A Place to Call Home

So today my boyfriend signed his life away and bought a house:









Clearly, I am super excited about this. A bigger house means more room for yarn, right? The moving process will begin this weekend and end by the end of this month (because we do not want to have to pay another month's rent for March).





This house definetely needs some TLC, much like the other house we were looking at months ago.



If you are confused, let me inform you that this room is where the kitchen used to be. Yeah. Let me give you some time so that can soak in. Completely gutted, everything gone, start all over again type of kitchen.

Obviously we're planning on renovating this entire house. However, major renovations will begin this summer. For now, we're going to have to create a make shift kitchen so we can survive in our new home. Used appliances, second hand sink and countertops, peel-and-stick floor tile. In other words, we're trying to make the ugliest kitchen in America. Good thing it will be temporary.



I have no clever way to end this post, so I will say that's all for now. I'm going to be busy moving these next couple weeks, so you might not hear from me to much this month.

A Good Week

This post is going to be una mezcla (a mix) of things that have been going on lately.

Thanks

Last post I talked about the problems Webs was having with it's shipping department last month in it's monster end of the year sale. I didn't expect it, but the owner of the store, Kathy Elkins, left a comment on that post stating how thankful she was for my positive words. Now I'm not sure if she did a Google search of what people were saying about her store, or if she really reads my blog on a regular basis, but I'd just like to say thanks. Her kind words made me realize that this knitting blogsphere world is not as large as I thought it would be and a normal knitter like myself could impact the day of a more prominent knitter/businesswoman like Kathy. I thought it was cool.

FO's and Other Projects



I have finished the Lombard Street socks.



It took me a week to do a pair of socks, which is shocking because it usually takes me 2 weeks to do a pair of socks. The socks were done on a sport weight, so I only needed 48 stitches to go around my foot. I would have finished it sooner, but listening to back episodes of Lime and Violet has kept me on the computer searching for yarn rather than working with the stuff I already have.



There are so many pictures of these socks because I took these photos myself. I used my boyfriend's camera and instead of just giving up and accepting the pictures as they were I decided to play around with the camera and see what I got. I think these pics are pretty cool for a novice.

I've also been working on the pinwheel baby blanket.



I'm on skein 4 with one more to go. I'm not sure how I'm going to bind off for this but I think I want to do something decorative. Maybe use the bind off used in the Hemlock Ring Blanket by Jared Flood or something simple like a picot edge. We'll have to wait and see.



This scarf project I started earlier in the year. It's been somewhat hibernating because I was getting bored with it, but initially I enjoyed seeing the pattern develop. I got the stitch pattern from these socks and decided to reinterpret it into a simple scarf. I just took the stitch pattern and added a garter stitch border and voilá! A lovely light scarf for cool spring nights.



A thought

As you already know, I have been listening to the Lime and Violet show. The show is wonderful, to say the least. My only complaint, however, is how it is taking away from my knitting time. The whole week, I have spent more time surfing the net for new yarn to buy and projects to make, rather than working on the things I already have. In fact, listening to so much yarn pr0n almost made me buy some sock yarn this past Thursday night that I don't really need right now. Thankfully, my boyfriend saved me from myself.

So when I woke up this morning, I thought about how I was falling out of love with my current stash. I decided the best way to remedy this mood was to reorganize my stash. I confronted my stash, and organized it by weight, and I realized how many scraps of sock yarn I have. The more I organized, the more I realized that I have a lot of scraps that can easily be designated to some project. It kind of pissed me off that I had enough sock yarn scraps to make a couple pairs of adult socks (mismatched socks, but still that's kind of amazing). Then I began to look at the entire stash, and I realized that I have so much yarn that sometimes I can't look at it all. The strange thing is, the more I organized the stash, the more creative I was becoming in terms of getting rid of the scraps. I said, "Oh these colors look nice together for a baby hat." or "I could probably make some nice mittens out of these two colors."

Therefore, I have concluded that buying more yarn when there are so many more creative ways to just use the stuff I already have is the easy way out. I think it would be nice to challenge myself creatively by using what I already have. It saves money, it enriches my knitting, and of course gives me a challenge that I have been craving lately.

This post is pretty long and right now I want to get some knitting done. Also, the Super Bowl is tomorrow, and we're rooting for Manning (because the other Manning didn't make it this year). Lots of time to knit this weekend, hundreds of possibilities with the stash I already have. As always, Happy Knitting!