Anna's Yarn Mansion

*gasp* She lives!

LOL, you know I'm just playing with you guys!

Organic chem has been kicking my behind, but I'm finally kind of feeling like I kinda understand where the class is going. Cool beans.

Anywho, I finished something and wanted to share with you guys. Nevermind that I meant to finish it in March, it's all complete now! :-)

Welt Fantastic Socks

PATTERN: Welt Fantastic from Sensational Knitted Socks

YARN: Socks that Rock - Lightweight - Rockstar

NEEDLE: 1, Addi Turbo, 40" cable (magic loop)

STARTED: Way back on the tail end of February 2008

FINISHED: April 30, 2008

Just under the wire for the SAM KAL 5 April deadline! Anywho, I won't be knitting from any patterns until the quarter's over. Straight stockinette from now until about June 8th. Seems sooooo far away!

What else has been up with me? Nothing much. I am flying out/down to Los Angeles tomorrow morning (should arrive by about 12:30pm) for my sorority's western regionals. It should be a lot of fun meeting sorors all up and down the west coast corridor.

Boule will be even better! Sorors from all over the globe will be there! :-D

I am kinda scared of my flight, but with my knitting to keep me company, and all of the unique features on the Virgin America planes, I should be good to go! Keep an eye on the left hand bar or my flickr photostream for pics that I plan to upload at night or early in the morning. I'll be back in the Seattle area by Sunday evening. Tired, but excited and happy to have been a part of all this.

Here's hoping my ears "pop" back into place and I'm not in tears and feeling like my throat is going to close up during the final moments of the descent like I was 6 years ago on my last (short) flight!

Thanks again for all the love that I've been continuing to receive. The IMs, emails, Ravelry messages, etc. I swear, starting a knitting blog is on the top 10 list of things that I have never regretted doing! It's truly a Blessing how people so far away geographically can feel so close to your heart. I should write tacky holiday cards, shouldn't I? :-p

I'm off to finish packing, try to get a shower, and a few hours of sleep before getting up super early in the morning.

Happy knitting, spinning, scrappin', etc.!

howdy, friend!

First off, let me start by saying thank you. To each one of you that's stopped by my blog to say, "stay strong," or "how are you?" or just sent a good thought my way. I've really needed it the past few months!

I guess you could say that I've been moving through a quarter-life crisis of sorts. It's typically when I've been through the lowest of the low moments in my life (typically in quiet solitude) that I feel more and more like, "Well, I made it through this major obstacle on my own, without anyone's help or shoulder to cry on. When x-y-z happens, why should I bother or care if I have people in my corner or not cause I've made it through just fine through z-y-x with no one's help." Just knowing people care is sometimes enough to make people feel like opening up and being more trusting in general.

So again, thanks to all of you once again. Whether through the blog, Ravelry, an email, etc. Taking a moment out of your life to let someone else know that you care is working more wonders than you think that it possibly can! If I'm ever in a position to do the same in the future, I definitely will.

Just because I haven't made many comments lately, it doesn't mean that I haven't been peeking in on different blogs to see what's going on. I've been missing you guys and can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! :-O

Okay, enough of the mushy stuff. Okay, maybe not quite yet. Thank you to Vera for mailing this HK goody to me from South Carolina! I've seen some of these (limited edition Hello Kitty figurines) online and was wondering if I'd ever buy or receive one. That all got taken care of the other day in the mail!

Also some more thanks are in order to Spring. Excuse the grainy shot, but she brought back some goodies from her recent trip to the ATL. I got some Hello Kitty deco tape that I've been searching for for ages (and will never be used since it was so hard to find), eraser, and some color change stickers. All of which has been properly stowed away to make sure my deco tape stays in tack!!!

I'll probably be the little old lady in the nursing home that's entertained for hours when her kids swing buy with a $10 purchase from the Sanrio store full of Hello Kitty goodies. :-p

Let's get to the dirt.

What did I do during spring break?

Nothing too exciting. Relaxed. Got in quite a bit of running. Didn't knit too much. Just tried to vegetate and get my mind back for a little bit before going back to the usual schedule of work, class, come home for homework.

