Sometimes, I can be a little bit superstitious.

Heading into my job search, and a semester that I knew was going to be pretty rough, I somehow ended up with a rule that everytime it was reasonably possible, I HAD to eat a fortune cookie. I don’t know how many this ended up being, but there were a few in particular that definitely marked my semester… right up through my job news (Yes, I have one)!

“Prepare yourself for a big change of events in your personal life.”

This one showed up in my dessert a few days before my trip to Seattle.  Getting out of the midwest was nice and definitely a good change of scenery that reminded me that I need to get away from my job now and then. The vacation was definitely needed.

“You will either be happy over a proposition offered or a new job.”

This one came a few days before my first job offer… and right about when I got a call about my final on-campus interview.

“A wish will be granted after a long delay.”

I had this one at breakfast on Thursday (they have fortune cookies in the food court. Which means that since it was reasonably possible, I had to eat them at every visit, even breakfast).  This one was frustratingly true. I was waiting to hear from the University of Northern Colorado. I’d had a great campus visit on Monday, sought advice from mentors, and they’d checked my references-with every second, I was truly wishing that my phone would ring.

Soon, it was time for me to go to knitting group (7 pm) and I had just about resigned myself to NOT going in favor of moping in front of the TV… when my phone rang. A few minutes later, I had the job offer (start date: July 1)!

“Everything will now come your way.”

And this is going to be the last of the fortunes… This one was from lunch on Friday. I think it means I’m on the right path. That I’ve got things figured out (for now, at least).

Anyway, over Thanksgiving break, I bought the yarn and then on the eve of the new year, I cast on for the epic project.  The sweater in question?  Venezia.

Certainly a much easier project than the one I knit last semester right?  Haha.  I kid.

I haven’t worked on it for like a month… but I did about 8 rounds last night and I think I can commit to doing a little bit each day.  Want to see the progress?

Isn’t sooooo pretty that you want to eat it up?  I know.  Me too.  Last semester, I spoke of the sweater as a hot affair.  Venezia doesn’t lend itself to such wanton adjectives.

No.  Venezia is a state of mind.  It’s my escape.  My daily vacation… away from my frustrating students and …. everything.  It’s the land far far away where it’s just me, some wool and a pattern that requires me to look at the chart every 8 stitches or so.  Grrr.

There is this point in the seasons when the trees are bare (or mostly bare) and you can see deep into the wood.  The light strikes across the tress and branches, casting a dark lacey web of shadows across the forest floor and on any visitors walking the paths.  I was intrigued by these shadows and the idea of a dark, dramatic lace when I designed this scarf.

This is a pretty straight-forward pattern, with dramatic results.  You can knit it large, or you can knit it small - giving you a choice of a shawl or a scarf.

The best part:  I designed it to be knit with sock yarn!  Its a great way to take on the shape and techniques of a shawl without working with super-fine yarn.  You can use sock yarn in just about any yardage - This is size small, knit with just 315 yards of Claudia Handpainted Fingering Yarn.

I was also inspired by the abbey where my Aunt lives.  They do good works.  And make candy (to fund the good works).  The most delicious, incredible, sinful, amazing candy known to life.  But they need some help.  Building a bigger kitchen - so they can make more delicious candy.  You can read more about this here.

Anyway.  20% of the income made from this scarf will be donated to the building of this new kitchen.

The details:

Deep Forest Scarf/Shawl (Ravelry Link)
Requires:  315 (360, 395) yards of fingering weight yarn
Needle:  Something that gives you good gauge.  I used US 6.

$5.75

So.  Onward.  Bring out those mountains of sock yarn.  And knit on!  Save the candy kitchen!

lets call this photo “artsy” instead of blurry.

This project was an ever constant source of both pride and annoyance in my life for a long 4 months. When I started her, I joked about how she was this hot affair that I could not put down - an affair that I was sneaking in to meetings and squeezing into quick moments in the corner and between social engagements. Well, the scandalous affair is over. We’ve made it official (but not Facebook official. I don’t need my former high school classmates and distant family thinking differently of me).

