Bananahead Hat- my new go-to baby pattern!

I am so smitten with this little hat! (Pattern: the Bananahead Baby hat (Ravlery link and PDF Pattern link)



A well written, cute little baby pattern. Yay!

Well, It's Official!

I started my first ever attorney job this week. I love it. It is overwhelming. I have great colleages, an awesome assistant, my own office with windows, and three cases that I will probably refer to (and think of for the rest of my professional life) as my babies. It's good.

I am really glad I have worked for 4 law firms, though. Helps me breathe as I feel like an idiot, because I understand that I am a new attorney- they know I'm a new attorney- and they don't expect me to know much. I know that the new job jitters come with each new position and will pass soon enough. And I know, without a doubt, that law is what I'm meant to do. I'm glad I'm not in private practice, because the people are friendlier, the hours are better, and we get 17 (SEVENTEEN!) paid state holidays a year. All in all, I think this is going to be really, really good.

So, that's why it has been quiet this week. I did finish the ADORABLE baby hat, and will take a picture on Saturday before I deliver it to the mom-to-be on Saturday night. Not much knitting this week- I've been fried- but as a weekday routine develops, I anticipate getting into a regular habit again. It'll be so nice!!!

A Realization

I just finished listening to this week's podcast from David Reidy, aka Sticks and Sting. It sparked a couple thoughts...

The theme for Show 50 is "We choose"- he referenced JFK's speech about choosing to go to the moon NOT because it is easy but because it is hard. David challenged his readers to return to the challenge of knitting, because accomplishing something difficult is really, really satisfying.

Last Christmas (2006-2007) I got my BUTT kicked by the Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl from "A Gathering of Lace" by Meg Swanson. (Eunny's version is gorgeous, and here's a link to the book photo). I also Eunny's Bayerische socks and got smacked around by them as well. (Maybe the lesson I SHOULD learn is to stay away from Eunny's spectacular but very challenging projects?!?!?!)

I realized, listening to David's podcast, that every project I knit in 2007 was a reaction to that spectacular failure- I knit safe, relatively easy things. No cables, not much lace, just stockinette and simple socks are far as the eye can see.

Maybe it's time to take another stab at the Frost Flowers. I love that thing, and succeeding would feel fantastic. Hmmm....

Farewell, Spin Stash!

I have officially given up on spinning. It's not that I didn't enjoy it- I did - it's just that I would rather spend my time knitting. So, through the marvel that is Ravelry, I found a local gal who was interested in buying all my spin stuff. I think she got a smoking deal (at the price I suggested!), and I hope she enjoys it! This lucky lady got my Jim Hockett Mesquite wood bottom whorl drop spindle, my Maggie mid-whorl spindle, my 80/20 llama/tussah silk blend roving, my crayola wool roving, my red with sparkles batt, a bag of red Colorado corriedale roving, and two books on spindle spinning for the low low price of $25. (Each of the spindles cost that....) And I am so glad to have that much more room in my yarn chest!

Mmmm. Silk makes EVERYTHING better.

I'm behind on baby knitting (is 2008 going to be one of THOSE years where everyone I know pops out progeny?) which resulted in a bout of baby startitis last night.

Ravelry introduced me to the Bananahead Baby hat pattern (Ravlery link and PDF Pattern link), which is adorable. I cast on using Debbie Bliss Cathay, that delicious 50 cotton/35 viscose microfiber/15 silk blend. LOVE THIS STUFF. Alas, I do not love the color- mommy requested purple (not plum, not lavender, not anything good, just plain old grape juice purple). But man, does this stuff feel good in the hands. The baby shower was Saturday- doh! Fortunately, the hat is going really fast.

A childhood friend of Mr. C's is also expecting her first child in March. He picked out Berocco Plush in yellow and orange for a cuddly baby blanket for her. I started that one last night, too.

I now have 6 projects on the needles- it has been a LONG time since I've had more than 2 or 3.... Here's hoping I don't get too distracted!

(Midnight) Sunrise Circle

I have finally experienced complete sweater success- I love my Sunrise Circle!



Pattern: Sunrise Circle by Kate Gilbert, Interweave Knits Spring 2006
Needles: Addi Turbo size 8
Yarn: Cascade 220, 6.5 balls, in Jet (charcoal gray)



While it is a little larger than I intended, it works perfectly as a jacket. Love it!

I've even had people say "I love your sweater" without then saying "Did you make it?"

Success!

A Very Happy New Year Indeed

2007 was quite a year- it included:
1. A new job for Mr. C.
2. Knee surgery for Mr. C.
3. Our wedding.
4. The end of law school.
5. A honemoon in Tahiti.
6. A move to Austin.
7. Studying for, taking, and passing the Texas Bar Exam.
8. Getting stung by a sting ray (not on the honeymoon....)
9. Adjusting to married life.
10. A trip to New York.
11. A trip to Florida.
12. Two trips to New Mexico.
13. Two trips to Arkansas.
14. A new job for ME!

