The time of pink, part 3

So, the Socks that Rock is still a mess for now... But, as consolation, look what came in the mail today:




Noro. Kureyon. SOCK YARN. OMG. Amazing. That's about all I can say other than yes, it's a single ply of wool and nylon. I have no idea how it'll wear, but gosh is it pretty.

In other news, I finished some pink things...



I know this looks more like an amorphous blob than anything else, but it's an expandable market bag out of Plymouth Fantasy Naturale. It's incredibly expandable, and a couple more of these should be able to support a bunch of groceries at once. I can finally start to cut down on the amount of plastic bags we bring back from Meijer...



Oh, and everyone needs to cover their ornaments with pink fuzzies, right?

Breaktime fun

I really do love my cats, but sometimes I wonder why. Last night I fell asleep on the couch and then groggily went upstairs. I left out my sock knitting in my absent-mindedness. When I woke up this morning, the cats had destroyed another DPN and made a HUGE mess of my ball of Socks that Rock, as you can see. I've already had to cut two sections off, and the mess isn't much better than pictured at the moment. Ugh!



So, I'm planning to make Gloria from Noro Knits soon. I just have to free up the needles that are currently being used to make an expandable shopping bag... soon, soon. I got the yarn at Lavender & Peonies in a town just a bit north of here. I was pretty well blown away by the friendliness of the ladies, as well as the nice sale that was going on!

On top of the new acquisitions, I don't really have to feel one iota of guilt for spending money for two reasons:

1. I sold two of my books back on amazon already, fetching me more than $100


2. Steve got a steady job!

Here's hoping the new job doesn't suck. It's only eight minutes away. I'm a little too proud of him, I think; but it's been so long since he's had a job with a decent company or that wasn't temporary and home-based... Too bad for him, he has to wake up early now!

WHEEE!!!

First semester of law school is DONE! I get to play around until 1/7/08.

:-D

Holy mother of god, what do I do with myself now?

Excuses, FO!

For anyone alarmed at the volume of knitting I'm pumping out (*cough* Mom *cough*), let me just say that this was almost entirely done while staring at outlines for various finals. So, studying and knitting, all at once!




This is Excuses from the latest Magknits. It took very little yarn (two of the Louisa Harding and three of the Paton's wool), and consequently I broke my sweater speed record which I had previously set with my Tangled Yoke. Mine is the first FO (other than the designer's) on Ravelry, and as a guinea pig, let me say that the pattern for the 34" size is absolutely perfect and error-free. :) The only thing I'd change is add an inch or two to the length, but that's a personal taste kind of thing.

Uh, yeah. I need to find something new to work on now... Back to studying?

Ravelry Secret Santa strikes!

How totally awesome. I signed up for a Secret Santa swap on Ravlery, and my package came trough today, full of awesome goodies!



Wrapped up all nice, complete with festive furry yarn acting as a ribbon...



And the goods! Three skeins of Fantasy Naturale cotton in awesome colors, which I think I have plans for already. Plus, a recipe for making those knitted ornament covers! I'd seriously been contemplating how people do that, and now I know, along with having some great fluff to try it out with! (These will be SO perfect on the pink Christmas tree. Seriously.)

Still-secret Santa - you rock my world, and I think you read my mind. :)

Another FO!

These are flippy-top mittens to mail off as a Christmas gift. They're based on the Urban Necessity mitts with a few modifications. I did the large size on size 5 needles to get a slightly denser gauge with the called-for Cascade 220 Superwash.

I'm sending wool to a vegan person; he swears he's okay with it though after a discussion of the ethics of various types of animal fibers.

Now I'm going to go see Spamalot.

THEN I'll get to the exam studying and panic.

Another one...

Yes, it's another freaking Foliage, out of Malabrigo chunky in a gorgeous red called amoroso. This one is getting mailed off to Claire; it is a companion to the beaded gloves I did last month. Oh, and her branching out as well. The total time for this project was a mere 2 1/2 hours, two of which were spent in my new knitting group!

