fall is done?

What a weekend, three dollar toasters at Target will make people do strange things. On Friday I got the joy of working at 330am and my boyfriend got the experience of shopping at 4am. He went out to get Target's one dollar towels but got toasters, crockpots, sandwich makers, and coffee makers all for three dollars each. It was a fun morning. A lot of very pleasant costumers. No one was too cranky with their deals. I even got a costumer to open a credit card! Friday evening I got to watch my boyfriend and his bowling team bowl, duh. Then the two of us went out for a little bit.

On Saturday we celebrated his birthday by sleeping in way too late, wrapping Christmas presents at his parents and sushi for dinner. YUM! We then went out for a few drinks at out favorite bar in Whitewater, The Brass Rail.

Sunday we slept in again way too late and had a late lunch/early dinner at his parents and had birthday cheesecake. YUM! When we got back to the boyfriend's house we watched movies and had snacks.

Today we hung up Christmas lights on the front of his house and cleaned off the front porch. It was nice spending time together taking care of his house. I've been telling him for the past few months that I would be more then willing to help him out with it. Now I finally got to do something.

Any who, time to get back to reality and start knitting and laundry.

Happy knitting.

Wishcasting Wednesday

Today Jamie asks us "What steps do you wish to take?"

With this question I need to ask myself, "Where do I start?" There are so many different steps that I wish to take to better myself. There are the steps that I wish to take to become an independent adult, the steps to become a better knitter and crocheter, and the steps that I wish to take to get back into school.

I wish to decide on what steps to take first and make a plan and order as to what to do.

New Hand Warmers

I found a new pattern that I am going to try out for one of my Christmas presents. I am doing a few changes to it. I made one of the patterns and found it to be a little tight. I am making a pair of hand warmers by Marta at Creativeyarn. I really like her patterns and her style. It would be nice if there were some alternative patterns for people who aren't her size.

This is the first pair that I made. It turned out pretty well, but I don't like not tight they turned out and how short they are. With the new pair that I am making they are going to be looser and longer on both ends. I hope with the ones that I am working on now will work better.

Pattern collection #1

I think that I am going to start collecting on my blog all the different items that I want to create, from patterns that I have found online. I will be posting a picture of the item from the pattern along with a link to the original site/pattern.

http://www.crochetandknitting.com/mitglov2.htm

These are the fingerless gloves I have made earlier this year, but I have another pair to make for Christmas.

http://www.freewebs.com/spillyjane/Piggy%20Mittens.pdf

I think that these Piggy Mittens are adorable. Since it is

a pdf I don't know how to take the picture out of it. So you'll just have to trust me on how cute they are.

http://creativeyarn.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-snowflake-sweater-pattern.html

This one I want to make for myself. I don't know if I'll have time to make this one until after the New Year. The author of this blog also has many other beautiful free patterns that she shares with the reader and even more beautiful pieces at her Esty shop.

I hope to do a few more postings like this as I go on in my journey of pattern finding.

~Happy knitting

TGIF

Yay its Friday!

Things that I am looking forward to for the weekend...

1) Seeing my boyfriend. I am very excited to see him. It has been about two weeks since we've been together.

2) Not working, I will have time for some knitting and crocheting. Hopefully get those two scarves done. Once I get all of my presents finished for Christmas then I can start working on finishing my bunny that I have almost finished, and I want to start making some clothing for myself.

3) Getting out of town. I'm meeting up with the boyfriend in Tomah.

another boy scarf

Making boy scarves that don't look stupid or too girly is hard to do. I have the two that I have been writing about and another one that I pulled apart and restarted just today. This one is for my little sister's boyfriend for Christmas. It is starting to look a little like a tube sock. It is maroon with black with gold and black stripes. They are the his school colors at Minnesota. I hope that he likes it, but if he doesn't I would love to have it, or it can be donated to someone that would love to have some warm wool around their neck. This scarf is going to work out much faster then the wide one that I was working on with these yarns.

