Frankenstein Mittens

Man. I really failed at keeping up with this. Well, I blame exams. My last exam is Friday at 8AM, and I need to study my butt off for it. Which will happen, since it's the only thing I have planned for tomorrow.

In the meantime, I decided that I'm going to start keeping my entries a lot shorter, that way it'll be easier to churn out. I decided to play with my camera for a second before I went to bed, and was a little disappointed with the results. Well, it serves me right for trying to take photos at 2AM. I'm going to have to actually start making an effort to take pictures during the day, in natural light. Or something. Clearly I know nothing about photography.



These are my Frankenstein's Herringbone Mittens. Let's just say thought they were awesome- and addicting. I've mentioned these before on a previous entry, so I don't have too much to say. I've been wearing these almost every day this week, they're that warm.



Of course, I couldn't manage to make these perfect. I messed up on the chart in the end so one of the mittens has this pattern at the tip. I can't say I mind- it gives it character. Plus I didn't notice until I had already finished the mitten and wove in the ends. In any case, it doesn't bother me.

And now, I think it's time I go to bed. What clued me in was the fact that I'm listening to "Hooked on a Feeling" by BJ Thomas. Further proof I'm hopelessly addicted to infomercials. I religiously wrote down all of the songs I love from a Timelife Country Music Selection (or something of that nature) infomercial a few weeks ago and I bought a few songs off that list. I have terrible taste :)

I think tomorrow I'm going to make a list of entries I want to make to this blog, and then slowly work through them, focusing on one project at a time. Hopefully that'll make writing and taking photos less overwhelming.

Tired, but with new goals!

Alright. It's official. I suck at posting. There have been so many days in which I've really wanted to, but I just didn't manage it. So from now on, one blog post per week, minimum. I think my day to post will probably wind up being on Sundays... We'll see.

Short post because I'm really tired.

I got to listen to Pioneer Woman speak at OU. She was fabulous. And her episode on Throwdown! with Bobby Flay was awesome too. She talked about a lot of general advice for blogs and I'm going to try to take them to heart.

Now, for knitting.



Not a lot of progress on my knitting. I've been slogging away on various projects...

• I've been slogging away on my Circular Shrug. I decided I was going to use up some Caron Simply Soft I had in my stash... Mostly leftovers from mini-donuts. I've almost completely used up that ball of yarn, and I'm about to frog an unusable cowl I made a while ago... Then I'll probably have to pick up more yarn anyways.
  



• I'm also working on my Besotted scarf. I started it to use up some hot pink simply soft (notice a trend?) in my stash. I wound up frogging the very first thing I ever knit (a garter stitch scarf) and using that yarn. It was still too short. I bought a new skein, realized it was a differnet color, and decided it wasn't noticible. Who cares. Anyways, this is taking FOREVER, but is deliciously autopilot knitting. I've been bringing the scarf to all of my classes to knit on. I pretty much knocked out a huge chunk by listening to Little Women on Craftlit.
  
  ...Speaking of which.
  
  I loved the Adult!Jo on Little Women. I want to read more love stories written like that was. It made me want to sigh over similar stories. It also made me watch Bridget Jones' Diary. I'm not entirely certain what the connection is, but there it is.
  
  Ahem.
  
  



• Finally, I knocked out some Cupcake Mittletts. Can I say CUTE? Since taking this photo I have woven in the ends and made it look nicer. You can see the lace better... I don't know why it looks so frumpy in that photo. Probably because it was 3AM when I took it, but that's beside the point.
  
  The pattern was so lovely, and so easy to understand. She had both charts AND it written out, which I really appreciated. My mom even said she wanted a pair- I was absolutely shocked!
  
  



• And finally, (not because it's the last thing I've been working on but instead because I am way too tired to write this...) I've been tinking away at the Viking Purse. Yeah. Taking FOREVER. Beautiful, but FOREVER. I don't think I'll finish it before next year. Sigh.
  
  

Andddd on one last note, this is the very odd car (?) Monkey and I saw driving around. I don't even know.



I fully intend to take more photos tomorrow and make another post. I've got loads more to say, just no energy. Until then!

