FO!

Finished the Sock Wars socks... and they've been shipped!


But guess what... I forgot to take a picture.

So hopefully my victim will be nice enough to take a picture when she gets them which probably won't be until Tuesday.

Why have there been so little posts? College is sucking up all my time. However! Fall break is the 9th and 10th so I can guarantee you a post then!

Tale of Two Socks

Hi. I'm killing time! (I really don't feel like doing homework.) And I really don't have much homework so maybe I'm not in too bad of shape.

So I decided way back when SP8 started, and I bought some cool sock yarn, that I would make my dad socks for Christmas, maybe his birthday. All depended on when I actually got around to doing it. So for the last two weeks I've been saying, "two weeks to make dad socks before his birthday. two weeks left. two weeks. two weeks." Well... it's not always two weeks, which is a fact I guess I just overlooked.

Dad's Birthday was today, and his socks aren't quite done. They aren't quite started either, so now we're aiming for Christmas. However, I'm going to try to finish my boyfriends socks for our little dating anniversary things. You know how us teenagers are, we celebrate every little thing. So he's getting socks, hopefully. The good news? I'm a lot farther along on his socks than on my dads. Our anniversary is 18 days away. So if I only knit his socks, I just might be okay.Can we say pooling with the boyfriend socks? I think so. Major pooling.

Fuzzy Hat. Part III

Yet another fuzzy hat completed.

Can you guess what it's made out of?

I really like how it pooled, too bad those decrease rows destroyed the pooling.

One side:

Other side:

Pattern: It's the basic hat everyone makes. Ribbing, knit around and around and around, then decrease.
Yarn: Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Hot Pink, and Red Heart in color Plum Pudding.

Opinions please?

My favorite teacher in the world, and one of the only ones who can teach at my university was turned down for tenure. This means he may only be there for about another year. My problem is that I have 3 years left including the current one. Rumor has it another teacher in the same department probably won't get tenure either, and a third is thought to be soon retiring. The problem? This only leaves the university with One full time professor in this department. It is also this one professors first year at the university.

So I'm concerned with the state of the department. This is a subject quite vital to my graduating and being successful. So hire more teachers you think. Well, while many universities are hiring now for next fall, ours doesn't start hiring until the spring. This means our University doesn't always get the best candidates. We tend to get who's left. So if three professors aren't coming back next year, will they be able to replace all three? I don't really think so, and it's scary.

My thoughts: Where can I transfer? and When should I transfer?

I like my university, but I don't know what they were thinking. And if anyone out there knows a thing or two about the way universities usually work, please, e-mail me or something. I would love to hear more about it.

Major lack of knitting content

My dad's birthday is Thursday. I was going to make him socks. Key word: was. I said to my mom Sunday after winding yarn for his socks, "I'm going to make dad socks for his birthday, think I can do it in two weeks?" She replied, "His birthday is Thursday."

WOah... I swear I had two weeks like yesterday.

If you haven't noticed, school has taken over. I'm swamped with math homework, 8 chapters of it just last weekend. Plus there's always a couple reports to do for the education classes.

I did manage to clean my chair off though. For awhile it's been piled with clothes because I have no room in my dresser, and my spinning wheel was blocking my closet. So this morning the spinning wheel was moved so I can get into my closet, except now I'll trip over it when getting out of bed. My homework buddy is really happy. He loves to sleep in the chair while I'm on the computer, even if I leave random clothes on it during the day.

I'm really hoping I can get all this homework on track this week. That way I won't be behind for the future, and there will be much more knitting to show. That and if I don't get everything all caught up, I'm a sitting duck for sock wars.

My sister loves her socks. She wore them to school today too. She also has reported that her feet aren't gross from acrylic socks. Who knows, it's cold enough she could prolly get away with them.

She showed everyone at school her socks, running up to people yelling, "look at my socks" and hiking her jeans up so they could see. She also had a few people say, "cool socks" without her even saying anything to them. So she told them her sister made them, which was followed with strange looks and even more questions. Apparently people were also feeling her socks. I think it's funny. She's so happy with her socks.

oh, and I started another charity square. No shocker there. The yarn is very bright and happy, and I actually want to knit this square. Usually I have to force myself to sit down and work on squares, but when I like the color of yarn, it isn't bad at all.

