Mornin' ya'll!

C'est le jour de tarte!

Bonjour!

Once upon a time when I was in junior high, the teachers used to have Pie Day during the spring semester. The otherwise cold and lifeless women who were in charge of my early education would find enough happiness to survive one more week by making pies every Friday (which I would like to mention, they did NOT share with the rest of the class). One such day, Madame Knutson (the uber-posh and utterly loveable teacher everyone loved), gave her "étudiants préférés" some pie (yes, it was french silk pie) and taught us to sing "Oh Champs E'lysse" with one of those ancient tape players. So now whenever I have pie, I think of Madame, the Champs E'lysse song, and how badly I want to go to Europe.

Prepare yourself for some really bad French in her honor (I apologize to anyone who really speaks French):

Je souhaite que j'étais à Paris. J'aimerais voir la Tour Eiffel. J'aime le français. Mon petite-ami l'aime quand je parle français. Ne pas dire Madame Knutson.

Acclamations!

Yup, I'm a nerd...

While Mom and I were playing beauty shop last night, I spread the unending baby blanket on the floor to measure and photograph but the photos were pretty bad, so I've got nothing to show ya today. Plus I had a hard time figuring out mom's camera, so ya'll have to wait until school starts again to get pictures. Just hold on, okay?

Anyway, the blanket is growing under my blistered little fingers and is approaching maturity. It weighs a ton. I've decided to scrap the second layer and just concentrate on weaving in the ends nicely. I'm also planning a white border so I need to go pick up a copy of Knitting on the Edge because well, I know nothing about edges since this is my first blanket (and hopefully my last).

Speaking of school, we are at T-minus 12 days until that wonderful First Day Back. I love all the new notebooks and pencils and mini staplers and new backpacks and whatever else we students get to buy this time of year. LOVE IT. And the awesome thing about being a college student is that you get your books ahead of time (especially crucial for an English major) and you can read them before you read them for class. BONUS! Saves lots of time during the school year. Makes much more time for knitting. I'm ordered mine online used (soooo much cheaper than the *#%*#@ bookstores) so hopefuly they should be arriving soon.

I'm suddenly aware of how dorkly that last paragraph sounds. Yes, I really do read my books during the summer, but usually not the textbooks (save my Classical Languages text) only the novels for my English classes. It's nice to absorb them twice because you pick up things the second time through that the rest of the class doesn't.

Oh god, I'm such a teacher's pet I'm just gonna shut up now before the cool girls kick my butt.

Ciao! Au revior! Adiós! Tschüs! And all those goodbye things baby...

Weekend Knitting

Friday night I accomplished 2 rows on my baby blanket (each row has turned into a 20 mintue project at over 100 stitches) and started (eek!) a blue striped sweater for myself (what? I can't make something for ME once in a while?) The blue sweater is kind of an experiment meaning I'm taking a pattern that I got free online and "tweaking" it to do what I want. For instance, I want a white edging around the wrists, waist and collar, then blue stripes (starting dark and getting lighter) up the whole thing and a little row of button across the left shoulder (cutest buttons ever found at Hancock Fabrics on sale half price! Bonus!) I'm using CottonEase by Lion Brand which has been woefully discontinued, so of course I just HAD to invest in a pile of it before it was all gone (I've got around 20 skeins now). Most of that will be for this sweater, but I'm not sure what to do with the rest. It'll probably end up as a scarf for my friend Jen.

Anyway, I got lots of knitting done last night while watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition with my little sis (Ty could come to my house any day! That boy is hot!) so I'm about two inches in on the back of the blue sweater(must find a different name for it) and dreading going back to work on the baby blanket. I just get used to the garter stitch and I have to cast off (my least favorite thing to do) and then pick up stitches (my second least favorite thing to do) for the next row. The next baby blanket (let's hope I don't have to make one for a while) will be a pattern that includes ONE cast on row and ONE cast off row. End of discussion.

In other news: I spent the weekend with my friend/former roommate Jen who has TWO new kitties. So cute. We spent a lot of time planning a trip to Lake Havasu, AZ for SPRING BREAK BABY! I'm excited. She's excited. Our parents are nervous and our boyfriends more so.

Will try to post pictures later today.

Okay fine....

I'll tell you a little about me. I'm a twenty-something college student living in Iowa studying Journalism and English at the esteemed University of Iowa, hoping to become the next Diane Sawyer or Adrienne Rich. Like lots of young women of my generation, I am fascinated with the plight of women, present, past and future. But I AM NOT one of "those" feminists. (You know what I mean, you have that picture in your mind and I'm telling you I'm not like that.) Okay, moving on...

I've created this blog with the intentions of immitating some of my much envied idols of the knitting blogs. Their daily posts have really inspired me to take my measly experience (almost two years now) and challenge myself with loads of new projects. I hear my own thoughts echoed in their blogs (stashing, dreading sewing and juggling several projects at once) that I have long thought that I am no longer and outsider, but a member of this community. (If all that sounds a little deep, please blame the English department at UIowa.)

So okay, you're going to see a lot of knitting on this blog as well as a lot of my personal thoughts about whatever. I have a crazy family who is always getting into some kind of halarious situation (subject of my first book, by the way) and over the years I have become very good at "observing", so I always have lots to tell. My boyfriend, B, is also a source of entertainment (as well as love) for me. I hope I can portray these people in a good light and make you understand that, yes they are crazy, but yes they are also awesome.

Okay knitting:
I am currently working on a baby blanket for my sister's baby, due in October a day before her first wedding anniversary (insert joke about it not taking them long to have kids!). My sister and her husband already have an adorable little girl who is the light of every family get together. The baby blanket is a log cabin pattern I kind of adopted from one I saw over at Mason-Dixon Knitting. (Those girls sure know how to knit, I'm not worthy to stand in their presence!) I'm using six colors of Bernat Cottontots yarn (purple, blue, green, yellow, pink and white) for two reasons 1) they all look really good together and 2) we don't yet know the sex of the baby. I am undecided as to wether I should make a back for the blanket because the wrong side is rather untidy and I would like to cover up my horrid woven ends. We shall see, I guess, how ambitious I'm feeling closer to the end.

Anyway, pictures soon. For now, thanks again for stopping by!

Welcome All!

Oh wow I've been telling myself I'd do this for months now, and now that I've set this thing up I have nothing to say but welcome and thanks for stopping by.

More later! I promise!