Okay, so it's been a very busy last two weeks. After getting the notice from WSU that I will not be joining the Nursing program this quarter, I met with CQ, my advisor and she and I worked out a plan. I'll be taking some more of my Nursing required classes and boosting up my GPA so that when I apply again in the winter they will have no choice but to grant me access based on my sterlingness. This mean really boosting the Christmas knitting over the next month b/c come school term Sept 4., I won't be able to knit as much. I'll need to focus on my classes. I love knitting and I love my family and want to bless them with lovely hand-knitted gifts but at the same time, I don't support my family by knitting and I've got a career ahead of me that will allow me to buy LOTs and LOTs of fabulous yarns for fabulous projects and LOTs and LOTs of fabulous fiber to spin and even allow me to purchase that Golding wheel I dream of owning, .....but I've got to get through school first and so I'm taking David Reidy's advice and letting the knitting time find me after the priorities have been met. Thanks David! There's always Christmas break to knit and, well, there's always next year!

Go Big or Stay Home

Has it really been almost three weeks since I posted? Wow. Well, I finished my nephew's Christmas sweater and I'll be posting pictures soon. I had perfect photographing weather on Saturday but alas, I was finishing the sweater that night. We haven't had good photo shoot weather since. It's been gray and yucky. But the sweater looks great if I do say so myself (why not, everyone else I've shown it too says it.) I've now started on my nieces Christmas sweater. It's from the same Cabin Fever book but it's the Twisted Cables Pullover. I'm using Alpaca With A Twist Baby Twist in Orchid. It's the first time I've knit with alpaca. I've got plenty of alpaca fiber to fondle and a couple skeins of Garnstudio alpaca, but I've not knit with it yet. I know they say you shouldn't make sweaters out of alpaca b/c they 'grow' d/t lack of elasticity and that it's too hot for a sweater but quite frankly, the kid never remembers to wear a jacket outside when it's cold so she needs all the help she can get, and also this pattern looks like it will hold pretty well as a sweater with all the twisting involved. We'll see. If nothing else, it is heavenly to knit and I'm enjoying myself. I just hope my sisters - in - law don't mind too much when I tell them to bring the sweaters to me to clean. God forbid I leave it to them. Aside from the kids sweaters I, of course, have socks OTNs. Sweetpeas from this months Knitty, with only a couple modifications. I omitted the ruffled cast-on and just did a plain k2p2 and I'm knitting with zeros so I upped the stitch count by another twenty. The yarn is Schaeffer Anne in a gorgeous blues and greens colorway that I was originally going to make Pomatomas' with but after working the Pomatomas almost halfway down the foot I decided that I really didn't like the socks so I frogged them and saved the yarn for a better pattern. I found the Sweetpeas the next day. I'm doing well on my Christmas(or so) knitting.The kids will have theirs and Katie will have hers. I'm hoping to get my brother's done as well but it may take a little longer than I have available. My brother wants a gansey or a fisherman but I have to find just the right pattern for him. I'll probably end up designing it myself. For my dad, his sweater will be a Christmas/birthday present b/c I hope to have it done by the end of March when he can still wear it. See, my dad's project is special. I'm going to spin the yarn from roving and then knit a sweater I design myself just for him. I'm excited but it's a little daunting. If I buy the roving now, I can work on the spinning during my regularly scheduled spinning time. Then just as soon as my brother's sweater is done I can finish up the spinning if there's any left to do and start the knitting. On a different note, I'm still waiting to hear if I start my nursing classes this term or if I have to wait. If I start this term it's my goal to have a new job in the next month. If I don't start classes this term, it's my goal to have a new job in the next month or two. Either way, I plan to have a new job by Ocotober. I'm feeling pretty puny today, I even went home from work early, so I'm gonna leave off here. But I'll be back in a couple of days with pictures of the nephew sweater, the Sweetpea socks in progress, and the Twisted Cables sweater in progress. As well as pictures of my Dutchess when she comes to visit over the next week.