Time for the Moving Dance

I'm moving! No, I still haven't heard from PT schools, but I'm tired of sitting at my parents' where I don't have anything to do and not making any money. I'm going to move to Omaha and take the awesome job I have lined up that will use my degree. And live in a house with 4 or 5 other people my age that I don't know. (Yeah it concerns me a little too, but we'll see how it goes) I'm trying to get stuff lined up so I can move at the end of next week, so I'll be doing a lot of unpacking, sorting and repacking. Because of the way the house works all I have to take with me is the stuff for my individual room, everything else is provided, but I'm only going to take what will fit in my car so I have to sort through the stash and decide what goes and what stays.

In knitterly news, I'm working on the ribbing around the front of the Central Park Hoodie and have picked out buttons. I'm hoping to have it finished tonight so I can wash and block tomorrow and be able to focus on packing. I can knit when I get there!

*sigh*

I got my letters from the PT schools yesterday. I'm on the waiting list at all three of the schools I applied to. Which means I get to wait more. They don't tell you what your rank is and they can notify you any time from now until their program starts (which is August for one and June for the other two). I don't know what to do now. I probably need a job to pay my bills, but I don't know how long I'll be here. I'd love to move to Omaha and start the job I have lined up there (which is a really good job using my degree and something I think I'd really enjoy), but I feel like doing that would curse my chances of getting called off the waiting list. And while I don't really like being here with nothing to do the rent is free. So as of right now I think I might go back up north and hang out with my boyfriend and friends for a couple of weeks and not have to think about PT school.

In knitterly news, I went on a mission today to find a fishing line counter. I'd seen all these set ups online that have a fishing line counter mounted on a wooden device to measure the length of yarn for ~$50. Well as shown by my nice sock blockers, my dad is somewhat of a carpenter, so I went in search of the fishing line counter to use. I couldn't find the Shakespeare brand ones that the ones advertised as yarn meters use, but I did a Rapala brand one at Academy Sports. I tried it to find out how much of this mystery white yarn I have and the conclusion . . . around 1250 yds!

Still working on Central Park Hoodie, but been distracted by playing the Sims.

Still Waiting

I haven't heard from PT school yet :-/ I was supposed to get an email whether or not I got in on Wednesday, but still nothing. I might call on Monday cause this is driving me nuts. In the mean time more domestic goddessness. The good news is I have lots of pictures today!

First, the tote bag I made of the weekend.



































The front and back as I mentioned earlier are made out of album covers in a pocket of vinyl to protect them. I did cut the album covers in half so that the full weight and thickness is decreased. The inside pockets were made just the right size for my cell phone and my Knit Kit! The lime green fabric is leftovers from the curtains I had in my dorm room and the lining is recycled from what I used to cover my extra bed/makeshift sofa freshman year, so the only thing I had to buy was the vinyl (which is a pain to sew with!).

Over the weekend, while running errands with a friend I found a book called The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook it was $2 and I love baking so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Since then I've made two things out of it. My mom needed to take a cake to work so I convinced her to make the Tomato Soup Cake with Lemon Frosting. Yes the cake actually had tomato soup in it! It didn't taste like tomato soup tho (cuz I'm not a fan of tomatoes) it was more of a spice cake and the frosting was excellent! Then yesterday I made the Crinkle Top Cookies. You have to refrigerate the dough then roll it into a ball with your hands and roll it in sugar before baking. I got a few pictures of the process because my hands looked gross and I wanted to document it.

They turned out pretty well. They're cakey and chocolaty and the sugar adds a nice texture and sweetness.

My dad made the sock blockers as promised. I used them right away to take pictures of all my handknit socks to post on Ravelry. I used the template from Little Sesame Knits and made adjustments to make it longer (size 9 feet) and made the leg section a little wider to accommodate my largish calves.



After taking pictures of my socks. I enlisted mom's help in taking pictures of my hats. And today I took pictures of my scarves. Everything I've ever knit that's still in my possession is now listed on Ravelry! Now I just have to keep updating it as I go. My neighbor brought over more yarn yesterday I tossed most of it, but kept the 3500 yds. of grey fingering weight (oh so many possibilities!). To make room for it in my stuffed closest I got all the yarn out and went through it. I tossed a lot of the acrylic that I don't have a purpose for and organized the rest of it a little better. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to photograph the yarn to put in my stash on Ravelry or just let it be.