FO.

I finished my Spring Socks. The second one was a little snug because I got a bit tight on my gauge. So I asked my sister if she wanted to try them on, and they fit like a dream.

So I gave them to her. She'd been in love with them all week, and she usually doesn't give a crap about the things I knit, so it was a big deal.

She's happy. She wore them to bed last night. She wanted to wear them with flip flops to school but couldn't because of band practice. I warned her their acrylic content might not absorb sweat, and she told me she would put them to the test. Oh dear.

Pattern: Wendy's Toe-Up Sock Pattern
Yarn: Moda Dea in color Spring (a little more than 1 ball of yarn)

Charity Square

Finished another one. This one was actually started mid-August. Which is sad seeing as how I can make a square in less than 3 hours. Unfortunatley they're boring. Squares are boring. Which is why I play with patterns and color. In fact, I think I might start going through more books to find more cool patterns.

Yesterday was 9/11. I sat around and cried whenever it was mentioned. It's just so sad, and I can't watch the specials on TV because it's too soon. 5 years isn't much.

In other knitting news, I haven't had time to knit with school. I think the big problem is that I put off homework during the weekend because I want to knit. That and after a week of doing homework/school/clubs, I just don't have the energy to homework after all that. So I had a whole 30 minutes to knit yesterday, and today isn't looking great either. My goal, is to start doing homework when I should, and do homework on the weekend, but allow for frequrent knitting breaks to keep me sane. That's what I did the first weekend of school, and I feel like I learned more that weekend, and got more accomplished than any other weekend. Another goal. Notice my goal of projects on the needles went down the tube. It's called Christmas, and travel projects, and just wanting to bust some stash.

Spring Socks

Remember those socks that just knit up fast. I'm almost done with the second, and believe it or not, I'm still on the first ball of yarn. I know. Shocking. I love the length of them too. Enough to cover my ankle, kind of like my store bought socks, but not too horribly short.

The second sock was started sometime last week. I remember working on it Wednesday night, and Friday morning. Since then it's come far, especially since I don't work on it that much. I have maybe two to three feet of yarn left on the first ball, and I'm getting ready to start the second. I think I could probably get another pair of ankle socks out of this yarn as long as I stop at the ankles.

So now I'm thinking it is possible to get a pair of adult socks out of 50 grams of DK weight sock yarn. When that was announced for Sock Wars, I knew short socks were possible, but these aren't that short, and that's 50 grams of DK weight yarn there. I consider these socks good practice for Sock Wars. With yarn that thick and needles that big, Sock Wars could get really interesting. The hardest part will be sending the packages and waiting for them to arrive.

Allow me to direct your Attention

The lovely lady in charge of the Socks-A-Month knit-a-long also does some pattern designs. One of her latest to come out was test knit by another lady with diabetes who will be participating in a walk to raise money for Diabetes Research in October. As a result, she decided to place this pattern up for sale on her blog. $5 for the pattern, and ALL proceeds go towards the test knitters pledge drive. I think it's great. And it's a lovely sock pattern too. I'm all about Diabetes research. My boyfriend's diabetic and recently ordered a new insulin pump which probably cost more than his car (or at least pretty close).

Oh, and another bonus. If you order the pattern you'll be entered into a drawing to win three balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn, which was used to make the socks in the sample. You have up until the 15th of October to order and have the proceeds go to the Walk for Diabetes.
More Info

Mmm... Acrylic

So I've been house sitting for the past week (I didn't fall off the face of the planet). Took a lot of knitting when I left including my Candle Flame Shawl, the Blue Pomatomus, the Spring Socks, and the Purple Peasant Top. I also took some more yarn in case the Spring socks should have been finished. Close, but not too close. Most of my time was spent doing homework, going to class, club meetings, and chasing a cat around who didn't want his shots. Progress was made on everything. I won't post now though, I'll wait until I have nothing else to show. ;-)

For now, I'll show you the hat I finished last weekend and completely forgot to post about.

