make one of them. Basically, they're perfect. I'm nearly done with it, and I just started it on Friday afternoon. I'd say it's a pretty good project to get me out of the old project slump that I've been in lately. Maybe. Hopefully. This cowl is made out of Misti Alpaca handpainted yarn. It's pretty much the best stuff I've ever touched (except for maybe cashmere). The best part? It was a gift. My dearest Caitlin gave me some yarn when she was destashing, and these skeins weren't really the kinds of colors she likes to wear or use. But they certainly are mine!

One more thing:

My dog makes a really cute fairy, doncha think? She's adorable. 

News

Well, it's been a busy week for me. We're starting the final countdown to Shelby's wedding (The Final Countdowwwwwwnnnnnn), and I am starting to freak out. Mostly because apparently my brain fell out when I started my 3rd tutoring job. I know, I sound crazy already. Anyway, I keep forgetting things that need to get done. I realize all of this could be avoided if I kept some sort of physical list, but lists are for people who don't like excitement and adventure in their lives.

Speaking of excitement and adventure, guess what I purchased this weekend?

A spinny wheel! Huffah! Now I can get cracking on the massive backlog of fiber that I keep purchasing because it looks or sounds pretty. I'm very impressionable, and I've therefore learned to limit my exposure to fiber reviews because it always ends up with shame and more wool. But hopefully now I can make some headway against the threatening stash-valanche in a corner of my room. We shall see. It's a double drive, double treadle Ashford Traveller. So exciting! I lurve it.

My knitting has not improved as much as one might hope. Turns out the sleeves of a sweater are pretty much the kiss of death. Almost as bad as second sock (or mitt) syndrome. It's just because they're so long, and boring. There's not much shaping going on, and there's not any change of pattern for most of it. Which makes me fall into a knitting coma and look for more exciting things to do. Like watch paint dry. Anyway, I've finished about half of the sleeves, but I've decided that they're never going to be done. Because it turns out that I made the sleeve holes too big for the sleeves, so now I have to do extra increases. Which isn't really that big a deal, since the sleeves (as wide as they were at the end of the recommended increases) don't fit around my biceps.

Maybe this sweater really wants to be a vest. What do you think?

In other news, Steve Jobs died today of pancreatic cancer. I am saddened by this, since I feel that he was a great deal of the innovation at Apple and I love Apple products, or have up to this point. I guess we'll just see where they go in the future!