Now some fun personal news.

Last Saturday I broke my glasses. It was right after I finished my shift at Younkers. I had to fill out a form for my hours. I was getting warm and pulled my scarf off over my head and bent my glasses almost in half. I took them off to bend them back and snapped them in half. Just yesterday I got my eyes checked and ordered a new pair. I am very excited for these new ones. They are very chic, dark blue (almost black). The earpieces/ sides are rather thick. The nose piece is thicker then my last frames (thats good since that is where I broke my last pair). I now need to wait until the 25th for them to come to me. Soon I can throw away contacts that I have been wearing for five months or longer.

I am very excited for a new look.

making progress

I feel like I am finally making some progress on my present making. Yesterday I completed one of the many scarves that I have been working on. This one is going to my boyfriend's father. I did a faggot stitch with size 15 knitting needles with yellow and white yarn. It is a shorter scarf then what I would like to make, but it was requested to make it short. I really like this stitch. It is a nice open and elegant stitch. It was fun learning this new stitch also.

Tomorrow I need to get close to finishing my grey and red scarf. I asked my sister around how wide I should make it, so now I know. Also, I got the okay on the length of it. That's good because otherwise I would need to pull it all apart and start over again if it was too long.

I finished making dishcloths until the rest of my projects are completed. I have seven of them done. I just need to weave in the ends and then I can say that I am finished with them. I think that will be the very last thing that I'll do before I wrap them up for Christmas. My mother gave me a new pattern that she wants for dishcloths. It is pretty much what I do now but there is a center square that has a different type of stitch in it that I don't know how to do yet. I told her that it'll be a while until I get to learning how to do it.

Today is going to be a fun day filled with work at both Younkers and at Micon. I really hope that I can get out of Micon at a decent time. I know I am their closing usher but sometimes it is nice to get to bed before midnight.

oh no!

"My glasses, I can't see without my glasses!"

Yesterday when I was finished with work I had to stop by costumer service to complete a form. I was pretty warm since I had my coat and scarf on and the building was warm. I took my scarf off over my head and bent my glasses up. I then took them off and tried to bend them down and ended up snapping them in half like a twig.

I now have to wear my contacts in order to see and drive legally.

The next few weeks are going to be awesome.

Dishcloths

I have finally made some headway on my dishcloths. Well actually I found one that I made a few years back that I never finished off and I've completed two new ones. If I don't do much else but knit then they work themselves pretty fast, otherwise it can seem like they are taking forever to complete.

To start them you cast on 3 stitches, that way you'll have 4 stitches on the needle. Then you knit 2 and yarn over one then knit across. You continue this until it is the width that if desired and is an even number.

With the ones that I am making now are 44 stitches across.

Once you are at the width that you want, you knit one then knit two stitches together yarn over one and knit two together then knit across. This is then continued until you get back down to 4 stitches. Once you get to 4 you cast off and weave in the ends and pull on on the dish cloth to stretch it out a bit and to tighten the stitches.

no sleep for you!

I am happy that I have my two jobs that both work around each other pretty well. Too bad they don't work around each other and my sleep schedule well.

Last night, when I had finished work at the movie theater, I got home and went right to bed. So I thought. I had kicked Kara, my cat, out of the room that way I wouldn't have her bothering me while I was trying to sleep. She had other plans. Kara wanted, no Needed to sleep with me and wouldn't stop crying until I opened the door to let her in. I finally got to sleep around 12:30 am only to get up and start getting ready for work at 5 am.

Work today was pretty awesome. 7 am punch in and start changing signs for the new sale, that will be changed tomorrow. Once that was finished we had to place all of our new merchandise that we got yesterday. For my whole shift I think I only checked out three costumers that didn't do a pre-sale for Younkers big sale this Saturday. I spent most of my shift running pre sell items from my departments to Costumer Services to get logged in then back to the Community room to be stored until Saturday. I think I had more fun doing that then actually helping my costumers, face-to-face.

anyways, it is time to take a nap.

