Becky's Knitting

Only a few more weeks until finals, which means I am studying hard (and procrastinating by blogging).  I am officially done with my internship at the Supreme Court and the class that goes with it.  I still have to write a 25-30 page paper, co-write a buy-sell agreement for a closely-held corporation, and outline for, study for, and take a Securities Regulation final.  I am hoping to be done all of this by April 30, but I have a little bit of extra time to work on the paper if necessary.  As usual when I get into finals mode, I have been doing lots of knitting, but not a whole lot of blogging.  So here's the latest status report:

• the Scandanavia Mittens are done and gifted to my mom, but are back in my possession for blocking and picture taking.  I probably won't get around to this anytime soon, but once I do these gorgeous mittens will get their own post
• the Unoriginal Scarf is finished and also in need of blocking and FO pics
• the Conwy socks for Daniel have been cast on, and while I don't (and can't because they are a surprise) work on them very often, I like the way they are coming out
• the first Monkey sock is complete and very cute.  I haven't cast on for the second one yet because ...
• I am about to complete the fastest sock I have ever knit, as explained below.

Back in February Grumperina posted some socks that I fell in love with.  The yarn is Sock Hop from Crown Mountain Farms, and I knew I wanted to get some, but it is pricey as you need two skeins to make a pair of socks.  Plus, it only goes on sale for one day a few times a year, so I had to wait until April.  Come April I had recently finished a few projects and hadn't bought too much yarn recently, plus I wanted to celebrate getting EIC, so I decided I deserved a bit of a treat.  Unfortunately they don't have the colorway Grumperina used anymore.  I couldn't decide which color to get, so I ended up getting two - San Francisco (blue and brown - something I don't normally pick) and Layla (purply pink - very me).  It arrived on Monday, and look how awesome it is! 

The reason the yarn is so expensive is that it is handspun, but it is so worth it!  I needed a new, mindless stockinette project, so as I finished up the first Monkey sock, I cast-on on Tuesday with the San Francisco colorway.  I went with my size 1 (2.25mm) Knit Picks dpns, which I think was a good idea because the yarn sometimes gets very thin due to being handspun (there are also some thicker parts).  Between having a few meetings where I was able to knit, and needing some mindless knitting while studying, and this yarn being sooo addicting, I have already reached the ribbing on the first sock!  Here's the progress:

Here's the socks in progress while I'm studying and Major is passed out on top of me - aww!

I'm now up to the ribbing and will take more pics once I cast-off the first sock.  I don't know if I'll immediately cast-on for the second sock- I seem to have a single sock thing going on right now.  But it does work really well for mindless stockinette.  Here's the other single socks:

The beginnings of the Conwy.

And the first Monkey sock.

Normally I get a bunch of knitting done during the finals crunch, and I will get some done doing research for my paper, but unfortunately the paper writing, contract editing, and outline creating all require a lot of typing which is not conducive to knitting, so we'll see how much I get done this time around.  I cast-on for the Baby Lord jacket I have been planning and purchased yarn for, but it requires too much counting and concentration, so is on hold until I get to start my summer knitting.  I could do Mermaid or Sahara knitting as my finals knitting, but both of those require figuring out where I am on the pattern, so I will probably stick to sock knitting until school is over.

Posted by Becky at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Friday was my birthday (I'm 27 now in case you were wondering).  I can't remember the last time my birthday was on a weekend.  Actually, I take that back.  My 21st birthday was a Friday.  The problem was, Feb. 1 was also the first day NCAA rules allowed us to have softball practice.  So my coach would get really excited and schedule early practices those first few days because that was the only time we could get practice space (since in February in Minnesota you have to be inside).  So, we had early practice scheduled the day after my 21st birthday meaning neither I, nor most of my friends, could really drink very much.  It was very disappointing.  One of my college roomies sent me a birthday card this year, and in it she mentioned that she always thinks of those first softball practices on my birthday every year.  I think we are in agreement that we don't really miss them all that much, even if we do miss some of the other parts of college softball.

Anyway, I was really excited to have my birthday on a convenient day this year, but then the team Daniel coaches had one of their games rained out and the makeup was set for Friday.  How annoying!  I wouldn't let this get me down, though, and I ended up turning my birthday into a very nice birthday weekend.

It started on Thursday when I finally got to go to an LSSK meetup at Borders.  I had conflicting class last semester, and work over the summer, so I don't even know the last time I got to go.  It was great to see everyone, and Linda Q. gave me the cupcake I'm holding in this picture with Vicki.

Although the cupcake looks really yummy, it's not edible!  It's a bath cupcake!!  How fun is that.  Put it into the bathtub and you will get lots of bubbles and good smells.  Can't wait to try it out.  Vicki also got a picture of me with Laura. 

