Springtime!

Sorry I haven't updated in so long. It's been rather a busy couple of months!

First of all, about 5 days after my last post, I was offered a great job in a small law firm! So now I'm a legal secretary and in charge of all the personal injury and medical malpractice cases. I'm really loving it so far, especially the small size and friendliness of the firm. The only downside is that work really cuts into my knitting time, so I don't have much to show for the last two months of not posting.

Second of all, Walker and I adopted a new kitty! We adopted her from a shelter, she's about seven months old and her name is Branwen:

Isn't she adorable? We're hoping she'll make a good playmate for Jericho and are working on the adjustment phase while Walker's looking for a job. (He's been having a little bit of luck with that lately, actually! He had a substitute teaching gig last week and is editing a book for a family friend, yay!) So far, she's still a little skittish, but she's getting more adventurous by the day and we suspect that she actually plays with Jericho at night, when she knows were not there to see it happen. She tries to be dignified, but we know the truth!

Thirdly, wedding plans are coming along nicely! We hit the 6-month mark last week and booked a photographer and picked a florist. We've also received the finished invitations, so you should be expecting your save-the-dates soon! So exciting!

Now, knitting:

Because I promised Charlotte a hat, here it is:It's a little bit long, but I really love the pattern! If you love it, I will be very happy to send it to you (you might have to tell me what your address is again). If you don't, I can try to make my first sale on the website that was recently brought to my attention: http://www.etsy.com/ (I hope to also sell the baby sweater I'm working on here when I finish it). The yarn I used is also a little bit yucky, since I thought I'd try acrylic again to see if I was being a snob over nothing. Turns out I still don't like acrylic yarn.

Which is too bad since I bought enough of it to make me a lovely pink sweater:

This is a slight variation on the Ramona sweater in the Sensual Knits book. The original design is by (Yahaira Ferreira), but I changed the center seam to a cable instead of having to knit it like a cardigan and then sew the front together. That was more me being lazy and not wanting to spend too much time working with acrylics since knitting in the round goes a lot faster for me. I also brought the armpits up a little and nipped the waist in a bit. I really like the way the sweater turned out--it fits really well. I just wish I'd used a different yarn.The other reason I bought the acrylic yarn is that it's a really good choice for baby clothing since very often wool irritates their sensitive skin. I'm trying my hand at a little designing, leaning heavily on The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns by Interweave Press for measurement suggestions since I have no idea how big babies are. The rest of it, including the little boat pattern, is all me, though:

I hope this turns out to be cute and fits some adorable baby! I finished the back of it and am about halfway through the front and then the sleeves and finishing should be pretty easy. There should also be plenty for making matching booties! I have no idea how I would set a price for a handknit baby sweater--by the hour would be too much since I'm already at 4 hours and not even done with the torso. Any suggestions; I am fairly new at this selling game?

I'm also really sorry I haven't mailed you guys the items you've claimed. With the compiling of guest list addresses, they were handed over to my mother before I got the chance to mail them. So Christina and Sunmi, you might have to remind me where to send your things.

One more cute kitty picture:

-Allie

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!!

The day of love is upon us and of course I've made a few little goodies for the occasion:
I made Walker the little 'lovebug' and a few little stuffed hearts for my parents. A couple of them have faces on them, but that's a little hard to see in this photo. You just have to trust me.Our job situation hasn't really had any progress. We have a few prospects, but they're all moving at the speed of a molasses covered turtle. So hopefully I'll have some better news by my next post, but don't hold your breath. But that means that I've had plenty of time to knit!
I had some dk yarn kicking around and wanted to make some yummy gloves out of it, but couldn't find a pattern for dk-weight gloves, so I decided to try to write one. The one I managed to finish fits very well, but the one skein didn't quite cover both gloves, so I'll have to order another one...once I get around to doing that. So for now I have a glove and a half lying around. Once I work the kinks out of this pattern, I might get around to writing it out for various sizes and post it here!
I did manage to finish some other handwarmers, though! With some more leftover Christmas yarn, I did another pattern out of the Selvubotter book, but this one is for little girls. So if you know any cold little girls, let me know.Alternatively, if you know any medium-sized girls (or boys) whose hands are chilly, they might also be in luck. With some leftover white yarn from mom's Scandanavian scarf, I made some cute cabley mittens.So now all of my yarn is gone, except for that last half ball of bamboo yarn, which is turning nicely into the forest park scarf, which I found in the Designer One Skein Wonders book (as well as the cable mittens, actually). I made some modifications, like I made it one repeat wider, so I'll be able to block it between 12-16" wide and I'm not going to use the same edging. I won't put any edging along the sides and at the ends, I'm going to put in Pinapple Lace Edging. I'm about halfway through the body pattern (shown below) and then will put on the edging. I think it will end up being 5 1/2 feet long, but that kind of depends on how long the yarn allows for.After that, though, the knitting basket is empty: no more yarn. I will have to order one more skein of elegance to finish those gloves, but after that, I just don't know. I will try to write that pattern for Christina (once she gets me her measurements!) and then I guess I'll just get a lot of reading done. We'll see!
Here's Jericho, looking very comfy in Walker's lap, to wrap things up!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

-Allie

Maine!

Yay, we're finally in Maine! We've got everything moved in and put away and you can see some pictures of the apartment here. No jobs yet, but I'm sure we'll find something soon. The temp agency says they're working hard to find us something, anyway. As you can tell, I've gotten quite a bit of knitting done since my last post. So much for posting more often. Sorry :-/

I recently came to the conclusion that the hat I made for myself last fall makes me look like a pinhead. So I tried to make myself a beret and pretty much failed. I think my head's just too fat. Instead, I ended up making this folded brim number, based loosely on Knitty's Coronet hat, but bigger and with a different cable pattern on the brim, which is a little tough to make out in this picture.It's a little bit big, but that means, no more hathead! I'm in love with this yarn, too. If it wasn't so expensive, I'd make everything in Knitpicks' elegance yarn!
I mentioned in the last post that I would be making my mother a scarf to match the gloves I made her for Christmas, well here it is!It's pretty much just a big scarfy tube with part of the glove chart stuck on it and with the ends sewn together. Mom loves it, so it's a success in my book.

Now for the stash-busting. I still had a lot of fingering weight yarn left, but not much in any one color. So I made these little stripey socks in an attempt to kill a couple skeins. I think I'm going to mail these to a friend of mine.Unfortunately, they were unable to kill my remaining fingering weight yarn, so as usual with little scraps of yarn, I made this adorable trio of cat toys. Left to right: Asparagus man, Mr. Stegs, and Morlock.And Mr. Stegs from the side:

Our naughty kitty is so lucky he can benefit from my yarn scraps! Now all of my fingering weight yarn is left, a couple skeins of worsted (future mittens and valentines miscellany), one of dk (future gloves, elegance!), and that remaining ball of bamboo lace. I swear, this time, I'm really going to get back to working on the Seascape Shawl! I mean it!

Sorry, no pictures of kitties in the beret. It's too big for Jericho and Fatty flipped out when I tried to put it on him :( Also, if there was anything in the previous post that you would like, (as in the Alaska Hat, Vespergyle Mittens, washcloth, or cat beret) you're absolutely welcome to them. I have no idea what to do with them and don't really want to just donate them to charity.

Jericho will wrap things up for me with his customary shot of cuteness.

Cheers!