WIP Wednesday

Between starting my new job and my mom being in town I didn't have much time for knitting last week. All I worked on are socks

First, some impossible girl socks out of the mint rain witchy poo yarn. I wanted to get these done before my mom left so she could have them on Halloween but I just couldn't quite make it. So now I'm going to knit on a more leisurely schedule and do matching wristers. 

Second, I did a little on the vanilla latte socks but only a few rows. 

Disaster strikes

I came home yesterday to find my new Halloween sock yarn on the floor. The stupid cat had gotten it and sliced through about 1/3 of it. I was so mad. It took me two hours of untangling to get the usable pieces sorted. And I now have a bunch of sections about 10 yards long. Too long to toss but short enough it's going to be a pain to have to change yarn so much. Stupid cat. 

First Day!

I had my first day of work today! Most of it was spent in orientation but I did get to my office eventually and even got started on some work. And tomorrow we're hitting the ground running with court appearances.

I'm sure I'll talk more later to you all about this but right now I'm just too tired. I'm basically this kid

To Do list update

To keep me accountable I'm posting about my progress on my to do list

Socks for mom: The yarn shipped from MI today so I'm thinking I'll have enough time to knit up a pair for mom before she leaves on the 26th. Hopefully. (The yarn is from Mint Rain on etsy in the Witch Poo colorway)

Dry clean favorite suit: Picked it up Friday morning just in time to wear to work Monday.

New Danskos: still haven't done this but I keep going back and forth about actually doing it because I have a few pairs of good shoes for work so maybe I'll wait a while still.

Vacuum: I'm counting this as done even though the vaccuum broke when I'd done 3/4 of what I planned on. It was a crappy vacuum so I'm not surprised.

Organize Crafts 

Plant green onions

Adjust budge

make breakfasts
And I made muffins to boot. 

Stitch Dictionary: nope, no progress

Paperwork

Frame stuff: waiting on my bar admission certificate so I can take all 4 things at once.

Parking Pass: still need to do this

Finish the indifference shrug for mom: Wove in the ends and I'm calling it good.

Last weekend of freedom

Only a few more days until I start my job. My real grown up like legit job.

I'm bouncing between a mix of emotions: excitement, nervousness, and a little bit of ugh back to a job that you have to be there every day at 8 am sleeping in is so nice though.

I know it's good because I'm starting to loose my mind with nothing to do for so long. Basically my life is watching HGTV and Food Network and laying on the couch.

And after binging all of iZombie (the new Veronica Mars, which is excellent btw and it's finally on netflix) I'm basically like

Doing all of this nothing has made me really lazy. And I think about going back to work and it sounds nice but also like, well, work and how irritating is having to work lols.

There is also the whole new person in the office thing which is basically this:

Luckily I know both of the other recent hires in the office from law school so I'll know someone at least. And I'll have someone to take my dumb questions to so I've got that going for me.

But I'm also excited because I'm dying of boredom and it's a job in my field and also I'll be getting paid and working with what I've been told many times is a great office. So basically I've got 3 days left of doing nothing and then it's back into busy all the time land.

Wip Wednesday

I have an FO! My second Towpath Henley, this time the 3 month size. It's wearer won't be born until the end of Feb. So it will be a few months before I can get a pic of both boys wearing their matching sweaters but I can't wait for it haha.

I'm close to finishing the first sock of the vanilla latte socks. I've started the ribbing for the cuff so it probably only needs about 10 more rows (they're toe up). But I've been saving it for purse/mindless knitting because my other project has 3 charts worked concurrently.

Yes this is the same pic from last week

Which brings me to Titan Jacket. I've put a lot of time into this one this week and I went from cast on to separating for the sleeves in just a few days (I'm trying to make the most of my knitting time while I have it this week). I'm loving the cables but the pattern especially on the back.

Sleeves!

That's it for me this week, though I'm going to try and get to the yarn store and pick up more yarn so I can do the sleeves of my East Village. I know I'm going to need more so I'll need to start alternating skeins now.

Weddings: aka trying to please everyone

Weddings ar difficult because you have this need to please everyone. Or sometimes I latest issue is bridesmaid dresses. Two of my girls are on the same page and one is on a very different page. Both about budget and style. Normally it would be like ok mismatched dresses but Cooper wants matching. So it's just frustrating. 

