Now THAT'S sexy!

Remember about 4 months ago, when I *thought* my foot problems were really just tendinitis-related? Well I've got news: It was just plain fractured the whole time! That's right...I've been walking, pushing heavy objects, kneeling and bending down every day on that fractured foot. Yeah, that's why the pain has been getting even worse, to the point that all of my joints & leg muscles hurt on the good side of my body...because I've been reduced to putting 3/4 of my weight on it recently.

Let's just say that getting new insurance isn't a picnic. That estimate of taking up to 14 days to get it really turns out to be 1 month. Or more. Long story short (cutting out all of the insurance bull-crap) I finally was able to go back to the foot doctor and the X-Ray showed that the fracture was significantly greater than in November. It was time to take serious, yet "conservative," measures.

So it looks like it's the "AirCast" for me, as well as this high-tech piece of equipment on my foot for over 3 hours sesssions a day. Learning how much this "Bone-Growth Stimulator" actually costs for insurance companies makes me wanna cry. If you add up almost everything I own in my room (including yarn, clothing, TV, computer, etc), it probably would be roughly in the same ball-park. Yeah.

10 things I have learned this week while on the boot & crutches:
1. Your workplace will put you on "medical leave" because you are now a "liability" to them. That means that you are out of $$ for 4-6 weeks, and you can be all the more grateful for your second job as a piano teacher.
2. People stare.
3. After the starers are done starring, they will automatically ask you what you did to yourself.
4. Some people will make stupid jokes, like "so, who did you kick?"
5. Don't expect humanity in people (like them helping you open the door, or carry your items...or moving out of the way), even if you're having trouble working your crutches, and when you obviously don't have that "I can do it myself" attitude because it clearly looks like you only use them for your broken bone. A Long run-on sentence, I know.
6. Don't expect store-employees to help you either. They'll only stare until they notice you looking at them. They usually look away like nothing happened.
7. The only good thing that comes from crutches is sympathy and getting buff upper arms. Say goodbye to "bat-wings."
8. Working crutches is hard! And you look STUPID doing it.
9. If your foot isn't completely broken, the temptation to "cheat" (walking without crutches) is great.
10. Because I cheat so much, and the rubber on the crutches reek so much...I'll eventually have to knit me up some boot-socks & crutch-handle cozies!

My time off from work is odd, but slightly liberating. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Maybe I'm not meant to be stuck shelving AV this long...and this is a nudge to do other things. Or, maybe this time is meant to be used planning the wedding (since I'm clearly a procrastinator).
While sipping my coffee this morning, and flipping through a Wedding Flowers magazine, I was inspired to change my theme colors up a bit to be more Fallish. Really original, I know. However, I think that an acidy pumpkin color would look great as bridesmaids dresses. I'm thinking that the colors are now brown, acid orange, green (and maybe hot pink?). Definitely colors that are easy to find now in the stores!

Yarn Update:
Joe and I went to the Art Museum of Chicago last Friday while he was in for Spring Break. We took the train down there and visited Loopy Yarns first before we spent the greater part of the day cooped upside in the museum. I was really impressed by the size of the shop, and how much they had in stock! Here are some of the better yarns I have recently added to my stash:

From Loopy Yarns:

4 Lamb's Pride skeins for hats & mitts

1 skein of Lamb's Pride yarn in varigated green colorway. This will become another ribbed hat for Joe.

1 skein of novelty yarn. Brand under price sticker (unknown). Will be made into a lacy neckwarmer.

From the Home Ec (in Iowa City):

2 skeins of Cascade's Lana D'oro in a worsted weight. The skeins are darker blue in real life.

2 skeins of Malabrigo yarn that Joe bought me a few weeks ago in a light mint.

Upcoming posts: washcloths (sorry about that again!!), spinning & a wedding shawl!