Pattern: K2P2 ribbing, double stranded, get rid of the fun fur, increase and knit round and round until it's time to decrease, then decrease. Not complicated.
Yarn: Red Heart in color Shaded Dusk, and Lion Brand Fun Fur in color Light Blue.

Oh, and the yarn and needle sizes were announced for Sock Wars, and because I don't have any DK weight yarn that isn't baby yarn or scraps, I stopped by the yarn store to pick up more Sassy Stripes. It is a DK sock yarn.

Edited To Add: I did some long hard thinking about my choice of sock yarn. There are many down sides to knitting socks from acrylic, mainly the issue of: if my feet sweat the socks won't absorb it and that's gross. I've knit acrylic socks, but I've never actually worn them for long periods of time with shoes. So I broke down and placed an order online... to Knitpicks. And you should all be glad to know that the bulk of my purchase was a book. :-D A book and enough yarn to make 3 pairs of socks. One for sock wars (which was cheaper than the stupid acrylic yarn I bought) and two more pairs, one for each grandma.

The Stash will be Busted.

My goal: To get my stash down to two boxes. They are big boxes though so don't be too afraid. There are currently 3 boxes and a clothes hamper that hold my yarn and roving. There's is also a bag or two of roving hiding in the clost. Getting the stash down to two boxes would be ideal. One for yarn, one for roving. The other empty boxes would then be used to store finished objects, charity things, and whatever other knitting related crap I've accumulated.

I am determined to use my stash. I love my yarn, but I've collected so much, and with every coupon I get to JoAnn Fabrics, I'm dying to run out and buy more cheap acrylic. I like acrylic. It's ideal for baby sweaters, and I don't feel bad if they get puked on. I also wouldn't mind if they're destroyed. When a baby sweater is made out of scrap Red Heart, it's cute, it's functional, and it only cost $2.15. Definitely not breaking the bank. Will I make a Red Heart sweater for myself? Time will only tell.

I've been really wanting to make a baby sweater, so I decided to start one. Made out of the purple red heart that was on top when I opened up the laundry hamper of yarn. I have two shades of purple that look good together, but hopefully I'll only need one shade. I'm making the smallest size and it's probably going to charity anyways.

Progress... Amazing progress.

Look. I've progressed on my sock. Quite good progress seeing as how I completely ripped the sock this morning when I realized I forgot to add in the negative ease. Oops.

The sock was restarted at around 4 o'clock and it's now midnight. That's approximately 8 hours. Amazing.

I'm going to credit this success to the fact that it's a heavy sock yarn and I'm using size 3 needles.

I want this sweater

September MagKnits is up and I want this sweater. The yarn prices aren't too horrible either. In the yarn called for it would cost somewhere over $50 which isn't horrible for quality yarn. Whether or not I would actually use that yarn is another story. It's likely with my stash issues I won't be buying yarn for awhile.I've been knitting as much as possible considering the math homework that has collected from three math classes. My favorite thing is "travel" knitting. aka socks. While finishing up my purple pomatomus my boyfriend decided he wanted a pair of purple ones that went much higher. Unfortunatley for him yarn was already purchased for his socks, and it was a color that he picked out. I'll give him his pomatomus, but they're going to be toe-up, that way I can make them as high as possible. These are a pain to knit when traveling, so I started another pair of regular socks with that cheap acrylic yarn I bought a few weeks ago along with the massive amount of baby yarn. The colors are growing on me. They're just so spring like. Or maybe it's the self-striping addiction that I have.

Either way, they're going to live in my purse and entertain me between classes at school and at red lights should traffic be horrific like it was today.

So I started the blue hat Tuesday because we needed one to match the pink one. Did the math, all went well. Casted on. Casted on too many. Didn't noticed. Increased, to an even bigger size, got ready to start the decreases, and I counted my stitches. Oh! The frustration. So it got ripped. I'm determined to finish it pretty quickly, and it won't take long at all.
Here's what progress I've made tonight.

Hopefully there will be tons of knitting (and homework) completed over the weekend. I guess I should probably put homework first, but it's just soooo hard. I know there's yarn in my bag and it taunts me during class.