I've moved!!!

I haven't been the best of bloggers and I've decided to make a fresh start. I feel that this blog is a constant reminder of my neglect and lack of updates, so I think a new home is the way to go. If you wish to find me, my new location is:

http://southernpurl.wordpress.com/

Please stop by and say hi! Thanks!

FO, huzzah!

That's right my friends... I stayed up until 3 am the other night finishing up and attaching the fringe to my dad's long-awaited Ravenclaw scarf. Unfortunately I don't have pictures to do it justice, but the glow of accomplishment I'm basking in at the moment must be the reason for the washed out picture :-) Luckily we're having another cold spell here in Louisiana, so my dad can get at least a little bit of wear out of it . It's modeled below hanging from my own jacket.Speaking of Harry Potter.... be still my beating heart, is it wrong of me to appreciate the latest pictures posted to Mugglenet.com? I mean, I'm only like 4 years older than him... he's almost legal.... :-)
Ahem...anyway, yeah. knitting.

Pictured below is the Hedera sock that I mentioned in my last post. Koigu KPPPM in a delicious array of purples , lavenders, lilacs, etc.
Surprisingly, despite the flash, the colors are pretty true in both of these photos. Hooray! Today's weather was glorious, but I don't get any sunlight in my dorm room. I ended up sitting outside of our coffee shop for over a hour and a half reading in the sun today and it was quite pleasant. I was somewhat smug while reading my book because of the poor souls who couldn't stand being outside because it was too cold... I was nice and cozy in my new shetland sweater my mom made me under my suede jacket with my handknit scarf, my Lakeview socks, and my Fetching gloves.

eep

As I've said before, I'm a terrible, terrible, terrible blogger :0( I guess I feel like I never have anything to say because I don't get a lot of knitting done. Then again, I am a college student so I guess I have at least a little bit of an excuse. I feel awful, though, because even though I have actually made several projects recently and acquired a lot of new yarn over winter break, I haven't taken any pictures. I went home for 3 1/2 weeks and turned into a hermit... I didn't socialize, I barely left the house, all I did was sit in my pajamas and knit, read, listen to classical music, and bake cookies. After last semester, I think I deserved a break like that.

I've come to the conclusion that this is my blog, and I shouldn't feel guilty about having no interesting knitting content that forces me not to post. I mean, what the hell, it's my blog, I can post about whatever I want, right?. So in order to at least write something down, I'm going to blog whenever I feel like it, about whatever I feel like, and if anybody actually reads my blog you'll just have to understand :-)

Unfortunately, I don't have any knitting-related pictures to post, but I have other pictures that I'll get to shortly. First, allow me to gush a moment about some books I read recently. Last month, I noticed that the movie Eragon was coming out (it was pretty bad, in my opinion), and realized that the book was sitting on my mother's bookshelf for a good 3+ years untouched. I figured, why not? I need a nice easy read. Not to mention that I'm an aspiring author myself, and the author of Eragon was a mere 19 years old when he published it. Quite a feat, if you ask me! I tore through the book, and finished the sequel, Eldest, in record time (I think I read it in two sittings... I couldn't put it down!) Now, I wouldn't say the book was highly original, or brilliantly well-written (how beautifully can you possibly write when you're fresh out of high school? That's what editors are for, right?) but it definitely kept me enraptured and the characters were intriguing. I loved the dragon the most...I wish I had one of my own!

In the time I was home I also re-read Harry Potters 1, 2, & 3 which was a nice revisit of a world that makes me extremely happy. My futher indulgences into young adult literature (hey, I just endured a semester of historical documents, history textbooks, and War & Peace, give me a break, ok?) I picked up book one of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand. It was cute, and made me giggle, but it didn't enrapture me like Eragon did. I rather despised the little boy, Nathaniel, who was the main character, but his enslaved demonic side-kick, Bartimaeus, was awesome, and I thought he was hilariously witty. Bartimaeus' insights into humans, usually relayed in footnotes throughout his chapters, were really quite amusing. I kept speed-reading through the Nathaniel chapters in order to get to the Bartimaeus chapters. Overall, it was a good, cute book.

As to knitting, I've made (for me, at least) quite a few projects recently. I made two pairs of Fetching over winter break, one in Peruvian Sierra Aran "Jasper" (I think), and another in an unidentified wool in a nice deep purple. I will be able to take pictures of the Jasper ones, but the purple ones have already been gifted without a picture :-( oops! I am also one solid section away from completing the Ravenclaw scarf I've been knitting so furiously for my dad. I worked on it a ton over break, and I'm finally almost done! I'm expecting to finish it by tomorrow. It's HUGE... I'll definitely take a picture when it's done. For Christmas I got some gorgeous Koigu (yay!) in varigated purples and lavenders which I started socks in Cookie's Hedera pattern. I also got some gorgeous Fleece Artist sock yarn in deep reds. If it wasn't pouring outside and the lighting dismal, I'd have some pictures to show.

