Socks and Olympics

Ways to Tell I am Very Serious About This Project:

1. I actually took the pattern with me to the store to make sure I got enough yarn (still doubt that I really did but that can be easily remedied)

2. I actually knit a swatch! And didn't frog it afterwards, instead I am using it and I even washed it to make sure it doesn't shrink

3. I GOT GAUGE! And I had extra needles just in case I didn't

So yes, I have finally broken down and decided to sign myself up for the Knitting Olympics associated with the Yarn Harlots blog (http://www.yarnharlot.ca/). Because I have many other things to accomplish during the Olympics I have decided to do something fairly easy, the Champs-Elysees Beret (http://www.popknits.com/index.php/patterns/page/champs-elysees_beret/) so that the only problems I am going to have are the lovely cables and picking up stitches from the brim since I have done neither before.

Here is the lovely yarn that I chose to make my beret out of. I wasn't entirely pleased with the selection that they have at Michaels but going all the way downtown to buy some yarn was far too much of a trip for me today.

On another note. My socks are coming along nicely now that I'm doing them properly. I will be working on them tonight and tomorrow morning, up until 6pm that is. So I will post a picture of how far I get tomorrow since after that I will be working on nothing but the beret for 17 days. Wish me luck that I actually can finish this project!

Sock, School, and Studying Struggles

Once again blogging when I'm really supposed to be doing something else. This time it is studying for my businss mid-term that starts at 2:30 this afternoon, I know I should at least go over my notes once, but I find it very hard to study for midterms when they are open book. It is more or less kills any will I have to study, since I never have much of it to begin with, when I am told that it is going to be an open book midterm. Especially this midterm where we've already done a mock last class and we are changing rooms to be able to spread out more which is awesome, I've had too many midterms where you can have all your books out at once.

On another note, I am crazy busy today after school that is. I have an hour between school being over and when I'm going to a Poli Sci Career Night, which I just learned is in some crazy building on the other side of campus from where I'm headed next. And then I'm going to a movie with Kat. It's one of those movies nobody has heard about but has A-List actors, so it will be interesting to see.

In other news, since Sunday I have read 4, count 'em FOUR, books. This is pretty intense, even for me. Luckily two of them were short little books, and these were even knitting books. The other two were longer novels but seemed to be the type that you just can't put down. So I have done no school work and gotten no sleep but I have read four books lately.

Reading the knitting books made me feel more content with knitting but also that I should do what I have been dreading for the past half a month. That is pull out the mistake I made in my sock. I even have pictures of how dreadful it was.

Here is my pretty littlle sock just as I started to unravel it. After painstakingly moving the stitches to the right spot and everything I started knitting the instep stitches instead of the heel because of a misread in the pattern. In my defense I think I started to divide this at like really really late at night when my brain stopped functioning etc.

And here is a picture of my sock once I had finished frogging. I am so upset, I was even going to start turning the heel and everything. Now I have to start again which is harder than I thought. Especially because *gasp* I don't feel like knitting right now. And by now I mean since like Sunday evening I haven't felt like knitting, I haven't touched any yarn or gone through any knitting books since then. (Ok... one knitting book but just because I was mentioning it to someone) And all plans of any Olympic knitting has been put on hold, lack of funds and lack of inspiration has been my problem.

Hopefully this dry spell won't last for long and I'll have some finished product to show you (ya right). But enjoy the Olympics that are happening just across the water from me while I have a lovely visit from the bf and do waaay too much homework on my week off.

Gimme a Break

Do you remember that song from elementary school? All about Kit Kat Bars, it had a whole clapping sequence that went with it. I almost feel like it really need to play that song again and again today. I have been way to productive today. Getting what is usually 4 days of homework done in one single one. Especially since I'm running on less than 6 full hours of sleep. For some reason, probably because I'm paranoid, I couldn't sleep last night, finally trying to go to sleep at midnight and then tossing and turning until 2 am before finally moving to a more comfortable position and then falling alseep a little while later. I had set my alarm to be a studious person for 8:30 am but the whole not going to bed til after 2 am meant that I decided not to get up then, but I just tossed and turned for the next half hour before dragging myself out of bed.
Once I got up however I was entirely too productive. I managed to finish my paper proposal, do all but one reading for one of my classes and do a basic outline of a group project that I'm trying to get done by the end of the week.
Right now I am soaking up some more waaaay to strong coffee in hopes that I can get the energy to finish off the readings for my EU seminar class and do the only other reading I have for the week which is for my Political Economy of Canada class.

