Fall Back?

It suddenly dropped below 60 degrees in Texas for the first time in months, and eveyone's flipping out in excitement about it. For me, the change in temperature heralds the return of many things I am NOT excited about (i.e. waking up 15 minutes earlier every day to put on five million different layers of clothing, finals, snow, flu season [which I often fall prey to more than once a season], holiday stress, Christmas guilt, extremely busy days at work with some of the rudest customers you can imagine... and I could go on).

But in an attempt to be less stressed, and to sound like less of a Scrooge, I'm going to find the positive things about this time of year. If some of them feel like a stretch, I apologize.

That extra hour of sleep we gain sometime in October?

Smelling my boyfriend's jacket after he's been wearing it for a while.

Apple cider.

Fires in the fireplace.

Knitting. Hot, sweaty wool in the summer just isn't so fun.

Wearing the things I knit, and seeing people I love wear the things I knit for them.

Hot coffee in the morning that warms up my insides.

Being able to actually use all the blankets I love to collect.

Shopping for Christmas presents.

Warm kisses that warm up your cold ears for a moment or two.

Fewer frappuccinos.

Finally less of a temperature change between inside school buildings and the outdoors. Wearing a jacket in 100 degree weather wasn't so fun.


That's all I got. But it was more than I had when I started. Yayy positivity?

I'll let you borrow my four-leaf clover

things are going quite nicely. I'm feeling very accomplished.

I'm making a lot of progress on the things I really want to do. I'm also making a steady income, and saving a decent amount each week. I'm well on my way to moving out and being financially independent.

I've also done a lot of knitterly things in the past week or so. I had the honor of test knitting for the awesome leethal, and helped perfect her new pattern, the Skoodlet. You should definitely check it out - it's adorable and extremely clever. I don't know how I ever survived without it.

I also updated my etsy slightly (added a hat - that counts as an update), and plan on adding more soon. I got my amazing photographer of a sister to take some pictures for my shop and for ravelry... and I think we're going to have a great partnership from now on. I can take decent pictures if I really work at it, but I'm too lazy most of the time. Gibson has a great camera, so all her pictures turn out looking incredible. I <3 her.



Horizontal Ribbing Stripey Hat
for sale on etsy.



So You Think You Can Hat
raveled.


more later. happy weekend!

you know, you know, no, you don't, you dooon't.

Aw, hell. This isn't a knit blog.

I know I might have said it was a few times, and I know a good number of you who read this are knitters (ha! I see via flickr pro that 7 people were interested enough in my Fibbonaci Frequency hat to click the link from here :) I'm so popular.), but this is really just an outlet.

I've realized I love writing. I've known for a good long while, of course, what with all my success in english and journalism classes, but then for about a year I was writing nothing but boring government/history/literary analysis essays... mostly about things I really couldn't care less about.

Now that I'm in some classes that I'm really passionate about, I'm inspired to write about them. And other things, things that matter to me; I want to share them somehow, even if no one cares about them as much as I do.

I still try to be discreet - I have a paper and ink journal that I write the really personal stuff in (though admittedly, not very frequently) - and not mention names or details. I know I get a bit uncomfortable sometimes when I read about myself on other blogs...


So, as for the future of this blog - the content is going to change as my interests change. And I definitely anticipate staying interested in knitting for a good long time, so it very well may remain primarily a knit blog. Just thought I'd clear things up in case any of my seven knitters were disappointed at the recent lack of yarn.

Oh, and I got the barista job! It's what I really wanted, anyway. I'm still not grown-up enough to make the sensible choice - I just want to have fun and drink coffee right now :)

The Death Hat Always Knocks Twice.

I think a lot of people don't realize it, but knitters are totally badass.

There's Madame Defarge, from Tale of Two Cities fame; the domiKNITrix, a true mistress of the yarn and needles... and then there's me, of course.



my finished Fibonacci Frequency hat for HA2

- my Therapi arrived just in time, so I used that instead of the merino. Gotta say, I wasn't too impressed with it for $10 a 110 yard skein. It had a good number of knots (it was knotty. you know what we do to knotty yarns, don't you?), and knit up it bears an uncanny resemblance to Simply Soft ($2 for 315 yards)... the made-from-jade part is still pretty cool, but I'm still probably not going to buy it again.

