Done! - well almost

The last square of Lizard Ridge is knit and blocked! I finished it Saturday after my German mid-term (yes - I had a mid-term on a Saturday, because my school hates us). I don't remember what the colorway is but it is the same color way as the block that I knit for Twisted. Actually, I like the block I knit for them more than this one...

A close up of it unblocked

These are the last four blocks two of which are seamed already

Now all I have left is two seam two more blocks to the strip and then seam the strip of blocks to the blanket, then after that the border which I don't even want to think about. That being said I'm very glad that I've been seaming as I go because the extra warmth of the blanket on top of the one that I sleep under has been nice for the cold nights here. Now of course, because I hate doing all of the aforementioned things - other than sleeping - (though apparently I have wonderful seams despite the fact that I would pay someone t do it for me), I cast on a Jaywalkers and the Dove Socks from the new Kat Bordhi book. I'm knitting both of them out of Regia which makes things even harder because sock yarn snob tendencies.

That being said, I ordered three skeins of sock yarn from Tausendschön in der Specht (woodpecker), indische Gewuerze (Indian spices) and Seestern (starfish). So pretty, so very pretty. We emailed back and forth (because she was confused as to why I used paypal because she didn't realize that I didn't have an Austrian bank account) and she sending them out today so I should get them, hopefully, by the end of the week. Which should be around the time that my package of Cascade 220 for Avast gets here. I'm also supposed to be getting a package from a friend of mine full of goodies that she bought at Rheinbeck at some point (when she makes her way to the post office, in between writing papers/procrastinating - Liz, I love you, you're great) which means I need to pick up chocolate and yarn to send her as to make it a somewhat fair trade.

In non knitting news, its mid-term week. I had a aforementioned German mid-term on Saturday (which was better than I thought it'd be), my Mahler and theory mid-terms yesterday (the Mahler one went really well, the theory one...well I suck at theory but I did my best), and my music survey mid-term tomorrow afternoon which will probably be hellish. We had the listening test (which consisted of knowing the name, composer, and genre of 11 out of....at least 40 pieces, it was over 2 hours of music that we had to be accountable for) last Wednesday and I did amazingly badly on that. I also have a flute lesson tomorrow morning (which means I probably have to miss Wednesday knitting group - sorry guys!) which should go well. I bought the Reinecke flute sonata between Mahler and theory and am thinking about getting the his flute concerto and also the Widor flute sonata (despite the fact that another flute player in my program is playing it - I don't care, I love the piece).

Oh also, in more exciting news, I'm getting a wheel in late November (around Thanksgiving)! I'll be in England visiting a friend at Oxford so I'm going to try out the Ashford Joy (which I don't really want but I should try it), the Lendrum folding wheel, and the Louet Victoria (see an amazing review here). I'm leaning towards the Lendrum because of its sheer versatility, but the damn Louet is so tiny and portable (which is really important to me as I travel for school a lot and intend to take the wheel with me) - its 11 lb when in its case with all of the bobbins and such! (and 6lb by itself). I also keep telling myself that if I get the Louet I can always get another wheel later (though if I can get my hands on the fast flyer that they make for the Victoria, which apparently is is out there, I may be sold). We'll see I have a bit of time and testing to do.

Almost done!

Lizard ridge is almost done!

Its amazingly difficult to take pictures of the entire afghan in my room but thats about half of it.

I am (slowly) working on the second to last square and, frankly, am relieved that its almost done. I'm also very glad I didn't save all of the seaming and weaving in of ends until the end because that would have drove me insane. I also still don't know what border I'm going to put on it - crochet is out (because I don't like the look of it) maybe some sort of I-cord or seed stitch thing, though I really have no desire to work that much seed stitch. I love the texture of it, but it's a big afghan, and thats a lot of seed stitch.

No Socktoberfest for me

As of this morning I've decided that I'm not going to cast anything before I finish Lizard Ridge. I'm actually kinda getting tired of it. I love the design, and I love it as a physical object, but after 20 squares...I'm very ready to be done.

