WIPs Wednesday

Finished Objects
No knitting FOs this week but I did finish plying the BFL blue/green/purple mix I've been spinning all month. It looks pretty good and seems to have come out generally as a light fingering weight. It's a 3 ply and I think it's a tad over-plied but oh well, it'll still work. I just have to figure out what to knit with it now.

Knitting

I finally finished the front of my East Village sweater. Yay! Now only the sleeves and collar to go. Which could take forever, but that's what sleeves tend to do. I really should start making them first, it's a good way to double check the gauge and then you don't feel like ugh so much left when you finish the body. I'm definitely going to need more yarn though, I've only got 100g left so I'll pick some up and start alternating skeins for the sleeves. (alternating skeins means you attach two balls and do a row with ball 1 then a row with ball 2, repeat. That way the different dye lots aren't as noticeable). 

I finished the knitting on the indifference shrug and I've blocked it but I think I need to add a crochet border to keep it from curling. But I need a break from that project so who knows how long it'll take.

I'm to the heel of the first sock of my Vanilla Latte socks for dad in more yarn that we got in Canada at Romni Wools. I thought it wouldn't look good knit up (the yarn, not the pattern). But I'm really liking it actually. I think I need to find a new boy sock pattern though, this one is getting a little boring. It's been good though, this is my third pair in a few months, which is saying something.

I started the sleeves of my second Towpath Henley, I loved how the first one I made for Alex came out so here comes a matching one. And it just goes so quickly making baby stuff. I'm doing the sleeves two at a time again which is nice because then if I mess up an increase at least it's messed up evenly. Here is the tutorial I use to cast on the sleeves for TAAT.

Planning

I finally got the right gauge for both the Titan Jacket and Willow Creek sweater so I've ordered the yarn for those and bought the pattern for the Titan Jacket. Hopefully I'll get to cast those on soon.

I also pulled out my stitch dictionary and found a lovely lace stitch that I think I want to turn into a scarf for Alex to match his sweater. I'm trying to chart it because it's written out so I'm using excel and we'll see how that goes.

That's all (ha!) I'm working on craft wise this week.

Yay kitties

We took the kitties in today to get neutered as they have finally got all their shots taken care of. It's a pretty routine procedure and everything went totally smoothly. Mostly they were annoyed that I wasn't feeding them (they couldn't eat for about a day including the pre- and post-surgery because of the anesthesia). We've got them on pain meds and they're back to their usual selves. 

Sleeping, getting into my stuff, generally causing minor mayhem etc. In a few days they'll finally be able to go outside on a regular basis.

Fun at the Aquarium

While we were on the coast we took my nephew to the Aquarium. He is almost 18 months so we weren't sure if he would enjoy it or just sorta be meh.

He LOVED it.

He doesn't know a lot of words (or he can't say a ton of words although he understands a lot) but he knows a word that sounds like fish (more or less, if you speak toddler and you see him pointing at a fish). And as we walked around the aquarium he would light up and point and say FISH! and then look at us to make sure we knew that there were these awesome fish swimming around RIGHT NEXT TO US.

My sister and I always love visiting the water mammals: the seat otters, seals, etc. Alex was pretty much only interested in the things that could 100% sustain life under water.

When can we go back to the fish mom?

Our aquarium is pretty cool. They do a different main exhibit every summer, and this summer's is all about ship wrecks and how marine archeologists research and explore wrecks. It was full of really awesome educational info that my sister and I appreciated and that Alex probably would have liked if he were able to read/understand what was going on. We will definitely have to renew our memberships when he gets older.

Alex at the touching pool.

Alex likes to push the stroller, but he can't really steer.

And I even got a bit of knitting done. I worked on my vanilla latte socks when we needed to take breaks from walking around and I got through shaping the sleeves on my East village sweater during the car ride (and at the house on the coast, but it's part of the trip).

Today is also my step mom (one of them)'s birthday. So we went to another local winery for dinner and it was delicious. I borrowed my sister's long fuzzy coat and felt like a russian bond girl all night.

We left the winery right during the middle of the awesome lunar eclipse.

Not a great pic but the best my phone can do with my shaky hands.

And now I'm getting ready to go get Cooper from the airport. It's been such a long boring week without him, I'm so excited to see him again.

So all in all, a very successful weekend.

