Recycling

Recycling is good, right? We all like recycling. So it's okay if I recycle this picture, right?

Because although I am now working on the 17th stripe, Hugh looks exactly the same (possibly a bit thicker). Since recycling is good for the planet, I figured why not? (Translation: I left off writing this until the absolute last minute and I don't have enough time to do a nice post with a new picture and a semi-witty title.) And yes, I know that my titles will never, ever, be described as "witty."

Have an awesome weekend! I am really pushing to try to get this done by Monday, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Jelly Roll of Doom

I'm considering a name change from Hugh to Jelly Roll of Doom, and here's why:

I've never actually had a jelly roll before, and I've never seen a jelly roll before, but I would imagine it would something like that. Right now I'm on the 15th row of the 15th stripe, which means I have a total of 95 rounds left. And that makes me really happy.

I need to eat so I can get ready for my rehearsal (I get to wear saddle shoes and a poodle skirt! Oh the joys of the 50s), so I'm going to end this here. Talk to you soon!

Don't Look Now!

Don't look now, but it's a post! For the second day in a row! And would you believe that, but this thing has more stripes!

There's a total of 11 (I think, I'm counting based off the picture), which means I only have eight to go! Although I did realize yesterday that I was going to need more white yarn. My mom thought this was hysterical, since when I was making this monstrosity, she bought me way too much white yarn. So now, whenever we go to Michaels, she always asks me if I need more white yarn. And last night, I had to ask her for more white yarn. And since the yarn needs to be the same, so there won't be a difference between the white stripes, I had to get a whole pound. It's like a never ending cycle of white yarn hate.

Anyway, I should be all set to finish Hugh now! Talk to you (dare I say it?) tomorrow!

Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Because I'm totally lame, my first book review is actually a book teaser my English teacher asked me to write a couple months ago. So please forgive the slightly cheesy tone this is written in and try to focus on the book!

If you look around you, you can see people that all look completely different. In Tally Youngblood's world, every thing's different. When an "ugly" (that's anyone) turns 16, they receive an operation that makes them stunningly beautiful, and move to the glamorous New Pretty Town. However, not everyone wants the operation, and some uglies have started running away to "The Smoke." When one of Tally's friends decides to run, Tally is offered a deal that could change her life forever. Who are the agents of Special Circumstances, and what is the secret behind the operation? To find out, check out Uglies by Scott Westerfield. (If you like it, there are three more: Pretties, Specials, and Extras.)


I'll (probably) be back tomorrow with an update on Hugh. Talk to you then!

Yipes! Stripes!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a book title, or maybe a puzzle or something. But it can also be applied to week-late blog posts:

I'm four rounds away from having seven whole stripes, and that means that I'm four rows away from having twelve stripes left. Ugh. I told you this one was going to take a while!

Tomorrow I (hopefully) will be posting my first book review. Maybe. You guys should know by now, I'm not really good at keeping to that kind of thing.

Oops

I never know how many Os to put in Oops...

Anyway, I think I got cocky. I was all, "Oh, I posted three days in a row, I got this!" And then two days with nothing. So since I owe you guys an update, the first book review is going to be next week. I do have some exciting news, though:

That's right, 15 of 17, 16 of 17, and (finally) 17 of 17! Now I'm down to one last scarf:

At least, one more scarf with a deadline. But more about that in a second. After much discussion with my mom, we settled on this pattern, which is actually for a Hogwarts scarf. Since this final scarf (I'm calling it Hugh, by the way) is for a guy, this seemed like a good way to go. One downside: it's taking a while. I'm at the very end of the third stripe (literally, there's one stitch left) of 19, which sort of stinks. Also, since the stripes are all the same length (22 rows), it's not quite as mindless as the ruffle scarves.

On the bright side, once I finish this one, I just have one more scarf to make. It's a ruffle scarf, just like the ones above, except it's black. And it's just something my mom wanted, so I don't need to worry about getting it done by a specific time. I am going to do it right after I finish Hugh though, or else I probably won't ever do it!

Have an awesome weekend, and a very happy Father's Day to any of the dads out there (especially mine)!

Threepeat

I'm running a bit late today, so this'll have to be a quickie. I just finished the knitting for 15 of 17, and I'll tack down the edges later tonight or tomorrow:

I know this hardly counts as a post, but hopefully tomorrow's will be a little more interesting.

A New Record

I'm posting two days in a row!!! It's a new record! (Not really. March of last year kind of rocked for me.) So check out 14 of 17:

Just like yesterday, I spent way too much time watching Doctor Who this morning (Well, I actually only watch two episodes. It could have been worse.) and my knitting is reaping the benefits. As in now it exists, and before it was a ball of yarn.

