Epic Plans

This Wednesday! This Wednesday shall be the greatest Wednesday for knitting of the semester! This Wednesday is the wonderful, once-a-semester Stitch n' Bitch Reading Day Marathon! (*happy dance!*)

I will be in the SUB knitting from 10am to 4ish pm (or at least I promise to be there during those times, except for a break for lunch...) My finals are over on Tuesday, so Wednesday is going to be full of hard core knitting!

The next important announcement of the blog this fine day, is that Wednesdays are going to be getting a lot more exciting next semester! Why? You may be wondering. Well, I will tell you why! Stitch n' Bitch will be moving to Wednesdays next semester! (same time, same place, of course!)

Wednesdays, from now on, are going to be pretty freakin' awesome.

Meanwhile, on a pretty awesome Tuesday:

My roommate, Emma, stopped by this week, with a Squirrel! Isn't he adorable? He is. He's pretty much begging for an acorn though, so that will be happening soon, I've heard. She has since made a dachshund (which is very entertainingly, smaller than the squirrel....)

Jordan is Very Happy indeed, to be finished with the (hopefully last) set of golf club covers! They all received pom poms while we were there. There was much rejoicing afterwords, as well:

"should I shake them, or hold them still?" .... "you can shake them if you want."

Action shot! you know it's true, because the pom poms are blurry. All that happy! Now, it's finally time to get back to those awesome granny square blankets!

This Christmas, I would like to see a picture of their family Christmas tree wearing Clara's Tube as a sweater.

Clara has made a million feet of progress on that baby blanket of her grandmother's. That's going to be one toasty blanket. Madeline discussed with Clara the possibility that the blanket looked a bit like a funfetti cake. I am inclined to agree, although it is a very toned down version.

Mary has made significant progress as well, on Fred's traveling chess set. I can't wait for the little chess pieces! Fred, apparently has been inquiring on whether or not boys are allowed to come to Stitch n' Bitch. Of course they are! Aric comes to Stitch n' Bitch (when he's not busy doing physics) and so do other boys! Knitting needs more boys.

Katharine, unfortunately, has had to put her sweater on hiatus until the Christmas knitting marathon is over. Here, we have a hat for her sister. I hope we see the sweater soon! That yoke is going to be exciting. I can't wait to see it done!

Here's Megan, working on yet another new project (a new one every week! she must have all the time in the world to knit...) She never did tell us how that Halloween sweater for her dog turned out... Probably not well, if I had to guess.

Cliche caption time: "Gotta Crochet them all!"    (My apologies, I don't have anything better than that. I missed the pokemon craze- spent my childhood hanging out with Bill Nye the Science Guy instead.)

Katherine, apparently, has absolutely no homework whatsoever, as you can see from the amount of pokemon amiguri she's made between the previous two Stitch n' Bitch meetings. Plus, she's working on another one too! This girl is productive. If I was that productive, I'd have three years worth of Christmas Knitting done by now.

They should make 'pocket Potter pals', like they have Potter Puppet Pals. They could fit into Madeline's miniature sweaters!

You can't really tell from this picture, but Madeline....Madeline is making WEASLEY SWEATERS! and not only that, Madeline's Weasley sweaters are Christmas Tree ornaments! She's doing the whole family, I think, and already has a few done! That's going to be the most exciting tree in the history of ever. True story. They're even going to have little initials on them! How wonderful is that! She should make an extra pair for herself and John. I just thought of that. I would totally wear a sweater with a big 'K' on it. I might even make myself one. With bulky yarn, in a color I don't usually wear. This is sounding like a better idea the more I think about it.


There's no action shots of me this week, but my yarn is pretty exciting!

One almost-finished sock, and one now-ripped out glove. The sock is going to be getting a toe soon, and the glove is supposed to be a Christmas gift for a sister, but I had to rip it back, because the red in the checkers was going to interfere with the motif I had planned. I restarted with corrugated ribbing, but my gauge tightened up, and now the cuff is too small. I'm going to rip it out and cast on again with more stitches. This will work eventually! The sock, on the other hand, is going very smoothly.

On the bright side, I have decided that corrugated ribbing is awesome! Actually, This is the first time I've done any sort of for-real colorwork...(okay, I knit the front and one sleeve of a sweater with a rib cage on the front of it in high school, but I never finished the back, and it was acrylic and therefore does not count)....but I'm a fan. I might have plans for a fair isle sweater. Seriously though, Christmas knitting has to get finished first! There's only 17 days left! Then, it's back to knitting things for me!

In which I forget things, and in which there are exciting things.

