Race Towards Thursday

Every week just feels like a race to me, it's like I just go go go. I know I do have more time than I used to, but six classes and working like 12 hours is a lot. I end up on thursday night with my room a wreck and tons of homework to do that weekend (yes, my weekend starts thursday night. I have no class friday, but I babysit friday).

Before the race starts tomorrow I have a couple things to update on. This weekend I went to Northampton with a couple friends. Although we did go to Webs, we also walked around the town a lot. I'm looking forward to going back soon, because it was great spending the day there. Tons of little shops, not overpriced and lots of neat stuff. We went out to breakfast at Sylvester's, which was awesomely delicious. We all got the twobytwobytwo, pancakes/french toast, eggs and bacon. I got cinnamon bun french toast. It was the best!



Mckayla had apple pancakes and did like them, despite this face.



Mullica liked the fresh squeezed orange juice!



I don't remember why they were doing this, but they were "psyching" up to go to Webs! It was a really great day. I also got some yarn (one ball! can you believe it?) at Webs, as well as some plastic needles that were cheap so hopefully security on the plane to and from Chile won't take them away!

FO: Bitterseed Shawl

Just rolling out the FOs, here! I started everything around the same time, so it's all being finished now!

Pattern: Bitterroot from knitty
Yarn: Mad Tosh Sock yarn
Needles: Size 6 circs
Mods: Uh. I ran out of yarn. For the cast off row. I found a very similar yarn I had already and luckily, you can't even tell unless you look closely!



I love it. The yarn looks silky and has gorgeous color variation and was a joy to knit with. I would not want this on my feet, and many people on Rav say that as gorgeous as the Tosh Sock is, it doesn't last for socks. So that's that!

About the pattern: I think this was one of my favorite shawl patterns. It had long enough sections of pattern repeats that I was able to knit it primarily in class but still changed pattern throughout the shawl so it held my interest and my knitterly happiness! A five star FO!

FO: Two Hats

I finished the Choochoo hat for my little cousin. We had fun taking pictures of it on his head but I did get a couple ones.



Pattern: I found the chart from a pattern on Rav, and made up the rest.
Yarn: Leftover from Various Sweaters: Valley Yarns Northampton
Needles: Size 8



Mike also needed a hat, so I started it on the ride up to Vermont and finished it yesterday.



They are out of the same yarn, from Mike's Sweater. For Mike's hat, I used double stranded, 80 sts ribbing. That's it!

FO: Owls Sweater

I finished! I think this sweater took me only a couple weeks, and if I had just knit the sweater I probably could have finished in a week.
I'm currently in Vermont and everyone is skiing and Mike wanted to go outside but was not aware I wanted him to take pictures, so some of these are me getting mad at him about not wanting to take pictures!



Pattern: Owls
YarnL Louet Riverstone Chunky (I wish I had knit it tighter, but you know. Hindsight is 20/20)
Needles: Size 10.5
Mods: Um I did weird should shaping. I knit the short rows after the initial decreases, tried it on, said "Heck no!", and looked up what others had done. Then, I decreased on a each top of the shoulder 6 sts on each side over 12 rows (I think) and then did more short rows to bring up the back and push the front down. It worked pretty well, until I realized I did it off center....So I did it again!
I also cast on for the body with the 38" size and only increased back up to the 36" size because I have hips, people. The designer only made the bottom 1 or 2" smaller than the bust, but I normally need 38" around the hips.



And here's some when I was making funny faces!





"What do you mean, you don't WANT to stand in the middle of the road and take pictures of my NEW sweater?"

I love it. I wish it was a bit longer. But that's always my complaint with everything with my long torso.

What I'm Into:

Law and Order SVU on Netflix
I have had two snow days, this is the second. I am getting the message: yes, universe, I will knit. I've been watching Law and Order SVU constantly. I watched it a lot during winter break and I found myself depressed. I wondered why. Then I realized what I had been watching constantly! So, I will try not to watch it as much.

Shoveling?
I don't want to shovel. But we have a giant driveway. L-shaped and has a wall on one side so, it's diffcult to shovel up and over. Luckily, dad mostly snowblows everything.

Vermont
I knitting this whole day. This weekend I'm going to Vermont, I'm pretty excited. I had school Monday, no school Tuesday or today and then classes tomorrow on Thursday, no classes on Friday. We leave at 2pm for Vermont. Very excited! When I was younger, we would go and I would snowboard or ski. I only do it once a year so it ended up that I was in major pain the next day. So I gave up on that! We go there, and I might sled or ice skate, but mostly I'll knit and play with my little cousin! I'm going to try to finish my Owls sweater before this weekend but we'll see (I'm on the sleeves!).



Credit for "What I'm Into:" from Julie!

FO: Socks of a Spy!

Currently avoiding my painting homework. It's a reproduction painting. Argh, it has a little cupid in it and he just looks terrible. But yesterday was Mike Brown's birthday and conviently I finished his socks!



Pattern: Plain socks, 64 sts, then 66 on the foot
Yarn: Several. Left over black sock yarn, and both the others are Online Supersocke.
Needles: 1.5 Us size dpns.



These were fun to knit, and I'm hoping to do a similar thing with the other leftovers I have. I have a lot and they all are pretty sizable. Now that I made a yarn diet, I'm really not buying yarn, except if the project is urgent - and not urgent for me, but for other people. My grandfather who has been a huge support and always interested in my education made me the awesome shelf I had a picture of a couple posts back. I sent him a thank you letter offering up any type of knitting and he asked for a pair of socks. So I bought some grey yarn for that but that's IT so far! Not bad for me, at least.

FO: Chinese Ice Queen

Pattern: Ice Queen (Knitty!)
Yarn: Kangaroo Dyer Silk/Mohair Blend, Halo.
Needles: Size 8 and 6 circs 16"
Mods: None. I think I may knit more repeats.

I like it. It's so similar in color to the ice queen that I made myself and still wear, so that was strange. But I love the color variation in it, blue/green is just gorgeous!
Hoping to finish my boyfriend's socks by tomorrow for his birthday and my owls sweater by the end of the week! Stay tuned!