I'm still alive...

Well hello there!

Before I get dangerously close to the point of not having posted for a month, I thought I'd check in. Things are good but busy in the land of the Craftosaurus.

I started the process of prepping for the bar exam a couple weeks ago, so there's been very little knitting of late. Before that, though, I managed to very nearly finish the Banana Crew shell I'd been working on. Nearly enough, in fact, to try it on and realize that, oh, it isn't very flattering. When I get it completely finished (all I have left is the edging on one of the armholes), I'll post a picture, probably of it laying flat. It's cute that way, just not on me (no, really, all of you who think I'm being overly critical of myself. some clothes look good on me. this sweater just... doesn't). Methinks I'll end up wearing it to work underneath blazers and jackets.

My next mini project over the next few days is to assemble the table that goes with the patio furniture my parents gave me for a (wonderfully generous) graduation present. That way I can sit outside when I work on my other project: memorizing all of the law. Oh boy.

Paint the town red...

... or at least a very small bathroom.

It needed to be done. Badly. The TeenyTinyBathroom was hideous. See?


Ew. That's a whole lot of wallpaper backing goin' on. When I moved in, there was actual wallpaper, so it didn't look *quite* this bad. Sadly, though, "in construction" status lasted for a looooong time.

But I've had a couple weeks off, and that combined with the knowledge that I'll have guests soon motivated me to paint the darn TeenyTinyBathroom once and for all. And by "motivated," I mean "instilled in me the fear of major embarassment."

I used a gallon of red paint I picked up a while ago at the ol' Housing and Building Materials Exchange for all of five bucks. And bonus, I didn't have to choose a color out of all the paint chip options at a regular store. (It would have taken hours. Seriously.) Besides, I figured if I hated it, big deal, it was only five bucks and few hours of time invested.

But I don't hate it! I lurrrve it! It came out wonderfully, and the bathroom is now ALL ONE COLOR! With no exposed plaster! Huzzah!




I *heart* my clawfoot tub. Even if it is only inches away from... oh, everything else in the room.

Helloooooo, knitting!

I won't even try to tell you with a straight face that I didn't knit during the end of the semester, when I should have been studying for exams. But, what I will say is that, now that exams are over, I have time to actually post pictures of what I've been doing.

I finished the Interminable Moss-stich Pullover, a la Phildar. Ta dah!


The keyhole part of the neckline came out a little, ahem, *lower* than I thought it would. I think I can solve that problem by adjusting the button placement, though. Or, as a last resort, I'll just wear another shirt underneath. You know, that, or just stand sideways all the time, like so:


Anyway, once the IMP was finished, I still had exams left to go (read: I still had procrastination to do), so I started a new project: a modified version of jstrizzy's
Banana Crew twinset. Right now, I'm working on the shell, and my plan was to knit it as a v-neck and include short-row darts. Unfortunately, my calculations were way off on both of those, so I'll have to rip out quite a bit of work. Oh well! T'will be worth it when I have a sweater that actually fits me. Once the shell is done, I'll assess how much yarn I have left over and what I want to do for a cardigan...



Anyway, here's what I've got so far. Yay, cables! And yay, jstrizzy!

Big, BIG happy dance

I'm done! I'm done I'm done I'm done! I took the last of my law school exams yesterday, and I feel freer and lighter and just generally on cloud nine. My schedule for the next three weeks includes lots of graduation parties and knitting and puttering and the like. Hooray!

Home stretch...

Number of exams left to go: 1
Amount of motivation I have to study for said exam: next to none
Amount of knitting I've done to procrastinate: half the front of a sweater

Cross your fingers for me, folks. For the exam, I mean, not the sweater.

Foiled again!

I've been wanting to plant this year's veggie garden for weeks now. First it was too cold too late in the spring, so I had to wait. Then it was warm enough, but I had no free time. Now I have a few days with spare time, but it's supposed to rain all weekend. Even if I did decide to just tough it out and garden in the rain, I wouldn't want the rain to wash away the newly planted seeds. Darn you, weather! I'm shaking my index finger angrily at the sky. Cause that will help. Sure.

I did nearly finish the moss stitch pullover, though. By which I mean the pieces are complete, and they've been sewn together. I still need to weave in some of the ends, add a button loop closure, and block the whole thing. (Yes, I block after I do the sewing. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me, because how do you know how best to adjust the shape to make the garment fit you properly?) I'm hoping with this particular sweater I'll be able to blockify it so it's a little more flattering on me (can't put my finger on it, right now it's just... meh), but I haven't got my hopes up because the yarn isn't wool, so I doubt it'll be overly responsive to blocking. Wish me luck!

In Progress Pictures!

How far will my procrastination take me in avoiding school work? So far that I'll break out the digicam and take pictures of my current knitting. That's some serious procrastination, there.

So, here's a shot of the sweater I'm knitting, as it's designed to look, according to Phildar. I'm curvier than the model on the page (well, than any model), so I've no idea how the sweater will look actually on me. Just smashing, I hope!


And here's what the front looks like as I've knit it. A different color, obviously, and I think I may have made the arm holes a little wonky, but hopefully it'll turn out to be a minor error when I put the pieces together. I also added more waist shaping than was called for, as I always do. Mmmm, waist shaping.


And lastly, here's what the moss stitch looks like up close. As I said before, this will most definitely not be part of my next project. For this one sweater, though, the effect is kind of cool.