Tuesday, March 13, 2012

On the way...

Wow, two days in a row! Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse. The challenge that I accepted last night of completing Aria's shawl was an abysmal failure. I didn't finish it today, either, but I am on the last section, so there's hope for finishing it this week, if I can get my homework out of the way early enough. There's even a glimmer of hope for tomorrow.

As of this morning, a care package is on its way to Shreveport, containing my copy of Knitting Rules, two Hubig pies and a bag of Zapps Voodoo Blend chips. It should arrive in Shreveport tomorrow, where Frances will bring them to Stephanie on Saturday night. With any luck, she'll sign my book, and Frances will get to give her my foodstuffs, along with a six-pack of Abita beer. I also included a heartfelt note, just to further solidify my dorkiness and simulated presence.

I hope to have pictures of a finished something soon. The Ishbel is #1 on the list, so it will probably be that. I think I'm going hit the WIP basket hard for a while, and finish up some of these things that have been lurking. Next up will probably be Mara, since that's almost done. It's also mostly garter stitch, which will help since my knitting time these days almost always coincides with study time/practice time/class time/driving time. (I'm kidding about that last one. Mostly.)

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sock it to 'em.

This weekend has been made of magic. I've barely slept, and it doesn't even matter. Instead of making a "to-do" list for the weekend, I decided to make a "did-do" list, writing down things after I accomplished them. I highly suggest this method if you're an ambitious person, because it is far more encouraging than staring down a big list of tasks. In the end, I find myself extremely satisfied on this quiet Sunday night--I certainly made the most of the weekend.

I did some MAJOR cleaning (RIP my phone charger cable, which has been sacrificed to the Vacuum Gods), laundry, drank a LOT of tea and enjoyed some of my favorite movies, played some video games and found all kinds of stuff that I thought had been irretrievably sucked into the black hole of my closet.

But, aside from that, I also finished one of my long-lingering WIPs:
The Unicorn-Cupcake Socks



This yarn could not be less my style. It was an Etsy buy in the early days of my knitting career, and the picture was...misleading, at best. The yarn sat in my stash for a long time, and finally I decided that I'd use it to practice my socks. On that particular night, I had decided to watch The Last Unicorn, and the colors reminded me of unicorns and cupcakes. So, I cast them on and worked on them until they were almost done...and then left them to languish until yesterday. I'm still not sure why that happened, but I finished them up quickly. They have achieved their purpose perfectly, allowing me to further develop my understanding of sock knitting.



The pattern is the good, plain sock from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Knitting Rules.

Speaking of Stephanie, something amazing is happening. She's coming to Shreveport. Unfortunately, she's coming this weekend, while I am completely booked up and busy. It makes me quite sad that she's not coming to New Orleans, and that I'm not free to see her, but there is a silver lining. A friend and colleague of mine is staying in Shreveport for an opera, and she's going to the meetup. I asked her if I could mail her one of my books for her to get autographed, and the fair lady has decided to humor me! So, I'm going to be shipping off one of my books tomorrow, probably with a really enthusiastic note/dorky picture tucked inside to further simulate my presence. I'm really excited, because it's the closest I'm going to get to meeting her for a while.

In other news, the Ishbel that I'm knitting for my friend Aria is near completion. Then I'll have an Ishbel block-a-thon for Aria's and Ginger's shawls and deliver them to my sick friends. If I finish the Ishbel tonight, that will be two completed projects in one day. Challenge accepted.