So! It's in the mail - should arrive to kill its target before 3 tomorrow (spent an arm an a leg on postage. but at least I'll still have my arms and my legs, which is more than I can say for my unlucky victim).

Now there's nothing left to do but wait... and check the mail every day in fear.


In other news, I've had some surprisingly good luck on the job-hunting front. I had an amazing interview for a receptionist position with a random company that was recruiting on campus, and they're supposed to call today. AND the coffee shop I applied at a few weeks ago and had kind of given up on called me this morning to set up an interview on Monday.

So I have a bit of a dilemma. The receptionist job is not very appealing to me (expect for the salary, the potential for career advancement, the benefits, and how good it'll look on my resume) - I'm afraid it'll be a bit of a The Office situation (though the boss seems about 100 times more competent than Michael), and I'd be Pam of course. And I really have no need for yet another Pam/Jim-type relationship, which is clearly inevitable if I become the office receptionist/art student. But still. Lots of benefits.

And then there's Escape, basically the coffee shop in Allen. I'd be around coffee all day (that's almost enough to sell me by itself), be able to see friends, dress more casually, get free coffee, have more varied shifts (I think the receptionist job is your basic 9-5), and... did I mention coffee? Downsides are the lower pay, the early mornings, and the possibility of having to deal with people I don't like who live in the neighborhood (I swear, everyone and their mother goes to this place). But... I've been dying to be a barista for years now.

So I really don't know. But neither of them have made legitimate offers yet, so it may work itself out in the end.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer Hat Attack

I just got my assignment for HA2... I'm ridiculously excited. I have actually been swatching to prepare for this thing because I didn't order Therapi in time (it'll probably show up tomorrow afternoon, but I'm hoping to be halfway done by then - knitting alllll night), and have to rely on my respectably-sized stash for a yarn substitute. I'm going with some Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted I bought ages ago.

And all this swatching combined with the slightly cooler weather (thanks, Ike) has started my fingers itching to knit, spin, and crank out a few million hats/mittens/scarves. I found some random wool single I spun up forever ago and plied it...



...and that inspired me to buy some more roving. Etsy is down right now, or I'd steal a picture of it - it's some amazingly-fluffy looking black and white merino from WhimzyPinzy. Yayy for self-bought early birthday presents!

Unfortunately, that, along with the Therapi ($10 a 50 gram ball... but it's made from jade. that's just too awesome to pass up) has completely depleted my knitting-related budget for a while. I'm only working two or three hours a week at the moment, but I've applied at a few places that I'm still waiting to hear back from. My savings are getting dangerously non-existent. I may stoop to serving fast food soon. It's really that bad.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life... and I'm feelin good.

You guys were so right.

Blocking the hell out of that mitten made it absolutely beautiful. I should never have doubted one of the most basic of the ancient rites of Needlecraftery. I'm sorry. And I definitely haven't taken an after picture, nor have I photo'd the other projects I've been working on. Just trust me - they're all incredible, as usual.


Speaking of incredible.

My many hours spent choosing professors and organizing my schedule have not left me disappointed. Though not actually incredible, thanks to various unrelated, outside factors, my classes have been very promising so far.

Psych of Personality/Abnormal Psych - THANK YOU, RateMyProfessors.com. I took a big risk taking the same guy for two classes, but I'm not sorry. He's so laid-back and casual, but at the same time has a deep sense of professionalism and serious control of the classroom. Annnd he knows my name and looks deep into my eyes - almost into my soul - when I'm talking...

ahem.

And of course there's the obligatory bitch who insists on letting everyone know exactly how disgusting she thinks people with tattoos and piercings are and "lyke, omg, they're so nasty, I don't even knooooowww how anyone could dooo anything like that to their bodies and they must be totally messed up and psychotic to put poison in their bloodstream and mutilate themselves and ZZOOOMG! girl next to me, is that a nose ring??? omigod, what were you thinking, do you really just hate your body that much that you would mistreat it like that??"

On a good day, I want to strangle her. On a day like today, I had to flip her off with both hands under the desk. Hon, we all have our own opinions, and a debate (though on a completely unrelated subject) is actually a great and appropriate time to voice them, but if you happen to be blonde and stupid and have a abnormally squeaky voice, don't sit next to someone with a fever and massive sinus congestion and expect to live.

