Is it because you don't have any friends?

Maybe it is. Maybe it's because we don't have any friends. But we all don't have friends together, so I guess that makes it more okay.

On the first of many wonderful Wednesdays of the semester, we had a few new faces, and a lot of new projects! Lauren was working on a hat, which I think suspiciously might be modeled after my current prismatic sweater project ;)...

What a great color!

You can barely see the hat under how extremely excited she obviously is about being able to attend Stitch n' Bitch this semester! It looks like that hat will be done in a few days, and then, when I wear my sweater on the same day that she wears her hat- We're going to be, like...rainbow superheros!

Brandon was a newcomer this week, working on reteaching himself how to knit (he mostly had it, he'll be a pro in no time!)

If you look really close, you can see that he's holding his left needle like a pencil. This is very confusing to me, but it seemed to be working for him surprisingly well. The most confusing thing about this is that the hand on the right is holding its needle normally- it's the one on the left that's trying to get creative. I wonder if he's a lefty- I should have asked.

Katharine is working on the second sleeve of her sweater!

This is so exciting! It's so close to finished! Just the rest of this sleeve, and then joining everything together with the yoke!


Madeline is working on a hat, but not from a pattern:

I love that color! It's mostly green, but there's a little bit of blue in it, and the pattern has some pretty cool texture going on- maybe it will be finished next week!

I should point out that the reason I keep thinking that everyone's projects will be finished this week is because it's a three day weekend (four, if your photography professor cancelled your only Friday class, but we'll get to that in a little bit...)

Mary was, in fact, present at Stitch n' Bitch- but she was trying to figure out what her yarn wanted to be, and also thinking about how she should be working on Fred's birthday gift (which, by the way, I can't wait to see done as well!)

Kathryn was working on a multicolored scarf for her grandmother's birthday:

That's one lucky grandmother- Also, if you didn't believe me when I said Mary was there- That's her foot in the lower left corner of the picture. Proof of life!

Megan was working on a jiggly puff plush toy...

...which I thought was a pig (it looks like a pig!). It's the right color and everything. My confusion probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don't actually know what a jiggly puff looks like,,,

Clara has been working on awesome things, as usual:

First, the baby blanket which she has decided will be finished when the yarn runs out, and she's mostly there! She's more than halfway through the last ball.

Second, over break she made this awesome scarf with pockets! It also happens to have an impressive amount of colorwork, and check out that fringe! Apparently, her classmates are in love with that scarf as well- and who could blame them- pockets! My sister had a scarf with pockets, once. It was all one color but had different patches as a stitch sampler, and I always wanted to make one. This one is way cooler. My sister's scarf didn't have fringe. Let alone two-color fringe!

Clara has friends. You can tell because of how awesome her scarf is.

Jordan is making a decorative netted scarf (with flowers!) from a pattern in a magazine:

Check out that super colorful sweater she's wearing! Even if she didn't make it- it's still an awesome sweater! Jordan's hair is growing back pretty quickly too- I feel like if I blink, it might be halfway down her back again!

Jordan's friend, whose name I can pronounce but forgot to ask how to spell, came this week as well! My best guess at a spelling would be Sadya- but when I googled it, Sadhya was an equally popular alternative. ( I am sorry, Sadya, if I have butchered your name! I'm horrible at names... If it makes you feel any better, I have to look up my middle name every time I want to spell it...)

She's working on a scarf for her roommate so she won't feel left out from the awesome-but-also-warm (because warm is important) scarf club.

I, when I wasn't taking pictures, was attempting to work on a shawl/wrap project for one unnamed sister's upcoming birthday- but I decided that pattern with that yarn wasn't working out so now I have to think of something else. I have a couple of options, so I'm not too worried...yet.