Footwear

Well, I officially managed to not blow the birthday surprise. Really, I don't know how I did it. I'm one of the world's worst secret-keepers. My mother was completely blown away that she got her own pair of clogs. And in the color that she wanted, as she hinted months ago. (Yes, mother, I do listen to people's favorite colors, and what each and every one of the knuggles [non knitterly folk]wants from me.) She had a good birthday (lots of cake and awesome presents), so I was satisfied. The clogs were literally off the shoe-drier before I wrapped them up. I was very happy they dried in time. Each clog had two hoses emitting warm air for 200 minutes last night, and an additional 60 minutes or so yesterday afternoon.

They are so much smaller & narrower than mine. (Hey,...is THAT what happens when you use size 13's instead of 15's? [in my defense, I got that idea from some other clogger who suggested it]) I really like them. Too bad we had to part. *sigh.* I'm just glad that my mom liked them so much that she felt comfortable bringing them to choir practice tonight. Oh crap. That means everyone else knows I can make them. Double *sigh.*

This post was supposed to be about the charity washcloths, but I decided that since I was slacking a little bit-since I had to make the clogs in under 3 days-I should wait until the next post to display them.

But until then, St. Patricks day is coming up, and I've gotta make some socks to go along with my awesome tee-shirt for the occasion. I've faced the fact that if I don't do socks 2-at-a-time, the second one doesn't get done. I'm a little in a time-crunch to get them done, so here's the full pair of socks so I don't end up wearing only one sock because I started slacking due to "Second Sock Syndrome." (Would the drunks really notice though, I wonder?)
I'm definitely digging the striping. They are on size 3US needles with a 60st CO, and will reduce to 58sts for the main leg part. 64st socks are just too big for me when they're in stockinette.

What? Like YOU don't knit for giants??

Mommy Dearest's birthday is just a couple of days away, so I'm in high-gear for knitting up her present. (You'll have to realize that Mommy Dearest isn't a big fan of wearing the knittables[scandalous, I know], so when I found out that she loved the pair of Fiber Trends' felted clogs I made a while back for myself, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make her a pair of her own.) She likes the naturals, beige & brown, so that's exactly what she'll get.

WIP info:
Started: March 7th 2009
Pattern: Fiber Trends' Felted Clogs (AC-33)
Yarn: Patton's Classic Wool: 2 skeins in beige, 2 skeins in brown
Needles: Size 13 US circs, plus extra circs for later instructions
Clog Size: Average 8 women's

Here is a picture of another project that I started a couple of weeks ago, but have put it on hold since I have a bunch of little knits to take care of first. I'll give more info on it later. All I'll tell you is that it will be fabulous and is a modification of an awesome pattern. ;) I'm sure someone already recognizes what it is. Those people probably has made one themselves too.

Other than that, I've been aweful quiet lately because not only am I charity knitting, but I've been working getting my health insurance finalized, I've recently added a few more piano students (now 13-14 students!) and I've also been working on all sorts of wedding stuff: the guest list, the wedding party, figuring out the catering food choices, honeymoon shopping (It will probably be Oahu) through Travelocity, and searching Truilia.com & Realtor.com for places to live in 5-6 months. Selling has slowed down so much, so I'm hoping that not only will the prices stay low (or lower even more...sorry sellers), but that the places that I really loved are still there. There are a couple of cute townhouse/condos out there that I've fallen in love with for various reasons. Joe comes home this weekend, and our familys plan do the money talk (yikes) over dinner, and Joe and I should start talking about the minute things that need to be taken care of next week: the official wedding party list, the more official wedding list, guest list, vendors & such. Michaels finally has brown invitation choices this season. I might just go with that & spruce it up since I'm having a hard time finding the right scrapbook paper for my theme. I'll be hanging out with the girls this Thursday. Maybe I'll ask them if they wanna go veil-shopping next week. Almost 6.75 months left. :) I can't wait!

Next post: charity knits I've been slowly working on.