This all came about on Ravery. In attendance were Marcy, Shaun, Amanda, Meg, Jessica, and Kendra. Woot! It was an awesome group of people, and now I feel like I'm making steps toward being a bit more sociable in my city. A weekly knitting group? Completely stinking awesome. Bah. Enough rambling...

Lush

I'm going to leave behind the knitting content for a while; there is knitting going on, but most of it is semi-secretive holiday stuff, so I won't be able to post until they're FOs. I'm not sure how many of the recipients read this, but I don't want to risk it!

I've mentioned a few times before my love of alcohol, especially gigantic bottles of stoli. It usually just gets mixed with cranberry juice, but lately I've been mixing it into a bunch of random shots to spice things up. It's really important to me this time of year, when looming exams give that extra law school pressure...

I didn't photograph them, but I made a batch of Pudding Shots. In mentioning these, most people gave a confused expression. Pudding and alcohol? Yes! It can be done! And if you enjoy the taste of Irish Cream/Kahlua, you will probably enjoy these.

Chocolate Pudding Shots

Ingredients:

• 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package of instant chocolate pudding mix


• 3/4 cups of milk


• 1/4 cup of vodka


• 1/2 cup of Irish Cream/Kahlua (your choice)


• 8 ounces (yes, an entire tub) cool-whip

Mix pudding and milk until well-blended. Add vodka and Irish Cream, mix well. Fold in cool-whip. Divide into individual servings. (I usually get 18-20 shots out of a batch!) Place in freezer.

And that's it! After the day or so, they are about the consistency of soft-serve ice cream, and they're tasty, with a definite chocolate aftertaste.

What did I make tonight?



Classic jello shots in berry blue, my favorite flavor. I'm thinking the cranberry-raspberry flavor might be really good as my next attempt! These are actually a lot less complicated than the pudding shots, and I think there are a lot of neat variations out there... midori and watermelon jello, anyone?

Easy Jello Shots

Ingredients:

• 1 small (3 oz.) package of Jello (any flavor)


• 1 cup boiling water


• 1 cup chilled vodka

Mix jello with boiling water. Stir until the jello is dissolved. Add chilled vodka, stir in. Separate into individual servings, and put in fridge. Let set for 2-3 hours. Makes 12 shots.

Obviously the jello shots are much more potent than the pudding shots... Surely this makes up for a lack of knitting content... right?

And again...

I swear I didn't knit most of these in one day. In fact, I started these in February for a friend's birthday. They're now a Christmas gift. Pathetic, I know. All I had to do was knit up a few fingers! I had these about 75% finished, and just chilling as UFOs for a loooong time. My friend knew I was working on them, and has been very gracious about not giving me grief for their unfinished state. He doesn't know I picked them up again! Won't he be surprised when they show up in his mailbox?

The pattern is Knitty's Cigar, with all of the fingers fully formed. The yarn is knitpicks Alpaca Silk, leftovers from a sweater I made myself. Hope he can deal with gloves that can't be machine washed. Because of all the alpaca goodness, they'll be super warm, though!

Post 100!

Keeping in the "knitting machine" theme...




I think I'm done with hats for now. Until I crank out a few as holiday gifts, that is. I was going to hold off doing this one, but the yarn showed up in the mail on Monday, and I just could not resist casting on. It's Leticia from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in one of the uber-gothic "raven" colorways. It's so sexy. I opened up the package and just swooned at the super-soft thick-and-thin merino in the charcoal, fuchsia, and back. The pattern in the Harlot's Unoriginal Hat.

Bring on the snow. I have a slew of new wool hats just begging to be showed off.

Knitting machine

Tangled Yoke is done.



It's a personal speed record: November 6th - 24th. I used Silky Wool rather than the Felted Tweed, and it could't have worked out better. It's lightweight, but still incredibly warm. Six skeins of silky wool was much cheaper than the Rowan it called for. For once in my life, I had stitch gauge and row gauge! So exciting.