Wishcasting Wednesday

Today Jamie asks us "What do we Dare ourselves to do?"

I dare myself to get out of my parents house, get back into school, and live on my own without needing monetary help from my parents.

I am an adult now I should be able to find a job that can support myself and pay off my bills, without living to far into the poverty level. If the economy hadn't gone down the toilet then I would have a better change of finding a researching job, work in a museum, work at a performance venue. Instead, college graduates in the Sciences and Arts are reduced to working crummy minimum wage jobs at movie theaters and retail where they get more verbal abuse then any human deserves.

For me to get out of my parents basement I need to get back into school if The United States is going to be how it is now. Public History is not the path of employment. I need a better degree in something that my community finds as being useful.

For the past 23 years of my live I have needed my parents money to help me get by. While I was living "on my own" in college they paid for my rent. Whenever I needed something they were there paying for it. It has never been me paying for that I needed. I have been spoiled. With me being allowed to live at my parents and not pay for anything they are enabling me to keep to my old ways of not being able to manage my money, get a good paying job, and live on my own.

With this post I dare myself with the greatest punishment that I can think of if I cannot complete.

making a list

I wasn't able to get as far on my scarves as I was hoping to yesterday. But this is what I have done so far with one of the scarves. This is the one for my older sister's boyfriend/fiancée. I really hope that he doesn't have an issue with wool or with stuff being wrapped around his neck. I have a friend that has a neck phobia and can't wear stuff around her neck. So hopefully he isn't like that.

This week my goals are to

• finish this scarf
• get half of the chicken toaster cozy done
• figure out the address for where I have to send my loan check to

I know that it isn't much but I'll be pretty busy with work this week. Yesterday I was called in for a three hour shift and ended up staying for an eight hour one. Tonight and tomorrow I am working 12 hours at the movie theatre. Then Thursday I have a short shift at Younkers, only four hours. Friday and Saturday are going to be some nice long shifts of eight hours each.

Next week isn't going to be nearly as bad so far. I figure it'll be filled with much crocheting and knitting.

knit much?

I am so happy that I am not working at Younkers for the next few days. Costumers are messy and just keep buying. It would be different if they would start putting things away when they are done trying them on. Thursday will be a sad day when I come back to work there.

Today I started on another scarf. This one is going to be crocheted with gray and red stripes running the length of the scarf. I have so far one row done and almost done with my second. I think I am going to have it be eight rows wide. I am using a nice wool that I found at my local craft store in Chippewa Falls.

Good thing tomorrow is my day off I get to work on my scarves that I've been working for presents. That way I can hopefully get caught up on everything that I've been working on. I am hoping on getting about half of my two scarves done. I hope that I can get all of these little projects done for Christmas.

No hand warmer for you!

The hand warmer idea that I had for my boyfriend's little sister is a giant flop. Turns out she has beefy hands like mine so they wouldn't fit her. Now I am working on a hat for her to replace her bad Christmas present. The pattern that I am using is by The Crafty Beaver. They have a few different patterns on their blog. I haven't had much luck with hat patterns so I am hoping that this one will turn out well enough to give away.

hand warmers

Last night I finished a pair of hand warmers for a Christmas present. I hope that they fit her hands. I sewn them together to fit my hands. So, hopefully her hands aren't as beefy as mine. I made this pair out of a nice purple wool. This is the second pair of hand warmers that I've made from the site. The author most defiantly has much smaller hands then I do. I was worried that the right hand would take longer then the left hand since I had to read the pattern backwards, but it only took a few hours to complete.

I am now back to working on knitting a scarf for my little sister's boyfriend for Christmas. I really hope that this scarf isn't going to hold me up on my present making. I still have dishcloths, a pair of glittens, two more scarves, a chicken toaster cozy, and something for my father. I am slowly making progress with them. I wish they were going faster. Pretty much I just need a day or two off to stay up and knit/crochet.