Something's Brewing

Now that the Carnival socks are done, I have made it my goal to work on at least 1 KUAS pattern a day, free or for sale, to update it, make them all look uniform, sweep for any typos missed, clarify if need-be, turn the free ones into pdfs, link the pdfs to my blog & Ravelry, etc. It's a arduous process, and I'll probably be bald by the time I'm done, but it will be worth it. No patterns that have not been updated recently will be for sale, so you'll see on my sidebar that there's only 2 patterns up there.

It's been a gloriously sunny day. I decided to whip out a FO that was completed maybe a year ago and has never found its way into this blog. It was a design for one of the clubs I did a long time ago. I named it "Sunrays Socks," due to the sunrayish lace pattern that I fiddled around with, and the snake-like cables planted along the back. I really think that they should be longer socks, to look better...but what's done is done. I recently took a picture of it because the Word document and the few original photos taken were deleted along with other various patterns and things that I had on my desktop during the "Great Disaster" back several months ago with my external hardrive failing on me...while I was trying to delete everything off of my desktop in preparation to reset the dang thing. I never did reset it...and I never did get back the lost things. Luckily, a lot of my pics weren't all deleted yet, and I had some copies of pictures on Photobucket & Flickr, as well as some documents saved through email.
It was a disaster, I tell ya.

Ending on a good note....I have a new blog! It's: http://www.kuasdesigns.wordpress.com/, and it's purely devoted to all of my patterns, free & for sale. I used Wordpress serviced mainly because I could upload the pdfs to that sight. Go take a look-see if you have time. There's a button on my sidebar for easy access to it. It's still in the beginning stages, so don't expect too much, but I have most of the pictures up that will have their proper pattern linked to them with PDFs. That's right, I said it. All patterns will now have pdfs. So, hopefully you'll see changes everyday (or every other day) if my 1 pattern per day thing becomes a reality. I already have 3 or 4 patterns updated. However, this blog will always be running. I have to ramble about my WIP's and designs still. lol.

(However, I expect this weekend to be slow with improvements. I'm planning on visiting my guy this weekend in Iowa! Squee!!! I asked one of the AV workers at the library to take my Sunday, so after my morning Friday shift, it's off to Iowa it go. Hei-HO! Hei-Ho!)
P.S- read "Wesley the Owl" if you're a bookworm. It's a great book, and it made me laugh & cry!
P.P.S- If you've been around for a while on this blog, I think I'm officially starting my Lana Lang -inspired sweater I talked about (maybe years) ago. Ha ha.

Carnival Socks (KUAS Original Design)

About the pattern:
During the Medieval times, there was a clear structure to the way of life. You were either at the bottom of the class “pyramid” being a serf, or you were right dab in the middle or upper middle living as one of the the nobility, or as a priest or even a Lord... or you were at the very top living in high luxury as the King/Queen. You knew your place during that time…and there really was nothing you could do to change your status. Except right before Lent: the Thursday up through Ash Wednesday. The most recognizable terms nowadays from this folk culture would be Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," which would be the end of the festivities. During these few days in which the festivities were coined "the Carnival," you were allowed to switch roles. And that definitely called for a celebration. Serfs pretended to be like priests, or Lords, and had their fair share of profanity & mocking the whole class system, as well as their own Christian religion. The priests and the Lords really did sit around and let the serfs act as they pleased for this short period of time because they believed that if they allowed for it, briefly, it would reduce the tension on the whole poor-rich and unjust system (in the eyes of the serfs, of course). The serfs would get to blow their steam out, and a REVOLUTION among the people would be less likely. So, the Carnival, or Mardi Gras is a tradition that is still celebrated to this day. It is a time to be FREE, act as you please (think about the tradition of beads), and to feast as much as you want…because come Wednesday, it’s time for fasting (Lent) for 40 days.

This pattern tries to hold to a “nothing is at is seems” quality, where the stockinette has vertical lines protruding out, and the gusset & rest of the lower body of the foot without a pattern is completely purled. Even the ribbing on the top seems different, due to the nature of the *K2TBL, p2* where the two knit stitches separate from eachother a little.


