Goodies and....Baddies?

Progress on the Raglan moves along slowly, but progress is still progress, no? I have another 5 inches or so left on the body, then both sleeves to work. I had told myself I'd finish it for my birthday (not that it will be cold enough to wear it) on May 7, but it seems pretty obvious that that's not going to happen.

Speaking of Birthdays, I got a wonderful package in the mail this week from my boyfriend. In it:



and



Wowza. These books just about made my year. The Maggie Righetti book really is written in plain English, too. It's easy to understand, well written, thoughtful, and funny. I love her chapter on body types. For instance:

THE TRIANGLE
Think of a triangle; think of a swan gracefully swimming across a pond. A long slender neck, gently sloping shoulders, lovely round and full hips and thighs are the hallmarks of a triangular figure.

"Lovely round and full hips and thighs"??

I could gain 400 pounds and this book would still make me feel good about myself.

Also under the "goodie" title - I bought more yarn. My KnitPicks package arrived at my Dad's house yesterday. I had it delivered there so I wouldn't be tempted to start more projects before finals [gulp] are over. I ordered 3 skeins of Alpaca Cloud in "Moss Heather" for the Print o' the Wave Stole I'm making for a friend for Christmas, some Shine Sport in "Orchid" for a Spring Fling Cardigan (that I'm going to alter by shortening the body, lengthening the sleeves, and adding buttons) for myself to wear to my Dad's June wedding, Gloss in "Burgundy" for a pair of Clessidras for moi, and finally, some Essential in "Dusk" for a pair of Bayerische Socks for my Dad's soon-to-be-wife's December birthday.

Whew. I'm hoping to knit really fast so I can make some more pretty things for myself. I am so selfish...

And, on to the not-so-goodies...

Finals (AHHHHH!) are upon us. Not cool. My finals are looking like they're going to totally kick my butt in the next two weeks, so I probably will not be getting very much knitting done. Which is le poo.

Socks! and Sweater?

I finished my socks! They're actually not as nice as I'd hoped, for some reason the beginning of the purl rows of the heel were really loose, and when I picked up stitches they pulled the loose edge and you can see my foot through a row of neat little holes. Hmmm. I'm hoping that changes with a run through the wash? I love the way first pair of hand-mades get softer and squishier and more comfy after every wash.

I also made some really great progress on my raglan, as well. I had a good chunk of time to kill tonight before a midnight movie with some friends (3 hours, to be exact) so I was able to stockinette my way to where the arms split from the body. However although the arms seem to be the perfect diameter, the armpits are, well, shall we say un peu too high. In other words, unless I'm after the "wooly-armpit" feeling, it will need to be ripped back. I think I'll continue the raglan increases on the body, but not the sleaves, because otherwise I'm afraid I'll have GIANT sleeves, and no one wants that.

I also had a serious problem while knitting this evening. As mentioned, I was killing some time before meeting friends on campus, so I got myself a comfy chair in the student center and decided I'd catch up on some podcasts. Note to Self: Laughing out loud while knitting will cause strange looks from others. Perhaps Lime & Violet is not the best knitting soundtrack for knitting in public...

I mean, really. The looks I got from people. You think they'd never seen a girl with a pile of yarn in her lap repeatedly measuring the distance from her neck to armpit while laughing out loud before. What is the world coming to?

And slowly, we have progress

I currently only have two projects on the needles, though I suppose I don't usually have more than that at any one time, unless I get bored with something, in which case I put it away, pick up something new and work it from beginning to end, and then come back to the first (by now hopefully less boring) project.

Right now I'm working on a simple top-down raglan in Paton's Classic Merino, in a pretty heathered-teal. No written-up pattern, just something I got through a "sweater pattern generator" online somewhere. I don't actually remember where, which is probably not the coolest thing I've ever done, but if you google "top-down raglan pattern" I'm sure you'll come up with something.

I worked about, hmmm, 14 rows of this sweater before deciding that it wasn't nearly as exciting or gratifying as I'd hoped.

So I bought some sock yarn. Dale Baby Ull to be exact, two balls navy blue, and one kind of a tomato-y red. I'm working on my second pair of socks, really simple basic cast-on-64-stitches-and-work-only-in-stockinette-until-finished kind of socks. Okay, so they're a little more interesting that that. They have red ribbed cuffs, a red heel, and a red toe. (I can hear the oohs and aahs already).

Anyway, I'm quite enjoying the simplicity of it all and I only have one silly little toe left to finish, but as I'm headed right into Final Exam Period (ahhhhhh!) I suppose it's a good thing there's nothing so interesting sitting in my knitting bag that I can't get any work done.

(Although there is this and this and this and this to keep me more than occupied, although I haven't the yarn, needles, and/or pattern for any of these...)

"Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself"

I had a blog, once, in 9th grade, when it was extremely popular to rant about how "no one understands me!" and "my life is sooooo hard" and to assume that the internet is a Very Small Place. I'm probably lucky no serial killers read my last blog, because I'm pretty sure it would have been ridiculously easy to track me down and that would be that.

After the blogging gap, I'm feeling a bit awkward, so forgive me if I sound like a moron.

I'm a college student in Manhattan, majoring in history, and I've been knitting for about a year now. It has completely taken over my life. No, really.

I do not have a digital camera, yet, (I know, I'm the very last person on the planet to get one) but I do have a birthday coming up, so you should expect pictures - lots of them, hopefully - very soon.

I like knitting blogs with pictures. I like taking chances with my knitting. I just finished my first sweater about a month ago (the fabulous Starsky cardigan from Winter 2005 Knitty). I wore it the next day, and my friend said, "I would have picked something easier" and didn't that just make me feel smug. Indeed.

I hope that this will be a place for me to talk about my knitting and to connect with other knitters (knowing how friendly all the knitters in blogland are, it is my greatest fear that this blog will be a total failure and no one will ever read it and I will basically suck at life).

My favorite blogs EVER are Franklin Habit's The Panopticon and Eunny Jang's See Eunny Knit. Franklin is truly "spit chocolate milk out of your nose" funny, and Eunny is a golden goddess of colorwork. No lie.

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