But, lo; the wonderful Professor L. is quick to get the discussion back on track without offending anyone or allowing any violent fights to break out. Yayy :)


Intermediate Spanish I - interesting class, with a good number of what I presume are "continuing education" students, ages 40-75, and kids who took Beginning Spanish II from the same prof. last semester. La Maestra is rather eccentric, consistently 10-15 minutes late, and tends to mostly call on her pet students from previous classes (I suspect it's because theirs are the only names she can remember). Normally, all these things would seriously annoy me in a professor, but for some reason I don't mind them coming from her. Maybe it's because she's hilarious. Or maybe it's because the only time she did call on me, she gave me a huge ego-boosting complement on my accent.


2-D Design - Ahh. This class awakens the long-dormant artist inside my soul. The first time I walked into the room I gave a huge, involuntary sigh and got a beautiful feeling of everything being right with the world. Artgasam.

The lighting is amazing, the ceilings are high, the tables are rotating, the chairs are comfy - in short, the room alone is the polar opposite of the prison-like image I usually associate with school and academia. The instructor is shockingly young, and probably in her first or second year of teaching. She's only given one lecture so far, so I can't form much of an opinion on how qualified she is, but at least her slight drawl (which normally realllly irratates me - a side effect of growing up with some hardcore rednecks in rural Alabama, I guess?) is more endearning than annoying.

Most importantly, it's giving me some time to actually sit down and create something. I'll be honest - spending two and a half hours in the same class is rather tough, but I've only had to actually stay the whole duration once. I had already finished my project when I came to class today, so I just drew penguins and owls for about an hour, until Teach came over to look at my progress and told me I could go if I was quiet and didn't let anyone see me leave :)


So my education is progressing quite nicely, and I usually get to see a friendly face in or on the way to every class. It's pretty wonderful. Not seeing a whole lot of opportunity for in-class knitting, but I may be able to work something out with my Psych professor.

When I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever.

Ohh, summer, I'm going to be sad to see you go.

Not that it was particularly relaxing as it has been in years past - I worked a bit more than I was used to and had to survive without my boss for over a month. But the overwhelming theme was freedom, just like every summer's should be.

It has been truly beautiful - kind of like a song by Wheat, The Shins, or Sondre Lerche (don't know what I mean? please, please, let me make you a mix CD immediately). Doesn't really make that much sense when you try to analyze it, but look at it in a dreamy, detached state of mind, and it's perfectly clear. I guess it helps that I've been in that state of mind the entire summer.

I'm tempted to continue that train of thought and turn this into a deep, intro/retro/ultra-spective monologue, but I've really said it all right there. Simple, sweet, and sublime.

School starts a week from tomorrow. I definitely spent $600 on textbooks this afternoon, which is about $200 more than I spent on tuition. Love college.

I'm a tad trepidated (< not a real word) about taking four classes in a semester after my freakishly easy senior year, but I think I'll be okay. I have two psych classes, both with the same highly-rated professor (8 chili peppers on ratemyprofessors.com), a Spanish class I could have easily CLEP'd but decided to take so I don't forget everything I've learned by skipping a semester, and a 3-hour design class that looks promising, if a bit inconvenient.


Tomorrow is my last day of work for an unspecified period of time - summer classes have ended, and the fall schedule conflicts with my school schedule, so I'm only coming in every month or so for holiday specials. I'm definitely going to miss it - I've been doing this for three years now, and making way more money than I ever possibly could have been elsewhere. It's probably time to move on though. The Purple Crayon is looking at its final days if no one buys the business - my boss has been ready to retire for years now.

In very exciting news, my mom randomly stumbled across an amazing deal on a kiln on Craig's List the other day, and after I went down to Dallas to inspect it, she snapped it up. I'm no kiln expert (I've been burned on them enough times that I should be, however), but it looks beautiful and is going to be able to do whatever I need it to in the way of high-firing. I have to figure out how to use cones until I can afford a pyrometer, but that's just old-school and cool anyway.


Knitters - if you made it through all that non-yarn-related content without your eyes glazing over, I commend you. Here's some relief:



This is the first of the Chevaliers I was talking about. Ugh. See the weird, stretched out stitches? I'll have a block party tomorrow and see if I can fix those. Also, if my hand looks weird, it's because that's a right-hand mitten on my left hand. Too hard to take the picture otherwise :)

Annd. I don't know how I missed out on the first round, but I'm crazy excited for Hat Attack 2! I'm actually swatching (OH em gee) because I'm not sure I feel like spending $20 on the suggested yarn (I'm sorry, I mean weapon). My dream of being a knitting assassin has finally come to fruition.

