Now I'm 22!

I'm now one year older than I was when I wrote my last post. I have to say, as usual being one year older doesn't really feel any different....but I did get some awesome presents and had an awesome birthday!
We spent a family weekend in MA. Lane's and my parents and Ceara met Lane and I in Plymouth. We went to Bertucci's for dinner and then we went to bed early to get ready for a busy Saturday.

We spend the whole day at King Richard's Faire. And it was so much fun! I bought a leather belt, a mug holder and a wooden mug. Now my costume is pretty much complete..all that's left to buy is a leather pouch to put on my belt so I don't have to carry around a purse. Lane also commented that I should buy a war hammer...but somehow I don't see that happening any time soon... Check out this sweet mug:

It even looks a little like a barrel. Perfect for a renaissance faire setting. 

Then on Sunday I got to open presents and hang out. It was great. I got a keurig coffee maker from my parents!! woo! I've used it many times already. Look how good it looks on my counter

Like it was always meant to be there to brew me delicious beverages in the morning. I even got a use your own coffee pod so I can use up my remaining ground coffee. 

And I got a bread stone from Lane's parents!! now I can make nice crispy bread...

As if this wasn't awesome enough Lane got me beats headphones. And let me tell you I look super cool wearing them at work. 

And Ceara got me a thermos to keep my coffee warm, some Halloween socks and a tiny witch hat! It was a good birthday. 

Now for the knitting updates!

My coastal knits book came in the mail, so now I want to start my green sweater right away! But I have to finish up some other things (jekyll and hyde socks) before I can take off on another big project. However it is hard to resist a book that looks this nice

Also I have to block some of the things I made over the summer, so I finally invested in lace blocking supplies. The mats are on route and should arrive next week, but the wires and pins and yard stick arrived already. 2 day shipping is the best!

Hopefully this will help me make better finished objects since I no longer have to use improvised blocking pins and surfaces (cardboard box/picnic table cloth)...

And now for a sock update! One down one to go! I've started the second one and am working on the leg and I'm really pleased with how the first one came out:

It fits great and I can't wait until the next one is done. As I have often said, I wish I could knit faster!

Well that's all for now, one year older and one sock richer. Hopefully there will be some more exciting updates soon!

Rhinebeck! and a completed project!

So, in case you couldn't gather this from the title it was a very eventful weekend. I went to the NY sheep and wool festival in Rhinebeck and met up with Kate from work and Lindsay. It was AWESOME!!! I have so much yarn now! And while all the yarn does have dedicated projects...I really do wish I could knit faster. The festival was two days long and we went both days. Saturday was really tiring and pretty overwhelming...there was just so much to see! We started the day by going to the main vendor buildings and scoping out the lines for book signings. Then we headed over to the other side of the fair grounds to the barns where there were local farms selling yarn and wool for weaving.
There was also a building dedicated to wine and cheese, which of course, all had samples. It was delicious! We got artichokes for lunch and I ate a whoopie pie with peanut butter filling the size of my face. Overall it was an awesome first day. I also bought all my yarn on the first day, just to get that out of the way (or maybe I just couldn't resist all the pretty colors...) Here's my stash! (and the plans that go with it)

First thing I bought was a skein of Halloween colored sock yarn from Miss Babs:

I'm not sure if this yarn will go with the pattern I'm planning for it...I'll have to look at some examples first.. but I saw some socks that had a cable pattern that looked like a spider for Halloween and I thought this yarn would be great for that. So hopefully I can find some examples of those socks done in a variegated yarn to see how it will come out. Also there's a good amount of purple in this yarn, but it didn't really pop up in the picture too well... I also got some free samples from Miss Babs, not sure what they will become, probably test squares to see if I like their other yarns. But look how cute they are!

I also got a little sample of wool wash. So if it makes my blocked projects smell good, I might invest in a full bottle.

Next, I bought enough yarn to make a Rocky Coast Cardigan. It's an open cardigan with a loose cabled pattern. I knew I wanted to make this cardigan so I began hunting for an affordable and nicely colored bunch of worsted weight yarn. I ended up with 4 skeins of kelly green superwash merino.

