where did the time go??

This is the state of my room. Note the knitting on top of my carry on luggage.
The reason?

Oh dear.

one cup Harry Potter, one cup Japan, a pinch of Ravelry and a dash of knitting

So I've been keeping a bit of a secret from you all (well, most of you already know ) but I was accepted into the JET Programme in April, and I'll be living and teaching in Yamanashi prefecture come the beginning of August.

I am very excited and not at all done packing yet! It's been a hectic past couple weeks, and I can only expect things to get a little crazier as my departure date gets closer. I've been working almost full time at a summer conference job at my university, and while things have been fun, it hasn't left me with a lot of time for packing and preparing to move to Japan.

On the knitting front, I've been working on my Earth Squared Blanket

I finished my first brown square, and started right into the next white (beige? tan? toasted pine nut?) square. I had to order more yarn for this blanket, because I mistakenly thought 6 balls of Patons Classic Merino would be enough. Only after I finished one square and realized I had used almost half of one ball, did I finally come out of my delusional state.
I think I would have progressed much faster on the blanket if I had not received an invite to Ravelry a couple days ago and spent the better part of my online time looking at other people's projects. Feel free to add me as a friend. (just search for my blog)

With this :
Hopefully arriving in my mail box tomorrow, I don't see my knitting getting any faster, since I haven't quite figured out how to knit and read at the same time. Though I might try and learn :)

Warm weather = decreased knitting impetus

I finally cracked open a ball of the Chestnut Brown!

I do like how the blanket is going so far...but it is slow going!
I haven't had much desire to knit lately, and my free time has been spent watching episodes of the new Doctor Who and sleeping.

The entirety of April was spent furiously job hunting and resume writing, and eating far too much dessert. Apparently when stressed, I turn to sweets. ^_^;; This has led to a rather embarrassing amount of weight gain in only a month! Time to get back to gym, and use those sugar craving to fuel unprecedented knitting speeds! (I'm only half joking ^_^）

20 page paper = procrastination = knitting?!?

Forgive me, I've been reading and writing about nothing but syphilis and prostitutes in early modern Japan for the last 2 weeks. So I have this 20 page essay in this Medical and Social History of Japan class this term. It's worth 40% of my grade for the term...and it is killing me to write it. Did I mention it's due in on Monday?

So instead of writing, I keep taking one hour 20-30 minutes breaks to knit the Earth^2 blanket. There is so much blanket love right now.Instead of keeping with the straight stockinette I had planned (it was boring me to tears) I snitched the waffle stitch from cosmic pluto's amazing Thermal sweater, and added some big waffley stripes!

And back to radio silence until this paper is done!

The doggie sweater is done!

Okay, so this very pink doggie sweater was promised sometime in the summer of 2006.
I didn't buy the yarn for it until November, and didn't start knitting it until the beginning of December.

Regardless of the amount of time I spent procrastinating knitting this sucker, I am really happy it's completed without any major hitches. I just hope it fits the cutest dog in the world, since I can't try it on her in person. Normally I avoid anything that involves seaming and shaping and picking up stitches, hence the lack of sweaters and other large knitted pattern heavy FOs.
Let's just call this mini-sweater a small step toward the garment making direction.

Casey's Coat from Stitch n' Bitch Nation
Yarn: Less than a ball of some generic sport weight acrylic i found at Ben Franklin's
US 4/3.5mm bamboo circulars and dpns
Because I knit this sweater at a much smaller gauge than the suggested pattern, I knit with the instruction for the medium size dog sweater.Other than that, I followed the pattern pretty faithfully.

I finished the sweater last night, and started on the afghan I've been dreaming of!
I'm using Paton's Classic Merino in Natural Mix, Deep Olive, and Chestnut Brown,
some very earthy mellow colors.
I'm thinking stockinette squares alternating colors with a seed stitch border.

And now there are two!

Against all odds, the long suffering toe up socks are done!

I was about to rip them out when two knitting friends talked me out of it. Not only that, but the decrease portion of the heel which were giving me the most problems, was generously knit by a friend. (Em, you are awesome!)
I finished up the cuff of the 2nd sock tonight, and bound off too tight, so it's a little bit of a fight to get one of them over my big heel, but I'm not undoing it! These things are done !

Toe-up Socks with a Sherman Heel
Yarn: 1. 5 skeins of a Japanese extra fine merino
Japanese size 2 Clover bamboo dpns
Magic 8 cast on, 60 st. foot, modified no wrap Sherman Heel

Honestly these were the single most frustrating items I've ever knit. I started them in May 2006, and it took me almost 10 months.
I think if I had not started and stopped so many times, it would have been much easier. I didn't have time to knit for a good couple months, and had forgotten exactly how to do the heel. The toe and foot were actually quite simple, and painless.
I'm just not a sock knitter, is the conclusion of this experiment. The teeny tiny needles, the fiddly-ness of dpns, the heel of doom, and the simple fact that I have to make TWO socks.
A sneak peak at the little Casey's Coat from SNBN. One sleeve down, one to go!

Soon to be extinct

Toe-up socks of doom, your time has come to an end. I started you last May (that's 2006 people!) and you have sat gathering dust on my desk, taunting me with your unfinish-able state since September, the last time I deigned to knit you. Your second heel is the bane of my existence. I tried, really tried to finish the heel. I've spared the close-up pictures of the loose, holey excuse of a heel. The short row decreases are done, but I can not remember if I have switched to increases or not, and your tiny, tiny stitches tell me nothing. Which is sad because your yarn is absolutely gorgeous.
The part that annoys me the most? Count the number of Clover size 2 double pointed needles in the picture.