Yes, I found out on December 20 that I will have gainful employment as an attorney in 2008. I start January 14- woohoo!

While 2007 was really amazing, it was also exhausting and brought a ton of changes for me individually and for us as a couple.

I hope 2008 will be a year of routine- settling into a daily routine with Mr. C, settling into a daily routine at work, getting back into the eating reasonably/working out regularly/reading more habits.

I haven't really fleshed out resolutions this year- I have more general goals, which include:
1. Getting healthy- eating lower fat/lower refined sugars, exercising 3 times per week for at least 45 minutes each time, drinking 8 glasses of water each day.
2. Cooking more- making one new recipe per week, cooking from at least 26 of my cookbooks this year (I have a massive cookbook collection).
3. Reading at least 6 fiction books- it was easy to skip this in law school, but I love to read and want to get back into literature.
4. Posting to the blog at least twice per week.

I hope your New Year's Day was filled with as much gratitude for 2007 and hope for 2008 as mine was- here's to a great new year!

Have you SEEN this?

AnnyPurls wrote up a post about O Wool Classic, and her before-washing-after-washing pictures make me want some. In a big way.

FO: Sunrise Circle

I finished seaming up my Sunrise Circle Jacket last night... no pictures yet as I don't have any buttons- I have high hopes of getting all that handled this weekend. It's big. Definitely a jacket, which is what I was hoping for, but it is big. The sweater is a little bulky across the chest and under the armpits, and the sleeves are too long, and the neck is too wide. Mr. C has suggested (in layman's terms) to try to full or felt it a little to shrink it down a tad.... Still mulling that over. I will probably get a lot of use out of this sweater as it is, but a little smaller/firmer would be great. I'm just nervous about felting it too much and ending up with a miniature bulletproof sweater that I can't get over my shoulders....

Any suggestions?

Pictures! Finally!

The iPhone camera is pretty good. Even though I don't have any mode, flash, focus, or color adjustment power, I can still take pictures.

I've knit a few more squares for the mitered blanket- here's what they look like so far.









Here's my finished Monkeys:



And another finished Baby Yoda:



YAY! Knitting!

Celebrity Knitwear Sighting!

Yesterday as I was driving out of downtown, I saw a Tangled Yoke Cardigan! It was knit in the beautiful bright green color of tweed, probably Rowan Felted Tweed. I tried to get the knitter's attention so I could compliment her sweater, but she had her iPod headphones on and didn't hear me. Then I reached in to my purse to get my camera, but the light changed and I had to go.

That's the first time something like that has ever happened to me- what a rush!

Whew!

After finding out my good news last week, I went on a weeeeeeeee bit of a shopping spree. The spoils continue to arrive and delight.

First up, Mr. C got an iPhone earlier in the summer, and it is AWESOME. So, I got one as a "YAY I GET TO BE A LAWYER AND MAKE LOTS OF MONEY ifievergetarealjob" reward. I heart my iPhone.

The iPhone has a camera, which means photos! on the blog! someday! Darn Daylight Savings Time- all decent light is gone by the time I get home from work, and there is no flashy on the otherwise perfect iPhone, so pictures will have to wait until either 1. weekend or 2. I get up early enough to do it before work.... So..... see you this weekend???

My other splurgy purposes were of the fibery variety. Hill Country Weavers had the Habu Scarf Kit with stainless steel and merino wool, so I picked one up!

(Photo from habu's website)

There are some gorgeous examples of this in the blogosphere- here and here, for example, plus on Ravelry- here and here.

I also got a skien of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn in Fire. It's wonderful.

This firey red must be on my mind because of the Yarn Harlot's socks, because I have been stalking the Hazel Knits Etsy Shop in hope of scoring some of the Sailor's Delight colorway. And I did. WOOHOO! Should be arriving this week- will definitely let you know how fabulous it is.

The last bit of yarn booty has already arrived and is even better than I could have imagined. I treated myself to three skiens of Sunshine Yarns sock yarn. I got the Twist Sock Yarn in Costa Rica, Soft Handpainted Sock Yarn in Orange Crush, and Wool/Silk Sock Yarn in It's Cold Outside. Holy Guacamole, this stuff is gorgeous. Each colorway is a different type of yarn (that was intentional! I'm so smart!) and I can't wait to dig right in to each. YUMMY YARN.

I am knitting.... I'm almost 2/3 of the way done with my sunrise circle jacket, and I'm cautiously optimistic that the sizing will work out. I wish I had this one done already so I could wear it! It's cool here right now- mid 50s this morning- but we're supposed to be back up in the mid-80s by this weekend. Ugh.