@#)%#$#! Cables.

I'm working on Chevalier Mittens, and it could just be a random bout of perfectionism, but I feel like my cables are looking like craaaaap. I had always heard cabling without a cable needle made them neater - less stretching of the stitches - but I think it may actually look worse than when I use one.

I'm knitting with Paton's Classic Merino and size 6 dpns - wrong gauge, maybe?

I'll take before and after blocking pictures to see if that helps any.


Also. I'm super excited about Twist Collective. A gazillion of my favorite designers have patterns on (in?) it, and I'm probably going to spend every dollar I have buying them and their yarns.

Annd that's all I have time for.

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes!

I've been on a bit of a cupcake kick lately - a wonderful, wonderful person bought me these three books, and I'm completely in love with making tiny, delicious, pastries of joy and cuteness. I even use the mini tins for extra cuteness, and because the pastelitas I make are super rich and hard to handle in anything larger than bite-sized form.

My latest creation is from the brilliant Cupcake Bakeshop blog. I find it adorable how Chockylit describes these as "simple," and "relatively easy to put together." In my mind, simple is adding a few eggs and a quarter cup of vegetable oil to a box of cake mix. But nevertheless, these are amazing.



chocolate cupcakes stuffed with rasberry chocolate ganache and frosted with chocolate glaze and buttercream

Oh, em, gee. I don't even want to think about how many calories these little guys have. But so, so, worthwhile.

and, as promised, my visual aids to accompany last night's post.


amigurumi bunny
yarn: cascade 220 in blue and aqua (don't remember the real color names)
hook: g, I think.


eunny's bayerische
yarn: dream in color smooshy in lipstick lava
needles: sz 1 dpns

Voulez-Vous Crochet Avec Moi?

yeah, you do.

This is just going to be a quickie (ha), because I'm seriously exhausted and I have cupcakes in the oven, but I feel like I should update my legions of fans on how my creative enterprises are coming, bi-monthly at least.

I've been crocheting - I found a pattern for an amigurumi coffee cup, and never looked back. I also made an oddly-shaped-yet-adorable bunny, and two freeform bees. Love how fast it goes compared to knitting. Still love the knitted fabric better for clothing, but crochet is sturdier, and better suited to toys (hey, like amugurumi!).

I was feeling hardcore a couple of days ago, so I cast on for Bayerische (anyone have any idea how to pronounce that?)... and those babies have teeth! I'm cableing sans cable needle to make it even scarier, yet admittedly, easier for myself.


Work is actually going okay; I only had one week of insane Tuesday and Wednesday classes while my boss has been gone, and I've gotten a break from them this week and last week. My Monday class is wonderful - it's just four mind-blowingly talented 12-14 year olds who make a masterpiece of whatever project I assign them with little or no help from me. I actually got to paint and draw with them yesterday and made a halfway-decent picture.


iPhone update for iPod Touch? Totally worth the ten bucks. As long as I'm within range of some wi-fi, I can do everything an iPhone can do except make phone calls and use Shazam (no microphone =[ ). Excitement.

That's all - pictures tomorrow, possibly. I'm kind of a picture tease, and I apologize. It's nighttime, and there is no decent lighting in my house whatsoever.

*ETA*
oops, accidentally posted with the date and time from when I thought up the clever title (about a week ago), and just now fixed it, so if this is in your blogroll twice, I'm dreadfully sorry.

Taking Care of Business

Work has been pretty crazy lately. My boss is pretty disorganized (I sympathize - we're artists, not accountants), and occasionally I end up having to pay the price for her lack of foresight. I've become used to having the project I'm going to teach explained to me at the literal last minute, but this week I had to make it up as I went along with two classes - one of which had twelve 6-10 year-olds. And of course, only half the class arrives on time, so I'm constantly jumping back and forth between steps to help the latecomers catch up. Also, during the summer, there are always kids going out of town who want to know when they can do a make-up class. That was so much easier to deal with when we had our own place - people could come in pretty much any time we were open - but now we have to find a class in the next session for them to come to. And these sorts of inquiries are always made in the middle of class, with dozens of noisy kids all asking for help making various parts of a clay monkey pencil holder that I'm making up on the spot. Utter Chaos.