My Current Obsession

I think it's official. I suck at taking photos and/or getting photos taken.

I keep telling myself that I need to wait until I have photos to actually post. And then I manage to not ever take photos. It's a conundrum to say the least. However, I am breaking out of that circle! I'm posting despite the fact that I haven't taken any photos in, oh, about a month.

Anyways.

Right now, I am absolutely obsessed with Pioneer Woman. OBSESSED. Someone linked to her website on a thread on Ravelry and I've been stalking all of the cooking posts religiously for the past two or three weeks, but mostly, this weekend. I think my "Food" folder in my bookmarks has grown exponentially. I've really got to start weeding through it and, oh, actually cooking the things in there.

But that's a topic for another day (actually, another paragraph). Right now I am busy singing the praises as all that is Pioneer Woman. I am in love. IN LOVE. I don't care that she focuses her cooking abilities to a primarily carnivorous family, I am in love with all of her recipes. I want to cook and bake and live in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma on a cattle ranch. I want to be this Pioneer Woman.

Okay, well, I'd just be content with her cooking abilities at this point. The whole ranch thing and middle of Oklahoma thing is a bit too far from my goals in life. Said goals including living in a nice house in the middle of a suburb no more than a 30 minute drive from my parents' house. Because I am nothing, if not a wannabe suburban housewife.

Some of my favorite posts of hers has been her Sherried Tomato Soup, which has sparked an interest in cooking with alcohol, her Yogurt Cream and Berries, which WILL be made within a week, mark my words, and finally, her Soul Sweet Taters. I have never had sweet potatoes, but my mouth is watering at the photographs. This also will be made as soon as possible. Monkey will be drowning in vegetarian Thanksgiving-ish foods before next Thursday, mark my words.

As if her sinfully delicious website wasn't enough, I'm thrilled to say she will be visiting the the University of Oklahoma next Wednesday. And I'm telling me, so help me god, I will be there salivating over her cooking abilities. She's supposedly speaking to journalism students regarding their careers and how she forged her own, but I know the truth. She is there to strike pure admiration into our hearts. And I will be there. I don't care that I'm an accounting major and really have no academic need to be present at this lecture, but I'm going to be there.

On another cooking note, I have at least tried a new recipe. The Woolie Ewe, Monkey's LYS, posted a recipe for a spread the other day. The spread looked nothing if not delicious. So naturally, I went out and bought some club crackers and whipped it up yesterday while Monkey was working for ROTC (and then watching the football game, which he failed to tell me he intended to do until the very last minute so all of my plans of cuddling and watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were dashed). I tasted it, and promptly decided it was disgusting and brought it over to Monke's apartment because the boy is a human garbage disposal.

Today, I cracked open the lid to try it again. After all, the recipe does advise that it tastes better after being refrigerated for a day.

Boy oh boy were they right.

The darn this is pure crack. I think I gained about ten pounds from it alone. Well, either it or the fact that Monkey and I have been very, very bad and eaten out almost every meal this weekend.

(I am cutting him off tomorrow. Seriously. It is pretty darn ridiculous. I am also going to go to the grocery store and buying veggies for salads because I have yet to crack open the bottle of peanut dressing my mom bought me ages ago. That's beside the point.)

Wow. I really am a fan of the parenthesis today.

Anyways, other than my overwhelming obsession with food, I've been pretty idle this weekend. I haven't done too terribly much knitting. I've been tinkering on a the Besotted Scarf, which is currently cannibalizing the first scarf I ever knit, and the Viking Purse. Neither are going too terribly quickly.

Well, I'm off to remedy that. I'm going to kick Monkey off the Star Wars video game and put in the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and knit and hopefully not eat any more of the darn spread.

Actually, you know what, I do have one photo I can share.
This is his serious face. I don't even know.

Updates, Pt. 2.

And I'm continuing with the knitting updates. I've knit quite a bit since my camera battery died. I still don't have photos for most of it, but I do have a few from Monkey and my photo shoot. I think this weekend I'll drag him back to the south oval to take some more pictures.

