Knitters Coffee Swap Package - Beautiful Yarn!

Thank you Sunne for this awesome package! First off, here are the treats and the coffee. She sent the best chocolates I've ever tasted, from a chocolate company in Seattle. The coffee is Caffe Umbria's Terra Sana Blend. She also sent some handmade stitchmarkers from her etsy shop, Sunneshine. One of the cutest things she sent was a "needle therapy kit" with little waxy leaves that you rub on your bamboo needles to revitalize them. Very cute!
The yarn she sent is by Lotus Knits and invokes many thoughts of coffee. I haven't knit with Lotus Knits before, but i'm looking forward to making a great pair of socks out of this!
And my favorite is The Plucky Knitter laceweight, which Sunne picked out from the Loopy Ewe and I just got in the mail today. I love these colors!
Thanks again Sunne, you've been a great swap partner!!

Dad's Christmas Vest

Well I'm making my dad a vest for Christmas. It's crimson and cream, because he's a die hard OU fan. He played trumpet in the Pride when he was at OU, so he went to all the games and everything. I'm making it out of Nashua's Creative Focus Superwash Worsted. I had to wrap all the yarn on my niddy noddy into hanks so that I could wash it (I wanted to wash out all the excess dye so that the red wouldn't run onto the cream). The pattern can be found here.
I think I'm going to dress up as a cowgirl on Halloween. I wasn't going to do anything, but my cousin Abbie is going to the church's Fall Festival dressed up as a pumpkin, so I think I'm going to dress up and go! So hopefully I'll have cute Halloween pictures to post soon. She'll be two next month, so I think it'll be a lot of fun. I guess it'll depend on how much progress I've done on my paper though.

Knitting Progress and Coffee Swap Three

Well let's see, I have some knitting progress to show. I made the Foliage hat (see below post for link) out of Royal Silk Merino and I'm going to make matching fingerless gloves with the lace pattern on the outside of the hands! You can't see the lace pattern here, but soon I'll take a picture with the hat on so you can see it better.
And here is the progress on my spiral boot socks. I've actually done more progress since I took this picture, I'm now done with the leg and about halfway through the heel flap.
In other news, I decided to do another swap. I haven't done one in awhile, they're an unnecessary expense and I was disappointed by one awhile back. However, this swap is just a one time swap, and I've participated in previous rounds, and since I work at a yarn store cost isn't as much of an issue! This is actually the perfect swap for me since I love coffee so much. So here is my questionnaire for Coffee Swap Three:

1. Whole bean or ground? prefer Whole Bean
2. Fully-loaded or decaf? fully loaded
3. Regular or flavored? regular
4. How do you drink your coffee? skim milk and splenda
5. Favorite coffee ever? that's a tough one. I'm enjoying my green mountain coffees...
6. Are you fussy about your coffee or will any old bean do? I'd say I'm in the middle, not terribly fussy, but not any old bean.
7. Favorite treats to have with your coffee? anything sweet, except nothing with raisins or any kind of dried fruit
8. Anything else about your coffee preferences?
9. Yarn/fiber you love? Wool, natural fibers
10. Yarn/fiber you hate? novelty yarns, acrylic/rayon/plastic nastiness
11. What's on your needles? socks, scarf, cardigan, legwarmers
12. Favorite colors? deeply saturated colors
13. Allergies? SMOKE AND CAT HAIR - very important
14. Anything you really love, really don't like, or just need to get off your chest? I'm getting tired of self striping sock yarn. With the exception of one skein I recently bought, I'm just not impressed with the stuff. On the flip side, I LOVE slightly shaded sock yarns, with slight variances of color.

midterms and knitting

Midterms are over! I actually did surprisingly well, though I don't know my grade on the last one, since I just took it yesterday. I thought I'd failed my capstone paper, since that class is so hard, but I ended up getting a B! The professor really scared me because he kept sending out emails to everyone in the class saying that he'd give anyone a W (withdrawal) in the class even if they failed their paper if they just wanted out. We knew it was going to be tough, but you have to take it to graduate so you have to suck it up and take it some time.

In other news, the spiral boot socks that I was knitting my sister for Christmas are turning out to fit me, so i'm making her something else. Brooke's a skinny twig with chicken legs, and I'm, well not. So there's no way these will fit her. New socks for me!

knitty fall 07

I started browsing the Fall 07 Knitty this morning, and I think I found a couple of projects that I really want to knit. I love the hat pattern Foliage which I think would look great knit out of some hand dyed Manos del Uruguay, one of the almost solid colors. Second, I've been looking for a throw pattern for my grandma, she wants me to make her an afghan so I'm thinking about knitting Totally Autumn, out of Comfort by Berroco. We'll see how tired I am of reading charts when I'm done with Christmas knitting!

New Pathways for Sock Knitters

I finally got my copy of New Pathways for Sock Knitters by Cat Bordhi! It came in Tuesday but I've had bronchitis and I'm so thankful that Gourmet Yarn held my copy all week until I could get up there today to pick it up! I also swapped out my addi lace needles for some regular addis because they were tarnishing. I can't get wait to really delve into this book!

Fred and George socks, fair, and Mr. Darcy

I completed one sock from Rosemary's Fred and George pattern and I love it! Also, tonight my family and I went to the state fair and found out that my Swallowtail Shawl made first place! It was so exciting seeing my knitting on display! Today in my Women and Gender Roles in Modern Europe class we discussed Pride and Prejudice, one of my favorite books. It makes me want to watch the latest movie and go all googly eyed girly about Mr. Darcy. I definitely have my girlish moments.