I'm 1/3 of the way done with my second sleeve for the Central Park Hoodie and plan on working on it the rest of the night. Then maybe finishing other projects before starting a new one. Clearly, I have too much time on my hands!

Photos!

I spent all afternoon taking pictures of all my knitted sweaters and cardigans on my dressform (I think she needs a name) and have since been posting them on ravelry. I thought I'd drop in here and post the pictures of my Owls.

I'm having a hard time remembering when I knit some of the sweaters I photographed. I can't imagine what will happen when I try to do it tomorrow with scarves and hats. :-o

I want to photograph all the knitted socks too, but didn't have a good way to do so. This made me look into making sock blockers out of a plastic placemat. My mom thought that they would be too flimsy, so now my dad is making me some out of plexiglass!! I'm super excited about it.

Waiting, waiting

I'm at home waiting to hear from PT schools, since I don't have a job or classes, it's been an excellent time to craft. :-) Although my mother keeps telling me I need to clean and organize and repack all this crap that I'll hopefully be moving soon.

On my way out of Chicago last week, I conveniently drove right by a yarn store (mom didn't believe me that it was on the road I was taking out of town, but it totally was!). The yarn store was called Knitche and was located in downtown Downer's Grove amidst really cute shops and restaurants. I didn't get to stay very long because I had to drive at least 4 more hours that day, but I did find some Cascade 220 that I've decided is perfect for Mrs. Darcy, leaving the purple Ultra Alpaca for Francis Revisited.

While stuck in the car, I started making a mental list of craft projects that I need to finish or that I can work up in a short time. In the process I came up with a plan for assembling my album cover tote bag that I've been planning on making for years. I started it on Saturday night and finished it this afternoon. I'm really pleased with the results, I'll post pics later. I also did some mending, which was obviously not enjoyable but necessary.

On the knitting front, the body and one sleeve of the Central Park Hoodie are finished. I looked at zippers at JoAnn's yesterday and they didn't have any that would work with the yarn at all, so I'll be doing buttons (maybe wooden? I'll have to see what I have in the stash). I finished my last pair of French Press Slippers, everyone else got theirs' for xmas and I'd never finished mine. I'm in the process of getting all the girls to send me pix of them wearing the slippers so I can make a collage. I'm also getting ready to weave in the ends and sew on button eyes for Owls. And then I might start taking pictures of all my knits on my dressform to post on Ravelry.

In case you can't tell I'm trying to not think about notifications from grad schools by keeping busy ;-).

Oh Alpaca . . .

So I figured out why there's been so much interest in my Clover pattern on Ravelry, it was nominated for a Bobby!!! (Yeah, I guess I'm slow to catch on, but with everything else going on I feel like I have a good excuse.) I'm completely floored that I was not only nominated, but that out of the nominations I was selected as a finalist. I don't even care if I win, I'm just so honored to have made it this far.

In other news, my friend, D, and I went to Personal Threads yesterday. They are having a 20% sale on all their yarn (maybe other stuff too?), so I ended up buying yarn for two sweaters. Being out of school and playing the waiting game before moving and starting work means lots of knitting time and I figured with the sale I couldn't go wrong. I bought 5 skeins of Ultra Alpaca in an olivey green to make a Central Park Hoodie, I've seriously had my eye on this sweater forever and I don't know why it took me so long to buy the yarn and pattern to make it. I also bought 4 skeins of Ultra Alpaca in a pretty heathered purple that I'm debating to use for Francis Revisted or Mrs. Darcy, any thoughts? I do love the Ultra Alpaca though, it's sooooooooo nice to knit with. It's super soft and so far has knit up really nicely.

On the road again tomorrow, maybe I'll get pictures eventually.