Here is one we liked last night but I know one of my girls is going to no like it and not like the price. 

We went to the pumpkin patch

We took my nephew to the pumpkin patch this morning. Initially he wasn't super into it because he was just waking up from a nap but then after about 10 minutes of us showing him the petting zoo goats he woke up and got super into it. He loves the deer that are in his back yard and goats are basically small deer if you're a toddler. 

Then we walked out to the pumpkins and picked out some good ones. We haven't committed fully to carving them yet but we might when my mom gets here in a week. 

Even if we don't end up carving them it was a good morning because Alex loves any excuse to play outside. And large farm animals just make it better. 

Then we met up with some other friends and spent way too much money at a local winery. But it's ok because I have a job now so it's not the end of the world. And the wine is delicious. 

The To-Do list

Since my funemployment is rapidly coming to an end (see my last post) I've assembled a to-do list of all the things I want to get done before I start work.

It's totally a random list with things of varying importance but now that I have a deadline again I feel like I should start being productive again. So without further ado:

Socks for mom: My mom loves Halloween, it's her favorite holiday. She also loves hand knit socks. Recently I discovered that Halloween sock yarn is a thing so I ordered some wicked looking sock yarn from Mint Rain on etsy in the Witch Poo colorway. My goal is to try and send her home with new Halloween socks when she visits next week. Socks in a week isn't unreasonable but it'll depend on how long the socks take to ship.

Dry clean my favorite suit: It's been a while since it's been cleaned and I've been wearing it a lot to interviews over the summer so it's definitely due for a good cleaning.

New Danskos: I love my Danskos but they're kind of beat up. I think if I get a new pair in black patent leather style ones I can pull those off as work/court appropriate. Because heels just aren't practical (and you can't wear wool socks with them) and ballet flats rub my feet.

Vaccuum: pretty self explanatory.

Organize Crafts: My knitting stuff is just like everywhere in the apartment, and especially the second bedroom. I need to get it under control. Then Cooper could also use the second bedroom office.

Plant Green Onions: I got a thing of green onion at the grocery store and had them in water and they were growing like crazy. I think they'll last longer in the ground though. I did this one last night but it was on the initial to-do list.

Adjust Budget: Now that I'm going to be getting a paycheck and also paying back my loans I need to adjust the budget. Also did this yesterday.

Make Breakfasts: Since I need to be at work at 8am I'm going to have to get up and go to the gym at 6am so I want to do some make-ahead breakfasts I can take with me and eat at work. I'm going to try out making a bunch of egg mcmiffun style breakfast sandwiches that can be frozen and then microwaved. Cooper is also interested in getting in on the breakfast sandwich action to take to work with him.

Stitch Dictionary: After my recent discovery of the awesomeness of stitch dictionaries I've decided (thanks to the brilliance of Maria from the Stitched in Sweden podcast) to assemble my own electronic personalized stitch dictionary. Basically chart out the stitch patterns I like from my dictionary and others I'm planning on borrowing from the library because charts are way better than written directions for me and digital versions are also way better and harder to loose. I'd like to get a few more stitch patterns charted before I start work. So far I've done just one.

Paperwork: New hire paperwork for taxes etc. Done.

Frame stuff: I want to get my degrees etc framed to go up in my new office! I'm waiting for my bar admission certificate and then I'll take it all in and get it in matched frames.

Parking Pass: I've got the rfid card still from when I was working at the law firm last year and I've just got to call and get it turned on again so I can park for work.

Finish the indifference shrug for mom: That way I can send it home with her when she goes back to Hawaii. I'm still undecided about the crochet border. Mostly I just need to weave in the ends.

Made it official

I was sworn in as a member of the Oregon State Bar today. Originally I was going to wait for my Mom to be here but now that I've got a job that starts soon time became more of the essence in getting sworn in so I can actually practice. Cooper was there and my friends who work at the Courthouse so I still got to feel the love. 

Big News!

I got some great news yesterday

I got a Job!!!  Job is capitalized because it's an exciting real grown-up-job in my field using my super expensive degree.

