Fear not, I am alive!

The bar exam is over and done with. My worst nightmare came to fruition when my computer crashed the morning of the exam, and I was forced to take the essay portion by hand. I'll tell you, though: I handled it with more grace and poise than I thought I possessed. There was no crying, there was no panic, and there was no temper tantrum. I simply raised my hand, received the writing materials, got out my black pens, put in my ear plugs, and got down to business. I do not feel particularly good about how the exam went, but there is nothing I can do about it now and there is no way to know for sure until mid-October. So, for now, we wait, we relax, we vacation, and we knit!

Despite it all, I have been knitting!

I took a road trip down to Chapel Hill, NC for a reunion with my sorority sisters* this weekend. Since I was a passenger and not a driver, that meant well over 16 hours of uninterrupted knitting. I finished the knitting on the HP scarf.

I wove in the ends, and then it took a little bath for blocking.

The scarf was ridiculously long.

So I was counting on blocking it out to be fatter, but shorter.

We'll see if these dimensions hold after it dries.


I also cast on for my vacation knitting. I decided that wisp is a perfect vacay knit.

TD and I are visiting my sister in Florida and then taking a 7-day Western Caribbean Cruise. I can barely contain my excitement!

I'm officially on vacation until Aug 14, so I bid everyone in the knit blogosphere adieu until then!





*Side note rant: Think what you may of sororities in general, but do not be quick to judge. These girls remain among my closest friends to this day, and have always been some of the most intelligent and genuine people I have ever encountered. They blast the stereotypes right out of the water. Oh, except they can, indeed, drink like fish. Also, I was the president back in the day, so I'm a wee bit biased, but any group of girls who elects me (brains over beauty) can't be too bad!

Novelty Yarn, Nonsensical Knitting, More Ravelry, and a sign off for now.

Did I just say novelty yarn? Uhhh huh. Shocking, I know. It's possible that all the studying has killed my creative brain cells in favor of understanding the Rule Against Perpetuity.

In fairness, the crazy lady at the LYS tried to talk me into buying this absolutely horrid furry yarn, too (I must have had "gullible" written on my forehead or something. she described the yarn as "misunderstood". it looked like a dead animal when you knit it up. That's not misunderstood, honey, that's just awful). I had the sense to realize that there was a reason that it was in the $2 clearance bin and that $2 is not a good deal for ugly dead-animal-like yarn. So, this is evidence of having retained some of my sanity.

And so, I present my novelty yarn scarf:


see, that's not so bad, right? I rather like it; i'm standing up in defense of this particular novelty yarn. Plus, on US size 15s in garter I knit half a scarf in like an hour during my study break. besides, this is an $8 scarf, and you can't beat that.
In case anyone cares, the yarn is called FFF Polar.

Now, the completely nonsensical knitting:


hello, baby things! Nevermind that I know zero babies. These are the mittens and beanie hat from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms, knit with Knit Picks Merino Style.

It's far too soon for my biological clock to be ticking, so I'm not sure what's up with this sudden urge to knit baby stuff. I guess just because it's small and quick to knit and gives me something to post on ravelry even though I don't have much time to knit these days.

It's really okay, though. Next summer, everyone I know is getting married. That means that by my calculations, in approximately 4 years, everyone I know (at the exact same moment, no doubt) will decide to start popping out babies. So, really, I'm just getting a head start on the gifts, here. Bring on the onslaught of babies, friends, I am sooo ready for you!


Okay, Ravelry has changed my knitting world. Seriously. It's freaking amazing. To me, the most useful thing is the ability to see what other people have done with a particular yarn or a particular pattern. I have a couple of yarns which have been just hanging out in my stash for seemingly forever, without any hope of a pattern. I type them into Ravelry and *poof* - project ideas abound! Similarly, there are patterns that I know I want to knit, but I'm not sure about one aspect (::cough:: forecast:: bobbles:: cough::) or want to substitute yarn and am not sure what would work, or whatever. Ravelry to the rescue!

Also, having just moved to Pittsburgh, the ability to find knitters here is so amazingly helpful. I had just finally started to get into the DC knitting scene when I moved away (hi Pia!) and so starting over again is not that awesome. Ravelry is definitely great in that regard.
And, crap, knitters are just so freakin' awesome; it totally rocks my world.



