This time of year...

Ahh, November - the time of year when my brain and all of my time both fly merrily out of the window. The Essay of Doom got submitted with a blessed lack trouble, but I am now languishing slap bang in the middle of exam period, with more revision to do than I can shake a decent sized stick at. I suppose I should be making the most of it - as long as there are no catastrophic academic disasters, this will be my last semester of law, after all...

Thankfully, as always, there is still time to knit. Or rather, I manage to do it anyway. It stalled for a while, but I managed to finish my Gathered Pullover:




(please excuse the fact that I look knackered - I had just gotten off a very long shift at work)

The Business End of Things: Pattern is the Gathered Pullover, from the Winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits (in a custom size somewhere between S and M), knitted on a 4.5mm circular needle, and 4.5mm dpns. Yarn used was six skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light (50% alpaca, 50% wool).

The Blathering On: For a start - man, but that cable is much simpler than it looks! I was almost disappointed by how easy it was - there weren't nearly as many crosses as I had initially assumed. I nearly blinked and missed it all!




This is a really great pattern, as is somewhat obvious due to the fact that it has, at time of writing, 984 projects on Ravelry. It's easy but interesting looking, and had it not been for my huge workload and the comparatively lightweight yarn, I probably would have finished it sooner. The only modifications I made were to omit the decorative decreases/increases from the bust, add waist shaping (because these days I just don't do jumpers without - such an improvement from so little effort!) and lengthen the body and sleeves slightly. I probably could have done without the latter as the sleeves grew quite a lot with blocking, but thankfully I am quite partial to longer sleeves, so I'm still happy with the result.

Amusingly enough, despite the fact that I've definitely knitted my fair share of jumpers over the last few years, I'd never worked one in the round, from the bottom up, with set in sleeves. I quite liked the method, but somehow I think that I might remain devoted to raglans for the time being - for all that my seam sewing has improved immeasurably over the last year or so, I still prefer to work seamlessly where possible. All said and done, I'm quite happy with this one. I'm not thrilled with how the rolled neckline quirks up a little, and it's warm enough that I won't be able to wear it for a good few months yet, but these are pretty small quibbles really.

In other news, I've been thinking that I need to blog more often. I think that my main problem with updating a knitting blog regularly is this: I don't work fast enough to only post when I finish a project, but I have a chronic inability to take decent in-progress shots. Oh well, I shall attempt to find some way to fill the gaps. Watch out, blogopshere...

In the meantime, here is a picture of the very delightful afternoon tea I had with a friend on Friday:


Why yes, it was delicious. What you see there is almond croissant and sticky date pudding from the local bakery, washed down with a couple of pots of jasmine green tea. Om nom nom.

In other news, I am working away diligently on the Noro cardigan I started as an exam-time, no-though-required, relaxing, therapy knit. It somewhat failed on the relaxing front when my circular needle broke and spilled my stitches everywhere, but thankfully the knitting gods were smiling on me and I managed to restore order with no lasting harm.

The Not-Yarn-Diet is going well too - I haven't bought any unauthorised yarn (and for this I thank this blog, just for keeping me accountable), despite being occasionally tempted. Soon I shall indulge though - the Gathered Pullover took up around 300g of yarn, and I've used 150g on my Noro cardigan so far. This means I am a single paltry ball away from being able to buy more yarn, though I must say that the urge has, for the moment, passed. Oh well, I'm sure that it will be back soon enough...

Procratination, pullovers, and cupcakes.

So, I should probably be writing my essay, but that's all right. All work and no play makes Anna a gibbering idiot, so it's really in everybody's best interests that I take a blog break, right? Besides, this is my reward for reaching 3500 words. When I get to 3750, I get to knit some more of my sleeve. It would be nice if I could work without lame forms of bribery, but oh well - the main thing, after all, is that the essay gets written.

Anyway, so what to write about in this delicious guilty pleasure of a blog post? Well, the wedding last week went off without a hitch (there's some kind of moronic pun there, I'm sure, but I'm choosing to ignore it). The weather was lovely, and everyone had a wonderful time. And I managed to brave two forms of public transport on a Spring Racing Carnival weekend and arrive with the cupcakes and shortbread still intact!




