Indiana Here I Come

I decided to go to Indiana at the last minute, so I'll be gone all weekend. Poor Matt will be all alone without me. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my grandma company and it will give me piece of mind to be there.
Have a good weekend everybody!

Memories

Me and Kimi at my Bachelorette Party, I hope that I haven't posted this picture already...
This weekend was my friend Kimi's 30th birthday. For some reason, her birthday is one of those days that always causes me to reflect back on old times. Kimi and I became friends when I was a senior in high school so it makes me feel really old to think that I've celebrated nine birthdays with her since! We've been through all kinds of crazy things together, Happy Birthday Kimi!

On the knitting front, I've been working like mad on the baby sweater for Baby Wilson. I actually finished it just on time for the shower today! It turned out really cute, but I accidentally left my camera at the party so I'll have to wait to post pictures. It only took me a week to make the sweater, so now I'm back to where I started last week with my two unfinished scarves and the "Spring Fling" that needs to be partially frogged....not fun. I think I'll make a hat this week before I dive into my bin of unfinished projects.

Thanks to everyone for the nice notes about my grandma. She's been in the hospital for the past few days but she's doing okay. I think that we'll be buying some tickets to go and see her in the coming month because she changed her mind about our visit and decided that she's excited to see us. I think that she's kind of scattered with everything going on, so she didn't really mean to turn us away after all. I'm glad, I feel alot better now.

Hard Times

Today has been really hard for me. Yesterday I found out that my grandmother's ovarian cancer is not being helped by her chemotherapy and she's getting worse much more rapidly than expected. I guess that until now I didn't really realize how quickly I might lose her and it's affecting me greatly. All I want to do is get into bed and cry, but instead I've got to do homework and study and run errands...and I feel like a bit of a zombie.
Part of me thinks it's bad to be expecting the worst, but at the same time I think it's important for me to focus on my grandma while she's still here. Today I called her to tell her that we want to go and visit her in a couple of weeks and she told me not to come. This crushed me despite the fact that I was expecting it.
I guess that it hurts me most to be so far away from her and so helpless. I've never lost someone that I love before and I don't quite know how to deal with it.
Maybe writing about it here will help me.

Let It Die

Matt and I really don't get out much, so when we do it's always very exciting. Last night we went to a Fiest show with our friends Syrette and Koa (whom are responsible for introducing us to cool things in general) and we had a great time. If you haven't heard Feist yet, I think it's time to jump on the bandwagon because she's incredible. She put on a great show too.

What else is going on? I bought some yarn to begin my very first baby sweater yesterday and I'm very excited to get it going. At first I was thinking that I should finish at least one of the 3 current projects I've got going, but I talked myself out of that idea real fast. I did make a good attempt at it though. I promised myself a day of knitting on Friday (no posting allowed that day, sorry) and I did literally knit all day. I was trying to finish my green mini-cardigan and I came so close but then I did something really stupid and used yarn from two different dye lots on one front sides and it looks really wierd. Usually in this case I would finish it anyways and say screw it, but my boss at the yarn store pretty much threw that idea out the window. I guess I'll be frogging that side and starting it over, blah. For this reason I'm putting it back on the back-burner and in the words of Feist, I'll let it die....at least for a little while.

Look! Pictures

Design project: "Exploded Square"

Design project: "Still Life"

This is a sample for the store made from the new Rowan

Everyone at work is making something with this pattern, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and see what the fun was all about. It's the feather and fan stitch done in Manos de Uruguay wool. Let me know if you want the pattern, it also looks great in mohair.

This is a secret project I'm doing, so you only get a peek. (Also from the new Rowan)

I think I'm just going to have to come to grips with the fact that I only have time to post once a week now. Otherwise I feel really guilty about it every time I don't post more often. I thought that today I'd show you some of the things that I've been working on. The three knitting pictures are my current projects. I'm to laze to put them in my sidebar, so there you go. The other two are projects I did for my design class. I love homework that involves cutting and pasting! I especially liked working on the black and white one because the designs that you can come up with when you're using simple shapes are endless and they always look interesting. I'm really liking that class.
I'm really happy that I've been knitting a little bit more too. Now that I'm working at Urban Knitting Studio I am constantly coming up with ideas of things I want to make. Here is my current list:

- Felted zipper bags using my scrap wool
- A baby sweater for my friend Delphine's baby on the way
- A shrug for myself
- A cardigan for myself
- A tank for my mom
- Christmas gifts of which I will not name...

And I'm also considering the task of making a sweater for Matt, just because I think it would be fun if he actually wore it. There is a nice pattern in the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book for a zip up sweater. If I do go through with such a huge project I think I'd do this one since Matt really likes to wear hoodies and zippery things.
Okay, I think I'm done with my post now. I'd hate to bore you with any more of my knitting thoughts....

Kim Hargreaves is not my best friend

So now that I've been working at my LYS for a few weeks I'm beginning to feel as if I'm really in the loop with this whole knitting thing. For instance, I was never privvy to any of the knitting magazines until two weeks ago. (Who knows how to spell "privvy"?) Anyways I'm sure that you can just hear Matt saying "What? Now you're reading about knitting too?!" I think it's probably better that I started reading the knitting publications after we got married...
And now back to my point: now that I'm more in tune with the knitting community I have become aware of the plethora of pattern resources that are available to me. I may not like many of the designs that I find, but at least I know where to look. So I've been searching for awhile to find a really specific shrug pattern but I never seem to find the right one. I finally found it. Enter Kim Hargreaves new website. I fell in love with the Splendour pattern, but wait! You can only get the pattern if you buy the yarn, buttons, and pattern kit that she ONLY sells on her site. Is there anyone else who finds this really annoying? Especially because her company is based in England and for all of us over here in the US it could potentially be even more expensive to order from her after shipping. I don't even know how much the whole thing would cost me if I ordered it but even if I could afford it I still think that her approach kind of diminishes the whole creative aspect of knitting. I might as well just buy a shrug a the Gap!