There were only two real challenges: Understanding the decreases in the body rib (I couldn't get them to add up nicely in my size.) and getting through the cables. I had to tink back a row or two trough the cable rows, but the end result has been so worth it.




I also finished a second folialge, this time out of Malabrigo Chunky. Now I have three awesome new hats for the winter. It snowed like hell today; bring it on, my head will be warm and stylin'!

The time of pink, part 2

I totally forgot to show off the OTHER pink project on the needles.



That would be the body up to the armpits, one sleeve, and the start of the second sleeve of the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I'm not known for having luck with patterns by Eunny Jang. I'm really hoping to break my streak of bad luck. I stared on November 6th, and am going along at a pretty good pace. I almost feel like I should be participating in NaKniSweMo!

The yarn is silky wool in dusty rose. With size 4 needles, I got stitch gauge AND row gauge. That never happens to me.

The time of pink

I have two FOs to show off.

The first is the one I'm less excited about: Magknits Fake Isle.



There's nothing wrong with the pattern. It's just that my damn head is so small I have to fold up the brim. (Okay, and I heard that these hats turned out small so I made the bigger size. Whoops.) It's okay though, I got to use some stashed Kureyon and black wool, as well as polish my fair isle skills. My floats aren't crazy tight anymore.



Do you need proof that law students are the coolest? Foliage was designed by Emilee, who started into the lawyer endeavor at the same time as me, coming up with this fun hat in the process.



I do have a small confession. I didn't like this hat at first. It wasn't until I saw it on a girl on the bus that my interest was piqued. It was funny. I thought the girl's hat was storebought at first. I said to myself, "That's a cute hat, and that yarn looks remarkably like Malabrigo... say, isn't that in the new knitty? Nah... the crown increases don't look like that." Lo and behold, when I raveled it, I discovered that it was the same hat, crown increases, malabrigo and all. Naturally, Amanda and I rushed to our LYS to scope out the malabrigo, and one day later, I have a new pink hat. Good thing for watching lengthy movies on Netflix! Two, really. And I'm working on a pink sweater.

It's the time of pink. And I have a week off for some studying and some relaxing. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to curl up by the fire with my knitting and some pudding shots. Gosh, we're classy people.

FO: Beaded gloves

I feel oh so productive.



I finished these garnstudio gloves out of a single skein of their Drops Alpaca. Admittedly, it was leftovers from Claire's Branching Out (not pictured on this blog). I majorly modified the cuff, if you can't tell; I just did three-by-two rib rather than that fancy picot edge that the pattern calls for. Oh, and because the chart was in a different language and I didn't know which double decrease the triangles were, I used a s2k1p. I don't think that's what it called for.



I was inspired by the work of lillstrumpa's on ravelry. The link goes there, so apologies if you're not in yet. I mention her because it was not my brilliant idea to add beads to the pattern. I used some size 6/0 black seed beads I had laying around and a size 12 crochet hook to do the magic. I like the crochet hook method WAY better than beading them all in advance. Deb has a great tutorial here.

Incidentally, blogger's uploader appeared to be broken, so I used flickr. Uhhh, I already had the post and just wanted to add images, and I'm a little peeved that flickr has stopped giving the direct URLs for its images! When I go to "blog this" it wants to make a whole new entry. No way. I had to control-click (right click for you PC folks) and "copy image location" so I could write my own tags. What the... Maybe I'm missing some integral part of flickr because I only really use it for ravelry...

Incidentally, I hope they're not huge images.

ETA: Okay, so blogger's uploader magically started working and I edited them. Because they DID look crummy.

I've been tagged!

So, Aastrikke tagged me for a random things meme...