Right now I'm stalling on writing a few papers for my classes. I have had my school mojo this week. I think it's because last week was incredibly stressful and my weekend wasn't long enough to properly unwind from it. I'm still in the weekend mode. Unfortunately, my classes are not appreciative of this fact.



Anyways. Onto the knitting! First up is a Hello Kitty hat I made for my friend Wonju. I held two strands of a Peaches & Cream yarn together and knit like the wind. It actually wound up being pretty short.



This is the Marian cowl. Very easy, very quick to knit. Oh my gosh I adore it. However, I twisted the cowl twice. I still love it though, but I'm not sure if I want to reknit it. Probably not.

Finally, here's just a photo of something that should happen by far more often :)



As for what I'm knitting now...

• I finished the Cosy Neck Warmer. I might switch out the buttons and only use one



• I started the daisy stitch portion of the Wild Vest.



• I'm almost done with the first Frankenstein Mitten, but I'm trying to limit how much I knit on it so I get other projects done too



• I knit a few repeats on my ripple blanket. I think I'm going to dedicate one day a week to it.



• I'm an inch away from separating for the armholes of the Razor Cami (eek!)

That's all I've been doing n the past few days... Now I need to go write about how to use social media to better your pr position. Yuck.

A few updates and photos

My camera is finally working! Except the charger is not the right charger. But it charged my camera (momentarily). This morning Monkey and I had a mini photo shoot in which I learned that he knows even less about taking photos than I do. The only way I could get him to listen to me (aka, to the words "stop taking photos of my face and take photos of the KNITTING" because he would take a photo of my face and crop out the scarf I'd be wearing...) so he will be researching photography skills for future reference.

Anyways, here's a few of the photos we took. This isn't even half of what I've been knitting since my camera has been MIA. We didn't even get through taking photos of everything (mostly because I was being a grumpasaurus). We'll have to return again.

First off, there was the market bag I knit in a fury a few weeks ago when the Monkey was camping with ROTC. It was such an easy, quick project. I finished it during a TV marathon. It doesn't hold as much as I thought it would, and I have to be careful as to what I put into it, but it still makes me happy. Especially since it used up a considerable chunk of the cone of peaches & cream yarn I've had forever. I still have a huge cone of the yarn left though...



Next up is the Irish Hiking Scarf. I know, I know, I've talked about this before, but I never posted a completed photo of it. I wanted to make it ridiculously long, but I wound up tiring of the project and binding off in a rage. I then made fringe which I absolutely love on the scarf, and was surprisingly easy to make.



Finally, for today at least, I took a photo of my entrelac scarf. I'm not happy with any of the photos, they don't do the brightness of the scarf justice. I LOVE THIS SCARF. It's colorful, it's fun, it's adorable. I can't even believe how easy it was after I looked it up on the Internet. I'm surprised there are so many classes on how to knit entrelac- it was so self explanatory after doing this scarf. And I loved the practice in picking up stitches, which I've always had problems with. I'm sure it'll be helpful when I finally come up with the courage (and yarn) for a cardigan.



Yay!



On a more depressing note, I can't find my favorite sunglasses. They are currently MIA and I suspect they are merely hiding somewhere around Monkey's room or car. I haven't put too much of an effort in finding them, I have to admit. I've been too busy slogging through my knitting. Speaking of which, what I'm slogging through now:

• Cosy Neck warmer- I've finished it except for weaving in the ends and sewing on buttons.



• Frankenstein's Herringbone Mittens which I have thus named because mine are dark grey and neon green and fabulous. I love them! And it's not a slog to knit them, but I'm trying to be good and finish my older UFOs before I attack these wholeheartedly. Can you tell it's killing me?



• Razor CamiNo, THIS is what's killing me. I've had so many problems with this stupid project and I'm never going to finish them. Definitely frustrating. And slow! And it makes my hands hurt after a few rows. Ugh. It's been living in my backpack so I've been making slow progress.



• Elefante I've knit a whole whopping foot of this elephant. It's been put on the back burner until I finish a few more things.



