It's been a long, long, long, long, long time...

It's been 7 months since the wedding, and I'm finally catching up with real life. As penance, some pictures of how knitting featured in the big day. (Click to embiggen.)

Veil, knitted by my dear friend Chery. Destined to become a family heirloom.

Wrap, knitted by me, in case it was cold at the end of September. (It wasn't.) 

Socks, knitted by me, for my shiny new husband.

Flower girl cardigans (I made two, one pictured here on my sweet niece L, who is 3 and a half! She scattered petals like she'd been doing it all her life.)

Priorities!

It's been ages since I blogged last, but I have a knitting-related post to share...

I bought a wedding dress, and a pattern for a veil. The yarn in the photo is Handmaiden Sea Silk, a gift from a dear friend, and matches the dress perfectly; another wonderful friend is knitting the yarn into a veil. Other knitting will be happening for the wedding, but I think this is the one I am most excited about. I really only looked at dresses that matched the yarn, which I think illustrates my priorities exactly.

NoNewProMo

So this year, instead of NaKniSweMo (National Knit a Sweater Month) I've decided to do No New Projects Month. This is after a (failed) attempt at a sweater, when really I should be focusing on UFOs and WIPs. I still have NaKniSweMo projects from 2010 and 2012 that need to be finished.

I'm also still participating in the Harry Potter Knit-Crochet House Cup. Hufflepuff (my house) won the Cup last term (May-July) so I am doing my part to defend the title! My large projects this term have included sweaters for Lydia and Oliver.

Liddybug

O's Digger sweater

The knitting on Oliver's sweater is done, but I'm going to duplicate stitch either a lizard or some type of construction equipment on the front for him. His interests are finally branching out, away from earth-moving equipment into creepy-crawlies.

I'm also knitting a pair of socks for Wichita, who recently got an upgrade...

We're getting married Sept. 27, 2014!

A sweater for Liddy!

Ugh, I had a whole post written and somehow managed to delete it before posting (I'm on my phone, so I'm honestly not even sure how it happened). But here's something I've been working on -- a wee sweater for my wee niece, who is already 2! The pattern is Mini Manu, and it's a lovely knit so far. I'm using Plymouth Select DK superwash merino, which is knitting up beautifully, if a bit splitty. I'm making 3/4-length sleeves and I have some adorable ladybug buttons to complete the little cardi. I've started the second sleeve and am looking forward to learning some new techniques on the yoke.

Other projects include Beatnik (for me), an as-yet undecided sweater for my nephew O, socks for Wichita (in an appropriately nerdy colorway) and of course a variety of other socks that I rotate in and out of my bag so I always have knitting with me.

So what's new with you?

Bad blogger.

Hello? Is anyone still out there? If you are, I'm still here and knitting! I have been slammed with work and life in general this summer, so I apologize for the long silence of this blog.

When I last blogged, we had just moved into a new townhouse. Nearly six months later, it still tends to look like an episode of Hoarders. But! With my new goals for knitting, cleaning and blogging, I hope to change that. My cleaning goals involve setting a timer for 30 minutes and cleaning. Tonight I cleaned both bathrooms, took out two loads of trash, and put away the dishes that Wichita was kind enough to wash last night.

Knitting goals mostly involve the HP Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. Who would have ever thought that I could be motivated to finish things with imaginary internet points? (I'm not really surprised by this, actually.) If you've been watching my Ravelry page this summer, you've seen the projects I've made as part of the competition.

I did my first real colorwork and completed a pair of socks for myself, after knitting lots of socks for other people. My goals this term include several baby sweaters (because everyone I know is having babies, it seems), sweaters for my sweet niece and nephew, and a sweater for yours truly. Blogging will serve as documentation for my projects. I've missed having a place to post pictures and get feedback; sometimes Ravelry just isn't the same.

It's good to be back.

Next time, on Hoarders...

.. it will be us, trying to justify the piles of books and bags of yarn and boxes of computer parts.

It's not actually that bad, but it seems very overwhelming now that all of our things are out of the old apartment and into the new townhouse, but hardly anything has been put away. Tomorrow we are getting a cabinet/shelf thing for dishes and I will finally be able to put the kitchen together. It's supposed to snow over the weekend, and there will be nothing happening but basketball anyway, so I figure I'll be snowed in and bored, which will maybe motivate me to unpack some things, move some other things to the basement and set even more other things aside for Goodwill.

The stash is hanging out in the yarn room, waiting for me to get to it. My WIPs are waiting patiently while I try to finish a pair of socks for my mother's birthday (Tuesday, March 26. I have to mail the socks to California. I just turned the heel of the first sock. For some reason, I am still under the delusion that I can do this.)

Malabrigo March, sort of.

So I managed to get nearly 1,500 yards out of the stash in February! We won't talk about the yarn that came in, because using up old stuff is really the important part, right? Right.

I realized that I'm having my own personal Malabrigo March without really meaning to. I made a cowl out of Malabrigo Twist and it's very cozy and warm. It's the Bandana cowl from Purl Soho, and it was a wonderfully quick knit. Like, if I had started it before 10 p.m., it would have been a single-evening knit.

I started looking around for other projects, and I found not one, not two, but THREE current projects that are done in Malabrigo: a pair of socks in Arroyo (sport weight), a small shawl in lace, and a sweater, also in lace. All of these are at a stage where it would be reasonable to hope to finish by the end of March. I'm also knitting a pair of socks for my mom, and, you know, moving again, hopefully for the last time for a while. I packed up a dozen boxes (mostly books) and dragged the suitcases down from storage. I really, really want to be done moving. Saturday is the day. That gives me three days until we get the keys, and four days until the truck is here. Eep. Will I make it? Only time will tell. I'm going to personally move the stash myself on Friday, because it's MINE and non-knitters give me funny looks when they see it all in one place.

