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This is going to be something of a short point as I’m currently dealing with some things (someone close to me in in the hospital). I can’t really get into it, but suffice it to say I don’t really have the brain space for anything except sleeping.
I am knitting a little though. I started these socks last week before all of this sort of exploded (before Thursday) and had/have been making pretty good progress. They’re not hard, which is good cause I can’t really do hard right now.
More on the socks later when everything has gotten back to normal.
As I have probably mentioned before, I’m not very good at cooking. There’s not a lot of stuff I know how to make and if I do cook, I like to have a recipe to follow to the letter. Today for breakfast I made a thing that was completely delicious and completely amazing, following a recipe (mostly).
(I’m really proud of the strawberry garnish on top. Don’t judge me.)
I made crepes! As I’ve mentioned, I am currently on spring break. This means my allergic-to-nuts boyfriend is out of town and thus my diet is roughly 90% nutella. I was running out of things to eat it on (as I thought it would possibly be bad for me to eat it with a spoon) so I did a little googling and found this recipe. I used the basic crepe recipe, then filled them with nutella and strawberries (in two of them) and blackberry jam and strawberries (the last one).
I accidentally made the crepes a little thick so the recipe yielded four crepes, one of which is in the freezer and I might eat it tomorrow or Thursday. They came out super delicious and amazing and now I want to eat various forms of crepes for every meal. Or at least several of them. Like breakfast tomorrow with eggs and cheese and bell peppers and hot sauce. YUM. Possibly I’ll just use a tortilla.
I’m sure there are some among you that are like, “Pfft, crepes, whatever. Last night I made a six course meal for just myself IN AN HOUR.” Like I said, I don’t cook. So this is like HOLY SHIT AMAZING for me. I’m super proud of it.
Knitting content to continue next time. Probably.
So it snowed last night, and I participated in a snowball fight and made a snowman. It was dark though, so there aren’t any pictures. We still had class today though, but I made my own snow day and spent the morning finishing up some shark mittens:
That’s three pairs. I still have like four more to make, plus four pairs of socks.
So yeah. Knitting.
OMGWTFBBQ it’s a finished thing that isn’t shark mittens!!!
Pattern: Kitty Hawk (the mitts; I’m still working on the hat)
Yarn: Sanguine Gryffon Bugga! in Oak Timberworm and Oleander Hawk Moth.
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm dpns
Mods: None. Knit as written.
So these mitts? Super freakin’ cute and steampunk-errific. Yes. I love how they came out and am sad I do not get to keep them (they’re for a WWFY swap). However? PITA to knit. There’s a bunch of rounds of reverse stockinette, and reverse stockinette does not play well with double pointed needles. I got some terrible laddering that was mostly covered up with a good steam block and the straps, but if you look closely, they’re still there.
When I make these for myself, I think I’m going to flip ’em inside out. That way, I can knit stockinette instead of reverse stockinette and the patch thingy that comes out of the twisted rib will still stick out but I won’t have horrible joins. I’m also going to make them shorter (less ribbing, less plain knitting between the patch thing and the thumb gusset) cause it’s sort of a pain to wear long mitts under a sweater or long sleeves or whatever.
That being said, it’s an ADORABLE pattern, and I love the finished result. I love how the finger ribbing is picked up a couple rows down so you get that two layered look. I love the twisted rib cuff (even if I hate knitting it). I love that patterned patch thing. I love the straps. I love the thumb. I seriously love these mitts. It will be a while before I get around to making them again for me, but when I do, I am going to love them.
In other (non-knitting) news, my LAST SEMESTER OF COLLEGE EVER starts tomorrow. (At one cause I don’t do that early classes thing). I am both totally stoked and totally terrified to think about graduating at the end of the semester. So don’t be surprised if my blog attendance drops a bit while I get into the swing of the new semester. Cheers!
So… yeah. Sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been on vacation this week (since last Thursday and through Saturday) and haven’t had a lot of blog fodder. But I hope everyone had/is having a lovely holiday. Mine’s been pretty low-key so far, lots of shopping and resting, and my boyfriend and I are currently going through the Joss Whedon show Dollhouse (I’ve seen all it of it; he hasn’t; I think it’s brilliant and I love it).
I’ve been knitting, but mostly shark mittens. I currently have I believe three more pairs to knit, and then I have a bit of a break. Still lots of WWFY/swap knitting though. I recently received a package that had been sent to my house in like, September for a WWFY swap so now I have two pairs of socks to add to the queue. Fun. Like I said before though, once I’ve finished this round of swapping, I’m going to take a break and knit for ME ME ME.
I hope everyone has a fabulous New Year’s tomorrow. I’m attending a costume party (a fairy tale-themed murder mystery party) as Little Bo Peep. It should be lots of fun. : ) And as for resolutions, I don’t really have any other than to do better and be happy. How about you? What are your resolutions?