Interview Update

Interview went okay, not as well as I would have liked. They informed us that while they usually receive 140 - 160 applications, this year they had received 240ish applications. They invited 123 people for interviews and they have 42 spots to fill in their program. So I have a 1:3 chance of getting in. My GPA is right on their average and my GRE score is higher, but it still makes me nervous. I had three one-on-one interviews with faculty members for 15 mins each and two of them I think went well, the middle one I'm not so sure about. They said we'll be notified on January 20th, unless they have to do a make-up day because of the snow that dumped on us last night and all day today. So now it's out of my control and I just have to wait.

I noticed that there has been a lot of interest in my Clover pattern over the last couple of days. I'm not sure what spurred it but it makes me really happy. I have a few more patterns that I've knitted lately that I'd like to write up and publish (probably for free) on Ravelry, but writing up the pattern is so much less fun than knitting them.

Snow and more snow

My mom keeps asking me (each time I complain that it's cold here) why I'm not going to grad school in Florida or somewhere else warm. I always reply that then I wouldn't have anything to knit. She always suggest bikinis, but I refuse to knit bikinis! I like socks and sweaters too much.

Tomorrow I have my first interview with a grad school. It's also my top choice school. So I'm crossing my fingers as I knit tonight. We're supposed to be getting another blizzard, which I'm hoping will hold off until my interview is over otherwise it'll be super fun getting there and back and doing the walking tour.

Hopefully knitting content soon. I'm working on socks and then maybe Mrs. Darcy if the freebie yarn I have works out for it. Otherwise I'm on a quest to match a pattern to a yarn with no labels, awesome ;-).

Let's try this again . . .

Last year I made an attempt at working on my blog. Clearly, it didn't last for very long. This year I'm hoping to actually stick to it and try to get at least on post in a week.

While reading the YarnHarlot's new years post on changes, I realized how much change has occurred for me in the past year. The first several months of the year were pretty average with school and life. I had surgery right before Christmas last year and had to deal with the aftercare for the first few months of the year, but other than that there was nothing too eventful. In May I convinced my parents to let me live with my then boyfriend of 4+ years for the summer, hoping to reestablish residency in Kansas to get in-state tuition for grad school. I spent the summer at living at my boyfriend's father's house and working almost full time at a little Dairy Queen. By the end of the summer I'd realized many things, including that I was being treated like crap by someone that was supposed to care about me. I also realized that I was being more of a mother than a girlfriend and that he could never deal with his own issues if I was always taking care of him. I continued to live at his dad's house after the breakup for 3 weeks until moving back to school. Most people thought that sounded crazy but it was either that or move back to my parents' and not have a job or anyone to hang out with so lots of time to wallow. Luckily, his dad was really understanding and kinda told me that he would have thought something was wrong with me if I hadn't broken up with him for all the shit he'd pulled and told me to let him know if I ever needed anything.

As I was moving back to school my grandmother on my father's side was hospitalized and the day after I moved in she passed away. I flew to Indiana and back in 3 days before classes started. It was really sudden and thus harder to deal with. She was the woman that taught me to knit when I was 8 and the woman who inspired my sewing and quilting skills. As we went through her sewing room I was able to take her serger (that's infinitely better than mine) and what I think was her first sewing machine, I haven't been able to use either of them yet, but hopefully soon. I also acquired some books, fabric, yarn, buttons, and knitting needles and crochet hooks.

I was wanting to get my knitting tattoo, before Granny passed away, but it seemed that much more fitting to get it after all of that, so I set up an appointment with a friend of a friend that I'd met a few times to tattoo me. Facebooking back and forth with the guy to set up the appointment, turned into texting back and forth about life, which turned into 2 dates before he tattooed me. I don't know which turned out better: the tattoo or the guy. As I type this I'm sitting in his living room after spending New Year's together and honestly my cheeks hurt from smiling so much in the last couple of days.

In addition to all these changes, I also have officially graduated with my Bachelor's! I have applied to Physical Therapy schools and am waiting for my two interviews in the next week and a half. I'm really hoping to get in to school in Omaha. And if I do I already have a job lined up! For now I have to wait patiently (not) and with no school work and no job while I'm waiting that leaves lots of time for knitting! (Which is almost a problem considering I knit the Owls sweater in 3 days!)

Hopefully there will be another post soon that's more knitting and less personal crap.

Hope your 2010 has started off as well as mine has!