knitting with new needles

It's a new year and I thought I would share about my beautiful Christmas presents! My new hubby was a good boy, and got me stuff on my list.
What was under my tree this year?
- Knit Picks Interchangeable Knitting Needles
- Knit Picks Interchangeable Wooden Knitting Needles
- Jan Messent's Knit a Fantasy Story by Jan Messent
- a vacuum cleaner (it was on the list, and it totally rocks)

My knit picks needles are super impressive. They are comfortable, the super flexible cables allow me to make anything without the extra strain on my wrists, and they are sooo pretty!

Hubby also took me to the Cultured Purl in Erie, PA. This was a great visit, and I got some lovely sock weight yarns to make Maja. I am not sure it will work, but I am going to give it a try.

I also made hubby a pair of warm gloves for removing snow from the car, and am working on a crochet scarf for my sister. My mom's February Lady Sweater is moving along at a snail's pace. This is, of course my fault, for giving in to the Siren song of much quicker projects - like gloves, scarves, mittens, and hats. So much for the Christmas Deadline I gave myself.

Hopefully I will move ahead with that project, now that life should quiet down a bit. The holidays definitely had me moving in 4 different directions all the time.

Pictures are of the hat I knit for the Hat Attack 2! competition and my sister's birthday gift. The brown and mint is the competition hat, and the blue is Kari's requested present. Pretty awesome :) Oh, yea, I dyed the blue yarn myself. The brown and mint is Therapi from SWTC. I don't recommend it.

That's all for now! Happy New Year to us all!

Socks are Done!

I am being relatively productive lately! It's rather a relief to have them done, completely. But I will say that this method of sock making is wonderful! I really hope I get the Cat Bordhi book for my birthday, so i can make socks like a mad woman. I am severely tempted to start a new pair... but before I go on about that... here are some awful pictures of the finished products. Do me a favor and just enjoy that the socks are done.... cus the pictures really suck.





I am also contemplating making myself another cardigan. I love the blue one, but it is such a particular color that it doesn't match many of the clothes I wear. I am considering this cardigan from Knitty. I have some lovely plum colored yarn from China, my friend Arpad brought back for me. The only problem is that there is only 500 yards... and the pattern is calling for about 565. My assumption is that it won't really end up mattering all that much... but who knows. I have to get gauge (and then maintain it) first.

not so much

Feeling pretty crappy right now. Missing my trucking beau a bit more than I would like. It's good that I miss him, but I wish I could turn off the loneliness feeling sometimes. Right now, I am letting school and knitting and work keep me busy. My boss is working on a new book right now, so I am very excited because I get to put it all together, and get templates set up for InDesign and make the equations pop in the right spots... :) So that is generally a thing to be excited about.

My Tolstoy class is making me fall in love with Leo Tolstoy. The short stories were not fun, but Anna Karenina is rather interesting, and shows what an excellent writer Tolstoy is. Long winded, to be sure, but excellent, none the less.

And knitting has been actually accomplishing something recently.
This is a gift for Brian's friends, they just had a baby girl. She was born about a month ago, but it will still be useful! I have to contact them to get together and give the blanket to her. Hopefully, it will be well received.

I have been working on this silly hat for a while. It is a tam from Knitty... unfortunately, I am not that happy with it either. I think it has more to do with my dissatisfaction with the black yarn... it doesn't feel so nice. I can't wait to get to the petals, though, those will be much prettier, easier, and appealing to work on.

Finally some mom socks. I got this Cascade yarn on sale at Anna Banana & From Her Hands. She told me recently that they can be shorter than I am used to. Hopefully they will be done soon. I am knitting them top down on one long addi turbo, size 0, I think.

I am hoping I feel better emotionally, soon... it's not easy being so far from Brian all the time...

it hasn't even been a month yet!

I would really like to be more accountable for my atrocious knitting habits... I was listening to the Lime and Violet podcast and realized that I probably have at least as many UFO's as Violet does. I think that is... impressive. Maybe "impressive" isn't the right word. I should probably do something about that... but I just keep putting it off, and casting on new things. (for instance, last night I wanted to make socks. Now rather than just pick up the yarn for a mate to sock 1, completed in September, I think; I just found new yarn and started a new sock.... yea, that is smart)

i haven't spun in ages either. I could blame it on a number of things that are going on in my life, but it is probably mostly due to laziness. When I am free, I just want to veg out and watch TV or peruse the internet. I will probably pick it back up soon... because I do miss it; but I also want to take a class or two so that I feel more confident about what I am actually doing.