Beach day!

My sister and I decided we are just done with people this week and we have escaped to the coast. Our parents have a little cottage on the beach and luckily the  weather seems to be cooperating. So it's sunny but still cold and windy because duh Oregon. So off to the beach we went. 

This has to be the only place in Oregon I get better cell service than the rest of my family (who is in Verizon). I guess it had to pay off some time. Thank you hot spotting and family who has a ridiculously large data plan that we don't use so I can stream to my heart's content out here.  

I've hit that wall again

I've hit that wall again, where I feel like I'm going crazy from not having anything to do.

It's weird, I haven't had this much free time in a row where I truly have nothing I'm supposed to be doing in years. Last time this happened (about a month ago) I cleaned basically the entire apartment. But I'm not going to be doing a cleaning spree like that again for a while thank you very much.

I should probably try and doing something productive, like learn a new skill or network or something.

Sir Isaac Newton was way more productive than me.

Butttt I'm probably just going to keep crafting. And blogging. In fact, I volunteered to help my friend write the show notes to her knitting podcast. Because she is someone with actual things going on in her life (full time student in a masters program, podcasting, etc) and I have nothing but time. So if you're bored like me you should definitely go check out her podcast, Stitched in Sweden, shownotes/blog here.

WIP Wednesday

It's Wednesday again (already?!?) so here's what I've been working on craft-wise.

Finished objects
Spiralucious cowl: knit out of my hand spun for me :) I'm happy with how it turned out and it'll be perfect to wear under coats as the weather turns.

I forgot to smile hehe

Knitting

I'm like a half inch from finishing the sleeves of my Indifference Shrug. If I have enough yarn left I'm thinking I'll add a crochet border along the neck because I'm not loving how the edge curls. I'm thinking I'll give this to my mom when it's finished because even though it's hand spun I don't love the way the yarn knit up. It's just not my favorite colors for wearing.

I have barely worked on the East Village sweater for grandpa at all this week. I'm getting close to shaping the sleeves on the front, so maybe it'll finally feel like progress is being made/

I cast on some Vanilla Latte Socks for my dad. I love the vanilla latte pattern for boys. It's simple enough for interesting yarn but but a little more fun to knit than plain socks. I'm using more yarn that we got at Romni Wools when we were in Toronto in June. If you're ever in Toronto, serious check them out. It's the coolest shop, with sooooo much yarn. More sock yarn than I've ever seen in one place. It was heaven.

You can just barely see the start of the patterning

I've also been doing some swatching. Mostly for Titan Jacket for my sister but also for Willow Creek for myself. They take the same gauge so doing double duty. It's a bit bigger than I normally knit, 4 stitches per inch, so it's taken a few swatches and a few types of yarn. Hopefully I'll get it sorted today (my swatches are currently drying after being blocked).

Spinning
I finally finished spinning the singles of my BFL. They're resting now but later today I can finally ply them. I love plying, it goes so much faster than spinning singles and when you're done you get real yarn! I'm doing a 3 ply with this BLF. Maybe I'll do 4 ply with my next BFL that I'm already planning :)

Wedding planning: the search for invitations

So one of the things I've been having a difficult time nailing down for the wedding is invitations. This is for a number of reasons, mostly that I don't want to pay more than $1/invite and I don't like pictures of mason jars. So that eliminates a lot of the options out there.

The other problem is my taste is apparently more expensive than what I'm willing to spend on invitations. I like things in off white with raised borders, not too flowery. So letter press style. Once I figured that out about my style it made it a little easier to search for things and I ordered some samples from Ann's Bridal Bargains.

I loved loved this calla lily invitation. Sadly, it's folded like a card (so kind of small) and the paper is thin.

I love the delicate flowers

It's kind of weird that it's a card.

The size and paper of this invite with roses was nicer and Cooper liked it but to me the roses were just too old lady. I also accidentally ordered a sample with the roses colored yellow and green and that's super weird. 

I liked this invitation with the border but Cooper did not. It's sort of shiny and sparkly so that's the part he didn't like. The size and paper were good again though.

I did some more searching last night and come up with three more invites that I've ordered samples of. This time from David's Bridal (who knew they did invites?).

First, an invite with a raised celtic border.

Second, another rose invite. Not my favorite of the three but I'm willing to see it in person since Cooper likes it.