• Besotted Scarf I've cast on twice for this project. Now that my size 8 needles are finally free, I'm going to rip it out and start over again on the 8s so I can use the sevens for another project. (Ahem Wild Vest ahem)



• FINALLY, Ripple Throw I'm so ashamed I haven't finished this yet... Or worked on it in months. Ugh. I need to so badly. I think tomorrow I'm going to devote myself entirely to it while watching Halloween movies with Monkey and eating things I probably shouldn't. Like cookies. And sopapilla cheesecake. Yum.

And now I'm going to listen to a few more podcasts and knit furiously until Monkey gets home from doing his ROTC "volunteer" work.

A very loney weekend

I'm trying to slog my way through a rather lonely weekend. Monkey is busy spending the weekend being tortured playing in the woods with ROTC and I'm left all alone. I've been trying to not be too mopey, but that's been hard. My roommate has had friends over all weekend and it's just really made me miss all of the people who aren't here with me right now.

What I HAVE been doing that isn't completely pathetic is knitting and watching TV. I just finished all three seasons of Kingdom on hulu. Fabulous. It does throw me through a loop because I feel like I'm missing episodes... There seems to be such a great time jump between episodes. While I've been watching that, I've also been knitting! I finished two little jack-o-lanterns for my mom and a Chinook for Monkey's sister.

Halloween has always been a huge deal in my family. My dad's birthday IS on Halloween, and mine is the day before. I think he's taken it to heart and we have a ridiculous amount of decorations. They come out around the first weekend in October and drive us batty until November 1st. We have the standard giant lit up pumpkins decorating the lawn, as well as a slew of giant inflatables and a garage full of life size (if not larger) ghouls that scare the living daylights out me. I studiously avoid our garage while they are up because I'm not going to lie. They are terrifying! I know it's silly. They're plastic. They're also creepy as all anything.

Some parts of my family quirk are pretty entertaining. We have two blue and gold macaws that love to scream and drive us and each other crazy. One thing we've found is that one of them, Koo Koo, is terrified of a certain mummy decoration. My mother gleefully kept the mummy standing in our kitchen corner until Christmas.



So yes. There comes the pumpkins! They're smaller than I expected... I knit one with size 5 dpns and the other with size 8. I'll definitely have to make a few more before I go home, but I'm really growing tired of toys right now...

Which leads me to my other completed project on this pathetic weekend. A Chinook! Monkey's sister works as an aerospace engineer for the navy. She was the one kind enough to invite Monkey and I out on a vacation to her house, and to the family beach house and she was just plain wonderful. When Monkey gets back from his little adventure, we're going to pick up a birthday card and send them both off in the mail.



As for now... I'm going to go back to moping and watching something on hulu. My stomach is bothering me as well, so I'll probably just take it easy. The photos were taken using my webcam, by the way. No news yet on my camera charger :/

A mini update

Wow. It's been a longggg time since I lasted posted. I feel terrible.

A lot of the problem is that I can't for the life of me find my camera charger. Consequentially, there is no camera.

Another part of the problem is that I'm back at school, which means I'm spending every spare moment away from Monkey knitting because, well, it is very hard to knit when I'm around him. At least to the extent I'd like. So there is lots of frantic knitting and doing of the homework.

This weekend we're driving home separately. So when I get home, I'm going to another great search for my camera charger, and then I'm going to post. Hopefully, with the camera charger in hand, otherwise I will be buying one off ebay. How frustrating.

And now, I'll go back to the frantic knitting!

Knitting, Packing, and Sewing, oh my!

Things have been pretty hectic right now with me... I've been trying to squeeze in as much time as possible with my friends before I have to go back to school, all while packing.

I hate packing. Packing is evil and I absolutely KNOW I will have forgotten something that I will inevitably deem crucial when I get to school. I am, however, excited to pretty up my room and to meet my new roommate. She sounds like a really sweet girl and I think we'll get along nicely.

