oh.my.god.

okay, so i learned how to knit whilst in the lovely metropolis of washington, d.c. and as such, 98% of my lys experience is d.c. based. but, you see, everything in d.c. is expensive, especially real estate. that means it costs a boatload for the yarn shops to rent space, which means one thing: they are small. like, closet-sized. you couldn't park your car in some of them.

the thing about Pittsburgh is... well, it's dirt cheap. it didn't occur to me what that might mean for a lys until today. knit one is HUGE. i was not mentally prepared for that kind of utopia, my friends, and i was bad. i am not allowed to go back there for a long time. like, maybe not until i start making money and won't feel so guilty. or maybe i should go in often, but only take like $20 in cash each time until i gain some self-control.

i went in with a purpose: blue and bronze yarn for a harry potter scarf! i bought some karabella aurora 8 (my most favorite yarn in the world, i think) in blue and bronze (or, at least, the closest thing to bronze that exists in yarn, as far as i can tell. and don't tell me that any of that metallic novelty shit is yarn, i don't want to hear it).
while i was there, some other things maaaay have jumped into my bag as well. like maybe some koigu. and some artyarns supermerino. and some noro.
what? stop looking at me like that. didn't i tell you i was bad?

it's okay, i don't feel any buyers remorse. i took a lot of time looking (and touching) everything so i (1) truly love everything i bought, and (2) have a project in mind for all of it.

it's too late to get any good pictures, but i'll post some tomorrow :-)

i know what you're thinking: "this girl has dropped off the face of the [knit blogging] earth."

and it's true, i have. this past month has been a big adjustment, and i needed to take time to deal with everything in my real life. that meant some time away from the blogosphere, but i hope that everyone can understand.

i even stopped knitting for 3 weeks or so. (i know, it astounded me, too).

however, i'm baaaaack! and i've got REAL KNITTING CONTENT.



as i mentioned below, i finished my clapotis!! i really do love it (so much so that i was willing to touch the wool/mohair in 90 degree weather just to get a picture of it. that look on my face below says "it's too hot for this"). i understand now why i was one of only like 4 knitters on earth who had not knit this pattern before. i already want to do another one (i'm thinking... lighter. sock yarn, probably. knowing me, i'll knit that one in the winter when it's 10 degrees below zero.)



i knit it in Lorna's Laces Bullfrogs & Butterflies (which I got for an awesome price during the big online Knit Happens sale a few months back. it figures... i move away, and they close their online store). it's a wool/mohair blend, so it's got a lovely halo (let's focus on the lovely halo, and not the fact that i had to drop each and every stitch by hand). the only modifications that i made to the pattern was to increase it's length (by doing additional straight section rows) because i had plenty of yarn do to so.
Awhile back, I also started this scarf:



it's a modified version of My So-Called Scarf. Obviously, i'm using three colors of yarn. Also, it's thinner than the original pattern called for (mine is 22 stitches across) because the pink/red yarn is one of the winnings from Faith's [not so] fugly yarn contest, and I wanted to be sure I could get enough length. The purple and cream colored yarn are stash busters - some of the very first yarn that ever went into my stash, actually. All three yarns are "thick and thin" so the scarf has a lot of great texture.


The "front" of the scarf is cool (lower half of the picture above), but I am actually even more taken by the purl side (top half). Although I like the result, I find this to be a particularly annoying knit (not surprising - I've started this pattern at least 3 times before and always end up abandoning it). I'm determined to finish this time, though, and have been making pretty good progress! I do love the color combination, despite the fact that I think it's best described as "looking like the 1970s puked all over my knitting".

In need of a more soothing knit, I cast on for this a couple days ago:


I've had the yarn to do this for ages (the orange is Suri Merino, the blue is Galway wool, both purchased at Kathy's Kreations in Ligonier, PA - my home town) but haven't been inspired to pick it up until now. Obviously, it's another entrelac scarf (I could do this pattern in my sleep at this point, I think). It's for one of my favorite (and most enthusiastic) Bucknellians who has been requesting an orange and blue scarf for quite some time now.

I'm also in the market for some Harry Potter scarf yarn for my boyfriend, TD (yes, like touchdown. finding him was, indeed, a touchdown. but i digress). He's been sorted into Ravenclaw (and prefers the books to the movies), so blue and bronze it is! although i bemoan nearly all aspects of the long distance relationship (sigh), it has been wonderfully good for my knitting because it's easy to chat with him on voip and knit at the same time.

oh dear, a whole month without posting. bad blogger, no cookie!


here's the short version of the long-overdue update:
my computer miraculously fixed itself. the clapotis is finished. i'm all moved to Pittsburgh. studying for the bar exam totally blows.

yep, that pretty much sums it up. i promise to get back into posting, though :-)