Plurk Craft 365

With all the drama going on in the online knitting world at the moment I thought a nice quiet post was in order so here is my 365 set for January (due to a lack of counting skills I actually have posted through tomorrow, lol):

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Happy Friday!

Progress and presents

I attended knitting group last night for the first time in months. This led to a great deal of progress on my beret:

I'm even further along now. Once I finish I'll get back to the smallville sock. If I don't it will become an orphan indefinitely.

I received a package yesterday, not unexpected but appreciated nonetheless. Julie sent me some books. She needed to make room for new aquisitions;)
Thanks Julie, I can't wait to start!

To puff out this piece a bit here's a new meme. The sleep meme stolen from Tea Bird

1. How long do you sleep each night?
7 hours

2. Do you fall asleep easily?
Now I do, when I was a kid I had horrible insomnia. It still rears up occasionally but rarely.

3. Do you fall asleep at times not in your bed?
on the couch but that's about it, the husband can fall asleep anywhere

4. Do you listen to music or use white noise to sleep?
neither

5. Do you sleep through the night or get up a couple of times?
sleep through the night

6. Do you have trouble sleeping away from your own bed?
yes

7. Do you need an alarm clock to get you up?
yes most days I'll wake up before it but I sleep through enough times to make it a necessity. My youngest is actually an excellent alarm clock though;)

8. Do you ever take medication to help you sleep?
sometimes advil pm

9. Do you/have you slept with pets?
yup my cats both share the bed most nights

Monday morning finished object

I am on quite the roll here. Having given up on the two socks one circ idea suddenly socks became fun again. Here's the proof:

I know it's cheating a bit to call one finished sock a finished object but I've been working on these since September so I'll take some gratification where I can get it.

Rather than starting on the second sock right away, I decided I desperately needed a hat. So I cast on for the Star Crossed Slouchy Beret (rav link):

It's in Lush which I won in a blog contest from Chris millions of years ago. It's been marinating for just the right project. I couldn't find my 11s yesterday so I started it on 10 1/2s but Kathleen (who I was having lunch with) jinxed me and of course they were too small, way too small. So I'm on a 13 today and the gauge seems spot on. It's a little odd since it's a worsted but I'm guessing the loose gauge gives it the slouchy effect. The pattern is fun and the yarn is decadent so I'll be monogamous until it's done.

What are you working on?

I give up!

I have officially given up on my 2 socks at one time on magic loop. Once I got to the ankle/heel decreases I realized how much I actually hate doing it that way. It simply wasn't fun and life is too short to do something I don't enjoy. So last night I went back to my comfort zone:


This morning on the train I was zipping along happily on my sock. I'm always happy to try something new but if it ain't fun, it ain't worth continuing:D

I did finish my washcloth yesterday though:



The picture sucks. The weird colors, while kind of pretty in person, do not allow the pattern to show in a picture. Trust me, it's cute. I certainly enjoyed the few rows a day commitment. I'm glad I signed up.

Speaking of commitments Sassenach had a link to an annual challenge, 52 books in 52 weeks. I read 67 books last year but as you all know my knitting greatly suffered. Since I hope to focus more on my knitting this year I thought this would be a good thing to participate in to keep up my reading.

It's almost Friday!!!

Another Monday, another finished object

Yup I finished yet another project. Avery complains that I don't knit as much for him as everyone else. He has a point. I bought yarn to make him a scarf on winter break in 2007 and it took me until January 2009 to make him one:


He's getting a ton of compliments on it so we're both happy. I bought yarn to make a hat to match. Hopefully I won't take as long to get to that as I did the scarf.

All this knitting has helped me get my mojo back. To keep it fed I am trying to do small projects to keep me gratified while doing bigger ones as well. Dani inspired me to join the:

There are two patterns a month and the moderator sends 7-10 rows a day for 7 days. That's a committment I can handle. This is where I was after day 3:

Ian and I went to go see Hotel for Dogs on Saturday. It was very cute by the way. I highly recommend it for the 10 and under set. We planned on seeing it on 86th Street since Avery was hanging out with his godmother for the day and she works up there. Unfortunately the two teen girls on line in front of me took the last two tickets, literally, after they handed over their money their cashier turned on her mike and announced the show was sold out.

Ian and I then ran downtown to 42nd street to catch it at another theater. We then had to head back up to 86th to get Avery and then head home. About 30 minutes after we got home this is where he was:
Passed out on the couch.

Sweetest 16

Way back in November my favorite cousin in law hit the big one six and in this day of Super Sweet 16 there was a large party involved. Her mom did an excellent job of keeping up with the Joneses without going completely over the top.

My favorite part was Ian. He would not leave the dance floor. Here he is with his cousin Zeyda doing the Electric Slide:


Cheyenne has grown into a lovely and intelligent young woman so she is well worth celebrating. Here she is with Avery who considers her his best friend:
This was her third clothing change for the night;)

The only decent shot of me came from Rinaldo's IPhone. It got a lot of comments on my Facebook site so I will deign to share it with you all as well;)

It was fun playing dress up for a night. I wouldn't want to do it very often but every once in awhile it's well worth it.

Fiber Filled New Year

The first full week of the new year and I'm already off to a good start fiber wise. My first finished object of the year. New mittens for Ian:


I used a basic mitten pattern and referred to the playground mitten pattern for the slits which are a popular feature in this house:
Just before Christmas I won a Knit Picks contest. Yarn in the color of my choice to make this pattern. Enough yarn for the size of my choice as well:

The color is Wine in Wool of the Andes Kettle Dyed since I seem to have uploaded the sucky picture rather than the good one. Sorry about that!