Last, a plain framed border invite. This is my favorite of the three, hopefully it looks good in person. I like that it's simple with clean lines. I'm worried it's a little too plain but we'll see.

Idyllic Sunday

Today was a pretty great day. 

It started out looking like it might be another cold wet day (can you tell I'm thrilled about the weather changing?). But around noon it started getting warmer. 

After my nephew woke up from his nap I met him and my sister and brother-in-law at the park. The weather was perfect, not too warm, but not cold at all. Alex loved it, he loves running around and being outside. Especially trees. He loves trees. 

He is just always in the move. 

I got some knitting done too, starting some socks for my dad. The perfect travel knitting, no pattern necessary and easy to fit in the purse. 

We played for like an hour and then went and got some froyo at one of those self serve places where you get to add whip cream and all sorts of yummy toppings. Then back to their house for dinner and more playing. Basically lots of hanging out. I'm an extrovert. I'd rather be in a room with someone else doing our own things than in seperate places doing the exact same things. And Cooper is gone for a whole week, visiting Hawaii. So I'll just have to find other people to annoy and watch tv with. Luckily I've got a lot of family here and a couple friends that are weird like me. 

Making new friends

It's weird being an "adult" and trying to make new friends. Or maybe the weird thing is how you just sort of stop making new friends once you're out of school, where you're no longest forced to be with the same people all the time whether you like it or not.

Anyway, I think I may have started to make a new friend completely unrelated to a school thing the other day. I was coming home from the gym and in the parking lot of our complex I saw a girl in her 30s loading an Ashford traditional spinning wheel into her car. I went up and started a conversation with her ("I'm glad to see another spinner here etc"). We chatted a little bit and agreed it was pretty  cool to meet another spinner in person in our age range. And she works at a yarn store I like part time too so that's awesome.

I friended her on facebook and hopefully we can meet up and do a spinning night sometimes. It'd be so cool to have someone near by who spins. She's a beginner like me too so hopefully we can learn from each other. Yay for new friends! Hopefully she's as weird as me and we can bring her into the fold of weird awesome people.

P.S. we went out last night to celebrate passing the bar. This is the first time I've been out on a weekend night to the bars in like forever. I'd forgot there would be other people there and they might try and talk to me. This is how I felt:

I passed the bar exam!!!!!

eeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!

I'm so happy. This year's pass rate was the lowest in 10 years which makes me even more grateful. I worked my butt off studying and it paid off! Most of my friends passed too which I'm so happy about.

I still kind of can't believe it. I've done all the hard things and I get to be an actual lawyer now! Once I officially get accepted into the Oregon bar haha. But the hard part's over.

Wedding planning progress update

We accomplished a lot on the wedding planning front this week. In no particular order here are the things we did:

Called two different florists to set up consults for people flowers.
We called one place my sister recommended but the lady was weird, initially telling Cooper that he should call back in January because we don't know what we want yet. It turns out they also didn't deliver all the flowers Tammy ordered and didn't bother telling her, just changed what they were giving her and assumed that'd be ok without asking. This is sending up big red flags. We might cancel the consult because of this.

We called another place that seemed much more on top of it and we will meet with them in a few weeks.

Work on center pieces with Tammy
My sister's mother in law Tammy is passionate about flowers. When I told her initially I wasn't going to do much flowers-wise she was horrified and offered to help. Which was very thoughtful of her. And I have to hand it to her, she has great taste. We chatted with her a few weeks ago about colors and flower types and she ordered some samples and put together some center piece ideas with the candle sticks left over from Caitlin's wedding. It looks amazing. She'll order all the flowers and we will just get a group together to assemble the center pieces the day before the wedding. Perfect task for aunts and others who want to help.

Booked the honeymoon
My grandma is gifting us the use of her time share in Mexico for the honeymoon. My dad booked the hotel a few weeks ago and then on Monday we booked our flights! Initially our only flight options were either 6am flight Sunday after the wedding or spend 25 hours getting there. At the last moment we found an 8am flight for just a little bit more, score!

