The yarn, that is.

We have decided that it is high time that we bought a new house, which means that we need to sell our current house. The things that you have to do to get your house ready to sell include decluttering, cleaning, repairing, painting, and landscaping.  Apparently, yarn is classified as "clutter", and my stash is being moved to a cold, lonely storage unit, along with my sewing table. (The sewing machine will be taken out of this house over my dead body.) I am being allowed to keep a few small projects in a basket that will reside in the top of our master bedroom closet.

How sad is it for a knitter to be ripped away from her stash like that? I've already had daydreams of sweaters I know I won't knit in the next few months, outlandish shawls that I don't have the yarn for, and I have an insane need to stash more yarn before it all goes away for a (hopefully) short while. It's not like I was going to knit it ALL in the next few months – I can definitely be without it for a while. But still, it's a little sad to see it boxed up and ready to be sent to THE STORAGE UNIT this weekend. 

What I'm keeping: the beautiful skein of silvery-grey silk that I bought at SAFF and that was hand-dyed for me; the Baruffa Cashwool for my Forest Path Stole, and two lots of yarn for socks, which I haven't even decided upon yet. It's like choosing among your children, I swear. Okay, maybe not THAT dramatic, but still…it's hard to choose. 

What would you keep, if you had to make that decision?

I started these socks last…April? According to Rav, it was April. I started them while I was in the middle of my physical therapy sessions for my busted ankle; for some reason, I stuck them in a basket and forgot about them for six months. I came across them over the break and realized that i was only half a sock away from being done with them, so I sucked it up and finished them off. They don't even look like they are from the same skein. The dyeing was very uneven, apparently, but you know what? I don't care. I like them this way. The heels and toes are yarn that I dyed myself in an attempt to match the yarn – it's not even close, but I think it works anyway. I am just glad that they are done and ready to be worn.

I'm really torn over what I want to do knitting wise this year. Socks, of course, are always on my list, and I want to finish the Forest Path Stole, but other than that…hrmph. Stranded knitting? Sweaters? More lace? My stash is fleshed out well enough that I can pretty much knit whatever I would like and not set foot in a yarn store for the entire year, if I so chose. I'm hoping that I gain more inspiration in the weeks to come, because right now, not much is tugging at me. I think we all go through phases like that, though. Phases where something you love dearly just isn't twanging your strings.

Lucky for me, I have other things to keep me busy!

Or at least, I WOULD if my sewing machine wasn't acting up. I need to drop it off for a tune up (and possibly a time out), but I think that once we have that straightened out, I'll be doing a lot more sewing.

Stick a fork in 'er, folks, cause this baby is done.

I finished knitting the collar on Christmas day, after all of the festivities were complete and we had a moment to sit down. I blocked the sweater out that night, but the weather immediately turned muggy and gross, so it took two entire days for it to dry out enough for it to get all the way dry. I like it, although I wish that I had ripped the sleeves back even more than I already did. It seems that they were made for a damn gorilla or something. I've got them turned up in the picture, and they are STILL a bit too long. Oh, well, live and learn. Twist is heading up to the office to be my emergency freezing my ass off sweater. They like the jam down the A/C (or skimp on the heat, depending on the season) so I require something to keep me from turning into a Leigha-sicle. 

Christmas was nice and uneventful; the kids were spoiled, as you would expect the only two grandkids on both sides of the family to be. My husband gifted me with some jewelry that I love very much, and a new point and shoot camera (the Canon PowerShot D880 IS). I absolutely love the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, and it is my main camera, but I wanted something to put in my purse for out and about shots. The DSLR is not exactly light and easy to throw in your cute little purse for trips. So we found that Best Buy was having a sale on it, and combine that with some duplicate presents we had to return there anyway, and I walked out of there complete with camera, SD card and an adorable little case:

All of which makes me a happy girl.I hope you enjoyed your holidays as much as I did; have a save and happy New Year, too, while you're at it. 

Oh, how I love this time of year. I always save up at least a week of my vacation every year to take off before Christmas – Very Large Corporation gives us the week of Christmas off anyway, so that is at least two weeks of no work. Combine that with school being over as of December 12th (4.0 semester; I'll TAKE THAT), and you have one happy girl. I'd be happier, though, if I didn't have to clean my entire house this week, top to bottom, but when else am I supposed to do it? We don't do Spring Cleaning in my house – we do Christmas Vacation cleaning.

But of course, I have to make time to do something crafty. Twist now has one sleeve, completed and seamed in:

The other sleeve is about half done, and I am hoping to have this completed by the end of the year. If I pull this off, this will be the first sweater that I have knit in peices that actually fits me. The last one I attempted ended up going to my much smaller sister, because apparently I can't read a gauge swatch to save my life.