I didn't have any classes on Friday, which was a wonderful start to my weekend indeed, so I spent a good part of the day working on finishing this:

149 grams of fingering weight (ish) yarn, spun from the hand-dyed roving I was working on over Christmas break! I gotta say, I was worried for a while in the middle, but now I think it turned out great! Right now, I'm thinking it's going to be a boneyard shawl, because that pattern has a little bit of visual interest without being complicated in a way that would distract from the awesomeness of the yarn. That being said, I currently don't have any cables in my interchangeable needle set that are not already in use in another project-so I guess I have to wait on that (six is probably a good number of projects to have going at once, anyways...) I probably have six projects going on at once right now because I don't have any friends...

Okay, friends! See you on Wednesday!

A welcome back, a birthday, a distraction, and a lot of pictures.

Spring 2013 is in full swing! (although, to be fair, it feels neither like spring, nor like 2013...) Fortunately, I've not had to date any papers yet. I, so far, have very little homework, but I estimate that will change in approximately one day. Or less.

In other very important news, happy birthday to everyone's favorite Madeline! I hope it was filled with lots of yarn, and lots of Tilda and Bella doing Tilda and Bella things.

In honor of Madeline's birthday, we shall start with her:

All knit up and ready for the cold months!

At the Reading Day Knitting Marathon of Awesomeness, Madeline showed off her lovely new sweater, an equally lovely shawl, and a wonderful earwarming headband device (I know that there is a name for those things, but I cannot recall it at the moment....) I believe she also had some handknit socks on, but you know, only so much awesome can fit into one picture...

She even brought a Christmas-themed Pandora station!

Briana was hard at work on a couple of projects, including the beginnings of a  hat, and the scarf pictured.

Kathryn was hard at work on a green and white Christmas gift blanket (Now would be a good time to say in advance that I hope everyone got their Christmas knitting done! I was exactly two days late with one of my gifts....

Lauren was working on an orange monster plushie, and we'll be seeing a lot more of her now that Stitch n' Bitch has moved to Wednesdays of Wonder!

I'm sorry. That might have been too much. It's tomorrow, though. You guys, I'm excited.

Katharine was working on a Christmas scarf for her Dad, and much progress was made during our marathon! In fact, I believe I recall that she only left because she ran out of yarn....

Clara, who sadly did not have the day off, stopped by after school to make some progress on the baby blanket she was working on for her grandmother. Epic progress! I bet it's done by now. I bet that baby blanket is done, and the Tube is probably longer than the English Channel. I bet it's the size of a snuggie for the world's skinniest skyscraper. I bet Clara's new fancy bedroom is mostly Tube.

As you can see, the Reading Day Knitting Marathon was pretty sweet! I spent a good chunk of time charting the superwoman logo for my sister's gloves, but then I finished a glove after that as well! I finished the second one on the train back from Chicago, which was wonderful, by the way.

Now, you may be wondering:

"Gee, I wonder why it took Kat over a month just to tell us all that! I mean, I bet she was swamped, like all other knitters, with Christmas knitting, but Christmas was pretty early in the break- what did she do for three weeks after that? Was she avoiding the blog on purpose?"

Well, let me answer your wonder, my friends!

It's true, the first week I was knitting (and felting, and sewing) Christmas presents, but that all changed on one not-very-cold Tuesday morning.

Twas' the night before Christmas, and I had finished my gifts (all but one) early enough to make custom sized bags out of the Sunday Post-Dispatch for each present. I wrapped them all up, and stashed them under the tree, much to the delight of my family.

Christmas morning upon us, we opened our gifts, and I made out like a bandit- new sweaters, new yarn (and a pattern!), and a lens for my camera!

But Santa had one trick left up his sleeve...

A spinning wheel! Just for me! It was the only thing I really really wanted, and also the thing I *knew* I wasn't going to get. I didn't even bother asking for one, because it was too ridiculously unlikely...But I have a spinning wheel!!!

So now you basically know why I didn't blog. Or, really, do much else (the occasional sewing...but only while thinking about spinning)

In case you don't believe me, here's some photographic evidence. While boy was busy with his baked goods:

I was making fuzzy things!

