Reneged

I have to somewhat retract my former statement that I won't get much knitting done while in medical school. In the past couple of weeks I have actually worked through 3 FO's and also have 2 new WIP's. Well, medical school hasn't exactly begun in earnest just yet...but still...

I got the ball rolling by looking for a pattern for some Knit Picks Shine Sport which I originally had purchased with a pattern in mind. But you know, changes of heart, they happen. So after cruising Ravelry for hours and hours, I settled on Ballet Camisole.

Pattern: Ballet Camisole by Alexandra Virgiel
Yarn: Knit Picks Shine Sport
Needles: sizes 4 and 5

Overall, it turned out pretty well. It's a nice chocolately brown. The neckline is pretty flattering for my, umm, petite upper proportions. My crochet edging sucks, therefore the neckline droops slightly, especially in the back. That's okay, though. Hardly anything ever comes out 100% perfect (at least not in my knitting world.) Now I just need to find a nice button-down collared shirt to wear with it in order to remove the chance of embarrassing myself when bending down.

Then I moved on to a spree of hats. As it turns out, Arkansas Children's Hospital, which is my new neighbor, has a charity knitting drive called Knitting for Noggins. They collect upwards of 30,000 knitted hats each year to give not only to the children, but to the parents and family members as well. Which means they want hats of all sizes. Which also means that I can burn through my stash yarn making hats instead of a damn mitered square blanket. Which also means that I can use my favorite craft to warm the heads of the patients and families whom I may very well interact with when I begin my rotations at that hospital. My goal is to donate at least 10 this Fall. Here are the first two:

Pattern: so you think you can hat by Susan Chang
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino
Needles: size 4 for ribbing and size 7 for body

Pattern: Robin's Egg Blue Hat by Rachel Iufer
Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky
Needles: size 10

I also have a few other finished hats tucked away somewhere, so the current number of hats for charity is approximately 5. I did say I was on a hat spree, though.

My husband just had a birthday, so he deserves a hat. And I could use a hat, too. It's going to be cold in gross anatomy lab.

P.S. The only camera I have is on my cell phone. Husband just bought a brand spankin' new digital camera, but I don't get to reap the benefits of it yet, seeing as how I am in one state and he is in another. That's why my FO pictures aren't great.

P.P.S. I may never have a photo of Alison's Nightie actually being modeled by Alison, so here is one of my famed cell phone pics:

It's the Final Countdown

I've got one more day left before my summer class begins. I plan on honoring it fully by lazing around for hours and watching the televised Michael Jackson memorial. The new apartment ain't bad. Ain't bad at all. But the refrigerator is only half as tall as I am, which makes my plan of abundant cooking-and-freezing-to-avoid-ramen-and-boxed-college-food a slight challenge. But the AC works marvelously, almost too marvelously. The indoor chill is revving a desire to knit new winter pieces for myself this year. Perhaps a cloche and some wrist warmers are in order. So what if it's already 90 degrees outside and it isn't even August yet?

Lots O' Stuff

Umm..although it seems like when a person doesn't blog for a couple of weeks, there must not be anything interesting going on, that is certainly not always the case. And today I realized both the near and far future will be so busy that I will have even less time for blogging, so this post is going to serve as a summary of events.

1.) I left San Diego and moved back to Arkansas.
This was a hard move to make, especially since my husband has to stay in California until he gets out of the Navy next year. Also it is difficult because I had gotten used to the city life, but San Diego and rural Arkansas have nothing in common. Not a damn thing. So even though I am back at the place where I spent my childhood, the adjustment to a slower lifestyle has not come naturally. But I don't expect the slow pace to last for long because...

2.) This summer I start medical school.
It's finally happening. I moved my belongings down to the campus yesterday and was genuinely impressed with everything I saw and everyone I talked to. Even so, the anxiety is creeping up on me. The standard questions of "Can I really do this?" and "How hard will it be?" and "What if I get behind?" are racing around my head.

3.) I finished Alison's Nightie.
Yep, the day before the wedding I finally wrapped it up, literally and figuratively. It turned out quite nice. The yarn loosened up and softened after washing. It even fits her well. Unfortunately the only pics I have are crappy cell phone shots taken in a hotel room, so I am not going to post any FO pics now in the hope that I will get better pics soon.

4.) I have not been knitting recently.
Partly because I am trying to save money, and partly because all of my knitting supplies are still packed in a moving box. It has taken all of the restraint I have to not go to the one yarn shop in town and start spending money. Instead I have been sitting on the porch reading Michael Crichton books.

5.) I am sad that I may not be knitting as much in the future.
Ahh, the days when I was a housewife with nothing but free time to knit and surf Ravelry are over. Evening knitting time is probably going to be replaced with study time. But it may be a good opportunity to knit up more scrap stash yarn into mitered squares for psychedelic squares afghan I started last year. Hmm...perhaps set aside 30 mins each day to make a square? That would be easier than almost any other project that comes to mind.

Well, that concludes the summary. We'll see how the next few weeks pan out.

In a Funk

The time to move back to AR is looming near, and it has me in a sour mood. The reason being that my husband's military job has him out of town until the day before my departure. So I sit at home alone, watch marathons of Sex and the City, and occasionally knit on Alison's Nightie. I packed approximately 5 boxes today, but didn't make much progress overall.