Knitting isn't the only thing I've got on my mind, though. Take a big group of friends, give them a warm summer and (I am guessing) a couple of drinks, and I now have at least six friends that are expecting babies between January and May. For the love of God, if you come to Austin, keep in mind that this seems to be in the water – I, myself, am sticking to bottled water from somewhere in the Ozarks. There is only one boy in the mix, everyone else is gestating girls, which is lucky for me because I apparently only by fabrics that are suitable for girls. 

I have to pick up something for a boy quilt, but I think I've got more than enough to keep me busy for a while with this bunch. For the charm squares, I'm thinking that I'll pick up some coordinating brown and red, and do little borders on the squares, and then sew them all together, alternating the red/brown borders. The flannel is big enough to do one of the one sheet baby blankets like I did for my kids a few months ago; that is probably the easiest one to knock out. For the others, though, I have no definite plans other than to turn into something I can gift at a baby shower. I have been missing my sewing machine for the past few weeks, but it looks like we're about to become reacquainted in a BIG way.

One back.

Left front.

Right front. (It's a little blurry, sorry!)

I cannot believe that I have knocked out so much of this sweater – two sleeves, button bands and a collar, and I'll have a real life, working sweater. Like, one I could actually WEAR. I'm still mainly working on my daughter's Christmas stocking, but this is getting lots of attention right now, too, when I just can't cross one more stitch on Santa's face. I would absolutely recommend this pattern, especially for a newb, because it gives it all to you step by step, detail by detail. Yay for well written patterns!

Dainty Bess. How pretty and simple you were in the beginning, and how frustrating you got to be in the end. Not because the pattern got difficult, but because that ball of SeaSilk WOULD NOT END. I was determined to use as much of it as possible, so I just kept on, and on, and ON, until I realized that I better knit that edge strip and bind off or I'd be ripping back. I think I had an entire yard of yarn left, but I'm okay with that. 

I love the way this turned out. I didn't give it an extensive blocking; I just steamed it open with my iron, and I think that's good enough. If I get motivated, I might pull out the ol' blocking wires and give it a proper blocking, but it looks damn good (if I may say so) just the way it is. And so, because I was done with that project, it just makes sense that I'd cast on for something else instead of finishing something I've already started!

Hence:

This is Twist, by Chic Knits, in Paton's Merino Wool that I bought on uber sale at Michael's. I mean, come ON. 2 skeins for $7? That's almost 500 yards of yarn for the same price as a single skein of Cascade 220! It was begging for me to bring it home and to be cast on. Who am I to deny the deep need of a cheap (yet 100% wool) yarn?  Hence, the start of a sweater. Which is really funny considering that I live in Texas and we don't really wear sweaters all that often.

I know. I make no sense.

Why yes, I AM still knitting these days, contrary to my current obsession with my sewing machine. I've been steadily working on the Dainty Bess scarf that I started on my trip to SAFF; this is an older picture, but the only thing I had on hand. It's twice as long as that now.

The laceweight that I bought at SAFF and had custom dyed for me arrived last week, and y'all. Y'ALL. Ms. Melanie does one kick ass job of making my yarn super pretty.

She asked what I wanted, I gave vague direction in the way of "silvery gray", and man, oh man, did she come through for me. The base yarn is from a very small company that wasn't even on Ravelry and it's 100% silk laceweight. I have no clue what I'm going to do with it as of yet, but trust me, it's going to be something spectacular. I can't just use that on any old stole, you know. It's too pretty.

However, the next few weeks are dedicated to this:

I have cross stitched stockings for my family, and my daughter's stocking needs to be done. We're a few scant weeks away from The Big Day, and I'd like to have this hanging there for her on Christmas morning. I've got a LONG way to go on it, though, so knitting and sewing are going to take a backseat to this until it's done. And then I think I may never cross stitch again – this one broke me. There are a bajillion little color changes and tiny details that, while pretty, make me twitch a little as I'm stitching on it. I'd rather knit a wool thong than do THIS again.

(Y'all, I will have to update with pictures later, because Ze Flickr is not working at my office for some odd reason. And yes, I'm updating from the office.)

I got up at the unGodly hour of 4:30 on Friday morning, packed everything into the car, and set out for the airport on what was my very first Flying By Myself experience. I got through security, got through the wait, and boarded the plane with no problems. And that is where the traveling stopped being easy and got CUH-RAZY. The plane was delayed by an hour and a half because of the weather in Atlanta; they didn't let us in on this little tidbit until we were already on said plane, so we had to sit there on the ground until we got the all clear. Still, not TOO bad, and we took off. When we landed, and I emerged into the Atlanta airport, I started to think that maybe I'm not cut out for traveling by myself; I had no frakin' clue where the hell I was, which direction to go, or even what I was trying to do, to be honest. The wonderful Carrie was trying her best to direct me, but I'm a doofus. Eventually, I found a tram that zoomed me to baggage claim, which led me to doors that went outside, and I was able to explain where I was so that Carrie and Ms. Melanie could pick me up and we could head out.

Except it's never that easy.