Now my boss is going out of town for three weeks, leaving me to basically run the business. I am, in fact, freaking out slightly. But maybe now that I have all the projects ahead of time I'll be able to divert some disasters (like leaving all our glazes at the other facility when all the entire class had left to do was paint their clay pieces. that was a fun day). My entire schedule has changed - thank God for iCal or I'd never show up at the right place at the right time. I'm also going to have to start dressing a little more professionally so parents will take me seriously. Last week someone asked me what my "qualifications" were, and I was a little taken aback. Am I qualified? I finally decided to call myself an art student, even though I'm majoring in Spanish/Psych/Chem and haven't taken any college art classes to speak of yet. Makes me sound legit.


I've been knitting a little bit, but there are so many things I want to make, that I end up starting a million projects at once and never finishing any. I'm almost done with Hello Yarn's top down bonnet (figure-8 cast on is freaking brilliant), but I probably made it far to small to fit any normal baby. Damn gauge.

I did flickr (yes, that's a verb) some pictures of thank you cards I made for people who sent me especially large graduation checks - here's one of my favorites:



Uniball ink pens = love.

Inspiration

Okay, so, I'm done keeping track of my caffeine addiction. It's rather embarrassing, and it's not telling me anything I didn't already know. Instead, I'm thinking about starting a 365-day self portrait project. Worth going pro on flickr to make a set just for that? Probably. Convince me.

Anyway, I was bored for a few hours on Saturday, and tried to make a dent in my crazy blogroll. It was up to several thousand unread posts (a ton from CRAFT Magazine's Blog, which, by the way, is amazing.), and I got totally inspired. Not a fan of traditional bookmark-it-with-some-ingenious-filing-technique-and-hope-you'll-be-able-to-find-it-again-when-you-want-it techniques, I put my favorites on tumblr. I think I'm going to keep it pretty well-updated (i.e., more so than this blog), so if you're looking for inspiration of a crafty nature, definitely RSS-feed me.

Apologies for the blatant lack of pictures lately; the MacBook doesn't have a card reader, so I would actually have to not be lazy and borrow the one in the computer room to upload some. I do, however have several rather poor-quality PhotoBooth pictures of my most recent knitting project which I refuse to put on flickr because of their lameness, but I will upload to Blogger for your viewing enjoyment. Unfortunately, I am wearing a mustache in all of them.



This is the beret I meant to finish for Gibson's birthday (in March), but ran out of yarn, and didn't get around to buying more until now. Basic, top-down construction, with Cascade 220. I'm considering blocking it with a record to add more of an edge, but I kind of like it floppy too - opinions?

Ink'd. It's "knit" backwards. Minus the T. Plus a D.

Last night, instead of going to sleep early (or even on time) because I knew I had to leave the house at 7:30 in the morning, I designed my next tattoo. And by next, I mean first. And by first, I mean I'm probably never going to get it, but the design's there if I ever need it.



It's rough, and my drawing skills are grossly underdeveloped, but I kinda like it. Remember my grease monkey fantasy? Well I've also had a tattoo artist one for a long time too. Something about making art that is more or less permanent is so appealing to me. Any real tat artists want to clean it up and ink it on my arm?


I've been pretty uninspired in my fiber ventures since the weather's been warmer (I haven't knitted a stitch since spring break. shock.), but I did a little dyeing the other day.

What with? Why, easter egg dye of course. After easter, Walmart had five million little kits for 17 cents each, and I stocked up. Now not only do I have several dozen little egg holders, I also have brand-spanking-new pink yarn!



I used Cascade Ecological Wool, soaked in water for about an hour so the dye would take evenly, heated enough water to cover a skein in a huge canning vat, and added vinegar (about a cup), salt (a couple teaspoons), and 5 or 6 dye pellets.



I stirred it carefully (to avoid felting) until it started to boil, turned off the heat, and let it sit for several hours while I finished beating Guitar Hero III on Medium (still can't get past Slash on Hard). When I checked, the dye bath was totally clear, and the yarn was beautiful and vinegary-smelling.

I still have a ton of dye and bare yarn left, so I'm totally going to dye another day.