I'm really excited to see this knit up. Yay sweaters! You can never have too many, since I wear them almost every day. 

After I bought the yarn intended I still had some room in the budget so I picked up a second skein of sock yarn..I promise I'll cut back after this! But we went to a booth for the sanguine griffon which we heard had really nice yarn so we went and stood in a long line. I'm hoping this knits up nice, since there was such a hype around it...and I really liked this color red, which will hopefully become a nice pair of cabled socks.

After I bought the second skein of sock yarn I cut myself off from buying any more yarn (aren't you so proud?) But I did buy one more thing, which I think was a legitimate purchase since I've been wanting one for a while. It's a sewn sock size project bag, so I can tote my travelling project with style. I put a carabiner on the handle so I can attach it to the outside of my bag and carry my sock projects conveniently. I need to be able to bring them everywhere now that I have so much sock yarn to work through, haha. 

It has inside pockets and everything!

So, after I made all of these purchases and we walked around for a bit longer we ended up running into some people from the Taunton SnB. It was so much fun to get to see everyone again! Then we walked around some more and called it a day. I was so tired, but it was worth it. 

On Sunday Lindsay and I decided to take it easy since Saturday was so tiring... So we got up at a reasonable time and went and got bagels for breakfast before we headed back to Rhinebeck. Sunday was nice and relaxing. We started the day by watching the leaping llamas contest, which was actually pretty awesome. Some llamas can jump pretty high, I was impressed. Also some of them were just confused about why they were jumping in the first place, so that added to the amusement.

llama that was confused...

After that we walked around and I saw some more sock yarn that I wanted and a cool sock yarn kit. Have no fear! I didn't buy any...but Kate bought her first skein of sock yarn, and I did warn her that it's a slippery slope. But there was so much nice yarn there! After that we went to the book signing area so Lindsay could get her books signed by Ysolda, the author of a book she just bought. After the book signing we wandered around until it was time for the cider tasting in the afternoon. We got a half hour lesson about fancy ciders and got to taste them. Some were really good! And some of them were really weird....one tasted like blue cheese...? Then we went and tasted some wines and I bought a bottle of red that's on the sweeter side, and is really tasty (and only $9). And that sums up a fantastic weekend at Rhinebeck. I will definitely put it in my plans for next fall.

Since I spent the weekend surrounded by yarns and knitters (since people travel from all around to go to Rhinebeck) I naturally got a bunch of knitting done. I finished my cabled arm warmers!! woo! And they came out pretty nice, if I do say so myself:

I'm really excited with how these came out. And I'm also excited to have another project done! Woo! 

I also got a bunch of knitting done on my Jekyll and Hyde socks, since I worked on them whenever we were in line this weekend.

Right now the leg is about 5.5 inches long and while the pattern says to knit until it's 7.5 inches long I think I might start the heel flap after 6 inches... My legs aren't that long and I don't want super tall socks. I also measured the leg of my skew socks and they were about 6inches long and I like the way those fit, so I figured it was a good way to ballpark a good length for these. 

Well, I think that's all. Whew! And I'm all typed out. So hopefully you made it to the end of this entry... I do know I can be long winded....but so many fun things happened! 

Right Mitt Done!

The right side is finished! And it fits! Hooray! I'm so excited this worked out the way I expected!

I was surprised that I didn't do the same amount of ribbing rows near my fingers as  past patterns. But I realized that my cables ended in a different spot and I've never knit something while trying to make sure it actually fit perfectly. Usually I just follow the pattern and hope for the best. In general I trust the pattern author to write their pattern so that it will fit pretty much everyone...well, now the pattern author is me! So, who cares if it fits anyone else since I'm making them just for me? 

Hmm...but in this picture it looks like I have no pinky....(it doesn't help that the nail on that finger fell off..)

I blame the photographer...oh, wait that's me too...sheesh. Well, nobody's perfect. At least I have a completed arm warmer. On to the other side!