I’m officially in love with this sweater. And it’s real love. The kind of love that you curl up with on a cold fall evening. The kind of love that you enjoy showing off and bragging about to your best friends. The kind of love that doesn’t care if you’re wearing your holiday best or making a run to the pharmacy without a bra on. The kind of love that survives it’s turmoils and frustrations, only to come out better on the other side. In 50 years, I’ll invite you to the anniversary party.

What I like:

• The color. There were a few weeks where I hated it (I’d been looking at it long enough), but I just cannot go wrong with green.
• The cost. I used some Patons Classic Merino - 6 balls at 5 bucks each makes this a nice, huge affordable piece of knitting.
• The drape and usefulness. A few weeks ago, I bought an open cardigan from Target to throw on when I’m chilled or running outside for a quick bit. Now, I reach for the cardigan I made.
• The addition of the buttons. So I can close it if I want to.
• That my knitting group loved it. And I may have even inspired someone else to knit one. That’s always the test in my book. Usually, I’m the one following someone.

What I don’t like:

• The errata. So confusing.
• The spacing of the sleeve holes. They’re too far apart in my book. And I don’t think I’m the only one who experienced this, you can see similar on other ravelry projects. Here’s a photo to illustrate. The back is just too wide



• I don’t like the way that people don’t believe I actually knit it (kidding).
• I don’t like the sleeve caps. I ended up cutting mine short (I only short rowed 2/3 the stitches) but placing them were written.
• I also had issues with the way that the seed stitch triangles were on the front of the sleeve. I ended up decreasing my front triangles at a rate 1.5 times faster than the triangle on the back side.

Lots of technical stuff and tips after the jump, including more on the buttons (in case you too want true love):

1. I think Angela (designer) has the first part of of the zig zag chart worked as ribbing the first bit. I didn’t do this and it turned out just fine/perfectly nice.
2. The zig zag charts have the seed stitch part up against the double braided chart. If you reverse them so that you have reverse stockinette stitch closest to the braid, you’ll be able to use reverse ss instead of seed stitch on the infamous seed stitch arm triangles. Which may or may not be a nice change.
3. The errata is really, really confusing. In terms of the charts. Just work them so that row 6 of the double braided chart with be worked in the same row as Row 13 (or 1) of the zig zag charts and row 6 of the huge reversible cable. I didn’t really follow the rest of the errata because I didn’t really follow the rest of the pattern because the sparse instructions had me more or less flying solo anyway.
4. Block this big. You won’t regret it.
5. How I did my sleeves: I did the short rows as written until I was working into the bottom/underside double braided chart and then I just went right to working the piece in the round. My decreases went like this: First decrease round (only front), next decrease round (1 in the back, 1 in the front), - and repeated until I had 4 (ish. could be 3, could be 5) sts left on the front seed stitch triangle. Then I worked 1 in front, 1 in back until the front triangle was completely gone and then I worked the double decreases only in the back until that triangle was completely gone.
6. I shortened the sleeves. No particular reason other than that was the length of the Target sweater referenced above.
7. I added buttons on the inside of the right front. You can see them in the photo below. You can see where/how I button the first button in this photo.  The second button goes into a similar hole, also created where the large cable crosses, but further across the front.

My dad made me some sock blockers!!! Yay! And they’re the perfect size… and the perfect amount because if you include the the two sock blockers I had prior…

I have exactly enough blockers to nicely display each of my seven single socks… which, when nicely displayed like such, comprise a portion of what is called my “guilt” board. It’s a bulletin board that displays each of the “singles” that are waiting for their mate. The more pretty and appealing that they look, the more I will hopefully want to finish them and get them on my feet. OOH - and I have a new rule - no more socks can be started unless there is an “empty” blocker it can hang on when it’s done. The problem?

