Nope...not dead yet

It's been a while hunh? Not much to show in the realm of knitting since I ran out of yarn to finish the mitts I was working on so I cranked out a few squares for my afghan. School is keeping me very busy right now. I have three finals this coming week and none of them are going to be fun (as if a final could ever be fun...but that's beside the point). But next weekend is the long weekend and I'll get to see a whole bunch of people I haven't gotten to see in a while. In lieu of something actually worth reading I give you my results for a quiz I found on Dorothy's blog a little while ago.

You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of silliness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed.

Take the Quiz here!

I must say I'm not all that surprised...although I'm definitely happy since that is one of my favorite books of all time. Someday when I have money I'll have to buy the A&E miniseries...because Colin Firth is love. Ah well, back to studying!

Thomasina

That's what we call the turkey that lives in my backyard. Why Thomasina? Because she's a mom...earlier this summer she had two turkey chicks but lately we've only been able to find her with one (sad panda :'( )...that is when we've been able to find her. She doesn't trust us even when we're in the house...to many sudden movements (such as running to go grab a camera to take her picture) and she runs away/flies into the trees. But one morning not that long ago I was awoken by my Dad with a "Where's your camera?!?" It took me a minute to figure out what was going on...since it was about 6AM and I am chronically sleep deprived/a med student...but I managed to get downstairs (without hurting myself!), grab my camera, and take the following picture of Thomasina in my backyard (She's that weird looking thing between the two trees...I promise)
In other, more knitterly news, I have completed my Gray Fetching and moved on to a pair of Dashing. Both are of Wool-Ease in Oxford Gray on size 7s. The Fetching took me about 8-10 hours I think. I'm quite a bit farther along on the Dashing since I took that pic, but there's still a ways to go. I think I'll knit for a bit tonight before I finally go to sleep...maybe I'll make it to the thumb.
Now, I love my DPNs...and I love fingerless gloves, but I need some more interesting patterns. I've been looking all over Ravelry...but I can't seem to find anything that I really like. I'm thinking about trying to make something up on my own since I've made a few pairs now and I have a pretty good idea of what I like and what I don't like...but it's a bit intimidating. So, I have a question for all of you: What is your favorite stitch pattern (links with pictures/instructions appreciated and welcomed) and why? Also, if you can think of any particularly awesome free fingerless glove patterns that would be good too...because I know that Ravelry doesn't have everything just yet.

Nate

Success! I have completed yet another pair of fingerless gloves! I have also learned that I *hate* making fingers. These are a birthday/Christmas gift to a friend of mine who saw pictures of my DK Dashing and decided that he *had* to have a pair for himself...I showed him a few patterns for him to choose from and he picked Natalya...but insisted I call it something more masculine. So here's Nate:
Nate is *just* over one skein on Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Oxford Gray on US8 DPNs (only the thumb and pinkie on the second glove are from the second skein...so close!). I made the arm portions a good 3 inches longer than the pattern suggested per the recipient's request. Now all they need is a wash to get all of the nasty train and lecture off of them and they are good to go!

Of course I have already started another project...because I would go crazy if I didn't have something to knit in class...so I show you my meager process on my first pair of Fetching. I say first because I intend to make a few pairs as gifts. I don't know if you have all seen the new Knitty, but there are two things that I want to make so bad it hurts. Obviously they've been added to the Ravelry Queue...to be added to the queue here when I have the time and presence of mind to edit that code.

Classes are progressing. They've decided to give us the questions we missed on our last exam as a separate "mini-exam" on Tuesday...which means that I do not get this weekend off from hardcore studying...and that makes me a little bit sad. But at least I only have to study the Psychopharmacology this time. I'm loving Neuroscience in the kind of dork-tastic way that only I can manage. You would not believe how totally enthralled I was by the lecture on the Thalamus that we had the other day...I actually stopped knitting *gasp*! Tomorrow night I'm headed to see Wicked as my birthday present from my friend Sarah.
I'm so excited! I'm meeting her and her mom for dinner and then it's off to the show! I have been listening to this soundtrack all summer and I can hardly wait to see it live! Someday when I have time (hahaha...hilarious I know) I'll read the book that it's based on...but that day will not be here anytime soon. Have a good weekend everyone!! Happy knitting!

Ok, ok, ok!

Alright...you've convinced me...I'll but new yarn! I'm gonna wait until I get closer to actually knitting it to buy the yarn...but I'm going back and forth between the Claret Heather and the Onyx Heather. I know I want dark and something that looks good with black since I have the black handles already.

