Summer is Over

Summer is over for me. Back to work tomorrow. I don't want to go; I'd rather continue sitting on the beach and knitting, but I don't think it would pay very well.




Here's a progress photo of the UVA scarf for my friend; I'd say it's half way done. I took this picture sitting on the beach Friday night.



Meanwhile, I also started the Hap Blanket from Ysolda's Whimsical Little Knits. I had the yarn already, so it's a stashbuster. I'm using four skeins of Plymouth Yarn Baby Grande Alpaca (one of my favorite yarns) and one skein of Manos Wool Classica. So soft.




I'm planning on it being a Christmas gift for my mom, but Mere thinks she won't like the colors, so I may end up with it, which would be fine too. It is basically a garter stitch square with a wide feather and fan border. It's knitting up quickly, so I may make another in different colors for my mom and then we'll all be happy!

Spinning

Spinning may be in my immediate future, despite all of my protests that I don't need another hobby. First, Rudee posted about this beautiful thing, then Amy at knittyblog posted about this one. By the time I get to Rhinebeck this year, I fear I'll succumb at the drop of a spindle.





I lost another three pounds this week, bringing my total loss to 11.4 pounds!

A Blanket and A Book

I finished the baby blanket for my friend/coworker! I elected to do only one border instead of the two color border suggested by the pattern. I think it's busy enough without it and my hands thank me for that decision.

Here is a closeup of the garter stitch border.

And as my reward, I bought this book. It has some beautiful projects that I can't wait to start. It may be even better than her first book!

If you haven't seen it, check it out at here!

Back to School Countdown

Stef's move-in went smoothly, mainly because it had been done in stages. Steve and I only had to take a few things up to her Sunday, so it allowed us all time to go to a cool diner for brunch. It's called Dot's Back Inn and it was featured on Divers, Drive-Ins, and Dives. I'm not sure how Steve found out about it but it's one of the reasons I love traveling with him. We also had time to walk the route with Stef that she'll need to take to get to class; it will only take her about ten minutes, so that was reassuring, since this is her first year at this school and she's living off campus.



Meanwhile, my last week clean out is still underway. Steve helped me get down all of the storage bins I have in the attic.

The only things in these bins are clothes and it's embarrassing how many I actually have, but I wanted to get them all down and purge as much as possible and then sort the remainder into logical categories. My previous storage system was to stuff things in a bin whenever I was overwhelmed with the amount of clothes hanging in my closet that didn't fit, so there was no way for me to easily find anything. I only worked on this project about an hour Sunday night and an hour yesterday and I've already filled two big trash bags, slated for the thrift store. I'm hoping to finish up today.


And now that I'm on the way to a more streamlined closet, here's a cool way to use up some of my yarn! Although I doubt I'll actually do it, you never know. And keeping with the organizational theme of this post, check out this idea over at the knitty blog. I love it!

Summer Endings

Summer is drawing to a close and this weekend is another step in that direction, as we get Stef settled in her new apartment at her new school. She transferred to VCU from GMU, which means she has the freshman jitters all over again. I think she's very brave to tackle a new place and I know she'll do just fine.

Meanwhile, that means I only have another week left before I'm back to devoting eight or more hours a day to earning a living. Which means this week is clean-the-house-week, and I already started by decluttering and reorganizing our kitchen cabinets this morning. Would you believe we have four containers of cloves?

I'm going to have Steve help me get all my clothes storage containers out of the attic Sunday night so I can sort through them all on Monday. I'm hoping to donate lots, so I can pare down to the essentials. It feels wasteful to have so many clothes stashed away. I'm hoping for a nice rainy Monday, so I don't lose focus.

Speaking of focus, or lack thereof, I have started yet another scarf, this one out of a lovely tweedy red Kathmandu Chunky. It's 10% silk, 5% cashmere, and 85% merino wool, so it's really soft on my hands. Between knitting on the 50% acrylic scarf for my friend and the 100% cotton baby blanket, I felt my hands needed a treat. This yarn has been sitting beside me at the computer ever since I bought the thrift store yarn basket and I finally couldn't resist it any longer. I think it'll be lovely with my thrifted gray wool coat; I'm hoping to wear both at Rhinebeck in October.

(By the way, I lost another 1.8 pounds this week, bringing my total to 8.2!)

Blanket & Beach

I finished the seaming!!



Thanks to Big Eden and Invictus, I finished up all the seaming. The only thing left to do is pick up and knit a border. The pattern calls for a double color border, which I may or may not do, depending on my mood and how I think it looks after one color.

As I said before, the seaming wasn't as crazy-making as I thought it would be. And I enjoyed playing with color and stitch patterns.

Now I'm off to the beach, cause it's Beach Friday!

A Mini-Post

I'm almost done seaming the baby blanket; photo tomorrow, promise! Then I get to knit a border! Surprisingly the seaming was much less tedious than I expected; I actually enjoyed doing it. The only reason it's taking so long is all the last minute stuff Stef and I are doing before she leaves for college. Until tomorrow, I'll leave you with these two random things I'm thinking about this week.


Do you ever feel like you want to knit a lot of things, really quickly? I'm feeling that now, probably because the summer is winding up (down?). I find myself looking at my yarn collection and thinking, "Hmm, if I double strand that, I could make a really cool scarf and use up twice the yarn as normal!". I'm also clicking on all kinds of knitting patterns on Ravelry and thinking, "I could knit that before I go back, couldn't I?"


I just read this really interesting post on spinning that will give me something to think about for awhile. Steve's been encouraging me to learn to spin and I've been rejecting the idea for fear of having another "hobby" that takes up more room and money, but after reading that post, I may have to reconsider. What do you think?