FINALS =

Sitting in the library right now. I should be working on the take home final that is due tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. I decided to try and find anything I could do to avoid having to work on the take home final. I am half way done so do not freak out that I have not started yet, because I have. I really do not have that much more to go but for some reason I just need to take a break and do something different, hence this blog post.

Finals week is the most ridiculous thing I have even heard of in my life. Personally, I am not a fan of testing and it is probably because I am not a good test taker. Give me a 30 page project about how I am going to run my classroom and I will rock it, but give me a 10 question multiple choice test and I bomb every time. I think its just a way for a professor to laugh at us and say, "HA! you though you had an A but now you have a C," oh well...

I finally sent out my Secret swap partner package, a little late but I made it in time for it to get there before Christmas and I am so excited to see what my swap partner thinks of it. I cannot wait to receive my package either, hopefully I will receive one. I think my worst fear is that I am going to end up with the partner that does not send me anything I end up with the short end of the stick. Fingers crossed I will be posting a new blog when the package gets here.

I have also decided that for the year of 2011 I am going to follow a new years resolution. I have never really made one that I have followed, let alone made an actual resolution. I am not a runner but I have always wanted to be one, so I decided that I am going to walk/job/run a 5K every month in the year of 2011. So hopefully this time next year I will be talking about all the 5Ks that I did during the year 2011. I talked to my roommates and they are all on board and want to join me in my endeavor and I am super excited.

I better get back to this take home final before I end up in the library way past my already late bed time, until next time....

Home for the Holiday

I am so glad and blessed that my family only lives about an hour and fifteen minutes away from where I live at school. It makes coming home to visit easy and very doable often. This semester though after moving into the new house I have not had as much time to travel back home as I would like. Its just more convenient to stay in the house since I have everything I need there. So when I get an opportunity like Thanksgiving Break I jump on the fact that I can spend time with my family and be back in my home town. I arrived late last night to surprise my mother and sisters and boy were they surprised. I also received a surprise from my family. About 4 years ago I received a huge laptop as a gift for starting my senior year in high school and dual enrolling in college. The laptop was wonderful but it was absolutely huge and the battery was not efficient. I still used it for the 4 years diligently and loved every moment with it. When I got home they escorted me to the guest room where I would be staying and low and behold there was a new laptop in a box with a bow on it just for me. There was also a card from my dad which made me tear up as I read it. Below is a picture of both of my laptops my old one on the right and my new one on the left.



Needless to say, I love it! Its still something I am getting used to but it will definitely work a lot better for what I need.

I am also finished with the scarf that I was making for a really good friend's mother. It came out beautifully and I believe will be a very nice wear especially in Florida when it does not get that cold but mostly just chilly.




I also started a scarf for myself which is something that I do not do that often. I usually just make things for others but this time I found a pattern that I really liked and had some cotton yarn left over that I wanted to use.



Other then that I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend with my family doing all sorts of different things. Until next time...

New Holiday Experiences

The Holidays bring about so many new things for me this year. If you have kept up with my very few posts you will know that I have recently moved into a house with 4 wonderful friends while we are at school. We are so excited to be able to decorate our house for Christmas this year, with a tree, lights, garland, stockings, and so much more. We also decided this year to take "family" photos and create a Christmas Card to send to our family and friends. We had considered doing one a few years back but was not able to get one done because of the craziness of being in college. This year we have a wonderful opportunity to do so! My roomate Brittany's boyfriend Michael is a wonderful photographer and offered to take photos of us in front of our house in October. We finally got the pictures back and are now going to be creating Christmas Cards. We are going to be using shutterfly.com which is my favorite online photo shop. Thanks to shutterfly I am able to have things like a photo book, my photo wall, and many other things. This is not a website that should be kept to myself so please go check out some of their amazing products!

Christmas card to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

holiday photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

upload pictures to http://www.shutterfly.com/upload-pictures

calendar to http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

Hanukkah cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/hanukkah-cards

personalized mug to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs

Choose your own card/invitation and URL from our Cards & Stationery page


Hopefully I will be blogging again soon!!

