New Year, New Shoes

Bring on the new year, new projects, new love, and some kick-ass red shoes. Happy NewYear, everyone!

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While the holidays are a wonderful time filled with gifts, rushed knitting, relatives, Christmas cookies and more football than anyone should ever watch, it gets lonely. When you're single (and not because you want it that way) you feel the pang all year round when you check facebook and five more friends have gotten married or engaged in the past few days, or when you go to the family Christmas party to find yourself as the lastsingle girl. Seriously- my 12 year old cousin was telling me alllllll about her new boyfriend (it is weird to be jealous?). I have developed coping mechanisms over the past few years as people constantly feel the need to remind me that I'm the last single Darling girl... (oh really? I hadn't noticed!) and while none of my methods are that great (recklessly ice skating, compulsive baking of cupcakes and baklava, taking hateful cats to get their picture taken with Santa at Petsmart) there is one coping mechanism that I really need to boot.

You guessed it- OCO. This painful condition is short for "Obsessive Casting On" and can vary in degrees from random-new-hat (mild) to 2-new-sweaters-4-new-scarves-and-12-new-hats-while-thinking-about-3-different-shawls (acute). This holiday season, it's especially bad. I took a picture of approximately one third of my new projects because I'm flat out ashamed of my 12 weak moments that have me stressing out about knitting again. Seriously- I'm stressed out. This sucks.

But let's start with happy things. This is my new shawl and even though it's quite small, I'm calling it my tenth shawl of 2010. I love it and have already worn it a ton. I'm trying to tell my mom that she needs one for V-day because I totally want to make another. Anyhoo, this shawl is called Annis-seed, pattern in Annis from Knitty, I used beads instead of nupps but made no other modifications.

And...a potential pattern! I made this after I saw something similar at Kohls. Yarn is Alpaca With A Twist Surino (brand new!). Stay tuned for more info on this, like whether I'll ever weave in those ends or not. Also keep in mind that the sweater is much too big for the model and the real pattern will come in more sizes than this one...

Weak moments...

And in unrelated news: there is a cheetah in my Christmas tree.

Christmas is for weaving

Wow it's been a while- sorry about that! I've had deadline after deadline over the past few weeks and haven't had time to sleep, much less blog. And even though I've still got quite a bit of work to be done by tomorrow, I feel like I owe it to you guys to get in a quick posting.

Happy Holidays! Yesterday for Christmas I got a loom! I spent a good chuck of yesterday putting it together with my dad and then making a warp using the legs of the dining room table while my dad pointed at the directions that came with the loom and tried to explain how nothing would work since I was doing that part wrong. I was weaving an hour later (yay! victory dance!) Anyhoo, I am using some Patons Decor (which may turn out to be a terrible mistake as it's mostly acrylic but we'll see- it's old stash and I could care less what becomes of it) and I wove for about an hour last night and a little this morning and went to get my camera to show off my new harp and....

Someone else decided it was their turn with the loom.

In other news... mini sock-blockers coming soon!

Nine....and a bit.

Today I thought I finished my tenth shawl. I have been working at my Annis with flying fingers since I started it on Wednesday night during Glee, beading and purling at the speed of light in that delicious Visual Purple. I took it to my knitting group today with hopes of getting just a few rows closer to the end and with the help of a good caffeine buzz and an extra long knitting session, I even managed to bind off at my knitting group withJasmine's moral support. And my newly finished shawl is.....way too small. It's fabulous, and wonderful, and beady, and by no stretch of the imagination could it ever be anything more than a scarf. It's still lovely, but I really wish I had knitted something else for my tenth shawl, that way it would have actually been a shawl. I guess the Paige-gauge was too much- and now the shawl is too little.

Since plan A, B, and C for 10 shawls in 2010 have failed, we move on to plan D. I just need to figure out what that is first. Wish me luck.

Amendments

So....this List business. I've decided to make a couple amendments in order to salvage a wee bit of my sanity and make a few bucks on the side. I'm not totally abandoning The List, just updating it. For example, I have a sweater to make by January 4th. I am quite confident that it can be done, but it certainly can't be done WHILE going by the list, so for the sake of cold hard sweater-cash, I'm putting everything else on hold. Almost.

I'm still chugging along on the Christmas Tube. Some of you know what it is, and the rest of you will have to wait until Christmas, since I just found out that the recipient of the tube has been reading this blog. Anyhoo, after SnB last night (thanks Laurie!) and knitting through a movie this evening (when I wasn't biting my nails- Oh snap Harry Potter!) I am quite pleased to say that the Christmas Tube is a little longer- I only have about about 6 more inches before I can start working on the closure part. Luckily it is bulky and is going quite quickly. I bet it would go even faster if I would stop biting my thumb nails and just keep knitting. Christmas is too close to take a day off.

AND.....I have abandoned attempts 1 and 2 at shawl number 10 in hopes that a little bitty Annis from Knitty.com will be easier to finish within a reasonable amount of time. I started on Wednesday night during "Glee" and worked on it for a while last night, and have most of the tricky bit over with. I can totally finish that by New Years Eve. I think. Here it is so far, yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy from stash, I'm not sure what the color is because they don't make it anymore, and the beads are from a giant purchase of the wrong size beads ordered a couple months ago. So far so good!

nine!

Ask me how I'm feeling- I'm feeling victorious. It's Friday evening, I have a big gray cat passed out in my arms (she really needs some lovins since Lacey went back to Florida) and I finished shawl 9/10 for 2010. I can seriously get this done. I think. I'm currently (very slowly) designing one and if I'm not close by Christmas, I'll cast on an emergency Ishbel to finish or something.

But since typing is bothering Miss Sleepyhead and I'm not able to use my left hand and arm, I'll post pictures and be done with it.

Pattern: Sweet Honeysuckle Wrap

Yarn: Alpaca With A Twist Baby Twist, just shy of 2 jumbo hanks

Overall thoughts on the shawl: Boy I'm glad that's over with. I was not a big fan of that pattern. But here's my pictures...