Dear Rima:
Enclosed please find one photo of a knitted work in progress, as per your request. I hope it is to your liking.
Kindest and best regards,
CTJen
Knitting Interrupted
WIP Wednesday (pictureless edtion)
Oh, hey there. I just remembered that I have to do this blog thing again. Wednesdays are exceedingly bad for me as there is usually a lot going on. Normally we’d have our homeschool group, but today I had to go to the accountant instead (yay tax season!), after which was my weekly grocery run a couple of days late. Our cupboards were pretty bare, if you know what I mean. And, in 40 minutes my trombone and I will zip out the door for orchestra rehearsal. So yeah, busy day. And yet, SOMEHOW, shockingly, I managed to sneak in a few rounds of my sister’s shawl. I picked it up last night to work on while I was watching TV (which, actually didn’t happen because, frankly, I DON’T GIVE A FLYING RAT’S ASS ABOUT CHARLIE EFFING SHEEN) and at this stage (early) it’s still pretty small (under 200 stitches around). I forgot how fast it goes! And also how fun! I caught myself planning to do a whole pattern repeat every single day (only 4 days until the next increase round at which point the thing becomes a huge terrifying monster again). And THEN I was thinking I might actually even be able to finish it if I tried to do at least a half a pattern repeat a day (24 days of that). ZOMG you guys! I could totally finish that damn thing! FINISHED! HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE? THEN I COULD CAST ONE ON FOR MYSELF!!!
hah.
Yeah. Anyway. We’ll see how I feel about it when my Cascade Eco arrives. Although, the sweater I’ve planned for it will knit up pretty quickly.
Anyhoo, I’m off to orchestra! Toodles!
Yogurt Fail
I tried to make coconut milk yogurt overnight last night. I used this recipe from the Crockpot Lady but when I woke up this morning, the yogurt hadn’t even thickened up. It was more like Kefir. Which is okay, I guess, but I really wanted yogurt. So I did a little googling and found one website that said I could just turn the heat back on for, like, half an hour, add some gelatin and it would be fine. Um. No. No it was not fine. It stayed too hot for too long and my yogurt broke. I don’t even know what happened to the gelatin. Now it’s an inedible mess.
Which is too bad because it smells awesome.
Not Enough Yarn
Yesterday, while I was digging through my stash and lining up all the non-committed worsted weights, I was trying to explain to my TAS, who watched the whole process bemusedly, that the problem is not that had chosen the wrong pattern for the yarn I have. The problem is that my stash is clearly insufficient. I mean, I have plenty of worsted weight yarn, a fair amount of sock yarn, a bit of lace weight yarn, and even a few hanks of handspun. How could I have just a single ball of bulky weight yarn, and an acrylic blend yarn at that?!
Well, I set out today to remedy that. First, I did a bit of mental math and realized that it would actually be cheaper to knit that sweater in Cascade Eco wool than in Lion Brand Thick and Quick. Once that truly dawned on me, and I was able to process it properly, it was kind of a no-brainer. I weatherized the boys and hit the LYS. Only, sadly, they are starting to make room for the spring yarns and Cascade Eco was out of stock (I did get some of this though). Poo. I very nearly got in the car and drove to Webs right then. But dudes, I had so many other things to do today, including a Target run and a Post Office stop. Thankfully, Webs has a website. Guess what I did as soon as I got home?
The yarn is on the way and I will be casting on as soon as I get it! Hopefully soon. I really need a project that isn’t socks. Or lace.
Stash Diving Fail
(click through for the labeled photo)
So, this is almost all of the worsted weight yarn that I own. That is to say that it’s everything that is not already committed to specific sweater project. As you can see, there’s quite a lot of free range worsted, but there’s not enough of any one color which could work held doubled for Iced.
I’m confused, I’m tired, and still trying to figure out what I’m going to do. And if I don’t hit publish soon, I’m going to miss the post for today. I guess the search for a project continues. /sigh/
Considerations
Having spent the better part of today flipping through Ravelry and thinking about the project I would like to cast on next (yes, I am aware of my 3 WsIP, shut up), I came up with the following considerations:
- I would like to go from Cast On to Cast Off fairly quickly.