Fall and Greeks

Since I am now blogging again hopefully on a steady pace I am so glad to say that it is finally starting to feel a little like fall. The weather dropped last week and we were able to turn off the AC and open the windows here in the Green House and I love it. This morning I woke up and opened my curtain and my window and have enjoyed listening to the cars going up and down US1 right outside my window.

Since it is finally decent enough to be able to sit outside and actually enjoy the weather, the roomies and I have been working on our outdoor spaces. We put lights up in our chuppah which is used to hang out in at night and its actually really beautiful.

We also have finally furnished out screened in porch, we have been on the lookout for nice wicker furniture to make our porch look like more then just a bike holding cell and we finally found 2 decent pairs of chairs and a rug to put on it and its looking really good.

This week the annual Greek festival is being held only two blocks from our house and so as we heard the music playing from our house on Friday night, we decided to go and check it out on Saturday. The roomies and I and a couple good friends walked over there and enjoyed the festival. We ate some really really good Greek food which I loved sooooo much and I got a henna ta too on my shoulder. I also purchased a beautiful basket to keep my knitting in while I move it to different places in the house. The basket was made in Ghana, Africa and a weaver there spent about 3 days making the basket, definitely a good purchase.

I also casted on a long awaited scarf that I bough the yarn for back in June. It is the Red Skies at Night Pattern and it is for a good friend of mine's mother. Mrs Donna is a wonderful woman and a great artist and when she found out that I was into knitting she asked if she could trade services and I agreed. So I need to get this thing going and its coming along very well. I had a little bit of difficulty when I first started but now I got the groove and am rolling right along.

That's all for now, hopefully I will be blogging more often depending on how school work is treating me, until next time....

SWAP

So it has been forever since I have written on this blog and a lot has happened in my life. I have moved into a new house near my school and I live with 3 roomates and we are having such a great time. Since it is finally starting to feel a little bit like fall (60 degrees this morning) our house is filled with pumpkin scented candles and colors of red, orange, and yellow. My mom has always decorated our house in scarecrows and everything fall and I think I have inherited it from her. This also means that it is time for sweaters and scarves. I havent knitted in a long time either, so I need to start picking that back up.
Last night while watching Extreme Home Makeover with my roomates and also while trying to avoid doing my homework the best I could, I wondered back onto Ravelry. While there I decided that it was finally time for me to venture into my next stage of my knitting adventure, the swap. I had heard about swaps and the one who taught me all I know about knitting had even been involved in a couple. Its a secret pal Christmas swap on Ravelry and I am super excited about it. I am already thinking of ideas of things that I am going to put in the box. As for now I better leave on my adventure, till next time.

Cutting and Cutting

Today is the day that I decided to start my first ever quilt! I normally get up around 7 on Sunday morning and get ready for the 1st service at my church, but being out very late last night I decided that I was going to go to the later 2nd service. My goal was to sleep in so I could get the rest I need for a very busy and long week but my body had other plans. I got up early not to my choice and since I was not going to go to 1st service I needed to find something to do for the few hours I have left over. I have been toying with the idea of making a quilt for a long time, after I made the skirt for my niece I loved the whole cutting and piecing together of fabrics to make something so beautiful. I finally found a quilt that I wanted to make and decided to start this morning. I am using a lot of fabric that was in my niece's skirt but I still have a lot of fabric to get and cut. For the border however the quilt calls for 430 2.5" squares, so I feel like I am going to be cutting and cutting for a long time.

Until Next time. . .

Twirly Girly Skirt for Gracie

My beautiful niece seen below celebrated her birthday on June 24 so this blog is all about her. Elizabeth Grace Robinson was born two years ago to my brother Jason and his beautiful wife Brooke. She was born premature and so was tiny from the beginning and I remember holding her the first time a month after she was born (we live about 9 hours away from them in a different state) and I remember how precious she was, but more so, how excited I was that she was a girl and I could make her the most adorable things from scratch that she would love because she is a girl.



