I started Bunny yesterday afternoon and already I’m more than 2/3 of the way through. It’s really fun to see it all come together, and it’s so cute. I know my sister will want one too. This was going to be a challenge for myself, to knit Bunny this week to give to my niece on Saturday.
Well, as you can see a lot of progress has been made on Bunny in the last 36 hours. I finished the body at 3pm this afternoon and started the first ear. I finished it and the second ear before I embroidered the face and sewed on the ears.
One ear at 6pm tonight.

Two ears at 6:30pm tonight. Head and body not attached.

I worked one of the arms tonight. Tomorrow I’ll work on the second arm and possibly one or both of the legs. I’m sure Bunny will be happily finished by Saturday. I promised her she’ll feel more like a complete bunny soon. I have joined the Bunny-A-Long. My first Knit-a-long ever.

We went to Unitarian services this morning. On our way home, I was commenting about having Spring fever. When we walked in the door, I commented that I was having one of those days where I just want to get rid of everything to get rid of some of the clutter. Then it dawned on me, I knew exactly what to get rid of. We went to the spare bedroom closet and really cleaned out the closet. I don’t think it’s ever looked this good. The top hanger rod is empty except for a few clothes, and some formal dresses that I’ll be donating. I took a lot of yarn out of bags and put it in plastic bins. I also now have an idea of what to sell in the event of a stash reduction.

It’s amazing what Spring fever and some sunshine will do for a closet. If I am “sick” with it next weekend, maybe we’ll tackle the main bedroom closet or some of the bookshelves.

That’s about it for the weekend. Another Monday and another busy week ahead. Don’t forget to vote on which yarn I should use for the Clapotis (see previous post).

I don’t know what has taken me so long to get around to trying knitting with two circular needles. I started this adorable Bunny for my niece for Easter. I saw it on Theresa’s site and knew I just had to make one too.It’s worked on dpns and I thought, “I don’t feel like working on the long wieldy size 7 bamboo dpns” so I got out the Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles that I bought a few weeks ago. I can’t believe how easy it is, what has taken me so long to try this. I always figured it was for people who couldn’t handle the dpns, but after my hands cramping while working on the Bonkers sock and trying the two circs today, I see what the big deal is. Now to finish the Bonkers sock on the dpns that I started on and start another pair of socks on two circs.

Yesterday was a very long day at work. There was a group of us there until after 10pm trying to get the current project ready for Monday morning testing. Monday will be another long day of testing the project. So today, my dear husband is allowing me to be a complete slug. He told me to do whatever I want and if I want to sit and knit all day, that’s what I get to do. Meanwhile, he’s cleaning up the apartment to get ready for his dad and brother to come over tonight for dinner. We’re celebrating his dad’s birthday, which was last week.

This morning, we went to the Secret Pal party at the Unitarian church that we attend. It’s been really fun corresponding with a girl that I don’t know. I knew her name and a few of her interests, she didn’t know my name at all. So for the last month, I’ve been sending her cards. It was really fun to meet her this morning. She’s 8 and in second grade. At the party they had several activities for us to do, the first one was we all had to bring matching food items to donate to the food pantry. So we were the dried kidney bean pair. :) It was a lot of fun. We exchanged email addresses, I hope we keep in contact.

I started Bunny (see above) this afternoon and it’s going quite quickly. I’m challenging myself to get it done before we go out to his sister’s house next weekend for Easter. I’m using some Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride from the stash. Anything that is a stash reducer is a great project, especially right now. In searching the stash for the Lamb’s Pride, I just had an aha moment to further reduce the stash. (I’m on a serious yarn diet for space and monetary purposes.) I’ve been wanting to make Clapotis (I know everyone is making it) and have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to use. Then I saw Kate’s hand-dyed yarn and the aha moment hit. I have two huge hanks of Interlacements yarn that I could use. Okay, so fair reader, I need your input once again. Which one do you like for the Clapotis? I like both of them.

reds, pinks and a bit of orange
or

blues and dark subtle greens.
Bryan votes for the blues. Vote for your choice below. I’ll let you know what I choose later. Whichever one I don’t use, I know I’ll use for something else.

Yesterday, Bryan and I celebrated our six-month wedding anniversary. I had no idea six months ago what I was getting myself into. We had lived together for a year before our wedding, I had an idea of what it would feel like to be married, but this is so much better than I dreamed. I love spending time with him and miss him when I’m at work. We eat breakfast together every morning at our kitchen table. It’s such a wonderful way to begin the day. I love the fact that we also eat most dinners together at the table and talk about our day. Sit-down dinners were a part of my growing up and I’m glad that we’ve made it a tradition in our home. It feels like such an accomplishment to make it to six months. This is just the beginning, I know there were be many more anniversaries to celebrate but six months feels very special right now.

