I had a productive weekend!

I graduated, and got to wear a wizard's robe all morning!  So now I'm a real zoologist!

 

I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in the RDS! My brother was visiting and I had to catch up with friends who were back in Dublin for the weekend, so I was pleasantly strapped for time, but I've missed it every other year and was determined to go. I got there less than an hour and half before it was due to finish up (I thought I had another half hour!), so I had to zoom around and didn't see everything as well as I would have liked to. Didn't leave empty-handed though!

I don't know what the two fabrics on top will become - they both feel a bit lightweight for a skirt - but one of the stalls had a bag made out of the atlas material which looked gorgeous, so one of them will be earmarked for that eventually. This is why samples are a good  marketing strategy - I wouldn't have looked twice at that pattern if I saw it in a book. The pattern and fabrics were both from Fabrics Galore, I think. The yarn is from some very nice British men, the name of whose shop I can't remember. It's 100% silk, and a warmer turquoise than the photo shows up. I have a rule about not buying yarn unless I have a specific project in mind, but I might never see that make and shop again, and I graduated, I deserve a treat! (See also: "But it's on sale, this might be my last chance to get it," "But I sold a lot at a craft fair, I should get some nice yarn for myself", "But it's my first pay-cheque from this job, I should get something decadent," "But I just got my results," "But I just finished exams," and when I say I don't know how I have so much yarn, feel free to call me a liar.)

I finished the first of my sister's Christmas gloves! I'm using the Amy gloves pattern, knit with some Louisa Harding Ondine I bought on sale. It's probably slightly too heavy a yarn, but I had already bought it with a view to making her gloves for Christmas when she asked if I would make her a pair of gloves like these for Christmas, and it is too perfect not to use for her present. I wouldn't be concerned about the weight of the yarn only I don't know whether she wanted the gloves to have the same pattern, or be similarly snug. I made mine quite snug so that I can wear them to knit without my needles snagging, but I have child-hands, and she has normal-sized hands, so it seems like gloves which are small on me would be impractical on her. I'm worried they'll grow with blocking, but the yarn is 100% cotton, so hopefully I'll be able to shrink them in a hot wash if needs be.

I've signed up to sell at a Christmas craft fair in college (I didn't quite get around to leaving, I'm volunteering in a lab in the college where I did my undergraduate degree, though it's a different department at least) at the end of this month. After these gloves, the only Christmas knits I have left to make are toys, and they are a bit too finicky to knit on public transport or on lunch breaks, so I should have time to build up a solid stock. Now that Hallowe'en is over, I don't feel bad about feeling pre-emptively Christmassy anymore.

Craft market knitting!

I'm selling at my first craft market is this weekend!

Aya scarves!

I forgot to take photos of these neckwarmers in the winter when I made them; they look like this:

Snuggly and warm. Seasonally inappropriate, but I think our three-day Irish summer is over.

Hair clips!

Hairbands!

I have other bits and pieces, but they were less photogenic. Hopefully it goes well and I can clear some space in my room! Probably not, though, because Dublin Woolen Mills are having a closing down sale, and I am a vulture.

Like you would have done any different. It's a sign of respect, really.

I have some specific plans for the yarn (Tom Baker gloves! X-Men gloves! I'm a geek!), but the rest was just in case.

The first day of the market is also the World Wide Knit in Public Day for Ireland! For me this is synonymous with "day I leave the house", but it's still nice to have a designated day. I'll be missing the This is Knit event, but I'm excited about the competition!

Happy things!

This is Knit had a sale this week, and I got this much yarn

Five skeins of Noro Aya,

six skeins of Louisa Harding Willow Tweed,

three skeins of Louisa Harding Rosetti,

four skeins of miscellanoues (Sublime, Debbie Bliss Rialto and Sirdar chunky bamboo)

 for sixty-one euro.

Yarn!

Some of them I have plans for (the Willow Tweed will one day be a top), and the others are just for the sake of stocking up while it's cheap.

Yarn!

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I have finished my Christmas shopping, and only have a few more presents left to make.  I bought slightly fancy wrapping paper (recycled and all) and my presents look like this:

which I think is nice.

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I own a colander now!  No more steam-burning my hands when I need to drain rice or pasta using a bowl!

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I went to my boyfriend's work Christmas dinner last night, and had this novelty beer.

So novel I stole the bottle.  It was nice initially, but it tasted more like beer and less like ginger ale the more I drank.  Pity.

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Term is finished!  Last week I handed in an essay worth 8% of my degree.  The day before it was due I was talking to my PI, who also set that essay title, and when I described what I'd done she said it wasn't quite what she'd had in mind.  Handed in regardless, and the person I believe is my second reader is quite a lenient marker.  So that could go alright.  Plus, today I was in the lab and when I was using the cryostat approximately one in three specimens were undamaged!  I'm on fire.

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My class are having a Christmas dinner later.  In the meantime, I'm going to sit in the warm, knitting and emailing neuroscience PIs about research positions for next year.

Came across this on a fashion blog.

