Finished Object: Bayerische Socks

(we will ignore my unmade bed, my blindingly white legs, and the horrible light.)

The Specs:
Pattern: Bayerische by Eunny Jang.
Yarn: ZwegerGarn, Opal. Yum.
Color: Number 62 - a brown with a orange hint to it. I hate it, my sister loves it.
Needles: Plymouth Bamboo DPNs, US Size 2.
Start to Finish: January 2007 to November 2007. I forget exact dates.

(seriously, I have spent all daylight hours for the last three days in the back of an auditorium. Where lights were off or blue.)

For: My sister. Which is why its a good thing she likes the color.
Notes: Love. Much, much love. Charts are easy to follow (and eventually, memorize). They really didn't take THAT long to knit - I knit the first one in about 3 months, the second in less. They just spent a lot of time waiting around, just hoping to be loved. They look a thousand times better when worn. I made two mistakes - both on the first sock. But, my sister doesn't care and odds are, will never be able to find them again.

I want to knit a pair for myself, but I don't think I'd ever manage to actually FINISH them. Le sigh.


In Other News :

This is my to-do list for the week. Apparently, I plan on writing three papers, studying for a final, going to the barn four-five times this week, and getting a hair cut. Also, watching TV.

Sunday will be the fun day, as the first of the papers is due on Monday, December 17th.

After that? Two papers due Wednesday and a final scheduled for 8am Friday, December 17th. I am hoping and praying that they will let me take the final earlier. Tuesday sounds like a good day.

Conversations with The Urmily

Driving home for Thanksgiving:

"Deer!"   (randomly, out of the blue.)
"What?"
"There was a sign."
"Did it have a picture?"  (I was thinking of this.)
"No.  It was pink."

Not dead. Yet.

I've been staring at empty blogwriting pages for a few months now, but not so much with the writing of the blog bit.

In part, I'm over-whelmed with the amount of catch up that I feel I should do. So I decided to just skip the catch up and if you have questions, lemme know.  (Assuming I have any readers left...)

I have no current knitting pictures, since my camera has been ignored for a bit.  So you get pictures from Europe, as I ease back into the whole blogging bit.


(market square in Krakow, Poland)

The semester is winding up, final papers are staring me down.  Only three?  Four?  I'm not even sure, which probably isn't the best of signs.


(parking lot over looking an old church in Prague, Czech Republic)

But also looming is my thesis and all the work I need to do for that cause I haven't done as much work for that as I should have this semester.  GAH!!!


(river dividing Buda and Pest in Hungary, on the day of the Red Bull Air Races)

And looming over all THAT is that scary thing called the "real world."  I've decided to apply to ONE grad school for fall 2008 and if I get in, I'll go then.  If I don't get in.. I'll go the following year, which was the original plan in the first place.



(Auschwitz-Birkenau train track.  This is actually the track that everyone thinks leads to the main camp, but Birkenau was a satellite camp.)

So I'm just gonna write final papers and personal statements and thesis stuff and so forth.  And knit the stress away, when I have time to do so.

um....

Hi, my name is confiance and I suck at blogging.

Vacation, work, work, classes starting, homework... all have kept me from having enough free time to remember that I have a blog.  My hard drive crashing has also resulted in me needing to download all sorts of things.  Like my camera software, which is why you get no pictures.

Mostly, I just wanted to let my sock pal know that I got my socks and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them!  Thank you so much!  The yarn is awesome, the pattern is awesome, and the colors are awesome.  AND they fit perfectly.

I'm sorry I let you get nervous - I didn't actually get them til Saturday, because I was on vacation when they arrived and someone else got the mail for me while I was gone and they weren't around til Saturday.  And then I tried responding to e-mails and they kept bouncing back for some reason.

So blogworld, view this as a long-due post/e-mail to the most awesome sock pal!  I need to take pictures, but first I need to find my camera.  (You'd be amazed at home much that is a theme for my life right now.)

Ok, gotta go - class starts in ten minutes.

Just checking in

Wednesday morning, my hard drive crashed.

