I’m baaaaaaaaaack.

I know… I’ve been MIA for what almost 3 months now?  Gasp!  Knitting has been uneventful for blogging purposes.  I’ve been knitting like crazy yes, but they were all test knits.  And OMG I love the yarn Unique Sheep sells.  So if you ever need to go binge, I highly recommend.  If you google The Unique Sheep you should find them.  I’m too lazy to toss a link up right now.

What else is new?  Well I did get a job, and it was in SC, so I packed up all my junk and moved down.  Well, not all my junk, just enough to get by for a year.  Currently staying with my aunt down here, so really didn’t have the room to bring the entire stash.  For that reason a good chunk of it was left at home in Ohio.  So, when next summer rolls around and I have some free time, I’ll probably head back home and pack up the rest of the stuff I *need* to survive.
School starts next week, so life is very very busy.  The current test knit needs to be done by the end of the month, and it’s fair isle so I’m really pushing myself. hehe.  Shouldn’t take too long, just so busy with life and all.  Once that’s done I think I’ll be taking a break from test knitting that way I can focus on school and knit my own stuff for a bit.

I promise to write sooner rather than later!  If you ever need anything just toss an e-mail or I’m on AOL Instant Messenger, so send me an e-mail if you want me to add you on AIM.

Oh! And although I’m still in the red as far as yarn stash is concerned it is down 47g!  About 33 of that was from a washcloth I never photographed when finishing, and the other 14 came from tossing a small minuscule amount of dishcloth yarn when I was cleaning in my room.   There was so little there, it wasn’t even worth keeping.  Yay for de-cluttering a bit!

EEK!

I finished the acrylic scarf for charity, so another 141g of yarn came outta the stash. (YAY!) I have two huge portfolios due on Tuesday so no time to take pictures and do a proper blog now.

Also… I may have bought a loom. (eeek!) So freaking excited. lol.

OMG it’s March.

Where the heck did January and February go?

More puppy pictures were requested, and I have a few more for ya today.  These were from back in December after we got him.  So he was about 8 weeks old in these photos.  I haven’t gotten any more recent ones because my camera batteries suck and don’t stay charged for more than 10 minutes.  However, my boyfriend came to the rescue and gave me two new batteries.  hehe.  YAY!

We put him on the bench that sits on the fireplace.  We were being cute. 

Of course he didn’t stay on the bench very long, and he proceeded to jump OFF the fireplace after this photo was taken.  You can see my spinny wheel in the background off to the right.  Should help give you some idea of size.  Tiny, tiny puppy.
He weighed about 2.5lbs when these photos were taken, and since then he’s grown to about 6.5-7lbs.  He’s definitely getting bigger.  We attack the cats now, and jump onto the fireplace all by ourselves.  He is also completely and utterly terrified of cars, and because of that does NOT want to go for walks outside, especially when those walks are in the street.  HECK NO.  It’s so funny.  If it’s nice and hasn’t rained, he loves walking in the back yard, but that road is scaaaaaaary.

I’m hoping to get some more pics of him soon so you can see how much he’s grown.  He’s definitely still a puppy, but he’s growing into his body a little better.

My new years resolutions are still going well.  My weight has gone down, and I have been skating when I’m not sick.  For some reason I’m getting sick ALL the time now, but that might be because of student teaching.  All the kids are sick one week, and I’m sick the next, then the pattern just repeats and repeats and repeats.  The yarn diet?  Well I haven’t bought ANY yarn.  I’ve been good.   HOWEVER, my boyfriend has been driving to Pittsburgh to pick up things his great grandfather has been getting rid of… and somehow my yarnstash has increased as a result.  (picture an annoyed smiley)  So I have 3 skeins of acrylic that popped into the stash.  Really it’s not too much, but seeing as how I’ve had like zero knitting time, it’s a big jump, especially when I’m not allowed to buy anything till I’ve used stuff.  This yarn is like a step in the wrong direction.  So what am I doing?  Well, I’m going to crochet it into charity stuff.  muahahaha.  I’m going to start a scarf out of the one skein today, and just work down that stuff first.  It’ll be nice to work with some worsted weight stuff.

Stash Update 2009-01

Stash Update 2009 #1!

Well I guess with the new year, and the new stash resolutions, I guess I’ve changed the yarn diet a bit. I said back in August that I wouldn’t buy any yarn till I graduated; however, I did buy some with the LYS gift certificate I got for my Birthday back in November. A goal of buying “no” y arn is ridiculous, and I’m glad I’ve changed it to something a little more sensible.

