Becky's Knitting

I turned in my final paper of 2L year last Wednesday.  I had to write at least 25 pages as my portion of a joint research project.  I ended up writing 40 of the 65 pages we turned in (ok b/c I was doing it for more credits), and I easily could have written more.  We'd like to publish the paper, but that would require me going back in and adding the stuff I left out and some major editing, so I don't know if it will happen. 

I also started work last Monday, so the overlap those first few days when I was staying up late to write the paper and getting up early for work was pretty rough.  Now I'm living the life of a summer associate - big lunches and lots of activities paid for by the firm - the hardest part is trying to squeeze in actual work.  I'm really enjoying myself so far, even the work part! 

On the knitting front, the back of Isabella is done and I'm about 4 inches into the front.  I would show a picture, but it really just looks like a purple blob right now.  I got kinda tired of it and did a bunch on the second Crown Mtn sock while finishing my paper, so I'm not as far along as I'd like to be.  I'm going to have to do some major knitting this weekend to get it finished in time for Franklin's visit.  I'm struggling though because now that I'm done with finals, I really want to work on lace and cables and all those awesome projects I didn't get to work on while school was in session.  If I could get a little farther Isabella has lace - I wonder if I can force myself through it or whether I don't care that much.  We'll see.

Also, as a heads up, Season 2 of Vickie Howell's podcast will be starting soon.  I think the episode with the founder of Etsy is the one I am most looking forward to.

I owe you a recap of my yarn crawl through Minneapolis and St. Paul yarn stores.  Lots of goodies were purchased, and I want to take some good pics so look for that soon. 

And because I hate a post without pictures, here's Major helping me write my paper.  These pictures have not been rotated.  He curled up between my legs, and then rotated himself.  So cute!

Posted by Becky at 08:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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)

I received some big news last night - I was selected as Editor-in-Chief of my law school journal - the Texas Journal of Oil, Gas & Energy Law.  This basically means I get to run the show next year, so that's pretty exciting.  I'm really looking forward to it - it'll mean a lot of work, but it's a great opportunity.

In other big news that those reading this blog will probably be more interested in, I finished the Dale Baby Roses Dress!  There hasn't been a FO in these parts in quite some time , so I am pleased to present to you the first big FO of 2008.

Pattern: Dale Baby Roses Dress (#13502) from Book #135 in 6 mo size
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull, <3 balls of cream, <1 of both pinks, and just about 1 ball of green
Needle: US 1 addi turbos
For: baby Georgia
Started: September 2007
Finished: March 2008 

Ravelry details

What's that, you want to see a picture of it being modeled?  Ok! 

It's a little big right now, but that's great so hopefully she can get some good wear out of before she grows too much.

I actually finished it (except for weaving in all the ends) on our anniversary which was last week.  Daniel and I celebrated by checking out the new Four Seasons Restaurant Trio.

Since our anniversary falls during spring break, we both had the day off so we went golfing.  Here's what my car said when we got back in - in the middle of March!!

Daniel loves to drink port, so I bought our present this year - a set of 4 Waterford cystal port glasses!  Turns out the 3rd anniversary gift is crystal, so I even followed the rules

Posted by Becky at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Since I last posted I have officially slacked off on the baby dress and worked on Sahara.  I'm really enjoying how quickly it is going so far.  I made the first join which connects the 2 front panels to the back under the armholes. 

This picture is from right before I did that.  Now I work down a bit more and start the waist shaping.  I am wondering whether I should work down a tad farther than called for before starting the waist shaping to account for my bustiness?  Not sure if that will help or look weird.  I may just do a few extra rows - I doubt it will hurt anything.  What I really need to figure out sometime is how to do short-rows for bust-shaping.  If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them.

On Ravelry, there is a forum for grad students and a current thread talking about how finals affect your knitting.  I posted that I get more reading done closer to finals because I knit while reading.  How do I do it?  Here's my normal setup:

Cat next to me, computer ready for notes, book propped up, knitting on top.  I'm under the black blanket.  Works for me unless I am outlining or writing in which case the typing unfortunately takes precedence over the knitting.  Sigh...

Posted by Becky at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)