HALELUJAH!

I have PASSED the Texas Bar Exam. WOOT!

For some reason, I want to hurl. But it's a GOOD kind of hurl. :-)

AURGH

So I'm knitting the Sunrise Circle Jacket (warning-PDF!!!!) from Interweave, Spring 2006. I really like it so far- hopefully it'll turn out well.

The back is done, and so far the sizing is spot on, even though I couldn't get gauge with the Cascade 220.

I had almost finished the left sleeve- knit from wrist to shoulder- when I realized that I had cast on for the smallest size, not the largest (which, naturally, is the size I'm knitting.)

AAAAAURGH. An entire SLEEVE, which is misery anyway, down the tubes. Blech. Naturally, I ripped it out and am now 4 inches into the second sleeve. Except that it's really the first sleeve.

Kill me now.

Happy Birthday to Mom!

My Mom's birthday was on Sunday, and I went home to NM to celebrate!

We spent Friday in Santa Fe, including a very short walk through the not-yet-fully-changing aspens up near the ski area.





The walk was short because (1) I'm no longer used to 10,000 feet above sea level and (2) it started raining. Apparently the short, cold rain was just what the aspens needed- a friend called Sunday morning to say how gloriously golden everything was on the mountain.

I try not to give too many hand-knitted gifts to family and friends. While the gifts are appreciated, I think that most people don't care as much as I do and would just as soon have something else. But this year, all Mom got was hand-knitted goodness- because she has shamelessly dropped hints about wanting these two specific things.

I managed to finish the fingerless gloves as my plane landed in Albuquerque. A little too close for comfort, but they were done nonetheless. A perfect fit, and a bit hit!



This is my own mish-mash pattern based on the wonderful glove article in Interweave Knits Winter 2003. The yarn is Louet Gems Opal, navy blue.

I also gave Mom the Cherry Scarf Redux. She liked mine so much that I'm rather surprised I was able to get out of New Mexico with it when I moved in May!



Also a big hit.

I really enjoyed being back in NM for a few fall days. The weather was really cool and crisp, a perfect hint of winter. It's still in the mid-90s in Austin, so that kind of weather is not yet on the horizon here. Sigh.

Ok, NO. And a new yarn store.

Yeah. The whole two circulars thing doesn't work for me at ALL. I ripped out the little progress I made on the fingerless gloves and am now almost done with the pair using my trusty old DPNs. It was a nice thought, but I'll take five pointy sticks over a pair of circulars ANY DAY.

I finished my Monkeys, and I'm just not in love. Very "Meh." I think they'll be a perfect Christmas present for my Dad's wife, though- and I know she'll appreciate them. The camera is still shot, so until C and I can coordinate a photo shoot with his iPhone camera, I can't share them with you!

In other news, Austin has been blessed with two new yarn stores in the last three weeks! Craziness! I stopped by Gauge Knit on their opening weekend. This looks like it's going to be a great store. Everything is organized by, you guessed it, gauge. The space is really hip and modern, and it looks like they'll be offering some good classes. I also stopped by The Knitting Nest on Friday, and had a little credit card incident. Stacy, the owner, has in stock at least one full pack of every single color of Cascade 200- talk about a wall of color! Well, she had full packs till I bought almost all of the charcoal grey. She also has the worsted and DK weights of Peace Fleece, which I hadn't seen in person yet- very nice- and is waiting on a massive Lorna's Laces order. Gauge Knits is really close to my house, and the Knitting Nest is on the other side of the universe, but both are great additions to the local knit scene, and I'm sure I'll be back at both stores sooner than I want to admit. :-)

Outstanding books on the way!!!!

I am such a sucker for good knitting books, and it looks like this fall is going to be a gangbuster season for gorgeous books....

I just ordered Jane Brockett's "The Gentle Art of Domesticity from amazon.co.uk- it doesn't look like it's available in the US yet. Jane Brockett writes the amazing yarnstorm blog, which is visually stunning. Her color sense and general aesthetic is fantastic- I cannot WAIT for this book to get here. I don't know how much knitting will be in this book, but frankly, I don't care.


Kaffe Fassett fans rejoice! Not only does the master of color have a new line of sock yarn out, he has knit again! I've got a couple of his other books (Kaffe Fassett's Pattern Library: Over 190 Creative Knitwear Designs and Family Album) and they're great. I'm curious to see the new book and all the color goodness it surely contains!


This book, Pretty Knits, is apparently patterns from Loop, a fantastic yarn store I visited when I was in London in 2005. The cover alone is enough to make me want the book.


Again, a serious case of Rowanphilia and cover photo love makes this book virtually mine.