I start in about 10 days. It's a new ish area for me so hopefully I learn quickly.

I'm going to be getting training and working on low stakes stuff at first so hopefully not too much pressure right away.

And I'll be working in the same building as two of my bffs from law school so that's an added bonus. 

WIP Wednesday

It's been pretty busy around here so I haven't gotten much knitting time in. I have done a little bit though and here is what I've got.

Towpath Henley 

I finished up the sleeves and got them placed on holders and started the body. I've done the turned hem and started the patterning. Man I love how the turned hems look. 

Vanilla Latte Socks 3

I turned the heel and knit most of the way up the cuff. It's going pretty quickly so that's good. 

Happy Birthday Cooper

It's cooper's birthday :) 

We had dinner with friends and shepards pie (Alton Brown's recipe and we swap the lamb for ground beef and jimmy deans sage sausage), wine, and cake. It was a great time, it's been a while since I've gotten to see my friends and they're all pretty great even though they've gone off and gotten real jobs and be adults and stuff. 

Alex was the star of the show as usual, charming all the ladies (and men) with his 6 words and the love of being the center of attention to the point where he'll do just about anything if you applaud him including wearing a frozen waffle as a hat. 

Anyway, I love you Cooper and I'm so happy you were born. And I can't believe. next birthday we'll have been married for 6 months! 

Also the cake was a hit! 

Birth Day Cake

When I was growing up we never bought birthday cakes, we always made them from scratch. Usually "we" was me and my dad. I think making birthday cakes was sort of our first cooking projects that we'd do together. I cook much more than my siblings, although my parents got all of us involved in cooking from a young age. I enjoyed it more I think so I'd volunteer for extra cooking on top of when one of us would get conscripted into helping with dinner.

Anyway so birthday cake was one of those things that my dad and I would do together. And usually we would make a chocolate cake recipe that he learned from his mother (who died when I was 8). So for me making birthday cakes is the norm and it reminds me of home and growing up and all those sorts of happy memories.

Cooper's birthday is tomorrow and he requested a lemon and poppyseed cake. I knew my dad had a good recipe for that sort of cake so I looked through his recipe folder (all online of course because we're cool that way). Eventually I found the recipe (his organization system sometimes escapes me) and after having to go to like 4 different grocery stores (I told you I haven't baked in a while, I needed things like cake flour which for some reason the first store didn't have, then we had to go get the good lemon curd from trader joes, and then we got home and realized we needed more butter for the frosting, oh and a sifter).

Making the cake brought back so many memories, not so much with this exact recipe but it shares a lot of things with our traditional birthday cake. First, I'm using my dad's old KitchenAid, the one he's had since the 80s and we always used growing up. He has a new one and I'm "storing" this one for him.

It also made me remember the two steps I always hate doing and usually out source to my dad and this time outsourced to cooper. The first is greasing and lining the pan. It's pretty simple, just cut out some parchment paper for the bottom of the pan and butter the whole thing so it cake doesn't stick. It's simple but for some reason I always hated that step as a kid and that just stuck with me.

The second is the stupid pre-sifting of the cake flour. You're supposed to sift some flour, then measure out your amount and then sift all the dry ingredients together. The problem is always trying to get the extra pre-sifted flour back into the tiny box the cake flour lives in without getting it everywhere. Somehow I managed to pre-sift just the right amount and didn't have to put any back. That never happens, it must be a birthday miracle.

Large bowl of flour, tiny box opening

Following my dad's recipes is always fun because he takes a recipe but then he annotates it which is pretty helpful. Especially since it's been a while since I've made this cake or the frosting. The cake was easy but the frosting can be tricky sometimes. It's the neoclassic buttercream recipe from the Cake Bible . Seriously, if you're going to make buttercream use this recipe, it's amazing. You can add lemon curd for lemon frosting, or baker's chocolate and a shot of espresso for the best chocolate buttercream you've ever had.  It can be a little bit finicky if you haven't made it a 100 times so I found myself lecturing cooper (who was in the living room) about technique as I worked. And of course I kept texting my dad with questions, who luckily knew exactly what I was asking and the best answer (we've made this a lot, did I mention that?). So it came out great. If you are making this frosting the main trick is how to work with the corn syrup and mostly the key is to just immerse whatever had corn syrup on it in boiling hot water immediately for easy cleaning. Otherwise it'll turn into cement on your cooking implements.

