Order Up!

I am still alive. I was not in fact flown off by the hoards of mosquitos the other night. I did, however, flee from my home under cover of weekend and went back to my parent's house. I don't know if it was the cold of the weekend, the lack of food I left here, or divine providence, but when I returned there was not a single squeeter left. Knock on wood.

I have been religiously keeping up with my finishing of UFO's lately. This week I finished the Long Socks from Erika Knight's Classic Style. I started them over the summer because I'm trying to find patterns that I like that will work on my Ultimate Sweater Machine. These socks are worked back and forth on straight needles with only side shaping and are worsted weight wool so they qualify. All in all they were very fast to hand knit and pleasant looking. my only issue is that no matter how I try to seam them (they have a seam along the toe, on either side of the heel and all the way up the inside edge) the seam is less stretchy than the knitting. This is a little annoying at first, especially at the toe. I have been wearing them around the house a little bit and I think that it may just take a little getting used to. I still plan to machine knit them eventually.


Speaking of machine knitting, I am learning a lot in my Machine Knitwear Design class. The machines we use are far more sophisticated than my USM so it's taking a little getting used to. It is totally different from handknitting. The only problem is that now I may be getting too used to the more complicated machine so everytime I go to start something on the USM I just get fed up before the first row is knit. It's like going from broadband back to dial up. In this metaphor handknitting would be the card catalog at the library, a totally different media with a whole other ambiance and purpose etc. My first project was to knit a " stuffed critter" using the different types of increases and decreases. I named mine "Lumpy" for self-evident reasons.

In honor of all the stash busting and 9 month strict yarn diet (or yarn anorexia) I have been on I ordered from Knit Picks last week. I have never actually touched any knitpicks yarn so I was skeptical. It arrived this week and I must say I am very pleased. Everything is of very good quality (and the Alpaca Cloud is beyond good quality).

I plan to use the Merino Style to knit a fair Isle yoke cardigan,

the Wool of the Andes for a possible felted jacket,

the Shine for maybe some gloves,

and the Alpaca cloud for a small lace scarf. Very exciting.

I've also been working an obscene amount on my teaching certification. I will not discuss it much here beyond saying that (some of) my professors are either criminally unorganized morons or sadists. Either way... please kill me.