Progress, Progress

Sydney's Thorpe is coming along nicely. Here is an update:

Sorry for the poor picture quality. I took it with my camera phone in a dark area of my living room. I'm pretty pleased with how it is turning out and with how quick it is going. Normally I am not a quick knitter, and I've managed to get this much done since yesterday morning.

I feel very organized... about my knitting anyway. Today I gave more thought to what I want to make people for Christmas, since I decided to try and make a lot of my gifts this year. I picked out a hat that I will make for both my father and brother and queued those, along with the other two Thorpe's for my nieces and a lace shawl and felted knitting basket for me. I know it seems kind of crazy; me planning and working on Christmas knits. But now is a good time for me to start, and I probably wont get a whole lot done in the 2-3 months Zach is home from August to October. Plus, like I mentioned before, normally I am not a fast knitter, so if I want to get all this done and actually sleep the week before Christmas, it makes me feel better to start now.

I want to make a lap blanket for my mom for Christmas, but I don't want anything difficult or too involved. The cat always sits on her lap anyway, so I know this will get covered in cat hair, which is why I will make it out of machine washable yarn. But I can't really find a pattern that is calling out to me to make it for her. The Cable Comfort Throw is nice, but I'm not sure its what I want to make.

Danny, my brother, is getting a beanie for Christmas. But he mentioned how a scarf would be nice, especially while he is refereeing games at college. So now I have to find a nice scarf that he would actually wear and make that for him too. I think I will make it in gray, but put stripes of the slate blue that I am using for his hat. I also want to make his girlfriend, Amy, a scarf for Christmas. The yarn I want to use doesn't have great stitch definition, but its super soft, so whatever I decide to do can't be super intricate because you will never see it.

Decisions, decisions!

I recently because a member of the group Socks for Soldiers (or SFS). I have to say, at first I was a little put of by what they ask of their members and all you have to do to become one. But Kim Opperman is super nice, and is only strict because she wants the best for our service members. Obviously this charity is near and dear to my heart with Zach being in the military. I really hope that I can get good enough at socks that I can crank them out and really help contribute.

Lastly, a cute picture of the kitten!

Fireworks!

I love fireworks. Yolanda and I heard about fireworks over at one of the local wineries from her sister, so we went over and watched. Here is the video from the finale. Enjoy!

Sydney's Thorpe

So I have started the first of three earflap hats for my nieces for Christmas. I know its kind of early, but I want to make a lot of my Christmas gifts this year, and since I'm making three I wanted to spread them out a little bit. I started it this morning. Here is a pictorial status update:

Not too shabby for a half hour's work. I really like how it is coming out so far. I have to say, I was a little confused on the sizing. I figured when it had small, medium, and large, they were adult sizes, because they show adults (or at least teenagers) modeling the hats in the pictures. However, when I compared the finished circumfrences with those in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Knitting Rules, the small would fit a 1-2 year old! Not going to fit my 5 year old niece. So I kept increasing for the mediu msize, which should fit her all right, if not be a little large. The only problem I am having now is I don't know what size to make for her older sisters, who are 11 and 13. Probably just make the adult size. Better too big than to small, right?

I'm using knit picks interchangeable circs for this project and I am really enjoying working with them. I wish they made a smaller cable though, because the 24" that came with the set is just tooo big to work nicely. I have to keep doing this weird shifting and pulling cable through thing every 12 stitches or so. But other than that, they are nice and sharp and have smooth joins.

Kitty can sleep anywhere!

Melting

Its pretty warm up here. I say up here because I have been tracking the weather in Jacksonville, NC because its as close to where Zach is as I can get. We have been as warm if not warmer than them this whole week. Don't get me wrong, I love it warm. But its SO humid today. Yesterday we had thunderstorms and the humidity seems to have carried over.

No new knitting to report, sadly. Although I did neglect to mention that I started a charity knit and crochet group at church this week and it went pretty well. I'm hopfully going to be casting on a hat for chemo caps this weekend so I at least have something to take with me to the meeting to show I did something. Other than that, mostly what I have been working on. Socks... are going, but going slowly. I had ripped them completely out after getting past the heel on Tuesday night because I messed up on the heel flap, but decided to keep going to figure out how the heel worked. Figured I had made it this far, might as well get over the hard part before I rip it out. I have only done a few rows done after casting back on the other night. Still have the crochet squares blanket of my own design going. The squares only take me an hour or so to do, but usually other things seem more interesting :) I plan on having that done for this fall though. I need to start Sydney's earflap hat... I have three of them to do so I might as well get going. Sydney's will be the smallest, so I figured I would start with hers. If you look at my previous post, her hat will be made witgh the Marlin colorway of Knit Picks comfy bulky.