On other topics, yesterday Kat and I got our "Glamour Me" photo shoot done which was very very fun. My hair was awesome even though it took twice as long as Kat's did but it has lasted and I still have it up right now and it doesn't look half bad even though I've slept on it. After that Kat and I had nearly two hours to waste until she had to go to ballet so we went to Chapters. I bought three books and then realized that they had all been made into movies. I then went to Mayfair all by myself, looking waaay to formal to be shopping, and tried on jeans since I need a couple new pairs, I found two lovely pairs but only realized afterwards that they weren't on sale and would have cost me well over $100 to buy both pairs.

Also this week at Michael's the lovely bamboo yarn that I have wanted forever is on for $2 off each skein so now my question is: Do I go buy the 14 skeins I need for the sweater that I want or do I just forget it and ignore the fact that it will only be a $45 sweater than a $70 sweater?

Let me know, as it is I think I've ahd enough coffee to get back to readings while watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Now presenting....

GLASSES THROUGH THE AGES

My good deed for the day has been procuring 6 pairs of glasses for Kat for her trip with GMB to Honduras that she leaves for in just over a week. (Can you tell my family is very very blind) Also here is a good reason that you don't want to join the navy if you are blind the glasses on the very left of the picture are my dads from when he was in the navy, and he is quite blind (-16 in each eye for contacts, of course only those people who wear contacts understand what that means) and he has always worn coke-bottle glasses as you can see until last year when he finally bought his own.

Also I have been doing a bit of knitting here and there. The sweater that will not die was calling to me yesterday and came to school with me and was petted for a while but wasn't worked on much. Then last night I decided I should learn how to knit continental style because it looks faster, at least when Kat does it and can get twice as much done as I can in the same amount of time.

So currently I have been sitting at my computer with the sweater that will not die and The Knit Stitch help videos learning how to do this. Hopefully another post will show much more lenght on the sweater, and some work on my own sweater from November, that I now hate the fiber because it is fake.

So current question is: should I continue with the plain blue sweater (only the front is done) even though I will probably never wear it and I really hate the gross cheap fiber and such, or should I give up and focus on my other sweaters to finish them.

P.S. This weekend with a gift card I got months ago I'm finally getting a new couple books. My first of which is a book on knitting Harry Potter themed clothes called Charmed Knits. I am super excited for this as you should, as is the boyfriend because he's been asking for a Gryffindor scarf for a couple months now.

Best Laid Plans

So of course as soon as I made my next New Years resolution I promptly disregarded it. Since that post (which was only 2 days ago but seems like forever to me) I have done absolutely NO knitting whatsoever at all period. Things seem to keep getting in the way life, books, sleep, school, depression, you know the things that kinda take over your life sometimes. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to get some hard core knitting done since Kat is coming over (I think this plan is still on) after we do our glamour spa thing at the salon in the afternoon and though we are doing homework for part of that day we will no doubt devolve into knitting and movies at some point during the night, especially since we can use the new 46" TV for all hours of the night.

(Here is a gratuitous picture of the sweater that will not die, though if I'm being honest I just put that blue stripe in on a ferry ride at the very end of December)

Other plans that have recently gone awry was my plan for this morning to do a lot of readings and possibly get some of the work done on the two projects I have coming up. Instead I ended up watching a ridiculous amount of CSI Miami. Just another reason why owning multiple series on DVD is a bad idea. Then I planned on going to the library to get some resources for two of my papers that are coming due and that got pushed back in favour of a good dinner and *gasp* trying to hurriedly finish a reading for my class this evening. And now I was going to work on some of my projects after getting homeand instead I am typing in this blog because it is a much easier thing to do that do real work today.

(And yet another gratuitous picture, mainly because I have no good pictures to show right now. This one is of the painting that I won at the silent auction during Black and White Casino Night for the Global Medical Brigades. It has finally been hung up and isn't it purty)

On one last note I feel horrible and I think I might be coming down with a sinus cold. Unfortunately those keep me bedridden for a good week and I can't afford to be that ill for that long especially at this time of the year and at this time of my life. Hopefully just destressing will make it go away, and by destressing I mean going and sitting on my bed with a multitude of readings that I need to do for my school work and hope that they don't drown me.

I hope you knitting is going much better than any of my non-existent knitting is right now.