So after that, I felt a little guilty, and wanted to do something productive with my day. Being the neat freak I am, my first thought was, "Let's clean something!" I then proceeded to the perfectly logical step of drawing a map of my room:

which I am showing you for no apparent reason whatsoever. I actually measured my room from wall to wall, and all the furniture. And then drew it on graph paper (each square is six square inches, if you care). I really have no idea what the point of all this was.

One last thing before I go. About two months ago, before my, um, absence, I said I was going to start posting book reviews. And then I left. Anyway, my original plan was to post those on Thursdays, because those were my busier evenings, and I could write the posts ahead of time. That doesn't matter anymore, so I have a new plan. Any weekday that I don't have much of anything to post, I'll put up that week's review. And if (by some miracle) I have stuff to post every day, then it'll come on Friday.

That's it! Talk to you tomorrow!

I Think I'm Defective

What's the easiest way to stop a member of the collective in their tracks? Ask them if they're defective. What's the easiest way to stop these posts in their tracks? Assign me a research paper, three final exams, five standardized tests, a few assorted projects, and administer a huge dose of laziness. Seriously. That has basically been my life since the last time I posted. (Also, my French teacher made us this French apple tart thing for the last class, and I discovered that apricot jam tastes oddly like prunes. Because, you know. Logic.)

Anyway, as you might guess, I have a lot to show you now. Today is just going to be the Borg Scarves, since I have a lot of them.

First, 5 of 17 and 6 of 17:

I have no idea when I finished any of these (until we get closer to the end), so I'm not going to worry about those. Al I know is that 5 of 17 was finished before May 4, and 6 of 17 was after May 5. 7 of 17 is seen here with a friend:

On the left is the scarf my mom requested I make and give to her for Mother's Day. (So I guess 7 of 17 was done before Mother's Day.) Now, 8 of 17, 9 of 17, and 10 of 17:

Here we get to the point where I know things about stuff.  Sort of. I know that I tacked down the edges of all three of these just a little while ago, and that I finished the knitting for 12 of 17 and 13 of 17 yesterday, but I don't really know when I knit 11 of 17. At all.

I feel like I need to tell you something else that's pretty important. While I was gone, I became a Sherlockian and a Whovian. Yeah. (I actually just started Doctor Who yesterday, hence the two scarves finished yesterday.) I know totally understand the intense hatred of Moffat, and completely share in it. MOFFAT!!!!!!!

I'll hopefully be back tomorrow with a normal post (but we all know that may not happen). Talk to you soon!

Resistance is Futile

I know I promised this picture for Friday, but after my seriously crapolicious (that's a scientific term there, folks) day, I didn't feel like posting. So now you may enjoy:

3 of 17! (I think. They're all sort of blurring together.) Anyway, I tacked down the edges on Friday night, and because of the aforementioned crapoliciousness, I didn't do anything else productive until Saturday, when I started 4 of 17.

Random note: For the first four ruffle scarves I made (plus 1 of 17), I spent the entire knitting time untwisting the yarn as I went:

Unlike with normal yarn, a specific side has to be on top at ALL TIMES. Seriously. The scarf will start yelling if you don't get that right. So, as I was about to start 2 of 17, I had an idea (go ahead, gasp with shock). Before I started knitting, I took the time to wrap the yarn around my needle gauge (it was the first rectangular thing I found), like so:

Then, as I knit, I just turned the roll, and the yarn came off quite nicely. The first time, it took me about an hour. (Although, I was doing this while watching Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows for the first time. It's sort of distracting.) Since then, I have turned this into somewhat of an art. The second time, I tried it with the ball on the floor, and me standing on the chair. Despite the fact that I almost fell off the chair, it worked a lot better, and it only took about 20 minutes. Yesterday, I did it sitting on a short dresser (a few feet of the ground), which also worked well, and was less dangerous. I didn't time that very well, but it was around 15 minutes. I think it's definitely worth a few minutes to make the actual knitting go faster, and I do recommend doing some version of this if you're going to make a lot of these. 

Speaking of a lot (by the way, kudos to you if you read that whole paragraph), my mom went to Michaels (without me!) and got the rest of the yarn:

Yeah. I internally cried a little when I looked at all the yarn together. However, there is good news! I did finish 4 of 17 yesterday:

Yay! Alright, I know I said I was hoping for two FOs this weekend, but since I didn't post on Friday, I technically did show you two completed scarves today. Technically.

