unraveled.

and i'm in! the mystery of ravelry has been ~ unraveled. and it came just in time, i can either go to happy hour tonight (*see my friday from two weeks ago*), or come home and get cozy with ravelry. it's a tough one.

now, back to work and no more ravelry until i'm put in a few good hours of research!

*excited*

There are only 600 and some people in front of me for Ravelry! I've been patient, even forgetting about Ravelry at times, but now that I'm so close, I can't wait!

I finished one pinwheel sweater. It's cute, but I wish there were a baby around for a little fitting session. Instead of starting another pinwheel, I decided to make a baby surprise jacket. This is a fun one. Everyone talks about the magic of BSJ, and it's fun to finally see what all the fuss was about!

pictures will come!

Goodbye Summer Hello Autumn

It's been busy around here, celebrating the change of seasons with knitting, baking, sailing, and such.

I'm getting so close to the end of my EZ sweater, but ~~ I'm out of my Colinette yarn. I'm holding together one strand of Colinette Parisienne with one strand of black alpaca. My plan for this sweater is to follow EZ's instructions for a seamless raglan sweater. Although, I'm going to mix things up a bit and leave the front left raglan seam open and then add buttons of some sort to close it (so the neck will have a diagonal opening down the left side. I also want to make cowl neck ~ something that will be cozy in the fall when I wear this sweater under my puffy vest. So, until I get my hands on more Colinette, I leave you with this::

Mt yarn finally arrived from Knitpicks, and I'm almost done with one of the two pinwheel sweaters for new babes::

And I have no picture yet, but I spent the morning at the laundry mat knitting up a little coffee cozy while doing the wash.

We spent yesterday, the last day of summer, sailing with everyone else on the coast! The waters and islands were busy, but we had a great time sailing from Salem down to Boston Harbor and back up. We made a quick stop at George's Island (in the Harbor) and spent the rest of the day on the boat. If you're in Boston and you have a day to spare, you should definitely catch a ferry out to one of the harbor islands. They're amazing little places to relax and picnic. Unfortunately I couldn't take my camera on the dingy from the sailboat to the island, so I don't have any pictures to share. Although, here are some from yesterday.


And finally, happy first day of fall!! I'm off to bake something with apples and I'll leave you with these fall berries::

Happy Blogday to me!

Woohoo! It's my blogiversary or blogday and I'm a bit unprepared for the party. Unfortunately I don't have a contest planned and I didn't put the goodie bags together, but join me in singing::

Happy Blogday to me,
Happy Blogday to me,
Happy Blogday dear Winter Foliage,
Happy Blogday to me*.

Now gather round and we'll play a game of pick up the knitting sticks followed by toss the stitch marker 'round the needle.

This blogday will be spent where it all began:: sitting at my desk. Although after
noon the day gets exciting, first there's a trip to a local wind farm
and then there's some Friday night knitting with the group! What better
way to spend ablogday?!

Here's a flashback to a project I was
working on last fall. It's a teapot cozy made from angora and wool
(that tea is nice and warm). This was given as a wedding gift
(including the teapot and some tea) to a lovely couple. Let's hope
they're having a cuppa' right now.


If all goes well I'll have another post for you later tonight or tomorrow in the am with some full updates (including that EZ sweater that's been mentioned but never shown).

*In keeping with copyright standards, I'm hoping you all sung that to your own tune.

Monday Morning Surprise!

I took a lot of time out to knit this weekend and it was fabulous! I'm officially settled in my Boston digs and there was no need to run out and pick up any supplies for home or the office, so I sat back, listened to weekend NPR (full of my favs like Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Weekend Morning Edition, etc) and knit.

Although, if my sisters read this post, they'll roll their eyes and snicker at the lameness in my weekend, so I'll have you know that some of the knitting took place while watching Alien 4 and the Saturday Red Sox vs Yankees game (RS won).

The end product is this::I'm in love with this hat. It's cozy with a fun design.

Stats ~

Pattern:: Foliage, Fall Knitty 07
Yarn:: Malabrigo Worsted Weight in Applewood
Modifications:: I went down a needle size (from 7 to 6) in order to make the gauge. I also added about five rows to the ribbing, it still felt a bit short with the 7 rows that the pattern called for.

~ Off to get my measles shot (How often do you hear that?)

Fridays

*note, not only does this post end in knitting news, but also blogger news!*

My typical Friday from September through May goes something like this:

I wake up (earlier than I want to) and head of to my office. Because, if I'm going to have to be there for the mandatory Friday afternoon 3:30 seminar, I might as well get some work done before I. So, I sit at my desk all day, reading, typing, doing work work work. All the while thinking to myself, who decides that Friday afternoon seminars make anyone happy? Why not Friday lunch seminars? This is just a dirty trick to keep us working when we just want to !escape! for the weekend.

