HALLOWEEN!!!

I did another Halloween themed project this weekend. I love it because it is quick and easy, the illusion knitting is really cool and because it is quick and easy!! Since I was so stressed with school and student teaching, I decided to treat myself to getting a massage. If you are ever going to treat yourself to something, this is definitely the thing to do! On the way home I stopped at JoAnn Fabrics to get some Sugar 'n Creme yarn to make the dishcloth. They only had yellow, orange and white. No black. Luckily there was a Michaels craft store nearby, so that was my next stop. They had much more variety there, but still no black yarn. I thought about just using an acrylic yarn and hoping for the best. This was a crazy thought, but let me tell ya people, I get a little crazy when I want to make something. I'm not so good with the patience thing. It's a work in progress :) Anyway, Michaels had a different brand of cotton yarn. It was half cotton, half acrylic. Getting better. So I'm digging through the color choices. Still no black!! I settled for a characoal color. I was still pretty upset that it wasn't black, but definitely a better choice then the Red Heart acrylic yarn I was about to make do with. The dishcloth actually ended up turning out really well. It's kinda hard to notice that it's "charcoal." The main idea is to see the candy corn. I was rather pleased with my dishcloth and want to make more. I plan on doing more illusion knitting in the future too. So cool!

Trick or Treat!

Last weekend we took a very short family trip to Southern California and went to Knott's Scary Farm. It's a Halloween event at Knott's Berry Farm. They set up a lot of haunted houses and people were hired to wear scary costumes and jump out at you throughout the haunted house. There were also costumed people throughout the park that would jump out at you. As much as I hate to admit it, I was scared a couple of times. After going to the event, we decided that we will not be repeating it in the future. First of all, the amount of people that were there was RIDICULOUS and second of all they were mostly high school aged kids. Not that I have anything against them, but they tend to be rude and do things like cut in line, they don't pay attention and are just somewhat obnoxious. Ok, maybe I do have something against them, but still. It was madness. The good part about the trip is that we were in the car for at least 6 hours each way (probably more with all the traffic we hit both ways). So unless you're a knitter, long car rides aren't so great. Since I am a knitter it was fantastic!! I was able to knit a trick-or-treat basket that looks like a spider. I bought the pattern in September and have been thinking about it ever since. I am so glad that I finally did it and finished it. I was a little worried that Halloween would come and go and I would end up knitting a spider basket in April. Here it is:

Fight the Addiction?

I seem to knit in cycles. It's either all the time or not at all (although during the not at all time, I'm usually contemplating what to start next). Right now I'm in the "can't stop knitting" mode. I have tons of things to do (lesson plans, reading for school, assignments, laundry, etc.) and yet all I want to do is knit, knit, knit. I went on a road trip with the family to Southern California this last weekend and was able to knit up the cutest Trick-or-Treat basket. From there, the knitting has snowballed. I have socks that need to be finished and started a mesh bag. I also have to seam up my Baby Surprise Jacket. This may not seem to be a lot of projects on the needles, but I am the type of knitter that usually finishes one project before beginning another. As I continue to knit I just keep thinking about all of the things I need to get. I don't even want to take the time to load a picture to my blog right now. I just want to KNIT!! In reality, the knitting is an awesome de-stressor and I should just let all the other things go. Everything always get done somehow, right?

GRRR...

I started making the Baby Surprise Jacket a couple of weeks ago and then put it down with no desire to pick it up again. My first problem is that I used a worsted weight yarn which ended up making the sweater bigger than I had planned. I guess I was supposed to use a sock weight yarn to make a smaller sweater. I think that this is the appeal of this pattern. You can make different sizes just by changing the yarn the you use. So then I was thinking "whatever." It's always better too big than too small (within in reason of course). I got over the fact that this jacket won't fit a newborn and the wearer will just have to wait until she gets a little bit older.