8 Very Random Things

Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1.) I'm now so pretty much in love with Beautiful Katamari. It's not a complicated game, and I never imagined this would be a series I'd get into; something about just rolling balls didn't seem that appealing. It is incredibly appealing, though! I imagine much of the appeal comes from the colorful happiness of it all. I like the online play too, but just wish more people would play. I'm Velvet Mudkips if anyone out there wants to friend me and roll some balls. I played with some random people, and squealed with delight when one of them wanted to be my xbox live friend!



2.) My cats have a thing for DPNs. First it was the clovers... then the brittanys... If I didn't love them so much, I'd have kicked Blackcat to the curb for chewing the tips off one of my knitpicks harmony wood needles. Jerk... Lucky for him, he's a wonderful cat other than his penchant for DPNs. As a result, I now have 14 random size 1 DPNs, all in different brands and varying levels of cat-chewedness.

3.) My own yarn buying habits have started to alarm me. I need to knit faster or destash... but when I have gorgeous projects planned for everything here, it's hard to imagine destashing! So, anyone have any tips on how to knit faster?

4.) I made a Fake Aisle hat. I read that they came out small, so mine came out huge. Who wants a hat? This is the second hat I've made pretty darned big on accident; the other was for a co-worker and I promised to fix it... and then never did...

5.) I like to knit for gifts. When people don't like the same colors as me, it gives me an excuse to go to the yarn shop somewhat guilt-free.

6.) I did not dress up for Halloween this year, unless you count my obnoxious orange blouse and black pants. Truthfully, it makes me feel pretty boring and a bit sad. I'm not really into Halloween like I used to be.

7.) I've decided that I'm going to reward myself with a new bodymod of some variety once I'm through this first semester of classes. Tattoo? Hideable piercing? It has to be of the variety that won't keep me from getting a summer job... Or a job when I graduate, for that matter. Why did I pick a somewhat conservative profession, again?

8.) I don't think I'm going to be buying Guitar Hero III, even though I love Guitar Hero II. I played a friend's copy this past weekend. The sexist portrayal of female characters and product placement really turns me off to something I'd otherwise love. My favorite character from II (Pandora) is gone, and my second-favorite (Judy) has turned into... a freak? This commentary explains my frustration better than I could.

I tag, um... whoever wants to do it! (Cop out, yes.)

FiberExpo spoils & WIP

My mother sent me these little fishies out of Kureyon to give to the kitten-devils. They're shreds now, but they've definitely been loved the evil kitties! (Thanks, mom - your grandkittens love them.)

More excitingly, I went with Amanda to the Fiber Expo in Ann Arbor. My mom also came to meet up with us! Football Saturdays be damned, we were there bright and early before we were totally awake. There were cute bunnies and lots of yummy wooly yarns and other stuff. There was yarn spun from possum! POSSUM YARN? I didn't get any, but I learned that there are more fiber animals in existence than I realized.



The fiery-colored sock yarn is from Yarn Hollow. The colors are a bit more vivid in real life; their stuff is gorgeous, and definitely worth checking out! The Fortissima Socka is from Parrott's Perch.



I also got delicious stitch markers. I can't remember the seller though.

There were maybe (?) Ravelry meetups during the event, but we didn't attend; we did, however, run into Anna and her daughter. I was recognized by my icon on Ravelry!



This is the progress on Claire's beaded gloves. I made a second Branching Out with Garnstudio alpaca, and with the leftover skein, I decided she needed beaded gloves to match. The pattern is here, but I did alter the cuff to be less annoying... I love how gloves look when they're partially finished, with stitch holders and needles sticking out everywhere. However, I'm just not a huge fan of knitting the fingers. It's so tedious!

Weather

I don't know if I've ever seen three tornado warnings in one evening before. Sheesh, the sirens really lose their touch after a while.

*ETA* Now there's a fourth. Cute.

Socks!

Yay! Finally finished my first pair of socks for the Southern Summer of Socks. I have a healthy fear that my camera might be dead, so please accept my apology for the cell phone photo...



