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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

making the best of what you have

It's been a while again, hasn't it? Last week was crazy for me, between having a social life and knitting frantically and trying not to stress out over those bits of real life that happen between stitches.

For starters: my financial aid fell through/never happened for the fall semester, so I'm now 11 credits short of finally earning my degree, with no foreseeable way of paying for those credits (~$11,000) out of pocket. Since I'm not in class this semester, I lost my job, so now I'm trying to resolve that as well. (Psst -- if anyone in the New York area needs a receptionist/admin assistant/photographer/IT geek, or knows someone who does, my resume's here. Yarn awaits anyone who gets me a job. ;)) My last day was on Friday, and all the explanations and goodbyes had me choked up all day.

On the topic of Katrina, I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. My heart goes out to anyone who's been affected. I'm planning to destash by knitting for kids being taken in by a friend of a friend of my mom's in Jersey -- I've never really had the opportunity to knit for kids before, so I'm looking forward to it -- and I ordered another four balls of Andean Silk to do a Hermione hat/mittens set to auction either through MissionFish or Katrina's Keepers, in the same vein as the R2D2 hat that's currently at $360. I haven't got much to donate besides time and blood, both of which I intend to do, and knitting for a cause is such a warm, fuzzy feeling.

I, um, might've deviated from my yarn diet to order 4 skeins of Alpaca Cloud in Stream while I was making a Knitpicks order. I feel no remorse, or at least not much, because I'm itching to do a proper lace project, and I've been really good with finishing things this week. I've averaged 1 finished project every night for the past week, as follows:

Tuesday - Jon's mistake rib socks, since I thought I'd see him that night
Wednesday - String's Ab Fab poncho, which was an absolute delight aside from the degree to which it ate my brain
Thursday - the left TWH Hermione mitten on my morning commute, and the film Ravenclaw PoA scarf I cast on at the book release at night
Friday - worked on Soleil all day and would've finished had I brought an extra ball
Saturday - Soleil (it's just about done blocking now), and weaved all the Ab Fab ends (which is a project unto itself)

So, I think I deserve a bit of a treat, don't I? Aside from the fact that I'm about to dive into piles of cashmere (for String) and alpaca (for my roommate's mom) for my next several projects -- the blue laceweight can just sit and be petted for a while. Not that it'll actually happen, but let's pretend that it will.

eta: Might I just say? Sesame from the new MagKnits would make the perfect house sweater. Substitute your favorite house-colored DK yarn with the darker shade for A and the lighter for B, and it'd be all sorts of cool. I guess it's a blessing in disguise that I'd need a 44" to have decent wearing ease. ;)

Lauren posted at 1.53 on 09.06.05 comments (0)

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

braaaaaaaains

Dear self,

In the future, please note that Ab Fab is nearly as addictive as animal cracker. Possibly moreso, since there's one of each in progress, and it's not a hat that has you up 20 hours straight.

Go to bed, for chrissakes. Mohair before bed never leads to a happy place.

Braaaaains,
me.

Lauren posted at 1.15 on 08.23.05 comments (0)