Actual knitting progress

At last! The weather is lovely and i can sit outside and knit at lunch. I turned 2 heels this weekend and i'm working steadily up the leg.

Enthusiastic winner!

 

This fresh in from cafe press--my very own Rainey Sisters mug! It now sits on my desk at work, regularly filled with tea.

I won it in a contest sponsored by these fun knitters. On their post they said:

Finally, Sally’s daughter and her little assistant (who helped with the random drawing), really wanted us to reward the very first person who entered the contest for her enthusiasm. To keep the results from being tampered with or chewed up, we agreed. Therefore, a mug will also be going to Valerie.

When I read that, I was very tickled, and bemused. As a kid, I was known and regularly mocked for my enthusiasm, and I immediately thought, "This is the first time something good has come from it!" The first thing that came to mind was the grade three Christmas program, where our class had to stand up and sing in front of an audience full of parents. I have always loved to sing with a group, and I assure you, I belted it out. It never occured to me to notice if everyone else was belting, too, why should that be my concern? My siblings laughed at me later and told me that they could hear me loudly over the rest of the class.

Enough reminiscing, this post is mostly to say, thanks for the mug! Hurrah!

What's in progress

 

Yesterday I finally updated my progress page on Ravelry to show all my current works in progress. These are all projects I consider "active" and I work on them all from time to time. It was discouraging to see these projects side by side and accept how slowly they have been and will continue to progress.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of knitting time available to me right now. My life right now includes:

• Family duties


• Full time work


• Internship 10 hours a week


• Final quarter in graduate school, a major research methodologies course


• Completing my portfolio, the equivalent of a thesis


• Applying for a number of jobs which all come open this time of year


• Going to interviews for these jobs without using up any time off because I need it for my graduation/vacation journey at the end of the term.


• Daily walks or other exercise, without which I go completely batty and everything else falls apart

Sadly, few of these tasks are knitting friendly. There is occassionally knitting at work on lunch time, and sometimes family duties can include knitting while I talk/snuggle/hangout/whatever with my Most Important Peoples. I have been known to knit and walk at the same time, but I've noticed that I get less exercise under those conditions, and also I get crampy shoulders and arms.

Because of the slow knitting progress, there's not a lot to blog. I can't bring myself to blog: Look, here's the broad spiral ribbing an inch longer than it was last week!

Acquisitions

This is the spot where normally I would show off all my new yarn from shopping in Seattle. If I remember correctly, I have shopped in Seattle on every residency trip I have made. However, on this my last residency trip, I did not make time to shop for yarn. This was a combination of being OHMIGODTOOBUSY and OHMIGODIHAVETOOMUCHYARN. The latter may have been inspired by a small bounty from Knitpicks that arrived the day I departed.

You see, my coworker wanted to order some needles from Knitpicks, and she needed some purchases to pad her order up to the free shipping minimum. Naturally I had to help out a friend in need!

Thus I now am the proud owner of some Felici in the colourway Arugula, and some Shamrock in that blue colourway. (whatever it's called). I also acquired a Harmony size 3 circular needle which I have since misplaced on the disaster that is my desk at work.

 

Thrice as nice

Live from baggage claim... Travelers every where are celebrating the sock's progress. It has tripled its length during travel. Sadly, it will be promptly neglected.

Knitting on the road

Live from the SeaTac airport... Yes i had several works in progress, but i always like a special travel project. This shows my total progress for the short trip. I did have to rip out several rows yesterday because apparently i cannot count to 3 while attending class.

Let's be blunt

This garter-stitch toe makes a remarkably blunt toe. I continue to be bemused by the whole thing, and suspect it will wear well. Time will tell.

The pattern is an elongated version of the wavy rib from More Sensational Knitted Socks. I do a six-row repeat instead of four-row, which works better with the Bordhi 3-row increase pattern.