Survival!

Just here to announce that as of 12:30pm, I have officially survived exam period. Whew! It was touch and go there for a while though - I had my last two exams (both worth 100% of my semester's mark - eeep!) one day after the other, so it has been a VERY long 48 hours. I honestly don't know if I've ever studied that hard before in my life: there were multiple days when I'd listen to well north of five hours worth of lecture recordings, and that didn't even include all of the other reading and note taking. The law degree - she is indeed a harsh mistress.

Yep, exam period is hard. It's been all right though - there are worse things than incessant studying, and since I'm one of those people who's always doodling and writing sarcastic commentary on their class notes, it's at least entertaining looking back over the work I've done during semester (even if sometimes I wish that I'd drawing critters less and taken notes more):


Look! It's an International Law notebook in its natural habitat (i.e. the desk!). Don't make any sudden movements or you'll scare it away!

At least listening to all of those recordings meant that my hands were free to knit at top speed. You would not believe how much knitting I did last night. It was about the only thing stopping me from falling asleep at my desk, actually - for reasons known only to it, my body is impervious to the effects of caffeine, so I've always needed something else to keep me awake and moving.



The above work-in-progress was single-handedly responsible for keeping me conscious during all of those hours of Restitution lectures yesterday. It's going to be a pullover, made from that lovely Sanguine Gryphon yarn that I posted about a few entries back. I'm sort of making it up as I go along, so the actual style will vary depending on my mood and how much yarn I have left, but I have vague plans for a very low front, maybe with a garter stitch neckline, and interesting sleeves of some kind. The yarn is lovely. Normally knitting a jumper with variegated yarn is something I'd pull a face over, but this is just so pretty that I'm having a go anyway (alternating skeins every couple of rows to try and minimise pooling). Granted it does have a little bit of an army camoflague vibe to it, but I'm going to staunchly ignore that and call it 'woodsy' or 'elven' instead in that pretentious way that I have!



Exam time also means exam soup. Seriously, I live off this in exams - I just make a huge vat of it and then eat it for the rest of the week, usually accompanied by toast, or cheese on toast and a glass of wine if my statute-tortured soul needs soothing. I figure I could do worse, right? Vegetables and barley and tomato and fresh herbs... Mmmm...

Potentially nonsensical...

Okay - there is a very real chance that this post will not make a great deal of sense, because approximately five minutes ago, I was asleep. Ahh, the wonder that is exam period. Mind you, why I'm bothering to nap at 11:42pm instead of just going to bed is anybody's guess...

At any rate, I'm still busy, but definitely alive and kicking. Without the kicking part though. And I am posting for a reason - it isn't procrastination alone that's fuelling me. Because behold, I finished my second Terra:

And this would be: Terra, by Jacqueline Landry. Size XS (32"), knitted with several inches of negative ease, on 6mm needles. Used 3 balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply (in colour "Red Currant"). No significant mods to speak of.

The part where I blather: I love this pattern, and I honestly don't know why more people haven't made it. It's easy, ridiculously fast, and the end product is awesome. The pattern suggests you pick a size with several inches of positive ease, and for my first Terra, that was what I did. The fit was good (and indeed I still love this jumper dearly and wear it several times a week), but because of the loose gauge, it stretched a little over time. It got me wondering about what the next size down would look like, so I figured that I'd find out.

It's always a little bit nerve racking knitting garments with negative ease, because they always look far too small before they're seamed and blocked. But this, as you can see, came out just fine in the end. It's rather close fitting at the moment, but I'm counting on it stretching a little like the last one did, so it should ease up a bit. I'm not complaining either way.


I'm very enamoured with the colour. Admittedly it does have a bit of a Little Red Riding Hood vibe to it, but red is really nice to wear in winter, and I can't quite bring myself to feel that the hood is anything less than awesome. It's lovely and warm too - I wore it out and about yesterday, and was perfectly toasty despite winter having well and truly set in. If we're being nit picky, some of seaming really could have been better - especially around the sleeves. And the armholes are a fraction too tight in this size. But I'm really having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, complaint wise. I'm really happy with how this turned out, and I plan to wear it quite thoroughly to death over the next while. Now I just need to convince myself not to order the yarn to make another. Given the fact that this is so quick to make, costs under $30AUS to make, and yields such a good result, I'm probably in severe danger on this front...

I have things to keep me occupied though. The yarn for my Sylvi finally arrived, so I'm swatching away busily on that:

That's rather a lot of yarn - I'll be busy indeed. And, you know, with exams. Those as well...

