With Two Hours to Spare

I finished the sweater two hours early, as the fireworks boom outside my window. It is done, in only like 5 days! I can barely believe it!

Here it is before I sewed up the hood and wove in the ends. I feel like a lot of my sweaters are like the Sasquatch, a lot of people don't believe they exist, and the only proof I have is a really grainy picture. I still haven't taken any pictures of my South East Village. I will definitely get some pictures when I go up to allstate! I promise I will.
Stay fierce and fabulous and safe on this New Years Eve!

Race to the Finish Line

On the 26th of December(the second day of Christmas) I started the Hacky Sack Hoodie. I got the yarn, Lamb's Pride worsted weight in a rich shade of blue eerily similar to the tardis, for this project about a year ago. I couldn't find enough of the tardis blue, I decided some coordinating cuffs were in order, and this icy blue whispered so subtly to me, "I would love to be in that sweater". I couldn't say no, well I could have but the two colours went well together. And these yarns are now forming the Tardish Blue Sweater

When I started it I was only thinking to make a new sweater, but as I raced through the gauge swatch, I realized that this could go really quickly. 

I zipped through the hood, and I join in the round and got through all of the raglan increases like *that*.

 I raced through sleeve number one...

 and number two and now I am onto the body. This is it, I could finish this sweater before the end of the year. My last 2012 project, this is it!

I shall update you as the progress occurs.

Stay fierce and fabulous 

Christmas Knitting!

So I know it is kind of late, but here is a run down of all my Christmas knitting.

Little Feather and Fan

Cute little hat

A small feather and fan hat that I gave to my god-sister, she loved it. It is made out of wool ease in this pretty little rosie pink colour.

Here is the little lady modeling it. Cute!

Steph's Hat
So like the bestest friend ever I made a hat with a giant pom pom on it for my best friend, because everyone needs a hat with a giant pom pom on it. She loves it, but I don't think you can fully grasp how big this pom pom is, I don't even think a picture could really explain how big this pom pom is.

She is going to love wearing it in Tampa for allstate this year

Assorted Hats for Best Friend Group
Because I am an awful person I didn't get pictures of the rest of my friends with their hats. So there are three other hats, one for Rey, one for Valerie, and one for Amanda(who wasn't at school so it isn't my fault). So I guess I should tease you, so here is the link and here is the picture:

Cheyenne's Scarf
As you will remember from my Cheesy Thanksgiving Day Post, Cheyenne is amazing. When I saw pale lavender tweed with flecks of gray, and it screamed to me to be made into a circle scarf.

Purl Ridge Scarf

 I have psychic connections with yarn by the way. I used to think everyone had this connection with inanimate objects. I hear from a lot more than yarn, but that is what talks the loudest to me. So in this case the yarn yelled at me in a sweet British accent and said, and I quote, "Stephen West is such a darling, I think you should make me into his purl ridge scarf. That would be perfect, darling". I knew in that second, partly from the British accent, that Cheyenne would love it.

So that is basically all of my knitting for other people to be given to them for Christmas. Now I am working on my Christmas Break knitting/crochet(a little clue for my plans)
Stay fierce and fabulous

Birthday Socks Turn Christmas Socks

Every year(and by this I mean for the past two years) I go to New York City with my family during the first week of August because it is the only week that everyone in my nuclear family has off, so my mom, my dad, my brother and I head up to some family trip and lately it has been to NYC. You will remember from my post about the ravellenic games that I was going up to New York for a little bit. If you read carefully you will remember how awful the train ride was, but we went to my favorite yarn store, Knitty City and I got a lot of yarn. Now I won't go into the specifics of most of what I got, but I will talk about this particular skein of yarn.

I got myself one of the most beautiful skeins of Dream in Colour Smooshy with Cashmere ever. It is this deep variegated greens I have ever seen. Every year(and I repeat, in the past two years), I get myself a little extra birthday treat of sock yarn. I call them my "Birthday Sox", pun intended. Last year I got this saturated blue-teals with streaks of black throughout it, and they are again with smooshy with cashmere. I always love wearing them. They are like a treat. 