In other news, I have become obsessed with obtaining New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi. I have two problems in this regard. 1. it costs money. 2. It costs money. Right now, things are tight, and extra money is a rare commodity. I owe my dear friend arpad 2 steak dinners about now, for all the times he has covered me... and it has been hard. So i can't justify spending $30 dollars I don't have.... BUT I WANT THE BOOK...

It is coveteousness... it really is. :(

Now for pretty pictures. Here are the mittens I made for Lizzy and Audrey from church. they haven't seen them yet, so don't spoil the surprise!

Mission: Possible 2008

Ok, so random blogging, but I really like this idea... Julie from Moth Heaven posted about it. It's called Mission: Possible 2008. I guess you figure out what 12 ufo's you have, and you get to it; committing to one UFO per month. I guess you can do more with this... learn new skills and all, but I prefer just to stick to the UFO problem. I have plenty of those.

1. Amigurumi Doll... I have 2 legs, and the start of a body.
2. knitted gloves posted on ravelry
3. mom's jungle socks (One is almost done... )
4. Judy's Celtic shawl... started but not worked on recently
....
Right now that is all I can think of that I actually intend to finish; however, I know that there are many more. I will post them as I come up with them!

fabulous banana bread

A few weeks ago, when i was sick, Brian brought me some Bananas. He got funky little bananas; they were cheap, and there were a lot of them. They were called Nino bananas. Now bananas are not something I enjoy a lot, and I tried this banana, and it was just too sweet for me.
Brian wasn't happy with it either, thinking that it was a grassy banana.

It didn't take long for the bananas to darken, so we decided to make banana bread, and it is highly praised. There were about 12-14 bananas on the bunch, so I made a big batch.

fabulous banana bread!

2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 cups margarine
4 eggs
8 cups of flour
4 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
grated cinnimon (off of a stick)
shake or 3 of salt
3-4 cups mashed nino bananas
1/4 cup milk

Cream sugars and margarine. Add eggs and mix in. In a separate big, big bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and spices. Mix together.
You can mash banana's by hand; or you can use a blender or magic bullet. Add the 1/4 cup milk to bananas to add some hydration. (I really pureed my bananas to death.) Mix into wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until blended.
Grease and flour several pans; I made 5 mini loaves, 2 regular sized loaves, and 1 big loaf of banana bread; all of the loaf pans were the disposable aluminum pans from the store. Fill loaf pans 1/2 to 3/4 and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour.

If you make it, let me know if you like it!

i finally found my camera batteries and charger

but don't think that means you'll get pictures. because while I have all that awesome stuff, it's not with me. Maybe you'll get a shitty computer-camera pic.... I'll check and see what I can find.
Anyway let me explain what I am showing you. First up is the hat I made using the StepYou are so lucky! You get halfway decent photos today. But only half way- don't be expecting too much! I'm having that time of the month. hanie Pearl-McPhee pattern. It is the second hat dubbed "tele-tubby" by friends (read: jerks). I got a bunch of heavy thick acrylic yarns from Jen, and honestly what better way to use them then to make big pretty hats and give them to charity. I only wish I could dye acrylic... the white is so... boring.
Second up we have a picture of the poncho/prayer shawl I am working on for a friend of the family. She requested a poncho eons ago, and I agreed to make it... but the yarn is aweful, and I can't bear to work with it. So, instead, I found some offwhite wool and dyed it the right-ish color. I love it. My mom thinks it's perfect, so hopefully our friend will love it too. I am making a centered cable down the front that will be the center of the cape/poncho/shawl and my idea is for the cape to open with buttons at the front.
Next up is my new favorite project. I found it on Ravelry first. It is simply called "Hand Painted Gloves" but it should be called, SUPER AWESOME Fun time! Because I am so inspired and excited. I bought the pattern on etsy almost immediately after seeing it because I was so enamored. And Karen, the designer is super awesome too! She was so nice, and the layout of the pattern is so cute! Very well produced, and very much worth the cost. What really really drew me to this pattern was the fingers. They are so detailed!
Then I found the KAL and realized all the things I could do with this lovely pattern using different yarns... I went stash diving and realized that I purchase handpainted multicolored yarns, almost exclusively. Rarely do I get solids... and so I justified another trip to the yarn shop. The green yarn has aloe vera in it, and was 390 yards, and only cost about $12. I got a pink too. I am making one pair as a Christmas present, and the second pair should be for moi!

I have been knitting on the knitting machine too.. Did you know that I have a knitting machine? Well I do! But those are secret projects. Maybe I will take pictures and post after Christmas! Maybe not!