It’s hard to believe it’s almost Christmas, isn’t it? This Saturday is the 25th, which means if you haven’t finished your gift knitting by now, there’s a good chance you’ll be up all night on the 24th, trying not to pull your hair out. I am not experiencing this stress, mostly because I’m not really celebrating any holidays this year. I’m spending Christmas and New Year’s with my boyfriend, who is Jewish and does not celebrate Christmas. Though I must say, I’m sort of feeling the lack of Christmas spirit.
Next year I think I’ll have a tree, a little table-top one, which will be the only size that will fit in our apartment next year. Perhaps I’ll wrap some gifts and make some cinnamon rolls. Spend the day in my pajamas and watch a holiday movie.
But this year, I’ll probably be eating Chinese foot and frantically trying to finish the billion trade and commission knits I have. Not to mention this:
(Sorry for the crappy flash picture. I may or may not have woken up this afternoon at three.)
It’s a muchly-finished sweater that was intended as a birthday gift to my boyfriend. We agreed to exchange gifts when I came to visit over Christmas so I had a couple extra weeks to finish it (his birthday was Dec. 9), but now I’ve run out of yarn and Knit Picks doesn’t appear to be selling that color. I’ve put in a desperate request to the ISO forums on Ravelry, but if any of my readers have some extra Comfy Bulky in Planetarium, PLEASE let me know.
I’ve also been working on this:
It’s one almost finished Kitty Hawk mitt for a WWFY swap. I started it because I was sick of shark mittens, but a nearly elbow-length glove in fingering weight yarn takes FOREVER. I’m going to finish the mitt, knit a pair of shark mittens, knit a hat, knit some more shark mittens, then perhaps knit the other mitt.
I currently have five pairs of outstanding shark mittens that I have to knit. So yes, I’ll be knitting these ittens forever.
So… I was gonna talk about some socks I’m almost done with today, but the view from my balcony is this:
So instead I played in the snow. This is the first snow of the season, and as a gal from Virginia Beach (which despite the recent weather is on the water and usually DOES NOT get any snow at all), I have a sort of childlike wonder for the snow. Which is an eloquent way of saying I want it to snow four feet so I can make tunnels and forts.
I also took pictures. There was holly:
And this cute little snow-covered tree that I wanted to cover in tinsel and ornaments:
I’m celebrating the holidays with my boyfriend, who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so I have no tree. Plus I won’t be in my apartment for Christmas anyway. But I’m definitely getting a little tree next year. : )
Stay warm, people.
So I’ve been accidentally radio silent for a bit. In my defense, it was finals weeks. Which is now over! Now I am officially free on winter break, which is full of TV watching and knitting and reading and generally bumming around. HELL YES. Which means I’ve had time to finish a thing that isn’t a pair of shark mittens:
Pattern: My own, but I might write it up cause it’s bitchin’.
Yarn: Some fluffy acrylic nonsense plus white acrylic and black cotton.
Needles: US 6/4 mm
Sorry for the crappy pictures. The view from my window today is this. It’s been raining since last night.
I made this hat on commission for a friend to give as a Christmas present to a friend of hers that really likes foxes. It’s based on this hat from Urban Outfitters. I think I did a pretty good job at copying it.
I really like how this hat came out. The floats where I changed colors are just a liiiiittle tight, but it’s totally still wearable. The fluffy yarn worked out perfectly, and I think the hat looks just like a fox. The yarn I used is a lighter orange than the UO hat, but I think foxes are actually pretty orange, so I made a good color choice.
The earflaps are in acrylic as well (the recipient has a wool allergy), so after I knit them, they were really curly and stiff and unpleasant looking. I took a change and brought out my iron and steam blocked the whole hat. As you can tell by the pictures, it worked out SO WELL. Seriously, why didn’t anyone ever tell me how magical steam blocking acrylic is? It’s much softer, lies flat, and the stitching is much looser, like a commercial knit. WONDERFUL.
So I daresay my friend’s friend will enjoy her Christmas present. I certainly had fun knitting it. : )
In other knitting news: I am still making shark mittens. So there’s that.
Tomorrow is my 21st birthday! Fortunately, I have no finals (yay), so I’ll mostly be sleeping in late and having a nice dinner + champagne with my boyfriend. And also visiting the ABC store.
So yes. I’ll be 21! Whoo hoo! In honor of my birthday, all of my patterns will be 21% off tomorrow only! So if you were looking to buy one, tomorrow’s the day!
So, uh, sorry for the radio silence, people. It’s finals week, which means last week was hell week, during which all of the last minute homework and projects professors assign is due. So yeah. But I have been knitting. I’ve started a pair of socks for a WWFY trade:
And I’m knitting a hat for a commission from a friend:
And of course I’m knitting eighty six bajillion pairs of shark mittens.
At least winter break starts next week.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 