Tired

Not a long post tonight. I'm sweepy! I finished my mittens yesterday and got to wear them today for the first time. I felt so happy in them! I started a scarf that I'm TOTALLY digging in some blue and brown elann wool. It's really soft and I love the colors. I'm doing some fancy schmancy double knitting pattern I got from Kurt in Knitting Novices. And I'm doing 2 inch stripes. Simple but effective! It kinda takes a while, and it took a while to get the stitch pattern down, but now it's going a little faster. I think I'm gonna take a picture of a few of my projects so I can fill up a roll of film and get some stuff to show and tell. It may be in spurts, but I WILL add pictures to my blog. Is it Christmas yet? I really need a digital camera. (Do I mention that a lot?)

Reads

After owning the book for six years, trying to start it multiple times, and taking nearly 6 months to read it, I finished Anna Karenina!!! Once you're finished applauding you can read on... I've added a books section to my sidebar, and yes it was partly to flaunt my accomplishment. And I think reading might be cutting into my knitting time for a little while because of the awesome new book I'm reading, but I'll get into that later. So back to Anna. Some parts got pretty slow. Like chapter after chapter discussing farming and politics that I wouldn't have understood then and certainly don't now. But all in all I loved it. The last bit was great, I love Levin's discoveries. It has made the cut and will be a book that I'll keep to read again. I don't keep many books at all after I've read them, but I can tell I'll want to revisit this one to see what else I can discover about it (and if I can beat my 6 month best time).

So the new book is Babyville which is a really nice break from Anna. They are so different! This book is a much faster read for one thing. And it's pretty funny in that completely real way. I stayed up late last night reading it and will probably be going back to it after finishing this post.

This morning I got half way through the thumb on my mitten. They're saying snow (yay!) tomorrow so I'll need it! I just hope I can find an alternative to my chunky coat.

As I mentioned and you can probably see, I've spent some time changing my blog again. I'm finally beginning to know how to work this html stuff, when I started I had no clue. It took me forever (and it didn't help that Blogger wasn't cooperating for a time yesterday), but I like it much better. Now all I need is a stupid digital camera so I can finish my master plan for my blog. Darn January being so far away!

Yaay!

Guess who has a finished mitten. MEEEE!!!!! One down one to go. Wish I had a camera and could show some pictures, but alas I don't. I'm thinking that'll make a nice Christmas present for myself though (a digi camera, not the mitten). I got the old huge one frogged and into cute little balls. I don't know whether I should start right in on numero dos or take a little time off. I still have my scarf to work on, and we won't mention the x-stitch. And I admit I'm a little scared of just "reversing the directions" for the right mitten, but I think I'll manage. I'm a freaking honors student, I can figure out how to knit a matching mitten! Right?

While The Cat's Away

Aparently while the bf's gone I can get some major knitting done. He's playing video games with his friend, so I'm here alone blaring my music and knitting away. There's nothing like some good tunes and some good knitting! I finished the fingers and stuff of my mitten, got all the stupid ends tied in (that's the hardest part for me, how sad is that?), and have started the fold over mitten part (three times lol). It's going pretty good, YAAY! My other projects are being ignored in my excitement to have mittens sometime before spring.

In my non knitting life (yes, I do have one of those), today me and my two favorite men, Jaime and my daddy, went to the KU football game. Poor Jayhawks. The first two minutes were so promising; it was all downhill from there. But I had a great time and now have a lovely sunburn to show for it. Everyone says I look great in red, but I don't think that's what they meant.

Evil Vicki Is Gone...For Now

Sorry for that last post, Evil Vicki took over and wrote. After a few days without knitting (and a little drinking), I'm back and it's going well. I restarted the mitten with smaller dpns (surprisingly the size recommended, but I swear my gauge was right the first time...) and it's working great. I'm almost back to where I stopped with the first one. My mitten is on track and all is right with the world! I've been making some progress on my Squiggle scarf too, but I can tell that I'm going to need more Squiggle and probably some more Encore also. Oh well. I'm also desperate to get some more yarn so I can start a few new things. There's so much great yarn on sale that I HAVE to get some now! I hate being broke :(

Vicki Is NOT Happy

Vicki made progress made on her mitten; she finished the first two fingers. In her joy, she decided to try on the partly done mitten. The stupid mitten didn't fit her stubby but short hands. Stupid mitten!! After torturing herself overnight over what to do, she has decided to rip the entire freaking mitten and redo it, hopefully making it shorter (and without the annoying little holes she didn't know how to avoid when she began). The perfectionist in her is SCREAMING!!! But Vicki is determined to end up with the perfect mitten (and then another to match) and won't stop until she gets it.