SOCK METHOD: Top-down

MATERIALS:
Yarn: under 350-375 yds of fingering-weight yarn in a varigated colorway.
Needles: Set of 5 size 2US dpns & one darning needle
1 Stitch-holder
Place Marke

This free pattern has been removed 10/17/12. It may or may not return, but if it does, it will be tweaked and pdf’ed and available for an inexpensive $1.99 price.

Nothing's what it seems

In light of the upcoming festivities this Tuesday (Mardi Gras), I have decided to type up and give you the "Carnival Sock" pattern free. However, you'll have to wait until it's typed up. lol. It should be done within the next day or so. It's up & running!! That's how much I love you all. (It's time to sleep now, lol!) If you want to ravel-it, it's already in the pattern system.

FO this! (Updated)

Before Valentine's day, I got my "Punk Rock Tunic" done just in time for Joe's arrival on Friday. I'm pretty please with the results.

I used a ball of yarn closely related to Lion Brand's Jiffy. They might be cousins. Or Step-siblings. Or married. Who knows. All I know is that I knocked almost a couple pound ball down to almost nothing.

I decided against my seed stitch sleeves. While trying it on, I realized that it really looked better with the roll-top edge to leave it short & naked. Oh-la la.

A belt does look good with this FO. I don't know about you, but I see the perfect belts for all sorts of things in magazines, but when it comes around to finding them...good luck. I think my brown leather belt looked the best. But then again, I only own like 3 or 4 belts. I almost made an I-cord belt that was braided using this yarn.

Here's my hunny with his "Emmett hat." I had to squeeze in a minute before he left to take a picture of him with it on. I still have to send the pattern to my testers. Sorry for the wait girls.

I gave my valentine my heart.

Oh, by the way, I spent like 3 hours several days ago really uploading dozens and dozens of projects the you have or have not seen me make in my past. I also added more pictures to the projects that were already in my ravelry project page. Believe you me, it was a pain in the neck to add over 60 projects in one sitting. The oldest projects have minimal info. If you haven't friended me yet, my Ravelry name is: knittyknitter. Just like Craftster.org.

What's next? My "SlipStitch Socks" using my friend Erica's "Mardi Gras" sockyarn that I traded with her last year. I missed the deadline for making them in time for last Mardi Gras, but I'm determined to make them this year. Just like a pair of St. Patrick's Day socks.

Btw, if anyone ever wants you to watch "House of Wax." Don't. Unless you like watching acid sprayed on living humans and fingers being cut off and stuff while superglue is on your lips. I'll never look at wax the same again. I'm never letting my friend Jenna pick our movie out again.
Oh... and If you have any awesome V-day stories to share, feel free to post them below. All Joe and I really did was go to IHOP in the morning, watch a movie & eat a late dinner at a steakhouse.

Sock Update:
First sock down. I think this pair will definitely be done in time for Mardi Gras! The pattern will be called "Carnival," inspired by the medieval folk culture of the Carnival. Explaination & sock update tomorrow in a new post!

Punk Rock Tunic

I enjoy the brainless knitting in the round that 'mostly stockinette' raglans have to offer. There's just enough simple variation to keep your mind sane, while at the same time, you never really have to look down at a pattern the whole way through. At the same token, I also love the option to work top-down, which means from a lazy arse's point-of-view: less work.
Alright, alright. You got me. You get to try it on as you go. It fits better.

I was going to call this WIP "Inner Sanctuary," because of the ripple-like pattern that I created. However, I decided to swap the name for something else. (I really am bad at naming my own works.) This design will henceforth be called "Punk Rock Tunic" because it seems more hardcore than peaceful.

I have successfully enjoyed yet another gorgeous day basking in the sun (and slightly brisk wind) I not only knit a little outside on our deck, but I snuggled up with a comfy down blanket and my most recent read, "Bitten." Has anyone read it? I'm about half way through. I heard that it was written better than the Twilight series, so I had to try it out.

