25 days

there are only 25 days until Christmas and i still have a lot, i mean, a lot of Christmas knitting to do. i've devised a "must be knit by this date" worksheet with how much i need to knit on each project for them to be done in time for Christmas. i've already finished two Christmas presents but i have 4 left, two of which are really very large.

I figured i need to knit 2.5 to 3 inches on the sweater every day, one shawl repeat every day, one sock repeat every day and hopefully knit up a whole darn hat during any available downtime.

this does not include the inevitable event that i will start offering to make wristlets and other small gift items for people and then my timeline will be in vain. Then i'll have to give this card as a gift.


but the worst thing of all is that the only thing i want to do is cast on a pair of socks for myself, and work on the tangled yoke cardigan (which is sitting very sad and lonely in my craft room).

bah humbug.

jury duty

in a room full of fussy, angry people (most had their arms crossed in defiance) i sat calmly and very happily knitting. i had jury duty on the monday before thanksgiving. although i couldn't afford to be put on the jury (i'm a full time student, you know) i enjoyed the two and a half hours of sitting and knitting and wondering if the man with the slicked back hair was guilty.

here are some angry people:

here is my happy knitting:

the cobblestone pullover is in that phase where you could swear you knit fifty thousand rows and the sweater only grows half an inch. wtf? (the sweater color is much more brown than that photo would lead you to believe.)

i also worked on some more secret christmas knitting and it's coming along nicely. 

happy holidays everyone!

not-so-secret knitting

i thought about knitting the cobblestone pullover for my husband in secret, but really, we live in the same house.  also i do the majority of my knitting while i watch movies and tv with my husband. so secret knitting was out of the question.  i've been knitting the cobblestone pullover right in front of him and he knows it's for him.  the good part about this is that i can get his approval along the way. 

not that there's a whole lot of sweater to "approve", but it's getting there.  the hubby gave a nod of approval so far. the yarn is queensland kathmandu aran and it's much much much softer than the classic elite skye tweed that the pattern calls for.  the tweedy look is still there, but the comfort level goes way up with the queensland yarn. yum yum.

and by the way, men's sweaters are like, ten times simpler than women's sweaters. no body shaping at all. such nice mindless knitting. the only downside is that my hubby's sweater is a lot bigger than the sweaters i knit for myself, so the pace is much slower. anyway, i'm really liking how it's turning out so far!

secret sock knitting

so i knit some socks in secret for a christmas present. you can see more pictures if you're on ravelry.com (i'm racheliufer)


i'm starting another secret sock knitting project and you can see it in red in the background. the project is cabled footies by leigh radford if you reeeeaally want to know...

also in the background is one finished sleeve for the tangled yoke cardigan and all that yarn and knitting is resting on a biology textbook. what does this mean? i was supposed to be studying all weekend for the big test i had today but instead i finished two socks, turned the heel on another, cast on a new pair of socks and cast on the second sleeve for the TYC.

productive weekend really.