purple and spectacular

It seems things just keep getting in the way of me starting my Urban Aran Cardigan.. but they are knitting things, so I’m not too worried. I finished Magdelena’s Shrug in time for her birthday party (tonight)! I’m so happy! I don’t think I could be more pleased with this project. It kicks butt.

It’s the perfect size, I love the color, and it drapes beautifully.
The Specs:
Pattern: Evening Shrug
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic in a lavender shade, almost exactly 2 skeins
Needles: US 7 dpns
Time: 17 days

The only thing I would mention is that while I was knitting it, I found 3 knots in the 2 skeins of yarn. It was annoying, but I finished it and the end product is really great.

So, now that that is finished, I have another project in the works! My Art teacher discovered that I did not just knit, I was a knitting freak He told me that once, he had this pair of alpaca fingerless gloves that he really loved, but lost. What was I to do but start thinking about knitting a pair of fingerless gloves in yummy alpaca?? I thought about it all day, and finally came up with a trade to make with him.
I’m going to knit him a pair of Knucks, and he’s going to make me one of these:

A knitting bowl! (This bowl is from the Knit Witch website. I’m so excited! I haven’t found the perfect yarn yet, but I’m working on it…

Other than that, I’ve just been trying to get through this warm weather hoping that Fall will eventually come. The first issue of the school paper comes out on Tuesday, and I’m totally freaking out about it.. Wish me luck! I hope you all are doing well and that your knitting endeavors are going spectacularly (if not purple).

late night randomness

So these foam puzzle pieces make super rockin’ blocking boards!

Alas!

I finally found time to post!

Things have been pretty crazy around here with the start of school. It takes me forever to get back into the swing of things.. I’m kind of a perfectionist but I also hate actually doing the homework, which leads to a lot of procrastination. For instance, yesterday I got to school and realized that I had completely forgotten about my Latin 2 assignment and that I had to lead the newspaper discussion, but I did have the donuts that I promised my first hour class. (Priorities might need a little check there!..)

I am enjoying it though. I was elected as the Newspaper Editor in Chief, and I’m having a great time doing that. Our first issue comes out on September 30 and I can’t wait! (It’s a monthly paper.)
My duties as NHS (National Honor Society) Secretary began as well. We got our first “assignment” for the year: to color 50-ish sheets of cards with two cards per sheets. Color, as in with crayons, markers, or pencils. In one week. I’m sad to say it, but coloring and I do not get along well.. at all.. it was a very long night…. (To give you an idea, it took Alucard and I two hours to do all of the cards in crayon.)

In other news, I have been knitting like crazy on a birthday present for Magdelena The Evening Shrug from Purlbee was something I’d found awhile ago, and she unknowingly helped me pick out the yarn. I’m using Ella Rae Classic in a lavender shade and I’m halfway done. That took me eight days and her birthday is on the 25th of September. Halfway to go! Wish me luck! (No pictures of this project yet though..)

I also received this in the mail last week:

I bought the yarn to make the Urban Aran Cardigan! It’s Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky and I absolutely love it. It’s very squishy and the color is perfect. (Although, it didn’t photograph well.) The colorway is Mocha Heather. I haven’t CO for it  yet, I’m waiting until I have the birthday present done.

This pictures is a little closer to the true color.

I have more to tell, but I’m saving it for later! Happy knitting ^_^

‘ello, my lady!

That was the phrase that I heard continually yesterday, when I was at the Renaissance Festival! I absolutely love Ren Fest. I’ve been twice this year – once with friends, once with friends and the family. For those of you who haven’t been, it’s a festival set up to look like Renaissance England. There are a ton of shops selling jewelery, pottery, glass creations, period garb, swords, you name it. The food is delicious – they have humongous turkey drumsticks! There is jousting a few times a day, all sorts of demonstrations, games, and shows to see. (Anybody heard of Puke and Snot?)

Eventually, I would like to get my own outfit (garb) to wear there, but currently it’s a little out of my budget range. And if my sewing skills get a lot better, I’m thinking I could try to make parts of it, rather than buy it.
Alucard knows me too well, and buys me the things that I say I love, but won’t buy myself.

^_^ I love the dragon!

It is so much fun, and if there is one near you, I strongly suggest that you go!

That’s all wonderful and nice, but some of you are still wondering where my promised knitting content is. Well, I’m still waiting for it too.. hopefully soon, I will have much to show you – and I’m saving posting about the Shifting Sands Armwarmers until that post. Persevere! It shouldn’t be much longer!

And one more Ren Fest picture to top it off:

I do have warm arms now,

but not much to post on. (I finished my Shifting Sands Armwarmers and they are toasty =] ) I’ll get something together after I’ve got the first few days of school taken care of.