Anyway, I am fully wound and a few inches into 5 of 17. Maybe a FO tomorrow, maybe not. However it turns out, have a wonderful evening!

Tacky

I came very close to having another FO for you today:

I just have to tack down the ends, which I would have done, but something weird happened with the yarn right near the end, so it's going to take a little more precision than normal. I will have that done by tomorrow, though. My goal is to make two more this weekend (including tomorrow), since I know looking at endless pictures of the same scarf is pretty boring!

BOOOOKS

I am getting close to the end of 3 of 17 (and you thought I was going to forget), but there hasn't been any visible progress, so I'm recycling pictures:

because honestly, if that bugs you that much, how have you managed to stay here this longs? So now on to other stuff.....

I know I ended yesterday's post with sort of a cliffhanger, so I'm going to amend that right now. So you know how I said I love reading? I wasn't kidding. I seriously inhale books, and I've been doing it since kindergarten. After seeing my brother (in second grade) read the first few HP books, I wanted to, too. So my mom and I took turns, each reading one chapter aloud, until I decided she read too slow and just went and read it by myself. I haven't exactly slowed down since then, so I've decided to share my addiction with you guys! (Do you feel lucky? Because seriously, you shouldn't.)

Yesterday's description of The Return was the beginning of a new thing I'm going to try. I don't have a name for it, so it doesn't have a tag or anything (did you really think I thought this through?), but it's basically going to be book recommendations. I like to think I have a broad taste in books, but some of you may feel like I'm being really repetitive. I'm probably going to do it on Thursdays, since I'm never home on Thursday afternoons, and most of the time I don't end up posting. I'm not sure if I'll do it tomorrow, since I sort of did one yesterday, but whatever. I'll figure it out.

I hope you enjoy, and if you don't, then just don't come here on Thursdays. There'll be plenty of yarn addiction on other days! :)

3 of 17

Yesterday evening I was thinking, and I decided to incorporate my nerdiness into yet another aspect of my life. Therefore, I will be referring to all of these scarves like Borg. (The non-ruffly one is going to be Hugh. Seriously.) Meet 3 of 17:

Not quite finished, probably about halfway there. I kind of have Borg on the brain, because yesterday I finished The Return by William Shatner. My brother found it while cleaning out his bookshelves (yes, plural, we're a reading family) and gave it to me. (thanks!) It was really good, even though my TOS knowledge is very limited. (I know that he fought a Gorn in one of the episodes, and I've seen 3 of the TOS movies. That's pretty much it.) You do kind of need to be pretty familiar with TNG though, since that's where most of the characters are from. Yeah.

I was going to tell you about my latest completely idiotic brilliant idea, but I took way too long to do the first half of this, and I have to eat now. So something for you to look forward to for tomorrow!

Timewarp

I hope everyone had a nice weekend, and a happy Easter if you celebrate. Mine involved eating two servings of baby food: prunes and peas. (The prunes were easily one of the most disgusting things I've ever had, the peas were actually quite nice by comparison!) I kind of had a crazy weekend in terms of bloggables, starting with a shopping trip on Saturday. My original plan was to get this:

Hmm, that's not the picture I thought it was, but it does show some useful things. I got size 5 DPNs, not realizing I had already done so a few weeks ago, a charm I picked up on a whim, and some safety eyes. I also got that K hook, which will be explained momentarily.

Before you look at the next picture, explanations are in order. Remember how I made four ruffly scarves a while ago? And how I said I didn't want to make any more? Yeah, that's not going to work out:

My mom wants me to make a total of seventeen scarves for the members of a committee she runs. They're all going to be that white and blue ruffle yarn, except that black and white one, and a regular striped one using that blue yarn and white I already have. I totally would have said no, except she offered to pay me, and then I had this really great idea. (Well, I thought it was great....) A few days ago, I found this pattern for an Avatar blanket. And I really wanted to make it. Except the yarn for it would have cost about $40, taking into account I already have a few of the skeins I needed. Can you guess where I'm going with this? I asked my mom to buy the rest of the yarn I needed in exchange for making the scarves:

We had a pretty good coupon, so she agreed! Yay! I'm super excited to start working on it, and even more excited to have the finished product :). Right now, I'm going to focus on getting the scarves done. There was only enough yarn in that color for about half of the scarves, so I'm going to use up what I have right now, then start on my blanket! Speaking of which:

I'm already done with two of them, and I've also done a few inches on the third. 

I also bought a few other things: floss for the next segment of my HP cross stitch, and this frame:

Boy, am I glad to have this done! My aunt's birthday is this weekend, so it was perfect timing. Although the back is sort of ugly (yeah, I don't know why I used shiny duct tape either) I hope she'll like it!

