Progress!

A few weeks ago I received the first advertising email for a craft fair being held at one of the colleges in my university's consortium. This is an annual thing and last year I was so bummed out that I couldn't take part since I was in England at the time. I filed it away under 'to be remembered' and, naturally, I forgot about it. My thinking then was that taking part would be a cool way to offset some of the costs my favorite book club's site incurs since it's an all-volunteer outfit that has server space that needs to be paid for. I know there are many worthy charities in the world, but the gift of literacy and reading, to me, is very worthy. So this year when I got the email I went into action and put a call out for crafty donations. With any luck, the webmaster won't have to pay for the server out of her own pocket for at least half a year. :)

So, what have I done to add to the donation pile? I've finally (!!!!) finished my stash busting throw blanket, that's what!



I used every bit of Lion Brand Homespun I had, working two strands at a time on US15 needles. I made the pattern up as I went alternating garter and stockinette. Easy peasy snoozy knitting. But it was good for pretty mindless TV watching knitting. I kept the first and last eight stitches in garter for a border. The blanket is so warm! I hope it goes to a good home.

In other news, I still haven't started any Christmas knitting and may not get any in. *sigh* Life will be so much easier when I finish this dissertation--I'm on the last 15pp of the final chapter! My SIL, however, will probably be getting a Rusted Root top of her own instead of the Soap Bubble Wrap since, 1) she liked my mom's, 2) I'm running out of time, and 3) top-down construction = seamless = faster = LOVE! We'll see how that goes!

cold, cold, please stay!

Wow, it seems like an eternity since I last posted, amazed that October had arrived. Now it's November and I'm sitting here begging the weather gods to let the temps in SoCal stay cool. We've just come off of another freak heatwave--it got up to about 90 yesterday! It's November, for crimoney's sake! And today we're in the mid 70s. I guess the good thing is that our desert designed house retains the cold. At any rate, I'm glad November is here. October proved to be a bear of a month for me. I started sending out job applications and that affected my writing progress AND my knitting progress! Seriously, though I finally finished my mom's Rusted Root (which she's been able to wear thanks to our strange weather),



I've had one sock languishing on my needles. Unreal. By the time I'd be done working, my October days saw me too pooped to even hold up one needle let alone two. Pathetic. Things started improving once I started putting the timer on my job apps. Course, why it took me until the end of the month practically for that light bulb to turn on is mind boggling. I guess my brain was too tired to remember the obvious.

At least I was able to knit up a gauge swatch for the Soap Bubble Wrap I've got planned for my SIL. This was supposed to be her bday present but considering it's the 5th and her birthday is the 22nd, I'm thinking this is going to be her Christmas gift. I'm using Lion Brand's Cotton Bamboo in Chocolate Dahlia:



The knitted swatch reminded me somewhat of nylon stockings which, I suppose, sort of makes sense since they're using rayon from bamboo. But it looked nice and felt soft which satisfies my yarn scrumminess criteria.

So hopefully November will continue to be more settled than last month and I can seriously get back to my writing and my knitting!