Almost done the right Mitt

Well, I successfully finished the thumb of the right glove. And, it worked out more smoothly than I expected. Now I just have to decide how many rows of ribbing I want to do to make the glove the right length up my hand.

Anyway here's the progress so far:

I'm excited about how well this has come out! Here's a close up of the thumb:

Hopefully there will be some pictures of the complete right glove by this evening!

Happy Fall!

Well today was the perfect fall day. So, Lane and I decided to take full advantage of it. We went apple picking! The orchard was only a 15 minute drive away and it was larger than I expected. It was also super crowded and muddy. But I think it was worth it. Look at the goodies we got!

Delicious! The Cider donuts were definitely worth it. You can also see in the corner (though I mostly cut if off by accident) my bottle of old fashioned raspberry lime soda. It's delicious!

So, now we have this giant bag of apples, and only the two of us. I did at least make a slight dent in the bag and used 5 apples to make some apple crisp. First apple crisp of the season! Woo! And the first time I'm using the oven in this apartment for actual baking. So far so good!

Now I'm on the hunt for more apple recipes. If I can't find any good ones we can always just dip the apples in caramel or make more apple crisp. Which I think can be eaten for dessert and for breakfast.

Yesterday Lane and I drove up to Brattleboro, VT to meet our mom's for lunch. I needed to give my mom my engagement ring so she could bring it to the jewelry store and they could start working on my wedding bands. After lunch I convinced everyone to come with me to Webs, the giant yarn store in Northampton, MA. I'm now slightly poorer, but very happy with what I ended up getting. I bought yarn to make the v-neck sweater I've been wanting to make since I bought the book Classic Knits last year:

I'm really excited to get going on this project. But I'm going to be good and finish up my fingerless mitts first. No sense in working on too many projects at once, then none of them will get done! 

I also picked up a skein of heritage sock yarn, for 2 reasons: 1. I really like working with it and I've wanted to use this color for a while and 2. I told my mom I'd make her a pair of skew socks after she said she liked mine so much. Here's the color her's will be:

I think they'll come out really well. So I'm excited to start that project too. (so many projects, so little time! I need to knit faster).

I also have a ball of sock yarn that I got at the Westport yarn store when I got the yarn to make my market bag. I forgot to put up a picture of it before... anyway I don't know what I'm going to make with it yet, but this yarn will make an awesome pair of socks:

Now, as for my fingerless gloves I'm making some good progress. I've completed 5 repeats of the cable pattern and I estimate that after I finish the 6th repeat it will be time to start the gusset. 

Since the fingerless gloves I wear all the time are comfortable and I know they fit well I think I'll base the gusset for these off the gusset in that pattern. I just have to remember where I saved it on my computer... Hopefully the thumb comes out right, since it's the part I'm most nervous to come up with myself...even though I have a reference I still haven't decided how to choose the placement of it related to the cable pattern. Anyway, guess I'll just worry about that when I get to it. 

That's all for now. I hope everyone else enjoyed the beautiful weather on this perfect fall day!

Fingerless Mitt Progress

It's day 2 of my pattern designing and so far the fingerless mitt is looking like I expected it to, so that's good. I've completed 3 repeats of the cable pattern and here's how it looks:

I'm pleased that this is both looking like I expected and also coming out the size I expected. I've struggled with making swatches in the past and I've decided that while I normally knit in the gauge that is given in patterns, once I try to figure out my own gauge it usually goes very wrong. The last time I made something using my own gauge (entrelac beret) it came out waaay bigger than I intended. So I've decided that instead of making a gauge and casting on based on that, I'm going to cast on what I think is right, knit for a bit and work from there. I know my technique is pretty much swatching...but it works much better for me than knitting a square and counting rows and stitches. 