The pattern is Cookie's monkey socks. They're still fun to do the second time around, but I'm never very excited about doing a pattern a second time. I don't think I could make more monkey socks without having my head explode, so it's time to get on ravelry and find some more good stuff to do!

And the yarn? It's from the seller Pinkwool on etsy, her Teamfeet yarn. The socks are obnoxiously U of M colored. They're a gift for my grandmother who has had season tickets to U of M sports for a really, really long time. I can't wait to mail them out!

Speaking of knitting things for a second time, I'm working on a second Branching Out to send to another friend... Sheesh, what is it with me making two of a pattern lately? I also fear that I may run out of yarn... but never fear! Threadbear is near! (And open Sunday. Wow, I'm a dork.)

Hmmm

I really like kawaii not. It's adorable.

Real knitting content soon. Just let me get through the beginning of this week!

It's not just about politics, but also my booze!

The pink mouse I made for the kittens last month finally met its maker. After spending the night in the cats' water bowl, I decided that it was in their best interest to just throw the soggy, tailless, unraveling, partially-felted guy away.



His replacement was made out of some leftover Malabrigo. I'm sad to report that this new kitten toy isn't holding up so well; after just one day of terror from Orangecat and Blackcat, his i-cord tail is already unraveled and gone! Oh well, it's obvious that these guys still love him, so I'm not too heartbroken just yet.



The Flame Wave socks from Favorite Socks finished! Fishnets no more, I rather like their second chance at life as comfy socks. I wish I could use these for the Southern Summer of Socks, but that action doesn't start until Monday. Don't worry, there is plenty of sock yarn just waiting for my sole goal of being knitted up!

Speaking of Monday, I should probably go to Meijer and get more liquor. Why, you ask? Well, my government is shutting down. It boggles the mind that the fact that Michigan is going into government-induced anarchy isn't making national news. Most of the residents of this fine state were blissfully unaware of the fact that this was a possibility. What do we get? We get limited police force, limited funding to colleges, and no distribution of liquor, among a lot of other random, annoying things until the legislature comes to some agreement over their budget. The most tragic part of this isn't really the liquor, it's the bazillions of people who suddenly are laid off. Virtually every government worker is out of work starting Monday. They are only keeping people in prisons and hospitals and such to keep this from being complete state-induced anarchy.

There are a lot of fingers being pointed at our governor, but I don't think it's entirely fair to place the blame on her. Rather, what I see is a bipartisan host of morons in the legislature so stubborn and so motivated by sheer politics rather than goodwill that they've caused a shitstorm. At least Governor Granholm has been proposing a budget since January...

No wonder West Virginia's economy is better than ours. Fuck you, Michigan. I'm going to go buy another huge bottle of Stoli while I still can.

1967 was a good year

Once in a while, my mother comes to visit me and we go antiquing together. She has an ubiquitous collection of glass, while I look around for random kitschy knick-knacks and LPs. I've always secretly hoped for old knitting and sewing patterns... Of course, most of the sewing patterns are for a 30" bust (!), and the knitting patterns were usually just never there...

I scored last weekend. Really.



It's from 1967, and published by a now-nonexistent yarn company. I LOVE some of the styles in this book, in particular the sweater being modeled by the blonde girl with the flip hairstyle. The only dilemma? This book is so clever that it has many of the same patterns available as cardigans OR pullovers! Choices! And thankfully, it's not SO old that the patterns are written in Greek. I can't wait to get started.

In other can't-wait news, I've joined up with the Southern Summer of Socks. I'm not an Aussie (right now), but I need an excuse to use up all my sock yarn. And, really, I think that's my main goal for the "summer" challenge.

FO: Branching Out

One of my absolute oldest friends, Jackie, is moving to England for graduate school. It's up in the air whether this will be for the duration of her program or perhaps the rest of her life. When you've known someone since kindergarten (age 5), it's tough to think about them being an ocean away...

