If anyone would like to know what I have been doing the last few days the acceptable answers would be a)marking or b)not sleeping. From Saturday afternoon to this morning I managed to mark about 100 assignments/tests. I would feel comforted in the fact that it's all done if it wasn't for the fact that I will get about that many again this upcoming weekend :P But I will survive. I may not sleep as much as I like but I will mark. And with any luck squeeze in some knitting.
Yesterday when I was at near gouging my eyes out with the knitting needles stress levels I had a lovely gift arrive in the mail to help take the edge off. It's the October mail out of the Sweet Sheep Self Striping Sock Yarn Club. Hooray! The yarn this month is by my current favourite indie dyer "Lovesticks" and is in the funnest colourway: "Frankensocks" and came with an adorable Frankenstein rubber ducky key chain. I kept it in front of the computer and petted it whenever I felt the need for a bit of stress relief. This is the super cool yarn I got to look at:

I'm sure you can see why it's so suitably named :)
Sunday afternoon my mother and I took a trip to visit my cousin, meet the baby for the first time and gift her with the baby blanket I had made. The little one is so adorable and such a good baby. She slept through mostly the entire visit but I held her while she slept for most of the time so I got some good baby cuddling in (which is also a big help in the stress department, I highly recomment it! Though I don't recommend picking up stranger babies, mothers don't tend to like that... I'm just saying). But what really warmed my heart is that apparently she had no idea I was making the blanket. I had told my aunt and grandma but they never passed that info on. My cousin mentioned that not too long before I arrived she had commented to her husband that her other two kids all had people knit for them and the new little one didn't have any handknits of her own and had to use her siblings knits. She was absolutely thrilled that I had taken the time to knit for her baby. So I promised that there would be more handknits in the future, there is no way that any little babies in my life are going to grow up with out wooly goodness to comfort them!
In the knitting department I have finished the first Hula Punch Jaywalker and have not yet cast on for the second. Hopefully that will be remedied by the end of the week. My real knitting progress has been on the Wavy Lace Socks as I'm determined to have them finished this month and there's less than two weeks left to do that in. I've just passed the heel on the first one and I'm loving the pattern. However I have hit a major concern. It's beginning to look less and less likely that I will indeed have enough yarn to finish it. For now I will keep blindly trucking ahead hoping the knitting gods don't feel any urge to smack me at the moment and pray for a miracle. If the miracle doesn't pull through I'll have to decide whether I want to rip back and remove repeats from the leg or if I want to engage in a hunt for more of this yarn in the same dyelot. It's Claudia Handpainted so it's atleast a very common and accessible yarn but it totally smacks of the kind that could have big variation between dyelots and that's not something I think I want to risk. What's a girl to do? Please think some good thoughts for the sock :) Oh, and the sock also seems to have something against being photographed. The colour just will not register with the camera. After many attempts I will leave you with the least crappiest of all the pictures, happy knitting this week!

SP11 Package #1

Uh oh!

What did Mittens find? Nothing less than a fabulous package from my clearly equally as fabulous upstream pal. It was a lengthy battle trying to will the post office to get it delivered in under three weeks but we have success :) Take a peak at all the awesome things I received:

In there we have:
-2 skeins of Sugar 'n Cream
-2 dishcloth patterns
-Fall themed scrapbooking bits
-Cross stitch kit
-4 skeins of gorgeously coloured Debbie Bless Merino Aran
-Candy
-A cd of Broadway songs
-A stitch dictionary
Awwww. It feels like Christmas, lol. Thank you so much upstream pal!!!
(P.S. To the Canadian Border Services Agency: Packages clearly marked as gifts under $50 fall under the tax exemption for gifts under $50. Hence you can imagine why I might be ticked that you charged me $8.83 to receive my package. Expect a phone call during business hours and an appeal form from me.)

Back to blogging

Oh my, I really didn't realize that it had been almost two weeks since my last blogging. Ofcourse this means a whole pile up of accomplished knitting that needs to be talked about. I am amazed at how much I do have to show you because the reason for the lack of blogging is that I've been swamped with school/marking and this long weekend I have made it my goal to not do anything until today and enjoy the empty house that always comes with Thanksgiving (Happy Turkey Day to all my Canadian friends!).
The first thing to show you is a super huge accomplishment... the second baby blanket is done!!! It is such a huge relief to get the blankets out of the way so that I can finally focus on some various Christmas & sock knitting that I've been dying to get around to. So without further ado, here is Ducky modeling the baby blanket made out of a free pattern on the Bernat website:

I still haven't gotten to see this baby yet but my mother and I are hoping to go visit this upcoming weekend. I can't wait to meet her :)
Then there are some baby socks for the recently born baby boy to my friend. I had promised her baby socks but needed to wait until I knew the gender because the two toned socks really do need to be more so colour co-ordinated. I still can't get over how adorable little baby socks are. Hopefully because they're rather small they will fit him soon and I can finally see some of the socks I've made on real live babies:

Then, I'm not entirely sure if I've mentioned it (though I suspect I haven't), I've signed up for round 5 of the International Scarf Exchange. I've been dying to try making a Chevron Scarf so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. And I must say that I am loving it and cannot wait to make one for myself. I suspect that mine will be made out of my Yarntini. But that's in the future, right now I must be dedicated to making the scarf for my most excellent downstream pal. It's being made out of Cherry Tree Hill in "Winterberry" and Shibui Knits in a colourway I cannot remember at the moment. The goal was bright and funky and I'm sure you'll agree that this definitely qualifies:

I'm hoping she loves it as she definitely seems like that type of girl. And she also hails from a warmer climate than me so I think sock yarn will make it cool enough that it's not unwearable due to probability of heat stroke :) I think that's always a good quality in a scarf.
On the Christmas knitting front I have started some socks for my friend Ashley's mom who put us up for the night on the way back from Vancouver this summer. I agreed to make socks in exchange for the room and board. She picked out the yarn a good two and half months ago now but I told her that they wouldn't be started until after baby blanket completion. These are being made out of Claudia Handpainted in the colourway "Just Plum" on 2.75mm dpn's in the "Waving Lace Socks" pattern from "Favourite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave" (have I mentioned that I totally heart this book?). There's not much done yet but here is the start:

(Sorry for the sudden change in picture size, all the photos of it seem to have come out a bit blurry unless I decrease the size, hopefully there will be a better pic when I get further along.
And just to prove I am still making something for myself, the current state of the Hula Punch socks:

Happy Turkey Day!
P.S. To my SP, your package still hasn't arrived but there's no mail today because of the holiday, hopefully it'll come tomorrow, I can't wait!

Craziness abound

It's very nearly the end of the week and I can't believe that I've made it through. I'm sorry for the lack of postings but things on my end this past week have been both stressful and sad (Randy Sitter if you remember is one of the leaders in my research area and I had my travel sock take a picture outside his office door earlier this summer). I also had my first econ test today which was abruptly stopped when the fire alarm was pulled, we were all evacuated and then tied up trying to re-enter because they had to re-backpack search everyone. So it's now a take home test. I wouldn't mind so much except that I was doing really good on it. Why couldn't that every happen on a test I'm doing poorly on? *sigh* But things have pulled through and with some good news.
My cousin had a baby girl this past weekend and I'm quickly trying to finish up this for her:

And my friend who was receiving the blue baby blanket just had a baby boy yesterday. So the colour was fortuitous. So many babies to knit for now, hooray! And this also means that the double baby blanket project is in the home stretch and I can go back to paying attention to my other knitting.
In total guilt Monday night I cast on for the second of my Laguna waves socks which saw the first one being finished in oh... June/July. So if you want to see some newish knitting, here's a toe for your enjoyment

And though I'm still waiting on my first secret pal parcel, I did receive my first secret pal-ish mailing from my wonderful group hostess Robyn. I won the second contest she ran for her group so in the mail today I got this super funky card with coupons for free blockbuster movie rentals and popcorn (Guess what I'm doing tomorrow night!)

Thank you so much Robyn, you're a wonderful hostess!!!!
Not much else to mention on the knitting front except I'm really antsy to get a whole bunch of socks started. My sock yarn stashed has grown at ridiculous rates and the Favourite Socks from Interweave Knits is calling my name desperately. So many things to knit but I need to finish that baby blanket. Hopefully Friday night's the night!

Is it really done?

What's that? Could it be that the baby blanket is actually done and before the baby's arrived? Well... yes and no. The knitting was done at about 10:30 Sunday evening (so right on the weekend deadline). However, that was followed by this:

(Which is a way more accurate portrayal of the colour) which lead to my bedroom floor borrowing a carpet and looking like this:

(Why yes that is the third season of Grey's Anatomy that I knit the last third of the blanket to). Unfortunately it is now Tuesday evening, my floor still looks like that and the blanket doesn't seem to have any intention of drying any time soon. This morning it wasn't even damp. It was still wet. I'm beginning to think that drying hand knits is a lost cause. I made a point of telling the baby today that they need to stay in just a bit longer (I love how I somehow feel my friend's pregnancy should be prolonged because of my knitting needs, but in my defense the baby isn't due for another week and a half so atleast there's an expectation on the mother's part that the baby should stay in a bit longer). I do absolutely love the blanket and can't wait until I get to see a baby wrapped up in it :)
In the world of sock knitting I've started to knit up that famed Hula Punch yarn that I've been raving about. Take a peek at how it looks knit up in Jaywalkers:

Isn't it as lovely as I predicted it would be? I can't wait until I can get these ones on my feet though I feel that'll be a long way off yet. This weekend I need to spend it trying to knit baby blanket #2 (actually, it's more like baby blanket #1 that got put aside as I hated the needles I was working it on. Maybe it's the same size as the cable blanket and I can just switch needles now...). It's been so long since I've knit on it that it'll be hard getting back in the groove. But on the bright side, it doesn't need wet blocking, hooray!
And I should mention that I also made a baby hat this weekend for a baby shower for my friend's sister (who I made those pink socks for a while back). It was my first time seeing the baby and she was so adorable. The hat was a big hit, the pattern coming from last minute knitted gifts. And as a bonus it only took 3 hours to make. So now I know a quick baby pattern. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture but as soon as I see if any one the two upcoming babies are girls I'll be making more so I'll have to remember to take a picture of the next one I make.
But, it's back to work. Must do homework, mark and tutor tonight. The math never stops :) Happy knitting!

The second week of university is almost done. How in the world did that happen? Where did my summer go? And I really mean where did my summer go because it's been getting cold again here in my windy city. I've seen many people taking out the scarves and I got out the fingerless mitts today. This really isn't a good sign if it's getting cold already. We had such a brutal winter last year and it would break my heart to have another one like that :( But if nothing else, I can always look on the bright side and just think that cold weather just means getting to wear my kitty hat again! Hooray!

This past week while I've been a very good imposter economics student, I have also been a pretty bad knitter. I've gotten a few more cable twists on the cabled baby blanket. However, now that I see my friend at school regularly it is starting to put me on edge knitting wise because this baby looks like it's coming out any minute. A veritable knitting time bomb that kid is, lol. But I hope that I'll have it finished by the end of this weekend. I also made an executive decision to cut about 10 inches off the second blanket. I figure that if 32 inches is good enough for one blanket, it's certainly good enough for another. And with that I regain hope of finishing by the end of September.

I do however have one finished object to report. My Rocker Girl Jaywalkers are now done, done, done!!! I finished them Sunday at my friend Jojo's place where they were sniffed, licked and generally okay-ed by 6 of the 7 animals running around her house (I have never been so completely covered in pet hair as I was when I left!) and happily wore them all day Monday. I love them to death, they are my favourite pair by far. The only mod I made to the pattern was that I didn't do the slip stitch down the sides of the instep and I used 2.5mm (US 1.5) dpn's that I received from my Sockapalooza Pal. Here they are:

There's also been some mail coming through my house but the one I've been most excited for is the Hula Punch I was talking about from The Sweet Sheep. This yarn is so yummy and I plan on winding it and casting on for a new pair of Jaywalkers as soon as I'm done writing this. Enjoy the yarn and cross your fingers that I have a baby blanket to show you by Sunday:

Blog guilt

I confess, I have blog guilt :( I wish I was posting a bit more often but most of the knitting I'm doing is for my big secret project and I don't want to show pictures until it is a FO photo. Plus it's been crazy trying to get ready for classes starting at university Tuesday (how in the world is it September already?) and I've been trying to spend time out at the cabin. This is all just not conducive to blogging. So the long and short of it is that I have nothing brand new to show you. However, I am not without things to share.
For any Canadians out there who want to be buying sock/laceyarn but want something in Canadian prices and cheaper shipping because it's coming from Canada, I have found the place for you: The Sweet Sheep Shop. This store has an amzing selection of all sorts of indie dyers. There are always sock and fibre clubs starting, mystery dyed yarns and other fun things for the adventurous knitter as well. Yesterday they stocked up on Lovesticks self striping yarn and I had to get some because I've been dying to try the Hula Punch colourway ever since I saw someones FO shot of it on Flickr. Mmm... So yes, go check it out!
And with all of my talk of being busy, you must realize that the fact that I'm writing this means that I'm procrastinating something else. Namely finishing the great back to school room clean out. I've pretty much gone through everything however it's now all sorted in piles on my floor waiting to be put back and actually looks worse than it did before. See what I get to deal with:

And just as a treat to make up for current knitting shots, here is a picture of the first thing I knitted. I started off by buying one of those really gawdy kid crafting kits for a pillow. I will love it as being my first piece of knitting but would never in a million years hang on to anything ever again that came out looking like this:

What was your first piece of knitting?
And to just answer a few questions:
1) My Queen of Cups socks have been taken off the needles and are needing to be frogged. They looked absolutely hideous on my feet and I have no intentions of ever attempting them again.
2) Because I'm sure you all are very concerned about this matter, let the record state that I have never been nor do I intend to ever visit ronaldreagan.com (though I'm sure it's a very nice site).
Enjoy the rest of your long weekend!