Feeling the procrastinatory pinch...

Well, more of the same around here. It's exam time again, so that of course means that I'm now feeling the wonderful burst of creative energy that I always get when I don't actually have time to capitalize on it... Figures. Not to mention the other things that have been leeching my time and mental/emotional energy. Just for the record - I really, really hate having to go to the police station. And paranoia and anxiety are really not conducive to study. But anyway, on to more pleasant topics...

Knitting front has been slow, since I haven't had as much time as I would have liked. I've started making another Terra - figured that it was a good investment since it's a fairly quick and mindless knit, and I wear the one that I have just as much as I possibly can. I'm using the same yarn (hurrah for Bendigo Woollen Mills), except this time I'm using red, and making a smaller size, as my existing Terra has actually grown quite a bit as I've worn it. So far I've knitted the front and part of the back, and it's all coming along swimmingly.


And, well, aside from my new Terra and a lot of baking, there isn't a great deal going on around here. Spending a lot of time with friends, trying to restrain myself from buying every single last piece of yarn on the Sanguine Gryphon website (and Aussie dollar, you are not helping my resolve by doing so well!), and pretty much just trying to get through exam period with my sanity intact - that about sums it up. I guess I could insert some pseudo-humorous remark about not having swine flu, but it's getting old already...

Miscellany!

Behold: lots of miscellaneous things that don't really justify a blog post on their own. And also lots of me showing off my new camera:


This was my birthday present to myself! Three tasty skeins of Sanguine Gryphon yarn. Three skeins of 'Free Range' (100% organic wool, DK weight) in the 'Green Jungle-fowl' colourway, to be exact. I love it. It's absolutely gorgeous, and it makes me happy. This was the first time I'd ever handled organic yarn, so I don't really have much basis for comparison, but I can say that this stuff feels absolutely beautiful...


My favourite dip in all the world - spicy hummus from Queen Victoria Market (please don't ask me what stall, because I can never remember the number). It comes with fresh parsley and dried chilli sprinkled on top, and is nothing short of the best hummus in the universe. The fact that I actually buy it is testimony to the awesomeness of this dip. As cluey readers might have begun to suspect, I am usually the type of person who likes to make their own stuff where possible, and my home-made hummus is perfectly fine. Problem is that it's not as nice as this stuff. Not even close. Magic dip!


I tried my hand at felting for the first time. Or rather, it was the first time that I actually tried to go about it scientifically - I am guilty of once maliciously throwing a particularly hated handknit jumper into the washing machine just to see what would happen...

Anyway, this has turned out quite well. It didn't shrink as much as I was expecting, and the strap is a little too long, but that's easily fixable. It's not too far off being finished - now I just want to add a couple of buttons to make it closable, and put some kind of decoration on the front (the jury is still out on what kind). So basically, we're up to the fun part, having progressed from both the drudgy endless part and the soapy soggy part.

Also, in the background of the above shot is a Wisp that I'm working on, with the goal being simply to keep my hands busy during lecture recordings while getting rid of some hateful mohair that I bought in a fit of madness a few months back. I'm actually pleased with how it's coming along, though I'll likely end up trying to fob it off onto somebody else, because mohair is really not my thing...


And here is a birthday card that I made on the weekend for my aunt's 50th. Because I'm one of those people who can never quite bring themselves to fork out $5 for a shop bought card. I do of course like making cards of course, but, um, yeah, tight-arsery weighs in here too. It would be a filthy lie to suggest otherwise...

Anyway, I'm off to the iron. My poor Terra had a very unfortunate run in with some hot wax today, so I'm using all the tricks in my arsenal to try and salvage the poor sleeve in question. I'll be rather sad if I can't get the wax out - I love this one to pieces, and wear it all the time... Wish us both luck!

Cold-ridden but constructive...

Well, I've been silent again for a little while, but life has been busy around here. The kind of ridiculously busy that only May brings. Come May the exam timetable is handed out (mine is officially irksome, of course), the weather gets colder so you begin to lose your energy, and virtually everyone has a birthday (well, it feels like virtually everyone). So I've been running around like a headless chicken the last few weeks. Probably why I came down with a cold... At least it's mostly cleared now.

