AtomicKnits

I can't wait to have Stevie Wonder out of my head.

Well, I did it!  Last night, I finished the second sleeve and I did ALL the seaming for this sweater last evening.  You can thank Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People's Temple.  Man, what bizarre history.  After the movie, I tried the sweater on, and I LOVE it.  The only thing I would have done differently was to pick up the stitches around the armholes for the sleeves and knit them top down.  As it is right now, the arm holes are WAY too snug compared to the rest of the sweater.  This is definitely due to the seaming, because when I tried on this sweater as a vest, I did not notice this at all.

I also had time to block it!  I'm hoping it will be dry by the weekend so I can wear it and Justin can help me take pictures.  I always think sweaters look so weird when they are blocked.  I mean, look at that!  I have to keep the ribbing at the waist tight like that, because if you stretch it out to dry, the fabric will lose its spring.  And the sleeves look like whoa.  I'm glad when I put it on it magically turns into a sweater.

I also installed those nifty Ravelry progress bars in place of the Current Projects descriptions.  Those links will take you to my project page on Ravelry, so if you are not a member, sorry!  Soon Ravelry will be available to everyone and you won't have to sign up in order to see everything  I wanted to de-clutter my layout a bit, and I ended up changing the design in the process.

Cherie Amour Started

I started Cherie Amour a couple of days ago and WOW it is knitting up fast.  I think the colorway is a very good choice for this style of sweater.  I'm actually a little bit farther than the pictures show, but I forgot to blog yesterday (I can't believe I forgot!).  I hope the size will be ok.  I should probably take it off of the needle after the ribbing and try it on.

This sweater is really a breath of fresh air after the pressure of my 1 knitted Christmas gift (ha) and trying to finish my stupid Wild Kat socks and also the frantic NaKniSweMo schedule.  This thing is going so fast!  I also love how this sweater is really for fuller figured women.  You pretty much have to have a good set of boobs in order to fill it out.  So many clothes are made for S-K-I-N-N-Y people with no waists and no boobs and no hips.  Aren't all these the defining features of our sex?!  Come on now.  That another reason why knitting is so awesome.

I have really been enjoying my quiet time at home after the holidays.  I feel like the pressure is off and I can take a lot of time and do lots of things that I want.  I am playing on dyeing my first batch of yarn this month!  I just need to get a set of yucky pots to do the dyeing in, and maybe some plastic liquid storage bins.  I don't really know where to look for old yucky pots, but worse case scenario, I will buy myself a new small set of pots and use my existing for dyeing.  We'll see what I can find around these parts.  A couple of nights ago, I watched The Pianist and I LOVED it, but man oh man what is heart wrenching or WHAT?!  Last night I watched the first part of Dances with Wolves and I am loving that too.  I have never seen that before and it totally rules so far.  I am going to watch the second part and hopefully finish the ribbing on the Cherie Amour tonight.

It's the new year.

Happy New Year Everyone!  2008 is going to RULE.  I can totally feel it.  I want to do so many things this year, and I already have a bunch lined right up.  Today, I bought a brand new planner so I can keep track of all of the awesome stuff I am going to do.  I had an awesome vacation the past couple of weeks.  After Christmas with the family, I drove down to West Chester to be with Justin for a few days.  We did a lot of eating and laying on the paco pad and being total goof balls and it was blissful.  We also saw Sweeney Todd, and that was actually a lot better than I expected.

Right in the middle of my visit, we took a drive down to Baltimore to visit Santina and Andy and spend the night.  I was super psyched, because I hadn't seen Santina since she moved away and I MISS HER SO GD MUCH!  It totally ruled!  We saw a bunch of Christmas lights, went to a yarn store, went to Dizzy Izzy's and drank and whole lot!  Santina and Andy rule for having us down there and it was the best.  I miss spending time with Santina so much!

Justin & I spent a pretty quiet evening in for new years eve.  We watched a lot of Family Guy and watched the ball drop.  I didn't get a whole lot of knitting done. Surprise, surprise.  I made a little bit of progress on the Wild Kat socks, and I did cast on Cherie Amour.  I think for me the key to getting all of my 2007 wip's done is to do a little at a time.  I have designated the time between when I get home from work and when I make dinner as wip time.  I will work bit by bit only on 2007 wip's before dinner and new projects after dinner.  Eventually, they will be done right?