Since it was a wedding and all, I was well behaved and went in for nice pastel colours. Such restraint! I was very pleased with how they came out though, for all that I did have a momentary freak out when it occurred to me that I'd presented them to my friend without having eaten one for quality control first! What if they'd tasted like rancid baboon or something? Though I'm happy to report that they didn't... Also, my friend made some delicious spinach and feta muffins that I could have happily eaten all day. I have every intention of trying them in the immediate future - and the recipe is here, for all who are interested.


In other news, I've been very much enjoying my freedom from Sylvi knitting! I am still coming to terms with the fact that I Don't Have To Knit The Coat Anymore. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to take advantage of this new found freedom with a million new projects, each more seasonally inappropriate than the last (it was 29 degrees today... ho hum), uni is not permissive on this front. I am hanging out for Monday. After that the essay will be in and I can knit merrily away to my heart's content. While, um, revising for my exams. Yay law school! Oh well.

I have been working on my Gathered Pullover though - you always need a bribery project (see above) when essay writing.




This one is now perfect for brain-exploded-essay-diversion because the only part that requires actual thought (i.e. those shiny nice cables that you see above) has been completed. Now it's just knitting sleeves in the round - hurrah! And I still really love the colour.

Anyway, I think that's all the time I can justify spending on a blog break. Back to the essay. I leave you all with tomatoes. I put them on my jumper to stop them getting bruised in my bag on my way back from the shops, and they just looked too cute to ignore.




Please let my odd obsession with foodstuffs slide. I think it's a product of the essay...
(that's a blatant lie, but it's a good excuse for the moment, and I'm sticking to it)

Self Restraint and a Cat

So. It occurs to me that I probably have enough yarn (see above for pretty green things!). More than enough yarn even. Realistically speaking, I could probably continue knitting at my usual rate for an entire year without needing to buy more yarn. This is arguably a rather delightful problem to have, if indeed you could call it a problem, but I have decided that seeing as I don't really need more yarn, but will have a need to conserve money (exams are not too far off, so I won't be working nearly as much as usual), some self restraint might be in order over the next little while.

I'm not going to use the word "diet" because I'm not keen on it. It's not something I do when it comes to food (frankly, I'm young and healthy, so what on earth is wrong with just eating well and exercising?), and I'd really like to keep my life "diet" free. So I'm not going to stop buying yarn all together. However, there shall be creative and productivity-encouraging restrictions put in place: the rule of this Not Yarn Diet is that I am now supposed to knit 500g (so ten 50g balls, or whatever) from my stash for every yarn purchase I make. Blog will keep me accountable. Hopefully this will curb the unwarranted impulse buys.

I considered putting a meterage requirement instead of weight, but decided against it: I'm too lazy to add up lengths, and I don't really care about yarn weight as long as it gets used up. Yes, I know that I'll burn through 200g of bulky yarn in the same time it'll take me to knit up 50g of fingering. I don't much care - it's not a competition. I just want to reduce the space being eaten by my terrifying stash of knitting fodder. To play fair though, I'm not counting any part of Sylvi, as it's been going for so long (shame, because I believe that there's over a kilo of yarn in that monster). To not play fairly, I'm counting all yarn knitted from the point that I received my last purchase in the mail. Which puts me at nearly 100g, all from the Gathered Pullover (which is coming along nicely, thank you very much).

That's the plan. Now let's see if I stick to it.

In other news, well, life is crazy. Beyond crazy. Between uni, work, and social commitments, I have so much to do that it isn't even funny. For the first time in my life, I'm being afflicted by semi-regular insomnia, because I lie in bed unable to sleep because all of the pressing demands on my time are dancing around in my head humming circus music loudly. Thank heavens that knitting is a hobby that you can sort of slot into the gaps formed between everything else - one of the many reasons that I love it.

