Bad Blogger...

So sorry about the lack of postings as of late. Time has been sucked away by midterms, and other time, even time I didn't have, has been taken by Ravelry, it's so awesome! If you're not in yet, I'm sorry, but it's well worth the wait, and if you don't have your name on the list yet, Go now, what are you waiting for???

Knitting wise, I've been knitting a lot on Gwen's blanket, all the squares are done, I just need to do some piecing together and then pick up for the border. I've also started, and almost finished - just needs to be blocked and seamed, a baby kimono from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I'm really sorry I don't have pictures, my camera doesn't want to cooperate lately and I'm just really hoping it's a battery problem and not a bigger problem, because I really can't afford a camera right now. I'll try to take pictures and post them if the camera works once the batteries are recharged.
I've also started Tricorner, a scarf from Knitting New Scarves, a book I've been coverting ever since I saw Grumperina's post about it - it's so cool! I went and spent some time yesterday in the bookstore pouring over it, and have dropped some blatent hints to my mother so hopefully I will get it for Christmas. But until then I've kind of adapted what I remember about this pattern to something that works, took frogging it a few time last night, but I like how it's coming out so far, and it's using up some yarn I made a very, very cabled scarf out of last year that got frogged because I didn't like it and hadn't found a use for yet.


Baking - I've been doing a lot more lately since my oven was fixed, and actually have a few friends coming over to have a bakeathon this afternoon, so that should be fun. I've been experimenting with Monkey Bread a lot and I think I found a modification that I like a lot better. Most recipes have you dip the pieces in a butter-brown sugar mix before putting them together, but I found those a bit too sticky, so I found that it worked well for me to dip or coat (they don't need to be dripping) in melted butter, and then roll them in a white sugar-cinnamon mix and put them together. The bits absorbed the cinnamon and sugar and tasted so great! I still had some butter-sugar mix left from before and so I poured that over the finished product just before it went in the oven and I think it came out very, very well.

Well, hope you're enjoying your weekend, and savour that extra hour today!

ETA: sorry I've now realized that picture is from my first attempt that turned out very sticky, not the successful one, but still yummy looking right?
also ETA: picture of Tricorner - It's not my camera, just very dead batteries, YAY!

Ravelry! Uh Oh....

Ok, so not only should I not be anywhere near a computer, I have been checking the Ravelry list excitedly today, because usually check on Mondays, just to see where I am and I started the morning with around 400 people in front of me, and now there are 96(96!!!!!). This is not good. Not only have I been spending WAY too much time knitting on the blanket.

There is also a 4th square done which I finished on my commute to help coach Special Olympic Curling yesterday. I know, they aren't really square, but I'm hoping a really good blocking will help fix that, otherwise Gwen will just have a slightly non-geometrical blanket.
Ok, I really need to study now (presentation and 3 midterms over the next week - wish me luck!) - hopefully I will be able to resist ravelry for at least a little bit.
Oh - and to make matters a little bit worse (for the studying anyways) my landlord says he finally has my new stove and hopes to get it installed sometime this week, Yay!
I will leave you with a beautiful fall scene I took in while hiking up Mount Royal on Saturday...

Mid-term time!!

Ok, so, sorry in advance for the lack of posts in the next few weeks. Anyone else somehow involved with university students will know - it's midterm time!! Whoo!
Pictured above is my favourite new knitting tool - and the exam I'm supposed to be studying for and can't quite drag myself to.
But the bobby pin - I discovered it by accident, I found myself in class without a cable needle, and am doing a cable like the one on my sweater on a baby blanket square. What I came up with was what I had in my purse - a bobby pin. I've never really been a fan of using a cable needle, but I don't like cabling without one either, it doesn't look as nice to me. But with the bobby pin, I slide the stitches off onto it, and then when it's time, slide them back onto the left needle, that way, I'm not fiddling with a cable needle, the stitches aren't going to unravel (as they often did with my other method, just sliding the stitches off the needle and coming back to them), and they're kept safe clipped in the bobby pin. The bobby pin is also very slim, making it easy to slide the stitches on and off.
This is working great with the cotton I'm knitting the blanket with, but I'm not sure how well it would work with other yarns. I guess I'll find out, because I love this!

(sorry for the crappy photo, I was too lazy to get out my real camera...)

Knitting is taking over...

Well, exams are creeping up and the work is piling up, but I can't seem to stop knitting...
The sweater is all in one piece, but doesn't seem to be ending.

I've also picked up all the stitches along the bottom to knit ribbing, it's a really short sweater, and I'm hating the way the stockinette is rolling up, so hopefully putting ribbing along the bottom will help. Design-wise I think it will be alright because the sleeves are cuffed with ribbing so it will match.

Otherwise I've cast on for a baby blanket that I'm designing on the fly for my aunt's brand new little girl, she's so cute, but unfortunately living in Bermuda where I can't just pop over and visit. I'm knitting the blanket in Coolspun Cotton so that it won't be too warm for the climate there and so that it will wash nicely.

(bear with my Paint skills, they're not that great, but it kind of gives you an idea of what I hope it will look like)
It's is going to be made up of squares in different stitch patterns, so I can take those to class and hopefully they'll be simple enough to stay in pattern with.

This is the first one I've been working on - yes it's the same pattern as my Icehouse socks, but it took some figuring out to make the pattern work flat, some figuring which I did during stats class and ended up frogging my first attempt - hey maybe this is why I'm totally unprepared for the midterm that's less than two weeks away, huh.
The centre panel though is going to have the name of the baby - Gwendolyn Jane - yes it's one heck of a name for a tiny little baby. This is my first time knitting with more than one colour, and after researching intarsia and stranding techniques, I decided that neither of them would really work for this project and so I've combined the two weirdly, but fingers crossed that it works because the name strip is 127 sts long, and going to be ~40 rows, I've already done 12 and I would REALLY not want to frog it and start over.