I'll check back in after Saturday -- wish me luck! I'm sure gonna need it!

Finished in February.

I wasn't quite as prolific this month as I was last month, but there *were* three more days in January so I'm cutting myself a bit of slack.

First, I used up some old, old, OLD stash with a sock-weight shawl.

This is Pendulum, and I used four skeins of Koigu. What a great pattern! Once you get into the rhythm, the knitting is easy, but not so easy that is becomes boring. I used up absolutely every bit of yarn. It's a bit lopsided, as I flat ran out of the brown yarn, so the last short-row section is severely abbreviated. I wore it this week and it wraps nicely around my neck and ends up looking like a striped cowl. It's very cozy and I love it. I'd like to make another, with sufficient yarn to knit it as written.

The second project used slightly less old stash. Four skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (my fave!) and the pattern is Mary Jane. so I'm glad to have it out of the stash and into my closet.

I'm happy with this one too. It took 21 days, start to finish, and I even swatched (and tinked). I simply could not get the hang of the texture stitch pattern. Sometimes I'd forget the knit row between pattern rows, sometimes the pattern would be off a stitch and not line up correctly. I put this in time-out quite a lot, so if I had been able to follow directions and not spend several hours unknitting and reknitting, it probably would have been finished sooner. Also, something I find frustrating: if you design a sweater with a 4-stitch repeat, it's really unfair to make the hem a 3-stitch repeat. I made the sleeves shorter than written, partly because I was afraid of running out of yarn and partly because I needed to finish it TODAY if I wanted to turn it in for the HP House Cup on Ravelry. It still needs to be washed and blocked, but I'm afraid that will need to wait until after the move, when I have space (and time) to lay it out properly. It can wait, because it's not quite warm enough for short sleeves yet (for me, anyway; Wichita would disagree) but I'm excited to have it for spring.

Moving day comes in two weeks (eep!) and all I can think about is Malabrigo March. I need to start making deals with myself -- for every box I pack, I get a certain amount of knitting time.

Objects! Finished!

I'm taking part in the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup this winter, and so far it's proved to be very effective in motivating me to finish things. After the handwarmers, I buckled down and completed not one, not two, but THREE things!

First, I finished Wichita's latest pair of socks.

Nerd Girl Yarns, color Blue box exploding. Heels and cuffs in Cascade Heritage Sock. Pattern is the good ol' Gentleman's Fancy Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks, modified for exceptionally large feet. He was so thrilled with them I think they might have still been damp from blocking when he wore them to work.

Second, I finished a pair of leg warmers that had been on the needles since last September.

Malabrigo Finito, a luscious fingering-weight wool and a pattern from my brain. I wore them last week when we had single-digit temperatures and they worked wonderfully. They stayed pulled up over my knees all day.

The last project is a bit silly, but I've been seeing them around blogs and on Ravelry for some time now, and the headphone tangles at work have got seriously out of hand. I had some leftover wool from Wichita's socks, so now I have Doctor Who-themed headphones.

Note to anyone who may be considering making sweaters for your headphones: the cords are a lot longer than you think they are!

In other news, Wichita and I are moving (again) into a lovely two-story townhouse with a full unfinished basement. After a year of living in an apartment that doesn't have enough cabinets for food and dishes, I am giddy at the thought of all the storage space we'll have. There's also a second bedroom we can use as a guest room/walk-in yarn closet. I kid, I kid. But seriously, that's where I intend to keep the bulk of the stash. Wichita is so patient with the yarn collecting that it's the least I can do to try to contain it a bit.

New year.

Oh dear. It's been quite some time since my last post, hasn't it? I'm still alive and knitting merrily away, but the holidays this year just took it out of me. I knitted several presents, and failed to photograph most of them, but it was all stash yarn so I feel like I ended the year on a high note.

2013 is a big year for me in several ways. First, I turn 30 in the fall (I am not yet okay with this; check back in six months) and then in November, I have my TEN YEAR knittiversary -- knitting anniversary? knitting birthday? Regardless, it's the 10-year anniversary of the day I learned to knit, a rainy afternoon when the rest of the house was at a football game and I was learning the finer points of knits and purls from my sorority house mother.

I'm hoping to continue the stash-down momentum from holiday knitting into the new year. I've already knocked out a pair of fingerless mitts, and I'm quite taken with them.

The pattern is Wanderlust, from the most recent Knitty. I had a single skein of Berroco Flicker in color 3310 (Odette) and used up almost every last scrap of yarn. Of course I altered the pattern -- I made 3 cable repeats instead of 4, cast on provisionally and instead of seaming, made a three-needle bind off leaving a 6-stitch gap in the bind off for my thumb. I used a sewn bind off to secure those stitches. The yarn is 87% alpaca, so these are super warm, and the metallic ply isn't itchy at all.

I know I've made promises before, but this time I mean it -- I'm going to blog more frequently. I can blog from my phone, so I've no excuse not to do it.

I'll leave you with a Knits: Where are they now?

That's Miss Lydia Joy, my sweet niece, wearing a pair of mittens I made for her mother as woolly socks. They went to Tahoe and the kids were soaked after playing in the snow, and poor Liddy's feet were cold. Solution: mittens-as-socks!