There are two good pieces of news, though. Firstly, I finished a top-down raglan shrug of my own design. It's a pretty piece, but it is made from an acrylic blend yarn and needs more of a blocking than my leaky old steam iron could deliver. I didn't wear it to our anniversary dinner as originally planned, but that was only because my husband bought me an entirely new dress for the occasion. We did snap a few pictures of it, although not in the greatest of lighting.







There are similar patterns to this in existence, but I really wanted this piece to have baby cable ribbed edgings. The yarn is Lion Brand Baby Soft in white. It has rayon running throughout that gives a very nice sheen. I would really like to work this pattern up in wool or alpaca, or at least something that can be blocked easily in order to really define the baby cable rib. I kept notes so that I might post the pattern to Ravelry, but who knows when I'll actually get around to doing so.

The second piece of good news is that I just got the Knit Picks ball winder and have been winding up a storm. Lots of partially used skeins and formerly hand-wound balls are now transformed into pretty little cakes. Strangely, there were no hanks that required the erection of the clothes hanger swift. Anyway, winding up everything in the stash provided a good impression of doing actual work. I mean, why pack up messy, knotted, half-used skeins when cakes stack so nicely in boxes, right? My feelings exactly.

Recovery time and knitting time go hand in hand.

It's been 5 days since my wisdom teeth came out and I am just now beginning to recuperate. Eating is still a challenge, but there has been plenty of time to sit on my haunches and knit. And knit I have. The end is in sight for Alison's Nightie. Twenty-one inches in and only nine more to go. After working on that project for 3 days in a row my attention strayed elsewhere. Yesterday I ventured out into public, swollen jaw and all, in search of Noro Kureyon. My favorite LYS was a little farther than I cared to drive, so I went to an LYS more conveniently placed near my home. I was disappointed to see they had no Kureyon, but I didn't want to leave empty-handed so I bought some circular needles and then went to the mall across the street.

A walk around the mall and then through Micheal's left me with the memory that I told my husband I would wear a dress out to our anniversary dinner this weekend. Well this particular dress and this particular weekend kind of require a shrug or something similar to cover the shoulders. So I looked through the yarn at Micheal's and picked out something lightweight with a little shimmer.

Upon returning home I promptly searched Ravelry for a pattern for a shrug or bolero that would go with my dress. But there was a problem in that I already had a specific look for the shrug in mind and I wasn't seeing it in any existing patterns. I decided to try to conjure up my own pattern (with the aide of an instructional book) and cross my fingers that I can knit this thing up by Saturday. So far, so good. I'll know more tomorrow.

With a Swiftness

If you've been stalking Ravelry recently you may have seen a post from a user called FizzTheCarbonated about a swift she made using 4 clothes hangers, a lazy susan, and some clothespins. Well, I thought her idea was mighty fine and I said to myself, "Hey, I have hangers and a lazy susan...I can build a swift, too!!" I dug up all the necessary ingredients, found a bit of tape, and assembled my masterpiece. And I spun my swift in glee. Then my lazy susan came off its ball bearings (or whatever was making in spin) and my masterpiece was no longer in operation. Damn. So I trekked off to store after store until I finally found a new lazy susan (at Target!) to purchase. I brought it home, re-taped various things, and was off spinning again. Swift Part Deux works like a charm..

..which is very good because I have three more skeins of Knit Picks yarn to ball up for Alison's Nightie. I don't have a proper ball winder, but that is a-okay because at least with this swift I can sit comfortably on the couch while balling up yarn, as opposed to standing on dining room chairs with the yarn draped over the chair backs.

Not to let a wave of DIY motivation go to waste, I decided that my closet was full of a lot more clothes hangers, and surely some of those would be fit for turning into sock blockers, right?

Yep.



It doesn't matter that I have only one pair of hand-knit socks that needs blocking. Someday the sock bug might bite me again. The best part about these blockers is that they can hang conveniently in closets or from doorknobs for extra speedy drying.

*Sigh* fun time is over now. It's time to get back to knitting on Alison's Nightie. Did I mention that I am using size 1 needles? Or that this piece needs to be at least 30 inches long (at a gauge of 10 rows/inch ?!)? And there are 288 stitches/row?? Crazy, I know. The good news is that I'm approximately 15 inches in already.

Changes keep happening

Yesterday was my last day at work. I was thoroughly excited about it for weeks, but now that I am actually unemployed...well, it just feels weird. I left on a good note, though. And just in time, too. Next week the store is going to get a completely new register system and a remodel. But the best part about all this newly found free time will be that I can spend more time working on Alison's Nightie, which has to be done by June 26.

So on Thursday night the husband and I saw Ben Folds live at the House of Blues. Holy hell, that was one awesome concert. We were really close to the stage, the performance was really spectacular, and he played all the songs I wanted to hear. Everyone know that I am a Ben Folds fan to the point of lunacy, while my poor husband is not. But even he thought the concert was one of the best live shows he's ever seen. I didn't get any pictures from the show, but I did get a souvenir t-shirt. It was one major thing to mark off of my life's To-Do List.

More changes are coming up quickly. In a week my wisdom teeth are getting pulled, which gives me anxiety to no end. But at least the damn dentist will stop telling me how badly they need to come out. And soon my sister will fly out to San Diego so that she can help me load up my stuff and haul it back to Arkansas. In August I will be an official med student. I just hope that knitting time won't be completely overshadowed by study time.