Well, back to my being lazy afternoon.

I hope everyone had a great St. Patrick’s Day. I was very envious of RoseByAny’s amazingly cool green socks.

If I could get through the silly toe of my current Bonker’s sock and didn’t have the super-duper long cuff, I probably could have worn my green handknit socks today. I haven’t been working on them long enough and I’m slowly working my way through the toe. Plus tonight, I realized that my first row of the socks at the toe was really loose, so I thought I would fix it. No problem, right? So I started to try to tighten the stitches by pulling gently on each stitch. I started this while I was in my continuing class tonight and thought it wouldn’t take me long. After about 1/2 an hour of fiddling with it, I have a huge loop at the end of the knitted cast-on edge. So now I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to pull that loop through the cast-on edge so that it will go away. If I had done the continental (long-tail) cast-on I would know how to fix it, but NO, I had to use the knitted cast-on thinking that the cast-on ridge would be less irritating to my toe than the continental cast-on ridge. Arggh.

Today at lunch, I did a lot of work on the Leaf Cravat scarf. I picked up stitches along the first leaf that I worked on Friday and knitted nearly three repeats of the lace pattern, so I have about 5 inches out of the total 33 inches of the lace pattern finished. After the lace pattern is finished, I’ll do another leaf and be finished with it. It’s a really quick lace pattern and I managed to do the three repeats in about 40 minutes.

I’ve joined the Spinning Wheel blog ring. Since I created my own blog ring – Midwest Knitters (yes, I’m plugging my blog ring), I’ve found other blog rings that I want to join. If you’re interested in the Midwest Knitters, click on the click on the sidebar. It’s for knitters and spinners who live in the Midwest and Plains states. I’ve seen blog rings for Mid-Atlantic knitters, Southern knitters, California knitters and I’m even a member of the Kansas knitters blog ring, but there wasn’t one for the Midwest. So last weekend, I took care of that and started one. If you’re interested, please join. Or if you have friends who live in our area, please pass it on. Heck, even if you lived in the Midwest or Plains states as a kid, you can join. Okay, enough of the nauseating advertising. :)

I’m tired and have a very long day at work ahead of me tomorrow, I must head to bed.

I’m such a dork. I love these lists. I found this one on I especially love reading other people’s lists. It’s really cool to see all of the differences and similiarities of fellow knitters.

1. Do you knit continental or English?

Continental as of four years ago, before that English.

2. How long ago did you learn to knit?
October 10, 1995, I was a senior in college. I found the date when I was reading my journal from that year.

3. First FO?
A top-down raglan sleeve sweater.

4. Favorite yarn?
Bollicina. I love Rowan yarns too.

5. Favorite pattern?
Too many to choose from. I have a favorite baby pattern (Slip-stitch sweater from Vogue Knitting: Baby Knits) that I’ve made three times.

6. Favorite pattern source?
Rowan. Knitty. The many books that I have in my library. Interweave Knits.

7. Favorite needles?
Bamboo circulars although I’m starting to favor Addi Turbos.

8. Nicest thing you’ve ever knit?
The Hobo sweater (cashmere & silk yarn), I’m still working on it. And the Barbara shawl (Jaeger Cashmere yarn), which I’m also still working on.

9. Most hated project?
A baby sweater made with horrible yarn several years ago. It was quick to knit, but the yarn was hideous.

10. Who are you going to pass this on to?
Anyone who wants it, consider yourself tagged and leave a link in the comments. I want to read everyone’s.

I have a new button. You may steal it for your blog. :) I will post it on the sidebar soon.

I spent a very long day at work yesterday. I arrived home at 7:25pm. When I got home I was in the mood to just flop down on the couch and relax. After sitting for less than five minutes, my spindle, whose name is now Polly, was just begging to have yarn spun with her. Sunday, I started a tiny bit of the Coopworth I just received from The Woolery. So I gave Polly a whirl and off we went into spinning land. I remember RoseByAny telling me once that spinning is a different kind of relaxation than knitting. I have to completely agree. I felt so great after spinning for a while last night that I didn’t mind coming home late. (You know something is good if suddenly staying at work late rewards you like this.) But Polly was not going to allow spinning for just an hour, oh no, I was spinning until I went to bed. I had to wind off yarn that I spun onto my lovely very expensive tp bobbin and start anew with Polly. When I went to bed, I couldn’t believe how much I’d spun. I watched an episode of Alias that I taped several weeks back and after Bryan came home, we watched two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Polly was very happy to be spinning all that time. I’m sure when I come home tonight from class, she’ll be begging to be spun with again. I do have to say, with my new spindle, Polly, and after having spun such fine yarn for the last several days, it’s hard to go back to bulkier yarn and trying to spin a bit thick and thin so that it matches my early spun yarn.