At the moment, I am finishing up the base of the tunic, and I'll probably end up single-crocheting the top of the tunic and figure out something for the sleeves. It will most likely just be seed-stitch, just like the base of the tunic.

My dear Valentine comes home Friday evening! I'm so excited! Before we go off and have an amazing 1 1/2 day weekend together, I'll make sure to crack out the camera so he can take some snaps of the FO. :) Chao!

"Punk Rock" Teaser

This WIP is 3/4 done. Today's teaser is a panoramic view from my camera. Update coming soon!

<3 The BIG Valentine's Sale <3

Hey Knitters. Getting in the mood for Valentine's Day yet? Its not lingerie for your hunny, but I've got a big of a sale going on at the KUAS shop for all you V-Day enthusiasts.

Joe-Bear is snuggling up with the Valentine's Day-inspired sock yarn and lace yarn. Don't worry, I've got some honey in the pantry for when they find themselves in someone's home. Maybe I'll take a pic of him snuggling up with the huge bottle of honey we got from Sam's Club. Hee hee.

You'll see two skeins of "Sweet Valentine" fingering-weight yarn, 1 skein of "Sweet Hearts" lace-weight yarn, 1 set of 5 stitch markers called "Electric Pink," and even 1 skein of "Ever-Pink." All yarn is marked a few dollars lower. I also listed my "Candied Love" sock pattern in there too. :)

My candied rinds

Anna's Candied Rinds:
Making candied rinds requires a bit of time & energy, but the results are absolutely satisfying. People will keep asking you to make more. This old-time recipe of candied orange rinds has been revamped to be more novel & scrumptious, and will have you feeling a little bit more like Martha.

Items needed:
2 medium saucepans
1 large saucepan (with a wide mouth)
2 cookie sheets
2 cooling racks
2 ladles (with holes)
Paring knife
Tongs
1 large bowl
1 and 1/2 measuring cups
approx 6-7 cups of sugar
2 navel oranges
2 lemons
2 limes
7-8 strawberries
1/2 cup blueberries
Canning jars/plastic container for storage

THE DIRECTIONS:
For all rinds: the set-up
1. wash & dry fruit.
2. Cut horizontally & vertically across the entire fruit.
3. Peel all four sections off the fruit, being very careful not to rip the rinds.
(Save your fruit in a container to be used for different purposes, like orange juice or lemon/limes for your water. No need to waste.)
4. Cut both ends of the rinds so they look rectangular.
5. Slice the rinds length-wise, 1/8'' thick each. You'll get about 5 slices per rind section.
6. Cut off any excess pith (or the actual fruit) off the inside of the rind with your pairing knife to make all of the rinds look uniform.
7. Place your rinds in their own medium saucepan. I mixed lemons & limes together, but boiled the orange rinds separate. You can boil them all together, or mix and match as you see fit. Just remember that orange rinds smell & taste very different than the citrus scent of lemons and limes though.
8. Fill the sauce pan(s) with cold water, until it covers the rinds. Turn the heat on high and turn off only until the water rapidly boils.
9. Drain & rinse the rinds. Put the fruit back into its pan again.
10. Boil fruit this time for 40 minutes, until rinds are completely soft. (Limes might need to boil longer, believe it or not. It has a tougher rind.) Rinds should be flimsy and almost translucent.
11. Drain and rinse rinds.
Continue instructions according to type of rinds:

Berry-Orange Rinds:
Everyone's favorite!!
12. Pour 2.5 cups of cold water into a large wide-mouth saucepan. Turn the heat on high.
13. Pour 2 cups of sugar into the pan and dissolve. Stir mixture well with your ladle. Add rinds, sliced strawberries & blueberries.
14. Turn the heat on Medium-low and boil for 40-60 minutes until the water has turned into a thick syrup. Stir often.