So as her second birthday approached I had to choose what I was going to take on as a task to make her because I knew I wanted to hand make her something. I fell upon this tutorial for a Twirly Twirly Skirt and immediately though of her. http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/02/twisty-twirly-girly-skirt.html#more. Moda Bake Shop is amazing blog that I follow and while devouring their website looking at the different things I fell upon this skirt and decided that this was what I was going to make. I made my trip to Joanns to get some fabric and found a bunch of flowers, frogs, and fruit fabrics, got it all cut up and went to the counter to pay for my goods, the total cost was only 10 dollars which I was proud of since I found a lot of good fabric on sale.

I got home and let the stuff sit for a few days and then started working on starting by cutting all the fabric (which i think took the longest) and then sewing everything together. About 5 days later and about 5 movies later, as I love to watch movies while I sew, I think its a white noise thing, I finally finished the skirt and could not be more proud. Below is the skirt and I plan on mailing it in the next few days so that my niece can twirl and swirl as she plays with her dollies and rides in her wagon up and down the hall.







Untill next time ---

Weddings and Babies

Since I have been home this summer which has been about two months now (its going by so fast and I just cant believe it) I have attended two weddings and one baby shower. I just cant believe that I am getting to that age when people I know are getting married and having children. Anyways its happening so congratulations to Julia and Chris and Sylvia and Jon on their marriages and to Rob and Meg who are expecting a little girl who they will name Aubrey. Needless to say I have been to target my fair share of times with a blue registry in hand wondering the aisles looking for gifts to give. So if you see me wondering around with blue sheets in Target just let me be as I am trying to strategically purchase a gift in time to get home and wrap it and get to the even since I am a last minute shopper.

So with that out of the way, I haven't been knitting too much. I did receive my Imagination yarn and casted on and am working (slowly) on the beanie for my friends mom and hoping that it is going to fit as it is looking a wee bit small right now, but I have faith it will fit. Below is a picture of they yarn I am using.



Since I am home and not in the dorms I am able to have an ample amount of space to do all of my hobbies which include sewing. While I lived in the dorms I would look at blog after blog and one day stumbled upon this lovely tutorial for an adorable shirt and told my room ate who was near me that I was going to be making this shirt when I got home. TUTORIAL: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=791. The people over at Sew Mama Sew gave a wonderful tutorial and it was so easy to follow and since I hadn't sewn in a while and usually didn't have the best track record for making things, I was so glad when this beauty turned out so well. I have received so many comments on it and it is something so comfortable that I am wearing it about twice a week now in the summer.




Today is Father's Day and so for my daddy I decided to scrapbook his military career which consisted of 22 years and I had a really nice scrapbook and a good amount of pictures to search through I made it in a week and crunched time in last night and this morning to get it complete. He really liked it and even though I need to add at least two more pictures it still looked really good.

That's all for now === off to more adventures.

Knitpicks.com

Since starting this whole adventure of knitting I have come to find that the kind of yarn you use and needles that you use definitely do determine the quality of product that you produce. The one who taught me to knit told me about the wonderful website Knitpicks.com and the needles and yarn that they have and how much she loved it. I decided to finally look and really consider ordering stuff of knitpicks and I did. For a background story, I have a great friend whose mom has been watching me knit since I started back in November and asked if I could knit her a hat and scarf set for winter. Of course I said yes but it helped even more that she happens to be a fabulous painter and offered to paint me a picture just for me! I have always loved her paintings and since I will be moving into the new house in just 65 days I figured it would be something great to put into my room. She had bought me some yarn to use for her set but I didn't like the feel of the yarn or any patterns that would work with that yarn so I told her I would find some yarn and get it. I came across the Imagination set of yarn on knitpicks and loved loved loved it! I found the Damsel yarn and it looked like the same color pallet of the yarn she had given me and decided that it was going to be what I was going to use. So i am expecting that in the mail very soon. I also purchased my first set of Harmony Wood circular knitting needles which have such a smooth cable (and I didn't realize there could be a difference in cables!) and I am using them to knit the imagination yarn for my friends mom.