Until then!

Avoiding the homework.

For my Advanced Placement (AP) English class I had to read three books this summer: Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, and King Lear.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: I love this book! Tis about a young girl in nineteenth century England who is orphaned as a baby. She is sent to live at a boarding school for girls to become learned. When she grows up, she gets work as a governess at a wealthy house run by the mysterious Mr. Rochester. They end up falling in love, but turns out, Mr. Rochester is married to a crazy woman who is locked upstairs. Through all of this, there is eventually a happy ending.
I read through this and got it finished in two weeks.

(Each book is assigned a packet of questions that are separated into nine sections. I try to do one section a day.)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: I also pretty much fell in love with this book. Sure, sure, somebody dies in it, but it is still a great book. Nick Carraway moves from the Midwest to Long Island where he gets involved with his very rich neighbor, Mr. Gatsby. Nick would rather lead a quiet life, but Mr. Gatsby needs him to get to the girl he fell in love with over a decade ago. It leads to a very tangled web of who knows who and what trouble are they going to get in, but it’s all very interesting.
I read through this and got it finished in two weeks, no problem.

King Lear by William Shakespeare: Ugh. This book (play) is one that I do not love. I started in last week and was planning on finishing it this week. Ha, I’m not even going to get close! I got through three sections of it last week, and one this week, out of a grand total of nine. I can read Shakespeare, that’s not my problem. But this play is just turning out so borrring. King Lear divides his kingdom into three parts, one for each daughter. The third daughter ends up not getting her piece and is banished to France, and the last two are conniving, evil women. A side story, Edmund has pretty much destroyed his father and brother in the hopes of inheriting all their wealth. That’s all the farther I’ve gotten..
Maybe it would be better if I could see it acted out?
Anyone have any suggestions?? *sigh* for now I’ll just stick to using my Sparknotes to get through it.

The rest of the reading list for AP English includes Frankenstein, The Glass Menagerie, Opidus Rex (Sophocles), Pride and Prejudice, and Death of a Salesman. I’ll let you know how those go as they come along.

And now I think I must get back to my trudging.. (blogs are a great distraction!)

The Breaking Dawn Post

SPOILERS!!!
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We finally have it! The last installment of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga. I, like most Twilighters, sat down to read it the moment I received it and finished it just days after. Now what??

Well, I have to say that I really really enjoyed Breaking Dawn. (I think those of you out there who didn’t are just being stubborn.) It kept me interested throughout the whole book and everything fit together just so. Seriously, when you have three books like Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, the ending book has to be able to tie up ALL of the loose ends.
I happen to be on the Jacob-team, but I still love Edward. I think that the way things went with Renesme and Jacob was perfect. After all Jacob went through, he deserves someone that great!
Some people say that the whole book was too different and too perfect for them, but I loved it. (I think something exciting could have been added to the “fight scene” with the Volturi, but oh well.) Stephenie Meyer is happy with the way it went, and so am I.

If you want to know how I felt about anything else in the book, just send me a message or leave a comment. I’m really interested to see what everybody else thought!!

Locked out of the house..

While trying to take these pictures >_<

Other than that, things have been going fairly well. Yesterday was our One Year Anniversary (Alucard and mine) and I just want to shout out and “I love you!” to him.

Two days ago, I finished the first of my Shifting Sands armwarmers. I love it! I cast on for the second one right after so that I didn’t run into the “second (sock) syndrome” that comes with making anything thing in pairs.

They are inspired by K’s design here. They’re knit in, yes, you guessed it: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Daffodil. (They same yarn still from the Mrs. Darcy Cardigan.) These are the last two skeins of it, but I just love how it’s turning out with this stitch pattern.

My parents took a day to themselves today, and came back with two little Tibetan purses for my sister and I. They are even wooly!

And I think that my brain just died, so I can’t think of a good ending to this post, but I hope you have a great day, and good luck to those of you in the Ravelympics!

P.S. For those of you interested in Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, I received it in the mail the day I posted my previous post, and I finished it in three days!! I will be posting exactly what I thought about it in a different post in the near future.

Help!

* still waiting for Breaking Dawn to come in the mail… *

a meme

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name? Jane
2. What is your favorite food? PIzza
3. What high school did you go to? BOLD
4. What is your favorite color? Blue (currently)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Elizabeth Zimmermann
6. Favorite drink? Orange Juice
7. Dream vacation? A free vacation
8. Favorite dessert? Oreos and Peanut Butter
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? A mother
10. What do you love most in life? Living
11. One word to describe you. Caring
12. Your Flickr name. mehlhouseblogged

Thanks to Emily at The Dean Street Chronicles for sharing this meme!