She leaves on Saturday, so I wanted to knit something up to send to her when she arrives. You know, maybe along with some Hershey's chocolate (scarce in England, I believe) to cheer her up in what may be a rough time. I consulted with another old mutual friend, and we decided that Knitty's Branching Out and some autumn-colored silky wool would be a nice match for her personality and wardrobe.




Well, I wasn't banking on having it done BEFORE she leaves. Now I'm unsure whether to save it for a bit and mail it to her, or drive miles and miles to see her off on Friday, the day before she leaves. I must ponder this.

In the meantime, there are 27 pattern repeats there just as the pattern suggested. This was an incredibly easy and satisfying knit which I almost didn't want to end! I wet blocked it after soaking it in some Eucalan, and it opened up the lace even more! At least there's more lonely balls of silky wool in my stash... I may need to make another to keep!

Socks, redux

Once upon a time, I thought that knitted fishnet stockings were a good idea. I thought that these were SUCH a good idea, in fact, that I have enough Elann Esprit to last me a loooong time. I started out with the ruby color, as I had every intent to wear them as a transvestite to a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight thing. Long story short, I finished one. It looked like crap, was too short for my garter belt, and I ended up with storebought red Victoria's Secret fishnets instead. The rest of my outfit? I was pretty much half-naked in October. This was not the greatest idea. There is still photographic evidence of my bad, bad idea.

That lone fishnet stayed in my stash for far too long... But when I got a copy of Favorite Socks, I knew the destiny of that Esprit!





Yes, Flame Wave socks. One is done, the other is on the needles and on its way. Part of me still wants ruby red hand-knitted fishnets... but then, I remember the miles and miles of windowpane stitch and smack myself for even thinking it.

Janet's still a slut, as far as I'm concerned.

Here she is...

Mariah is done! She has been in the making since March, with some long breaks. I found the cabling on the sleeves to be sort of annoying. But once I got past all that, making her pretty much flew by! She took six skeins of wool-ease (sue me, I want a washable sweater) and all was well. I urge anyone who plans to make this to contact Jodi, the designer, for a set of errata; these are fixes that are not posted on Knitty, and I found them invaluable in getting a good fit.

The rest of the zipper went off without any further issue, save for spending ten minutes digging through moving boxes (yes, there are still some boxes) for my sewing accessories. I needed my zipper foot, damn it! This zipper tutorial was really helpful.



Ignore the weird hair. I've been bed-ridden because I'm getting damn sick. :-(

September

So...
When did it become September? Oh, nine days ago? Sheesh. Law school has definitely kept me busy, but I've made it a point to allow myself plenty of knitting and video game time every day. It's for the sake of my sanity, you know! Not having to worry about a job actually frees up more time than I used to have, so truly I've been enjoying it. For once in my life, the reading for school doesn't mostly bore me! Cases are kind of exciting, even when the decisions piss me off.

That said, I hit a wall with Mariah. It's a small wall, but annoying nonetheless. Here she is:



Inside-out, basted shut, and sadly waiting a zipper. You see, I seem to be completely unable to measure properly for a zipper. Initially, I figured I'd get one ahead of time, and I measured her front at 16". Did it occur to me that it seemed short? Hell no! I realized how short it would be when I tried on the sweater, and saw that it was far longer than that... I measured while it was on my body at 24" in the second time around. I ran out to Joann right before it closed for a new zipper.

Did you figure out what I did wrong? Yeah, I measured it on my body, a bit stretched out. The true length I need is actually 20", smack in the middle of my two follies. I even went to Meijer late last night to see if they had zippers in their meager sewing section. (They did not.) I was so hellbent on getting Mariah DONE!

Oh well. Today. I'm not sure I can show my face at Joann AGAIN for ANOTHER zipper. I consoled myself by casting on for my next sweater:



It's the Tweed Cardigan from the Winter 04/05 Vogue Knitting. There's not one on Ravelry, nor can I seem to find one on the internet. I mentioned buying the yarn for it a while ago, but here's what it looks like for a refresher:



The colorwork is basically a slip stitch pattern in garter stitch. I could have started this ages ago, had I realized how simple it actually was! Although, I might not have substituted yarn well, as the original is made from a discontinued Lion Brand yarn. Instead, I'm using Lamb's Pride Superwash Bulky (From Alpaca Fleece, who are WONDERFUL!) which pretty much feels like butter.