Anyway here's a look at my notebook I'm using for writing down my thoughts as I make up the pattern:

All I have to say is that mini-sticky notes are the best. They are perfect for adding notes and counting off rows. A full sized sticky note would cover too much space on the page and take away from my other notes. I know you must be thinking, you have a whole notebook...why use sticky notes too? But there's good reasoning behind it, I can bring the stickies for counting around with me without risking damaging my notebook and then I can add them in when I'm done. They also make it easier for me to compile my thoughts from other patterns I've done and then I can stick them in the right spot with the rest of my notes. So, as you can see, sticky notes are legit. 

That's all for today. I know it's short, and for the next few days it probably will be, but I figure some is better than none and at least you can see my progress from day to day. 

Long Time No Post

Well, as usual I've let blogging fall by the wayside. Mostly because, I guess, I'd rather be knitting than writing about knitting. However, I've gotten some good things done since my last post.
I finished the shawl I was working on:

I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. But it did seem a bit smaller than I expected so hopefully I can block it into a bigger size. The pattern was simple enough to bring around with me but also interesting enough that I didn't get bored.  

After such an involved lace project I decided to go for a quick project. So I went for a market bag. I found the yarn and a pattern at the Westport yarn store where I went with Lindsay labor day weekend. I'm really pleased with the end result. The bag is nice and stretchy and I can fit a pair of jeans and a pair of shoes with a t-shirt in it for after work.

The yarn was really nice to work with, so I might try to find a worsted weight cotton project so I can use it again. 

Now I've decided it's time to try the dreaded pattern design. I've decided to make some arm warmers that are basically fingerless gloves that go to my elbows. I chose a cable pattern out of  my "Very Easy Guide to Cable Knitting" book, and am hoping that I can figure out the thumb gusset myself when I get there. So far I've done the cuff and one repeat of the 12 row cable pattern:

So far so good. However I feel like I haven't reached any of the hard parts yet...I've been doing well writing everything down so hopefully I'll be able to make both gloves match. I'm also hoping this project goes well so that I can gain the confidence to design more patterns in the future. 

I've also started a pair of socks on the side as my travelling project, since they will be both portable and hopefully not as involved as my improvised project. So far no pictures of those yet since I've only knit about 3 rows of the first sock cuff...

Well I guess that's all for now. Partly because I've run out of knitting things to talk about, and partly because of that thing where I'd rather be knitting than writing about it. Hopefully I can keep up the blogging and keep track of the progress I make on my fingerless gloves/arm warmers and also any sock progress, though that doesn't seem promising for this week.  

Golf!

So, I've decided the best way to get good at golf is to just keep going to the driving range and hit as many golf balls as I can. Then, one day I'll say, oh! I'm not bad at golf anymore.

Going along with this idea I headed over to the Ridgefield golf course, which is 5 minutes down the road from my apartment. I assumed that the driving range at the golf course would be like every other driving range I've been to: carpeted areas with those rubber tees all set up for you to hit a bucket of balls. However, this one was different. It was just a grassy area with little metal stands to lean your clubs on. You can see the metal thing next to the guy in the picture below:

Now, my dad did tell me that this is a better way to practice, since in real life you don't get to put a little carpet down to hit the ball off of. But, it was as I put down my bucket of balls and got ready to start that I realized I didn't have any tees...and I didn't want to have to buy any since I already paid for the bucket of balls. So, I decided to just hit with my iron for a while since those shots don't need a tee anyway. And I hit some good shots so I was feeling pretty good. There was a dad there with his kids, and even though the 8 year old boy was doing better than I was, I decided he must have been golfing much longer than I have. 

And, after they left I was there by myself so I could gather up some of the balls that only went 3 feet when I hit them incorrectly, so I got some extra practice hits in. I also found some tees scattered along the ground that weren't broken so I got some driver shots in toward the end. The weather was really nice and the driving range itself was a nice area. Overall I think it was well worth the trip. 

I also decided to start a new knitting project, since I'm getting a little bored with the green scarf. I figure I can go back to the scarf after a little break and then hopefully I'll enjoy working on it more. 

I decided to start working on a shawl with some yarn that I really like the colors of: green, purple and cream. And so far I'm really enjoying this project. 

I really enjoy making shawls and I'm hoping this one will be a nice break from my scarf.