Stuff

How's it going? There are some ups, and some downs. My x-stitch is going SUPER well. I've gotten a ton done and am actually getting back into it. Yaay me and my boyfriend-beating self! Beating as in bet winning, not like physically abusing, though he might disagree lol. Of course that comes at a cost, and the price is my mittens. They haven't seen much action the past few days. Poor mittens :( And then there's the fun fur scarf. It was about a foot of scarf, but it's a scarf no more. I decided to knit in the car on the way to Johnson County to see my dad. Great idea! I loved it (although it took a minute to figure out what to do with my not-center-pull ball of yarn). When we got there I wrapped the ball of yarn in the scarf and stuck the other needle through it to keep everything together. Another great idea or so I thought. So I get back in the car after a great dinner at Olive Garden (mmmmm, fettucine alfredo) and go to yank out the spare needle. Of course I don't do that do I? I pull out the needle with the stitches on it. Arrrg! And I really tried to pick up stitches, right at the top, further down, ripping down and then trying there. It just didn't work with the stupid novetly yarn. So today I took a few minutes and ripped the whole thing and rewound the ball. I'm actually sorta glad, cause I don't want to have too many projects going and I'm dying to try this other scarf. It's gonna be some pink novelty yarn with white wool. I love pink! So I guess it'll all end well...

Great Mitten Adventure

The great mitten adventure continues. I've made some really good progress; I'm above the thumb hole and a few rows from starting my first finger. Of course, it hasn't all been easy and it isn't perfect by any means. There are little holes where I did M1 but didn't know to twist or anything. I missed an instruction to k2tog and had to do it 20 rows later or so. But it doesn't look bad and it actually fits my chubby hands. Plus I'm actually getting used to the small needle and thin yarn. I'm hoping I'll have a full mitten by the end of next weekend, assuming I don't have any major setbacks.

A New Friend!

Why does school have to be so demanding and get in the way of my crafting?!? Grrr. Hasn't been much getting done the past few days due to responsibilities and pure exhaustion. In good news, the mysterious missing x-stitch reappeared Monday. Of course that's after we spent all day cleaning out the closet because I swore that was the only place it could be (it was under the couch, *shrugs*). The contents of our closet literally took up our entire apartment, how sad is that? So now the bf is getting WAYYY too cocky about our bet, so I must finish the x-stitch by New Years.

My mittens are finally starting to come along. I finally got past the 4th row without dropping multiple miniscule stitches or otherwise screwing up. I even was able to rescue a couple stitches that I did drop (it required 2 extra dps and a ballpoint...). I haven't gotten to any of the shaping, but am hoping to make something resembling progress this weekend.

And I wanna say hi to Knitting Virgin (http://treasuregoddesschic.blogspot.com/), the first person to comment on my blog :) I feel so loved!

I Get It!

Every once in a while I check out the blogs on my reads list and even look for some new ones, and it cracks me up when someone writes about hating a certain project, or a project disliking them. I didn't get it, but now I do. The newest addition to my WIP list is the Broad Street Mittens from Knitty. I am probably not nearly experienced enough to make it through them, but I decided to jump right in. They're making me NUTS!!! First of all this is the first thing I've knit with a needle under an 8. The 2's are sooo tiny, and it uses sock weight yarn which is also a first for me. Together they make me feel like my fat fingers are trying to use a dolls knitting set. I've started them 3 times already (which isn't THAT many, but it feels like it). I think this is it though...knock on wood. I'm really excited to see how they turn out, if we can just get along long enough for me to finish them. So far I'm 3 rows in...

My fun fur scarf is my easy project, simple stockinette on 11's. My boyfriend asked me how many scarves I really need. I don't know...I just can't give them away, they're too pretty! I'm thinking of making a bunch of scarves for my family's Christmas Eve party and just letting people take one if they want, but 1. I don't know how many to make and 2. I don't want to get attatched to one and then get all upset if someone wants it lol. We'll see what happens.

And in other crafting news, my cross-stitch is still AWOL. If anyone knows where it is, please email me. It'll be the not even halfway done cottage looking lonely in it's gallon size Ziploc :)