So now I can buy yarn iff (that’s if and only if for all you non mathy people) I use up stash, and I can only buy up to the amount I’ve used.

AKA. whatever I buy when added to the stash means the stash has to be less than or equal to what it was when the year started.   (I currently have 23,758g in the yarn stash and 334.7oz in the fiber stash.)  Of course I’m going by total stash, so if I decrease the yarn stash a bunch I can increase the fiber stash if I want.

Of course my original diet of not buying anything till I graduate will probably hold, because 1 month after graduation is the Great Lakes Fiber Fest and I *plan* on buying something when I’m there.  The more I use up now, the more I can buy then.

Oh, and can I mention how nice it was to change my stats on the yarn diet in the side pannel so now I’m technically out of the red?  hehe.

Resolutions.

Of course with a new year, comes New Year’s Resolutions! I have resolutions! lol.

1. Don’t let the stash grow! – I’m a busy person, so I don’t care if it really shrinks, but I can’t let it get any bigger. I’ll let myself buy yarn as long as I’ve used yarn.
2. Lose Weight – It’s definitely a common resolution, but one that I definitely need to do. The goal is 21 lbs. I’m hoping to lose more of course, but I think 21 is something fairly realistic for a year.
3. SKATE. – So back in September I lost all remaining sanity and decided I wanted to play a sport, roller derby to be more exact. Obviously it’s been a struggle because I wasn’t in the most fabulous shape to begin with, but I have improved. Honestly, I didn’t realize how much I improved until we went on Christmas break and I didn’t go near my skates for two weeks. When I got back on my skates for practice last night, I put all my gear on, stood up and promptly fell down, twice. Apparently my feet forgot what skates were like. The big thing with skating is that I want to keep a positive attitude. I know attitude will get me going and keep me going.
4. Be Happy! – I’m going to try not to stress and enjoy life. Sounds hard huh? lol. I need to stop procrastinating and just live life to the fullest. I want to be happy and comfortable in my skin.

So how about you? Any of you make any good resolutions?

Where did 2008 go?

It’s been forever since I’ve blogged consistently, and honestly, I miss it.  It just seems like I haven’t been able to find the time to update like I want.  After finals week last semester I had big plans to blog more and actually had 2 or 3 posts already planned out in my head.  I was going to post projects I was knitting for Christmas but then… we got a puppy.

Yes, a puppy. A bout 3 weeks ago my mom went shopping with my grandma, and as they drove past a cute little dog boutique they stopped.  The store had a sign saying they had puppies and so my mom wanted to just go “look.”  This of course was the beginning of the end.

The puppies, were Dachshunds, a favorite breed of our family.  Of course.  There were two 8 week old puppies.  One was a short-haired runt of the litter, black with brown on his paws, eyebrows, stomach and mouth.  The other was a long-haired with lots of different colors.  He of course was much bigger than his little brother.

So my mom called me up to ask if I’d house-break him for her while I was home for Christmas Break.  Honestly, did she think I’d say no?  I’d been begging for a dog for a few years now and the only thing stopping me had been my parents.

Of course she bought the runt, mostly because he really likes to cuddle.  He loves to sit on your shoulder and snuggle up against your neck.  So of course, when he sleeps I can get online, but it isn’t easy to type with a dog on your shoulder.  And when he’s awake, we have to watch him constantly, mostly because he isn’t house broken yet.

We’ve been working on the crate training thing, but it’s definitely difficult to do at night.  He doesn’t seem to mind the crate so much if we’re not home, but when we’re there, he wants to be with us.  Also, he’s apparently decided I’m his favorite person in the world, probably because his first 3 weeks with us were spent with me all day because I was home from school.  Now, if I’m in the living room with the family, he will not rest unless he’s on my lap.  So I’m now trying to stay more to my room when I can, to spend time with my kitty.  Poor kitty went to the vet’s about a week ago for more shots and has been tearing his fur out ever since.  He’s reacted before to shots, so we think it started because of the shot, but I have a feeling it’s continuing because he’s angry at my lack of time with him, or boredom.  He can’t hate the puppy that much since he sat next to me on the couch today while the puppy napped in my lap.  Who knows…

Today, class started back up.  Well, sorta.  I’m student teaching this semester, so it’s definitely different from the norm.  My first full week is observing the class, so today I had a blast watching 4 out of 6 classes take a test, and tomorrow, I get to do the same thing!  Then, on Wednesday and Thursday, the other 2 classes will be taking a different test!  lol.  It’s funny, but I enjoy it.  It’s so hard to believe that I’m almost done with school, but I’m excited.  I can’t wait to graduate so I can be a real adult.  For some reason I feel that graduating and making more than $100 a month will make me a real adult.  haha.

