Lady Eleanor 1

I finished another project today. This is the Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style. I love this pattern. A while back a made a narrowed version of it that I'm going to gift to someone at Christmas this year. This is knitted with Noro Cashmere Island in colorway #2. I like the colorway, but it was real uneven in terms of every color showing up in every skein. Some skeins had lots of green in them, and some had no green. Some skeins had red in them, and some had no red.

Noro Cashmere Island

I had to be careful to alternate the skeins so that I ended up with an even distribution of colors. The Cashmere Island is a worsted weight yarn, while the yarn called for in the pattern was a bulky weight yarn, so I definitely wasn't getting gauge. I knitted with size 8 circular needles, which is the appropriate sized needle for the yarn. I didn't attempt to adjust to get gauge. This means that instead of being 23" wide as called for by the pattern, my stole is only 15" wide. I actually prefer the narrower width so that I can wrap the stole easier. I got the full length of 70" by using almost a full 11 skeins of yarn for the actual knitting. I used a 12th skein to add the fringe.

Lady Eleanor Fringe

I'm not generally a fan of fringe, but I do like the fringe on this wrap and it really gives the wrap a finished look. About halfway through adding the fringe though I almost regretted the decision to add it. Tying all of those knots was a real pain. The one thing that I did skip on this project was blocking. I went back and forth on this decision.

Lady Eleanor

Blocking it would have given it some more length and width, but one of the things that I love about this pattern is the bumpy almost quilted texture that the knitting has and from my previous experience with this pattern, I know when it's blocked the knitting flattens out and loses that lovely quilted quality. I do love how this project turned out. The only question now is how much I'll actually wear it. It's a bit fussier than how I normally dress, but too much yarn and time went into this for it to sit idle in a drawer.

Lady Eleanor 3

 I guess it'll help that I'm teaching next year so I'll be dressing up more. I'll be more likely to wear it. Now I'm just sad that I'll have to wait months until it gets cold again to try it out.

Lady Eleanor 4

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Look at that, it wasn't until catching up on this week's episodes of The Colbert Report that I discovered I almost missed that this week (May 12 - 18th) is American Craft Beer Week. In my defense, I checked out the website and it doesn't look like there really is much to it. I will personally be celebrating it by continuing to drink up the homebrew that we have around the house. So yeah, it's basically just a normal week around here.

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Hokie Beret

This is what he'd wear. I guess technically since this is a girl's beret, I should say that if Hermione was a Hokie this is what she'd wear. My daughter was four when we moved to Blacksburg and she very quickly internalized the Hokie pride. When I learned to knit, I immediately decided that I should make her a hokie scarf and hat and that I should do it soon so that she'd be able to wear them a couple of years before we move again. I'm going to hold onto them and give them to her as either a birthday or Christmas gift next year.

I used the Harry Potter year 1-2 scarf and the House Beret patterns from Charmed Knits. Dave was the one who inspired the use of the Harry Potter patterns when he commented that the wide-striped Hokie scarves that he saw the undergrads on campus wearing made him think of the Harry Potter movies.

Hokie Scarf

Both the scarf and the hat are knitted in Cascade 220 colorways 9465 and 2401. I originally only bought 1

skein of each, but then I ran out and had to go back for more. I knew I wouldn't be able to get the same dyelots, but I ended up having to go to multiple yarn stores to even find the same colorways. The beret pattern didn't call for the pom-pom, but I figured my daughter would love it. I don't really care for it myself. Makes it feel a little too much like a golf hat to me. The only thing that bothers me about the scarf is that since it was knitted on double points, there are lines where the needles met. You can kind of see them in the photo there. If I blocked them I might be able to get rid of them, but eh, I'm just a little too lazy to mess with that. 

Regardless, I'm very pleased with how these projects turned out. If my daughter likes them as half as much as I do, they'll be a huge success.

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Cup Cozy

I bought to-go cups at Sam's club to take my coffee to work in, but it's been burning my fingers between the parking lot and my office. Plus I needed some knitting instant gratification, so I made a cup cozy this afternoon.

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I realized yesterday that it had been a while since I had posted anything here. There are multiple reasons for that. First my end of the semester, trying to get papers wrapped up craziness has transitioned directly into studying for comprehensive exams craziness. Second, I won't be making any more beer until I dispose of the majority of beer I have already made. Because of the end of the semester, there have been a lot of functions that involve drinking beer at the bar, which has cut into the consumption of my homebrew dramatically. I have managed to pawn some off onto the other PhD students and my husband's co-workers. In fact, a week ago Tuesday I was out in the partking lot behind my academic building at 5 pm handing out beer from the trunk of my car. That's right folks, I'm nothing if not classy. Finally, I have embarked upon two never ending knitting projects.

IMG_3351

The first is the Lady Eleanor shawl. This one has actually been moving along at a relatively fast pace. In fact, I was pretty excited last weekend because I was within 4 tiers of the pattern specifications. I then tried to wrap it around me and realized that it's still too short. I should have expected this since I'm using a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for, but I miss the obvious sometimes. Anyway, I have plenty of yarn to keep going and make it long enough, but the disappointment of not being almost done with it was pretty crushing. The second project is a Hokie scarf for my daughter using the 1st/2nd year Harry Potter scarf pattern.

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I never paid much attention to the scarves in the movies, but these things are basically a long tube of stockinette stitch. In fact, it's 361 rounds of it if I make it to pattern specifications and I'm making the small size. Now to be quite honest, I sort of like stockinette stitch in the round. I know some people find it terribly boring, but I find it sort of soothing. I would like it better if I could knit this on circulars rather than double points, but it's still not too bad. The big issue with this project is that it's going to be either a birthday or Christmas gift for Mara, so I can only work on it when she's not around, which generally means that I can only work on it between 9 pm when she goes to bed and whatever time I go to bed. The time restrictions have really slowed down my progress. 

Hopefully I'll finish one of these projects up soon because I've been itching to move on to something else. If not, I may take a break and knit a couple coffee cup cozies one evening just so I can enjoy the sense of accomplishment.

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Have I ever mentioned that I love reading Russian mail-order bride spam? Because, you know, I do. And it just so happens that I received an excellent example of the genre this afternoon. It begins, "Hello not the man familiar to me!", and gradually becomes less intelligible from there. Here are some of the highlights:

At first I wished to be presented. My name to Vera me of 29 years I live in Russia in the Cheboksary of I not married. And never was married. I have finished school and arrived in medical college finished it and went to work in hospital but only me never I carried could find to myself the man and me so it would be desirable it.

I have solved why and was not present if I could not find the man from Russia such destiny can at me and I should search the man from another of the countries. And they gave me yours e-mail the address and spoke that you search to yourself the woman. I took all data and went to the cafe Internet as I am not able to use well the computer and it costs much for my payment from work. I came to the Internet of cafe and asked that to me created the address e-mail that I from it could write you the letter. And here now you can see my letter.

Only I ask you at once look at a photo esteem the letter think and solve precisely you would like with me correspondence to me the friend to me is not necessary I and which is ready for serious relations will be necessary to love which MAN and creation of a family I is possible I ask you very fragile person and if serious relations write to me tell to me are not necessary to you that is not present I will understand.

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I saw the world's most terse license plate the other day. It looked something like this:

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Because it was on an SUV, I'm going to uncharitably assume that it's an HTML reference.

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I had just decided to put a hold on yarn buying until next fall when I saw a WSJ article about this little yarn csa called Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. How cool is that? I'm weak. I bought a fall share. I wish there was more information how the average amount and type of yarn that you got with your share, but I figured it was worth trying it out. I'll report back when I get my share next fall. 

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