Monday, April 30, 2007

Sigh.

I have not been knitting. It's finals week. Instead of knitting, I am trying to memorize 13 verb tenses and over 400 vocabulary words for my French final. I am finishing up an eight page paper on the use of reform and migration in the American novel. I need to write a paragraph about Machiavelli and also study for my anthropology final. NO TIMEEEEEE.

But soon it will be summer and I will be knitting like crazy (I hope).

Also I am going to be redoing my room this summer. So look for updates on that in the near future. It is going to be teal. And like an anthropologie catalog. These kind of colors. I'm going to bring up the yellow chair from my grandmother's house. And it will be ten thousand kinds of awesome.


Wednesday, March 28, 2007

I have forsaken knitting

No that is not true. Let us just say that I have begun using one stick instead of two. Get it now? Crochet! And it's a hook not a needle, I keep saying that. It's just that I have begun to notice these wonderful granny square afghans. Especially Alicia's. I just think that they are delightfully tacky. I wanted one.

Okay so I must admit that I have always thought of crocheting as being below knitting. I know that is terrible of me, but it is true. I think that I am just a snob, in music, books, in everything. Maybe not yarn though, at least yet, because I am also very frugal. I think that this snobbishness is also why I thoroughly enjoyed Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, which was the most recent book that I had to read for lit class. Carol comes into this small town with all these ideas about reform and changing and improving all these small town people. Most people hate her as a character because she is pushy, but from the beginning I loved her because she went to library school in Chicago and worked at a library and saw all these people come in, not for literature, but for tractor magazines. And I can totally relate because today, everyone comes in the library for the dvds and John Grisham and Nicholas Sparks, not for anything decent. And it's frustrating because there is a lot of good literature out there, but people just don't have the time or so they say. Or they want something light and uplifting, because God forbid that they actually do any thinking.

See this is why the new title of my blog is "Knitting in College", because the two things interact.

Anyway, I still think knitting produces more aesthetically pleasing things, but crocheting isn't all bad. So don't be offended. And so I've started making some granny squares. These are my first two:

The one on the left is my first one, done in the traditional granny square pattern. The one on the right is my second one, and it's being blocked. On the floor. In the semi-middle of my dorm room. I am pretty sure my roommate thinks that I am crazy.



I think part of the reason I looked down on crocheting is that I could never get it right. Knitting came much easier. But crocheting is not easy! Or perhaps I am just not familiar with terms and what things look like. But it took me a while to get the hang of it. I didn't realize that "into the ring" actually meant into the ring.

So project specs. I am planning to crochet my granny square afghan in Caron Simply Soft, because it is cheap and I already have a lot of it. I am going to use the blue you see above and a darker navy that I also have. These colors (and hopefully another shade of blue) all match my comforter that I use at school. It is a china plate type design, blue floral on white, and I completely adore it because it is very colonial. I will have to crochet 56 8-in squares to get my desired squares. I am not going to do multi-colored squares, at least so far. I checked 200 Crochet Blocks from the library and I'm crocheting patterns out of that.

So far it is all going well. I like it. Although my hand is not used to crocheting and it definitely cramps up a lot sooner than it would with knitting. But I am excited.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

LADY E

Thanks to spring break, I have finished my Lady Eleanor! Pictures!
The middle picture is the best example of its true colors.











Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style
Time: About two months.
Yarn: Noro Kureyon, 6 skeins.
Mods: I cast on four base triangles instead of seven so it is less wide, which was necessary because of my lack of yarn. My lys only had six skeins in that particular dye lot and it was a sale, etc... I am just glad that the length turned out okay.

This is honestly my favorite project ever. I absolutely love it. The pattern was the perfect blend of mindless and not mindless, at least for me. I was almost sorry to finish it. With every new color that would come up, I would just be like, "Wow what a great color". Though it's true what they say about Noro, there's bits and pieces of grass or sticks or whatever. I think it just added to the charm. So yay for amazing FO's.

Next up: Pomatomus Socks from Knitty. I'm about an inch and a half into my first one. I like socks, and these are the first ones I've ever made for myself.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

In which we see the return of the blog

Yes so it has been a dreadfully long time. I am not quite sure what made me completely abandon my knitting blog, but it could most likely be summed up in one word: college. I am not going to lie and say that college is amazing, because honestly, it is downright mediocre. Most of the time bordering on no fun at all. Knitting is far too scarce. However, the projects that do get worked on are of much higher quality than last year. If you shall indulge me, we shall now take a little trip to recap what has happened since my last post, nine months ago.


This is a mess. Most of it is what I "inherited" from my grandmother. The word inherited here means "taken from her house after she died". This is not even all of it because later the rest came in the POD thing. There were some half-finished afghans and the back of a vest and basically a lot. Also a lot of needles which was nice, but still. I have not used really any of it, except right now. I am knitting the "anthropologie-inspired capelet" from craftster. (I think part of my problem with blogging is that I hate encoding it and adding links and formatting. I mean I like it, it's just too time-consuming.) I am knitting it in a nice cream to go with, coincidentally, my anthropologie dress. I am attended a ROTC Dining Out.. thing.. with my boyfriend and I muss look nice and so I figured the capelet would be quick and easy and it was. I am almost done. I think it will be very nice. Pictures later.



During August I knit Katie's razor cami in Carron Simply Soft navy. It came out okay. It could've had a better drape. It's real tight and hard to get on and off. Also the top there curls dreadfully. But it looks good with that orange-ish skirt that I had nothing to wear with.

Below is a picture of two complete projects and also me looking like a hobo. The first is the Elizabethtown hat. The pattern is easily found and it was my first hat! And my first cables! They turned out quite well I do say. Only problem is that my sister has kind of taken the hat so it is hers now.

The second project is my attempt at screenprinting the cheap way. This shirt is also my sister's. Those are lyrics from some song that I don't even remember anymore. And I think we got them wrong. It's not the best; text is hard. But from far away it looks fine.And then school started. I started many a projects, but only finished a few.



From top to bottom: Short Row Rib Scarf; still looks that way today. Mittens; I did finish those! Purl Scarf; from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, finished! Ubernatural; I have a sleeve and a fourth to go. Also I need buttons.

Okay now onto to second semester. My boy's mother generously gave me a gift certificate to my lys and after Christmas they had a huge sale. 40% off before 8 am. And, shockingly, I woke myself up and went. I bought six skeins of Noro Kureyon for a mini Lady Eleanor. Presently, I'm on my fourth skein and a couple feet in. This is possibly my favorite project ever ever ever. Je l'adore.


I also knit socks for my boy for Christmas. I finished them mid-January. No pictures.

I visited a Forest Park yarn store that was tres petite and jolie et j'ai achete some real mohair lace for version 2.0 of Branching Out. Currently I am one pattern repeat in. Eh heh.

With the rest of the money to Wool and Company, I bought 2 skeins of yellow something or other for Shifting Sands. And two beautiful teal skeins of sock yarn for Pomatamus. Both are a long way off.

I think that is all. This was a ridiculously long update. I hope I will be more diligent in the future, but you never know. Happy knitting!