Treat Yourself

Yesterday, amid a ridiculously stressful situation my Dad told me that I needed to "take a few deep breaths and treat yourself."

Well, today I stopped at the organic market down the street from my school and bought this stuff:

It seriously WAS a treat.  If you've never had fromage blanc, I highly recommend it.  I tried it at a farmer's market about a month ago and all I knew it as was "sweet goat cheese that you eat with dessert." It's so delicious!

Then, I started thinking about all the other treats that I give myself.  It seems like everyday I do a little thing to "treat" myself - not something big or expensive, but just something that I'd like to do.

1.) When I bought groceries last week, I bought a bouquet of flowers for $6.  Yep, those flowers are a week old! I have a ton of special tricks to stretch cut flowers :P

2.) A bit of expensive chocolate that has witty writing on the label... Isn't it true though!?

3.) I also like to describe the sunrise to myself as I walk to work.  When I travel to work I leave the house before sunrise, and watch the sunrise as I drive east to work.  My favorite was Tuesday, where the dark clouds slowly moved north, revealing the orange and red sky.  It was like watching the curtains get pulled aside at the start of a ballet.

4.) Reading blogs on my phone in the in-between times during my day.  Walking to class, in the elevator, whatever.  By the way... blogs that only display previews in their RSS feeds are obnoxious.  Why do people do that? It means that I essentially can't read your blog.  I was good enough friends with someone or liked the blog enough I would click through, right? Apparently not. I just skip right over it and never read it.

5.) Of course, there's also knitting time. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't knit and watch my favorite TV shows.

What do you do to treat yourself, Internet? I want ideas!

An Update

It's midterm week here at school, and I actually have midterm exams! Two in one day, actually, on Monday.  On top of this I still have work and my grad project and my second job and a mountain of tiny things that I can't believe I'm still doing like going to the gym and washing my clothes and showering.  Yes, it's so bad I'm wondering things like "It's Saturday, I bet if I put my hair back in a ponytail no one will notice that I didn't shower today and then I could use that time to fill out that job application."

So now that I've got that "I'm a grad student pity me" rant/excuse for not being more active out of the way, I can show you my knitting stuff! Most of my knitting has been in class, meaning the only thing I can really work on is my plain old stockinette socks - which I've made progress on, but now I'm at an impasse!

The only thing I have left to do on it is cast off and work the afterthought heel - and both require actually looking at what you're doing.  So, instead of sitting down at knitting club and doing that, I sat down at knitting club and cast on for a new project! A scarf for Dan. 

It's going to be in a herringbone pattern made from knits and purls.  I managed to not actually knit herringbone three different times during the two-hour meeting because my head just isn't on straight. So, I added making a chart to my to-do list today.  Maybe then I will have 4 patterns that are pretty much publishable instead of three...  

Help my Knitting Club Raise Money!

Hey guys!

I haven't knit anything worthwhile, but my college knitting club, Hooks and Needles, is taking part in a contest through my school for funds.  They're planning on using these funds to buy things like yarn, hooks, and needles to teach students how to knit. 

If you have a sec today, click here and "Like" our photo on the Clubs Facebook page and share with people! It helps bring knitting to people that otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to do so!

They're also just a great bunch of people. I'm still convinced that I would have no friends (outside of the Internet) if it weren't for them! So, please help them out :)

Click "Like" on this photo to help earn money to teach others to knit and crochet.

Beachy Stress Socks

I told myself that I was going to use my new square needles for my next socks, and I did... but I had a major problem.  It wasn't the yarn, which was this gorgeous varigated with colors that made me think of the warm summer beaches that I've left behind - it was the needles! They're too small, and the resulting fabric is just tight and not very fun for socks.

So, I recast on with some addi turbos that I got from a friend that wanted to unload some knitting stuff before she moved, and things have been going well.  It's just plain stockinette - perfect for class.  Though, I only have 8 hours of class each week, and lately I haven't had time to go to knitting club.

The sock is still becoming nice and long though - I'm going to do an afterthought heel so I don't have to worry about budgeting free time to turn the heel.  If I do that, the sock will sit on my desk until the end of the quarter!

In a way, it's ok that most of my friends have left and that Hooks and Needles is full of strangers.  I'm so busy and grumpy that I feel like my head's going to fall off at any given moment.  Thankfully, eveyone else in my apartment is in their last year of school, too, and is working their tails off just as much as me - I think I'd be ridiculously annoyed if that wasn't the case.  I just can't wait to be done with school and move on to the next part of my life!

Darn?

I'm not sure if this is darning, but I'll share this with you anyway.  Ever since I finished my colorful Kaffe Fasset socks, I've been wearing them a lot.  Sadly, though, I took them out of the sock bath a few weeks ago to find a tiny hole in one of them!

I didn't know what to do, and was in the course of packing, so I put scotch tape over the hole and threw the socks in with my projects.  Thankfully, the hole didn't get any bigger because when I checked it out today, it was only two stitches.

Somehow, the yarn had split and thankfully I caught the hole before it was gigantic.

So, I used my shiny new needles to catch the stitches and keep them from dropping further.

Then, I went into my old sock yarn stash and found the remnant of this project.  I picked off a section that matched the section that broke, and worked my way across the row a bit to anchor the yarn. After that, I kitchnered the loose stitches together and did some more duplicate stitch to anchor the yarn on the other side.

I think that I saved my socks! I've never darned before, but the pictures that I've seen, the socks look kind of gross looking.  Soon, I won't even be able to tell that I mended them!

Finally - Finished My Dragonfly Socks!

They only took me all summer!

Project: Dragonfly Socks from Cavyshops

Yarn: Eskimimi Knits Broccoli Sockoli

I'm happy with how they turned out, though the heel is a little weirdly placed - it slides off my foot.  Oh well, you win some you lose some - I'm still going to wear them.  Can anyone tell me what I did wrong? I think that I just made the heel flap too long. I guess it's just taking a while for me to make socks that fit me well.  Now is the time for that - the only projects I really have time to do are stress socks. 

I still don't see the dragonflies! Maybe because I k tbl on some stitches instead of just plain k them?  I thought it made the pattern look better when it stretched out.

Last Leg of School!

It seems crazy, but I haven't posted in almost two months! That's mostly because I got an awesome new internship in addition to my other job, and because I'm almost done with grad school! I moved into my room on Sunday. So, by Thanksgiving, I will have entered the real world.  I'm kind of excited, because this time I won't be travelling around, sleeping on people's couches - I will have my own apartment, and a car, maybe a cat... etc. etc.

Another reason (besides being ridiculously busy) that I haven't blogged is that I haven't really knit over break. I chugged away on my dragonfly socks, maybe getting a row in here or there, but I didn't make any real progress.  I finished my giant red sweater and it looks hideous, which is disenheartening.  I have a bunch of designs that are ready to be published, they just need one or two little things. (Or, erm, testing.)

BUT, I am starting to knit again.  I knit all through my business class on Monday night (while I was missing a Hooks and Needles meeting...) and I am - EEK - finally on the toe of my second Dragonfly sock! I've also been making hedgehogs. Lots of hedgehogs.  I'm not sure why, maybe it's a sign of my growing mental instability.