So, how have you all been?

Michigan Fiber Fest!

For the second year in a row, I've made the trek to Allegan for the Michigan Fiber Festival. This year, with quitting the job and starting law school, I was on a bit of a budget so the haul wasn't as exciting as it potentially could have been. However, this is all either gifts or for a specific project! Good news!



The outside is six skeins of Lamb's Pride Superwash Bulky in Baron Red, meant for a buttony. There are some really gorgeous ones on Ravelry that inspired me, otherwise I'd probably never have looked twice at the pattern. This wouldn't be such a new, exciting thing, EXCEPT that the skeins were only $3.90 apiece rather than $8.00! Twenty-five dollar sweater, hello!

The two skeins of sock yarn are from the same vendor, Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm. The red/black is for my mother, and is superwash merino. The black/green is for myself, and is an 85/15 merino/nylon mix. Delicious stuff. It may actually become my second pair of Monkeys, unless something cooler comes up.

Not pictured: A set of 5" brittany size 1 DPNs, already hidden from the cats who chewed up my clovers of the same size. They don't seem to like yarn as much as needles. I'm not sure if this is a blessing or a curse.

Ever wonder what $500 of law books looks like?



Wonder no more!

Fiber festival, orientation fame

I was so excited about posting the Absorba that I totally forgot to mention two other awesome yarn-related things.

I initially thought I'd be unable to attend the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan this year. It was only today and tomorrow, and I was supposed to work tomorrow... but I quit my job! Yay! After less than a month of working in Lansing I decided to quit. I hated it, and it won't mix with law school by any stretch of the imagination. What was I thinking? Now I'm going with Steve to the fiber festival, and I have a meager paycheck I can put toward my bad habit. WONDERFUL!

Speaking of the law school thing, I had an orientation seminar this morning. One of the Dean-types welcomed us and then told us how diverse our class was with random facts about us. There were pro basketball players, poets, a student that knows how to eat fire... "and," she announced, "one student enjoys knitting socks!" I sort of groaned and sunk into my seat, because my entering class seemed to think this was one of the most amusing things they'd ever heard, and erupted into laughter. I think I'm going to take it as a compliment. I don't remember exactly where I said I enjoyed knitting socks; perhaps it was on the application? Maybe it WASN'T something I mentioned anywhere, and someone ELSE enjoys knitting socks!

Fun fact: Total cost of my books was roughly $500 this semester. This may sound really expensive, but it really isn't that bad, considering I was expecting it to be much worse. No one book cost more than $50. I did far worse as an undergraduate, when I had a java book that was $110 by itself.

FO - Absorba bathmat

Decorating a new place has inspired me to attempt to knit a variety of home-ish items. A few dishcloths, then the Kitty Pi... and now Absorba from Mason-Dixon knitting. It was a really quick knit when you get down to it, however, the pattern calls for three strands of double-worsted cotton on size 15 needles. Since cotton has no give, I had to take it in short spurts because knitting on it for too long was somewhat uncomfortable on my hands. Not enough, however, to ruin the pattern for me. The pattern was wonderful, and I'm in love with the final result. It's so squishy and comfy to stand on, I can't wait to take my shower tomorrow morning!



The colorway is Peaches and Creme Delft Blue. I used three cones of double worsted. There's enough left over to make me believe that I can make a second bathmat to send to a lucky friend.

Of course, it weighs a ton, and would actually probably cost a fair amount to send it to someone. Go figure.



The color in this photo is a bit wonky. The flash made the blue much brighter than it really is. But it is an accurate reflection of the size the bathmat comes out as written in Mason-Dixon Knitting.