Lists

I saw my advisor in the hall last week, he's kind, in a tough love sort of way. Anyway, he could tell that I was stressed about my exams and said that I just have to keep doing two things to manage the stress: exercise and list making. Well, I get plenty of exercise, and lists? I write plenty of lists. Little did he know that most of my lists during my exams were about all of the things I wanted to do after the exams!

I now have my lists of christmas crafts. **If people have requests out there, now's the time to send this elf a note!

I also have lists of the fun autumn things I want to do. This lists includes lots of apples, squash, spices, and walks through the falling leaves.

I added the Writer's Almanac to my list of daily podcasts. I really love this one and usually listen to it as I drink my first cup of coffee.

I also have the lists of the great music I was listening to while studying. I listened to a lot of music through Pandora, and I can't praise it enough. If you haven't tried it out yet, just go to pandora.com type in the name of an artist or song you like and they play music they think you would like (based upon what you typed). It's very simple and provides hours of listening fun. Gillian by The Waifs is one of my new favorite songs. Here are a few lines::
Oh Gillian, you’re up with the sun
You’ve done a hundred things before half past nine
By the time most folk are up and gone
You’ll be starting on one hundred and one

There’s not enough hours in a day
To do all the things she’s just got to do
When the daylight fades and the night invades
She’s only just begun

Weary as you lay at night waiting for the sun
Planning out tomorrow now before this day is done
‘Gillian you work too hard’
But don’t you try to slow her down – she’ll tell you
‘Idleness is good for none work's how I get my fun
Idleness is good for none work's how I get things done’

The perfect song for all of the industrious, hard-working ladies I know out there.

I was up early this morning finishing the curtains for the van before a certain someone arrives for a visit. I'll post more details and pics of the curtains this weekend!

Let me be the first to say ~

It's been a while! {actually, my mom was the first to remind me that she was waiting for a new post}

Since we last met, I was crazy busy studying for and taking my comprehensive exams for my PhD. The last phase of these exams took place this morning, and I am happy to re-introduce myself as a "PhD Candidate". What's the next stage, you ask? A whole lot of research and writing of my dissertation, but we'll take that one page at a time. With these exams behind me, my crafting time just got a lot more stress free.

And while I didn't pick up the camera much while studying, there is some photographic evidence of the coffee-drinking, studying fun::

And on the knitting front ~ when I last posted, I had started my first February Baby Sweater. I love this pattern! Although, I started to worry that my first sweater was a bit small. Since I wasn't fully in love with the color, I started a second, slightly large sweater in brown::
I'm excited to find some nice cream or pink buttons to compliment the brown.

I also modified EZ's directions slightly. She suggests, in her laissez faire manner, that when you get to the sleeves you should knit them flat, then continue with the rest of the sweater and finish by seaming up the sleeves. That's fine, but it's really so easy to just get rid of the sleeve seams altogether. I put the stitches for the sleeves on hold on a piece of yarn. I then cast on the additional stitches needed and continued on with the rest of the body::When I'm done with the body, I'll go back to the sleeves, pick up all of the stitches, and knit the sleeve in the round. No seams!

In other news, I was able to make amazing progress on my Drops Cardigan.
I just have to block it and add the buttons. Anyone familiar with the original pattern will notice that I made a few modifications. I'll give you the full details soon!

Ok, now back to relaxing... with many more posts to come

Quick Study Break

Just a short break from the studying to share a few things::

I started this EZ February Baby sweater during Obama's speech on Thursday evening. After a few frustrating days of studying (it's hard to study when the weather's beautiful!), I took off Thursday night to listen to the DNC and do some knitting. I already had the yarn on hand, so starting the sweater at the spur of the moment was no problem.

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but this sweater is that "baby green" color, you know, the one that's always on the shelf next to the baby pinks and blues. I'm starting to feel like this minty green color is a bit over-used for baby stuff, maybe I'm wrong? I have some dark brown yarn of the same variety, so I might try to make a brown and green bonnet to go with the sweater, maybe it'll make the green more sophisticated and less pastel-baby? I'll keep you updated!

