Where Does the Time Go?

Hey! Is anyone still reading this thing? Sorry about falling off the face of the earth there! The combination of crazy rotation schedule and busy personal life has conspired to make me really bad at posting...but I didn't die or anything...I swear...

The knitting front hasn't been too exciting. I've been plugging away on my Denise Scarf and Dark Cowl. The Show-off Socks have not been reclaimed from the frog pond...and the yarn may be coming back to life as a different pair of socks, I haven't decided yet. I haven't touched my Dorky Socks...but thinking about working on them a bit tonight while I try to convince myself that it's time to go to sleep. I have no pictures to show you because I'm impossibly lazy...or at least that's the best explanation to come up with right now. I've been thinking a lot about what I want to knit lately too...I find myself simultaneously wanting to knit lace and use heavier yarns so that I feel like I'm making more progress. I think I may strike a sort of balance by have two projects at either end of the spectrum going once I finish up the current contenders. I've been looking at a couple scarves...I feel like a triangle shawl is a bit too much for me to tackle at this point in time. I've struggled with lace patterns in the past so I feel like I should work my way up slowly and not make it into something that makes me want to cry... I also have a bunch of projects in my queue for worsted weight yarn etc, I just need to pick things that aren't scarves for a little while...especially not cabled scarves...

As far as school...I start my next rotation, a sub-internship in General Surgery tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous since I'm basically auditioning for the program and I really loved it there...but I think it'll all be fine once I get a better feeling for what's actually expected of me. I wish I knew who my housestaff was going to be...that would make me feel a lot better...but I'll find out soon enough.

I'd say that I'll try to be better about posting...but I think we all know that I don't have too much control over that. Happy knitting all!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had good Christmases (or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate this time of year). Mine was pretty good...it's a bit sad watching my Grandfather decline so quickly, but it was good to be home and spending time with family. I managed to get a pretty good knitting haul. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised that my parents got me some yarn (my mom seemingly abhors the concept of a stash). I also got a fair few books and some needles. As far as the yarn, my parents got me some Risata that I have been pining for as well as some Swish DK. More yarn came my way thanks to the lovely Alicia. She saw these and thought of me...I daresay she was right...it's like a colorway made especially for me...and it's even lot 1, I feel special :P She also got me a super cool needle gauge from 7 Yaks Designs. (Sorry for the blurry pic...it didn't look that bad on the camera I swear.)

In other news: I'm so excited words cannot describe. I feel like I'm a real knitter now! Now I'm trying to decide when I want to wear it...out to dinner and the movies with a couple friends on Thursday...or out with more of them on Friday...silly I know. What am I working on now? Well, I struck a bargain with my aunt; she makes quilts (she made the one on my bed here) and the one I have is about 15 years old and is really beginning to show it. She will make me a new quilt if I make her a hat, flip top mittens, and a scarf. So I poked around on Ravelry for a million years and chose this hat, which I have now cast on for. I plan to knit coordinating mittens based on this pattern. And a scarf/neckwarmer using this pattern. All of this using the same yarn I used to make my sweater (I can hardly believe how much I have of this stuff).

Now...New Years. I made some knitting resolutions last year. Let's see how I did.

• Finish my Warm Up America Afghan (including sewing it all together)
• Check. Got this one done some time around the end of September. Only took me a little over two years! :P
  
• Knit my Doctor's Bag
• Check. Finished up in April I think. I know I've used it a lot already this year...although I do want to reinforce part of it with fabric before I start using it regularly again.
  
• Knit for charity
• Not so much. I thought I would knit a lot of things for the Sharewood auction. But the auction came and I had nothing to give them.
  
• Knit primarily from my stash
• I look at the things I've knit this year and I've knit more than half of them from stash...but I bought so much yarn this year I accumulated more that I used...so I feel like I didn't really do this.

What are my resolutions for this year? I plan to include some more personal ones as well...accountability and all that :P

• Knit from stash as much as possible
• Avoid buying more yarn unless absolutely necessary (this yarn diet will also prohibit sock yarn...because I have plenty of that for the time being)
• Knit another sweater (I'd like to do NaKniSweMo again...perhaps with Francis Revisited. This will necessitate buying yarn...because I don't have a sweater's worth of anything anymore)
• Get in better shape/lose weight (I'd like to look at least halfway decent in pants again. I'm thinking a good goal for the year would be to get back to what I weighed at the end of Freshman year of college [about 40lbs less than what I weigh now] but I've love to make it to what I weighed at the end of high school [closer to 60lbs]. I think my high school weight is too ambitious a goal for me short term given how difficult it is for me to find time to eat well and exercise regularly...but it's definitely the goal long term.
• Knit some baby clothes for expecting friends (I've got a couple due around March that I really need to get cracking on)
• Be the best medical student I can be, read as much as I can, take a more active role in caring for my patients, do more procedures (when reasonable of course), and generally get as much as I can out of the experiences given to me.