3:30 comes, I attend the aforementioned seminar. Unfortunately it's not related to energy or econ, just related to how we use satellites to build maps and collect data on land surface activity. Sounds exciting, right? WRONG. It's just one long math class, but I never took the intro course, so I stay awake and remember that after the seminar comes the free beer and snacks. {So as not to send any bad research karma out into the world, I will say that I try to understand everything you GIS people are telling me, and I love your beautiful maps, but give your presentation some !pep!, get me excited about the new variable you added to your model. That's all I ask.}

The seminar ends and we all filter into the lounge for drinks. We drink, we share stories of our summer. We complain about being back to work. etc etc. Mind you, I haven't eaten since noon, and one beer is enough to give me brilliant ideas (even this morning I think my ideas were brilliant - that's why I'm telling you).

SO ~ I bow out of the party, pack up my work for the weekend and hop on my bike for the 40 minute ride home. BUT ~ about a half mile from my building is Harvard Square (I'm sorry, Hahhhvahhd Square). Harvard Square, the home of Woolcott and Co. and Berks Shoes.

First Stop:: Woolcott for some Malabrigo worsted weight. I cast on last night for Foliage. What color you ask? Well, what would be better for a cozy, fall, apple picking hat than Applewood?!

Next Stop:: Berks. I've been eyeing these online for a while, and now they are mine!


THIS is where the blogger news comes in ~ I think I saw Ms. Grumperina in Berks! I admit, I was too shy to say hi. Grumperina ~ was that you holding the gold pumps as I was leaving the store with my goodies?
And that was only the first Friday seminar of the semester.

All the good stuff::

~On Sept 21st this blog will contain a year's worth of archives!

~Our little knitting group started up again this week AND we're going to make the trip to Rhinebeck. I'm so excited. Prepare the sheep for sheering.

~I was feeling bummed about the lack of new knitting material up on the web (come on people, give me some new posts!!), but then I turned to Knitty and *poof* the world is grand again.

~Obviously I'm going to have to knit Foliage before Oct 20. Pssst check out Henry too, I love it!

Getting in the Fall spirit, here's the sun setting on some Foliage from last weekend:

buttons

Sarcelle

Between back to school meetings, nestifying my room, and research, I found time to finish Sarcelle!

Project Details ~
Pattern:: Sarcelle from one of the ladies at Knitters Anon
Needles:: 3 mm Addi Turbos
Yarn:: Malabrigo lace weight in the Glazed Carrot Colorway (2 skeins)
Modifications:: To make a skinnier version, I worked two increase sections (for 5 repeats of the pattern across each row). As for length, I kept working until I was about to run out of yarn! It gave me a scarf which is 5'5'' long.


Now all I need is some cool, apple picking weather and Sarcelle keeping my neck cozy. It'll be the perfect compliment to the Tilted Duster in the current IK. I have the yarn, the pattern, and the needles, but I think this project will wait until after I finish a couple of baby pinwheel sweaters for some new kids on the block.

We spent the weekend in Conway, NH. Swimming in the river and soaking in the final heat of summer. Since I couldn't go away without some knitting, I picked up some balls of wool and made two bowls ~ I'll post the details after they're felted.

Sweater Talk - find it here

Super busy with first week of school stuff, but I wanted to pop in. Sarcelle is almost finished. It may even be finished by tomorrow *fingers crossed*. Pictures will be posted.

In other news, I ordered some yarn to make a baby pinwheel sweater.

AND

I would have never thought of making this.
If I hadn't seen this!

Now Tubey is on my list of future sweaters! I like the solid version so much more, and I would have never seen through the stripes to envision it solid. THIS is why I can't wait until my Ravely invite comes in the mail. ahhh to see all the versions of patterns being knit on the internet or interknit... A bit silly, but that's what happens when your day is spent in a cube.

After about four months away, I'm back in Boston! The traveling back from the west coast was easy, but it was so hard to leave behind the great company and neighborhood in Berkeley! The major changes in the Berkeley to Boston transition:: Article Pract will be replaced by some Boston yarn shops (I still don't have an absolute favorite here in Bean Town). Ici will be replaced by JP licks (this is a trade I'm willing to make, they both have such great homemade ice cream). A mild winter will be replaced by ice and snow and cold. cold. cold.

While waiting in the airport, I had time to put together a book of my summer using Blurb. If you haven't heard about this site yet, check it out! You download a little program and use it to format a book using your text and pictures. Then you can order your book (in hardcover or paperback!) and share it with friends.

Over the weekend I stayed in PA for a visit with my family ~ we're now a family with FOUR siblings in full-time undergrad and grad programs, and luckily we all had some time to come back home and hang out this weekend. It's crazy!

Some end of summer shots around the house.




And lately, no trip home is complete without a stop at the amusement park. I forgot how much fun it is at night. It's great that the park is still dark enough to make the neon lights of the rides really pop out of the dark sky. Let's hope they don't add any bright unnecessary lights because it would definitely decrease the thrill of seeing the rides light up.


Now it's time to make some serious research progress and begin studying for my exams. I'll need something to remind me of the world that exists beyond energy and econ, so I'm sure my knitting time will only suffer by a small margin. Speaking of knitting ~ I have some major progress to share!! *big hint:: Sarcelle scarf and EZ sweater* I haven't taken the update shots yet, so you'll find it in a post later this week.

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