The House Guests

Alright, so last post I promised that this post would be about my new house guests. Yarndude was concerned and asked if I had a moth infestation. Luckily the answer is no and I'm sorry if my elusiveness gave any of the rest of you cause for worry. These are very cute, if sometimes persnickety, guests. Meet Viola.





I know the second picture makes it look like she's demonic but it's just the flash, I promise. She is such a darling cat (if you like cats, if you don't she has all the standard cat characteristics that non cat-people don't like.) She was adopted from the humane society on Monday. She has a small birth defect in her tail that makes it kink at a 90 degree angle and she can't straighten it. She came from a house that had too many cats already and they don't think she was taken care of very well because she's a bit underweight and had teeth and flea problems when she got to the shelter. Since then she's been spayed and de-fleaed and put on a diet that's good for her teeth.

This is her sister Olivia.





Even though I bought her a nice comfy cat bed she still much prefers to sleep on my knitting bag... Olivia and Viola were littermates and came to the shelter together and I just couldn't bring myself to split up the pair. I know they look impossible to tell apart but Viola's tail makes it easy. Also, Viola wears a red collar and Olivia's is purple.



The two of them were pretty scared when they first got here and spent most of the first two days under my bed. Now they still hide out there when it's hot but they also run around the apartment like they own the place. Neither of them has any compassion for my sleep schedule and the will both wake me up by 8:00 to feed them even if I was out at the midnight showing of Inglorious Basterds until 3:30 am. Inconsiderate I know!

Some Actual Knitting

Alright, so now that you've been apprised of my new house and my major yarn-related outing it's probably about time for me to tell you about so actual knitting that I've done. First, though I know it doesn't look like it, I've made some progress on my Op Art blanket.



The last time I showed this to you there was a giant tail of circular needle sticking out because I was magic-looping it on a 60" needle. Now the entire needle has stitches around it and it's not even half the total number of stitches. I'll probably not show you any more pictures of it until I get it off the needle since it will just look like a bigger and bigger wad of knitting. If you really care a lot you can keep up with the progress on the side bar.

Next are a couple of FOs. The first was actually finished in time for me to wear to sock summit, which was very lucky because they're probably my "funnest" pair of socks yet.



They are just a basic sock with a short-row heal. I decided to try the short-row heal because it is supposed to be the best kind of heal for striped yarn because it doesn't screw-up your stripe length like a heal with a gusset does. I don't much like it but at least I learned a new skill. The yarn is Knit Picks Felici in colorway Coney Island.

Finally, I finished my Ishbel shawl two days ago and it finally finished blocking this morning. It's made from yarn that someone handspun and sent to me as part of a swap. I managed to make the full large size with the yarn and still have about 15% of the skein left. It's not made from very soft wool but I can wear it with no problem.




I never know exactly how to wear shawls but I enjoy making them and they make good gifts so I guess my lack of fashion sense isn't really a problem. Next post I'll tell you all about the new house guests.

The Worst Description of Sock Summit Ever

While there might be some knit-bloggers out there STILL blogging about Sock Summit, I'm quite sure that I'm the last knitter to START blogging about it. I happened to move to Portland just in time to be here for Sock Summit however I know nothing about driving in Portland so, with the promise of another crazy hat, my brother (who lives in Portland) agreed to accompany me. His one condition was that I not run around with my camera out taking pictures of yarn like a crazy yarn-obcessed person (which I am.) So I agreed to no camera at the event. We just walked through the market place as I'm way to broke to do any of the activities. It was wonderful but quite overwhelming at the same time. There were so many booths full of beautiful yarn and soft things to squish that after about the first half of the booths I was sort of immune to the rest of the booths and I probably skipped over some really beautiful things because my brain was already full of other beautiful things. I did buy two skeins of yarn both of them Socks that Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Artists. Here's the heavyweight:



It's a mill end so it was $10 cheaper than the normal heavyweight. Ever since a friend from my Lawrence knitting group knit a beautiful pair of socks with the heavyweight I've been dying to try it. The tag doesn't give a dye lot or a color name for the skein but it's a lilac and a greenish-gold. I really hope it spirals a not pools. Here's a picture of the other skein:



This is the lightweight version and the color is perfectly named "farmhouse." These colors are so rich and remind me of a beautiful fall scene.

The rest of my purchases were not yarn, but hopefully it will help me to create some.



I got a drop spindle and 3.8 oz of wool. The drop spindle is made of maple and cherry and the wool is combed top from Targhee sheep raised in Montana. I'm learning to spin from internet resources mostly and help from people on ravelry. I'm not very good and as of right now I can only spin pretty thickly. Once it's plied (I'm only making it two ply) it will probably be worsted-bulky. I hope that one day I can spin smaller because I'd love to spin for my own lace shawl.
Here's what I've got so far, it's about a fifth of the wool.



So that's my pretty lame and extra late description of my Sock Summit experience and the SWAG I walked away with. Soon I'll tell you about some actual knitting, I promise.

A Whole New Set Up

So, it's been a month since I've posted anything here but I swear I have a really good reason! I move 1400 miles from home and had to set up my first apartment from scratch. I mean scratch. I had nothing in the way of apartment necessities. The first night my mom stayed with me in the apartment and we had an air mattress to sleep on and nothing to sit on but the floor. Also, the only overhead lights in the apartment are in the kitchen so it was a pretty dark night. The first few things I invested in were a bed and some floor lamps. Here's the (sparse) bedroom now.



Just ignore the unpacked boxes and the fact that I don't have a bed skirt and appreciate that there is now a bed and a light source in the room. In the next few weeks I invested in some more furniture like my living room set:



The set is too overstuffed to really fit well in the living room but believe it or not smaller furniture is WAY more expensive. I think the overstuffed look is going out of style so I got the set for a really good deal. It was also the floor model so, while it's "new" it's been sat on over and over and over so I got a discount because of that too... Ignore the mess, I haven't bought any shelves/tables yet so the floor is where I'm "keeping" everything.

I've got a pretty small kitchen, but, up until now, I've never had a kitchen so I still like it.



Even cooler than the kitchen is that fact I have a pantry!



(not a lot of food, but a pantry is pretty cool nonetheless.) The one single thing that I wish I could change is the bathroom--it's super small.



All in all, I'm very happy with my new place. It still needs some fine-tuning (and some shelves!) but it's MY apartment and that's both cool and scary since it means that I'm ever closer to the dreaded adulthood.

I have been doing some knitting so I'll post in a day or two with that (and probably the slowest-posted description of Sock Summit, since everyone who went (but me) has already blogged the hell out of it.) Just figured I'd let you know what's been keeping me busy the past four weeks.