Making a list

I was in a rather boring meeting last week and took the time to make a list of Christmas gifts to be made/bought. I'm trying to use up as much stash as possible and save a bit of money where I can.

Today I signed up for a study abroad trip to IRELAND! Wooooo! It's 10 days in Dublin with tours, museum visits and such. It counts as credit for class too. Could there be any better reason to go? I was wanting to go to Europe next summer anyway and this is the perfect chance. My dad currently lives in Bahrain, teaching at a fancy school and wanted to get together to travel a bit. Now we can meet up before or after my class and go a few more places. I'd really like to go to Wales, Scotland and England.

Anyway, back to the list -- it's pretty long, but nothing too huge. The biggest thing is Grandpa's blanket. I have been a bad knit blogger and completely forgot to take pictures of the gorgeous squares Lauren and Cynthia sent to me.



They are so nice to me!!

The rest of the list is pretty manageable. Lots and lots of hats and dishcloths. I was smart and knit a lot of dishcloths in September to get a jump start. I have 12 done and hope to get at least another 20 done. They go pretty fast and are a good quickie knit.

I printed off some patterns today to get some stuff started and I'm going to get to work on them! I knit a hat on Saturday. It was a quick knit - an earflap hat knit on big needles with chunky yarn from a sweater I recycled. I just sort of freestyled it and knit. It came out a bit large so I felted it a bit and it looks great. I think I'm going to make a flower out of some felt and sew it on.

I need to take a whole big batch of photos sometime this week. I have some finished squares and a few other things in progress that need a photoshoot.

Mindless

Between work and school, I've been completely swamped and haven't had much time to focus on knitting. I was working on Vince's scarf and first realized that I had made up my own stitch pattern, then I mis-counted my stitches and am going to have pick out the entire row. It's going to take a long time to do it right because there are YOs every 4 stitches. I honestly just don't have the concentration right now to do it. I really need to finish it up in the next week or two before it gets too chilly here. (This is a old photo, but it's a scarf so it's not going to look all that different...)

My mindless knitting this week has been dishcloths. I have quite a stash of cotton built up so I decided that I should get a jump start on my random gift stash. I might use them as Christmas gifts or whatever. I might end up using some of them myself or listing a few on etsy. So far I've finished 5 and will have another one done tonight. They are good idle knitting for me.

I'm going to use the dishcloth pattern to make a few squares for Grandpa's blanket. I have 9 finished and just need to get a few more done soon. I thought that some easy garter stitch ones would be good.

I have put the laptop case on the back burner for now. I bought a nice bag at Target with a laptop case in it. (I just hunted all over their site for a picture of it and can't find it... Weird.) It's large enough for me to put books for school in there, my laptop, some knitting stuff and my little purse. I really like it. It has a chartreuse inner lining, very cute!

Squares

I finished my 10th square today during lunch. Above are all the ones I've finished and blocked out so far. YAY!