Life Has Me By A Stranglehold

Ugh. Life. When did it get so busy???

I have been having a busy fall ever since classes and my full-time internship started. My commute takes two hours each way (by car), so by the time I get home I barely have energy to work on my homework and then hardly any time at all to knit. I am having a really good experience at my internship though, so I am thankful for that. And even though my classes also take up a lot of my time, they are absolutely fascinating and I know that I am very fortunate to have the opportunities that I do right now. I have even managed to make some knitting progress over the last month, surprising as it seems to me.

I ripped out my second try at the sleeves for my Tilted Duster and knit new ones a size larger (and 4 inches longer than the pattern calls for). I haven't had a chance to block them yet, but if they don't fit, I give up! Luckily for me I bought 2 skeins too many of the yarn I was using so I just used fresh yarn for the sleeves and will use the other yarn for a hat and scarf set for my little sister.

I also finished up my Flair, except for sewing buttons on. I'm going to try that tonight. I never heard back from Kpixie about getting another skein of yarn and I emailed them three times!!! (I am NOT happy about that and I will not be ordering from them anymore. There are too many other shops out there for me to bother with subpar customer service. But I digress.)

I ended up ordering a 6th skein from WEBS (who have GREAT customer service) and I had to alternate the skeins down the length of one arm. I can't tell the difference between the dyelots and now I have a wonky underarm seam on that side, but that's OK with me.

If I were to knit this again, I would go another size larger. The fronts don't overlap very much at all and I would like a bit more of that. I will take some pictures wearing it once I get the buttons sewn on.


Last night I cast on for some Dashing wristwarmers. I was using Plymouth Boku that I got because I liked the fall colors in the colorway and thought they would look nice. The yarn is slightly cheaper than Noro Kureyon and the colors are a bit more subtle. HOWEVER, the yarn kept pulling apart! I normally knit rather tightly, but trust me: I was hardly putting any pressure on this yarn and it kept disintegrating on my needles. After the third time I quit what I was doing and threw down my needles. What a waste of time and money!

The Brain was really nice and offered to run out to the LYS store with me today since I had a surprise day off and SDSU is closed all this week because of the fires so he hasn't had to go to work. We ran up the coast to Alamitos Bay Yarn Company and got some new yarn. They didn't have anything in a colorway similar to the Boku, but I did pick up some Knit One, Crochet Too Paintbox in a muted purple/blue/black colorway that I liked. Once we got back on the road, I pulled the yarn out of my bag and said, jokingly, "Gee, do you think I should have done a stress test on this yarn while we were in the store?" I pulled on one end of the yarn and...you guessed it: it broke off! I had a 10-inch strand that I kept pulling into smaller and smaller pieces with hardly any effort. So you can guess what happened...

The Brain was kind enough to turn around and drive straight back to the yarn store where the women working there were MORE than kind enough to let me return the yarn (which they whispered that they wouldn't recommend buying) and let me pick out some different stuff. The different stuff ended up being Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita in the Starry Night colorway. The very kind women at the store assured me that it would not break apart. So today, after I finish my homework and sew some buttons on my Flair, I am going to cast on for my wristwarmers...again.

I just want to say to anyone who still bothers to read my blog after my long absences: thank you. And to anyone who has a blog of their own: thank you for writing! I do take the time to read through the blogs during the day and even though I don't have much time at this point in my life, it is nice to see what others are doing and blogging about. It's knitting voyeurism at its best! :)