So I'm going along with the pattern only to realize that each end of the sweater has a different amount of stitches after the stitch markers. They should be exactly the same. Since the pattern only tells you to make the increases or decreases before or after the stitch markers and doesn't give a certain number of stitches to count, I didn't realize my mistake until finishing all of the increases in that section. So...I don't know where I made the initial mistake and I really don't know if fixing it or leaving it will make a major difference. We're talking about two stitches worth of a mistake. Part of me just wants to keep going and see how it turns out and the perfectionist in me wants to frog the whole thing and start from scratch. What's a girl to do??

Second Post for the Day

I saw this quiz on another blog and had to post the results since it related to my post on October 6th.

What Should You Knit?

You should knit a plain sweater! You like to get lost in the process of making your project, and don't mind taking some time to do so. Often you let the beauty of the yarn speak, as opposed to using difficult techniques.
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

I ROCK!

I am currently in a credential program to get my Teaching Credential. I started student teaching (working in the classroom with an experienced teacher) at the end of September. I was placed in a 5/6 combination class. This school is brand new and this is only their second year being open. Needless to say, it is beautiful and I totally lucked out. I do the Spelling pre-test and test every week, I did Language Arts lessons with a small group of ESL students last week and this week I started doing the Math lessons with the 5th graders.

As a student teacher, you are assigned a supervisor who observes you teaching a lesson in the classroom 4 times during each placement. Today was my first observation and I did an awesome job. I was very nervous (as I tend to do often is these kinds of situations) about my first observation (and probably will be about every one to follow). The kids were well behaved, engaged and totally understood the lesson. I couldn't have asked for a better first observation or a better group of kids. My supervisor said that I was very organized, well-prepared and spoke to the students with respect and in turn got respect back from them. She seemed to be very impressed with my lesson. Oh yeah, and I did I mention that on top of all of that I'm sick?? This is why I ROCK!!

So far, I am really enjoying student teaching and look forward to having my own class someday. Wish me luck on the rest of my observations! I've definitely set the bar high, so hopefully I can keep it!

To celebrate my success of the day, I am going to sit and knit after finish reading for at least one class for school tomorrow. Better yet, I will read and knit at the same time. It makes the reading slightly less dry and the boring stockinette part of the sock go by faster as well :)

What to Knit?

So I feel that I really don't have very much spare time between preparing lesson plans for next week, going to school, doing reading for school, getting ready for my first observation by my supervisor and everything else that happens in life, but of course I want to start another knitting project. I started knitting the Baby Surprise Jacket two weeks ago. First of all, it seems as though it will be much bigger than I expected. Also, I was following the pattern carefully, but somehow my stitch marker was two stitches off on one end. The only reason that I know this is because the two ends are different and yet you're supposed to do the same thing to each side. Needless to say I really didn't feel like undoing it and figuring it out so it's still sitting on the needles and I have no desire to work out the problem right now.

I have a pattern for a felted Halloween treat bag that looks like a spider. I got it in Oregon when I was visiting my cousin. Being that the first week of October is not over, I should really get cracking on this one. It's super cute and fits the holiday, but I just can't seem to get the ball rolling (or unwinding! lol...geez, i'm a dork).

The cousin from OR, Laurie, is pregnant. She has been having some troubles with her blood pressure and blood sugar levels. I just found out yesterday that she had to go to the hospital and the doctor put her on bed rest. The baby will probably be born early (I think they will be inducing labor) and very very tiny. When I was there, we went to the Yarn Garden (LYS) and they had all these tiny hats for premature babies hanging in the window. I believe it was for charity. My cousin was saying that her baby will probably need some of those tiny hats. So this would be another project (and a very small one too) that I could get going on.

Of course I have plenty of other patterns and stash yarn that the possibilities of what to start working on next are endless. Instead of being creative, I just decided to start some toe-up socks on two circulars. It's a variegated yarn and the colors are kinda boring, but the exciting part is that the yarn has little bits of sparkly silver in them. The sparkles may be hard to see, but here's the beginning of the sock:



When in doubt, knit socks!

Does anyone have any ideas or patterns on the internet that would give me something different to do with the leg as opposed to the basic k2, p2 rib? I would like to try something different :)