Dress!!!!!!!
I ordered my wedding dress at the beginning of Feb. and hadn't heard anything from the bridal shop. So it's been on my to-do list for a while to call them and check in. I called this afternoon and they said they had also noticed that it was late and had contacted the manufacturer and the dress should be shipping tomorrow. Yay! I'm so excited to see it. Hopefully it'll be in before my mom visits next month and I can show her, she hasn't' gotten to see me in it yet since she was in Hawaii when I bought it. I'm really hoping it is perfect since I got a few things changed from the sample so I haven't seen it exactly the way I ordered it. But I'm sure it'll be good.

Rehearsal
The rehearsal dinner is starting to take shape. We've at least decided what kind of thing we wanna do so that's a step in the right direction at least.

WIPs Wednesday

I've made some good progress this week, but it doesn't show much in the pictures because it's mostly been just putting inches into sleeves and such.

Knitting

Indifference Shrug
I've put maybe 4 inches on the sleeves. I like two at a time knitting, but man it makes it feel like it goes so much slower. I finished decreasing (I think, I'll try it on again in a few inches), so maybe the end is in sight.

It's quite difficult to get a good picture of it right now since it's just curling all over the place

East Village
Again I put  few inches on the front but the progress is barely noticeable unless you're measuring it every 30 minutes like I am.

Yep looks pretty much the same but with worse lighting. 

Spiralucous Cowl
Finally, some visible progress. I finished the main neck portion and I'm working on the applied hem/edging. It was on time out for a few days as I tried to figure out how exactly the applied edge worked. I didn't do the provision cast on for extra stitches it called for because I don't like provisional cast ons, so I brought these difficulties on myself but I think I've got it figured out finally. I'm excited for this one to be done, it looks great and it'll be so cool to show off my hand spun yarn! (project bag by the lovely Maria from Stitched in Sweden)

Planning
I saw that some cascade heritage was on sale so I thought I'd get myself some for a sweater (less than $30 for a sweater's worth, yes please). So I was perusing ravelry but instead of finding a finering weight sweater I fell in love with Willow Creek sweater by Justyna Lorkowska. It just looks so cozy with that cowl neck, I need it in my life (with long sleeves because I'm always cold). So I added some cascade 220 to my cart but since the Heritage is on sale I think I'm just going to buy it and stash it for later. So I might be accidentally buying two sweaters worth of yarn. Oops haha. I have a few patterns in mind for it but I haven't decided yet, Familiar looks good, also by Justyna. I like empire ave but I was kind of wanting something with a v-neck (preferably a shawl collar) and I'm not quite sure I could make those modifications myself. Anne's cardigan looks nice but sort of similar to the last cardigan I made for myself. It's so tough to choose. I might just have to buy the yarn and wait until a pattern really speaks to me.

I'm also making my sister a cardigan for her birthday (which was yesterday). I almost never do my gift knitting ahead of time because I'm just that organized. We're still picking a pattern though. The one she liked initially I decided wouldn't be a great idea since all of the projects on ravelry seemed to indicate some issues with the pattern and I'd have had to do some modifications and it was just getting rather complicated. So we're still looking. And for those keeping track at home I'm about to be getting 3 sweaters worth of yarn. #notsorry.

Spinning
I did a few hours of spinning on the BFL my mom sent me from Maine. It's lovely to spin but I just haven't had a ton of spinning mojo. I've been all about the knits. I'm getting close to being 2/3rds done so maybe that'll motivate me to at least finish off filing this bobbin in the next few days. Then I just have to figure out what I want to knit with it. Maybe a shawl or something for my mom for when she visits in October. Being from Hawaii she is always freezing like me when she visits. And I know she'll love the fact that I spun it and that I knit it because duh she's my mom. 

Bags by awesome granny review

I recently bought myself a project bag from Bags by Awesome Granny on etsy. I've been needing a large project with a zipper because of kittens and my nephew, all of whom like taking all my knitting out and destroying it.

I ordered one with a cute circus print and a matching notions bag. 

It got here in less than a week and was wrapped up in tissue paper with a little hand written note to me by Darlene. 

I opened it up and put my East Village sweater in it. And it fits everything and the extra yarn. This pleases me greatly. 

There was a lot of attention to detail in the construction and it shows. All the lines are clean, the inside lining matches the little pull tabs and it's just adorable.

I love the little hippos and monkeys on the fabric. Basically I love everything about it. If you're thinking about getting a new project bag definitely check out bags by awesome granny.