In other, less exciting, actually kind of sad news; my cat, Paige, has a tumor. He went under the knife the other day and they got a lot of it out and sent it to a lab to see if it's benign or not. We'll probably find out today or tomorrow. For now, he has a gnarly looking belly and we're feeding him mangosteen juice three times a day.

To avoid ending on a depressing note: I'm graduating in 42 days!

Spring Break!

Finally, after a horrific Anatomy exam with practical (uuuh, digging around inside a dead cat that early in the morning), I'm on my way to Florida to spend a week on the best beach I know of. Yeah, I'll be staying in a tiny condo with my entire family living in one room and a hallway (no bedrooms - just a bed that folds out of the wall. Yay for cheap apartment kitsch!), but I'll be outside most of the time anyway. I think this'll be the first time in years I've been down there when it's not Thanksgiving. We're driving, so I'm bringing tons of knitting and my spinning wheel. I'm also going to go yarn shop hopping while I'm there, so look for beach-inspired knits/fibers shortly.

A few things I've been working on whilst wasting valuable knit-blogging time with all these political/philosophical/photojournal posts:



Spirogyra from Knitty

I cast on for this one as soon as the new Knitty came out. It's just what I've been looking for in an armwarmer, and now I can continue being lazy and not make up my own.

I love so much about this pattern - the lace is simple and fast, the shaping is done with just a change in needle size, and it's pwetty.

I used Mericash solid that I bought ridiculously cheap at the Woolie Ewe's 5 am half price sale, and I'm kind of glad I didn't pay full price for it. It's a beautiful color and very soft, but it's a single, so it's already starting to get kind of fuzzy, and I predict it will pill with more use. That'll just give me an excuse to knit another pair in Alpaca Sox.



Mittens of my own design.

I knit three pairs of these in a week - they're fast, and they have a thumb gore that I spent quite some time trying to figure out with all kinds of fancy maths. And it makes me happy. I'm going to start selling these on etsy soon, so keep an eye out.


And sans pictures - my 2nd pair of Dashing for Kelsey, and a kind of organic-looking pair of blue mittens made from hand-sheared, hand-carded, handspun, and hand-dyed yarn I bought from a homestead farm in Waco (tons tons tons of vegetable matter... pain in the ass, organic or no).

Etsy!

Hey, Kids.

I've been a bad blogger. I have literally TONS of new projects and other various extracurricular activities to report on, and I haven't posted in weeks. And as it is now rapidly nearing midnight, it's unlikely that I'll cover it all in this post. But I'll see what I can do before I get tired.

First, spinning has grabbed me pretty hard and doesn't show signs of letting go. My knitting has had to compete for a place in my packed free-time schedule. Damn it, I have too many hobbies. How is one expected to save money for college, apartments, cars, or even food and clothes when there are so many other things to buy (like roving, yarn, spinning wheels, paints, brushes, dyes, canvases, easels, silk screens, light boxes, ceramics wheels, kilns, sewing machines, fabric, and so on and on...)?

The only solution is to find a means of profiting from one's creative ventures. Which I am in the process of doing, with my brand new etsy store! I had a lot of trouble at first figuring out what I could sell, because up until now most of my knitting had been from copyrighted patterns. So I've had to dig deep within the dark reaches of my creativity to find a pinch of originality. I'm not in love with some of the things I've come up with, but it's exciting to do something that no one else has done, even if it's not the most drastically unique thing ever.

Something I'm really struggling with now is pricing. All my work is worth a lot to me, but I want to be reasonable so I have a slight chance of actually selling something now and then. My materials cost is usually pretty good, but if I want to charge based on how many hours I spend working on a piece, I'd be charging $100 for a neckwarmer. I'd love to get some suggestions from a few seasoned sellers and buyers of handmade items.

That's all I can do for now. Copious amounts of pictures next post, I promise.

You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round Like a Record

Hello, Blog.

I dropped (or am in the process of dropping - I just skipped today) my Art History class, so I finally have a little free time and can sleep in on M/W/F until 9. This has increased my quality of life by like 96%.

I really thought I would enjoy Art History; that it'd be a fun, blow-off class for my blow-off senior year. But no. Looking at the syllabus, it'd be more work than Anatomy. Besides that, I'm not really into spending 15 minutes of class doing "art news," which seems to me to be the college equivalent of the dreaded current events reports I had to do for a whole year in 9th grade Social Studies.

