However, unlike the above story, my own disappearance is not quite so thrilling, and has no roots in my wild mining days (since I have none). Long story short, I've been ridiculously busy finishing up classes here in graduate school. I still have research left to do--lots of it, as I'm going for my Ph.D.--but today I get to walk for my master's degree, and I will have no more schoolwork from this point on.
It's a strange feeling because, quite frankly, I haven't ever *not* been in school before. Summers aside, I've been taking classes constantly since, you know, kindergarten.
I know that research will take all of my hours soon enough--and I'm glad for it. But it is very freeing to understand that my time is now my own, to produce the best possible research from my data that I can. And also to do knitting. I've cast on 4 or 5 projects in the past month. (oops? I blame stress. Knitting is a form of relaxation, you know). I've only cast off one (a knitted bag) but it needs to be felted so it's not officially done. But I've found my latest addiction, and that is mittens.
Meanwhile, here's just a bit of yarn porn for you:
Okay, first, a disclaimer. I have a lovely but old Decrepit Camera and it's biting the dust. In fact, these are the last pictures I pulled off it before it decided to stop turning on entirely. New Camera has been acquired and will soon be put to use for your porny pleasures! but it's not entirely my Decrepit Camera--this stuff is scarcely plyed and it's fuzzy as a llama's butt. The colors are also not coming through as well--there are so many delicious tones and layers to these two skeins that it's amazing. The blue is full of jewel-colored shades and even a bit of shadowy black to give it the color of deep sea. It's so delicious that every time I start knitting with it, I get distracted for a bit. The green you can see some of the variegations, but they're more intense--it captures the play of shadows and light in a dense summer forest like we have around here, with hints of gold and brown as well. I also picked up a chocolate brown, a bright purple, and a cream.
And what to make with these colors? Well, they work so well together that I think mittens are really the only way to go. I started my first stranded colorwork project and my first mitten at the same time. Stranded colorwork is remarkably easy with this yarn because it's very sticky--even when I drop a stitch it really doesn't make it very far. And as for a mitten pattern, well, I kind of improvised--I cast on 50 (using a knitted cast on and size 4s, this gives me a small size for my small hands), k2-p2 colored ribbing until I had enough wrist (10 rows or so), then knitted upwards with 2-st increases around one mitten "edge" to make a thumb gusset. Once I got to maybe 8 or 9 rounds with an ever increasing thumb I put those stitches on some scrap yarn and kept going up for the hand.
The best thing about stranded colorwork is that when you start to get a little bored with a project (I'm easily distracted by other things), you can just switch colors, and it's as fascinating as starting over.
The best thing about stranded colorwork with this yarn as that the brown, green, and blue look like trees on a summer sky.
Downside? Well, I used a rubber band to keep my stitches tight on the DPNs, and it really fuzzed up the yarn. I like it, but if you're a neat freak it might not be for you (I feel like I could give these guys a shave and they'd be fine). But that's one of this yarn's unique characteristics--it's very bouncy, it's lusciously colored, and it would felt in a heartbeat
More pics to follow once I get New Camera up and running. Guess she needs a name... Cassiopeia the Camera, perhaps?