See their hair cut like corn neatly combed in their rows.

Now for the second installment of my weekend adventures:  Delaware!  I went down to Delaware to visit Robert two weekends ago, and I had a lot of fun!!  It was so nice to visit with him and see what his life is like now.  On Saturday, I went with him to his 2nd cyclocross race of the season.  I had a great time watching the races and taking pictures!  Robert came in 3rd in his race, which is so awesome!  He got some cool prizes like a mesh hat and a shirt.  Cyclocross is a really intense sport, and it was really fun to watch the races.  There are so many different parts and obstacles in the course.  There were even this small kids (like around 12 years old or so, but they look so small!) that were racing.  They were really fun to watch.

On Saturday night, we went to see Jackass 2.  It was great!  It was funny and SO crude and over the top and everything you would hope for in a Jackass sequal.  My favorite part was the Butt Chug.  We snuck beer into the movie theatre, and I was kind of nervous that we were going to get in trouble because there were families there and stuff, but everything was fine.

I knit Robert a pair of hobo gloves.  I started knitting them not very long before I was to go visit, and I was trying to get them done in time to give them to him, and I didn't even think about taking pictures.  Robert was kind enough to take a few for me.  Here's one of him in his gloves, and one of just the gloves laid out all nice.  Don't they look like you could just go buy them in a store?  I had never done glove style finger holes before, so this was a nice challenge too.

On Sunday, we went to Philadelpha and walked around and saw the Libery Bell.  We hate a chicken cheese steak sandwish for lunch and then I was time for me to go back to the airport.  It was a really great weekend!

I have finished a couple other knitting projects, and I'll get to those after I finish all this about my weekends.  Also, I added Santina's blog to the right hand side bar thingy.  She knits a lot too, and always posts cool pictures, so check it out!

But see how it kills you in the blink of an eye.

So, yes, long time no posts.  Well here's a great big one to make up for it!  I finished a few things during this brief hiatus.  This is the Honeymoon Cami done in Cascade wool cotton.  It came out really great!  I'm glad I didn't make it too big.  The neckline is a bit low for me, but it looks ok with a tank top under it.

I also like how to comes to a V in the back.  The yarn knitted up REALLY nicely, and I have Tope at Woolcott to thank for that.  I'm not very good at picking out substitute yarns, so it's nice to have someone else's help.

I knitted this pair of Sockotta socks with some self-patterning yarn I got during my knitting weekend in New Hampshire.  I actually starting knitting the 2nd sock right after I finished the first one!  It was awesome.  It was really fun to see how the colors would come out too.  The knitting went really fast too because I wasn't doing any fancy lace or anything.  I think I'll use a different sock pattern when I use the other ball of Sockotta.  I really didn't like knitting the reinforced heel, and I like the look of the newer short row socks a lot better.

I knit this ear flap hat, because I was kind of down in the dumps, and I wanted something really easy to knit that would be done just like that!  I wanted to make a plain ear flap hat as preparation for an ear flap hat with a an intarsia or fair isle design.  When I do this, I don't think I will use this pattern.  I  got to use some of my many skeins of Malabrigo for the first time!  That yarn is so nice!  It's so soft and the colors are really awesome.  I just know it's going to pill pretty bad though with a little wear.  Nothing my sweater stone can't fix!

I'm really excited, because I'm taking Friday off from work to go to Troy this weekend!  I had to take the whole day off, so I could get there in time to go to happy hour at the Ruck and get free wings.  We also might go to this fall theme park farm thing with a corn maze and cider!  It's going to be fall in Troy and I'm going to be there.  I'm going to actually get to see the leaves changing colors and stuff.  I haven't noticed until now, that I don't think I'm going to be able to see that down here.  I feel like I'm kind of missing out on stuff because I'm in such a big city now.  I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

Last Sunday Santina and I went to the Boston Knit Out & Crochet in Boston Common and it was really fun!  We got some free yarn and patterns and stuff, saw a knitted items fashion show, and listened to a talk about how knitting is a metaphor for life.  It was pretty awesome!  After that, we saw the Science of Sleep, which I also thought was really awesome.  I need to work on my dream world a little bit.