I've been bedridden since Wednesday with the stomach flu, so I should probably lay back down and knit some more. Yesterday was the first day I could actually eat anything (a bowl of soup and a bagel) and today I woke up so starving I was lightheaded. One of my good friends brought me two cups of yogurt, two muffins, two bagels, a bowl of fruit, a bottle of water and a bottle of powerade! He had perfect timing! Anyway, back to bed I go!

And so my post isn't completely picture-less:

A view from inside the Old Louisiana State Capitol... I'll tell more about this next time

and there was much rejoicing**

Yesterday was one of the highlights of my college career. I had just finished cleaning my room (cuz you know, cleaning is the ultimate form of procrastination before studying for a test) and I was about to sit down to my looong night of studying for my computer networks (ack!) test. Suddenly I hear the familiar ring of my new email alert. An email from my professor, subject: test canceled. My next reaction: what?? The first line of the email starts "No this is not a joke". Wow, he's serious!! Apparently, there was a big party for the grand opening of our renovated university center, and the university found it fitting to block off all of the engineering faculty's parking. My professor is already beyond demoralized because of the decision by the uppers to cut the engineering school (and my major), and apparently blocking off their parking to accommodate a bunch of hoity-toity trustees so they can sip champagne and walk around the new building was too much for my professor to handle. He basically told us that since he can't get any parking, and he doesn't feel like postponing the test, that under the circumstances the last test (which was basically our final exam) was canceled, and he was going to give all of us A's. WOW! Talk about a big break. I actually managed to go out with my roommate to get some ice cream and then went to sleep for 9 1/2 hours! Tonight, I gotta buckle down and write my term paper for my Russian history class, but at least I didn't have to stay up all night worrying about my computer networks test!!!

Life is good.

**can anyone identify the movie reference?

whoops

I did it again. Im so sorry, I didnt mean to disappear again like that. Im a bad blogger! I also apologize for my lack of apostrophes in this post, but for some reason everytime I type one the "find" field pops up in Firefox and Im too lazy to switch back to IE.
Its nearly finals and it isnt the finals that are going to kill me, but the week before finals. I have soooo much to do for this week! AAH! Ill manage :-)

Im nearly done with the harvest socks that I started oh-so-long-ago. Im about halfway down the foot and then Ill be done. Its not that theyre taking a long time to knit, because each time I work on them I do most of the sock in a couple of sittings. Its just that I dont pick the sock up for overly-long amounts of time. oops. I -have- been working on stuff though, and I started a scarf for my dad whenever I got back from Thanksgiving. The colors are not true in this picture because of the flash, (they're darker than that) but you can get an idea.

It's the "campus scarf" from Scarfstyle. At first I didn't think it was working out, but as the scarf grows I think it's starting to pull together.
As a side note, I think my apostrophe's started working again. I switched from the html mode to "compose" mode on blogger and suddenly I can type them again. Hooray!!! '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' <-- yay!

Anyway, the scarf is made out of Elann's highland wool. I don't remember what colors I ordered because it was a while ago (and I'm too lazy to check).

On another side note, the second hermione hat I made a while back was gifted for my good friend's birthday and she loved it! Success! I think I may make her some matching gloves for Christmas. I better hurry up, Christmas is nearly here (relatively), and it has actually been COLD down here in the dirty south. I think the low today in New Orleans is 33... 25 in Baton Rouge! BRRRR... I've already busted out the scarf and gloves :-)

All for now!

two days in a row! (almost)

My post title may have been appropriate yesterday when I originally composed this entry, but once again blogger foiled my plans to update (I swear, it was blogger!). I couldn't get any of my pictures uploaded... and since I had promised pictures the last time, I couldn't exactly post another picture-free entry.

Fall is in the air. While I may not be able to get as decorative as I'd like in my little 8'x8' cell in my apartment, I thought this little pumpkin was absolutely adorable. October is my favorite month for a number of reasons, and even though I live in perpetual summer and completely miss out on the changing tree colors I still think October/fall is my favorite time of the year.
I won't bore you with my sock history since I'm sure you've read it 100000000000000x times by now on other knit blogs, but I am relatively new at socks. I remember working on a pair of socks when I was about 11 (which I never finished) but it was out of my own homespun. I was a crafty kid. I picked knitting back up last year after Katrina and when I got sick with Mono so lets just say I started making socks about a year ago.