The newest SIP (square in progress)

It also looks like I'm going to be teaching at least one person at school how to knit. One of the people I go to school with, who's name I don't know, asked me if I would teach her when we were (the instrumentalists and the singers) were switching rooms during performance workshop this evening.
I knit in between classes at school almost every day (turns out the German teachers - they love the knitting, they ask me about it all the time and are so happy to see me knitting) so everyone knows I knit. Sometimes people ask me to teach them how, but in the "wow that'd be great - but I don't want you to actually take me up on this request" sort of way. She apparently talked about wanting to learn how to knit to a number of people, who all pointed her in my direction, then she took down my name so she could look me up on Facebook. I think it'll be nice, I love knitting, I love telling people about knitting, and, as long as she's not one of those people who doesn't admit to not knowing everything, it should be nice. Also, somehow I don't have any classes with her yet we are both doing music here - thats almost unheard of.

Totally unrelated - I miss writing papers, I don't get it. However, this time next year this won't be the case.

Is it hat season?

Red Light Special - done! Its my first attempt at fair-isle and I'm rather pleased with it. It was a pretty quick knit too, I started it on Tuesday night and finished it at 12:30am on Saturday. Note that most of the time was spent with me bitching about the hem and there were a few days in which I didn't knit.

I'm glad it finally got cold enough for hats here!

I also just finished a square for Lizard Ridge - I only have four more to go then it'll basiclly be done, I have to put a border on it too but I don't know what color it'll be, all I know is that I'm not doing the crochet border that the pattern dictates. An I-cord border might look nice, we'll see.

Rowany goodness

I attempts to sweeten what was a bad day I went to The good yarn store in Vienna (there's a bunch of little ones that don't really have anything good, and this one isn't steller, but it is by far the best one we have here) - Zwei Glatt, Zwei Verkehrt (which I think means something along the lines of "knit two, purl two" and this is what I got...


Five balls of Rowan Pure Wool DK for the Red Light Special hat (I also bought the Rowan Classic book 22: Travel). It'll be my first foray in fair-isle knitting - I'm ambitious. I also will hopefully have at least one more square for Lizard Ridge done by the end of this weekend depending on how much time I have.

In other news, I finally called my new flute teacher who - because the Austrians seem to love their cell phones (aka. Handies) text messaged me the address that she teaches at, which as very amusing at 9:30 in the morning. After doing a quick google map search, it turns out that she's about 6 blocks away from the LYS that I bought all of the Rowan from - this could be dangerous to my bank account.

Like Magic

I started on Saturday with this


And ended Sunday with this


Its kinda scary how much I can get accomplished in one day (that being said I should have been reading for class, just as I should be running out the door to get to school early - so I can eat something and knit before class). Three knew people showed up at the Sunday knitting group which was really great, and two of them had babies in tow (they knew each other) which was, wonderful and makes me want to knit for them. Also, it turns out that babies, like everyone else, really like Lizard Ridge, probably because of all of the colors. I brought what I have done of mine (I'm seaming it as I go as to not go crazy at the end) and with in seconds one of the babies (the one who wasn't sleeping) had quieted down and looked fascinated with it, it was cute.
Also, unrelated, looks like I have a new flute teacher who - instead of giving me her address on the phone, SMSed me her address...this should be interesting.

Socks and Yarn

So basically, my mom rocks. I got a package from her yesterday with the rest of the Kuryon to finish Lizard Ridge. It was amusing because all of my mail gets sent to IES (the study abroad organization that I am studying through) and I pick them up in the reception. One of the people who works there was like "Oooh is there yarn in there?!" so I opened it up so she could see and she might have been more excited that I was.




I also finished my Spiraling Coriolis Socks! They fit amazingly well - clearly Cat Bordhi is a genius.

New blog!

After being pressured by my friends, I've finally decided to start a knitting blog. Per usual, we'll see if I actually update this one.

Now for the obligatory yarn picture



That was the last ball of sock yarn that my mom sent me - Zen String Serendipity in the Sedona colorway.