I put one set of safety eyes to good use:

After finishing the head, making a new hair roll, and stitching down the collar and chest piece, all she needs is a crown! (And no, I have no idea how I'm going to pull that off.)

Just one more thing, I promise. I finally finished off the HP charm bracelet I've been collecting for for a while:

After messing around with spacing for a while, I decided not to use all the charms. In the end, I've kept the owl, crystal ball, dragon, "hippogriff," goblet/cup, tiara/diadem, and key. Basically, I left off the ones that take more interpretation. (Hey, they made sense to me!)

I'm pretty sure I warped time to get all this done. Seriously! Anyway, this is probably one of my longest posts, so I'm going to stop here. See you tomorrow!

Puffs

I've just reached a milestone in my knitting career:

My first sweater! It's all done, and I'm really excited to be able to say that. Just one problem: I don't really like it! It fits fine (which is a miracle because I never really measured for gauge), but I'm not a fan of the sleeves. Looking at the picture, they're flat and normal and everything, but on mine, they puff like nobody's business. And unlike Anne, I don't like puffed sleeves! I'm not sure if that's something I can fix, but I will be looking into it.

Oh, and did I mention I learned how to do set-in sleeves? I'm very proud of myself. :) I used this video, which was really helpful. (Although she did say that set-in sleeves are the most flattering and fit the human body the best. So maybe I just screwed that up really badly?)

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about upcoming projects. Specifically, gifts. A couple days ago, I borrowed my mom's address book and made a list of every occasion I want to make a gift for for the rest of the year. My first project is finishing off the Pooh latch hook. Yeah. I know I posted that over a year ago, and that was at least a year after I finished it, but it's still not done. It's still going to my aunt, but I'm not sure if it's going to be in a frame (my original plan) or a pillow, or something else.

Enjoy your Easter if you celebrate, and have a nice weekend!

I Forgot

I thought of a really clever title for this post earlier, but now I have no idea what it was. 

First, check out my sleevies:

At first I thought they were different sizes, but I think they're okay. I also just wanted to show you my notepad:

See? Very full with numbers and scribbles and such. (I blurred out my to-do lists on the computer so you guys won't see how insane I am. As if you can't already tell!)

I would just like to say that picking up the 172 stitches for the neckline was a beast. (Well, less than that. Some of it was on stitch holders.) I'm almost done with the first round, which was also kind of a pain, but after that it should be smooth sailing! I was going to wait until I finished that round to post, but I'm running late and my aunt and uncle will be here any minute. Gotta run!

999

My Blogger dashboard is my home screen, so every time I open Safari, I see the basic stats for my blog, the Google Reader thing, stuff like that. And all day, I've been watching the page views count. And all day, it's been 999. Even though I know most of the page views are spam, I'm still sort of excited that it's about to be 1,000. Okay? So, if you're reading this right now, thank you.

Anyway....

More sleevie! I know it doesn't look like much, but it does go pretty quickly. Hopefully, I'll have the finished sleeve to show you tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow, I just found out my aunt and uncle are visiting. Apparently they're just passing through, so they'll just be spending the night, but it does throw something of a wrench in my plans. I figured out in December that people don't like it when you work on a paper while they visit. So I'm going to go bust my butt and do extra so I don't fall behind! (Don't worry I'll knit too! :) )

Joke Time!

Here we go. Where did George Washington keep his armies? In his sleevies!!!! (It's funny. Laugh. Moving on.)

As always, the nonsense is somehow tied in to today's post:

I finished a sleevie! (And yes, I am going to say it like that for the rest of the post. Deal with it.) It really didn't take that long, which I definitely appreciate, seeing as there's two. I'm not sure if I'm going to start the second one tonight or tomorrow, but it'll be soon. Once I do that, all that's left is assembly and figuring out how the heck you're suppose to pick up stitches for the neckline. Wish me luck!

Spring Cleaning

Before I get into the real subject of this post, here's a quick progress check on the TTT:

I finished the front (yay!) and started the first sleeve. I have to admit, I had a bit of trouble making this work. Some time after I split for the neck, I realized I had way too many stitches on one side. I had to carefully rip back, while counting the rows. Then, since my scratch paper was getting kind of messy, I had to do a bunch of math to figure out where I was in each set of shaping. (And this was while trying to watch X2. I finally just put the knitting down. And yes, I am very upset about Jean.)