And that's the weekend update! I also vacuumed and cleaned a bit, but still need to make my bookshelf. Hopefully I'll have a picture of that all assembled soon!

Despite my best intentions, there's been a drought in entries

I guess I'm taking a little longer than I thought to acclimate. I keep meaning to make more blog entries and then, right as I sit down to type, I remember I'm supposed to get something done and another day passes without an entry.
Today I'm breaking out of my writer's block and starting my regular entries again, and I have some big updates!

We have a new fancy TV now so I can actually see what's on from more than 6 inches away...

This has definitely made the apartment feel like a real place to live rather than a temporary set up like in college. I also finally put together our vacuum cleaner so we can have a nice clean apartment.

So now, mom, you can stop worrying...our carpet will be clean! 

I've also gotten more set up at work. My cubicle is all set up with my computer and monitor and keyboard:

As you can see it's a pretty generic cube. So I'm going to try to get some colorful pictures to hang up in it to make it more happy. Maybe some flowers and other assorted nature pictures? Since I sit in the middle of the building, I do start to miss the outside by the end of the day. 

Since I spend all day inside, I decided it's time to take up more outside hobbies. As a result I'm now working on becoming a golfer. I've been going to the driving range 2-3 times a week and I even found myself a set of new clubs on sale. They were perfect, affordable and purple, so naturally I had to buy them!

You might also notice from the above picture that I have CT plates now. I really do miss my green VT license plates. Now I really have to accept that I've moved away from home for more than just a few months at a time.

Anyway, because I've been trying to spend as much of my free time outside (weather permitting) I haven't gotten much done with my knitting...however, I have made some good progress with my strangling vines scarf. It's now 2'4" long. 

Overall, things are going well. I'm starting to settle in and I'm getting my knitting done. I also don't always get lost everywhere I try to go when I need things (I only get lost most of the time). So the area is slowly becoming  familiar and feeling more like a place I can call home. I've even gotten to see some of the places I went when we lived in Danbury when I was little. I've started to eat at Mikonos, my mom's favorite Greek restaurant and the place where I first learned to tie my shoes. I also go to St. Gregory the Great church now, which is where I went to church when I was little and where I went to school from kindergarten and part of first grade. It's pretty exciting. 

Anyway, I'm sure there are more updates than this, but I figure it's better to start small and work my way back up to regular writing (not that this is a short entry at all, haha)

Finally Getting Settled In

Well after working for a week and a half, I finally feel like I'm setting in to living in CT...sort of. Now that all of our furniture is here and set up the apartment is really starting to feel like home. Meghan and I even accidentally coordinated furniture colors in the living room.

And my bed finally arrived! Or I guess it's more appropriate to call it my futon. I decided since I'll be moving in with Lane in the spring it would be silly to buy a nice bed. So now I have a nice bed that also makes a really nice couch.

here it is when it's a couch:

And lucky for me it came in a really pretty green color! And now I have it set up as a bed with a mattress pad and all. Though I still need a comforter, and my only complaint is that there's nowhere to tuck in the sheets on the side so they just hang down to the floor.

So, now that the bed is here and I'm off the air mattress things are really looking up. Though I did have a slight mishap at the CT DMV when they decided not to accept my paystub as proof of residency so I'll have to go back on Tuesday to try and get my license changed over to a CT state license. Grr....frustrating. 

Also, since I've been settling into the apartment and my new work schedule I haven't got much knitting done. But my scarf is now more than a foot long, which is more than my last post. It's also coming along quicker now that I am purling the correct way :)

Hopefully I can get more done now that I'm getting used to getting up early and then having nothing to do after work. I'll also try to update my blog more often, since I've been meaning to post for a while and just haven't gotten around to it. 

Skew done, hat done, moved to a new apt...whew!

Well I finished my skew socks right on time! They are a little hard to get over my heels but once they are on they fit perfectly. They also photograph quite nicely:

I really liked working with this yarn. The colors are great and it's nice and soft. It did shed a little bit of fuzzies, but I think that was worth dealing with. 