Even the kitten is warm...
Poor kitty. Hope your day is less sticky than mine!

Yarn!

I am so happy! I placed an order for yarn for many of my Christmas gifts, as well as a few things for me. Knit Picks is my new favorite place to order yarn from. I was was really happy with everything I had ordered, it came in a timely manner, and everything was reasonably priced. Here are some pictures of what I got:

yarn to make socks for me :)

yarn for socks for ZachYarn for Hannah's earflap hatYarn for Brandee's earflap hatYarn for Sydney's earflap hat
Yarn to make a felted knitting basket

This is yarn I got to make a striped scarf for my cousin :) sorry for the crazy picture layout... its the black and two shades of green.

And last but not least...


This is 2 luxurious sheins of Alpaca Cloud in the Smoke colorway to make the invisibility shawl. Usually I am not a lace person and I have never knit a lace shawl before, but the simplicity and fun aspect of this drew me to it. Plus, I listen to Kelley Petkun's Knit Picks podcast and lace is a favorite topic of hers. If all goes well, I may try to make a simple but elegant lace scarf for my Aunt for Christmas. We shall see!

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pasta Salad

Elliot continues to amaze me. Not because he is brilliant, however. He ate pasta salad today. Like actually chewed and swallowed 2 noodles with Italian dressing and cheese. No veggies for him though. He truly is a special cat.

I'm trying to be productive tonight. I actually got 15 more thank yous done. Its so sad. My wedding was three months ago. I can't even really use the school excuse anymore cause I've been done for 3 weeks now. They take a while cause I'm handwriting each one and its not a hard-and-fast message I'm writing in them, because some people just sent money and did not come to the weeding, some came, etc. I just finished baking cookies for Zach's care package I plan on sending our Friday. I still have to get some necessities he asked for (sunflower seeds, sour patch kids, bug lotion, and a red bulbed flashlight) but at least I know what I have to get.

I was thinking today as I looked about my living room, why does it seem like one never has enough space? before we got married, I never really paid attention to trying to make everything seem like it belonged and making it look organized. I swear it was because we didn't have as much stuff, so it wasn't an issue. Now, however, its like we always have random stuff I can never find places for, or not enough space in places I try to make for things. It's frustrating. I think after I get back from visiting Zach I'm going to block one of the weekends I have left and completely clean the apartment. I'll try to get all the basic stuff caught up before then (dishes, laundry, vacuuming, etc) so that I can focus on organizing. I think I'll need one whole day for my office, so maybe I'll save that for Sunday because it will be the most time consuming and the least important. We don't hang out much in there (ok, Zach only really stores stuff in there and I haven't been in there since it became the place to store stuff from the wedding we don't know what to do with) so if it is the only room that doesn't get done, I wont be to broken up over it.

Wow, that was a really long ramble on how I need to be more organized. Sorry for that. Made me feel better though :)

He takes after his father

My kitten is insane. Certifiably loco. For the past 25 minutes he has been running and jumping around the apartment like he is being chased my something, which he isn't. He plays with anything he sees, whether it moves or not and whether or not it is attached to him. Walls and vertical objects are not a hindrance, just more running space. Moving at the speed of light isn't fast enough.

I keep joking with my friends that Elliot (the kitten) takes after Zach. They are both such BOYS. That and Elliot always makes messes I have to clean up, much like someone else I know (eh hmm, laundry especially). But we wont go into that.

Finally finished Yolanda's fetching and I don't like it. I don't think it was the right yarn for the project and it was hard knitting something that was black because the stitched were hard to see. I think I might just order some nice purple yarn from knit picks and try try again. Such a shame though. Oh well

The Summer

It's that time again when Zach leaves for the summer and I'm left to enjoy (or not) the summer by myself. This time its not as long as last summer, so that's what I'm trying to focus on. Maybe I will get lots of knitting and organizing with him gone.

We finally named little kitty: Elliot! He is so cute, but he is definitely playful. I feel bad because some nights I come home from being gone all day and he just want to play play play and I'm done after 15 minutes. Luckily he is starting to play on his own with some of the toys we bought him.

Not too much else to report really. I am almost done with one of Yolanda's fetchings. I just did the last cable row so I think there is only 4 more rows left, the bind off, and then the thumb. The thumb kind of scares me. I was pretty proud considering I went from having like 40% to 90% done the other night. I am hoping after I get my errands done tomorrow that I will be able to finish it and maybe work on a baby blanket? I wont let myself start ANYTHING else until I get at least one of those done. Oh yeah, should probably work on wedding thank yous too. I bet if I really wanted to I could finish those. That would be cool. We'll see what happens.