This afternoon, my new hard drive arrived.  After some difficulty what with pieces not seeming to be the correct size and shape, I figured it out and installed the new hard drive.  And reinstalled Windows.  And then updated my graphics driver so that I could actually use ALL of my screen, rather than a 5x8" section in the middle.  And installed a bunch of other things, like my web browser of choice (Opera) and other programs, such as virus protection and sypware detection and so forth.

And now I have to attempt to remember all my bookmarked websites.  However, there was a reason I bookmarked them - so I wouldn't have to remember them.

Funny how that works.

But that would explain the lack of posting and the lack of pictures - I haven't installed all the stuff for my camera yet.  Or ripped all my songs off my iPod.  Or any of the other thousand things one must do to set up a computer to their specifications.

Minus working a 7 hour shift tomorrow, leaving the barn at 7am for a horse show on Sunday (and taking a mostly white horse, meaning I'll be up and at the barn by 6am to bathe the horse), I should be up and running in now time.

And thanks for the comments on my last post.

Of Mice and Men

What I planned on doing today:

• riding lesson
  
• clean bathroom
  
• clean kitchen
  
• take out recycling
  
• straighten room
  
• knit
  
• read three chapters of my book
  
• go to the gym and kick my own ass
  

What I will Most Likely End up Doing Today:

• read half a chapter of my book and fall asleep
  
• attempt to straighten my room and give up half way
  
• curse a lot
  
• attempt to knit and discover that your middle finger is really quite required for the whole process
  

And the reason my to-do list will end up so very NOT to-did?

But there's a valid reason for drinking before noon on a Thursday:

You see that line about a third of the way down my nail?  It was bent backwards - and STUCK - at that line.  I managed to rip off a large portion of my nail during my lesson this morning.

Doesn't it look pretty?

Good thing I went bowling last night, otherwise I'd be bowling left-handed.  Also, that happens to be my middle finger, so I've been walking around like I'm giving people the middle finger.

Yesterday, I was bucked off.  Twice.  By the same horse.  I had bruises by the time I got home.  They look funny (but don't photograph well - believe me, I tried) because the surface of the ring is uneven, so I have "dotted" bruises.  A couple scrapes as well and some really nice and sore muscles to boot.

I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow when I ride.

In knitting news, I tore out the majority of Sizzle.  I tried it on again and finally convinced myself that it is too short, too wide, and not something I would wear.  So, back to the seed stitch border to start again.  I went down a needle size, figuring that will help with the "too wide" part.  I also knit an extra inch before starting the decreasing darts and will knit an extra inch or two in the shoulder straps, I think.  Also, I knit that back when I was twisting my purl stitches by purling incorrectly for the way I knit (or vice versa, depending on how you want to look at it.)

I finished the sock I started while watching Knocked Up and offered the pair - once I finish it - to my sister.  I'm knocking around ideas for my sock pal's socks, but I want to start at the toes and knit my way up.  And use little to no lace.  I'm thinking of modifying the Bayerische pattern to use the two cable patterns that I really like.  I think I'd have time to finish them.  Right?

Finished Object: Branching Out

About time I finished this project....

The Specs:
Pattern: Branching Out from knitty.com. No known mods - I think I messed up the first five rows of garter stitch, but that doesn't count.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, 65% wool, 35% silk. 192 yards/50g ball. I think I used all but half a yard or so.
Colors: That's a very good question... I can't find the label, but I think it was sandstone or oatmeal or something of that nature.


Needles: US size 8, 14" metal straights from Boye. By the end - after I knit some many pairs of socks, I found the needles too long to be comfortable. Or make it was the limited width of the project for the needle length.
Start to Finish: Um, started some time back in 2006, I think around the beginning of April. I cast off on 6/3/07, so one year and two months for a very simple lace scarf.
For: Again, a very good question. I HAVE NO IDEA. Any suggestions?
Notes: Lace is fun, chart reading is a lot easier than it was when I first started this project. Now I really want to try my hand at a shawl but I know I would never wear it. Lace is a lot easier than it looks and pointy needles are the best thing in the whole world for lace.