While prepping for finals, I found myself spinning quite a bit of yarn. At first, it was my usual crappy stuff, but after awhile, I started spinning some pretty nice stuff. This South African Top Berries & Chocolate from the Knitted Wit is a perfect example. The color's a little pale, but I love the constant change of color in it. I'm easily entertained by variegated yarns too!

Since I have a love affair with variations on pink, I ordered some Pink Elephant romney roving from Spunky Eclectic when I stalked noticed she'd updated her shop. Instead of pink and brown it's pink and grey. This is exactly why I've joined her fiber club. I gotta leave the pinks alone for awhile and try something new! I've finally spun what I think to be nice yarn and don't want to stop now! Gotta keep rolling while the iron's hot.

And since this is a post in the middle of another quarter, I have finished some things. I finished 3 dishcloths in about a day and a half. These were some fun dishcloths to make. I used Plymouth Fantasy Naturale for this one and Tahki Cotton Classic for the other two.

Excuse the after work attire, but I also finished Spirogyra from the Spring 2008 Knitty. Lace AND fingerless mitts? How can one go wrong?! The answer: You quite simply cannot. The yarn I knit these out of was some of my first few skeins of bad handspun stuff, but I knit with it anyway. I've got plans to knit more pairs of Spirogyra as potential Christmas gifts - or to squirrel away for when I wear through this 1st pair that I plan to wear just about everyday at work - with the good handspun that I've got, so expect to see more pics of this pattern!!!

I couldn't take too many pics outside because it started raining soon after I got home for work and started to transition for class the following evening. Product Specs . . .

STARTED: Sometime in March 2008

FINISHED: Monday, April 7, 2008

ROVING FROM: Don't remember...all I know for sure is that it's ubber soft South African Top

PATTERN: Spirogyra from Spring 2008 Knitty Magazine

VERDICT: I forgot to switch needle sizes, so my right glove is fatter than the other. Other than that, this is a quick knit. Great project and a nice way to see variegated roving knit up. Plan to see more of these puppies all finished/knitted up by me!

So . . . that's the project round up, for now. I didn't finish my pair of socks for March, but they're working up for April. I'll only do stockinette from now until the end of the quarter. Juliet will get picked up as soon as the socks are done...CPH? Whew, that one's iffy.

Movies? Been watchin' 'em here and there.

Superhero Movie was hilarious. Oh me oh my. I had a really good time at that movie. From the "gifted school" to the corny love story thrown in there, it was a good time. For adults. I don't know about bringing the kiddies along. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Shutter was pretty good too.  I've never seen the original that this one was based off of, but I had a good time none the less. I wasn't really scared while watching it, but I did like the moral of the story. I give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Well, I'm off to go finish a lab and to try to go over my notes one last time. I really want to do at least a few posts a month, but I plan to keep my promise about posting when I finish stuff!

Off to bed, back to work...did I mention I took on a 3rd part-time gig?

Yeah, I know....but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

Stay sweet and thanks once again.

Happy knitting, spinning, scrapbooking, and crafting in general!!!!

still breathing!

That, I most definitely am!

Howdy people! Yes, I'm still alive. No, school and work haven't taken me down for the count. Yet. Before my first chemistry exam (literally a week before), I went to my car and cried like a newborn baby before class because I was so sure I'd fail, never be able to move on and apply for my M.S.N. program and be stuck in adjunct servitude forever. I wiped my eyes, pulled it together and got an "A" grade.

Throughout it all, I've learned that I'm a bit of a drama queen. Just a tad. ;-)

With that said, I feel like scum for not posting or replying to my ever growing mountain of emails. I never meant to have nearly a month go by without posting. But that's neither here nor there. I'm here for the moment and keeping my promise of posting when I complete objects.

Inbetween fighting off my usual mild panic attacks everytime a new topic is introduced, I've been knitting away diligently on my Skinny Duet Socks from A Swell Yarn Shop. Have I told you how scrumptious this yarn is? Well, I kept at it, and low and behold, I actually finished these in time for the February Deadline with the SAM KAL 5 blog. Yippity skippity. ;-)

Introducing . . .