Thursday evening Daniel gave me my presents (part of my iphone and elliptical machine that I got for Christmas count as birthday presents too).  He actually designed this necklace and had it made!!  We took my grandmom to a bead shop for her Christmas present, and saw this neat glass piece.  Well he went back and bought it along with coordinating beads and the people at the bead shop helped him put it together.  He actually had a great time and is interested in maybe designing some other pieces.  Lucky me since I'll be the recipient :-)  (please ignore the crappy picture - I was trying to take it of myself using my iPhone)

My parents and in-laws went in together to get my other big present - my very own windmill!  Before law school I worked in wind power development, so I like windmills.  This one is the perfect size for the garden in the backyard, and I have it sitting so I can see it out of the window in our living room.  I love the Texas stars on it too! 

On my birthday, I went to work in the morning, and one of the law clerks had a King Cake shipped by his aunt from Baton Rouge whcih just happened to arrive on Friday.  So that was fun and very yummy - I had never had one before.  And the whole office, including the judge, took me out for lunch on Monday, so that was a nice way to end my birthday long weekend.  My parents took me out to dinner on Friday while Daniel was coaching, so that was nice too.

The big birthday event was that a bunch of my friends got together on Saturday, and we had cheese and chocolate fondue at The Melting Pot.  YUMMY!!!

We had four burners, so we got four different types of cheese and four types of chocolate.  It was so good, and if you've never been to a fondue restaurant before, I HIGHLY recommend it. 

Of course, a birthday recap post wouldn't be complete without knitting content.  I came across this blog recently, and fell in love with these mittens.  I had purchased some pinky-red malabrigo a few months ago to make either Foliage or some mitts, but never could decide on what I wanted to make.  Well, when I saw this pattern I knew it would be perfect.  So I stopped by Gauge (one of our new LYSs) and was thrilled that they had winter white malabrigo.  When I got home, I cast on, and here's what I have so far.  I love it!  The slight shade changes in the pink yarn look great with the fair isle pattern.  The yarn is soooo soft, and knit on size 3 needles they are going to be buttery soft and very warm mittens.  I'd love to keep them, but honestly I will never need mittens like this is Texas, so I will probably send them to my godmother for her birthday.

Speaking of Gauge, the store is really starting to come into its own, and I love how everytime I go they have lots of new stuff in stock.  It's been really fun watching both it and The Knitting Nest develop, and I love having multiple LYSs.  Now there's one nearby no matter which part of town I'm in.

I also ordered the full set of Knit Picks Harmony sock dpns (there are 6 sizes from 0-3).  I really like my Harmony interchangeables that I got for Christmas, so I thought I would probably like the dpns.  For thicker socks, I love my Bryspuns, but they only go down to a size 2.  I have been using Pony Pearl dpns for my fingering weight socks.  However, I've been having trouble with them.  They're plastic, but they have metal inside of them and that metal has broken on some so the needles rattle and bend.  And worse, the tips on several of my needles are starting to split apart so that they're snagging on the yarn.  These were the best needles I'd found for socks so far b/c of the sharp points, flexibility (metal are sharp but not flexible), non-fragility (my Brittanys broke), and length (I prefer 5-6" for socks).  But I think I am done with them since they keep breaking.  Or at least, I'm willing to try to find a better solution.  We'll see if I like the Harmony's - my mom is going to start knitting socks so she's going to use some of the needles from the set, and if I don't like them, I'll probably give her the set assuming she likes socks.

I can't wait for them to arrive b/c the First Thursday sale at HCW was 20% off wool, and they just got the new Noro Kureyon sock yarn in!  I bought 2 skeins b/c I couldn't decide on colors.  One is rainbow colors, and while it's pretty wild, I think it will make really fun socks.  The other is more my normal colors of blue, green, and purple.  I want to wait to cast-on til I have my new needles because my gauge may be different with wood versus plastic. 

It was a very indecisive day at HCW b/c I was also trying to buy yarn for my BFF Laura's baby sweater.  We became best friends in first grade because we had the same birthday, and she was able to schedule her ultrasound for our birthday and found out that she is having a boy!  What a great birthday present!  I'll post more about potential patterns in the future, but when I was at HCW I couldn't decide, so I bought enough yarn for 2 sweaters - one DK and one worsted.  I haven't decided yet if I'll keep it all or return one sweater's worth when I make a decision. 

Ok, this post is way long enough.  I have all sorts of ideas for things I want to post about, but I have had a very hard time finding the time to do so.  This semester is turning out to be crazily busy since I have some very work intensive classes in addition to my various other commitments, including the internship at the Supreme Court of Texas, but it's worth it b/c I am finally taking classes in subjects I am interested in.  More when I can.

Posted by Becky at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)