Part of my packing plans has been to copy down all of the various recipes that I've printed off the Internet into a spiral. I wanted something cute that I will always be able to look easily for recipes. My mom clips out a ridiculous amount of recipes and keeps them in several 2 in binders, but I wanted to use a notebook... I want there to be an easily accessible place where I can find ALL of the recipes I use and love. Looking at how few recipes I do actually know and love, I'm realizing that I need to expand my cooking skills.

I love to cook. Cooking is.. well, yummy. I love being able to make something utterly delicious and feed my friends and family. I do not love trying to find recipes that I like. I really don't know enough about spices and ingredients that I could just slap something together and make it fabulous. Other than a few, very select things (eggs, hash browns, donuts, and bean burritos), I have to follow an exact recipe in order for it to turn out. So I've decided that this year, I'm going to focus on learning to cook more things. I'm bringing along two of my mom's ridiculously large binders full of recipes and I'm going to work my way through them. I know she hasn't gone through them so I'll be able to weed through the ones that really suck. I'm going to sticky note each one instead of tossing it, as they are her recipes.

Although she doesn't cook so I'm not entirely certain why I'm not just going to toss them.

At any rate, I want to learn how to cook more things. More DELICIOUS things. Hopefully they aren't going to all be desserts or pasta, even though those are the things I love the best :)

On the knitting front, I've done A LOT of knitting since the last time I posted... But I have sadly, not been taking very many photos. I've knit a cowl, a hello kitty hat, an ipod cozy, a scarf, a shawl, another scarf, and frogged a few projects as well. I conquered my first complicated cables AND my first chart. I used circulars in the round for the first time, and I pretended I was going to knit entrelac. All of this, I think I will write about next week. Most likely Thursday.

And in reference to the sewing... Well, I am in love. What am I in love with? I am in love with the idea of altering ugly garments into gorgeous ones. I'm in love with making your own fashion. I want to learn to sew! It all started a few weeks ago when I discovered the site The Uniform Project. Her outfits were so stylish, so adorable, so, well, awesome that it made me want to simplify my wardrobe and invest in some serious accessories. Then, a few weeks after that, I was listening to Cast On Podcast when she interviewed Shanon Okey who would take old clothes and revamp them. Finally, I discovered New Dress A Day off yahoo news. All of these has made me want to go to the closest thrift store, yank out my mom's old sewing machine, and have a ball.

Fortunately, I recognize that there are a few things that are prohibiting me from doing this. Firstly, I don't have money to buy clothes, even thrifted ones. Secondly, I don't know how to use the sewing machine. I learned one upon a time, but have long since forgotten and besides that I wouldn't know how to properly alter the clothing. Lastly, I haven't a clue where the machine is.

However, it will be done. Not any time soon, but it will. Perhaps next summer while I am terrible bored and alone in Norman if I get my way and can take summer classes. But it will be done.

And that's all for now! I'm going to post again- with photos- on Thursday because Monkey will be busy doing ROTC nonsense and it gives me something to do instead of just pouting and knitting as I am apt to do.

In which there is suprisingly little knitting...

I haven't posted in a while, again. I think part of the problem is that I hate taking photos because I feel like they never give what I want to capture justice. The other part is that no one reads this... I set out without any real intention to find readers for this blog- but I did want my boyfriend to at least read it. I know he hasn't been wihch is really... I don't know. Saddening. I'll call him when I'm done with a post and he won't really show any interest. But this blog is for me, for my cataloging of my creative endeavors, not to force Monkey to read my ravings abotu knitting.

I've entitled this post "In which there is surprisingly little knitting..." because, well, there won't be. While I have been knitting pretty extensively, I don't really want to talk about it right now. What I do want to talk about is something I'm absolutely in love with.

I've been journaling regularly for the past four or five years... I've always had an interest in journals, however. I found a notebook I had when I was four or five and in it is my misspelled whining about wanting a doll and pretending to be Harriet the spy.Since then, my journaling has progressed to me whining about wanting yarn and writing to do lists that will not be finished.

I recently found an entry on jr___nal in which the person included a thirty day challenge. The challenge has 30 prompts for you to illustrate throughout the course of a month. I can't find the origin of this challenge, but I have found several other thirty day drawing challenges. I've stuck with this one for now,a nd will be pursuing other challenges after this month has passed.

