hat hat hat

Arrow says hello from his nest in the couch.

I am working on the Horseshoe Hat right now, and it is almost done - just 11 more rounds to go. I love it. The yarn is Misti Alpaca Chunky in Natural Cream.

Yes, welcome to my world of Anglo-American emotion.

Can't stay long because I want to finish my last paper tonight! Yes, I said TONIGHT! Because I will, as the Yarn Harlot said on her most recent blog post, "freak the frak out" if I don't have enough time to edit the junky parts tomorrow and Tuesday. Even if I have to stay up until 3 am. Or 4 am, more like.

Arrow says goodnight.

Edit: obviously "TONIGHT" meant "tomorrow." I mean, obviously. Time to freak out.

So...

Yes, I know, this post comes in a little later than the aforementioned once a week, but...better late than never?

I don't have any new finished-object news, but I will list the wonderful knitting books I got for Christmas:

Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book
The Harmony Guides: Cables and Arans
Inspired Fair Isle Knits
A Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Favorite Socks
Classic Knits
The Best of Interweave Knits
Cables Untangled
The Harmony Guides: Knit and Purl
Vogue Stitchionary 2: Cables
The Knitter's Book of Yarn

From TheBolter, I received Lace Style and an audiobook of the Yarn Harlot's At Knit's End. I received from lilyriver a subscription to Interweave Knits. So cool!!!!! Thank you!!! You get your own paragraph because your gifts are awesome. (I know you read my blog so I can thank you again over the interwebs.)

I made out like a bandit this Christmas. A part of me feels bad, like I'm in hoarding mode...but another part of me says I'm a poor graduate student, and I like gifts. (Although what part of me wouldn't like gifts, really?) I'm very much looking forward to having the time to knit all these exciting patterns once I've gotten sufficiently caught up on the (post-) Christmas knitting.

And of course, I also received yarns, including this Malabrigo Chunky in "Velvet Grapes":

I think it will become mittens.

And now it's time for bed. I'm sorry, I would link to all the book titles and yarn, but I'm too exhausted. I hope it snows really hard tomorrow so that we in this central Jersey area get snowed in with the shi*tload of work that we all have to complete in the next week (although maybe I should just speak for myself...I certainly have enough to keep me on the edge of hysteria for the remainder of the break) but a lot of comforting knitting as well.

New Year

I've been thinking about some resolutions, both knitterly and non-. The knitterly ones are as such:

1. Only make blog promises I intend to keep.
2. Post at least one entry (with picture/s) each week.
3. Do not promise scarves, shawls, wraps, or stoles as presents when there are deadlines for said items involved.
4. More socks.

In relation to the knitting resolution number 1, I am finally going to share with you the little Christmas knitting I have gotten done so far.

This is the garter-stitch wrap I'm making for my grandmother. It's only about a third of the way done. I had decided sometime around October that I'd be ready to knit the lace wrap "Cozy" from knitty for Christmas. I was so wrong. I hated knitting through the back loops, I hated not knowing how to count my stitches until it's too late, and I hated how the circular needle I was using kept snagging the yarn on its cruddy brass join. I will not mention the name of the needle; maybe it was just a dud. In any case, four hours into Cozy and a half-inch done, I realized I was going to end up with a schmatte, a schmatte which would also be a waste of this beautiful Artfibers Kyoto in number 40. So I cast on 60 stitches on size 11 needles and knit from there. I was able to show it to my grandmother on Christmas day, and she really liked it. And then as I knit furiously throughout the rest of the day and into the night, she kept saying, "So, how ya doin' with that?" and "It's really cold outside...". She has a very dry sense of humor and is usually very reserved, so when she jokes around it is really great. I still felt bad though.

This is the Irish Hiking Scarf that I'm making for my dad in Autumn House Farm Alpaca Brush. (Got it at Rhinebeck, but here's their website: http://www.autumnhousefarm.com/). It is also only a third of the way done. As per knitting resolution number 3, these kinds of things have to be around 6 feet long, and what with cabling for this one and a good amount of width for the other, they take much longer to knit than, say, a hat. Obviously I haven't gotten very good at estimating how long things will take yet. Anyway, my dad saw the WIP and he likes it a lot too. But I still gotta finish that.

The other things on my list have not even been started yet. Eighhhh. But I am not going to take them out of my "queue." By the way, I'm on Ravelry now, as sarahanneG.

Oh yah, last but not least, here's the sock that I promised to show so long ago. It has not progressed beyond this point yet, because of the Christmas knitting:

It's not too badly fudged for my first sock, although something happened with the decreases for the heel gusset that I can't explain. All I need to do for this sock are toe decreases and then kitchener.

Now I must face the writing of my final papers. Help.