A Bitter Knitter

Time keeps marching relentlessly forward and then races past, bringing April closer and closer.  Deadlines for grant proposals and papers are looming nearer...  I really should get off Blogger and get to work on my poster, because (insert severe sarcasm) thanks to furloughs (and spring break) I have to print it by Thursday of next week, even though that presentation isn't until the 6th of April.  Sigh... But we're hoping to videotape our speakers on Tuesday for my presentation at WAIL.  BIL's scarf is progressing slowly, but I'm hoping to have it done by the 1st weekend of April as well, for BIL's birthday.  (Act surprised, Sid!)  But I have finished the unbloggable projects I mentioned... hope to get those mailed off tomorrow.  Pictures soon! And, thanks to the turning and tilting of the planet (which corresponds with the passing of time) we are coming up on the Vernal Equinox on Saturday.  It's really been lovely the past few days....

One required LING 300 class leads to... A linguistic depth of study and minor, and to... Not going into elementary education after all (not just for that reason, but it is part of it), which leads to... LING 480: Field Methods, which leads to... Getting involved with creating a tri-lingual click-and-hear dictionary, which leads to... Submitting a paper to WAIL (the Workshop on American Indigenous Languages hosted at UCSB), which leads to... Getting my paper accepted for WAIL (April 30th & May 1st), which leads to... Submitting an application for a grant (Due April 1st) and to... Presenting my research at a forum on "Advancing Undergraduate Research" at CSUSM on April 6th and to... Submitting an application for a much, much bigger grant (also due April 1st.  Go figure), which means... A whole lotta work and research to do, in addition to the usual homework load. So, as you can see, it's all my LING 300 professor's fault.  If her class hadn't been so...

Saturday was a triumphant day--I finished knitting my first ever Pair o' Socks !! Yes, here they are... a matched set: They fit divinely.  Way better than store-bought socks.  Y'all had no idea that your socks really didn't fit well, did you?  Well they don't.  So now you should all be dissatisfied with the fit of your store-bought socks and learn to knit socks that are tailor-made for your feet. I finished knitting them at a women's conference on Saturday.  It was fun... me knitting, the woman in front of me knitting, a woman in the row in front of her and off to the left was either knitting or crocheting... and that was just in my little section.  I wonder just how many of us there were? These socks are my 8th finished knitted item (counting paired things as one item).  I'm simply pleased as punch with how they turned out. Other than that I've currently got a couple of unbloggable projects on the needles right now, but I'll let you kno...

Very little knitting has occurred since my last post as the semester is now in full swing.  However I have cast on for the second Creta sock (the one in taupe) and did get a few rows done on BIL's scarf .  As it turns out, I'm going to be keeping the taupe socks and giving the multi-coloured ones to Older Sister. The main reason for this post though is to show off my Valentine's day present.  (I'm going to take this time to mention that I am married to the best guy ever .  Y'all may contest that and argue that you have good guys, too, but mine is the best.)   This is my present: seven sets of four inch double pointed needles in Harmony wood from KnitPicks.  Here's a close up of one of the sets: (Sorry... picture vanished) (I believe that you can click on the pictures to embiggen them.)  Aren't they pretty?  And they're only four inches.  The one's I've been knitting with are seven, so I'm excited to not have to slide the needles...

Well, after being a coward for many a month I have finally bit the bullet, so to speak. I have braved the knitting right of passage of turning the heel . I am now officially a SOCK KNITTER! I have in fact knitted two socks! And here they are... drumroll, please...   See? Socks! With lovely turned heels:     And I am loving knitting socks.  There is something almost poetic about how you are knitting in a tube, and then you knit a flat panel, and then you follow a few steps and TA-DA!  You suddenly have a turned heel!  And then you make the gusset and it suddenly looks like a SOCK!  (Well, missing the toe, but you get my point.)  It's like magic... Now there is something that needs to be explained. You see there is only one of each sock.  Mmm hmmm.  And yet I have two feet.  (Last time I checked.  Hold on... Yup.  Still got two and only two.)  There is, in knitting, a phenomenon known as Second  Sock Syndro...

Well, I have finally finished all the Christmas presents!  I showed you mom's mitts, and now here's Red-Headed sister's Hufflepuff scarf .  Finished.  Let me say that again.  Fin-ished!  Knitted, blocked, and fringed.  (It took four months to complete.  It's a good thing she loves it!  I will never make one of these ever again.) Wait--I take it back.  There is one more Christmas present I've promised: a blanket for my husband (a Chocobo blanket ).  But crocheting all those granny squares are gonna take a while, too.  But he's agreed to wait patiently. I got several more rows done on BIL's scarf , and the texture is showing up beautifully.  It looks awesome.  I have almost one foot done, and would like to have it done in the next few weeks, so that BIL can wear it while it's still wintry outside. Oh, and a picture I forgot to post from the trip to visit family.  My knitting "helpers" decorated my pattern b...

It's been quite a while since I posted...  School starts for me on Wednesday, so I'm trying to finish knitting Christmas presents. I have finished Mom's mitts .  I finished those yesterday and Mom loves them.  (I like the colour combination, but knitting with the yarn itself wasn't the best.)  (Photographed by Red-Headed Sister)  I also was able to get a significant amount of work done on Red-Headed Sister's Hufflepuff scarf.   Several trips in the car and time sitting around allowed me to get almost finished.  I'm now half way done with the last yellow stripe, then one more black stripe, then wash and block and add tassels.  Older Sister got a picture of my niecelette "helping" me knit it. And I finished my third star-crossed slouchy beret .  This one is for me.  I had help with this one as well--both from my niecelette and her second cousin, three-year-old Lucy.  While knitting it, I didn't have a cable needle wi...