Last week, I got distracted. I got distracted by how nice the weather was, and how cool the fog was (I didn't have to drive anywhere, so it was cool and not scary), and how I had so little homework, and could sort of relax- I got so distracted, that I convinced myself that I had already written the blog post! ...Since clearly I was so on top of things....

This week promises to be less boring.

Last week, one of my prints was selected to go on some kind of Truman thank-you cards (weird?)

I thought you guys would enjoy it, since it involves sheep. I feel like this is a weird choice for thank you cards, but recognition is recognition, I suppose.

We were joined, last week at Stitch n' Bitch, by a very distinguished guest: Mary's mother (therefore Clara's grandmother)! Here is a multi-generation picture to prove that fact:

She regaled us with stories of hurricane Sandy, and of other, happier things. She was not knitting- she had a proxy for that:

Clara diligently plugged away at a baby blanket for a baby she will probably never meet (This, Clara, is where you start lobbying for a trip to New York City)! As such, this week, we were Tube-less.

Mary is working on this AWESOME chess set for Fred's birthday: I believe the final piece will be Doctor Who themed, which makes it 11 times more fantastic! The best part is, she can knit it in front of Fred, and he's so oblivious that he's none the wiser. I wish I could knit my gifts in front of their intended recipients. I wouldn't have to spend the two months before Christmas stealth-knitting...

The coolest bit, is that there's going to be a drawstring around the outside so that the chess board is the carrying bag as well!

The look on Jordan's face pretty much sums up everyone's feelings concerning her Christmas gift for her Dad this year:

This set is Truman-spirit themed! To match a golf bag, and polo shirt. This man is going to be the most matching golfer in town!

Golf club cozies. Gotta keep those poor golf clubs warm, after all... I've been saying 'hopefully the last set' for the past four sets now, so I won't bother.

Here's Katharine, with one very exciting completed sleeve:

I know you're thinking 'gee Kat, that doesn't look much like a sleeve... Are you sure Katharine isn't knitting legwarmers for flamingos?' -But I can assure you, that it is in fact a sleeve. There are two things you should know: The most important thing is that this is a bottom-up raglan sweater, and the yoke is knitted last, attaching the body to the sleeves...so that's why the sleeve doesn't have any increases. The other, only mildly important thing you should know, is that Katharine didn't knit a gauge swatch. (Insert internal *gasp!* here)- others may not be gasping, but gauge swatches are still important. I am an advocate of those which cannot stand up for themselves in the faces of ridicule. Gauge swatches unite!

Megan has begun a hat- not that she'll need it with this balmy excuse for a December...

And Katharine has made some progress on her blanket (again, not that she'll need this either...)

Woody is making a furry scarf, which is pretty exciting, because it looks like animal print. Random tangent: I wonder if anyone's ever tried to spin the fur of the big cats, and knit with it? Wouldn't it be great if knitted cheetah-fur had spots like a cheetah? That would certainly take some doing.


A rare sighting:

It's not often there are actual pictures of me on the blog these days- Woody was kind enough to snap an action shot. Let's dissect this picture, shall we: Note the new teal iPhone case, which features a silicone grippy surface for nonslip protection, as well as a hard plastic middle layer to offer more substantial protection, and an unseen underlayer to aid in shock absorbtion. Also, a built-in screen protector, and a cutout in the back that lets everyone know I'm carrying an apple product, even if it looks like a wad of colorful bubble wrap (which it basically is). Also, note the drawing tablet, which is the homework I should have been doing at the last meeting, and the knitting in my hands, which is what I was actually doing. Jordan appears to be mildly dillusional in the background- she is smiling while working on the golf club cozies, which is something I would not be doing. (Smiling? you ask, or working on the cozies?--The answer is simple. I would be doing neither.) She is a very loving daughter, apparently.

My dad does not appreciate knitted things, so he's the only one not getting knitted things this year. Not even golf club cozies. To be fair, though, he doesn't golf...

In other news, Madeline and I were prominently featured in a Truman Index article recently, which, to my knowledge did not contain a single typo (yay, Truman Index!). it features this photo of me:

(From over the summer, when my hair was long and all this yarn was still yarn and not knitted things)

and it is very exciting indeed! It can be found here:

http://tmn.truman.edu/theindex/2012/11/28/for-the-stitch-of-it/

How famous are we! Not very, but still. I do feel like the reporter could have interviewed more knitters, but it's nice to get the word out, and get people to know how awesome it is! That's basically what Stitch n' Bitch is all about, right? We are some pretty cool people. In case you don't feel like seeing the article online, don't worry, because I grabbed 12 copies and I am hoarding them, like any self respecting person would.

Next week, we'll hopefully have our official Reading Day Knitting Day, in which we do not study, and this week, we should all be thinking about what time we would like to meet next semester! How exciting!... I'm going to work on some posters. Promise.