The Sailin' Away to an "A" Socks

I didn't have the heart to wake Rilakkuma from his nap, so please forgive him for "testing" out the socks. (Hey, I don't have a cat, so sometimes I have to play 'let's pretend' to jazz up my photos of otherwise vanilla socks. :-p)

YARN: A Swell Yarn Shop's Skinny Duet Sock Yarn in the Sailor Girl Colorway

NEEDLE SIZE: 1, addi turbo, 40" long cable, two at a time, magic loop

SIZE: 5 in women's

PATTERN: toe up, stockinette, with a short row heel, and k1p1 ribbing for the cuff; 60 stitches for the foot, 58 stitches for the cuff (resulting in the slight pooling, which I won't do again, just 60 stitches all around from now on!)

VERDICT: I love this yarn! It's soooo soft and easy to knit with. If it weren't for these, I'd seriously need a high dose of some sort of mood downer/stabilizer. By the time I finish school, I just might need it anyway, but for now, I'm hangin' on! The softness of the yarn makes for easy knitting, and I plan to knit up my Rocker Chick colorway Duet socks really, really soon!

So, I've gone from this, to a complete pair of socks, soaking in the sink as we speak. Happy, happy. Joy, joy. Gotta love Ren & Stimpy. ;-)

What about Madrona?

On a sad note, I attended Madrona this year out in Tacoma. It was wonderful. I came in on Saturday, took bunches of pics, went to the banquet, uploaded the photos on my laptop, then got up the next morning to go to my class with Margaret Radcliffe (knitting in all directions; used the sewn bind off for these socks), got home, and my laptop died on me. Lost ALL my pics from the day before.

Photo with THE Yarn Harlot holding onto the socks above? Trashed (had to erase my hard-drive clean and start from scratch). Photos of some of the knitting homies (one of which came in from Japan for the event)? Trashed.

All I can say is, don't ever use FileVault on your Mac unless you enjoy having random kernel panics until your computer dies a slow death, then you get to bring it back by uploading all of your old software. Or, if you really know what you're doing, have at it.

On a brighter note, I purchased the OS X Leopard.

Dare I say Mac outdid itself yet again? The Knitting Doc was right on when she gave her review awhile back. Or I asked her about it on that blog post and she gave a fantastic review of it, which stuck out in my mind when I was getting my hard-drive erased and wanting to try something new. Gotta love the knit blogging community.

Brava, Mac. Brava.

In other knitting news, I'm still working on Juliet. Chipping away at it a little at a time. I've got some more sock yarn waiting in the wings for March's socks. It's one of my goodies from Madrona. Socks that Rock Lightweight in the Rock Star colorway. I've been feenin' for this colorway for awhile, but hadn't seen it on their site. Imagine my joy at finally seeing it! I bought a skein of lightweight and heavyweight so I'll be able to knit another EZ Baby Surprise Jacket out of it. The RHOyal blue, the shades of pink, and plum....I can't wait to knit up these socks. The verdict is still out as to whether or not I'll knit them in a lace pattern. Mind numbing stockinette is so soothing when one has a 5-10 minute break in class and just needs to move their fingers to keep from being nervous all the time.

Hey, don't judge. If I put some of you techy/sciencey people in a Shakespeare or Medieval Literature class, you just might clam up too. ;-p

With that said, I haven't been watching too many movies  lately.

The Invasion was mildly entertaining. Nicole Kidman, slightly believable. I was halfway convinced that we'd all be better off as mind-numbed creates with some sort of inorganic/organic organism controlling our thoughts and emotions. :-p

I've had Three Can Play That Game and some other movie at my house for about a week. It'll be interesting to watch cause someone I went to high school with has one of her songs on the soundtrack.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm off to go study for another exam in a week, and work on some more statistics (does the homework ever end?!?!?! I spent the entire weekend - when I wasn't at work - on homework, and the weekend before that, and the weekend before that; ease up man, I've already gone through a whole packet of college ruled notebook paper....I'm not Tom Clancy or some other 500-page-book-a-day writer...yet. :-p).

Stay well everyone and let's hope March 19th get's here quick, fast, and in a hurry (even if it means organic chemistry is coming along at the end of the month).

Toodles for now.

like riding a bike . . .

that's what they say, so I'm gonna give it a try. I know, I know. I've got a small mountain of emails to go through (which I will do, I'm determined), but I had to get out at least one post before the torturous season of exams starts up all through February and March. I sooo hate the quarter system.

I do have a good excuse for being A-Wall for a hot minute.

Bronchitis.

Asthma.

