Sunday, November 12, 2006

*warning* the usual undergrad anst rant ahead

So I had a major rant in the kitchen today, even though I was the only one there (the kitties were in the basement and the bears were in the living room), you know-those crazy person rants where you get angry and just get louder and louder then you realize that you are crazy and go back to washing dishes. So yeah, I'm bitter. I want to be a teacher now! Now now now! (chanel that TNG episode where Picard turns into his 12 year old self and throws a tantrum) It's like, why do I have to finish my bachelors? I am smart enough and passionate enough to be in education this moment! And I'm not saying I have what it takes to be a teacher right now, but I want to learn, I want to be learning how to be a teacher now. *pout* So yeah, there we go, I'm done now. Oh yes, and I know I have grammatical errors in my blog, I blog how I think, I won't teach people how to write how I think- obviously, cause that would be bad.

So I haven't posted for awhile, it's been a very busy week. I started both my volunteering jobs this week. I mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, which is just once a week I go into a school and meet with a 'mentoree' for an hour, we do crafts and fun projects, I've done this before and it's gobs of fun. I took care of the infamous Cohen this week for his parents. We had lots of good times, which involved eating goldfish crackers on the couch while watching TV, running and chasing, and spitting chewed food out of our mouths onto our laps (that last part was more Cohen than me). We had a wonderful time. I also had a tonne of assignments and quizzes this week so it was busy school wise as well. Oh yeah, and it snowed.

And it hasn't stopped. It just keep on snowing. Jenn was away all week so there was a lot of walking in this so I also got my exercise. I only lost my boot twice (then I started wearing two pairs of socks) and I never fell! I have been stellar with my knitting in the past few weeks. I have finished six projects! Now I am down to three projects on the needles, one that is dangerously close to becoming a stalemate (the fuzzy blue sparkly scarf from the last photo blog entry). So these next few photos are of my boootiful lace scarf that I started in March, it's the trellis scarf from the Spring 2006 Interweave and my first lace project. It's knit in a lovely egyptian cotton that was too slippery for bamboo needles so it was kinda stressful to knit sometimes. So, the Bears are posing for me for the first photo with it, thanks Bears, and I have a question... the first photo of the edge is the cast on edge, and the second edge is the bind off edge. I kinda like the bind off edge better. If I knit this again I'll do both ends like that I think. What do you think?
So yeah, cast on edge...
And the bind off edge.

So guess what? See all this yarn? Aren't they all so pretty? Don't the colours go together so very well? There are an additional six skeins of the brown that aren't in this photo (do not ask me how much I paid for the yarn... not that it was over priced, just that I bought a lot), so yes, it's 100% wool from Romania, and it's like soft kitten love fur. So yes, lots and lots of yarn. Hhmmm... I wonder... Oh, what are these? Lovely little swatches. The skulls are my design. Don't you just love them? Why, what could I be doing?

And look at this mess! Needles of every size, a massive chart of skulls (did that myself thank you very much), a calculator, a gauge, pencil crayons.... I'm knitting a sweater! It's roughly based on this pattern from Interweave but I've switched the gauge (hence the calculator) and the design (hence the skulls) and the yarn but beside that, yeah! I've always wanted to knit this sweater, I wasn't planning on changing it so much but when I saw the yarn at Darlenes and I only wanted some of the colours and then I thought, heh... skulls.
So here is my sleeve! That's my toe by the way, that picture looks freaky to me. I started this last Saturday after visiting Darlene and phoning her a few times. It was stressful.


Here is my progress at about Thursday, the pink and the beige skulls blend together with the photo but they are distinctive in person.


And as of last night! A whole sleeve done! I know for some people that a sleeve in a week isn't much, but this is a whole lot of intarsia (I wanted to do fair isle but I would be carrying too much thick strands in the work) which involves a whole lot of weaving in ends. So yeah, 3mm needles, following a chart pattern, and weaving in... are you sitting down?... weaving in 82 ends. 82!!! I'm so proud of myself. I have this messed up idea while I knit that this is a profound and unattainable goal that nobody else could ever achieve or comphrehend the amount of work this is... then I go online and read blogs and realize, while this is a big thing, and lots of work... I'm not quite the only one who knits sweaters. Maybe. In other none-knitting news, I moved my room around again and put up some decorations I bought at a craft fair a few weeks ago. They are beautiful fused glass stars. I love stars. I couldn't find my fishing line but I couldn't wait so I just used white thread. What do you think?

Okay, have a good day. (those are ladybugs by the way)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, Leone, that scarf is absolutely beautiful! And I think I like the cast on end. My puppy is going well. I have two more legs to work on. Each leg seems to take me about 45 minutes! And I have a story to tell you about searching for toy eyes.

jenn said...

wow, I should go away more often as you seem rather productive *hee*.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I wish you'd come over and knit with me!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful scarf! I'm partial to the CO edge, myself.

I love love love your sweater design. I'm too chicken yet to try a sweater, although I have one in mind. I really the the Cardigan for Arwen from the Winter Interweave Knits.

I was at my mom's this weekend and she gave me alpaca! I need to find a shawl pattern now.

Anonymous said...

Let's see if I can remember everything...

1) snow!!!! So cool.

2) the bit about dribbling goldfish crackers - Cohen, not you, made me laugh

3) nice scarf! I'm clueless and can't tell the difference between the two

4) a sweater? Wow... Mum knits (or used to)really nice cardigans for kids, but never did colour pattern stuff (my Godmother did that).

And I'm done!

Jim said...

Beautiful scarf.

And very fun seeing the pictures of the Bears.

I think you should be a teacher, too! Though since I can't even work in Canadia yet, I probably can't hire you, either.

Eileen said...

SNOW! I'm so jealous!