Anne-Girl

“That Anne-girl improves all the time … I get tired of other girls - there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow…” ~Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Since I'm getting tired of having all socks from patterns I try lately to be annoying and not fit or be a pain to make or... whatever else, I've decided to create my own pattern. Based on the colors of the yarn, these are my Anne-Girl Socks. :) I got this yarn and originally wanted to do something fall-like, but nothing was coming to mind. Looking at the yarn more and more made me think of poor Anne Shirley and her failed attempt to dye her hair raven black. It’s not quite as green as her hair might’ve been, but I know how my hair looked when it was green and it was more brownish. The pattern has a large braid in the middle, flanked by two small braids and a small twist on each side. Of course there had to be Anne’s braids! :) So these are my “Anne-girl” socks (god forbid if I called them “carrots”!). This is the first pattern I’ve created. We’ll see how they go as they progress. If I can get them done well enough maybe there’ll be a pattern to follow. :)

The chart of the cable. In case my written directions aren't clear, I made this too. (Granted I know what my written pattern means, but if I ever post the pattern I wanted this too...)

My attempts at creating a pattern. You can't read it all here, but it took quite a lot of figuring out and a few attempts at test knitting (on the leftover yarn from Skew) before I was confident enough to actually use the orange yarn.

Stupid socks

So Nutkin's turning out a bust so far too. And I was liking it so much! I turned the heel this morning and decided to try it on (because I'm crazy like that). I can't get the damn thing over my heel! :( So I'm going to see if they fit Mom, cuz she has small feet (that's gotta equal small heels, right?), and maybe she can have them. Otherwise I have to frog yet another pair. Stupid socks... I love socks so much, why do they not want me to knit them lately...?

Summer daze...

I've been out of school for a few weeks now. I did pretty well, though not as well as I'd hoped. Best thing was that my The Birth of a Nation paper wound up really well, I got an A in the class, and it's been submitted for one of my graduation requirements without further revisions! :) Now I'm just trying to find a job, to no luck. (If you give me an application, or say you're hiring, and then I call a few days later and you say you're not hiring, I hate you. Don't tease me like that.) If nothing else I'm planning on trying to tutor, but I'm having issues setting that up. We'll see. Right now I'm just pinching pennies and stressing out and being a bum in the apartment all day. On the plus side I've been super productive otherwise, lol. I've finished 6 books since I've been out of school. I've re-read The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. I've also read The Secret History of Giants by Ari Berk, Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. I'm currently reading Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin by Marion Meade. I also listened to The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde and am currently listening to The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. Next I'll move onto the next Thursday Next book, The Well of Lost Plots, and either The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan or The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford. We'll see. :) I love being able to read again for pleasure. I'm tired of analyzing and dissecting every book I've been reading since August, so it's definitely a nice break. Yesterday Josh and I went to the park, despite the gloomy weather, and sat and read for a few hours. It was chilly and overcast, but didn't rain and it was nice just being able to sit outside and read together. I was still working on The Lost Hero at that point and it was just really calming and nice. Unfortunately I had a headache (as per usual) which distracted from the reading enjoyment, but I still couldn't have asked for a better few hours. As well, I've finished my skew socks. I started two other pairs but didn't like them at all (one the pattern was super confusing to my stupid brain... the other I didn't like the yarn, which I will have to work through eventually, but not now), so frogged them. I've started a third pair now and just love them. It's Nutkin, and I really like the yarn choice I'm using. 2 Skew photos and a Nutkin. :)

Fantastic Things

(l to r: Ed Gamarra, Ari Berk, Charles Vess, Tony DiTerlizzi, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Wendy Froud, Brian Froud) So I'm lucky enough to go to a school where one of the English professors is friends with people like Brian Froud. This past weekend was "Imagining the Fantastic," featuring Brian & Wendy Froud, Charles Vess, Tony DiTerlizzi, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Ari Berk (the English professor), and Ed Gamarra. It was absolutely amazing. I've been a fan of Brian Froud since I was probably 10 and my parents bought me Faeries that he did with Alan Lee. I have 10 books of his art, plus a few calenders at home, and Josh has 2 more. We got to see a bunch of his and Wendy's art and they discusssed future projects. Charles Vess works with Neil Gaiman quite a bit, and I just love his drawings in Stardust. The slides he showed of his art just glowed, and I want to go to Abington, VA to see the bronze Titania he made. Tony DiTerlizzi I didn't really know, but his stuff is gorgeous. He did the Spiderwick books and the new book, The Search for WondLa. He's also possibly crazy, but was a lot of fun to listen to. :) Elizabeth-Jane Baldry is an amazing harpist and she premiered her film, Sir Lanval, here over the weekend. Ari's an English teacher here and a good friend of Josh's. He's worked with Brian Froud on 4 books, I think, and has a novel coming out in the fall. Ed Gamarra was a professor out East and now works for the Gotham Group in LA. Each of their discussions was really neat to listen to, and the panels where they just talked amongst themselves were amazing. I could've done without the Q&A bits, but otherwise it was pretty much the best weekend ever. :) School's been keeping me really busy lately. I had a 20 page paper due Monday for my Civil War class. I have my research paper on The Birth of a Nation due next Monday. I still have one book review to finish, and one exam left to take. I haven't even looked at the book for the last exam...