(that little bit of yarn to the side is all that is left over.)

Free time = no blogging?

Hi Blog!

I know, I know - I suck at this whole updating thing. And it isn't even like I'm all that busy. I wake up whenever, get breakfast, make my bed, take care of little things around the apartment. For example, yesterday I ironed the sheets I put on my bed. (What? There was a wrinkle along all four edges of the flat sheet that would NOT wash out. It almost didn't IRON out with steam on the highest setting.) I read, I eat, I go to both the gym and the barn. Four days a week or so, I head to work for 3-4 hours. (I really need to find ANOTHER job.) Oh yeah - from time to time, I knit as well.

See? This is the sock that I started in the theater, watching previews before Knocked Up started. Great movie - I loved it. At first, I thought I had twisted my join and would have to start again, but I decided to just keep knitting cause it would be too distracting to do so during the movie.



I really like the top edge, with the little bit of white/black bit:


I might give them to my sister, as I finished her first sock and cast on the second one and haven't touched it since. Just not quite feeling the Bayerische love these days.

Yarn arrived in the mail yesterday!


One skein Lorna's Laces in Hawaii for me (I'll be able to make a decent pair of anklets out of it) and two skeins in BlackWatch for my sock pal! Now, I just need my copy of Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave to pick a pattern. Something interesting and beautiful, but not lacy. Any suggestions?

And I'll leave you with a bonus image of BranchingOut blocking on my bed. I need to post the finished object entry so y'all can see how pretty it turned out. One of these days?

Catching Up

I still need to block Branching Out. I'm waiting for a day that I wake up (and GET up) early enough to be sure that it is dry by the time I go to bed, as I think I have to block on my bed. I'm uber excited though, since blocking lace is magic! After I block it, I have to figure out where it shall live. I'm thinking TheBoy's mother shall be able to find a good use for it.

I'm not sure about the color, though. I loved the color online, but now it looks rather ... blah. Maybe I'll knit a swatch with the VERY LITTLE I have left over and see how that works.

In other news, I've been given Timmy for the summer - the horse that can jump 4'6" with no problem. He's awesome and I'm having a blast, even though I'd rather not sit again for a few days. There's talk of doing an A rated jumpers show in July, which is already scaring me. Those turns are gonna be TIGHT and Timmy is either fast or nimble and both are needed to do well.

Tomorrow, I plan on attempting to find a sock pattern (or to create one) for my sock pal. I also need to figure out my next "big" project. I have to finish my sister's second Bayerische sock and I started a new pair of socks the other day - I'd finished the monkey socks and we were going to a movie. You know it's bad when you think you twisted the join during your cast on and PLAN ON CONTINUING to knit ANYWAY, just so you have something to do during the movie. (I didn't twist, but I did get some 4.5 inches of cuff done during Knocked Up.)

For now, to bed with my lap top and PSU's subscription to Practical Horseman.

Finished Object: Monkey Socks

The Specs:
Pattern: Monkey Socks, from Knitty. I didn't modify the pattern at all, which surprised me, as I hate heel flaps.
Yarn: Claudia's Handpainted, fingering weight. 100% Merino wool.



Colors: Ocean Depth, which has some awesome shades of blue, green, and purples. LOVE this color. However, I have not been able to photograph it correctly. Much more vibrant.
Needles: Plastic 5" US size 2 dpns, set of five.
Start to Finish: May 14-29. Very fast for me.
For: Me!



Notes: I am in love with this yarn so very much. I really hope it wears well. I'm kicking my self for not using my favorite heel - short row - since I have yet to figure out a way to knit a heel flap that actually fits my feet. I really like this pattern, but it has caused me to start sketching and swatching for a different sort of pattern, just without the purl stitches. We'll see. I also ended up breaking the point off of one of my dpns - I was poking my father in retaliation of his poking me. The needle is still usable though, you just have to watch which end you use when that's the free needle.
Final verdict: love, love, love.



(ps: I cast off for Branching Out tonight as well. And I have a bunch of other updates, as well. Stay tuned!)