Here is my very first bit of 'real' spinning (not including the ugly white mess I produced while I was learning how to make it work... It's a Six Sheep Sampler I got from my local yarn store- it is fleece from six breeds of sheep, in six colors, so you can experiment with spinning each one! I took a sample bit of each fiber and spun it up, and then:

I made a tiny hank from the two ply samples, so I could wash it,

and then I made a tiny ball from the tiny hank!

I made a swatch, too, but I didn't take a picture of that. I'm working, right now, on spinning the rest of the Six Sheep Sampler into yarn for socks (I love socks! and sheep! and these colors!) But that little instant gratification of a swatch was pretty nice. I also love saying 'Six Sheep Sampler'

In order to guarantee that my stash of colorful fluff didn't run out, I began plans to figure out how to dye roving (a never-before-attempted project...)

It went like this:

White! The dye colors I chose were Royal purple (mixed with a bit of extra red), moss green, and silver grey. Three colors. I didn't think anything could really get weird with three colors...

After painting the roving with my colors, you roll the wet roving up into a really entertaining jelly-roll type lump, and stick it in a steamer basket with some water in the pot, and let the whole thing cook for a bit. Taking pictures of steam is way fun!
It was at this point that I realized that something wasn't quite right...the dye was too concentrated, or there was too much of it, or something, because it didn't look like any of my pictures, but I kept going. Kind of hard to go back, isn't it?

After a scary moment where I thought I'd felted the entire piece, I realized that it only looked that way because it was wet, so I left it to hang in a warm place overnight, and in the morning, voila! fluffy, not felted, and so colorful! Note, however, that those colors are not limited to royal purple, moss green, and silver grey....

Spun up, It's not at all the long-repreat striping yarn that I was expecting, but more of a wildly unpredictable pile of colors that I fortunately happen to be quite fond of. This is the first single. It will be followed by another, and then plied and knit into a mysterious thing that I have not decided on yet.

If you would like to watch a video about that roving, and if you're interested in me rambling on in a more visual kind of way, it's on facebook. Blogger made the video quality really horrible, so I'm not posting it here. I made it so a friend could see me spin, even though she lives very far away now.

Here are some other things I did with my break:

I dyed some fabric to make bags for some drop spindles...

I also dyed and screen printing these:

Project bags! They were, with the exception of the blue one, which I kept, Christmas gifts. These are big-project sized. I also made some smaller ones, which are just big enough for my favorite extra-long steel double pointed needles, plus the little sheepy needle protectors, which add about two inches...

Those are the four I kept for myself, plus my spindle bag in the middle. I gave all of them two drawstrings, so you just pull two strings to close the bags, rather than try to wedge it closed with one string. This makes them less likely to fall open, as well.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and and say that most of you probably watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special. If you didn't, don't worry, I won't give anything away. It was really fantastic, but that's all I'll say. I can, however, talk about the Who-related things I made!

One skein of freshly TARDIS blue yarn, slightly tonal, for the Doctor Who wrap I will soon be knitting (And probably a matching hat or something, this is a pretty hefty hank. It's 750 yards...)

Also, one TARDIS digital drawing tablet sleeve! I feel as though the TARDIS is appropriate, because a tablet is one of those things that will do anything you can imagine, which sort of makes it 'bigger on the inside'...in a more conceptual sort of way...

I also made a new pencil case, to replace the one I made in middle school, and I didn't post any pictures of Christmas knits (although it's all on Ravelry...), and I made a bridal party for a set of dolls, and a skirt for me, and I did a little bit of knitting, and things like that. I don't know if you've figured this out, yet, but I'm one of those people that goes crazy if I don't have something to do, but I had so many projects over break! It was wonderful, I loved it. I hope yours was as good as mine!

GUYS! I'll see you all tomorrow!

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.