Of course, it’s January, and I’ve made some resoultions.  I think I’ll save that for another post since I’ve babbled enough for today.

B-day Stash Enhancement

I mentioned that I got some extra yarn in the last post for my Birthday and I figured it was time to post some pictures and acknowledge it’s existence in my stash. 

I had been drooling over the Harry Potter Opal since I knew it was coming out, and when I got the gift certificate I knew exactly what the money was going to be spent on.   I’m on a yarn diet of course, but I figured the gift cert definitely could be used on yarn without breaking said diet, since it wasn’t really my money being spent.

The skein on the left is Tonks.  It’s my favorite.  Bright, pink, yellow… mmm.  The one on the right is Harry.  In all honesty after picking Tonks I had no idea what others I really wanted, but I figured since it was Harry Potter themed yarn I must get the color Harry.  Heck, I would have bought all of them if I had unlimited cash.  My LYS rocks.  She still had all 8 colors in stock so I got my pick of colors.   I love the LYS so much.  haha.

December Stash Update!

Guess who’s 10 days late in doing her stash update for December? hehe.

Yarn: 23658g (+1441 g)

Fiber: 334.7 oz (+137.4 oz)

The fiber stash is down from 343.2 to 334.7! A whole 8.5oz. Obviously from the Crown Mountain Farms I spun up.
The yarn stash…. is up. From 23647 to 23658. So it’s up 11g this month. Which if you didn’t know is not even half an ounce, so really it isn’t a big deal. The reason for the raise? I had a birthday. For my birthday I received a lovely gift cert to the LYS and some cash. Of course the gift cert had to be spent and I spent a little of my own money as to not have money left over on the gift cert. So I got two skeins of something…

I’ll post with pics tomorrow.

I’ve been missing blogging a lot. School does that to me, but I’m done for the semester. So I’m going to try to get back into it.

I’ve got posts planned for the next two days. Hope you’re all thrilled. lol.

Finished BSJ and Handspun!

Yea, It’s been awhile since I posted.  lol.  Almost a whole month actually.  Oops?
Things have been semi-crazy around here.  I went to a giant service project/convention thing from August 2nd through 9th.  So that’s part of the reason I was MIA.  That’s why I didn’t post my yarn diet update at the begining of August.  So I *tried* to do the Ravelympics thing.  I was going to finish some WIPs, but my Muscari socks took a LOT longer than I expected.  I finished one of the socks!  Hehe, but I’m still working on the second.

Before I left I did finish some things up though.
First I finished the BSJ!  As you may notice it has no buttons.  I figure since I’ve got no recipient in mind, I’ll wait till there’s a baby so I can customize the buttons to it.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that pattern. I used the TLC Cotton Plus yarn that was leftover from the baby blanket I finished recently. Good news is I have enough left for like another 3 BSJs! Haha. If you want more details for the BSJ check out my ravelry page.

Also recently completed:

Handspun! From the coopworth fleece I bought. Hurray for getting some of it spun up. lol.

WIPs and FOs!

Well, I also promised a post with WIPs and some of the recent FOs of mine.

Well here it goes!

First off I finished another scarf for charity. YAY for another 4oz of yarn GONE from my acrylic stash.  After finishing this one I cast on another in a blue color that was also lurking in the stash.  Nothing beats a quick stash buster.

Also started and finished this week was a washcloth. My dad saw me working on some for my monthly dishcloth KAL and asked what they were and if he could use one instead of that “poofy thing” he uses in the shower. So that was started and finished! Very easy, quick pattern. I loved it. Thinking about doing another I enjoyed it so much.

Speaking of dishcloths I have pictures of the two I finished for my Monthly Dishcloth KAL.
July KAL:

This one is cute. Says “Love to Knit” on it. I like it.

Mid-July KAL:

This dishcloth I’m not a big fan of. It’s just small. Not only is it small, but the border on the one edge isn’t even symmetric with the other border! I thought about changing the pattern, but to me that defeats the point of the KAL. For me I use these KALs to bust some of the cotton stash and hey, it’s a quick gift if it’s cute.

Also

I started my Socknitters Sock A Month KAL. I’ve been in this group for awhile now but never did the KAL just for a lack of time. So I thought I would do the July/August KAL.

Oh… and I’m using the leftovers from the Noah’s Ark Baby Blanket to make some BSJs! I’m super excited. The pattern is a bit confusing, but overall it’s not too bad. Well. That’s it for what I’ve been up to.