And by that, I mean an 18 wheeler overturned on the highway and we were stuck in traffic for two hours. But I had my knitting!

So, in the end, what was supposed to be a trip that put us in Asheville by 4 at the latest actually had us checking in to our hotel at 8 pm. Thank God there was an Outback in the parking lot, because we all needed a drink STAT.  Even though the waiter sneered at my dinner choice (a steak sandwhich, which was good so SUCK IT SERVER DAN), we still managed to end the day with some fun.

The actual fest was a blast – SAFF isn't huge, but there was more than enough to do in one day, and there were so many independent yarn dyers and vendors that it was absolutely worth all of the hassle. I didn't go crazy with the yarn purchases, but I did manage to score some pretties. I met Lynnea in real life and patted The Baby Belly in person. But by the end of the day, we were exhausted and we decided to check out of the hotel early and head back to Carrie's house instead of spending another night there. So after spending some time in Athens, I got up on Sunday and made the trip back home. I walked in the door and was immediately dog piled by the kids; Sarah refused to let me go all evening, which was charming and cute and I took full advantage of it since she's not what you'd call a Super Cuddler. I gave them the presents I'd picked up for them – Bryan got a new airplane like the one Mommy was on, and Sarah got a new stuffed animal from Atlanta – and we all settled in, happy to be back together.

Carrie is trying to convince me to fly in for MS&W next year.  As long as it does not involve crazy Atlanta traffic, I might be convinced.

PHOTOS! From the top, that is Sanguine Griffon Little Traveler in Nepal, Plain & Fancy Sheep & Wool Co. Sport in Blue Variagated, and Miss Babs Yummy Superwash Sock Yarn & Baby Yarn in Ironweed. I made two other purchases that aren't listed here – one is for my Christmas swap partner, so that will just have to be a surprise, and the other is a skein of 100% silk lace weight that the fantastic Melanie is custom dyeing for me. Because she likes me so. Y'all, I can't tell you how stoked I am about the laceweight, and about the dye job she's going to do for me. It will be awesomeness personified.

And here we all are, at SAFF, the CESOB crew REPRESENTING. From the top left: Melanie, myself, then Carrie on the bottom left and Lynnea.

I know, edge of your seat, right? But I did manage to finish it within the time I was given. And here's proof:

I did modifiy it; when I went to knit the sleeves, they were so heavy that I doubted that it would ever get used. Here in Texas, there really isn't a need for a heavy, thick sweater; for most of the winter, I wear long sleeved shirts and throw a jacket or coat on over that when I go outside. Heavy sweaters are pretty useless 'round these parts. I wanted to make something that I'd get some use out of, so off came the sleeves and i just knit a few rounds to lengthen the armholes a bit. There is a definite difference between the skeins that I used; I can see it in this picture. Most of the lace is a tad bit lighter than the garter stitch or the bottom three inches of the sweater; it's not horribly, unwearably noticeable, but it's there.

This sweater made me realize something: I don't really like knitting sweaters. I get an itch to knit one every so often, and after I'm done with it, I always think the same thing: that sucked. I'm not saying that I'll never knit another sweater in my lifetime, but I'm saying don't be surprised when I'm trading off all of my worsted yarn for lace and sock yarns. There is just something so soothing about a nice, thin lace yarn that I just don't get with worsted.

I've moved on to my winter projects: a stocking for my daughter (we've all got cross stitched Christmas stockings, so I gotta get hers finished), and the Forest Path Stole. The stole may turn into my next lifetime project.

As of 9:23 this morning, my accounting class is complete. I managed a B for that one, and an A for Statistics. I'm just thanking my lucky stars that they are both over, behind me, and I can move on to bigger and better things.

Like the Ravelympics.

That's a picture of the progress I made in the first three days of the sweater challenge – day four only added two rows (the eyelet row and the row after), so I didn't take another picture. This yarn is the bomb diggity; when it first arrived, I was underwhelmed by the colors, but man, it sure showed me up in the knitting. It's a reddish-purple overall, but there are streaks of blue and some golden browns and such that are carried along with the rest of the yarn, and the garter stitch does wonders to show that off. Two more rows and I pull it all off onto waste yarn and start the sleeves.

What, you don't do the sleeves of your sweaters before you knit the body? I can't be the only person who does that! There's just something about getting the sleeves knit first that makes me feel like I've taken a huge chunk out of a project like this. Even when I'm in the middle of knitting hell, going down the body of the sweater, I can look up and see that once I'm done with that part, I'm done. I don't get as discouraged as I would if I had to then go back and knit the damn sleeves after I've slogged through an entire sweater body. I'm not great with big projects when it comes to knitting; I tend to stick with small things, like socks, I think it's because I have a very short attention span. Socks almost push me to my limit at times.

I'm hoping to get started on one sleeve tonight – if I can do a sleeve in two nights, I think that I might, maybe, possibly pull this off.