Lemon & Lime Rinds:
12. Pour 2.5 cups of cold water into a medium saucepan. Turn the heat on high.
13. Pour 2 cups of sugar into the pan and dissolve. Stir mixture well with your ladle. Add rinds.
14. Turn the heat on Medium-low and boil for 40-60 minutes until the water has turned into a thick syrup. Stir often.

Finishing:
15. Place your cookie sheet under your cooling racks. Using tongs, fish through your berry-orange mixture to grab your rinds. Place all rinds onto one cooling rack (call this the "sticky rack"), being careful not to let the sticky rinds touch eachother. For lemon/lime rinds without a berry-mixture, just grab the rinds and put them on the cooling rack in the same manner.
16. Let rinds cool for about 5 minutes.
17. Pour a couple cups of sugar in a large bowl (the deeper, the better). Start coating your lemon/lime rinds first with sugar, because it's less messy. The easiest method is place several rinds in the bowl and give the bowl a good few shakes to evenly coat the rinds.
18. Line-up all sugar-coated rinds neatly onto your "clean cooling rack."
19. Let the rinds sit overnight to harden more, and package them into mason jars, or whatever you have on hand. Enjoy!

Note: You can blend your berry syrup together to use as an ice cream topper if you'd like.

Emmett

I have a sickness. If I focus on reading, I do not...and will not knit. If, for instance, I finally get my computer to allow me to watch shows online (like Lost!), my mind will switch modes and skip the "pages." I think you all can guess which mode I was in recently:

I was searching throughout my brain for some ideas of what I should sent Joe in the mail for a care package. I've done the popcorn, and the corn nuts (must be the ranch kind), and the hot-chocolate, and the pictures, and the cd-mixes. But not the knitting. I decided that I must "do the knitting" this time. So, here-be "Emmett." A mixture of the colors that he likes, a new design in general, and hopefully a unique idea for a hat: woven stripes.

It's a really easy pattern, and I'll have a version that is a little shorter. Because I designed this hat for Joe, I'm guessing that it would be fitting for him to actually model the FO for the pattern. Not me. I see him for Valentine's Day (can't wait!), so I'm hoping to release the pattern in the shop after the middle of February, when I get back. I actually have a person from Ravelry who offered to test-knit my patterns because A.) she likes to knit, and B.) she has oodles of yarn. And I'm guess there is a C.) she's just a really nice person and would live to help out where she can for our fellow knitterkind. :)
I've never really had an official test-knitter until now. It's a really good idea, especially for those stupid "where's instruction #3" or "how much yardage?" mistakes that end up in the pattern, even after self-proofing.

Upcoming post: my own twist on the "orangettes" recipe that will truly make you salivate. It's so yummy!
Upcoming design idea: a lacey cowl

Candied Orange Rinds

Torn between health & a sugar tooth, I decided to do something Martha Stewartly yesterday to satisfy both needs. Although I modified the recipe so that I would make half the original batch, I tried parikha's Orangettes and they seemed to be a hit!

I won't lie, it is a process. The slicing of the oranges is very time-consuming, not to mention all of the boiling-draining-boiling-draining-boiling routine. I found that this technique is not only easier, but was a lot nicer looking: when cutting the orange rind to remove from the orange, section it first only two ways...vertically and horizontally around the orange. After you do this, carefully remove the four sections from the orange. Cut the edges of the sections so that they look more rectangular, and slice it lengthwise into thin strips (about 1/8'' if you want more bang for your buck).

I did learn that I'm not much of a rind-fan, but I did seem to find that my family enjoyed the treat. I even passed them around at my work. They sure do look artsy & yummy though!

And so it begins

Jeepers creepers. Where has the time gone? I've got under 8.5 months left before the big day and I still feel 15-20 pounds out of shape for it. Call me insane, but I can't have all of the cousins twice as skinny as the bride. Not even kidding...most are like 100 pounds. It just feels wrong.