Plus, the professor is partially deaf, repeats everything you say twice, and acts like she's scared to death of all her students. Not how I think an art teacher should be.

So as soon as I hear back from an adviser, I'm out of there. I'm keeping the book, though. I'll probably take the class again when my boss's friend starts teaching it at my campus.


So... fiberwise.

I'm spinning! It's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever done in my entire life. My darling mother found the wonderful Miss Cindy in our city's little directory, living less than 10 minutes away, and we went over to her house before Christmas to see her sheep and alpacas.



Annnd we signed ourselves up for spinning lessons immediately. Two lessons later, and I've gotten pretty comfortable with both the drop spindle and the wheel. I think we'll be plying next lesson. Yarn pictures to come!


Weather has been rather freezing lately, so I've been pretty prolific in my knitting.

First, the rather disappointing Headline News.



I used Wool Ease, just because I had it on hand, but I think it was a mistake. With the huge needles the pattern calls for, it makes a really holey fabric that's kind of disgusting after knitting worsted weight socks on size 2 needles.


Next, a commissioned (yay!) space invaders beanie for my friend Josiah. Inspired, of course, by my amazing space invaders tea cozy.



This uses black Simply Soft, and - get this - GLOW IN THE DARK NYLON. I know. It blows my mind. I've been trying really hard to get a glowing picture of it, but I think I'm going to need a tripod and a really long exposure camera. It's not the softest, and it's splitty as hell, but HELLO. It glows in the freaking dark. Unfortunately, my fair isle is not quite up to par yet, and I didn't make it stretchy enough to fit its intended owner. So I'm knitting another one!


Next, a little something I call Roxy Hart, because it reminds me of the kind of cloche Renee Zellweger wore in Chicago.



This was basically me practicing granny squares (my first!), and when I found myself with an alarming amount of them, I slip stitched em together and picked up stitches around the top to make a hat!


I've got a few other projects to post later, but this post has already sucked up an hour of my morning languidity (not a real word?), they'll have to wait while do more important things. Like play Guitar Hero III.

Smile Like You Mean It

Things that made me smile this week:

1) At work, suddenly hearing an adorable 3-year old's loud rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" coming from the bathroom. Apparently my boss told her that to make sure your hands are really clean, one must wash them for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday. Holy freaking crap, that's cute.

2) Watching the dog set off mouse traps with his tail. Hehehe.

Things that did not make me smile:

1) Finishing my book for government and realizing I had no recollection of what I had just read. Oops.

2) Wearing 3" heels. Fell and twisted my foot and got a lovely bruise on my rear.

3) Re-knitting Greenery and slowly having to come to terms with the fact that I was knitting a ranch house in Argentina, and not a hat. Is there no happy medium between tiny and gargantuan?


I have been doing my part in spreading the knitting gospel. I encouraged Gibby to become re-obsessed with yarn, and she has turned out a couple hats already this month, and got one of her friends started on a scarf. I also re-taught one of my fellow librarians the garter stitch, and hopefully piqued the interest of another, who promised to bring yarn and needles next week. Even the boy asked to try a stitch or two, but as I was knitting a ridiculously tight-gauged sock in black fuzzy alpaca at the time, I told him to wait until I had something easier for him to practice on. I really regret missing that golden opportunity, but hopefully he'll be interested again later.

Oh, almost neglected the most surprising of new converts. My darling father, in an effort to give one of his coworkers something to do with his hands besides noisily smush his water bottle, asked if I could teach him the basics so he could teach his friend in turn. Too good to be true.

Men are strange animals. Whenever you ask them if they'd like to learn to knit, they either make some comment about how it's girly (the stupid ones), or say something like "I have you to knit me anything I could want" (the smart ones [i.e. Darien]). But recent developments have shown that despite their protestations, the act of pulling yarn through loops to make a fabric is absolutely fascinating to them. And luckily for them, watching guys knit is absolutely fascinating (and, good God, man, sexy) to women. Better than a dog any day.

Wake Me Up When November Ends

Thank God I wasn't trying to participate in NaPoBloMo
(or whatever the abbreviation is), because I would have failed miserably. This is due mainly to the copious amounts of homework/college prep/work I've been trying to cram into my days lately. That and knitting.

