Easter and gifts

March 21, 2013 by 11 Comments

My dad just got back from a trip to England and Scotland, and he brought me back a couple of things I want to share with you.  First, this t-shirt:

elephanthouseThat’s the logo on the front for a cafe in Edinburgh called The Elephant House.  The back says “The Elephant House: Birthplace of Harry Potter.”  JKR started writing the first books in that cafe.  I ate there last time I was in Edinburgh (and it was delicious) but neglected to purchase a souvenir t-shirt, so my dad got me one.  I love it!  He also got me a knitting book:

easterknitsbookI’ve never been one for Easter decorations but I couldn’t help loving these patterns.  They could actually be considered decorations for any season, depending on the colors used.  I just love all the pretty balls and eggs:

easterknitseggtreeSuper cute!  Here’s a closeup of the tulip egg:

easterknitseggI want to make one so badly, but I’m afraid my knitting skills might not be quite up to it yet — tiny double point needles and changing colors combined sounds like a recipe for disaster.  I thought about adapting the charts to make some crochet eggs instead, but if you’ve ever tried crochet intarsia (changing the colors to make a pattern or picture) in the round you’ll know that everything slants a bit to the right.  A crocheted egg made to look like the tulip one above would just look like wind was bowling the tulips over.  Looks like I’ll have to beast out some knitting and at least try it.  I just need some tiny needles and yarn…  KnitPicks, here I come!

Wasn’t that sweet of my dad though, to think of me on his trip?  And he’s not the only one who’s been sweet.  I never mentioned a certain gift I received for Christmas from my friend Lauren.  She and her husband actually got me quite a few really awesome things, but I wanted to share this bowl with you:

laurensbowlLauren made it herself!  She’s been doing pottery for a few months now, I believe, and this handmade bowl she gave me is perfect for holding my crochet/knitting notions!  It’s nice because I don’t have to rummage through my pencil case looking for the needles at the bottom anymore (I wasn’t comfortable with leaving them out on the table or sofa arm, because my dog ate a sewing needle a couple of years ago and getting it out of her tummy was a horrendous and expensive experience).  The bowl is gorgeous and I’m really happy.

Big thank yous to Lauren and my Dad!  And thank YOU for stopping by my blog today!

[EDIT]: If you’re not enraged about the Steubenville rape, sentence, and media coverage, or if you haven’t heard about it at all, read this and this, please.  If these words, pictures, and videos upset you, please speak out in some way.

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still alive…

March 4, 2013 by 9 Comments

Sorry it’s been so long.  I’ve been super-busy and pretty stressed.  As promised, however, I do have a knitting picture for you:

paulieonHere’s my paulie cardigan so far.  The edges are rolling a bit but you get the idea.  It definitely fits and will be perfect once the band with the buttons and buttonholes is added at the end!  Please excuse the dirty mirror and my wrinkled t-shirt.  You can tell I don’t have it all together at the moment.  You can also tell I still haven’t done much work on the cardigan.

My car is fixed, $700 later (shoutout of thanks to my parents for helping a lot).  Took a week, so I’m a bit behind in internship hours now.

This weekend I went to the South Carolina Counselors Association annual conference in Hilton Head.  I was hoping to network and find a job, but not a single resume was passed out.  At least I learned a bit about how to get licensed, and because of that knowledge I’m thinking about moving to Charlotte, North Carolina (which is about 30 minutes away from my town and has higher requirements for licensure, so I’d get more supervision).

While I do like knitting a lot and have been doing a lot of it as of late, I’m still devoted to crochet.  When I come home and want to do something easy, relaxing, and quick, crochet is definitely my fave.  I just haven’t had any good ideas for projects lately, and nothing has really jumped out at me.  Honestly I love the pattern for the ripple blanket, so much I would like to do a third one (first, second), but I don’t really need more blankets and the yarn really does cost too much to make one as a gift.  Not that I don’t like making gifts — I love it — but when it comes to spending large amounts of money, time, and effort on a project I feel like most recipients wouldn’t appreciate everything that went into such a gift.  People like my parents would, but they’ve got so many crocheted items already I’m not really sure they’d want more, haha.  *sigh*  I do love making blankets…

Well, that’s all for today.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

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5 days, 5 stripes

February 10, 2013 by 6 Comments

I’ve been working on the paulie cardigan and I’ve gotten 5 stripes finished:

paulie5stripesThe edges are a bit curly but you get the drift.  I’m really liking it so far and it’s fitting fine, too, so I can’t wait to get it done!

pauliestripescloseI must say that the purling rows are really slowing me down, but that’s OK.  It’s looking so pretty!

That’s really all I’ve got to show today, and nothing too thrilling has been going on in my life this week.  Chris and I are still doing wing chun with our friend and I’m already noticing a difference in my flexibility and maybe even weight loss.  (Is is too soon to really tell?  I dunno, I may be imagining that.)  It’s fun, in any case, and it really is making my mood better in general.  My old therapist was telling the truth when she said exercise makes you feel better!

Thanks for stopping by, hope you stop by again soon!

 

 

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progress and a book

February 5, 2013 by 5 Comments

Check out my office at my internship:

right of the door

right of the door

left of the door

left of the door

It’s the catch-all room for old kids toys and games, as well as old office equipment and documents nobody needs anymore.  For some reason, none of this can be thrown away.  There are two more desks in the corner from which I was taking the pictures, covered in more junk.  This office is at the end of the hall, so nobody really calls me to come and do anything anymore since I’m so far away (last semester my office was in the middle of the building).  This means I can just chill and do whatever in my spare time:

pauliegarterThat’s what I had done at my internship (I’ve since added a few more rows but it’s still garter stitch).  It’s the beginnings of this cardigan.  I’m about to switch to stockinette, divide the body and sleeves, and start the stripe pattern, so it’ll be interesting from here on out.  Check out my carefully marked pattern:

pauliepatternDo you mark up your printed patterns like this?  Sometimes I even write straight into books (if they’re my books).

And speaking of books, look what I got:

bookI found it used on Amazon, and it was recommended on The Sweaty Knitter‘s blog some days ago.  I’d love to be able to just make something without having a complicated written pattern, and this book tells you how.  The percentage system is easy enough, but the sweater blueprints provided definitely assume that you have some skills (like how to make an underarm gusset).  It does tell you how to steek, however, which is something I’d been wondering about.  Overall a very useful book with tons of information on how to design your own sweater and what yarns to use, and it has lots of colorwork charts from all over the world.  Pretty neat!

So that’s all for today.  Sorry I’ve been focusing on knitting more or less exclusively — I’m definitely in a crochet slump.  I have yarn but I just do not know what I want to crochet!  I’ve found some cute patterns on Ravelry, but nothing that jumps out and says “HANNAH, MAKE ME NOW!!!”  Or if it does say that, I don’t have enough yarn.  I love me some big projects…

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

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paulie: begin!

February 2, 2013 by 6 Comments

Thanks everyone for all of your feedback and advice!  I cast on the Paulie cardigan with the 3.50 mm needles and it’s looking pretty good so far:

pauliecastonMy increases are a little wonky but with blocking hopefully they’ll look a little neater.  I’m just so pumped to have finally started that I had to share, even though there’s not much to look at yet, haha.  You can see, though, that I’ve printed off my pattern and am carefully circling the stitch numbers for the medium size, and I’m checking off rows as I go.  The sweater looked a little big to me, but when I held it up around my shoulders and positioned it correctly, it looked right.  I can’t wait to get far enough where I’ll know for sure if I have to rip it out and start over or not…

That’s all I’ve got for today, I just had to share!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

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