I've knit a bit though. :) I spent 3 Sundays in a row at my friend's apt. watching the Mildred Pierce mini on HBO. I didn't really care for the mini - no one was likeable at all - but I got more of Josh's sweater done. :)I needed a break the other night after having worked on my Civil War paper all day Sunday, so Monday I started Skew. I needed something small that I could take places and that would knit up easily. After a bit of a hiccup with the needles and the first couple rows, it's been going really well. I really love the yarn (some fingering weight called "Wicked" from Woolen Mill St. Yarns); it's super soft and easy to work with and the colors are just amazing. And I finally have an idea for the other yarn I got from her; we'll see when it gets made though. :) Tanis Fiber Yarns are giving away some gorgeous silk yarn. Go enter! :)

Spring has... gone back to hide.

So it was gorgeous for about a week. I even had the windows open and didn't wear a coat to class! Now, it's snowed again. We even had a snow day Wednesday... :( Snow days make me very unmotivated for school. I knit quite a bit though. I'm now past the arm holes on Josh's sweater. :) I'm thrilled. Now it's all straightforward until it hits the right length for him. I had him try it yesterday once I'd joined under the arms to make sure it all fit right. He was worried it was going to be tight across the front so I explained that there would be the ribbing and the zipper added still. It fit across the back, more importantly, which is what I was worried about. It's turning out well. :) I really want to do something that'll go quick and be done and easy, but I know I need to stick with the sweater. I just really want to make some more socks... Or start a sweater for me. Or something. This (mainly) one project thing is killing me! lol I guess I could work on the afghan; it's just so huge and difficult to want to work on...

Now to get back to school work... Civil War - we have an exam next week. I think I'll be okay. Luckily I don't have to read the book for this exam; it's The Killer Angels which I've read a few times before, and I've seen Gettysburg I don't know how many times (what an amazing movie). 20th Century Seminar - I've been reading old newspaper articles from 1915 on The Birth of a Nation. The paper'll be on the press reception of the film and how they report on the protests, premieres, etc. I need to start writing the paper though; the draft is due in two Mondays and I have to have 15-18 pages done. Ick. 1865-Present Colloquium - I have 2 papers to write still. I'm trying to get one done ASAP but it's not happening... It's on a book I already read so it should go easy but it's not... I need to start the next paper too; try and write as I read the book this time...

My friend copied Atonement for me so I watched that last night. :) I love that movie even though I couldn't get through the book... I put on Vanity Fair afterwards; another excellent movie. Trying to de-stress but it's not working well so far... :/

Things I've been working on

So I started this blanket last summer some time. Mom taught me the stitch and it does go fast, but it's just getting large and hard to work with, but I like that the colors can be whatever and however wide. I need to get back to it, but like I said, it's hard to wield around...

The socks I just finished. Very straightforward. I started them last summer then didn't touch them for ages. Once I got back to them though, they finished in less than a week.

The beginnings of the sweater I'm making for Josh. You can just see the top edge there on the left. The yellow yarn's holding the loose cast on stitches to add the hood onto later. It's 30 black rows and then 5 blue rows due to the much less amount of blue I was able to buy. I'm still worried I might run out... I'm really enjoying making it. Very simple overall. We'll see once I get into actual shaping though. :)

In which I realize I'm still knitting wrong...

A few years ago I found out that I wasn't knitting properly. My mom'd taught me ages ago to knit basically continental style, and that worked fine as long as you were pretty much just straight knitting and purling, but not for much else. I found this out when I went to make something I think in the round and it just wasn't working. What I realized was that mom'd taught me to knit so the stitches lay with the right piece in *back* of the needle, not in front. Once I realized this wasn't right, I fixed it and had it in front and everything worked out. I never paid attention that purling then wouldn't work because in the round you're just knitting and it always worked. Come to now. I'm making Emilien for my boyfriend and it's all just knit and purled. I know how to knit, but when I purled like mom'd taught me, the knits came out with the wrong leg on the wrong side of the needle like they did the way mom'd taught me. I go searching around the internet and see what I'm doing wrong and so now I know. I hate it though. I'll keep making the sweater because I love it and I love my boyfriend and want to make it for him, and purling is getting easier, but I'm not loving it like I do knitting. I'll learn to love it I guess because I can't just keep knitting in the round or knitting like mom taught me (because, while it's great for just knitting and purling, adding much of a pattern at all gets a little iffy). Here's to learning to love to knit again...