Who has two thumbs..

.. and is officially 3/4 through her degree? This girl! I was a zombie for the last couple of weeks, but I made it through, and it's looking like I did quite well. I wrote one not-so-stellar final, but I hope that the rest make up for it. So, to celebrate my first day of freedom I woke up late, went for a run, and made myself an awesome lunch.



I recently discovered the joys of Quinoa, so I made some with bok choy and avocado. So good! I also had the most delicious grapefruit soda my dad brought back from his vacation in Canmore last weekend.



To cap it off, however, I'm going to play around with a nifty little inheritance that I just re-found. This little Viking Readyset belonged to my uncle, and I'm pretty sure hadn't left the box in about 50 years. It's in lovely shape, and despite the guy at my camera store snickering as I came in to get it film, I'm super excited to try it out. I don't know if I'm going to get any interesting photos out of it, I suspect they might just be slightly blurry, black and white photos of nothing.



My favourite part of this camera may, in fact, be the box itself. The back has a nicely written threat, declaring that "Death will ride with you if you open this." Hopefully this is not the case.



Now, I'm going to continue celebrating my freedom with Shawn of the Dead, my friend's wedding/grad present hat, and something sweet. I'll be back in the next couple days with some summer goals that have been bouncing around my head for a little while.

Keeping Me Sane

Just stopping in to break the monotony of writing papers. After 4 hours of staring at my caribou mandible project, and fiddling with scatterplots and histograms I'm about ready to explode. I'm off to bed so I can work on my Acer cardigan and watch something brainless. My study music this week has been José González and I've fallen in love with this song and album all over again.


Happy Monday guys!

I should also add that in my procrastination efforts, I'm going to change up the blog a bit. Hopefully it'll look awesome!

Something New

I can't even begin to explain how ridiculous my week has been. Full of time in the lab, writing papers, preparing an oral exam and beginning to prepare for finals. I've only got 3 days of classes left, and a week until my first final! Eep! Needless to say I haven't really been knitting, though I did pick up my Acer Cardigan last night while taking a mental health break, renewing my desire need to have that. I'm working on it with Berroco Remix which is making up a lovely summery fabric. Hopefully I'll make more progress, since my need for mental health breaks is increasing rather rapidly.



In my goals at the beginning of the year, I resolved to go to the gym twice a week at minimum. Up until the term hit the fan, I was actually doing pretty well! So well, in fact, that I noticed that I need to go buy some new jeans. Mine are too big! It was a pleasant ego boost, but reminded me that I really need to keep up my activity. During the summer while I haven't got a pass at the school gym, my only real activity is running. I love running, but have always had problems with finding shoes that work for more than a month. So, I got myself some new and shiny Five Fingers! I've been starting super slow, but running around the block is a nice study break. I'm loving the feel of these. I feel so much more in control of my movement, it's really neat!


An added bonus is that they look hilarious. I passed a couple of high school kids while out a little earlier and blew by them to a chorus of "What is she wearing?!" I was super amused. Have any of you tried them? Or want to?

I hope you all have a good weekend! I'll be spending it at work and in the library. I'm determined to have one of my papers finished by Monday. Which would be 5 days early. How awesome would that be?

My Knitting Time

Well, I made it to the last day of Blog Week with only 1 missing post! I'm going to call that a win.

 Today's topic is about our knitting/crochet time. Like all the other students who have posted, between the months of September and April my crafting time is pretty limited.



Meet my desk. This is where 90% of my waking time at home is spent. In the season of term papers and finals, we're very close.  I've spent the year honing my simultaneous reading and knitting skills, mostly thanks to my trusty $5 book stand and dual monitor. Much as I would like to say that I spend all my desk time studying, I do spend an awful lot of time watching Netflix. (They just got Angel in Canada, I sense a time suck on the horizon)



The project I'm working on is Veera's aptly named Stripe Study Shawl. It's my first Wollmeise project and I'm loving it so far! There's no way I can do the colours justice, but I'm combining Maus Jung and Merlot.

With that, I'm off to do one last read of my paper so I can print it off and watch this week's Archer. Thanks for reading my little blog this week! I've enjoyed the week so much, I'm pumped to post more often!

Something To Aspire To

Today's topic is to talk about something we aspire to as knitters. I feel like I could talk all day about this! A common theme among the blogs I'm keeping up with this week is to be a better designer, and that's something I really would like to conquer. But, for now anyways, there are so many awesome designs coming out of other people's heads I'm having difficulty keeping up! My goal for this next year, however, is to knit myself a dress.

I've come across so many beautiful patterns in the last year, all I've been missing is the ability to make a decision! I'll share my 3 favourites, and maybe by the end I'll have picked a winner.

Photo from Veera's blog
The first is the Still Light Tunic from Veera. I adore this tunic! It's not quite a dress, but would be perfect over some winter tights. What I find daunting is the fact that it's knit with fingering weight wool and I have the attention span of a gnat. I love the total casual but interesting shape, as is common in all of Veera's designs. Love 'em.

The next 2 dresses are both from Cirilia Rose. I'm pretty sure every dress I've found and thought was cute were hers. Both of these are knit with worsted weight wool, so they would go substantially faster which is super appealing.

Photo from Twist Collective
Kiloran is drop dead freaking gorgeous. Need I say more? If I were to choose this one, I would make a couple of small modifications to it. I would make the sleeves a little slimmer, omit the buttons on the front and reduce the fullness of the skirt a tiny bit. I'm pretty bottom-heavy, so I like to keep that in check as much as possible :) Knitting this in Ultra Alpaca would be so cozy and warm, too! I don't know what kind of colours I would want to do, but I'm really digging this monochromatic grey version.

Photo from Ravelry

The last, and most likely candidate for being knit this decade, is Shinjuku. As was the case with Cirilia's fall book, I want everything in this one. I'm waiting until I hand in my last paper to order the yarn for all the projects. (I deserve a yarny treat, right?) I love the circular yoke increases and subtle striping of this dress. The dilemma with this one is picking colours! I adore the combination that the sample was made with, but I'm having a hard time tracking down one of the colours. So, I've come up with a couple other candidates.


Which one do you guys like best? I'm leaning towards the red on top, but the other ones are so delightful too. With that, I'm hoping 2011 will be the year I knit myself a dress! Or 2. Or maybe 3. Have I lost my mind?

And Now For Something (Completely) Different

So, I totally flubbed up on getting yesterday's KCBW post out. I spent the day in the library away from my camera, the evening out with Mother Mother, and got home and fell asleep instantly. If you haven't heard of them before, go check them out! Their style takes a bit of getting used to, but I can't think of any other bands who can pull off such weird harmonies live. In any event, I do have something that I would like to write about for yesterday's blog week topic, so I'll work on getting that up as soon as I can. I also wanted to say thanks to everyone for all the love about my photo wall! I'm super proud of how it came together, and each and every one of your comments made me smile! I've got another photo wall in my bedroom, and I'm thinking of doing a post about how I put that one together if anyone is interested.

Without further ado, here are some things that made my week a little bit brighter!

In case anyone is interested:
The print is from Hilda Grahnat's Help Japan store. (I loved the postage on the envelope!)
My adorable fascinator is from Giant Dwarf. I've been lusting after one of these for a long time, and then it showed up in the perfectly styled photoshoot for the Americano vest from Berroco 302, then again in Ysolda's Little Red preview, and my need was sealed. Sue retired the design, and thanks to Twitter I got one of the last ones! I love it, and wore it out last night. I felt so fancy!
The last photo, since no blog post would be complete without yarn, is hopefully going to grow up into a Cowichan-like sweater!

Happy Friday guys!