When the Blackberry Market in Rathmines used to still exist, there was a old woman who had a stall that was just a room full of wool. It was packed to the ceiling and would spill out the door and you'd have to rummage deep within for whatever colour wool you were looking for. This was before knitting was cool again, though. Now you can get wool in little boutique shops in the Powerscourt Centre and isn't that what it's all about, really.

I could shout "Hipster!" at this a bunch of times, but... I've been knitting since the only places you could get yarn were Hickeys, Woollen Mills and that shop across from the Ilac Centre with sewing machines in the window.  I still love going into any of those shops.  I also love going into This Is Knit, the "little boutique shop in the Powerscourt Centre."  I'll spend twice as long as I need to, out of wanting to make everything out of everything.  This Is Knit is certainly fancier, and more indulgent, but there's no harm in that.  It seems strange that someone who's interested in high fashion, when Dunnes covers your body from the elements just as well, would complain about not-strictly-necessary self-indulgence in another field.

I could really go for a yarn-shopping day.

Self-indulgence.

Some friends of the family, more dearly loved by our dog than we were, gave me some money for my 21st, and since the wife is a big knitter this seemed a fitting way to spend it.

I do like sale items! This will probably get turned into a hat or mobius scarf.

I bought five balls of this and it is going to be a cardigan!  Purple and turquoise are the best colours.  I probably prefer the colourway of the Tivoli, but this is machine-washable.

Doctor Who scarf!  It's a mish-mash of yarns based on what was cheapest and looked sort of right.  I got some colours quite wrong - I didn't print off a picture, so was going from memory, and apparently my memory changes colours.  So if it were intended to be a replica it'd be a bit cutesy and cartoony, but I like how it's turning out.  Unfortunately I can't bring it anywhere as it's just not very efficient.  I'm only half-way through it and it's already very long on me...

wips and project wantings.

I have a habit of only posting FOs here, mostly because I forget to take photos of anything I'm doing.  I'm working on a few different things at the moment, though, so between that and exams it will take a while for anything to get finished.

So here are some wips!  Crummy photo quality as the photos were taken on my laptop and the light here is good for studying but not so good for webcam.

A friend asked for a jumper with big pockets and a hood.  I couldn't find a pattern I liked, so this is a bit of an amalgamation.  The main body is the Skully (best pattern for knocking out a quick big comfy jumper) from the first Stitch 'n' Bitch book, and the I'm basing the hood on Under The Hoodie in the same book.  It's a bulky acrylic yarn on 6.5mm needles.  Everything else I'm working on uses smaller needled and finer wool, so it's nice to have this to take a break, and be able to see results faster.

Another goddamn Grumpasaurus, this time for my brother's girlfriend's sister.  This one has kind of been put on the back-burner as she's gone home, and I've made so many, and my brother has asked for more for other friends...  DK merino wool (I have two skeins of this colour in my stash and I don't know where it came from) on ... 2.75mm needles, I think.  I much prefer using two sets of circs for knitting in the round, but didn't have the right size, so I started off being kind of lazy and only distributing stitches on two DPNs, and then.. didn't incorporate the third.  It's more sac-like on circs or with the third needle.

I am also making a SECRET THING, but it's for my boyfriend who reads this, so I can't post pictures.  It's a pity, it looks cooler than the others even unfinished.

My sister has requested a jumper like the one I made for myself, so on Friday we met up for lunch and then went to This Is Knit (best shop best shop) for wool-shopping.  She doesn't knit (she tried a rectangle once but it kind of turned into a triangle), so there was some explanation of wool weights required, and then some time of "Does this blue look kind of purple to you?  I don't want it to be purple.  This blue is kind of grey, I'm not sure cool colours suit me.  What do you think of this?  Wait, is this the same as the blue I just said was too purple?  I'll go with this one.  Actually, I like this pink."  So we left the proud owners of Louisa Harding Ianthe.  Is nice wool, fun to touch.

My craft-related feelings at the minute are split pretty evenly between "Yay, lots of projects!" and "Oh god, so many hours of stockinette."  It would be nice to take a break from it with projects that call for more interesting techniques, but I do feel bad putting my own projects before someone else's request.  The two biggish projects I'd like to make for myself at the moment aren't really any respite in that regard, a top which looks like mostly stockinette and the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who scarf, which is nothing but garter stitch.  I'm also tempted to make Under The Hoodie from above, but again, hours of stockinette, and I'm trying to reduce the amount of non-machine-washable clothes I make.  Maybe if I find something nice in acrylic.

More interesting projects I would like to make are this lace hat (how do I pay for things on Ravelry?  Do I have to set up a PayPal or something?  But it's only 70cent!  Hassle of that, etc., and that is why I probably will intend to make this indefinitely) and these mitts (yes another Doctor Who pattern, but I am a geek and the wardrobe department clearly know their business.  Also I like cables and fingerless gloves).  They're both small enough projects to make a nice break, I think.

In other news I haven't had a haircut in three months, have passed the point of being a Westie and am now turning into a mop.