My Week So Far

I've been knitting a lot in my spare time (as opposed to cooking...) and I'm very happy with the progress I'm making!

First off, I'm over halfway done with my current WIP, a scarf for the second Knit Princess book! I'm really pumped at this chance to get one of my patterns published, and this scarf is a very easy knit. It's in seed stitch, and after I'm done knitting the body I'm going to embroider pinstripes down it :)

I'm also making progress on my mommy-inspired socks.  I'm almost done and I can't figure out a pattern to use... I want something lacy, of course, but I'm torn between two patterns.

The one on the left is Mermaidia, from Purdy Peas. (Photo from Purdy Peas!)  The one of the right is Spring Pools, a ravelry pattern by the Lovely Linda. (Photo from MomofTwins on Flickr)  Right now, I'm leaning more towards Spring Pools, just because of it's gorgeous but simple look! My mom is not a knitter, so she will have a very small idea of the amount of time that gets put into a pair of socks, so I don't really know if I need to go all-out. 

Oh, also, delicious thing of the week in my kitchen:

I made these cheesy biscuits with the mountain of leftover cheese from a taco night we had.  I also thre in a bunch of leftover thyme and a whole clove of garlic, and, well, they are delicious.  I improvised a recipe that I found online, which is basically a biscuit without bisquick or buttermilk! I made about 20 and all but 3 were gone in twenty minutes.  Success!

Hope you guys on the internet have a not so stressful week... the rest of the week is easy for me, it's practically the weekend already in college-land :)

My Random Monday - The 17-Hour Monday

1. I feel like I've been up forever.  Really, I've just been up since 7 this morning.

2. I'm starting to feel more at home in my apartment.  The assimilation process has been slow, but there was a huge skip forward with the addition of this:

It's a hutch donated kindly by the lovely Rebecca.  Thaaaankkks :)

3. I did manage to do a lot today.  I went to all of my classes (They all meet on Monday and Wednesday, what an inconvenient coincidence), cooked dinner, met a ferret, baked banana bread, and hung out with Lotus.

4. Apparently this

is like Chuck-E-Cheez for hedgehogs.  W and I have been taking part in "Lotus Recreation Projects" to give Lotus different things to do.  When we were in Petco over the weekend, we saw this bedding.

We snatched it up and a cheap fishbowl and the rest is history.  Lotus loves it, and I have a lot of cute pictures. I know that she can get out of her bedding box... but she doesn't want to.

5. I think I'm going to have to make a separate post of cute Lotus in a box pictures.

6. Knitting? Oh, yeah, this is my current thing:

I was going to start it on Friday, but the skeins totally tangled up on me, and I required the assistance of W to untangle them.  There was much cursing, crying, and gnashing of teeth.  It all ending with me whining "Yarn swift... WHY DON'T I HAVE A YARN SWIFT!?"

What I'm Doing Wrong in my Life (aka How Not to Design a Knit Toy)

I'm having one of those days where I'm thinking - WTF. Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why do I keep doing what I'm doing? It works, but it's stressful. Not fun.

Classes are starting soon, and I'm having a lot of fun cooking delicious things for anyone that shows up at my apartment ;) I have all the textbooks I need, know where my classrooms are, and all-in-all don't need to worry about anything in my life.

Except knitting.

**Here are a few lessons for those of you who may ever decide to design a knit toy. These tips will absolutely, positively maximize your stress during the design process.

1.  When writing a pattern, be sure to write as much as you can in completely different places.  Make sure that you use different colored pens, different sized papers, and do NOT number your sheets.  That way, when you drop them on the floor, you will get to put your notes together like a puzzle! This will be a welcome break from knitting.

Find above: Notebook A, Notebook B, Field Sketchbook, and the back of a Vogue Magazine.

2.  When you need to pick up multiple sets of stitches (for arms or legs) make sure NOT to look ahead to see if you have enough room for that last pair of legs.  One side will work out perfectly the same as the other, of course, always.

If you can guess what I'm making... I'll be seriously impressed, then a little annoyed.

(2.1  When in the early stages of the design process, make sure you add as many repeat parts as possible.  Tentacles, legs, arms, antennae, wings, leaves, and flowers are good examples.)

3.  Make sure that you design this toy on a deadline, as part of a swap.  If you stress out about deadlines, you will stress out 100 times more at the thought of some person awaiting for your package to arrive, in vain, since you aren't done yet.

4. Also, make sure that person lives as far away as possible to you.  Like, maybe, Alaska.

5. Then make that person really, really nice and understanding. Guilt multiplier!

6. Then, decide that you really need to knit a hat.

But it's so mindless! And someone asked me to make it! And I was supposed to make it weeks ago!

... So, if you take everything from the double asterisk (**) to here, you have how to design, the Alyssa way! Now I need to get back to work... =_=

Have a good weekend though, really, seriously, do!