So usually my socks take a super long time, especially my birthday sox, mainly because the smooshy is a little thicker and not as very easy to knit with. Regardless, it makes a gorgeous and soft sock. Last year's pair socks weren't finished until February of 2012, but this time I finished them on Christmas Day, so now they are Christmas sox.

They could be considered a little festive, but they fit super nicely.

Eventually I will tell all of you about my Christmas knitting, but I have to get pics, so it might be a little bit, I hope this will satiate your deep hunger for the details of my knitting life.

Stay fierce and fabulous

Christmas at New World

So Friday was the 21st, and according to the history channel, the end of the world. I guess it wasn't but it was still pretty significant for me. It was the last day of school before the new year. Here are some pics from the day:

Lemon sugar cookies from cheyenne

putting those balloons to good use

I also happened to do some baking the night before, GINGER BREAD COOKIES FOR EVERYONE!! and I also brought a can of frosting just to keep the mood light

A correctly labeled star

Everyone really loved their cookies, they were pretty tasty, I made gingerbread men, christmas trees, reindeer and stars. They came out pretty bubbly but I still loved them and so did a lot of other people.

Besides cookies, the day was filled with watching movies, relaxing, seeing alumni, blowing up balloons in the science lab and finally the choir Secret Santa  I love Secret Santa, for the uninitiated it is a little tradition where each person in the choir, including our director and the voice teachers and our accompanist, are assigned a person to get a gift for and they are supposed to leave clues for the person. This year's was awesome like usually is. It was an awesome end to an awesome day. My Secret Santa is amazing and she is a pretty good friend, she actually got me somethings very awesome

Two pairs of socks(I specifically asked for socks btw and I love them) and two balls of yarn that are really cute.

So this is not all the christmas spirit, but to satisfy you before I make a post about my christmas knitting and my christmas day food I shall share a shameless selfie.

Post Concert Feelings

So the past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. Mostly just stressful and frustrating. Mainly just frustrating. I had the New World Choir Holiday Concert on last Thursday, and it was pretty crazy. Concerts are usually stressful even without after school rehearsals and new music a couple of weeks before the concert. A lot of people are in their church choir or the choir in the middle school, but this is a pretty big deal. It is one of the best attended events for the school and because of our amazing new Dean of Music, we are back on WLRN(our local PBS, basically public broadcasting). Last year, because of the cuts to WLRN's budget we weren't able to record the show and air it, but because of our amazing parent booster club, and the dean's advocacy we are back on. If you are in the Miami area, we are airing on December 22 at 7 PM. I hear that it is being syndicated for the rest of Florida, but make sure you check your local listings.

Now that I am done with that shameless plug I can share some pictures of the concert. There is a phenomenon in teenagers recently to take enumerable amount of self pictures, what they call "selfies". I kind of blame this on the advent of front facing cameras on iphones. These selfies have always existed, but I feel like have gotten worse. As a result of this resurgance of self pictures I have developed a new technique to get around looking ridiculous(a little too late for that). They are what I call "usies". You just take all of your selfies with your friends and you don't look as self indulgent.

Me and my friend Chantal, we are so excited for the concert

Here is me and chantal looking all posh

You can tell that some of us like our uniforms more than others

look at these pretty faces

And duck faces are pretty cute too!

Now I just have to look forward to juries :)

Blankie Feelings

So I recently, as of 6 days ago, finished my Circley Blanket of Wonderfulness, and I have been bringing it to school, here are some pictures:

Thomas modeling it as what he calls "Mermaid Hair"

This is Josh modeling the front(and thanks for a perfect photobomb Savannah)

And here is the back, pretty cool right?

And finally here is a shameless selfie(what we teenagers call pictures of yourself)

I was carrying it around for a couple of days during this week, and it made me really think about what it is like to do this, and how weird it is that I am carrying a blanket around school. I am sure all of you reading think that I am pretty weird for doing that, but at my school I am the norm. A fair population of the school is daily wearing pajamas to school, and not bringing a blanket is kind of weird. Of course I am still pretty unique because I make my own blankets. But it is still kind of odd to see a bunch of teenagers walking, more like strutting, around downtown Miami with blankets in pajamas. I feel like a super sassy Lionel from The Peanuts except with super fabulous hand made blankets.