So now on to spring! I think I've mentioned before that I'm the kind of neat freak that gives us all a bad name, right? My room has to be spotless, or I start getting really annoyed and end of cleaning at 6 in the morning just to stop the insanity. Ahem. Anyway, although I am not the kind of person that needs a push to clean, I did start to feel it this weekend. On Saturday I put away my heavy sweaters and pulled out my summer clothes, and yesterday my dad helped my manhandle my mattress so all the bedding could get washed. (Thanks Dad!) I also helped my brother clean out his closet for the first time in years (he did not inherit the clean gene), which is where these come in:

Nice new/old bins! I used to have these in that spot:

but my brother and I got rid of so much junk I got to have four sliding bins. Much easier than having to move all of the stacking bins to get to the bottom one! Here's a quick peek at what I'm storing in them:

The top drawer is mostly knitting, but I do have my crochet hooks and a bit of thread in there, too. As you can see, I am due to make another needle roll for my DPNs. The next two drawers are both sewing:

First, I have some patterns and notions. The blue tray goes in a sewing box, but I have so much fabric I had to take it out! :) The next drawer has felt and some floss. I had no idea before today, but I actually have a lot of DMC floss. What you see there doesn't have numbers (and a few aren't DMC), and everything else was sorted into my system. You may remember that I hit a roadblock with the HP cross stitch when I realized how much floss I needed to buy. Well, this may have solved part of the problem! I need to create an inventory of some kind so I can figure this out, but hopefully at least a few of the colors I need are in those bags.

The final bin is my repurposing bin, which is currently kind of hard to open. This is mostly because of the large number of old jeans that are in there, waiting to be made into something awesome. Once I start using some of those, it'll be a lot neater.

I'm looking forward to looking more closely at the floss, but right now I have to go read forty-odd pages on Tesla. You jealous?

I Have a Neck!

When you guys were kids, did you ever draw people without important body parts? My thing was hands. For some reason, I just left them out of all of my *ahem* beautiful pictures. (For the record, I still can't draw to save my life.) Some of my friends had a different problem, though. They left out necks. (Hm... There was a point to this.... oh yeah!) As you can see, I do not have that problem right now:

I pushed hard this morning, and I got to the neck shaping! Awesomeness! Now that I've hit this checkpoint, I've realized that I'm actually getting close to the end. My spring break is next week, so I'm going to try to have the TTT done by Easter. With the way our weather's going, I'll probably be able to wear it, too! (Grr. I hate cold wet stuff!)

Have an amazing day!

Just A Little More!

As you may be able to tell form the title, I am drawing very close to the shaping for the TTT:

This is just a smidgen over 17 inches, which leaves less than half an inch to go! Hopefully I'll be able to pull that off before I post tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Watches and Frogs

Hi guys! I hope you had an awesome week and as even better weekend! Sorry for not posting last week; my real life was sort of insane! But I did get some things done this weekend, so let's do this!

First, I need to tell you that I'm sort of obsessive about knowing what time it is. If I don't have an easy way to find out (a watch) I kind of freak out. It's not normal! So when this happened, I was predictably upset:

I honestly have no idea how this happened, but a chunk of it just fell off. I didn't do anything that was rougher than normal, so it's sort of a mystery to me, but I did know I had to do something. Enter weird crafty stuff! First, I cut off most of the strap with all the holes on it, which left me with this:

 Then, I marked and cut a little hole to put a slip ring through:

which was way harder than it should have been. For some reason, the slip ring requires a hole that's much bigger than it is to go through. Then, I took another slip ring, and did a basic friendship bracelet to create a little strap. I used a lobster closure and one of the original holes to have a way to take it on and off.

This definitely isn't a perfect solution, but at least I know what time it is!

I also made knitting happen:

You are looking at almost 16 inches of TTT front. For those of you keeping track, this means I have less than two inches to go until my next round of shaping. I would probably already be there, but I had a little issue yesterday. I think I've mentioned that I split each skein into smaller balls before I started using it, and yesterday I got to the point where I needed to join another ball. I tried it sort of in the middle of the row by knitting a few stitches with both strands of yarn, except somehow I ended up with three, so I had some awkward bunching and loops. By the next row, I had an unidentifiable loops, two hanging strands, and a major headache. I tried just dropping the offending stitches, but I sort of screwed it up, so I ended up frogging to about 1.5 inches back. I was smart about it, though, and I put a sort of lifeline through it before trying to rip. It wasn't perfect, and I went through the wrong stitches a few times, but it was definitely easier than trying to do a whole bunch at once! The whole thing wasted about an hour, but the second time I tried to join the new ball, I just started on with the new yarn and loosely knotted the ends. I'll make it pretty later!