Last time you saw me, I was at Rhinebeck in October. What.

November
I wrote a novel: ongoing! Original goal of National Novel Writing Month is 50,000 words in 30 days. I have 90,000 now, after 3 months. It’s almost done. Sort of.

I finished Juno for my grandmother for Christmas.

10/21/09-11/13/09, Juno Regina in JL Yarn Vinca. Pink! Lauretta loved it. Blocked it on my shiny new blocking wires which were a fabulous birthday gift from my mum.

I finished my Clover socks.

Clover by Kate Blackburn, fun to knit, in my handdyed in a “gradient” that was actually just kind of mostly purple. Brand! New! Picture! I blame my lightless dorm room partly for why I don’t blog. Pictures are crap. Blah.

December
Socks for granddaddy:

“No one has ever paid such attention to my feet!” Dec 10-20, 2009. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in “China Blue.”

Clapotis for mom:
no picture! Sadpants.
Clapotis by Kate Gilbert, in BMFA Mediumweight “Tanzanite”: October 26-December 21, 2009. Purple! Shiny. Excellent.

Also in December was Finals Week and a personal ass-kicking, as well as winter break. I went home and promptly spent every day sleeping, writing, internetting, eating at weird hours, running occasionally in the mornings, and knitting. I ignored Daegmund the whole time and felt bad. Oh well. Made many plans. Spent time with friends. Enjoyed myself!

In January, I finished some Christmas presents, such as Dad’s gloves and Disco the hedgehog:

gloves by DROPS, 12/22/09-1/14/10, KnitPicks Gloss.

Hello terrible dorm picture! This was for Sarah. Smith by Ysolda Teague, with Cascade 220 and Berocco alpaca and fluff. 12/24/09-1/21/10.

The Whirlpool socks from my personal sock club got started and finished…

December 2, 2009 – January 3, 2010. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in “Lakeview,” plus beads!!!!!!!!

ALSO, my pride and joy of the month:

The motherfucking DNA hat.

LOL. omg. So excellent. I had to knit it three times because it was too small EVERY TIME. Fuck you colorwork. Whatever.

Anyway. In the end, successful. January 1-19, 2010, Cascade 220, no pattern, just the chart on my Ravelry page (above).

Finished winter break with a whole lot more of the same, and came back to school. Had an impromptu “airing of the stash” all over my bed.

Not bad, eh? Still not buying more yarn. I just need to not.

Oh, also forgot, new fun incarnation of the sock yarn blanket!

This one is the Ten Stitch Blanket that I saw Erin knitting and waaaaaaaaannntteddd. So I ripped out the squares and went to town.

I started two new pairs of socks, also. My shitty shitty photography does not do these two justice, because they are both SUPER AWESOME.

The first (started at home) is York and Lancaster by the Lisa Grossman (the Tsock Tsarina). I bought the kit at Rhinebeck, and I adore it. Except that it has colorwork and pattern and is WAY TOO HARD to work on while also taking notes in Organic Chem and Biology of Macromolecules. FUCK. I love these. They are not getting worked on. ;_;

Also, Viper Pilots, still super awesome, still too hard to work on and take notes. Wah! I want them. Yarn is Neota Designs Zephyr in “Mountain Majesty” or something. Estes Park.

AAAAAANNNDDDD finally, what I actually HAVE been working on because it was easy enough:
One Row Scarf and Fetchings for Mary in Malabrigo “Amoroso.” No picture because I can’t get my camera to acknowledge a) light or b) saturation, so fuck it. Whatever. It’s very red.

and technically I’m still working on my Bayerische socks, but remember when we talked about things being too hard to work on while note-taking? These are too brain-consuming to even work on while doing fuck-all else. What.

THE END

Welcome to February. See you guys in May, probably.

Or for Ravelympics, which at this point I’m participating in with my goal being KNIT ANYTHING EVER.

So, that happened. School’s been kicking my ass for 3+ months now. Awesome! I’m taking two lab sciences and a difficult math class, plus an anthro class, so basically I spend all my time doing work.

Except for in the month of November, when I spent all my time doing work so I could spend a few hours writing a novel between 11pm and 1am every day. I love my novel. No seriously. But I had to put it down until exams are over (December 18 please arrive soon).

But! Here’s what I’m really here for. I went to pick up my mail today and had a package. Not expecting any mail, I was surprised. When I was handed the package, I squished it a bit, confused, muttering, “This squishes like yarn.” (Quietly.)

(there was candy too, but I eated it)

I just wanted to send a giant thank you to Mandy. It’s been a rough week, and it’s going to keep being rough, but Mandy sent me two skeins of Peace Fleece in a yummy moss green and two patterns: Dinosaurs and Big Teddy with Overalls. Seriously. Thank you so much.

