Thursday, January 31, 2008

Furious

So remember how I went to England over the summer for class? Well, I needed to get the credit transferred from that university to my university. In order to do that, you have to fill out all sorts of forms and get all sorts of people to approve it. I haven't heard anything for a long time so yesterday I sent a message to one of the lovely and wonderful ladies in the library science office asking about my request. She promptly sent me a message back saying that she COULDN'T FIND ANY RECORD OF MY REQUEST TO TRANSFER CREDIT and that IT LOOKED LIKE MY OLD ADVISOR DIDN'T TURN IN THAT PAPERWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Ahem*

Sorry to shout but I am furious! My old advisor is no longer with the university (he "retired") so I can't just go to him and demand an answer. My new advisor doesn't know anything about this situation other than the information that I was trying to transfer credit and that the process had started before she became my advisor. She is trying to help as much as she can. Oh, and also, they can't find my transcript from the other university. My university needs an original copy in order to do anything and no one can find it. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yesterday, I had to scramble and put together another request to transfer credit as well as sending a request to the other university to have them send another transcript. Judging by how quickly it took them to send it the first time I should have it in, oh, July. Now I am really worried what this will mean for my graduating in May. I hate my old advisor.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Crafting extravaganza (apparently)

It's decided to be winter again for a while.

Somehow, snow makes the cold so much more bearable. A couple of weeks ago, it was in the single digits but there was no snow on the ground. The sun was deceptively shining and you thought that it would be nice out. Not so by any stretch of the imagination. At least with snow around, you know it is cold!

A couple of days ago, I talked about plying up some yarn for a Clapotis. I'm happy to say that I've gotten a little over half of the roving spun and plied for it. I'm in love with the colors.


In other news, on Ravelry there is a group (Ankh-Morpork Knitter's Guild) devoted to all things Terry Pratchett (a most wonderful writer). He was recently diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's. In response, our group decided to knit him an afghan which quickly became known as a Pratchgan. It is going to be 100 squares made by 97 different knitters. Everyone has been sharing their ideas and pictures (click here to see the Flickr group) and the creativity of everyone is amazing. I'm going to be making a green square with sheep all over it and the word "Ships" stitched onto it. (Sidenote: "Ships" is the word the wee free men (little men covered in blue tattoos who have wild red hair, a love of drink and of fighting) use for sheep. Say it with a bad Scottish accent and it will make sense.) I've completed one sheep and, other than his head looking a little wonky, I think it is going well.

Along with sending the square and some money (for shipping) to the person putting it together, I'm also going to be sending a thank you card to Terry Pratchett. So I decided to take the group's coat of arms and put it on a blank card. I backed it with some scrapbooking paper to make it look pretty :) Because I couldn't decide which blue I wanted to use, I took out 3 different kinds. After choosing which one I wanted, that meant I had 2 additional pieces. Then I saw a post on the CRAFT magazine blog about popups made by the Princess of Popups.

I was done for . . .


(Sorry for the crappy picture.) I'm completely entranced by the antennae and the little wings. I really wish I had the paper with me to make a fortune cookie one.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Spinning my wheels

I filled one bobbin with handspun this morning so I immediately put it on my niddy noddy to skein up and set it. We have a roaring fire downstairs so the yarn was almost entirely dry 30 minutes after I hung it down there.



I'm really happy with this yarn. It feels so nice and the white corriedale was a DREAM to spin up. I had heard people describing spinning up some roving was like butter and now I fully understand. It just flew between my fingers. I still have 4 oz of it to spin up but I don't have any empty bobbins right now other than the one I am plying on.

This skein is 242 yards and I'm hoping to ply up another bobbin tonight. That or get a good start on it.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Lace addiction

In the middle of all of the Christmas knitting, I had the strong desire to pick up the needles and cast on for the Majestic Mountains stole. I had everything ready for it. I already had tons of beads from when I went a little nuts in the bead store for the MS3. (There were so many pretty kinds to choose from! I couldn't leave those pretty silver beads there! And what about the green? They had to come home with me!) The yarn was already ready in my stash because it was left over from MS3. But I was a stronger person and said "NO! I must finish these presents!" So I ignored the siren call of the lace and beads (a deadly combination) and tried to put it out of my mind. Then last Sunday rolled around and I couldn't stand it any longer. . . .

I cast on in the morning and by that evening I had already finished one set of charts (there are 8 charts total).


By Thursday, I had almost finished the second chart.


By Saturday, I had started and finished the third chart and I was into the mountains!


Each of the mountains have little snow tipped peaks for which I am using silver-lined seed beads. There are a few pine trees in this middle section and I am using green seed beads for them. You probably can't see it but there are beads at each intersection of the diamonds. I used the silver-lined beads for those so that it would look like little flecks of snow.


The middle section of mountains and pine trees are going so much faster than the diamonds at the beginning. I think it helps that there are large sections of stockinette and because I have to pay attention to the counting for the mountains. They keep changing where they are and I sometimes have to put a bead on the tops. The diamonds look good but can become deadly boring after 2.5 chart repeats of them. It's the same pattern over and over. I'll have to fortify myself before I get to the diamonds at the other end of the stole.

