Around and Around We Go
I realized yesterday that it had been a while since I had posted anything here. There are multiple reasons for that. First my end of the semester, trying to get papers wrapped up craziness has transitioned directly into studying for comprehensive exams craziness. Second, I won't be making any more beer until I dispose of the majority of beer I have already made. Because of the end of the semester, there have been a lot of functions that involve drinking beer at the bar, which has cut into the consumption of my homebrew dramatically. I have managed to pawn some off onto the other PhD students and my husband's co-workers. In fact, a week ago Tuesday I was out in the partking lot behind my academic building at 5 pm handing out beer from the trunk of my car. That's right folks, I'm nothing if not classy. Finally, I have embarked upon two never ending knitting projects.
The first is the Lady Eleanor shawl. This one has actually been moving along at a relatively fast pace. In fact, I was pretty excited last weekend because I was within 4 tiers of the pattern specifications. I then tried to wrap it around me and realized that it's still too short. I should have expected this since I'm using a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for, but I miss the obvious sometimes. Anyway, I have plenty of yarn to keep going and make it long enough, but the disappointment of not being almost done with it was pretty crushing. The second project is a Hokie scarf for my daughter using the 1st/2nd year Harry Potter scarf pattern.
I never paid much attention to the scarves in the movies, but these things are basically a long tube of stockinette stitch. In fact, it's 361 rounds of it if I make it to pattern specifications and I'm making the small size. Now to be quite honest, I sort of like stockinette stitch in the round. I know some people find it terribly boring, but I find it sort of soothing. I would like it better if I could knit this on circulars rather than double points, but it's still not too bad. The big issue with this project is that it's going to be either a birthday or Christmas gift for Mara, so I can only work on it when she's not around, which generally means that I can only work on it between 9 pm when she goes to bed and whatever time I go to bed. The time restrictions have really slowed down my progress.
Hopefully I'll finish one of these projects up soon because I've been itching to move on to something else. If not, I may take a break and knit a couple coffee cup cozies one evening just so I can enjoy the sense of accomplishment.