On a finishing note, I finished my art for the art decoration andn I also started and finished a hat for a good guy friend of mine. After I knitted his brother a scarf he asked when he was going to get his knitted piece and he wanted a beanie so I started last Saturday when I was sick and just finished a few hours ago, I am really excited to give it to him. Below arae pictures of the two projects.

GREYS!

I am a huge Greys Anatomy fan, and a very dedicated one from the beginning of the show. A lot of people catch onto to shows after they have been on for a couple of years but I have always loved Dr shows and so when I found out it was going to be airing back in like 2005 ish my brother who is 3 years older then me and I decided to watch the show and have been hooked ever since. If you are also a Grey's Anatomy fan you will know that tonight was the season finale for the 6Th season of this wonderful show. Not only was it intense I decided that I needed to knit through the show which had its ups and downs. With such intensity I didn't think that it was good that I was holding needles that at any scary or shocking moment I could stick them hard through my skin. (i was knitting with size 3 needles -- I will talk about what I am working on later) The ups though were the fact that when I didn't necessarily want to look at the TV screen I could just knit at a rapid pace, psyching myself out thinking if I knitted faster the show would go by faster and thus be less scary at times. All in all the finale was absolutely amazing and I definitely recommend anyone who hasn't watched Grey's anatomy to start from season 1 and watch it, you will love it!

OK so now that my love for Grey's has been expressed onto what this blog is suppose to be about, me and my knitting adventures.

I decided to look into a back pack that is still packed from moving out of the dorms and I found a project that I discovered (thanks to ravelry) that I started on Feb 10 and it happened to be a dish cloth for my mother. It is in purple because that happens to be her favorite color and was suppose to be finished for mother's day but as seeing it is way past that its just going to be an "I love you for being my mommy" gift. Its a cute dishcloth and such a simple pattern I am not sure why I haven't gotten farther along faster, but I am going to keep it in my bed side table drawer and it will be my night knitting before I go to bed until I finish it, which I project to happen in a few weeks as I am going to be taking my time.

The sock is still coming along nicely and I am a few or like 30 rows away from starting the toe. I have made an executive decision to take the sock and frame it and use it as artwork in my new house that I am going to be moving into in 80 days! It wont fit my foot or my sisters and since its a simple sock I decided to make it art and then start a real pair of socks for myself after I finish this one.

I think I have ranted and gone on and on for now, until next time, let the adventures continue!

Summer Time

I am home now with my family which includes my father, my mother, my two sisters, and our new addition to the family, our dog named Ruby.

When I got home from school my plan was to knit and craft and knit and craft as much as I can because I have so much more time, or so I thought. My plan was to come home and work a lot because my roomates and I are moving off campus next year and into a beautiful house located close to school. I was hoping to work anywhere from 25 to 30 hours a week and luckily my boss said that was fine, even though I wasnt really expecting it. I have come to realize that as I have way more time that I am way more tired because of work, a 9 hour day on your feet can be exhausting and by the time I get home I dont want to do anything but sit on my bed and watch TV.

This past weekend I got a few text messages from the one who taught me to knit and a really close friend of mine and she told me that she was having a hard time but being that she lives an hour or so away from me I couldnt be there right away for her. I decided though to suprise her and go on a day trip on a Sunday when I could go to church and then lunch and then to her new apt to hang out and be with her. I had stopped knitting a few weeks ago when I got to a point in my socks where I did not know what to do. I finished a scarf for a guy friend of mine shown below. I decided that since I was going to see my friend that I might as well take my socks and have her help me along to the next part of the sock. She is the best I must say and has helped me get going on the next part of the sock.

Something that came to me when I was visiting her was the fact that I want to knit more when I am in her presence then when I am home alone, I hoping to start kintting more progressively instead of spending as much time on the internet. So now I am off to lunch and then knitting and watching a movie.... untill next time

END OF SEMESTER

As my junior of college comes to an end I find myself looking back and attempting to figure out just how all of a sudden I am going to be starting my senior year of college. I guess luckily for me I get to stay an extra semester for an internship but I still look back in amazement of where time has gone.