Here are some crappy shots of my birthday socks... my room is a dungeon all the time because my window is at the wrong angle for sunlight, so I had to use a flash :-(

it is indeed daytime, and my window blinds are open


What was that in the background, you say? Why, that is my shrine (ok, just a poster) to Johnny Depp... as well as my jack-o-lantern lights I hung up :-) (I'm mostly showing off my lights, I promise)


I'm working down the leg of sock #2, and am about halfway to the heel flap. I have a huge history midterm on Thursday that I need to do a ton of reading for, so I don't know if I'll be able to do a ton of knitting (although it may act as my breaks)

many a thing

My 1 year blogiversary came and went and I didn't even notice. Here it goes: hurrah!

Guess what else came and went that I haven't mentioned yet...



Can you guess?? (Hint: look at the wristband)

.... that's right, it was my 21st birthday October 5th.. double hurrah!

I went to 80's night in the french quarter for the birthday celebration, so I had a rather funky outfit:



yes, I own orange shoes.. what of it?!

I got some lovely sock yarn for my birthday.. I forget the exact name of the colorway, but it was something with "harvest" in it, in Socks that Rock. I'll post pictures tomorrow, when there is better light in here. The StR is mediumweight, and I swear it's knitting itself. I finished the first sock in 3 days... and if you know me, you know that socks sit on my needles for quite some time. I'm already started on the second one and working down the leg... maybe I'll actually get the pair done in under a month (gasp!)

I'm on the wrong team...

That is how I spent my Saturday -- and that was the lovely view taken from my camera phone because my camera happened to run out of batteries at an unopportune time. Not before I got to take this picture, tho:


click for bigger, it's worth it.. I think our poor pelican was on his knees in front of a tiger execution squad

Saturday Tulane was unfortunate enough to be the homecoming victims for LSU's homecoming football game. Needless to say, it was brutal. From what I hear, LSU paid Tulane $85,000 for the opportunity to pound us, so I suppose it was worth it to sacrifice our dignity for a night (and I also hear that we have a 10 year contract now so we'll be getting our butts whipped every year). There was a good turnout of Tulane fans (even though we knew we were going to lose going in) because it is always a party when LSU has a home game, and we were mostly going for the tailgating. Unfortunately, we were the enemy, so there was quite a lot of "tiger bait" taunting going on. I had fun anyway :-)

The funny thing about Louisiana, however, is the weather. I swear it was sunny when I showed up to where my friends were set up tailgating. A hour later, it looked like this:

It was actually pretty amusing, and kinda funny when all of us were scrambling to push all of our stuff into the middle of our little 8'x8' pavillion tent. The rain was very gusty, so none of us stayed very dry, but it was really really hot out that day so it helped cool us off. The rain cleared just as quickly as it came, and we had a beautiful day the rest of the day (besides the heat and humidity). I think the final score was 49-7. We ended up leaving after halftime because the game was so lame, but apparently Tulane managed to score towards the end of the game (yay!). It was so pitiful that we were cheering like we'd won whenever we would make a 1st down.
The thing that made me giggle was the tshirt that a student at Tulane was selling for us to wear to the game (I bought one, but I certainly didn't walk around LSU's campus wearing it)... it said:

The difference between the best state school and the best school in the state... our players graduate.

ouch!!!

purdy yarn

So late last week I got my Noro in the mail and immediately started a mini scarf version of the Lady Eleanor scarf from Scarf Style. I'm already finished with the first ball of yarn, so this pattern and this yarn is knitting up really quickly... probably because I'm having a lot of fun seeing the color change and the pattern is very fast once you get it memorized.

I LOVE this thing

a closeup of my favorite sections of the colors

you can tell how long it's been since blogger has allowed me to upload photos by the out-of-season pirate I have sitting in the photo... ooh well, can't say I didn't try...

ok so this post is going to turn out to be quicker than the last TWO that I attempted to post because blogger hates me!! I originally tried posting on pirate day and it didn't work, so please excuse the belated pirate-esque photos. I do not have anything really exciting to post except a lousy "one inch more!" photo of the ravenclaw scarf... I'm starting the 4th set of stripes, and to tell you the truth I haven't felt like knitting the stripes so the scarf has been at a standstill for a day or two.

......blogger still hates me, and won't let me post photos, and I don't have time for photobucket this second so I'll hafta post my piccies later :-( sorry!