I Learned Entrelac! And It Was Easy!

I've been meaning to make this sweater forever, and from the moment the pattern came out it was meant for Mim.

I sent Mim a picture of the yarn I was thinking of using. The dark grey would be for the main color, and either the rainbow or the blueandpinkypurple would be for the front entrelac panel.

She chose the rainbow, so I looked up a tutorial on how to do entrelac and started:

In progress:

And now the front panel is finished!

I did start on the body of the sweater. It's knit top-down, and I got to the waist shaping below the underarms when I lost steam, so there's not much progress there. Here's a picture I took just after dividing for the arms:

When I started the sweater I told Mim it would probably be two years before she got it, and I think I was right. I have so many projects going, and including this one, none of them have been appealing to me lately (except spinning), so nothing is getting done. But who cares, right? It's my hobby, and I'm not knitting to a deadline, so I should enjoy what I'm making and live in the moment.

And Now For The Kwiddens!

For Christmas for The Kwiddens I made her a scarf out of this really pretty navy blue and gray chunky yarn I'd gotten as a gift that I'd been dying to use but had no idea what it wanted to be, until Kwiddens told me she liked navy blue and then I was all set to use it!

Check out this monster crochet hook I had to use with it. It's the second biggest hook I own, and it was super awkward, since I usually crochet with much finer yarns. It was still fun, though.

Here it is, all finished, pre-washing and blocking:

And, all finished on The Kwiddens:

Isn't she lovely?

Autumn And Christmas

Here are a few skeins I've spun up recently (and by recently I mean in the last several months...).

This one is an autumny color, with browns and golds and oranges, and although these usually aren't my colors, they turned out so pretty that I'm loving the result:

And, back to another Christmas item, since Em has taken up crocheting and a little bit of spindle spinning, and hopefully will soon let me teach her knitting, I made her yarn for Christmas last year in her favorite colors, red and black:

Both of these skeins turned out very even, about a sport or DK weight, which is what I was aiming for, so I was totally happy with that. I'm pretty sure they were both merino, too, and I got both braids from a woman in my knitting group who is a total genius with a dye pot.

Christmas Knitting...FINALLY.

I am woefully behind on posting things related to projects, and I promise I have been working on many yarny things, but blogging, as you know, is not my forte.

So let's rewind back to Christmas, shall we?

For Mim I spun up some lovely purple sparkly yarn, knitted some mittens, and crocheted a scarf.

Singles on the bobbin:

All of it caked up (this had been, so far, the biggest batch I'd ever spun. Something like six ounces...which seems inconsequential now that I've spun a full 16 ounce batch...but that's a whole other blog post):

Mitten #1:

Mitten #1 again, but in a cooler pose:

And, mittens! I know they look wonky; it's because I hadn't washed and blocked them at this point.

And since I was down to the wire on time, I crocheted the scarf instead of knitting it to match (I crochet much more quickly than I knit).

Mim says she loves them, though I haven't seen her wear them. Then again, I hardly ever get to see her anymore, and now the weather is warmer and she won't be needing them again until next winter anyway.

Is Switching Worth It, Anyway?

You know, I had a job interview at a pharmaceutical company back in February that I can't stop thinking about.

The whole time the interviewers (and there were two sets, and two interviews) had poker faces, so I couldn't tell if I did well or answered their questions right or not. But there was one question they asked me that I could have answered waaaaay better, and I can't stop thinking about how dumb my answer was, and what I should have said, etc.

It's stupid, really, because I didn't want the job anyway. I mean, it's in Salt Lake, and while my commute now is 20 minutes on a bad day, it took me 45 minutes to get down there not during rush hour. Also, the issue I have been trying to resolve at my current job wouldn't have been resolved to my satisfaction, so the whole thing ended up being a waste of time and money (I had to buy a suit for the interview, because my wardrobe consists of jeans and tee shirts).

The whole interview process got me thinking, though, and feeling terrible, because I'm just like that. If I were to get another interview at a different company, one closer to me with better potential for my happiness and stability, I don't know that I'd do well, either. I passed the HR interview in February with flying colors, I'm sure, because DAMN am I charming, but the chemists' interview...didn't go so well. Part of the problem is they weren't asking me questions about my current job and skills, but about things I did years and years and years ago, and of course I'm not going to remember everything from college because not only has it been almost six years, but my brain has also melted into a pool of psychotropic drugs and brain goo. But I can't exactly explain to an interviewer, "Hey, I'm bipolar, and my medication makes it hard for me to remember things" because OH BOY does that sound horrible and who knows what their views on mental illness are, and then of course they'd question my ability to actually do the job (which I'd be fabulous at, by the way, because I'm damn good in a lab, regardless of what I can't remember from six years ago).

Anyway, it got me thinking about everything, the whole situation, and the job I have now, and I realized: I don't want to leave this job. I really don't. And I don't think I could handle another interview situation with another company. The whole process was very stressful for me. So, I'm probably going to stay right here. Where I'm mostly happy and very, very comfortable.

My Two Poor Babies

I just wanted to check in and share a few bits of news.

First of all, Scott broke his foot. We have NO IDEA how it happened, but the doctor said that it was about four months ago, based on the x-rays.

He had been having some foot pain for quite some time, and when it started to get really bad and he felt a grinding inside his foot, he went to the Doctor, who said that he didn't think it was broken, but they'd take x-rays anyway just to be sure. They took four, all at different angles, and as the doctor was perusing them, he looked at each one and said, "Yep, not broken" until he got to the fourth one, when he said "Oh...".