I am absolutely loving this. I haven't drawn in... forever. In highschool, I took a slew of art classes which culminated in me having to decide if I wanted to go to an art college or if I hated art. I decided to abandon the dream of art school and go towards a more practical career because my art classes had made me hate art. I hated feeling so much pressure, I hated the people who were always in my classes. All joy I found in art had been sucked out by these classes. I put away my "fancy" art supplies and turned towards crayola when I wanted to put some color in m journal- which was rare. This last year at OU, I've started to miss drawing. I wound up splurging on drawing silly animals and taping them all over my boyfriend's door. It was incredibly... freeing. I started to include more cutesy animals and inanimate objects in my journal. However, I still limited myself to the art supplies that I'd had since I was in kindgergarden. I refrained from pulling anything out that might be construed as being for "serious" art.

This prompt has encouraged me to pull out my prismacolor markers. They have never been my favorite medium (in fact, I only detested paint more), but I'm finding a new love for them in this project. I'm playing with them and determining how I want to use them, how I want to get the looks I want with them. Drawing is FUN again. I'm just in love.

Whoops!

Well, it's been a while. Our trip was extended by almost two full days due to a misbehaving appendix. It was an absolutely wonderful trip, but I unfortunately didn't get a lot knit. I did, however, manage to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson, which was a page turner, after the initial financial background. I can't wait to read the next books, but I'm resisting the urge to go out and buy it and instead depend on my faithful PaperBackSwap account (the account is in my mom's name). I also finished reading Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh, which was incredibly depressing. It definitely was a good book to read along side The Memory Keeper's Daughter.


He was this silly the entire vacation :)

In terms of knitting, I knit and I reknit, and I frogged, and I knit some more on my Swiss cheese scarf. Yesterday, I finally finished it!





I suppose I'll have to take better photos later.

The Tour is almost over... And I have yet to learn how to ride a bike OR finish my goals. I finished the Swiss Cheese Scarf, which was an accomplishment... I also made pretty good progress on two other scarves.



This is WONDERFUL TV knitting. I can't believe how much I can get done while watching my new obsession- Ghost Whisperer. I am so envious of Jennifer Love Hewitt. Can I just steal all of her clothes from that show? She is absolutely adorable and it's definitely mindless television to go with mindless scarf knitting :)

My Audrey scarf is an entirely different matter.



It's annoying. It's frustrating. It makes me want to scream.

Okay, the pattern doesn't. The pattern is amazing. It's simple and beautiful. The yarn is the problem. I bought this yarn on my first trip to the Woolie Ewe and ever since I have struggled to find something to do with it. I had dreams of knitting a vest in the yarn. I actually almost finished the vest before I realized that it just wasn't a good fit. The yarn is so splitty I want to throw it across the room. However, I am almost done. I suspect that by tomorrow night it WILL be done and I'll make a new post about it, after I block the hell out of it.

I had wanted to knit two more scarves, but I seriously doubt that will happen. The closest I'll get to it is casting on for my One Row Lace Scarf, butttttt. I don't know. I'm getting sick of these scarves. Mostly because I'm so disappointed I didn't get farther on any of this.

Well, I'm going to return to my knitting. Who knows, maybe I'll get farther than I think I will.

Cycling Endeavors

I've made quite a few decisions today. It's exciting! I have goals!

I've always wanted to learn how to ride a bicycle. For one reason or another (okay, the reason being I ran into a mailbox on a tricycle) I never learned how to ride a bike. Since going to college and reading altogether too many of San Smith's posts about her bicycle, I've realized that I would love to ride a bike. Okay, I would love to decorate a bike. After whining to Monkey, I've finally gotten him to agree to teach me how to ride.

Monday, we went to Walmart and bought me a pretty pink helmet. When we came back to my house, we walked the bike I got for Easter quite a few years ago down to the sidewalk and spent about an hour adjusting the seat. Monkey then had be walk with my butt on the seat for another hour or so. I then got angry because more and more people were coming out to gawk and my sister was being a creature from hell. I threw the helmet down and went in the house to pout.