School has made me lose my mind for anything that isn’t Organic Chem or Genetics or Flux Integrals.

Thank you Mandy. Thank you so much.

LOL I just checked my Ravelry, and of course now I remember where this is from. MANDY! You rock hardcore. Thank you. I was all “mystery package yarn?!?!??!?!?” for a few hours today. Hah.

Oh, and I’ve knit some stuff. Or whatever.

Okay, first apologies for my extralong unplanned hiatus. This year has been outrageously busy; I barely have time to knit, let alone talk about it. Unf.

So, Rhinebeck. Last spring I missed the Maryland S&W for the spring festival here at school, so this year when fall break and Rhinebeck lined up, I was determined to go!

The Highlights
I finished my FLS in the car at a rest stop in New York on my way down from Vermont from visiting a friend. Sewed on the buttons in a parking lot!

Classy, no?

Animals!

Meeting up with old friends and making new friends!

The Ravelry party, no doubt.

So many knitters taking over!


(LOL)

Went back the second day for more animals and to purchase the yarn I’d fondled the day before.

Then I ran into Jody, go figure!

Too much fun.

So there’s my finished February Lady, as well as my Quincy and Esperanza hat and scarf set. Malabrigo. Awesome. I really love the Quincy (by Jared Flood) construction; it makes me feel incredibly intelligent as a knitter.

I’ve got my Christmas gifts in the works now… hopefully I can get them finished in time. Most of my knitting these days takes place in class because I don’t have time outside of class (!!!). Also, starting November 1st I’ll be working on another novel for NaNoWriMo, so that’ll be a giant time suck. I need to invent more hours in the day. Eep!

I’m finally knitting the February Lady Sweater, as planned. I’m knitting it in the Brooks Farm Four Play wool/silk blend that I tried to knit a sweater out of this spring, but failed. It’s knitting up beautifully now, and I’m psyched. I’m going to go visit my friend at Middlebury the week before, and then drive down to the festival and camp out in my car. =D It lines up perfectly with my fall break!

Okay, crap, I didn’t mean to leave this alone for two months, but many things happened since you last saw me!

So, since I last posted, I finished work and went on vacation, and then got back from vacation and went to school, and have been educating myself for four weeks. I have since struggled valiantly to keep up with my Google Reader, but right now, five whole weeks after getting home, I am still ~175 posts behind.

Before I left, I finished the Charade socks.

Start: May 26, 2009
End: July 31, 2009
Pattern: Charade
Yarn: Crash Into Ewe Merino Sock, in “Lady Sings the Blues”
Needles: US 2

Next were the Anastasia socks, which I started before we left as a new selection from my personal sock club.

Start: August 1, 2009
End: August 19, 2009
Pattern: Anastasia Socks
Yarn: Jojoland Melody
Needles: US 2

These were fun, and simple. I knit them all over the country!

I knit another pair while on vacation, and started another pair when I came up to school, but I haven’t taken pictures of them yet. Ack!

I’ve started to rethink my sock yarn blanket, too. I know, I’ve been working on the original since like, 2007, but I think this method might work better. It means I can use up every little scrap ever, and always be working on one piece, and not have to think about shaping too much.

It’s the Ten Stitch Blanket, inspired for me by Erin. I love the look of the mitered squares of the original blanket, but I think I’m going to like working on this one even better.

So, so far I’m just knitting what’s there, and I’ll see how quickly it grows, and how excellent it looks. So far so good.

Unf. October is almost here. I love October! Maybe we’ll get our regular I LOVE OCTOBER post on 10/1/09, but no promises. I have no goddamn time to do anything except problem sets and knit in class.

Charade socks are coming along– I’m past the heel turn by now, and have finished the gussets. Yesterday at work I separated them from one another and I am working them one at a time. Not that this is particularly logical, given that the repeat is so short row-wise, but they seem to go faster. Also one sock was less unwieldy than two yesterday when I was knitting AT WORK because it was SO SLOW, so there.

Sock yarn blanket has 1.5 new squares: the green one, and the teal one. I love this blanket. That is all.

Last, I’m about 12 or 13 rows from the bind-off of this shawl, but it’s SO BIG by now that each row takes me 45 minutes. Plus nupps. It’s lovely, though, and the only thing I’m worried about is the liiiiiiittle tiny ball of yarn that exists now. Hopefully it can carry me through.

Bayerische socks are abandoned, because they’re hard! There’s no convenient time or place to work on them. Bah. Qiviut cowl is coming along, slowly but surely. It’s about 3/4 of the way done.

Today, I’m working at the LYS, and may have convinced one of the ladies from real!work to come in and learn how to knit. Hooray!