Long time, no post

I guess it hasn't been that long, really. It hasn't even been a week yet since my last post, but it feels like it's been a while. The afghan is progressing nicely, as you can see:



It is about 40 inches long, and it is going to end up being around 60 inches, so I have two-thirds of it done. I've decided that my goal is to have it done by the time I leave for Chicago to start my new job, which is on September 10. So I have a little more than a week. The only thing that will deter me from getting this done is the fact that we are flying to Chicago for Labor Day this weekend (we had planned the trip to visit our families a long time before I found out that I would be moving to Chicago the weekend after Labor Day). Since I am not going to lug a whole afghan on the plane with me, I will be missing a lot of potential afghan-knitting time. And I need to find a new, smaller project to take with me!

Instant gratification

I didn't have any major project that I was really excited to start after I finished the camisole, and I needed a break from the afghan because the size 35 needles were making my wrists hurt, so I decided that I needed to take a break and do a quick little project. I had some leftover Magic Stripes sock yarn and Fun Fur in my stash, so I gave into temptation and made the condom cozy from the summer issue of Knitty. I will probably end up using it for a change purse instead of for its intended purpose, but it was a fun and easy one-evening project. Here is the finished product:



Then, after trying the finished cozy on my cell phone and finding out it was almost the right size, I decided to knit myself a cell phone case out of some more leftover Magic Stripes. I used the condom cozy pattern as a guide, but I made it slightly longer, added a flap at the top with a button closure, knit it in the round, used a 3-needle bind-off at the bottom, and added an I-cord strap. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Here is a shot of it against the ever-popular shag carpeting background:



And here's me (well, my arm, anyway) modeling the I-cord wrist strap:



Now, back to the afghan!

Woo hoo!

I have good news...I got a new job! I've been pretty happy at my current job, but it's only part-time, and therefore, I'm not bringing in the money that I would like to be. My new job is at a place called The HistoryMakers, which is an oral history archive for African American history. I will be indexing oral history videos so that they can be put into a searchable internet database. I will start on September 13, and I'm very excited. Besides finally having a full-time job in my field, I will get to move back to Chicago, where the rest of my family lives. The one downside is that my husband will be staying here until he finds a job in Chicago, so we will have to be apart for a little while, but hopefully not for too long.
In knitting news, my camisole is finished. Well, it's mostly finished. I still need to thread ribbon through the eyelet trim and straps, but I haven't found time to go out and buy ribbon yet. But here is what it looks like so far:



I also have been making progress on the afghan for my inlaws. Since I don't think I mentioned it before, the pattern I'm using is the free pattern for the Quick-Knit Throw on the Lion Brand website. Here it is:



Once again, Franklin had to sneak into the photo!

I'm back

Well, I've been away from my blog for a while now. As I mentioned before, my two sisters and my brother-in-law came to visit from Chicago for the weekend. It was a lot of fun, but tiring. Also, I'll admit that my obsession with watching the Olympics has taken away from my blogging time. I'm getting a lot of knitting done in front of the TV, though.
I've made a decent amount of progress on my camisole. This is mainly because I worked on it on Saturday night while waiting for my family to arrive. They were originally going to get here around midnight, but because of car trouble, they left three hours late, so they did not get here until 3 in the morning. So I stayed up late knitting while I waited for them. I now have both pieces of the camisole completed and sewed together, and I am working on the straps and the trim. I don't have any pictures of it, but hopefully I will have pictures of the finished project soon.
I also just cast on tonight for an afghan out of Lion Brand Homespun. It is going to be a Christmas present for my inlaws. I know I have a lot of time to get it done yet, but I wanted to get it out of the way, because I have had the yarn for it for a long time, and it has been hanging over my head.

Making progress

I finished one side of the front of my camisole. It actually is going by pretty quickly, to my surprise. I was a little bit scared of it at first because this is the first time I have used size 3 needles to make anything bigger than a sock.
Here is a picture:



I'm sure I won't get around to posting this weekend, because my two sisters and my brother-in-law are coming to visit from Chicago, so I will be pretty busy.

A recent project

Well, I'm sure people don't want to keep seeing pictures of my camisole as I slowly make progress - and I do mean slowly, because I am also in the middle of training to run the Chicago half-marathon on September 19. Running takes up a lot of my time, and it also saps my energy, so that I often don't even feel like knitting. (I never thought I'd say that!)
So anyway, since I haven't made a lot of progress on my current project, I thought I'd put up some pictures of my most recent finished project (other than my hat) - Mon Petit Chou from the summer issue of Knitty.
Here are a couple of pictures:





The first picture also includes my cat, Franklin, who doesn't see any reason for a ribbon to be laying around unless it is meant to be played with by a cat.
I made it out of Sock It To Me Collection Esprit, which I got from Elann. It is meant to be a surprise for my husband for our anniversary, which is next Tuesday. The second anniversary is traditionally the cotton anniversary, right?

Still figuring this out...

Well, I'm still trying to find my way around the whole posting photos thing. I think I've gotten the hang of it, but I thought I'd test it out by putting up some pictures of my lace camisole in progress.
Here is the back:



It is waiting patiently on a spare needle to be sewn together with the front, which admittedly is not much to look at right now, as you can see:

Fun with felting

Well, I did it. I felted my hat yesterday. Here is the result:



I am pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I found out that felting is surprisingly easy and fun. Now I am looking forward to working on the French Market Bag from Knitty, which I have been wanting to make for a while, but have been somewhat afraid of, due to the whole felting aspect. However, it will have to wait a little bit, since I have decided not to buy yarn (or any knitting-related supplies) for the rest of August, since the husband and I decided to make an effort to cut back expenses. Don't worry, I have plenty of stuff in my stash to work with.

Hello, world!

Welcome to my blog! After months of deliberating over whether I would actually have the work ethic to post regularly to a blog, I decided to go for it. Looking at other people's knitting blogs was just too tempting! I decided I need to be able to share my knitting with the world. I promise I'll get back and post some photos later to make this more interesting, but for now, I'll just tell you what I'm working on.
1. Bottoms Up bucket hat by Bonne Marie Burns. I've actually finished knitting it, and I'm going to felt it soon, hopefully tomorrow (my first attempt at felting - yikes!) I'm making it in Brown Sheep Nature Spun in black.
2. Lace Camisole from Vintage Knits (with a couple minor modifications). This is going along pretty well. I just completed the back and started the front today. I'm using Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in dusty sage. (If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of Brown Sheep. Well, it is made in Nebraska.)