Once I finished up the socks it was time to speed knit Ceara's student wizard hat for the Harry Potter midnight showing on Thursday the 14th. Lucky for me the pattern was a quick knit and I was able to finish it in about half a day. It even fit perfectly!

Ceara also made herself a robe to go with the hat, so she had the whole uniform. She even was on the news talking about it since the news lady was so impressed with her costume. 

Now that those projects are done I decided to start up on a lace scarf to use up my enchanted forest colored imagination sock yarn I got from my first time going to the Taunton SnB. So far it's coming along nicely

On the non-knitting front, I've moved into my apartment in Danbury, and I've been doing well unpacking. I only have about one box left of stuff to unpack along with some little bits and pieces that I still need to decide where they go. 

I'm really excited about this apartment. It's really nice and the gym is so close I'm hoping that I can keep up the motivation to exercise regularly. I don't have any pictures of the apartment yet since I still have some empty boxes lying around. But hopefully I can finish unpacking by the end of this weekend and get some pictures up!

Disney, Harry Potter, Knitting, etc!

Well I obviously haven't blogged in a while. But I think it's with good reason. I went on vacation with my family to Florida to go on a Disney/Universal Studios vacation, and it was amazing!

Main Street Disney

This vacation confirmed for me that you are never too old to go to amusement parks. Disney was as magical as ever. We went to all of the parks and I took lots of pictures of everything. However, I don't think they'll all fit in one blog post. Ceara made it onto the stage for the American Idol experience at Disney's Hollywood studios (the new name for the MGM park) and that was really cool. Every day they pick 15 people to perform out of the ~300 who try out and she made it! It was really cool.

Harry Potter world was amazing! Hogsmead looked just like I thought it would. Though for some reason they chose to depict it in winter... maybe that was so you could feel like it wasn't 92 degrees out?

Entrance to Hogsmead

And once we walked through the village we made it to the Hogwarts castle and let's just say if I could live in Harry Potter world and go to Hogwarts for school, I probably would.

Hogwarts

We also got to get Butterbeer from the Hog's Head pub and ate lunch at the three broomsticks.

 

Overall I recommend going to Harry Potter world, though the shops were in my opinion a bit too small and the whole place a bit too crowded... the off season would probably be the best time to go.

Now that we are back in VT, Ceara and I have been craving the sweet deliciousness that is Butterbeer (aka cream soda with some sort of delicious butterscotch foam stuff on top). And so we've started the great adventure of trying to make our own. Today I think we met with success after trying a recipe we found online here. And we added butterscotch caramel ice cream topping to the foam to make it taste more like the stuff they give out at the park. Here is the fruit of today's efforts:

It's delicious and pretty close to what we had at the park. I recommend trying it out if you want to have butterbeer in the comfort of your own home. 

Anyway that's the story on my vacation and now it's time for the knitting update. Which, even though this is a knitting blog I seem to get easily distracted. I like to think it makes my entries more interesting. :)

I've made some good skew sock progress since my last post. I finished the left sock and have started work on the right one. Sadly the first sock took longer than I planned since as I realized on the plane to Florida I reversed my markers and did all the short rows backwards. So, I had to take out about 50 rows and re-knit them. But have no fear the sock came out well once I fixed it.

The sock has a tight fit but it does fit! So I feel pretty successful. And the pattern is really interesting to make and not as difficult as I feared. The origami heel construction is really cool. 

After finishing the first sock for the second time I decided I needed a break before I started the second one. So I took a few days to make Lane a very belated birthday gift... an angler fish! It came out so cool: 

And now that I finished that mini project in the middle I've moved back on to the second sock and should hopefully be done that in the next few days. After my skew socks are done I've been commissioned to make a Harry Potter hat for Ceara in time for the last movie premier. So I'll be kept busy for the rest of this week knitting.

Next week I'll be moving to CT on either Monday or Tuesday (based on the vague date the moving people gave me) and then I start work on the 18th. I'm pretty excited! Hopefully the moving process is relatively painless...