Here is what Polly and I were up to last night. (Chloe’s foot is in the background, she was very excited to be near the newly spun yarn.)

I’ve been home for lunch and must head back to work for a full afternoon.
The sun is shining. Happy knitting.

Sometimes the universe’s plans are just different than your own. I’ve had to deal with two such plans this week and I was bummed about them but I’m realizing that things will work out for the better, they always do. I need to get some more experience regarding one of my plans before I can move on with it.

Last night, Bryan and I went to see Stars, one of my favorite bands. Oh, they were so great and a lot more energetic in their performance than I expected. They played songs from the newest album, Set Yourself on Fire, and their two earlier albums, Heart and Nightsongs. They started the set with “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” from Set Yourself on Fire and played almost every other song on the album, including “Ageless Beauty” and “He Lied About Death,” which before they played they mentioned Bush and how there are only a few more years until he’s gone. My only complaint about the show was the fact that Amy’s vocals were turned down so low that it was hard to hear her sometimes. If you haven’t heard Stars, but you do like The Postal Service, you should definitely check out Stars. Set Yourself on Fire came out in the U.S. this past Tuesday. I’ve had it for a few months, Bryan ordered an import copy for me for my birthday. It’s been in my bag since then and I listen to it at work a lot.

Lately, my knitting has been a bit off and on, part of it is my returning to work after being sick for two days. Thursday night, I finally finished the Bonkers sock, it’s the perfect length.

I started the second sock on Friday. I haven’t gotten much further than the first four rows.

Also on Friday, I started the Leaf Cravat scarf that I’ve been wanting to start for a while.
I finished the first leaf. The yarn is Frog Tree alpaca yarn.

Yesterday afternoon, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I had to work for a few hours in the morning and early afternoon and I didn’t feel like sitting and knitting, I wanted to do more than that, but I wasn’t up to cleaning up the apartment (as if I’m ever in the mood for that). So I thought I would spin a bit more yarn on my new spindle that I love! I did quite a bit of spinning yesterday. So much so that my spindle was getting a bit heavy and I was running out of space under the whorl so I decided to wind a ball up, so that I can start fresh later. I am very proud of this little ball of yarn, I was able to spin somewhat fine consistently on my new spindle.

I still have about half of the roving left so I think I will get quite a bit of yarn out of this 2 oz. of Corriedale Cross that came with my Beginning Spindle Kit.

I know I’ll be doing a lot more spinning soon as I just ordered some of the Coopworth fiber that I learned to spin with so that I can spin enough for a hat. I have about 40 yards of yarn spun and plied so far, only 60 more yards or more to go. That’s a project for me this summer – to work on my spinning. I remember reading recently on the Knitters Review Forums about people collecting spindles. Now I see why you would want several spindles, especially if you want to spin different fibers. I’m sure it’s much easier to change fibers when you’re using a wheel.

Speaking of wheels, I don’t know if I mentioned that I got a promotion at work. With this promotion, I will be able to get a spinning wheel in the summer! I really like my spindle, but I really want a wheel. I should have it by July. Yeah! :) I can’t wait until June when we can start looking at wheels. I have to try them out and waiting until June will give me some time to get more practice on my spindle.

I must finish the laundry and run a few errands on what is left of this Sunday afternoon.

And look at my English language abilities for today.
English Genius
You scored 100% Beginner, 93% Intermediate, 87% Advanced, and 77% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can’t find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don’t. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you’re not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on Ok Cupid

I went back to work yesterday. It was a very busy day as most days back to work after being sick are. I came home last night and we sat down to dinner not long after I arrived home. Mmm, Bryan’s homemade pizza with Trader Joe’s herb pizza dough. If you have a Trader Joe’s and you haven’t had their herb pizza dough for homemade pizza, you’re missing out.

After dinner, I folded several loads of laundry as I watched American Idol, I won’t bore you with the details. The show makes Bryan gag, but I don’t think he understands what I like about the show. I used to love Star Search when I was a kid and American Idol is like that for me. I was disappointed to see Neko, one of my favorite guys, get voted off. That’s all I’ll say about that. Unfortunately because American Idol is on at 8pm, I’ve been taping Alias and have about five episodes to watch, which should last me a while, if I would just remember to watch them.

I was folding laundry quickly hoping to finish the Bonkers sock. It wasn’t meant to be last night, even after we watched four episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD. I have about 14 more rows of the sock to do before the first of the pair is done.

I keep meaning to post these. This is the Daydream sweater and hat that I knitted for my niece Paige in November. She’s so cute and looks so much like her dad. I think this baby girl needs a few more sweaters to broaden her wardrobe. :) Being my first niece, I’m sure she’ll be spoiled.

I love her face in this photo, such a baby face.