Anyway, behold: proof that I have not been idle in my absence:

Here is my younger brother's birthday cake. Epic, right? It was his 21st, so I told him he could pick any cake he wanted from our not-insubstantial library of cookbooks, and dutiful sister that I am, I would make it for him. So he picked a black forest cake. And not just any black forest cake, but one with crazy elaborate construction. It's made by making two flat rectangular cakes, cutting them into strips and then rolling them up so that you get a tree-trunk rings effect when you cut into it. See:


I am so proud of this cake that it isn't even funny. Amusingly though, I haven't actually tried any of it - I'm not a fan of black forest cake. I've been assured that it tastes good though. Brother had a good birthday too, for the record.

And then four days later it was my birthday as well. Yesterday I celebrated a quarter of a century on this earth, so now I'm officially no longer able to use "I'm young and stupid" as an excuse for doing moronic things. Or that's the plan anyway... I didn't get up to much during the day, as I had to work, but in the evening the family and I went out for Thai food, and they plied me with a substantial amount of champagne and rum (substantial enough that I was somewhat remorseful when I had to scrape myself out of bed for lectures this morning...). Oh, and the blog will benefit from this birthday too, as my present was a new digital camera - one that is markedly better than the thing that I've been using for the last year or so. So better photos from this post onwards, hopefully!

I've been knitting busily too. Because of my cold I missed some classes this week, so I had a lot of lecture recordings to listen to, and therefore a lot of time with my ears occupied and my hands free. So I finished up the things that I was knitting for my coworker's new baby.



The red one is a Presto Chango in a nylon/acrylic blend, and the eye searing one below it is just a basic top down raglan in an 8ply wool. Cute eh? The red one especially - it's such a gorgeous pattern that I now want all of my friends to procreate so that I can make more of them. Quick, and required a very modest amount of yarn as well (two paltry balls!). A very pleasant diversion all in all, and definitely a change from knitting things for my not-so-baby-sized self. That said, I am looking forward to getting back into some new projects. I only wish that I had enough time to get even half of my ideas going...

Hmmm... Sore throat has regrouped and returned to wreak havoc - time for another cup of tea, I think. More frequent posting from now on, I swear! Just don't expect me to always have elaborate cake to show off...

What can I say - I'm slack!

Well, here I am again. It's been a while for the old blog, but life has been crazy busy, as is wont to happen during semester time. Especially after the mid-semester break when everybody realises that it's only a bit over a month until exams start...

I have been knitting though. Most definitely. If anything, I'm over-committed on the knitting front. I keep saying that I'll knit things for people, and keep getting new ideas for projects, when really I don't have the time for even a third of what I'd like to do. Oh well - I'll get there.

One of the more pressing obligations has already been partially filled in the last few days - I started making a cardigan for a co-worker's new baby girl - figured I should get cracking on that one while the wee one was still small enough to actually fit into the size I was planning to make... It's coming along nicely - just a basic top down raglan with ties instead of buttons, in a cute variegated yarn that I'd always liked the look of, even though it's far too bright for anyone over the age of six to pull off actually wearing. Picture next entry, I promise - it's too dark to take one now.

I also finished one of the things mentioned in my last post. Snow White is still in progress, having been put in the naughty corner for a while due to gauge issues (which thankfully don't look like they're going to be too dire), but I did finish my Kaleidoscope cardigan:


The gory details: Pattern is Kaleidoscope, by Sarah Sutherland. Yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in 'Happy Forest' colourway (about 1.6 skeins total). I used a 5mm circular needle.

The part where I blather on: This was a quick, fun knit, and I very much appreciate non-sock patterns that call for sock yarn, because like most everyone else on the planet, I like sock yarn, despite not being hugely committed to knitting socks. That said, I wasn't entirely happy with how it turned out. This is not a reflection on the pattern, which was very clear and well put together. Rather it's a reflection on my lying bastard of a gauge swatch - I probably should have either made the next size down, or knitted the neckline higher than the pattern called for, because it's a little on the loose side around the back.

The other main beef: if I were to knit this again (which, knowing my inclinations towards sock yarn, I probably will), I'd probably go down a needle size or two in the ribbing, and do yarn over buttonholes instead of proper cast off/cast on in next row buttonholes. I think I would have been much happier with it that way. Otherwise though, I enjoyed this project well enough. The yarn is lovely (why yes, I do have a bit of an addiction to Dream in Color yarn...), and the pattern is great - only modification I made was to add a row or two to the ribbing at the base of the body, and to lengthen the sleeves a little because at the suggested length they stopped right at my elbows, which would have irked me greatly. There's a good chance I'll make this one again.

Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful. I made some blanket squares for the Knit One, Give One charity project. I finished the April component of the LSG Mistress of Knitting Challenge. I gave in and ordered a gargantuan amount of yarn with which to make a Sylvi, because I've come to the conclusion that I need this coat. I read a lot, studied the requisite amount, and started doing a tai chi class with a friend. Same old thing really. Oh, and I had a really lousy day on Thursday, during which I had to employ medicinal Fimo in order to feel better about the word again:


I made crazy, impractical button things, and I think that I'm going to put them on a hat. Because I can!
It's bed time now - take care people!

Not so much with the knitting content...

Well, it's been crazy in Anna-land the last week. Assignments struck, rendering me insanely busy up until Thursday, and then comatose for a few days afterwards. So not that much knitting has taken place. I know - tsk, tsk...

However, I did bake hot cross buns! On Good Friday specifically, because even though I'm not a particularly religious person, the cultural history student in me loves the idea of this kind of tradition - making something on a particular day of the year. It's like Nigella Lawson points out in Feast - there are so few examples of this kind of thing (i.e. truly seasonal/occasional cooking) left, and I think that that's a shame. I find it more than a little weird and off-putting that you can buy hot cross buns in the shops for months before and after Easter, so I suppose that this is my small way of rebelling against that kind of thing, especially since I'm making them myself and all.

(on a less pretentious note, I worked in a bakery for years and am now officially sick of bought hot cross buns...)


There's the dough, looking all... erm... doughy!



Cute little buns, pre-crossing, on the tray. I hadn't realised how experienced I'd gotten with handling dough (what with having spent the better part of the last five years working in either a bakery or a pizza shop) until I started kneading and shaping these little guys - it just came back all of a sudden, and I could do it on auto pilot!



Piping the crosses on is definitely my favourite part. Even though I always make a chronic mess of the kitchen/my clothing in the process...



This isn't a great photo - for some reason I neglected to take a decent picture of the finished product (I was probably in too much of a hurry to insert them into my mouth - I'd polished three of them off within ten minutes of them coming out of the oven), but they definitely came out well. I was particularly pleased with the texture - much lighter and fluffier than any homemade bread I'd made before. I used proper bread flour this time, which probably explains it.

So there you have it: hot cross buns from start to finish. Nom nom nom... I think everyone should make their own actually - it's fun, easy, and really not as time consuming as you'd think, since you can do other things with yourself while the dough is proving/rising.


In knitting news, I acquired more yarn on Thursday. Or rather, my yarn from the States got here on Thursday. Tsk - I am definitely not allowed to buy more until I've used up some of what I have... Ah well, at least I never feel too much guilt over the yarn habit - I rarely eat/go anywhere expensive with friends, the clothes I own that aren't home-made usually come from either the op-shop or Target, and even my books mostly come from the library, so yarn is basically my only extravagance. Well, yarn and tea, but it takes so long to go through tea that it hardly feels like it counts...

I've started knitting not one but two new things: a Snow White in dark green, and a Kaleidoscope in, um, green (yes yes, I have a problem, I know - but it is a totally different shade!).

I've been wanting to make the former for a very long time, but never quite got around to it. And even though I bought the pattern a few months back, it's taken me a while to get around to finding some suitable yarn. And then for a while I was scared of the required cast-on. I am not well versed in cast-ons, not by any stretch of the imagination. And this pattern called for a long-tailed-tubular cast-on. Gulp.

It took me all afternoon (and several cramps in my fingers) to get it right, but get it right I did. I'm rather proud actually - definitely glad I persevered. And it counts towards my LSG Mistress of Knitting challenge (where learning new things and challenging yourself is kind of, um, the whole point of the exercise) for April, so there was some added incentive there too.

As for the Kaleidoscope cardigan... What can I say, other than that I think I've officially become one of those masochists who makes garments in fingering weight yarn... Let's see just how much of my sanity it consumes before it's finished. On the up-side, I finally got my mitts on some 'Happy Forest' Dream in Colour Smooshy (a shade that I'd been trying to get a hold of for a while) with which to make said sanity-devouring piece of knitwear. It's a very beautiful mid-green - a little lighter than I was hoping, given some of the pictures I'd seen online, but I'm still happy with it. Dad said that he thinks that it's ugly, but he isn't the one who has to knit a whole bloody cardigan out of it, so somehow I just don't think that his evaluation is the one that matters here...