I received my last fiber of the month shipment from Spunky Eclectic. I still love the fiber but I'm so behind on my spinning I decided to stop getting them every month. I also ordered two more skeins of Smooshy to add to my birthday gift from Kathleen so I can re-start Jeannie in the yarn it was made for:

The NYU Knitting group had a meet-up at the new Lion Brand store. Sadly I was unable to attend but Amanda gave me a present anyway:


They gave them to everyone in the group. Dude you can really fit some yarn in there!

Try to have a good Monday all!

Plurk Craft 365

I've joined some other plurkers in a 365 project. As some of you may know there are various Flickr groups that post picture a picture everyday. Zarzuela started a Flickr group for Plurk crafters to share their pictures. I figure once a month I'll share them here rather than cluttering the blog with them. I'll just post a link to my set so you can visit if you like.

Plurk Craft 365

Yarn shopping

A few weeks back Tisha, Amanda and I took a trip to the new Lion Brand Studio store on 15th street.

I love the guy in the window who greets you as you walk up to the door:


Then there was the yarn:
...and Bron for you there was the massive amounts of Cotton Ease (it's two of the rows diagonally down the middle):
Tisha and Amanda fondled their fair share:
This is my favorite part, free swatching!
They have a lovely seating area where you can sit, knit and look at their book selection (not huge but good enough). The staff was friendly and helpful. They've invited our NYU Knitters ravelry group to meet there. Certainly you won't find more reasonably priced yarn in Manhattan, of course it's only LB stuff but it's amazing to see how far they've branched out over the years. It's definitely worth a visit.

Christmas

My winter break was cut short. I actually had to work both days of the weekend shelving books to prepare for the upcoming semester. No overtime means no staff only managers doing the heavy lifting. Sadly this has once again brought home to me how I am not as young as I used to be. When I was a clerk back in the day I could shelve all day everyday with no problem. Saturday night I got home and had aches on my aches. At least it's good exercise.

I didn't get a chance to fill you in on the Christmas festivities at casa de Mathews. We had our usual Christmas Eve get together with Maribel and her mom and Rinaldo's cousin Lisa and her girls. It's small but loud, fun and full of food. Then we prepped for Santa's visit. This is the scene Ian woke to on Christmas morning:
That would be Phineas and Ferb from Ian's favorite show climbing the tree. Their pet platypus Perry is eating Santa's leftover cookie.
The boys enjoyed their presents. So did I:

Rinaldo got me this beautiful necklace.

Maribel got me the Casablanca special edition DVD and this cute knitting novel. I finished it in about a day or so. She also got me a fantastic robe which I never take off. It's like a long hoodie sweatshirt.

My mother in law gave me money to pick something up for myself:
I'm really looking forward to a year full of fiber.

2009 Goals for the Year

New Year's resolutions are a losing proposition. Chances are they will have failed or been forgotten by February at best. I have all the usual goals for the year, the same as many of you I'm sure. Spend less, stay home more, eat out much, much less, lose the remaining weight to get to my 100lbs by 40 goal (40 comes at the end of June for those who are counting).

Although I tanked my first class I am going to take another class this semester. Something more basic. I think I overshot a bit. Other than that I don't really have any specific goals.

On the crafty side I'll take a page from my plurk bud Sassenach and list some projects I'd like to accomplish this year:

Sewing

A comforter cover for Ian's blanket. He has an old hand me down comforter, it's in decent shape but a new cover will spiff it up nicely. I remember making one for my feather comforter when I was a teenager.


Knitting

hats and scarves for Avery and Ian
mittens for Ian
Tomten sweater for Rinaldo
Rogue
Sayuri
Lacy Cable Shrug

to name but a few

Crochet

I want to learn to crochet a granny square, that's it. Is it really asking so much?

I'm trying to be realistic for the year but it does appear to be shaping up to be the year of the sweater. I have so much yarn, for so many sweaters. I'm hoping to actually get a few of them done. It will be all stash all the time because frankly I've got enough to keep me busy without ever hitting a yarn store. Although I did get a Knit NY gift certificate but that doesn't count right?

2008 - Year End Wrap Up

My knitting output this year has been pathetic to say the least. Last year I finished 31 projects including 4 pairs of socks. This year a whopping:

11

Yup, you read that right, 11. Including 1 pair of socks. It breaks down as the following:

1 cabled hat
1 Ice Queen
1 Swallowtail Shawl
1 beaded bracelet
2 spa washcloths
1 baby kimono
2 sets of booties
1 pair of rpms
1 nyc street hat

WIPs still on the needles:

1 seascape shawl
1 Jeannie
1 nutkin waiting for a mate
2 smallville socks on one circ
1 cat (Edaniel to be exact)

Jeannie will probably be frogged. I got some smooshy for my birthday and now nothing else will do for it. The Smallville socks have heel flaps that are waiting to be turned. Edaniel is just about finished he just needs his head. The seascape I think is salvagable so I'm going to try to pick that back up. I usually frog all my wips at year's end but this year I decided against it. I'd like to finish what I've started.

My knitting focus has been way off this year. I'm hoping to get back on track this year. Mostly because I miss it. I miss the joy of a finished project, I miss watching it take shape. I have tons of yarn for tons of projects. I just need to start stitching.