Merry Christmas!

Wishing all my internet friends and readers a great Christmas, a happy holiday season, and a lucky New Year.  May the joy and warmth of Christmas be with you all year long!

Here are some pictures of the snow that we've had.  Of course, the rain has come and washed it away as soon as it piled up, but still.  I can look at these and pretend it's winter out.

My One Knit Gift

This year, I've managed to curb my sanity and knit just one gift - a scarf for Dan.  Go me! I didn't over-reach at all on knit gifts! Of course, cards, cookies, and other gifts... maybe a little.  I may have forgotten that I'm between paychecks this month.

Anyway, I set it out and let it block and the herringbone pattern really opened up.  I love blocking things! I'm still not super excited about the stitch pattern, but I'm not going to tear it out and re-knit two months of work.

It really is an easy pattern, so I'll probably offer it up for free here when I get a good picture of it on him.  It's all my own made-up-knit-stuff, but I don't think it's complex enough to warrant testing, pdf-making, etc.

Anyway, back to the scarf.  My favorite part is the fringe.  It turns out I reserved too much yarn for the tassles, so I could have made the scarf longer - I think it's ok though.  He's over 6', and the scarf is 5'.  We exchanged gifts on Thursday and he looked dashing in it - but that was at night so I couldn't get a good shot! Here's one of me modelling it.

blahblahblah, I need a tripod, blah blah.

Hedgehogs for Sale!

It's a little sad that this might be my last Hooks and Needles post in a long, long time :(

I made hedgies for the Hooks and Needles sale this week! Saturday, I packaged them up and went to the post office, but the line was ridiculously, out the door long.  When I got inside, there were still 30+ people ahead of me, and they closed the office.  That's right. I was waiting in line, and the post office closed.  I had been waiting for about an hour.  At the post office. 

Things turned out all right in the end, I went to a different post office on Monday and sent them out express mail.  They got to sit out on a table and meet lots of people!

Hopefully most of them have relocated to new homes.  If not, I'm not sure what to do with them - maybe give them away here? I'm pretty sure I'm never going to have an etsy shop.  I need to lose this delusion.

Today is the last day of the sale, so hopefully Hooks and Needles has raised lots of money for teaching, parties, and field trips!

I Regret Nothing!

Last week I went into the yarn store in Concord, NH - The Elegant Ewe.  I really didn't INTEND to go into the store.  Really.  I had to go to the UPS store because Amazon sent me a set of lint rollers instead of two crystal glasses (present) and as I was getting into my car I thought "Oh, hey, there's the local yarn store.  I should go in for a second."

Of course, one second turned into almost an hour looking at yarn, buttons, and books.  I also talked to the people inside.  Eventually I decided "What better thing to do than to buy gifts for Ash and Alysia?" partly because I haven't gotten them gifts yet, but mostly because it would give me an excuse to hang out around yarn.

Well, most of their products were wool, and the interesting silk or linen that they did have felt so icky.  I would have felt bad sending that as a gift to Alysia.  And I found some nice yarn for Ash that was made in New Hampshire... but there was no heather gray (her favorite color.)

But I didn't walk out of there empty handed.  Nope.

I bought these.

A Christmas present for me, from Santa :) Don't even ask me how much it was! I don't want to think about that right now.  I'm just going to put them on my shelf and feel fuzzy inside.

My Halls Are Decked!

Although I still haven't unpacked all my things, we decorated for Christmas last weekend and I'm so excited.  We got our own live tree, ornaments, etc etc etc.  We even have the glade plugins in a Christmas theme! I haven't done any crafty stuff, really, but I still thought I'd share. 

First up was the tree, of course.  Boyfriend wanted a teeny tiny one in a pot, but I managed to convince him to get a bigger one in a tree stand.  It's still small - exactly my height, but small.  Here's a size comparison:

We went to Walmart, Target, the Dollar Store, and Home Depot to get all the lights, tinsel, and glitz.  I really wanted mistletoe and a nativity, and found a nativity at Home Depot.  I got bells to hang up in the doorway...

... Little bulbs for my lavendar plant...

We searched and searched for mistletoe, but couldn't find any at any of the places we went.  Luckily, my mom sent a care package of Christmas ornaments, candy canes, and... MISTLETOE! It looked like someone has spray painted it green, and half of it crumbled apart when we tired to take it out of the box, but gosh darn it we put it up! It makes me think of Charlie Brown.

I also made a little display on one of the shelveswith old jars of pasta sauce, candy canes, and extra tiny bulbs that we couldn't fit on the tree.  Oh, and pretzel M&M's. 

Here's our tree in all it's glory! The presents underneath are for Boyfriend, his birthday is today.

And one from last night:

How are your Christmas/Holiday preparations going? 

DAL Winter 2012 Mood Board

The next round of DAL has started, and although I don't have much time, I think I'm going to participate in this one! There are two themes - Steampunk, and Elements.  I made the steampunk mood board, and really, I like it better than the other.  So that will probably be my focus.

I'm excited to see what everyone thinks up for this round! :)  You can click the image for a larger view.

Almost There

My grad school days are almost over! I've finished every paper, taken every test, and will be moving out of my on campus apartment this weekend! All that's left is my graduate project, the final boss before I defeat my degree.

I wish I could say that I felt enthusiastic about it.  When I first started my project, I was excited and optimistic, but my research area is very young and there are dead ends everywhere.  I don't have the time to do the primary research that I needed for my original project; then came revision two and three and four and now I've lost count on how many times my proposal's been rewritten.  Six months just isn't enough time, that's the lesson that I've been learning.

So I've been knitting at my scarf during classes and while reading papers and when I need to sit and breathe.  I've used up half my yarn, and the scarf is 30 inches long - so it will end up being about five feet.  I hope that's long enough for boyfriend! I'm not incredibly excited about how the pattern came out - I kind of wanted the stitches to look different. I think next time I'll use a smoother yarn and larger needles.

I also put some scales on a hedgie.  My roommate asked for one at the beginning of the quarter and I think that she forgot - I hope that I get to surprise her! Hooks and Needles is having a winter sale again (though I won't be around to see it :( ) but since I paid my dues for a year I still get to participate!  During the last sale I was kind of a hedgehog sweatshop, and after the initial nightmares about needing to make more hedgehogs, I actually started to like it. 

If you had told me four years ago that I would make the same pattern over and over again, I would have laughed.  But there's something about these hedgies - they're just too cute. And each one is a little different.  This one makes me think of gingerbread houses, with the sienna scales and white thread.

It's the little things!