When I started knitting and was thrust ed into the online world of Ravelry.com I looked at a bunch of different college groups that mentioned how much people knit during finals. I happen to knit all of the time so I didn't think that finals week would be any different. Boy was I mistaken completely. I have come to find that a good way to relieve stress and to feel like you are actually accomplishing something is to knit during finals week. You feel the take home finals and studying are getting you no where so at least with knitting you can see the actual progress that is happening.

My 20th birthday was a few weeks ago and my wonderful knitting master who is teaching me/taught me everything I know gave me my first ever sock kit! I was really thrilled to make socks as it was one of the things that I had not dived into yet. I have completed my first ever cardigan and it looks amazing and I get so many compliments on it but I hadn't begun my first ever pair of socks. At first I have to admit that I found it completely awkward to knit with needles that I could literally fit through my ear hole where I put my ea rings in. As I finally got the hang of it and continued I am starting to like it a little more. I still prefer my size 8 or 9 needles when making a scarf as i seem to get somewhere faster but this is satisfying. I am working on a basic sock as to not get too ambitious even though it seems that I am in regards to knitting. I just finished the ribbing section of the cuff of one of my socks and I am now onto the 70 rows of St st.





I have already completed 3 finals and only have 2 left tomorrow and then I am off to my home where i get to relax (work at a local fast food restaurant) for 3 months before moving into a new home and a new adventure starting my senior year of college.

The adventure continues.....

Clean Clean Clean, Yarn Yarn Yarn

As I sat in my dorm room on a really nice Sunday afternoon, I realized the need to clean was at hand.

I started by just cleaning the very small portion of my dorm room and putting clothes where they belong and everything else that was crawling on my floor.
After I cleaned the main part of my section I decided it was time to tackle the craft box and the knitting box. As a young knitter I dont have as much yarn as the one who has been knitting and collecting yarn for years, but I would say I have a rather good amount.

The one thing I dont like about cleaning out things like a yarn bin is the fact that you dont think you have that much yarn untill you see it all. As I pulled out skein and balls of yarn, I started to feel proud and ashamed at my yarn collection but more proud then ashamed that I own as much as I do.

I also found that the whole I will only do 4 projects at a time went to the wayside when i found two more projects at the bottom of the bin that I had just put away for another day. I guess I will just add more to my to do list of projects and attempting to get them completed fast as I am known for in and among the people I know.

The pink cardigan is most likely not going to be finished in my initial time frame of three weeks as that comes up on Saturday and I havent even finished the body and I still have the sleeves to work on, but the ambition is not gone and I still plan on finishing it before the spring blink our school gives us in a couple of weeks...untill next time!

Roundabout Knitting

As I continue on my knitting adventure I find that I can very much so get easily bored with any one project and want to move on to antoher. I have 4 projects going right now, and it is all that I will allow myself to have (to start a new project i must finish one thats already in the works)

I am now working on the orange scarf for my far off friend, a green hat that will be traded for some lovely head bands, and my pink cardigan which is going much better then expected, even though I do not think that my 3 week goal that I set is going to be accomplished.

For the past couple of days i have devoted each day to a certain project and focus on doing as much of that project as I can and then the next day I work on a different project, it is working well for me for now, but it might not last long.

I finally purchased my first ever knitting magazine because I loved the cardigan on the front cover (Creative Knitting March 2010). There is a lot of other good things in there that I am going to try and accomplish as I continue on this wonderful journey into the world of knitting.

As for now I am back to watching The Amazing Race and working on my lace pattern for my cardigan....off to more adventures!

Oh Math Class!

My adventures sometimes take me past ust knitting as it did today. I had to write a poem for my math class on anything that I wanted but I had to use 12 math terms out of a whole list that were given to us by the teacher. I knew I wanted to write a poem based on knitting since its something that seems to draw a lot of attention expecially since I am young.
Here is the poem I wrote:

KNITTING

A hobby in which the ratio of young to old
Is definitely a story to be told
The skewed views of the world
Are views that need to be unfurled.