Alright. I'm off to knit a little bit and relax. Happy knitting to all and to all a good night!

Thoughts on Practicality

As we all know, the February Lady Sweater has taken the knitter-verse by storm. Everyone and their grandma is making one (over 2000 projects and in over 6000 queues on Ravlery). I have to admit that I am very eager to make one myself. It's simple and lovely and professional and knitterly all at the same time. I can actually see myself wearing it on a semi-regular basis...although probably not while I'm wearing my white coat but only because that horrible piece of polyester is a marvel of heat conservation. I dream of making this lovely garment! (Actually I have no idea if I dream about it...the last dream I remember having involved a somewhat exciting trauma coming into the ER and my getting to do something other than stand in the corner and get in the way...yet another sign that med school is slowly destroying my brain) The point of all this being that I'm just not all that excited about knitting my Pimlico Shrug. Even the thought of knitting on the giant rectangle that turns into a garment after some clever seaming and endless amounts of ribbing makes me want to find something else to knit. Although when I put it that way is it any wonder I don't want to knit on it? So after a little bit of double checking and some serious consideration I think I'm going to rip my 1.25 repeats of the lace pattern for the Pimlico Shrug and re-assign this yarn to the February Lady Sweater. Because after all...what's the point of knitting something for myself if I a) won't enjoy the process and b) won't get much use out of the end product.

In other news, I am chugging along on my Halloween hat...no pictures because I'm lazy. I'm almost done with the endless stockinette...another inch and a half or so...then the decreases. The second Dorky Sock has been cast on...I think I knit all of 2 rows of the ribbing before I decided to do something more entertaining. My Lacy Scarf is in limbo...I'm also questioning the practicality of this knit...and seriously considering ripping it back as well. Not sure what I would do with the yarn instead...but I think actually knitting a pair of socks from it might not be a bad idea...some relatively simple ones so that I don't need to cart a chart around with me. As you can see...lots of thinking and not a whole lot of knitting. But I have another shelf in 2 weeks...so that's not likely to change all that much in the near future. What are your thoughts? Am I the only one falling out of love with her projects? Happy knitting all!!

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!

OMG FO!!!!

Behold the finished Reversible Cable Scarf:
I have no idea why I am so proud of myself...perhaps because this is the second thing that I have actually finished since I started medical school. Also probably because unlike the purse I made over Christmas Break this is not going to fall apart on me. (I would like to point out that I am not actually tall enough to take this picture...I managed to get this on my first try just holding the camera in the air over the ironing/blocking board.) I'm actually really pleased with the way it turned out. Here are some more lovely pictures for your viewing pleasure one of the blocking process and a closeup.

I have been contemplating making some matching mittens, and I think I'll give it a shot, but I'm concerned that I won't have enough yarn. There's also the part where I have never worked with DPNs before and my first attempt a few minutes ago failed horribly. Alica, we need to get together and knit...and you need to teach me how to do this mitten thing!

I've also updated my queue on the side-bar. I was looking at my Ravelry Queue and noticed that I was very much behind on that front. I have no idea when I'm actually going to knit all these things, but the goal is to use up most of the yarn my grandmother gave me before I actually go out and buy some.

I hope that all is going well with your respective projects. Time for me to get back to work on the Champagne by Night Afghan...maybe get it done in time for my Grandmother's birthday on the 13th? I doubt it but it's worth a shot!

ETA: I'm sorry I suck at formatting so bad...I think I finally got it right this time!

Insanity

Ok...so I had heard how much Ravelry could eat my time and how I was going to have a million things I wanted to knit after browsing around for a few minutes but I didn't think it was going to be so bad!!! I have 11 patterns in my queue after 2 days...11!!!! So so many things I want to knit and so little time!! Hopefully once I get my big afghan projects out of the way I can move on to smaller things that I can actually feel like I'm getting something accomplished with. I've made quite a bit of progress on the Reversible Cable Scarf since Friday...watching movies for almost 4 hours Friday night definitely helped on that front:P Now if only my boss would stop giving me so many papers to read and experiments to run so that I could actually enjoy my summer and knit till my heart's content.

Ah well, at least I got my experiments up and running again today. I was having some issues with getting my gels to...well...gel these past few days. Turns out that since no one has done my kind of experiment (Westerns for those of you who are scientifically inclined) for years that one of the most finicky reagents had gone so bad that it made rancid meat look good. So I bummed some off of one of the other people on the floor and got everything working. Now if only I could figure out what happened to that fourth set of sponges...

Innywho time to get reading in the vain hope that I can knit a little bit later on tonight. Maybe I will take a break from the cables for a little while...maybe not...