So I guess that is the end of the story. When I bring my blankie to school, I am instantly transformed into a fabulous Lionel, not too bad.
Stay fierce and fabulous

A Lace Shawl and a Horse

Just checking in real quick, a little micro blog to detail the awesome thing that happened to me today.

I met a horse!
It was so awesome, I was walking to class from lunch and there was a horse cop in a little cafe(I could tell by his fabulous boots) and I saw the horse and asked him I could take a picture, and there I am. It was a super nice horse though, really friendly.

As you can also see I am wearing a bright blue lace shawl. In fact it is my Blue Omlet shawl that I knitted back in March. It was really interesting wearing a lace shawl, but I got a ton of compliments. I regret none of knit wear. It is also super soft and kind of wonderful.

I also just happened to finish a pair of socks just a few minutes ago, and I know what pair I will be wearing tomorrow.

Stay fierce and fabulous

Thanks-Knitting Weekend

Thanksgiving is a pretty fun holiday. I don't have an unusually large family, or at least one that my parents chose to acknowledge. So any celebration is limited to the parents, my brother and me, and sometimes the grandmothers. This year we decided to celebrate this food filled holiday by going to Disney World in Orlando with my God-family(that is basically the family friends that are practically family). So started on the three hour drive on Thursday morning and we got there around 12, and ate some lunch. It is on that three hour drive that I got a ton of knitting done.

So I haven't really written about my knitting in a while, partly because I wasn't really doing anything interesting in my opinion, but now I some interesting things to share.
I finished the front of my Southeast Village Sweater today and seamed my first sleeve to it, so now I have a sweater with one sleeve and no neck treatment blocking on the blocking mat on the murphy bed downstairs. It is kind of awesome seeing it pull together. This is the longest a sweater has taken me. If you can remember or read in the archives), I started this sweater in June! That is kind of a long time ago.

I also happened to finish the second sleeve of my sweater two hours ago, and it looks pretty good. There is an in-progress shot.

I also got some knitting done on a sock that has been in progress for a while, but it is pretty nice. As a whole I got a fair amount of knitting on several pairs of socks that I kind of need to get off the needles so I can wear them. I need some more socks, I am getting bored of the 15 pairs I already have.

That is some regia sock yarn, just one of a billion colour ways. It is pretty though.

I also got some work on my annual pair of "Birthday Sox", a shameless pun that started last year with birthday sox. It is out of dream in colour smooshy with cashmere. It is pretty soft and nice, hopefully I will finish them faster than the last pair, but as of now, that is doubtful.

I also worked on these for like ten minutes, but I don't think that really counts.

I also got some work on my circle blanket done. It is almost finished, I basically have three rounds left and I can not wait to finish it, and snuggle with Cheyenne in it during class. I also have a little anecdote about it from this week. I was sitting in my English class working on it, and the really cute boy who sits behind me who always ogles over my knitting and crocheting said that it looks like mermaid hair. I just thought I would share that.

Continuing on the theme of anecdotes, I was snuggling with my best friend on the train under my gay blanket, which brings a fair amount of attention to me on a usual basis. As we were getting ready to get off the train, the lady sitting on the seat opposite us asked me where I bought it, and I told her that I had made it, and she complimented me saying how pretty it was. And I thanked and said with a straight face, "oh it is for gay pride" and she nodded and smiled and said that was nice. It might have been a miscommunication  we were at our stop and about to get off, and not the most opportune time to talk about the intricacies of granny square blankets. It made a great story to tell all of my GSA members.

This is a picture of my locker and how it looks on a daily basis. It is quite a fun sight to see, but my jellyfish is squished behind it and that always makes my day.