Remember how I was annoyed that Darien put everything off until the last minute? Pot, kettle, black. This book review for PolySci was assigned almost at the beginning of the semester, and I'm still only about halfway through my book. Oh, and it's due Monday. So clearly I have a lot of long hours of boring reading to do before it gets too late to start writing. If only I could get it as an ebook. As it is, I think I'll probably end up just skimming and BS-ing.


Today marks my one-week anniversary on Ravelry! Yay! I've been so inspired by all the patterns on there, I have about five million projects going at the same time. And I just blew my latest paycheck on Knit Picks. But it's for a worthy cause. I'm making Katamari Damacy earmuffs, among other things. And then I had to buy a few more skeins because, hello, free shipping on orders over $45.

I'd love to post some pictures of what I've been working on, but I can't on the off chance that one of my gift recipients stumbles upon this blog and finds out what they're getting for Christmas. So check me out on Ravelry - I'm blissfulolivian.

The Sun'll Come Out... Tomorrow

Found you!

• You signed up on October 28, 2007
• You are #49992 on the list.
• 166 people are ahead of you in line.
• 9692 people are behind you in line.
• 83% of the list has been invited so far

Yep. I'm about a day away from being on Ravelry. After weeks of checking multiple times a day, it's finally time.

Quick knitting update:

I finished my space invaders tea cozy (except for seaming, because I don't have the teapot it's going to go on yet), did about three inches on Darien's second amazing alpaca sock, and started some glove/mitten things for my mom.

Yayy.

I Don't Mind You Coming Here and Wasting All My Time

I just found out that one specific person (who I now realize I spend the majority of my unoccupied hours with) will be insanely busy with exams and research papers for the next two+ weeks, and won't be able to hang out. So I suddenly find my self with tons (from an LCA student's perspective) of free time. And perhaps an ounce of bitterness towards said person for putting all this off until now.

So the only way for me to hold on to my sanity and not lapse into a zombie-like state until Christmas break is to totally cram every spare moment with positive, productive, activities. And to motivate myself, further, I'm publishing my list of ideas so I can be held accountable in some ambiguous way. Here goes.

1) CLEAN/ORGANIZE
Damn it. I really really really don't want to. But it's kind of getting to the point where I can't set foot in my room without stepping on something weird and random (example from today: a little garter snake brought inside by Rio. Lovely). And I prefer knowing exactly what I'm going to be stepping on, if stepping on anything is even necessary. Plus, I'm probably only wearing a third of the wearable clothes I own. The rest are buried under piles of... stuff.

2) SPEND TIME WITH OTHER PEOPLE
I really wish I didn't have to put this on the list, but sadly, a lot of my good friends have kind of fallen by the wayside lately with all the homework/work-free time I have occupied by this one kid. And worse still, I've been purposefully avoiding one or two of my friends because of arguments that I don't have the energy to work through. Ugh. Still don't really have the willpower. I need to stop pretending it will go away on its own.

3) WATCH IMDB 250 MOVIES
Quad C's library is chock full of them, so I no longer have to dominate the Blockbuster queue and force my family to watch my weird indie movies. I do need to remember to take them back in time though. You can only have three out at a time for 2 days, and the late fee is $1 a day. Needless to say, I've already made a sizable donation to Quad C's new book fund. But still, it beats Blockbuster prices.

4) KNIT PROFUSELY
Um, duh. This one is combined very smoothly with #3, as long as I avoid mixing complicated patterns and foreign language films. Oh, and silent films. While wonderfully kitsch and charming, they are a bitch to knit to. Currently in the works (including projects I plan on making soon but haven't actually started): Pin-up Sweater from S'nB, Kittyville hat (with Hello Kitty modifications), way too many socks, and some yet-to-be-designed fingerless gloves.

5) BE ARTISTIC
I haven't touched my drawing pencils or paints in months. Shame on me. I'm a freaking art teacher at an art studio.

6) READ. ESPECIALLY SPYCATCHER.
I definitely need to stay faithful to my little Librivox, several-books-a-months venture. Also goes well with #4. So satisfying to be able to read (or have read to me, the idea is the same) snobby classic books and knit a sweater simultaneously. It makes the little over-achiever in me very smug. Oh, and the deadline for my horribly-boring, non-audio-book review is rapidly approaching, and I've read less than half of it.

7) EXERCISE
Yeah, I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to this one. Maybe a bit of yoga now and then. With a heavy focus on the meditation aspect.