I'm not very good at trying new things, obviously.

After pouting for a while, and a wonderful date night, I finally decided that I hadn't given up for good. We're going to try again later. I think I need him to just shove me so I get used to falling down.



I'm looking all dolled up for my lesson! Except you can't see my hair which was the point of the shot.

My second cycling adventure is that I've decided to enter in the Tour De Fleece as a hand cyclist! After listening to the Knitmore Girls talk about it for altogether too long, I've finally given into temptation. My goal is not to spin. While I would LOVE to learn how to spin, I've decided that I have to wait on learning until I'm out of college- or at least until I'm permanently moved out. There really just isn't space in my bedroom at home.

My goal for Tour De Fleece is to finish the first five items in my queue. These items include The Irish Hiking Scarf which I've already started. I'm hoping to get through the majority of the scarf before Saturday so I don't have much to finish. I'm also going to be starting and finishing the Swiss Cheese Scarf, a Citron Shawl (which I will be making scarf sized), a Little Arrowhead Shawl, and One Row Lace Scarf. I've got the yarn for all of these scarfs... I don't necessarily have enough or the needles. Whoops! Well, I still have a few days...


These are some of the yarn I picked up for the scarfs...

What's going to make all of this more challening is that I'm going to be out of town for a week, starting with a plane trip at 7:30 in the morning on June 3rd. I'm going to Maryland with Monkey to visit his sister and brother-in-law. I'm moderately terrified. I haven't flown on a plane since I was about two. I'm trying to avoid thinking about it all, but there's still a burning pit in my stomach. My mom's BFF Ro offered to help me pack and give me moral support which I will be drawing on.

I also tried cables for the first time! I wanted to make this gorgeous bag forever, but I finally figured out the cable pattern was a bit too complicated for my first project- especially since it involved a chart. I picked the aformentioned Irish Hiking Scarf out of my queue instead and cast that on yesterday. Unfortunately, with three cables, it turned out to be WAY too wide for me, so I had Monkey frog it. Sometime after that, either he or I (there is a debate) managed to get the yarn in a horribly tangled mess that took Monkey about four hours to untangle. Heh. Other than that, I am in love with this project!



Oh! I've almost forgotten something important! I'm dying my hair pink when I get back to Maryland!

An introduction of sorts

I've finally decided I've done enough stalling.

For about a month now, I've been thinking about making a blog... I've used online journals before, but never as a blog. Instead, I used them as journals. After seeing way too many gorgeous blogs, I've come to the conclusion that I could do that. I could write about my creative endeavors! I could take photos of my artsy projects! I can write witty things! Okay, I can't do that last item, but I try.

I want documentation of how I progress with my creative ideas. I want to be able to look back in a year and be able to be inspired by what I've done. I want to see gorgeous photos of all of the messes and mistakes I've made and think "Man that was fun". The best way to document this, in my mind, is a blog.

I suppose I need some sort of introduction. I'm Lizz, otherwise known as Lizzybear. I have a wonderful boyfriend, Monkey, and he supports my silly creative exercises. I have always been interested in crafty things. From the time I was a little kid, I made jewelry, I was always drawing, I wrote stories, and obsessively read. I made paper mache, I cross-stitched and tried (pathetically) to sew. I loved anything remotely artistic. That love has never faded away. Today, I journal fairly regularly. I love drawing and using crayons and colored pencils as much as I did way back then. I also love cooking and baking and generally trying to make Monkey very fat. Mostly though, lately, I knit.

I taught myself to knit about a year ago. After six months of garter stitch scarfs, I finally got up the courage to make a hat for the Monkey. A very hideous hat that turned out looking frighteningly like a condom. I decided to try double pointed needles and for the most part, it's been love. I love making hats and toys, and my queue on ravelry has over 350 items on it at the moment.

Just a quick snapshot of what I've been working on lately... It's a baby blanket, the ravelry page can be found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rainbow-throw. I'm making it in ocean-y colors for a nonexistent baby that Monkey and I like to pretend we'll have one day.