Had my Psychopathology midterm this morning...it would appear that they left off a whole section of questions since there was no pharmacology on there whatsoever. Now I just have some time to kill until my next class. Someday they will not inadvertenly schedule like an hour and a half for most of us to be free between the exam and class. Ah well...time to get back to studying for that online quiz that's due tomorrow night.

Dilemma:

I now take this quick study break to present you, my fellow knitters, with the following dilemma:

Thinking about what I want to use to make my Doctor's Bag, I came to the realization that I have more than enough of this old acrylic in my stash. But I could also buy new yarn (KnitPick's Wool of the Andes) for about $20 (including shipping).

My reasoning thus far:

• I should buy nice new yarn because I want this bag to last for a while since I will most likely be using it all the time.
• I should use stash yarn because I am a poor med student and $20 buys a lot of coffee
• I should buy nice new yarn because the pale gray isn't a great color for something I'm going to be using all the time and getting really dirty
• I should use stash yarn because it's acrylic and therefore washable...if it gets dirty wash it!!
• I should buy nice new yarn because this is a gift to myself...and I deserve better than old acrylic (or some other such entitlement-type logic)
• I should use stash yarn because there's nothing inherently wrong with it
• I should buy nice new yarn because then I will have the stash yarn left over to make other things with...like present for people...which will probably cost more than the $20 I would probably be spending on new yarn

So tell me what you think...because my mind is far from made up...

Weeee Birthday!!

Thank you to all of those who have given me birthday wishes. It's been a great day. I'm here to show you all of the amazing things that my awesome friends (and parents) have given me. Let's start with cards:

Two of these cards were especially awesome. The one on the bottom left with the girl and the donkey on the front had this on the inside (This is why I love Julie)

But the card that made me laugh so hard I almost cried was from Laura...she made the card work for her:
That's right...I got a card for a 2nd birthday with extra 2's and twenties written in as necessary. My friends rock!! Laura also got me a book of crossword puzzles to honor our times in the library doing crossword puzzles instead of last-minute studying for our Anatomy exams *sigh* Ah, memories!
Susana got me a gift certificate to Au Bon Pain...and therefore has my love forever. Elinor made me brownies and gave me an adorable card. I of course gave most of the brownies away to my fellow classmates since there was no way I could eat a whole pan by myself. Alicia and Enid got me a bouquet, Michael's gift certificate, balloons, and a little hand-crank music box that plays Happy Birthday. I cannot begin to explain to you the amount of entertainment I get from this music box...something about it just makes me want to giggle uncontrollably.
My parents got me Knit 2 Together (which I have wanted forever because of the Doctor's Bag pattern), purse handles for when I make said bag, and a gorgeous aquamarine necklace.
Yes...I am that freakishly pale. I've also been knitting Natalya...what you see below is the product of 6 hours of lectures and 4 train rides:
Time to get back to studying!!

Speed Blogging!!

Alright...it's been a while since I've given you much of anything to look at...which means that I have a ton of pictures for you. But since I am fast approaching bed-time I will try to be as fast a possible.

So, during my first week of class I pushed to get all of my PIF Exchange done before I became so bogged down that I forgot to sleep. That resulted in 4 washcloths due to a relative lack of creativity on my part. My thinking was that everyone likes nice soap...and one can never have too many washcloths...so it was basically a win-win. These were the end result:
They were all done in Sugar 'n' Cream in either the Jewel or Patio Pinks colorways. The lacy-cabley one is the Lacy Mock Cable Cloth and the other is just the simple bias-knit washcloth pattern which I didn't actually look up a pattern for. Now...I would like to remind you that I bought the yarn for these before classes started...and that I did not know what colors my syllabi were going to be for my first set of classes...but somehow I managed to do this:
I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit scared.

Then last week I started working on some fingerless mittens for my Mom to go with the Reversible Cable Scarf that I made her. I used Carissa Knit's Cabled Fingerless Mitts pattern as a starting point. I added some seed stitch on either side of the cable to match the scarf and changed the ribbing a little bit around the fingers (my Mom and I have kinda short palms and I didn't want these to get too long). So after a week of knitting through class to stay awake I present another FO.

Classes have been going well. I had my first test last Friday in Pharmacology. I wasn't very pleased with the class because it was structured horribly...but I'm pretty sure I passed the test and that's all that really matters. Had an awesome time this weekend in Amherst with Alicia and our amazing blog-free friend Enid. They threw me a little bit of a surprise birthday party...and locked me out of the apartment to do it *glares* I love those two so much!! No tests this week...but I have my Psychopathology Midterm coming up on the 10th. I know you all want to be me right now :P Hopefully I'll be back with more knitting soon...at the very least I'll be by later this week to show you my birthday haul. Happy knitting everyone!!!