Stay fierce and fabulous people,
Comrade Yarnman

Cheesy Thanksgiving Post

I am inspired today by a mountain of very sweet youtube videos talking about what they are thankful for this holiday. They are all really cute and very endearing. It just makes me extremely happy to see that people can slow down for a little bit and remind themselves of why they should be happy. I'll try to have as few cliches as I can.

I decided I am going to organize this post very haphazardly, just how I like it.

Let's start with the women in my life that I am thankful for, I love these amazing women so much I made a collage and put it on instagram. That is precisely how to tell how sincere a teenager is, just look at that social network.

Starting from the left, that is me and my beautiful friend Cheyenne. My favorite junior probably ever. I couldn't tell you how awesome she is. It would end being a fifteen page proof with lots of diagrams. Maybe I will end up writing my doctoral dissertation on how absolutely awesome she is. For one through a billion, she is beautiful. For a billion and two, she loves sweaters just like me. For a billion and three, she is the sweetest person in existence. I am super thankful for her being my friend in first period and fangirling with me

Then starting from the top, that is my best straight best friend(since I have the designation of her best gay best friend). She has been with me since the beginning, like eighth grade. She is super awesome, and I can't wait to continue being best best friends. I am super thankful to her for doing all those duets with me and dealing with my indifference and general angry sassyness.

Next is Amanda, my extra spectacular friend. Thanks for dealing with my drama and staying my friend all through it all, and making one of my friends so happy.

And last of that photoset is my Mommy. She is kind of the most perfect human being ever. She deals with my irritability and loves me anyway. She also accepted me for who I am when a lot of people even nowadays would not. She also keeps me in line when I say ridiculous things. She lets me experiment in my thought with her and listens to my crazy thoughts when I just brain fart to her. I am so thankful that she wakes me up in the morning and drives me to school and that means so much.

I am lastly super grateful for my new kitty, pumpkin. She is so cutely and lovely. I never really thought I would be a cat person, but maybe I am. Or maybe I just really like my cat and that is it. I think I would feel the same way about having children. Granted I really don't like children, so probably not, plus a cat is really different than a human child.

Alas, those are a few things I am thankful for this thanksgiving. I really feel like I should sign these off somehow to have a sense of closure for these posts. ok let's try...

Stay fierce and fabulous people,
Comrade

NEW FAMILY MEMBER!

Hey guys! Meet my new family member, Pumpkin!

She is a cat my parents found in a tree. We rescued her and she is actually pretty nice. Most cats don't like my mom, but this one does. So when my parents brought her home, I was a little skeptical, but it turns out she is extremely affectionate. I fell in love at first purrrrrr!

She seems pretty young and relatively healthy, so my parents were worried that she has an owner that is looking for her, so they decided to visit out Vet and see if she is chipped. It turns out she is, and the chip is linked to an unregistered number. Which is fantastic because everyone in my family loves her.

And she really likes my dog Sparkle. My family really likes seasonal names for our pets. We got Sparkle in July of 2003, so I was like 6 and it is a better name than Lucky. That is my excuse and I am sticking with it

They have such similar colouring, they were meant to be!

She is already geeking out with me watching Star Trek: Next Generation.
My dad is saying that she fell out of the sky and fell into the tree. Of course this is ludicrous, but I still really like her and do think that it was a wonderful happenstance. We are so happy to have you in our family Pumpkin!

BOOK FAIR!

So yesterday was the Miami Book Fair International. Because I go to the most awesome high school ever, and I mean EVUH because I am a teenager who likes exaggerating, I get to have an extended lunch and I get to shop around the book fair because it is right on the Wolfson Campus. It is the most fun, not just for the books but the delicious food, as well as the excellent people watching opportunities. So I assure you I had some some delicious fair food, like some turkey leg and I also had a delicious arepa.

There is always an inordinate amount of free crap, I mean stuff, that is given out at fair things in Downtown. I am sure this isn't unique to Miami. Either way there were about five stations sponsored by target within the 3 square blocks that made up the book fair that were handing out free makeup bags with a ton of cosmetic things that just continue to oppress women telling them that their natural skin will never be good enough and that the only way they will be pretty is if they use that stuff. Either way I got three of those. They were also handing out moist toilets to random people, I was sure cleanse my face of the oil and sweat from the 80 degree weather.