In knitting news, I have started seaming my Sylvi and have commenced the hood. I am so close to finishing that I can almost taste it - and I'm hoping that that will help me finally knock it on the head. Even the fickle Melbourne weather wants me to finish - the weather at the moment is bitingly cold for October, and it's just begging for a slightly unseasonal woollen coat. The Gathered Pullover is coming along nicely as well - I am still in love with the colour.




Unfortunately all is not well in other areas of life - the furred and finned areas, more specifically. More diligent readers might recall me gabbling happily about Titus, my fighting fish. Well, alas, poor Titus succumbed to a fungal infection yesterday, despite putting up a brave fight while we treated him with scarily green medicine. Poor wee fishy - he was a lot of fun, had a lot of character as far as fish go, and I will miss his hungry little face in the mornings.

If that wasn't enough, my poor old geriatric cat Alex has a large nasty swelling in his neck. The vet is not sure whether it's cancer or just a gland that's swollen up as a result of an inflamed tooth - he's going in tomorrow for blood tests and possibly dental surgery if he's stable enough. Anything involving anaesthetic is risky for a 19 year old cat with heart issues, so I'm trying to be prepared for the worst, just in case it happens. He's content enough at the moment though - asleep on my dressing gown, which I suspect is now officially His dressing gown. At any rate, please send cat mojo for my poor old man!

And that's about it. Hopefully the next post will involve a finished Sylvi - let's just hope that procrastination doesn't strike (again) in the meantime...

Where Anna is a Bad Melbournian

I am now merrily halfway through the mid-semester break, and am happy to report that I have not gotten all that much done. Oh well - what are you going to do? I'm catching up on sleep, eating lots of vegetables, and doing lots of knitting, and that's what's important, right?

Today was a good example of all of this. Today, for those not in the know, was AFL Grand Final Day. For non-antipodean readers, the AFL Grand Final is arguably the biggest sporting event of the year in this country. It's definitely a huge deal in Melbourne, at any rate. And delightfully, this year I had no idea who was even playing until work yesterday. And it's currently 10:46pm, and I still have no idea who won. I'm wondering how long I'll be able to stave off finding out. I have to work tomorrow, which I think will be the downfall of this particular plan, but that will still be a pretty good effort, given the saturation level of coverage that this event always receives.

Anyway, while everyone else was watching the football, I was spending my day as follows:




I did some knitting on my latest project. It's a Gathered Pullover in Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in 'Blue Glasnys'. I've been wanting to make this one for ages and ages, and now I'm finally getting around to it. Like most everyone else who has made this one, I'm adding waist shaping, but that's the only mod I have in mind thus far. I'm happy with how it's going - the fabric that the yarn is making on the 4.5mm needles is really nice, and just look at that colour! I was a little unsure about this yarn for this project originally, as I was worried that it might not have the best stitch definition for the cabled section, but after examining some other people's projects on Ravelry, I'm cautiously optimistic.




On non craft related fronts, I also hit up Bunnings Warehouse and got a shiny new bucket, and some more tomato plants for the garden (they were stupidly cheap, and the solitary plant I have at the moment needs company!). I know that I look like some kind of deranged elf wannabe in the photo, but in my defense, it was raining. However, this excuse then begs the question of why I was trying to wash towels on such a day... I just can't win...




It also occurred to me that despite the fact that I not infrequently mention food around here, I had never before made reference to this particular love of mine. See that substance up there in the picture? The one that looks like oddly anaemic butter? That, my friends, is goat butter. And I could happily eat it all day long. You use it just like normal butter - I spread it all over crusty bread - but it has a subtle but distinct goats cheesey flavour to it. Mild, but definitely there. I love it, so very much. Hurrah for Queen Victoria Market for keeping me supplied with such wonders. It's not even prohibitively expensive.

And thus concludes the tale of how Anna was a Bad Melbournian. However, I would also like to make mention of the fact that I also finished the back of my Sylvi today. Yes, I will make this coat if it kills me. I considered doing more today, but after grinding my way through the rest of the back cabling, negotiating raglan seaming for the first time didn't sound too appealing. Tomorrow perhaps. But I am progressing!