4
I bought a set of 5.

I finally get the urge to just finish you off, but I've lost a needle. I've torn my room apart looking for it, and can only wonder if the needle has wormed it's way into a hole in the space-time continuum.
I've never lost needles before! I almost bought a new set of needles in a moment of weakness last night simply because not having the full set of 5 irritates me to no end.
Yes, I know I can still use my set with only 4 needles, but still. That was my last drop of motivation for these doomed from the start socks.

So, tonight, the frogging will begin. Any suggestions for the yarn? I'm thinking mittens, or a hat.

Slightly Girly Hat 完成！

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Cranberry
(only 1 skein! with about a yard left over)
US 6/4.25 mm circulars and dpns

Made up the pattern as I went along,
inspired by the cabled wrist of Fetching

CO 100, 6 cabled rows, decreasing from 10.

I've been feverishly knitting away at holiday gifts, so this hat was knit in only 3 days!
A new record for me, the world's slowest knitter. Speedy progress brought to you by Chappelle's Show Season 1 & 2 on DVD ^_^ One hat down, one more to go!

[Edited to add short pattern 7.30.2007]
I received an email asking for a pattern for this hat, so here it is!
(I really just made this up on the fly, so be gentle)

Slightly Girly Hat

Worsted weight yarn 110 yards (Used one ball of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for the small size)
US 6/4.25 mm circulars and dpns
1 stitch marker
1 tapestry needle
1 cable needle ( or learn to cable w/o a needle!)

CO 100 (I used the long tail cast on o make it nice and stretchy)

Cable Repeat
Row 1-4: K4, P1, repeat until end of row.
Row 5: C4B [slip the next 2 stitches purlwise to a cable needle, move those slipped stitches behind the work,knit two stitches. then knit the 2 stitches on the cable needle], P1, repeat until end of row.

work this repeat 6 times.

knit 4 rows normally in the round

Begin decreases
Row 1: K10, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 2: K, repeat until end of row.
[move stitches to dpns]
Row 3: K9, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 4: K8, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 5: K7, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 6: K6, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 7: K5, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 8: K4, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 9: K3, K2tog, repeat until end of row.
Row 10: K2, K2tog, repeat until end of row.

cut working yarn about 6 inches from work, and use a tapestry needle to thread through the remaining live stitches. Pull tight to form top of hat, and weave in the ends on the inside of the hat.

Happy Knitting, and let me know if there are any mistakes!

Bright Red Meathead!

My finished Meathead!
Yarn: Lambs Pride Bulky
I knit the small size and still had a good 3-4 yards left after seaming.
I added some glass beads as embellishment.

Knitting for selfish purposes

Yarn: KnitPicks Merino Style in Coal(only 1 skein, with a couple yards leftover!)
US 4/3.5mm DPNs
Pattern from Knitty
cabling w/o a cable needle (awesome!)
Added 2 extra rows to the body of the glove( 18 rows to 20 rows)
No picot bind-off
Picked up a total of 8 stitches vs. 4 for the thumbs
to account for the smaller gauge of the Merino Style.

It took me a month to knit these!
I think weaving and other homework got in the way.
Now I have toasty warm gloves to wear,
and the cabling w/o a cable needle was strangely fun to do.
The merino was a nice yarn to knit with, and now i'm a bit addicted.

A poor attempt at tapestry weaving

I'm taking a beginning tapestry class through my university!
I was so excited to be learning how to weave, and it's a lot of fun.
Tapestry is turning out to be much more time consuming
and much slower paced than knitting.
To tell the truth, I get so overwhelmed with fiber
after class that I really don't feel like knitting.
I've gotten to the half way point of the circle since these pictures were taken,
but we are using LeClerc looms!

Lace may just kill me

7 hours of work, and only 3.5 repeats into this Branching Out scarf. I may well be ready to retire by the time this gets long enough to be used as a scarf on anything larger than a Barbie doll.

Mini-argyle my heart <3

Due to a bus breakdown, which turned a 1.5 hour trip into a 5 hour disaster,
the mini argyle hat got finished!

I did the decreases at the wee morning hours at the beach.
Pardon the resemblance of my head to a egg.
Though a snazzy argyle egg at that.
It's a lot harder to take picture of oneself in a hat than you'd think.

Yarn: Jaeger Shetland Aran in Linen Tweed and Charcoal Tweed.
US 8/5.5 mm circulars and dpns.
Made up the hat pattern as I went, mini-argyle chart from Eunny Jang
96 st. in the round (to go with the 12 st. pattern repeats. )

I really like knitting with both hands! What I mean is holding one color on my left, and one in the right. The balls of yarn don't end up tangled. Lovely ^_^

Argyle is a go!

Argyle!! Well, mini-argyle, since it's only two colors , not three. Using the chart I got from EunnyJang

This heel is going to kill me!

So I finally get to the last row of my first ever Sherman heel. What do i do with the extra stitches at both ends, and what do i do with my left and right wraps??

I tried to wing it and did a series of crazed k2togs and such, and ended up with huge holey stitches where the wraps were. Help!