And here's another product of our tie-dying adventure::

Enjoy the long weekend!

this and that

My mind's all over the place as I prepare for some serious exams, but it's always a fun to take a study break and share some pictures. So, here you have it, a little of this and that::

We had a major tie-dying day at the beach coordinated by my sister. I wish I had some pictures of the dying to show you the extent of the event. We dyed everything from shirts and sheets to socks and blankets! Here's an example::

My latest cardigan for fall {since I'm in studying mode, I only work on it while talking on the phone, so efficient}::

And finally a shot from my bike ride home the other night::

that's all for now!

Short and sweet*

Just a quick sneak peak of another sewing project that I've been working on. C's birthday is the last one of the summer, and he's being treated to new curtains in his van. He has a silver/grey VW Eurovan, and when we say silver/grey; those are the ONLY COLORS in the whole van. So we're spicing it up with this birthday project!

We chose two different batiked(sp?) fabrics for the curtains, one print for the inside and another for the outside (I'll show you the outer fabric when the project's complete).

This was a really easy project. I just sewed new fabric to both sides of the old curtains. We decided to do it this way for a couple of reasons::
~the old curtains were made from a nice heavy material that really blocks the sun or light from street lamps (which is great when camping)
~the inner fabric won't fade (although, yes, the outer fabric will fade)
~we didn't have to mess with the little hooks and the MANY snaps that are already attached to the old curtains (the curtains snap to each other when closed and to the inside walls of the van)
~it made the measuring and sewing of straight lines SO EASY!

The one snag in our plan? There wasn't quite enough of the inner fabric for all of the curtains. So with some planning, measuring, and cutting, I should be able to show you our solution soon...

In the meantime ~ my apartment smells like cinnamon! I used the basic bread dough {from the holy grail of bread books}, rolled it out into a rectangle, smeared on a little bit of cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter. Rolled it up & let it rise in a bread pan and then baked it to make a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread. yum!

Sew it's your birthday?

There are a few summer birthdays around here, and it seems that sewing was the craft of the season.

As I showed you earlier, I made Soulemama's Gratitude Wrap for my sister Sarah. {you can find a free pattern for the wrap on the left side bar of Soulemama's blog}.

This was another one of those fun and easy projects that's easily modified. I used a piece of a tapestry {that I bought at urban outfitters} for the outside fabric. You may recognize this as the same fabric I used to make my laptop case not long ago.

My first modification was with the closure. The original pattern calls for ties, but I wasn't a big fan of those because I wanted something sleeker/less bulky. So, I sewed in a little loop of some "piping" {I'm not sure what it's really called!}, and then I sewed a button on the back to wrap the loop around::You'll see in the first picture that I also sewed a button on the front where the loop is attached.

On the inside, I didn't make any major modifications, just added some more details. A metal "S" that I picked up at Black Ink in Cambridge::

And some more buttons::

And then, I was hit with this surprise from supermama Nik::

She knocked my socks off with this great apron and oven mitt to use while baking some fresh bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The apron and mitt are amazing, I love the colors and the fun details {green pompoms!}.

And the bread book? As many people have mentioned, this book is great. We took it on vacation with us and baked bread all week - french bread, pizza dough, sticky buns, yum. The bread baking really is that easy.

And what's that rising in my kitchen right now? BREAD!

And what's growing in my yard? Some "little fingers" eggplant veggies::
I sauted a couple of these with zucchini and they made a great sandwich:-)

Have a great weekend*

Back in Action

The (too)short vacation has come to an end. Now everyone's back in their respective places (Philly, Syracuse, Shamokin, Berkeley, Boston, oh my). It does become suddenly lonely when you go from a house full of people to none! But, I'm keeping myself busy studying for exams... definitely not as much fun.

Here are some pictures that'll help to keep me calm as the exams near::


And for fun, here's a shot of that old bathing suit I bought in action::

And of course, there are some crafty updates to come*