Apparently there is a little bone at the base of his big toe that had broken into two pieces (somehow) and then healed itself...in two separate pieces. Kwiddens had something similar happen, and she had surgery to fix the problem, and they ended up putting metal plates in her foot to get the bones to heal back together. I suppose for some reason this wasn't an option for Scott's break, so there's nothing to be done about it AT ALL except to put an insert in his shoe to cushion it.

And the next bit of news: POOR BUSTER. Scott left for work yesterday and everything was fine. Then he realized he had forgotten something, turned around and headed back home, and walked into the house to find Buster, as happy to see Scott as ever, with blood gushing from his eye. Scott thought he'd better take him to the vet to make sure his eye wasn't damaged. The vet was in surgery, so we had to wait for him to take a look...that was a long couple of hours, just waiting for news. Anyway, it turns out his eye is fine, but there's a big scrape where he lost a lot of skin and a bit of flesh, and we still can't for the life of us figure out how in the hell it happened. I mean, we looked all over the house at all the corners and sharp surfaces and there was no blood or fur anywhere.

Anyway, he's mostly fine. We just have to give him antibiotics and put some ointment on it twice a day, and he should heal up just fine. It's still sad, though. Poor baby.

So that's the latest news from the Walker house. Other than these unfortunate incidents, everything is mostly okay.

Babette for ME! In PINK!

My favorite colors are pinks and purples.

When I made Mim her Babette, I loved making it so much that I wanted to make another, and since I hadn't made myself a blanket EVER, I decided it ought to be for me.

Well, I finally finished it last week!

Here it is, spread out on the couch:

I am so very, very happy with how it turned out. It's huge and snuggly and nice and warm, which is everything a fabulous blanket should be.

It Doesn't Have A Name Yet

Last week we had a little car trouble adventure.

It all started Monday morning, when the check engine light came on in my Focus. CRAP. We just replaced a part in January, so this was annoying. Anyway, I left work early to take it in and O'Reilly helped us plug in the diagnostic thingy and it said it was the shift solenoid. Since that's a part of the transmission, that wasn't something Scott could fix himself, so we needed to take it in. We found a transmission place in Sunset and took it in. We told them what was wrong and they started to take a look at it. To make a long story short, they tried to con us out of almost $600 just to take it apart and figure out what was wrong, not even to fix the problem. So we took it to a different transmission shop, who said, surprise, surprise, that it was the shift solenoid. $240 to fix, done in one day.

We've been talking for a while about when we planned on getting me a new car (well, newER, anyway)(we'd never buy a brand new car because they depreciate in value way too quickly) and we had decided that later this year after the truck was paid off would be a good time to get a new car. Well, with the recent car troubles we kinda decided that it would be wise to get a new one now rather than later, since the Focus seems to be nickle-and-diming us at this point. We didn't want to spend the money, but it really had to be done.

So, without further ado, I introduce to you the Nissan Versa, in a lovely, dark chocolate color:

This car is little and fun to drive and very, very cute. We haven't measured the gas mileage yet, but supposedly it gets like 35 miles to the gallon (as compared to the Focus, which gets about 30). It has a much quieter engine, so I can actually hear my music while I'm driving without cranking it up so loud my ears start to hurt.

We haven't named it yet, but we still haven't really named the Focus, and we've had it for almost five years.

We're going to keep the Focus for now, since Scott's company may be moving and we don't know how far they would go. Right now they are two miles from our house, so driving the truck to work is just fine, but it only gets 12 miles to the gallon on a good day, so if Scott's company ends up moving to, say, Salt Lake, then we're going to want a commuter car for Scott. If it turns out they don't move or else they move somewhere close, like just to another office here in Layton, then we'll sell the Focus and put some or all of that money onto the loan on the Versa.

A Baby Shower Dinosaur

A friend recently had a baby shower. We had it at a cafe in Clearfield and I had the most delicious hash browns with gravy and cheese and bacon and mushrooms, and scones, and lots of coffee, yum! And afterward we went to a yarn store, but I digress...

Anyway, her shower theme was dinosaurs, so along with the 10 burp rags I crocheted her (in two different colors: blue/white and green with pink/purple bits) I made her a stuffed dinosaur! Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the burp rags, but they weren't remarkable so it's not like I'd be showing off if you got to see a picture of them...

My friend came over and, in exchange for some spinning fiber, she sewed all the pieces up for me because she's such a good friend and I hate sewing. In fact, I will probably never make a stuffed toy again because not only do I hate sewing, but I've now made two dinosaurs, one knitted and one crocheted, and I didn't particularly enjoy making either of them.

Anyway, Scott said it was hideous but I thought it turned out kinda cute. Slightly wonky, but cute.

A Thank You! Scarf

Recently a dear friend finished knitting a pair of socks and was displeased with them...something about having to redo one of the legs and then the stripes didn't match. Anyway, since such things don't bother me at all, she gave them to me! They fit perfectly and they're pink and stripey and I love them so much!

As a Thank You!, I made her a scarf. First I spun the yarn:

100% BFL (Blue-Faced Leichester, a breed of sheep), 4 ounces.

Then I knitted the scarf out of it:

It's the scarf pattern the Yarn Harlot invented, the One Row Handspun Scarf. Usually I crochet scarves instead of knitting them because they work up a lot faster, but this time I decided to be adventurous and knit it, and, surprisingly, it only took two days. Granted, they were weekend days where all I did was sit around and knit, but still, two days is super fast for me!

Anyway, she LOVED it! She's been wearing it every time I've seen her since I gave it to her.