- I do not feel like knitting socks or any other small project (hat, mittens, etc.)
- Even though spring is coming, I would like the finished object to be something fairly warm and cozy (hence the need for it to knit up quickly).
I think I have narrowed it down to Iced, but I don’t have a good yarn for it on hand. Not that I am completely opposed to hitting the yarn shop, I was just hoping to create something kind of for free out of thin air, if you know what I mean. One possibility is to knit it with a worsted held double. Lord knows I have plenty of worsted weight yarns languishing in the stash, but I guess the question then becomes do I have enough of the same kind of worsted languishing in the stash to make a bulky weight sweater? Tomorrow, I think I shall dive deep into the stash tomorrow. Hopefully I will remember to take pictures. Send out a search party if you don’t hear from me.
Finished Object Friday!
Check it out! I finished the hat for my Congressman!
[ravelry]
It looks even better now that it’s been blocked and dried! It’s ready to be mailed off tomorrow. Now, what to knit next… Tomorrow I predict a stash diving excursion.
A Reading Update
Way back when (like last year), I had this goal to read a book a month and do a blog post whenever I finished a book. Like most things with this blog, the posting part of it fell by the wayside and then eventually so did the reading part. It’s not that I haven’t been doing any reading, but a lot of days it seems like most or all of my reading is done on the internet. I pass no judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing. It just is. So anyway, last year I read:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Under The Dome by Steven King
The God Engines by John Scalzi
Wings of Wrath by CS Friedman (ugh, couldn’t finish)
The Hunger Games Trilogy (FABULOUS!) by Suzanne Collins
Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson (and Robert Jordan)
And the list of books which I would like to read grew from a few to I-better-get-my-ass-off-the-internet-and-read-some-damn-books-before-I-die. First up this year is the newest novel in the Bartimeaus universe by Jonathan Stroud: The Ring Of Solomon. It’s such a fun story! If you haven’t read any of the Bartimeaus books, I highly recommend them, like ASAP. They are very entertaining.
What are you reading? Well, besides my blog right now, lol.
WIP Wednesday
Remember WIP Wednesday? Well, Bubbles over at Alabama Fiber Dreams reminded us last week that such a thing exists and so this week we remembered to bring you a photo of our current knitting project:
[ravelry]
We are making a hat for our Congressman for the WHNHH project and are expecting to mail it out by Friday since we are nearing the start of the crown decreases. (The crown decreases of this pattern please us so very much!) All of our other projects have been languishing, although we’re not really sure what the reason for that is. We would say that it is because we have been busy, but that would be lying.
10 on Tuesday (with 100% more parantheses!)
Today’s 10 on Tuesday is brought to you by booze! I admit to not being much of a drinker now-a-days. Many liquors just don’t agree with my Celiac’s disease, and often my favorite drinks (from days gone by) had milk in them (which doesn’t agree w/ my lactose intolerance). But I can remember the day (not all that long ago) when I could (and did!) knock back a few like a pro. I could also shoot a mean game of pool. So here, in no particular order, are my 10 favorite Cocktails:
- Frozen Margarita (nice and slushy!)
- Frozen Mudslide (a boozy milkshake full of AWESOME!)
- Root beer Float (Kahlua, cream, splash of coke. Tastes EXACTLY like a root beer float)
- Amaretto Sour (yum!)
- Vodka Collins (Nothing beats a basic drink. Also, they’re cheap!)
- Mimosa (Barely a cocktail, I know, but still a favorite!)
- Vodka-Cranberry (another cheap-o basic drink, but still yummy!0
- Tequila shots (I guess this isn’t a cocktail precisely, but I sure did love the whole salt-tequila-lime ritual)
- Sloe Gin Fizz (how I loved me some sloe gin)
- Fuzzy Navel (last on the list for a reason)
I see now that I was kind of a cheap drunk. (Hah!) Well, what can I say? (I was a poor college student!) Anyway, happy (boozy) Tuesday everyone!
Knitting Interrupted 
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