I’ve got a thing for mittens lately. And no mitten blockers to restrict me.

When I opened the door to my apartment, an errant ball of green yarn instantly caught my eye.

I gasped aloud. I. Could. Knit.

And a heavenly choir sang down from on high.

I had a block of about 4+ hours where I could knit, uninterrupted, and without any guilt about what else I could be doing. Life is good. And knit, I did.

I worked on my Aran Wrap Cardigan and made significant progress.  Before I started, I was an inch below that sleeve hole.

I still love this project… and now that we’ve picked up our affair again, it’s like we were never apart.  Now I just have mile to knit and then the other armhole… and then a few more miles for the right side… and then some more miles for the skirty part…  Whooooo.  I’m in for the long haul, I guess.

I finished a blanket!! And, by my deadline! (check out Rav for the details.)

I’d been wanting to make Babette (which is crocheted! ::gasp::) because it’s just so freaking pretty - and it reminded me of the blankets that my grandma used to have - but with a nice new modern feel. But I knew that if I made the blanket for myself, it would take years. Probably even longer than my log cabin did.

So I pitched the idea to my mom (the one with the mad crochet skillz) that we BOTH work on it and present it to my sister as a graduation present. She liked the idea and one awesome yarn-shopping-trip later, we were all set to go. I did crochet some of the squares, though my mom did more than her share. I had the awesome job of seaming, weaving in the ends and making the border. The fun stuff right?

It was worth it. My sister likes it, and as a friend said: It’ll be perfect for those movie nights.

Next up:

I started a new, mindless sock. I lurve it. The yarn came from a sock blank swap that we had over on Ravelry and the package totally made my day.

I know that I promised that I was going to design a sock and show you the whole project along the way… but there are a few things stopping me right now, only one of which is that I haven’t yet come up with a stitch pattern that I want to use. The other thing?

I have an addiction. An obsession really.

I’ve become a twilight fan.

Luckily, I only started the series 2 weeks ago so I haven’t had to wait that long for the final book to come out (tonight. Midnight. Eeek!) - but I’ve re-read all the three books and I can’t stop thinking about it. I joined a Ravelry group and it’s more than 3/4 of my posts (out of the last 30 days) on Ravelry now. At knitting night last night, I was yelled at more than once for checking out some of the latest posts on the topic.

As you can imagine, reading about 2,000 pages twice (and daydreaming about irresistible vampires) has seriously cut into the knitting time.

Anyway. I was ashamed and hiding my addiction, but now I just don’t care - I fully acknowledge that I have an addiction. Kalani reminded me that this is the first step. This should all be over in a few days and then I’ll hopefully be back to my knitting self.

And Mom? You still cannot read these books. Edward is mine and I don’t want him in your head. I’m just not comfortable with that. Really, I’m just trying to protect you from this terrible addiction. Yea. That’s it. I’m just looking out for your best interest.

What a great weekend! We’re a great, crazy bunch. Here’s how the weekend went:

I at some raspberries. Fresh from my mom’s bushes.

We played some cards and ate some yummy food.

We hung around and waited for the fireworks to start (there were 30 of us watching the fireworks).

They were bright.

And a little crazy.

And beautiful.

All these photos taken by me. On my honor. With help from this tutorial.

There were babies.

Adorable, very photogenic babies.

Such cute babies.

There was some intense cardboard boat building.

Some intense boat racing.

A huge crowd to cheer on the boaters.

We don’t actually know who the people in the real boats are. Apparently they thought racing cardboard boats was an oddity worth watching.

There were some prizes. My team won the titanic award. We literally went down in flames.

There was the charity auction. My sleep mask brought in $55. The bottle of Oliver wine that I donated at the last minute brought in $70! The total donation from the auction? $5,600!!!!

And because we’re not fun enough… we had a pinata too!

Whew. I’m exhausted. Click over to the flickr set for more photos.