Two Weeks...

I decided that I wanted to try to post at least once a week, but it seems that means I post every two weeks or so. In the time that has passed since my last post this



has turned to this:

And this...




has turned to this.


I took the most recent pictures last Saturday. To console myself about the terrible weather we had at the end of last week, on Saturday I made these.



A very delicious way to cheer myself up. AND it was the first time I've made chocolate chip cookies all by myself!


I have been enjoying them (they aren't quite gone). But I think my husband might be enjoying them more.


And of course, I've been knitting, albeit slowly.


I'm done six full repeats of the center pattern. I'm hoping to get at least nine out of my ball of yarn. But I should hurry up! I bought $50 worth of yarn online the other day... :)

A place for everything...

...and nothing in it's place. This is my crafting area in our apartment. Or at least it will be. I have a lovely nook for knitting...



...a desk for painting and sewing...



...and bookshelves to hold my crafting books, along with a few other things.


The only problem is that it is all still a mess. I've been knitting more than I've been organizing. It is just a little sad, I did move in back in June. But look at the knitting!



Cashmere is so lovely to knit with. (Lily of the Valley Scarf, by Nancy Bush, in Jojoland 2 ply cashmere) Such cozy stuff to be working with as it's getting colder. What could be nicer than knitting and cuddling a cat?



Can you blame me for not wanting to organize?

Photo Update

I've been working, I've been knitting, but not a whole lot. James and I have both been sick a lot lately. Now that the weather has cooled off I'll be more inclined to knit. These are some of the things I've been working on.


JoJoLand Cashmere 2 ply for my Lily of the Valley Scarf (From Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush)

Finished Gretel, by Ysolda Teague, in white Malabrigo worsted.



Finished Spring Things Shawl, by Susan Lawrence, in teal JaggerSpun Zephyr.

Only problem now is that I am losing some knitting mojo. Instructions are frustrating. I've been working on one project (not pictured) that is taking forever, and I don't much like. Hopefully the cashmere scarf will give me a little more enthusiasm. :)

Wedding Knitting

Now that the wedding, and thus the wedding knitting, is all done, I have the leisure to write about it.


In the end, I finished all the knitting I set out to do. I knit 18-20 yards of lace to trim my dress, and I knit my veil.

The knitting was some of the most challenging I have ever done in my life. I knitted with teeny tiny needles (000's for the trim lace, 2's for the veil) and teeny tiny yarn (Halcyon Yarn Gemstone Silk 2/30).



For the most part, I figured out the design myself. I improvised the pattern for the edging on the overdress, and the insertion on the skirt of the dress.


The veil had EZ's Pi Shawl shaping, and I used the Cypress Edging from Victorian Lace Today (by Jane Sowerby),
but I adapted the stitch pattern on the largest section and worked out my own transitions between stitch patterns.


I liked the process. So much knitting gave me something to do during out 2+ year long engagement. In a lot of ways, the knitting reflected our relationship and our engagement.


Sometimes it seemed like the knitting and the engagement would never be over. Sometimes I would be frustrated and angry to be doing work that I thought I had taken care of, like the month or so I spent swatching when I had already knitted ¼ of the veil, or the conversations about how we are both still learning to talk to each other.


Finishing the knitting also left me in a similar place to the wedding being over. I finished the veil last, and blocked the Tuesday before the wedding. Once I was done knitting it, I didn’t know what to do with myself, I thought I should still be knitting, but I didn’t know what to knit. I had been so focused on finishing on time that I hadn’t made any plans for my next project.


Now I feel a little like that in general. I’ve been so focused on finishing school (getting my BA) and planning the wedding that I hadn’t thought much about what to do next.


However, there is reason to hope, I’ve found other things to knit, so I imagine once I decompress I’ll be able to find plenty of things to do.

Someday

Someday soon I will not have homework.
Someday soon I will come home at the end of the day and not have seventy pages to read.
Someday soon I will have time to knit something other than three more yards of the same old thing.
Someday soon I will have the time and freedom to write a little.
Clearly, I have not had the time for nearly a year.
Someday soon I will.

Uncharted Waters

For the first time in my knitting career, I felt an (almost) overwhelming desire to knit socks. I’ve never really gotten socks. My mother trained me up to look with deep suspicion on anything that can’t be machine washed and dried. I’ve done a good job of getting over that for sweaters, especially since they don’t need to be washed all that often, but socks? They need to be washed every time you use them. And they wear out. I’m ridicuously sentimental about just about everything I own including clothes. Two of my favorite shirts recently had a run with some bleach that they came out the worse for, but I can’t bear to throw them away yet. And I didn’t knit them with my own two little hands. All I did was buy them.
But a little while ago I saw these. And for some reason, which may not be at all rational, I was filled with the desire to knit socks.
So I'm making a start with this.

We'll see how this goes.

Separation Anxiety

I finished the Clover Fields scarf quite some time ago. I was making it for someone to give to his wife, and I was surprised by the pangs of anxiety I felt as the time came to give it to him so he could give it to her.

It’s funny because I don’t particularly want it for myself. I think it’s nice, but I wouldn’t have decided to make it for myself. Even so, I was very anxious to see my little scarf going out into the world with strangers.


I guess it’s just that I spent so much time with the thing. I carried it around and knit it out of teeny yarn on tiny needles, and I even cobbled the pattern together myself from one of the shawl patterns in Victorian Lace Today.


I hope she loves it and takes good care of it.