I'm planning on having this stole done by May so I can give it as a gift. Hopefully the rest of it will go just as quickly! Now it is reaching the dangerous time of a project where you start looking for other things to cast on. . . .

In other news, I've started an etsy shop to sell niddy noddies that my friend is making.

I still have to tweak the shop and its profile but a couple of hours after posting it we already had 14 views! I'm planning on adding a couple of other noddies today and tomorrow. So if you need one, you know where to look!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Going to the Chapel. . .

This past weekend one of my friends got married in our college chapel back in Gettysburg, PA. I flew into Baltimore on Friday and took the train to where 2 other friends could pick me up after they got off of work. The train station where I got off is not a normal stop so you had to let the conductor know when you first got on. It was a cute little stop but definitely in the middle of nowhere, Maryland.

That night a group of us when out to a Spanish restaurant and played Dutch Blitz (a card game) into the wee hours of the morning. If you've never played Dutch Blitz or Nertz, I'd recommend that you try it as soon as possible! :)

Saturday morning, we went to breakfast and then tossed a frisbee around for a while. Then the morning was gone and we got ready to leave for the wedding.




All in all, a very fun time! Doesn't my friend look beautiful? The pictures of her dress don't do it justice. Everything seemed to go perfectly and the food, drink and music at the reception were great. I really want to find out what kind of champagne was served for the toast. Or maybe it was sparkling wine. My new favourite thing? An entire family who knows dances like the Lawnmower and Shopping Cart.

After the reception, a group of us went to the Pub for a drink. (This picture was obviously taken earlier in the day.)

After that, we went for food at the Lincoln Diner, a place fondly remembered by all. Even though they are limiting you to 45 minutes and 1 refill of coffee. Anywho.

Most everybody stayed in the hotel where the reception was held. So the next morning a group of us when to a local diner (that I definitely should have gone to when I was in school there!) for breakfast. We started splitting up after that, everyone going their different ways.

Three of us went on a short battlefield tour. It is great to take a tour from someone who is so enthusiastic about it and knows SO MUCH about all aspects of the battle and town. I really like learning about what happened between the battle and the current day. For instance, I didn't know that a trolley car used to run through the battlefield. Little facts like that make it really interesting. We "hiked" through some parts of Devil's Den. I use the word "hike" loosely because really we were just walking around. This is a picture of Devil's Den from Little Round Top.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Argh!!!!!!

Have you done a pattern that makes you want to throw your knitting across the room? I've been dreaming of doing stranded knitting recently what with tons of people's lovely FOs gracing the blog world. So I decided that I wanted to make a pair of Selbu Mittens (Rav link). They are pretty, stranded, and have snowflakes on them. What could be better?

First, I bought the yarn (jumping the gun, I know). Next, I ILL'ed the Folk Mittens book. Then, I checked to see if there was any errata for the Selbu mittens. There was. So I printed out the corrections. Next step was to CO for the mittens. Being a smart knitter (hahahahahahahaha), I decided to make detailed notes about what I was doing for the first mitten so I could replicate it exactly in the second. OK, everything is fine and the mitten is going well. Oh, wait.

When I reached the chart, it was like my brain couldn't translate what it was seeing. So the corrections state that you need to increase one stitch for the body pattern. Fine. But what about the 6 stitches of the border? Where do those come from? They are 6 additional stitches the instructions and chart don't say anything about. But I can fudge it and just add them. Everything is still somewhat OK.

But I could NOT figure out the thumb gores. Here is a picture of the corrected chart and thumb gores.

I just couldn't figure out where the thumb gore was supposed to start. Let's look at the purple outline. Does it start on the left or the right of the purple outline? Argh!

**ETA: I am an idiot. Yup, an idiot. I shouldn't have worried about the 6 stitches thing and the thumb gore so much. Over lunch, I realized that you just start doing the chart of the mittens (if you have the book, you can see the full chart or you could go here to see the corrected chart with the full pattern). When you reach the right side of the purple border, you do the three stitches of the gore chart rather than the 8 stitches in the middle of the purple. Does that make sense? That leaves you with 3 stitches left over which will be the 3 stitches of the other border. So you don't have to increase any stitches in order to make the border. Duh! I can't do these higher knitting problems.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Summing up pictures!

This is the new car. I'm still trying to figure out a good name for it. I can't even decide if it is a male or female car. My last one was definitely a guy. You can't tell the color really well in the picture. It is a very deep blue/purple that almost looks black.


Next up, Christmas fiber! Here is the various alpaca roving. The dark bags are full of unwashed roving. The light bag needs to have the guard hairs picked out (the guard hairs are what makes it scratchy). The one not in a bag is completely ready to go. I just have to get good enough at spinning to use it!


Next we have the alpaca yarn. I can't wait to do something with these yarns. It will be hard to choose the next project!