They don't mix well.

Still hacking up a storm (sorry classmates), but I'll live. I hope. :-p First off; thanks to my dishcloth swap pal from one of the Ravelry.com swaps I took part in. I mailed out my package on Tuesday. I'm guessing my downstream pal will have a good idea of who sent 'em their goodies when they open up the package. ;-)

As quickly as I can go . . .

here goes my soRHOrity pride hat. Here it is on my noggin with my bushy/high volume hair under it. I challenged myself with this one and I'm glad that I did. (I weaved in the ends before washing and wearing it, of course.) Here's a pic of the hat on display. I used the Knit Picks Wool of the Andes that I was gifted after my crossing in mid-December. It was voted at the chapter meeting, and the hat I knit, along with the hat of my Soror were considered to be a tie. I demand a re-count! LOL Please note that EE - YIP is the official call of my soRHOrity. I thank you kindly. ;-)

And, in an attempt to finish it up before it starts to get too warm in the south to wear anything resembling a scarf; the Zeta Girl scarf is complete! Excuse the poor lighting, but once this sucker is dry, it's going directly to the post office, do not pass go, LOL. Had to photograph it before it went out the door. I used Cascade 220 for this project. Knit one half of the scarf, put it on a holder, then I knit the other half, and proceeded to kitchener stitch them together once complete. I had to break into the white for the neck portion of the scarf for fear of running out of the RHOyal blue. I might have to add a crochet border to hold down the edges (even though they're slightly stockinette, they really rolled up while I was knitting). I'm using my chemistry book to weigh it down as we speak. If that heavy paperweight doesn't work, I dunno what will.

Working on my navy girl socks to keep me sane inbetween all the bits and particles of orbitals, sub-shells, and shells that I'm learning about (heavens to betsy, you can't even see the darn things with the naked eye, so why on earth am I charting them?!?! Just tell me how many cc's of whatever medicine to pump into someone  based upon their weight, health history, etc. already!)

Alrighty. Back to studying, getting a little sleep, work, then class again. There will be sunshine in the morning. Or is that Organic Chemistry looming in the not-so-distant future?

Pray for me y'all. I'm gonna need it!

long weekends . . .

are perfect for relaxation, reflection, and preparation.

With that said, I'm hanging in there folks!!! Hope your Martin Luther King Jr. Day is going well. Mine is good. Just plan to relax and enjoy the day for what it is, a celebration of the life of someone who made a difference.

I started that by going on a hunt for a good quality suit. I was fruitless in finding the suit I really want, but I did happen to find out that there's an outlet Petite Sophisticate store out at the Auburn SuperMall. Oh, how I love that store! Inbetween them and Talbot's Petite section, *swoon*! Anywho, I ended up leaving with a gold blouse and a royal blue cardigan set. I did find a suit, not the gold I was hoping for, but an appropriate color royal blue (at the top of the page) on Petite Sophisticate's website. I'm glad that's done and over with!

And yes, I have been knitting this past week! Not much cause tests are starting up this upcoming week, but I did knit some to quell the stress. Juliet is coming along, slowly but surely.

Love, love, love the lace on this project. With the pace I currently have on it, I figure I'll have it done in time to wear it out a few times this upcoming spring. I just might have my wish come true!

And for classroom break knitting, some more socks. I enjoyed knitting my Aunt Spad's (names changed to protect the innocent) socks so much, that I decided to bust out some Skinny Duet Sock Yarn that I've had laying around for some time to hook myself up. Worked up my contrasting toes and here I go with the color, LOL! This particular colorway is called Navy Girl and it definitely fits the colorway. Hot/fuchsia pink and navy blue with some white thrown in for emphasis, perfect! :-D

Aside from the knitting, I did catch a movie. Captivity to be exact. Whoa. This is definitely a crazy movie. If you don't like horror/suspense movies, you might as well not even consider this one. Not your traditional thrasher movie and definitely doesn't end like most others do. It all centers around a model that's taken hostage by some sicko. I knit a few rows of Juliet before I had to put it down in disgust at what was going on in the movie. I give it a 2.75 out of 5 stars.

That's about it from me for now. I'm off to get to blog reading, studying, and watching one more movie before going back to the grind tomorrow, yi:-p!

Have a great week, everybody!