My foot is far from healing, so the least intensive thing I can think to do (besides crunches and all that good stuff) is swimming. My swimsuit from 11 years ago (yeah, I know...that sucker just held out for me) finally got replaced the other day for a dark blue number. After having my old one basically be a chest peep-show for all the guys (as well as little rips starting in the behind area), I knew it was time to bite the bullet and fork up 60 dollars for a new one. And that was with the sale! Chlorine and hair (especially blond hair) doesn't mix too well, you know, so I also had to buy a rubber cap for my head. I had a heck of a time trying to put it on for the first time, but you know what...not only did I feel like a legit swimmer (despite my crappy technique), but I felt like it was easier to swim and my goggles fit more properly along my eyes.

Ok, here's the start of the first of many overviews:

WEEK 1:
The work-outs
Sunday: 20 minute swim
Monday: (30 minute swim? Can't remember if my mind is just making this one up)
Tuesday: 30 minute swim
Wednesday: 40 minute swim (all sorts of ways to swim), stretching, plus a few crunches
Thursday: 40 minute swim, 5 minute leg extensions in water, more stretching, crunches
Friday: Streching
Saturday: 60 minute swim & lots of stretching in water
The diet:
Sunday-Tuesday: Cereal, sandwiches for lunch & dinner-?
Wednesday: Turkey & egg sandwich, cereal & grapefruit, home-made chicken soup & salad
Thursday: Lean egg pocket, chicken soup, salad, healthy tv dinner
Friday: Weight watcher's breakfast quasadilla, BLT sandwich, tacos
Saturday: W.W's breakfast quasadilla, Turkey sandwich, 2 chocolate nuggets, smoothie & rice

Weight-loss total: 7 pounds!!!

Side-note for all you Twilight fanatics: I'm 1/3 through Breaking Dawn. If reading burned calaries, I probably wouldn't have to worry about weight-loss at all. ;)

From the knitter's journal: "Cropped Sweater" v.1

There's something about a bulky quick-knit project that makes you toss your previous WIP aside for a little while. (Sometimes tossed indefinitely aside....but hey, let's stay a little optimistic; it's tossed aside until the new project is finished.)

It's a new year, that means its time a be a little bit more organized, no? Let's face it, if you really knew me, you would know that I have the rough draft of my patterns on little sticky notes, scratch paper, journals...really anywhere and everywhere. Most of the time, some of the patterns that never make it to this blog get lost. Thrown away. Recycled, sometimes. I think it's long overdo that I officially write in my notes, patterns, charts and such onto an official pattern journal book-for Pete's sake-if it doesn't make it quickly into the computer.
Voila: charts, notes, yarn sample and such.
Hopefully it won't end up like my old diaries. You know, a few long and heart-felt pages filled out and then....wham! A sea of blank pages. I am in the process of designing my own cropped sweater that should have a shape relative to the cropped sweater above. The yarn will be bulkier, the cables will be different, and the color rather brownish with some blue specks. I will use a 2x2 ribbing for the base and sleeves. I'm still undecided about the collar.
Ever since Twilight, I've been racing through all of Meyer's Twilight series. Since I work at the library, I know how the "hold" system work...and how fast the books usually come in...so I planned putting two books at a time on hold while reading the previous book. I read Twilight & New Moon, and I am half way through Eclipse. Thanks to my system, I won't be deprive after I'm done with this book because Breaking Dawn is safely harbored among my other library books "booty." I loved the first book, but I'll save my various criticisms for another post. My officially theme colors for my wedding. Notice the color of the felt on top. And my mom wonders why I could never "specify" the true color of the green that I had in mind for one of my theme colors. What would you say? "Light minty sea-green?" The picture is awful, and the green is a tad sea-greener and brighter, and the brown's darker, but hey, that's artificial light for you. I'm making a large felt blanket of squares out of this wonderful color combination. I do realize that I have a unique vision for my wedding reception decorations. But I'm not faltering in my green choice though. It's my favorite color.