Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Vacating

I am SO excited to be going to my parents' tomorrow!

Tonight I am looking forward to getting off work early so I can get to Daniel's house and have some time with him before I leave.

I'll be coming back on December 30th, so plenty of time to celebrate New Year's here. :-)

I have started to think about my New Year's Resolutions, which I almost never make, because I don't plan on keeping anything ;-), however I do have a few plans in place:

- make a "car payment" to myself every month into my HSBC account; I want to be able to cash out on a car in early 2009.
- fatten up my savings account that was drained for the car payment
- lose 15 more pounds
- take the dreaded GRE test and be done with it; hopefully start applying to gradamate school. 2009/10 would be an ideal time for me to go to grad school, since Daniel will be out of the state / country during that time :-( but it would keep me busy, for sure!

And, of course, KNIT MORE. ;-)

I had to talk myself out of taking three pairs of socks, a vest, and two pairs of fingerless gloves to knit with me on the trip. I only have 10 days, after all! :) I narrowed it down to the vest and two pairs of socks ;-) but I did take the patterns for the gloves to show my parents with an estimated birthdate. hah!

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Christmas Deco's!

I thought I would share my Christmas decorations with everyone! I am very happy with how they turned out. I just want a tree skirt to hide the fake Xmas tree base.. otherwise, I am very pleased. I am so happy that Target carries ornaments in turquoise, green, and brown (to match my condo).

1: The Full Monty:


2: The Garland:



WIPS - 8 December 2007

Here are my current WIP's.

First up, Daniel's socks. I've plied and wound off the yarn for the insteps, so now they are waiting to be finished!



Next Up is a "LuvGun", from MochiMochi Land. A friend and I are making them concurrently.



Here is the yarn for the "Ms Marigold" vest from ZephyrStyle. I love the color from KnitPicks! Sometimes it's hard to gauge what a color will be based on your computer monitor, but I love this deep red lipstick color. :-)



Finally, here is the beginning of my "Breeze" socks from Knitty. I don't think Knitty has the pattern anymore, which is a shame, because it's quite a neat little cabled socklet. The stretch of knitting you see there is the beginning of the heel flap (which is also cabled), and the pattern for it is slightly confusing because there is not enough repetition for me to get a rhythm going, but that is OK. I just need to carry my pencil and make notes whilst I knit. :)

Eye Candy Sunday :)

I haven't posted in a while. Stuff has been frenetic, at best.

Two weeks ago, I thought Daniel had dumped me, but it just turned out that we needed to get the whole emotional conversation ball rolling... we are doing great again, for which I am very glad. :-)

I've also been really super busy at work, and today is really the first whole day to myself I've had in a while. I went shopping & to lunch with my friend Kris earlier today, and also got my hair stylist, Ingrid, since it looked like she had accidentally missed a spot when she did my highlights earlier in the week... Although I messed up the evening by having a mug of hot chocolate made with cow-milk, and also eating a small ball of goat cheese for dinner. Let's just say I'm glad I've been alone today. :-P

However, I've finally had time to post a bunch of pictures on Flickr and here, and hopefully to Ravelry, too.

First up are the yarn skeins I am sending to Milagro in Baltimore, MD.



Next is my first skein from the Sumptuous Sock Yarn Club. It is GORGEOUS, in a colorway called "Cabarnet", and it is 45% Mongolian cashmere and 55% silk. Holy Rare Fibers, Batman!


I wanted to show off the (non)-progress I've been making on Daniel's socks. Here is a photo of the plied, wound-off instep yarn, of which I have enough for probably a whole pair of socks. I think I might use the leftovers to make myself some cuffs or something (coordinating, but not matching...Keywords of the Day, People!). I think both the legs are done, but now that I look at the picture, it looks like the leg still on the needles needs a couple more rounds... hmmm...


Here is a picture of my second pair of FO-socks, the "Dove" ones from Cat Bordhi's newest book. They are knit in Blue Moon Fiber Art's Socks That Rock Mediumweight in "Rhodonite". (I just looked on their site, and it looks like they don't sell Rhodonite anymore. However, there are a few Etsy shops that have a very similar colorway...eerily similar, but I guess "hm, magenta and purple sounds fun" might not be a very original thought among dyers (?) ).

I am very proud of these socks, especially since it took me three or so tries to knit the first one! The only thing I am NOT proud of is that I knit that first one a lot tighter (a lot!) than the second one, presumably because I was frustrated from ripping it out so much, and so the second one is noticeably bigger than the first. Observe:


I was going to give them to my sister as a Christmas gift, but I couldn't do that to her, so I am wearing them. As I type this, in fact. And if I wear them and wear them under pants, no one will know that one is a little longer than the other. :-)