Knitting is not for the faint of heart
It is a hobby that is really a work of art
Circular knitting needles and I-Chords
Are definitely not something to be ignored

The formula for getting a project complete
Starts with a graph that needs to be neat
Next you must decide on what yarn to use
It’s not that simple so be careful what you choose

Next you must pick the right needle size
Circular, straight, or double pointed you must be wise
Casting on is what you do first
You need to keep your lines straight or you might be cursed

Once you get to the midpoint of your project
You will need to take a moment to reflect
Check everything before moving on
Or else all your work might end up gone

The proof will be in your work
You will most likely be so satisfied you will smirk
The positive praise you receive
Will leave others to finally believe

Knitting is not only for the old
It is for all ages who dare to be bold!

School and Knitting

So its been a while since I have written on this thing, and even though I doubt that anyone reads this thing since I only have two other posts, I figured I would still write on here.

Last Thursday I started my first ever very big project, which is the February Lady Sweater in a nice pink color. I have so far complete the whole collar and have started on the actual lace work for the body. I am suprised at how fast I am going and originially decided that I would be able to complete this in three weeks but looking at it again I am not so sure that would be possible, but I knit fast so we shall see. I guess the race begins.

I am also working on two other scarves right now, one for my roomate which I have been working on for a while and will not take that long to complete but its such a simple pattern that I seem to get bored very easily. Another scarf that I am working on is a beautiful orange scarf from a friend that I hadn't heard from in a long time. It seems that knitting brings people into your life that you didnt even remember existed because all of sudden, they want this and they want that to be made for them, and it seems like you become popular for a split second, only to realize that the reason you are becoming popular is because you are knitting, which in and of itself could be considered, not cool.

School is hectic but i still manage to find time to knit, especially in the classrooms where all they do is lecture I find myself sitting in the back knitting because honestly its the only way I can concentrate.
I should probably end this now as I have to go and prepare a lesson to teach to kindergartners on simple math. Till later.

Over and Over and Over Again!

As I write this I am exhausted!!

I just spent a weekend with a group of high school students at my church on a weekend retreat and one thing I have learned about high schoolers, is that they do not appreciate the value of sleep at all.

With that being said since the last time I wrote I started a scarf that I am working on for my roomate about 6 times. Everytime I would get a couple of rows in and realize that I dropped a couple of stitches and I get so stubborn that I just take it out and re-do it. Thanks in much help to my friend who taught me to knit I didn't have to re-do the scar for the 7th time as she helped fix a drop (which I need to learn really soon) and I am well on my way to a beautiful scarf for my roomate.

The other project that I am working on at this moment is a beanie for a friend of a friend who saw me knitting and said hey would you like to make me a beanie and i said sure. So here I am making a beanie for someone I met twice but hey it gives me a reason to try out a new pattern from the lovely ravelry database.

Thats all for now....off to more adventures

A Jump into the Online World

As I start this adventure into knitting and blogging at the same time, I sit here and wonder how I actually have this much time to do both.

I am a young college student who on top of taking many classes, serving in two ministries, and working part time at a local chain fast food restaurant, still manages to fit in time to knit beautiful items and type to the cyberworld.

I started knitting only two months ago from a friend who lives in the same dorm room and was willing to be my noble teacher and I figured out a way to learn to knit left handed. As soon as I eventually got the hang of it, I realized how much this made me happy. I was all of a sudden thrusted into the world of knitting and no longer was it just known as needles and yarn it became bamboo, aluminum, aplaca, acrylic, blocking, and a lot more.

I feel we are a lucky generation to have the cyberworld at our fingertips, to do and find anything we like. I was introduced to ravelry.com a knitting community where I was able to explore the countless opportunities that knitting could bring me.

I have now since starting two months ago completed 6 scarves and 1 hat. I search the database on ravelry often to find new things to knit for friends or even strangers who ask me to knit for them.