Now, sadly, I must sign off. The bar exam looms in one week, and I promised myself that I would sprint to the finish. That means no more blogging until after the whole dreadful affair is over. Wish me luck!! Or perhaps wish me knowledge of property law ;-)

Ravelry

well, i finally broke down and used my ravelry invite... and it is, indeed, just as awesome as everyone said it was. i'm trying desperately to pry myself away, and if i fail the bar exam, i think this may be a primary reason.

so, go friend me! my user name is tightlywound :-)

i was playing around a little bit and decided to upload my "stash". i pulled everything out of my closet, out of the boxes and bags, and.... well, i'm sufficiently horrified.
i entered everything in, grabbed a calculator, and added up my yardage a la stash and burn. I have nearly 22,000 yards of yarn.
yeah. like i said... horrified.

and what's worse: i didn't even count the yarn that is currently attached to a WIP. oy...

Harry Potter

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix yesterday afternoon. Oh, man! It was SO GOOD. Go see it immediately! Seriously! I am so bitter that I was born a muggle :-(

I went by myself, but took my knitting along and knit through much of the movie. I was working on TD's Prisoner of Azkaban scarf, so it seemed appropriate. It's really coming along nicely, and is just perfect for dark movie theater knitting since it's just straight stockinette in the round.


And look! it's starting to look like a real scarf, finally! It's going to be SO LONG when it's finished...probably 80 inches or so before fringe according to my calculations! I already know that I'm going to have to get more yarn.

Knitting, Fireworks, and a Flat Tire

Happy Fourth, errr, Ninth of July!

I was out of town for the week, and, as usual, didn't get around to posting before I left...

So, for starters, here are some of the goodies that I picked up at the LYS last week, as promised:

For another chevron scarf (I think this time I'm going to use the zigzag pattern in scarf style), koigu!

I loooove these colors, and could hardly wait to start knitting this. unfortunately, after i cast on like 15 times and kept inexplicably messing up, i decided that it might be prudent to wait a bit and try again another day.

This is a really awesome colorway of Artyarns supermerino, which I had never seen before and couldn't resist. I'm making a multi-directional diagonal scarf which is easy as pie.


What's with all the lame-ass easy scarfs lately? Does it seem as if I'm no longer challenging myself as a knitter? I blame the bar exam, kiddos. That's all the challenge I can handle for the time being.

Oh, now here is something special. Let's call this picture "i should really buy an umbrella swift".


obviously, the skein of Cascade 220 was too large for my average lamp shade, so i decided to improvise with kitchen towels and pot holders. in case anyone out there is getting any ideas, it's worth noting that this contraption collapsed into disaster about 15 seconds after the photo was taken.

and, then, there's this: TD's Ravenclaw (book colors) Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban scarf
proof that i really did intend to post before i left, and a no-flash daylight photo:
and my current progress:
it's knit in the round on size 8 dpns with karabella aurora 8. it's a little slow going since it is a whopping 90 stitches around, but so far i'm pleased with it. only 10 more sets of stripes to go!

Speaking of TD, i spent the week with him down in DC. As usual, I didn't want to leave. God help me, I'm totally smitten. We spent the 4th at his parents house in Frederick, MD - birth place of Francis Scott Key, where we saw Blue Oyster Cult (more cowbell!) and a pretty impressive fireworks display.

This meeting of the parents went exceedingly well, and turned out to be extremely fortuitous later in the week when I found myself stranded on rt 270N about 5 miles outside of Frederick with a flat tire, only a donut spare, no tire shops open on Sunday evening, and no chance of making it back to Pittsburgh on the donut. As you might imagine, his parents found me returning for a second visit much sooner than expected.
It's a good thing that I really loved his parents, and they seemed to like me as well, otherwise this could have turned horribly awkward. Happily, it felt like the most natural thing in the world and was anything but awkward.

I think it is rare to find an amazing boy. It's got to be damn near impossible to find an amazing boy with an amazing family. It appears that I have hit the jackpot.

I hope they like handknits.