Tag Archives: NAIT


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in time for the olympics

I just noticed that it’s been 3 months, to the day, since my last post.

Huh.  Didn’t mean for that to happen.

I don’t tend to enjoy summary posts, because they’re long and unnecessarily detailed, but I really can get away with just a bit here, because not very much happened.

I had my final exam, and passed (yay) and passed the year (yay) with a quite respectable 89%.  Year 2 of this program (but our year 4 overall) starts in September, and we’ve got the summer off from studying (big yay).

I had my surgery at the beginning of May.  They did find the hernia (yay) and the reason for all the pain I’ve been having (yay) but when sewing in a mesh, my doc accidentally nicked an artery (boo).  They had to pull out the laparoscopic tools and do an open incision to fix it, so instead of leaving the hospital a few hours after day surgery, I was admitted and got to go home about 4 days later.

I’d planned to wade through all the games on my phone, while home recouperating.  I’d planned to read all 4000+ unread posts in my Reader.  I’d planned to finish Henri’s Spidey blanket, and my Linden, and Flugel, and Jakob’s Toothless, and a shawl for a friend, and my May/June socks, and a few more pairs of socks (y’know, ‘cus they’re fast), and then maybe the sock yarn blankies, and ooh what could I knit for myself after that?  I’d planned to read the books that have been stacked on my night table for a few years now.

I shouldn’t have planned.  I did nothing.

I did *almost* nothing.  Once I was home from the hospital I did rush to finish Toothless, so it would be ready for Jakob’s actual birthday.  And I did knit a shawl for a friend’s birthday.  And then I…mentally checked out.
For 6 weeks I didn’t do ANYTHING.  I didn’t knit (much…the May/June socks were knit between June 28-July 2), I didn’t read (much…except the 50 Shades trilogy, one of Chelsea Handler’s books & am now into Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), I didn’t watch tv (much…I skipped everything I taped ‘cus I couldn’t focus, and just left Much Music or TLC or Discovery on in the background).
I played on my phone, but not much.  I ate a bit, but not much.  I saw the boys & Yannick, but not much.
Things are mostly back to normal now.  I’m back at work, mostly recovered (though still a bit sore and trying to watch the heavy lifting), I have my knitting mental mojo back, though many nights it just sits next to me on the couch, and I’m eager to get into the Knitting Olympics and seeing if the nightly habit will get me fully back into the groove.
Jakob’s in soccer, so that keeps us out twice a week, and we’ve been doing a lot of swimming at my parents’ pool.  Yannick’s still busy as ever, and I’ve still got my nights free to sit and knit which hopefully means I’ll get my Olympic project done.

See that’s why I wanted to get this out of the way today.  I was thinking how tomorrow is the opening ceremonies, and how I need to wind my yarn, etc, maybe swatch, and how I’ll post a daily progress shot…and then I thought…”post“?  Oh…I’ve been forgetting to do that!  D’oh!

I have pics of all the outstanding projects, but I’ll save them for after the Olympics when I run out of things to post about.  I’m not going to play on Ravelry ‘cus I don’t have the focus to even look into what that means, but I will be working on my project at home, watching.


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so far, no sweater

Last Friday (the date of my last post) I did work on my Flugel.

This is the beginning of grafting the underarms (lower sleeve edge from cuff to armpit).  Since the cast-on method was to use the backwards-loop co, I had an invisible row of loops waiting for me to use.  I slid half of each loop of the front’s underarm sts onto a needle, pretending it was one leg of a live stitch.  I did the same thing on the back’s underarm, then used matching yarn to graft the fake “live” sts together.

Just as I’d stopped the stripe pattern on the shoulders and changed to white once I was at the full length, so none of my stripes would wrap around the body and/or be involved in the grafting, here I’d made sure that even though my first row of knitting would be in the gold ribbon, I did the cast-on for the sleeves in the navy.  That continued the line from the body and left me with the ability to use the more “normal” yarn for the grafting.

This is the complete underarm after being grafted; cuff-edge to the right, and the join to the body stripes on the left.

It worked really well, and I was able to get both sides done.

On Saturday I picked up sts around the neckline and started knitting the neckband.

I’ll admit, I got distracted.

I put it aside Saturday afternoon because I had to pack up all our school stuff to bring up north with us.  As per our usual tradition, on the weekend before our final (or midterm) exam, Yannick and I leave the kids at home with my inlaws or parents, and we go up north to peace and quiet to study.

We spent the weekend up there and got a lot of work done.  I only brought a sock-in-progress with me for easy car knitting, and truly didn’t knit at all beyond the car rides.

Last night I finished the neckband (I’d added a few extra rows) and bound off.  Technically that means that Flugel is finished (but for weaving in ends) but I don’t like the unfinished cuff edges and will be adding some ribbing.

But not yet.  A) I have to concentrate on studying for Sunday morning’s exam, and B) I have a new knitting priority.

😛

Jakob is turning 5 in May, and we’re having his party before his birthday so I can have my surgery and know everything is done (exam, school, party, etc).  He’s NUTS for How To Train Your Dragon and since last year has been telling me that he wants a Hiccup & Toothless cake.  (The main viking kid and dragon).  The only problem is that we’re having his party at a location that doesn’t allow ANY outside food being brought in, which means I can’t make his cake.  (And we’re not doing a separate family party to make baking one worthwhile).

They DO have themed cakes, and have a HTTYD one, so he’ll be getting Toothless & Hiccup on his cake after all, but I wanted to make him something.

I found the PERFECT PATTERN.

This (above) is Toothless.  This (below) is the Toothless knitting pattern, plus pipe cleaners and craft eyes to make the “spruced up” version of the pattern.

So knitting a dragon and studying for a final exam, that’s how my week will look.  How about yours?


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broken streak

I’m giving up on having daily posts. I’d rather only write when I want to, then force myself to find something interesting to share.

Truthfully, until this past week I didn’t have much to share. Not much going on around here. We had some family dinners, I bought some lovely new clothes and costume jewelry, picked up more nail polish, and squeezed in knitting and studying whenever I could.

Our final test for this year is due on Tuesday, and then we have our final exam on April 22nd. I hope to have all our written stuff done by then too so we can have a true summer vacation…or as much as possible with a full-time job.

I’ve blocked and seamed my Linden and am in the process of knitting the lower garter band. I want it 2.5″ long, and am about halfway there. Each row just takes so long! I should only have ends to weave in afterwards but I might lengthen the sleeves first so I don’t know yet how soon it will be done.

I’m also working on my stockinette stitch swatch for my current design. I had a bit of time to work on it this week but I just couldn’t bring myself to knit.

More on that tomorrow.