Long Time, No See

Wow! I haven't posted in nearly a year.

I finished off a second lace shawl in that time, but I don't have many pictures of it available. It's a fine silver-white and didn't show up well against my white skin and white dress.

However, since my lace knitting has been lagging (as lace often does), I picked up a copy of Knitting Circles Around Socks and have cast on my first pair of socks.

I'm crossing my fingers that this will go as well as my adventures in lace knitting - expect pictures soon!

Sleep Is for the Weak

Valentine's Day has come and gone in a blur of chocolate and singleness. I make no bones, I hate that holiday. On the other hand, a friend, D the Mad Scientist, and I split some sale soap from Etsy with goat's milk and tea, so it wasn't a total failure. And I picked up two new knitting bags from Etsy as well - totally smooth fabric on the inside so the dread lace weight alpaca has nothing to catch on. (I thought I might need to shoot myself before I got the bags.)

I haven't posted much because I've been bogged down with the flu and five classes. (And a thesis. O hai thesis. What's that? I need to be chained to my desk in the library away from my needles and computer? Marco Polo, you are an abusive boyfriend.) I love all my classes, but this really is academic suicide. The only thing keeping me bouyant at the moment is the wonderfulness of my professors. (Especially the comparative literature one who helped me find thesis books the library told me didn't exist in the world, never mind our databases.)

I finished the May Day shawl. The Gooseberry Pie shawl is the works. Elena's hat should be finished but the brim is DRIVING ME NUTS. I've done this pattern before - how is the brim giving me this much trouble?

The local yarn shop had a sale (*swoon*) so C the Devious Medievalist and I both scored JaggerSpun Zephyr (for less than $10 a lace weight skein how could we not?). I might have been a very very bad person and a very very good shopper and scouted out the yarn I wanted (and maybe... hid it) the day before the sale. Maybe. I might admit to that. In any case, I ought to get out her two skeins of Juniper and make her shawl for when she studies in France. (No study abroad is complete without a handmade lace shawl from a best friend.) I need to find a simple pattern to get her addicted to lace for the other two skeins (Deep Purple) she bought. My Juniper is going to go to a Litla Dimun shawl for myself. I'm thinking about making Elizabeth I scarves for myself and my mother from the Admiral. Gods, I wish I had a digital camera so I could cover this page in the glory that is JaggerSpun Zephyr. Though, I do need to figure out how to block it since it is dry clean only. (Curse your beautiful beautiful dry clean only ways, my soft rich yarn.)

I need to frog that shawl that's been hanging out on the window sill since October and do something with it. I'm thinking, the Aran Pocket Shawl from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls. I think that'd look good in blue tweed (certainly better than the Thing in the Corner which is theoretically pretty but I am sick of). I don't know who would wear a bright blue tweed stole, but I'm sure that if I make it I can find someone.

The real question here is whether I can find the time to reteach myself the bodhran and knit my dad a ski cap for his birthday before Marco Polo kills me with his Mongol hordes. (Else, my drum is going to get dusty again and my dad is going to get a five course meal for his birthday. Personally, I think a hat is a better gift as it last longer, but...)

And I need to find the time (maybe I can just stop sleeping...) and write out the short story ideas that Piers Plowman is giving me. Surreal horror with the Virtues as the bad guys. And maybe zombies. How awesome would that be?

Shawls

Well, I have made it back to school alive, though the heat in my room is not working properly for the third day now. (This is exciting.) It is better now than it was when I arrived on Saturday, wherein my hands went numb as I attempted to unpack because it was as cold in my room as it was outside. (And even though this is Philadelphia and I would probably combust if I tried to live here in the summer, January can still numb you.)

I finished knitting and blocking the Kureyon Sock Bigfoot Shawl:



As my first lace shawl, I am quite proud.

I have also started a Water Turtles Shawl in Knitpick's Palette Mist for May Day. If it's not done by then (and hopefully it should, since I am starting it in January), I'll wear Rainbow Doom, but I'd like to wear a more May Day appropriate one. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what colour mist is.

I've also started the Gooseberry Pie Shawl for my mother. And I need to rip out my Martha Tam and do it all over because my gauge failed in astronomical ways, but I am too frustrated with it at the moment. It might have to wait until February to be ripped.

School starts up tomorrow, and I am quite excited. Spanish and Geology I am less excited about, though the Spanish feeling will probably change when I get in the classroom again. I like the language quite a bit and I do love trying to figure it out with French and Latin. Geology I am ambivalent about because it is a science. Sciences here are so designed for science majors. But I have been assured that this is a good class. Of course, I am excited about thesising (Marco Polo and Italy and China, oh my! I ought to find some corresponding crafty project...) and Piers Plowman.

I also have such plans for the club. We are going to host the Philadelphia Reads raffle fund raiser and book drive, which should be fun and make us feel like we're a part of the greater Philadelphia community, which I feel many people on this campus don't have. And then there's the tea, where we will have tea and fresh scones and sci-fi movies. I'm organising a set of theme discussions for our dinner meetings and I'll have to find a good time for our Radio Listening Hour because I have our OTRCat order. So many old radio shows! How will I choose?