This is a picture of my Fun Fur Kitschmas Tree. OK, OK, I started it after Christmas but it will be ready for next year! It is made with bulky yarn and 2 strands of fun fur held together. As it so happens, I had 2 balls of green fun fur and some green bulky hanging around in the stash. It is so nice to be able to use some up. I forgot how much I hate working with fun fur. It goes everywhere and is impossible to see! It is mostly done and just needs to have the bottom crocheted and stuffed. Mom has some very tiny crocheted ornaments that would be the perfect size. I'll sew those on before stuffing it. This tree will probably end up as a Christmas present for someone that doesn't have room for an actual tree. Not sure who that person is yet but I'll have a whole year to find a recipient!


I've suddenly been on a fingerless glove jag. They are like popcorn or potato chips. You can't do just one pair! Must make more! As of right now, I've made 1 pairs of Fetching and am almost finished with 2 pairs of Mermaid fingerless gloves. Next up is probably a pair of Dashing. The best part of this jag? Christmas presents for next year.


And in the midst of knitting, I have been spinning. Does this look familiar?


It should because it is roving from Louet in the Violet colorway. I already spun up 8 oz of it and now have more! Though, now I am thinking that I might do something a little different with this bag. I Navajo plied the other 8 oz but I'm not sure if I want to do that with this 8 oz. No, I am thinking of plying this bunch with some white Louet instead. Hmmm, we'll see.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Summing up

So blogger is being evil and not letting me upload pictures in batches right now. Then I tried to upload them one-by-one and, after 3 pictures, won't upload anything else. I'll try again later.

Anywho, I've been AWOL for a while and a lot of things have happened recently! First off, Christmas! I had a wonderful fibery Christmas. Mom had visited a number of alpaca farms when they had their open houses during the fall. At a couple of different ones, she bought roving (both prepared and raw) and yarn for me. I just want to keep petting the roving! My Aunt found the 3rd Barbara Walker Treasury for me! I must have spent the entire afternoon looking through it. AND my aunt got me a subscription to Interweave Knits! I'm really excited about that!


It was a very nice Christmas. It didn't hurt that I took the 26th off and celebrated my own Boxing Day. I ended up with a 5 day weekend because the library was closed on the 24th, too. The last break I had was my studying abroad in July so it was really, really nice to have the time off. I got a lot of knitting and spinning done.

The next thing that happened was my friend's bachlorette party and New Year's Eve. My friend's party was in Baltimore, MD so I flew in on the morning of the 29th and stayed until New Year's Day. It was a great weekend! I got to catch up with people I haven't seen for a long time and we did a ton of fun things. We went to Howl at the Moon for the bachlorette party, a fantastic piano bar. On NYE, we went to a house party thrown by the man of honor's friends which was a lot of fun/craziness. The friends have a roof porch so we had an excellent view of the fireworks.


**ETA: The Heroes illusion scarf was very well received. I love it when people show your stuff off to others because they thought it was cool. That is definitely a way to make a knitter feel very good :)

So I got home on Tuesday afternoon and went to bed soon after (3 hours of sleep will do that to you). The next morning, I woke up with a killer head cold/fever/unpleasant feeling-ness. I went to work but felt all hot and shaky. So I went home and slept pretty much all day. I did some auto-pilot knitting but then at the end of the day (after making an entire purse) decided that the colors were ugly. So I'm going to frog that project and not even put it on my ravelry page. I have been gradually recovering from the head cold and today finally feel 95%.

On Friday the 4th, my friend on her way from St. Louis to back east stopped by for the weekend. Our house was pretty much dead center on her trip so it was the perfect place to stay. I loved being able to show someone around my hometown. Having gone to school in PA and living in OH means that no one from school has visited out here before this. (Well, I shouldn't say that. My friend from Baltimore did but he was only in Columbus and not in my town.) We saw all of the sites and ate at Brews, the pub in town with an EXTENSIVE beer list. We went to the North Market in Columbus and had fabulous Indian food and delectable ice cream (Holy crap! In looking up the link, I found that they ship the ice cream! Even if you don't think the flavours sound good, trust me, they are. The Pear Riesling is the best, though!). We even went riding!


I rode Cali and almost bounced right out of the saddle because her trot is so powerful. She definitely wore me out! I'm so out of shape. Anyways, I loved having the chance to catch up and hear about what my friend is doing. She even got to see where I work before she left for the second leg of her trip.

Next weekend is also going to be very busy. My friend's wedding is on Saturday so I'll be headed out east again. It is so hard to believe that it is already time for the wedding! Whew. I'm going to go through college-friend withdrawl after these three weeks are finished!

I'll do another post soon with some of my first FOs for 2008. Hopefully Blogger will let me upload pictures by then!

**ETA: I am an idiot! I forgot to write about the other important thing that happened recently! I got a car! It is a 2008 Honda Fit in Blackberry Pearl. I love this car. It is very fun to drive and very sporty. The pictures will be in another post.