Socks(ish) on two circs?

Last year I knit a pair of fingerless gloves for my Mom out of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. She owns an estate-sale business and frequently finds herself in under-heated houses, storage units, and warehouses in the colder months. She also suffers arthritis in her hand bones (so sad for my knitting future, but that's another story). She wanted something warm and cozy that would still let her use her hands to rifle through buried treasure, and whatever I came up with had to be machine washable.

Interweave Knits did an article called "Gloves Made Easy" in its Winter 2003 issue- the first I ever bought! The article is eeeeexcellent- describes basic glove anatomy, how to do several different types of gussets, etc. I knit a pair of fingerless gloves based on the pattern in the article, and they turned out GREAT- good fit, perfect yarn, right color, all around a great project.

Until they got lost. The gloves got left at a friend's house, then put into a Christmas gift bag and returned to my Mom, and sadly thrown out Christmas morning in an attempt to clean up after the grandkids' Christmas Morning Messtacular. An honest mistake, and Mamacita feels HORRIBLE.

But she wants another pair. :-) So, I picked up some Louet Gems in the sport weight at one of Austin's new yarn stores (Gauge Knit, http://gaugeknit.com/). It's perfect. But I thought I'd teach myself a new trick, instead of facing a whole lot of stockinette. I decided to do them on two circular needles....

I'm using the tutorial at http://www.socknitters.com/2circs/index.htm, and it is excellent. But can I just say that this is really hard?? I've got the hang of it now, but dayum- I never would have discovered that I love to knit socks if I had started this way. I can see myself using it for plain stockinette socks so that I can avoid toes/legs of different lenghts, but otherwise I think I'll stick with my handy DPNs.

No pictures. Bummer.

Mr. C and I both have Canon Powershot A70 cameras. Mine started acting up a year ago, and finally died in March. Now Mr. C's appears to be on the fritz, in the same way mine did. So sad. Looks like we probably need to look at a new digital camera. I really like the Canons, but I don't like how quickly they stop working.

In other news, it's Friday! I'm glad I'm only working 4 days a week right now- it's a nice transition from nothing to do all day into working again. Unfortunately, I'm spending today doing laundry and cleaning- it's a little scary around the house! This will probably be my routine for the next few weeks. I'd rather clean and organize on Fridays than spend weekend time doing it.

As predicted, my knitting pace has slowed. I've got 2/3 of the second Monkey sock done, and it probably would have been finished if I hadn't been at work during the day.

I was worried this spring and early summer that my interest in knitting was waning, but that appears to have passed. Meg teased me earlier this week because I have 142 projects queued on Ravelry. There are some great projects out there right now!

The new Interweave Knits is great- I know everyone has reviewed it already, but there are several projects I'm interested in. I'm thinking about making the Tangled Yoke Cardigan out of the Green Mountain Spinnery New Mexico Organic yarn reviewed in Knitter's Review this week. The original pattern calls for Rowan Felted Tweed, but I don't much like alpaca (gasp!) and alpaca is So. Hot. that I'd never wear it in central Texas. (As if pure wool is better- yes, I am delusional.) I also really like the Placed Cable Aran, Dickinson Pullover, Tyrolean Stockings, Minimalist Cardigan, Cinnabar Pullover, Cobblestone Pullover, Snowflake Socks, William Street Socks, and Ambrosia Socks. Speaking of the Ambrosia socks- go check out Meg's recently finished pair! They're gorgeous, and make my fingers itch to catch on.

I am also more impressed with the new Knitty, which has failed to catch my interest for a couple of issues. Muir is gorgeous, and may be in my future as a stash burner. I find Henry quite charming- I see us with lots of quality time together this winter. Again, potentially a stash burner for me, though I liquidated my 4-ply stash over the summer via eBay. I definitely plan to make the Back to Basics Socks- interesting construction, but still basic socks. I also really like Roam, Neiman, Mr. Greenjeans, Totally Autumn, and the Diamond Waffle Socks.
The Foliage patterns are interesting, too- a friend here collects knitted beanies, and I'm thinking about making one of these, or the famous Shedir cabled hat (PDF! and scroll down) for her, as I already have a ball of Calmer sitting in el stash to use on that pattern.

Be sure you stop by Rebecca's blog and encourage her to keep blogging when she gets back to Australia- she and her husband are moving back home after spending 3 years in Albuquerque.

Sorry for the lack of images- I'm not sure when I'll get around to figuring out what's going on with the cameras. What a pain!

Good Day.

Job is good. Nice to have some structure to my days. I get to take Fridays off- WOOT! I'm missing the knitting already, but that'll happen in the evenings. And Mr. C has a TON of soccer games to referee in the coming weeks, so there's plenty of three plus hour stretches of knitting....