The cake turned out great. And the frosting did too.

Prepared or storage

I've wrapped up the cakes and frosting and I'm keeping them in the fridge to assemble on the actual birthday day.

Cooper was totally into the cake, which I thought was funny. Maybe it's just because we always buy cakes now but he seemed very impressed at my baking prowess. I'm glad he likes the cake because this is part of what my dad is making for the wedding. My dad is going to make our traditional chocolate cake as our wedding cake, and do a couple of small poppyseed lemon cakes for other flavors for the non-chocolate eaters. I was so touched when my dad offered to make the cake for us. He's done it before (I've helped him in fact), make a wedding cake that is. He's got all the rounds and the tiers. So we'll have a round tiered cake to display and some sheet cakes in the back for more caking. It'll be great since it's the cake of my childhood and from my grandma's recipe etc. So yeah, birthday cake means a lot of me. And I have a lot of things to say about it apparently haha.  

Home again- now featuring salsa dancing!

I just got home from a quick trip up to Seattle for a job interview.

I used to do that drive all the time for undergrad and then when Cooper was still loving in Washington but I'd forgotten how long it actually is when you're driving by yourself. It went pretty smoothly though and I made it on time despite some traffic. The interview went well but it was short considering how far I drove. It was only 1/2 hour.

But my first interview was shorter and they're moving my application forward with a back ground check so that's cool.

After the interview I met up with my cousin and hung out until his girlfriend got home and we went to dinner. Mostly I was willing to drive up for an interview so I could then eat my way across Seattle (as usual). We had delicious asian food at Boom Noodle which has finally moved back to Capital Hill from the U district. We would eat there every time we visited Seattle during my under grad days.

Then for breakfast/lunch (at like 11) we went to a place called Jack's for BBQ. It was awesome. I don't usually like dry rub ribs but they were do delicious they didn't need any sauce. And the Mac n cheese was soooooo good and cheesy. I totally don't regret that we didn't do dim sum (which is what we normally do when we visit). If we move to Seattle I'm going to get so fat.

Then when I got back home Cooper and I went to a free salsa dancing class over at the university. We were late but the people were super nice and caught us up on the lesson. We weren't very good at it but it was a lot of fun. I took a ballroom dancing class in undergrad and had a ton of fun with it som I'm stoked to have found this. Even though I'm not a student they'll still let us come (it's like $5) and they do it every Friday night. A lesson and then a social dance with a bunch of different dance styles. Cooper enjoyed himself too so hopefully I can convince him to go back. I'm definitely going back when it's time for the Waltz lessons since I wanna do that at the wedding.

Stitch dictionaries

You guys, how is it possible that I've never used a stitch dictionary before? They're awesome.

For those who don't know it's basically just a reference book with a library of different stitch patterns, from knit/purl combos to color work, lace, and cables. Pretty much everything.

There are a few different things I've knit a ton of and understand the basic construction (hats, scarves, socks, shawls, mittens, etc) that I look for patterns to add the interesting designs but still sometimes can't find just what I'm looking for. This is where the stitch dictionary comes in. Peruse the book, pick a stitch, add it in and voila new custom pattern. That's the great thing about knitting, it's been around so long there is no need to reinvent the wheel every time. Obviously not every possible combination of stitches is in any one dictionary but it's a great jumping off point.

I now want to find something to add zigzags or diagonal stripes to

So today I charted up a diamond lace pattern to make a simple lace scarf. The hardest part was finding a good knitting font so I could make the knitting symbols in excel. I used this font, if you're looking for one. I added a little bit of stockinet background, a border, and presto I have a scarf pattern to use for Alex's matching scarf. I'll probably write it up and put it on Ravelry as a free pattern just for fun since I've already done the hard work. I think I'm also going to try and do a new men's sock pattern since I'm bored with the vanilla latte socks. Basically I've just realized (for like the millionth time when it comes to knitting) all the possibilities out there for me even though I'm not super creative.