I also got to hit up some used book shops and it was pretty awesome. Most of my friends aren't big readers and neither am I, but there are some things that I tend to fan girl over, and those are science fiction and regular old science books. I saw a good amount of Kurt Vonnegut and I had to get some, he is one of my favorites. Plus some Tolstoy, I thought I should be a little more educated.

The super amazing thing about book fair is the children's section. It is really awesome seeing all the little kids being bused in and how excited they looked. Plus they have a lot of the classic characters of really awesome books out there taking pictures. For example:

Clifford the Big Red Dog(and some of my best friends, including that turkey leg)

Bernstein Bear and my long-time fake girlfriend
And my most favorite of all:

Curious George, because he is so amazing, and we are basically twins. Excluding the fact that I look awful in red.

Super Amazing Week

So this was one of my favorite weeks ever. I suppose I should detail the whole week, but according to FCAT essay writing styles I should provide an overview of my week in my introduction. But I am rebel. So it basically started with a birthday and ended with a birthday, both of two very important people in my life.

So what I am calling my "Phantasmagorical Week of Epicness" started on last Saturday with the celebration of my godbrothers birthday. He is essentially family and he is currently going to college in Tampa. We ate at this super awesome(and expensive) Japanese place called Samurai. It is really cool, they have the chef's prepare the food in front of you on a heated stove, it probably isn't real Japanese food, but it is still really delicious.

Here is a little message to my readers made out of fried rice. Yum.
After that I saw wreck-it Ralph, and it was super amazing, one of my favorite animated movies of this year. I have to say Jane Lynch and Sarah Silverman are both perfect people.

Monday was an excellent day, school was very relaxed and since I have election day off, I went out to the movies and I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was absolutely amazing. I really cannot handle how amazing it is. It is raw and emotional and touching. It really hits you at your core, and discusses teen issues refreshingly and clearly without being cliche. After that I got some amazing frozen yogurt, and it was absolutely amazing.

Tuesday was quite a day. I guess I should stop talking about politics, it is just kind of hard when so much is riding on this election. I usually am not very partisan, but when it comes to our President I am in full support because he is the first president to openly support equality for the LGBT community. Of course that isn't the only reason. I am also a very hard leftist when it comes to economics, and to be honest, President Obama hasn't been far enough to the left. But this is another issue that I don't think my blog that is mainly about knitting is appropriate to discuss.

Speaking of inappropriately discussing politics, one of my conservatives friends was complaining about how she feels scared to post her beliefs on Facebook for fear of people attacking them, because most of my high school is very liberal. Since when has the internet been a good place to have thoughtful discussions, especially Facebook when it is filling with hyperbolizing and melodramatic teenagers, and this is coming from one of the most dramatic of them all. Now that the election is over I can finally relax.

Not to mention...WE WON...the liberals won some things, like marriage equality in two states and legalized marijuana in Colorado. Plus we have the largest number of women in the Senate in all time. All of this is awesome, so I am pretty damn excited for me. But now that the election is over I can talk about my knitting and crocheting.

So finished a sleeve two weeks ago for my Southeast Village sweater, and I started on seaming up the sides, and as I was nearing the end of the right seam on the body, I realized I did one less repeat on the front than I did on the back so I ripped it out and now I finished the body I am working on the armhole shaping.

So I started working on a scarf a while back, and by started, I mean I cast it on and knitted two rows. I decided that I wanted a really masculine longish scarf. So I thought the most masculine would be a grey tweedy scarf in garter stitch, and thus I created the Hetero-Scarfual, I haven't taken any pictures of it finished, but it is for sure done, and it is super warm. When I was watching Perks, the theater got super cold and I needed something to keep be warm, and lucky for me I had my scarf.

The real fun starts with the afghan I started this week. After I finished my pride afghan, which absolutely everyone loves. I actually brought it to school the day after the election in celebration of Maine and Maryland legalizing same-sex marriage. But anyway, after I had finished it I felt a little lost without a blanket on the hooks, so I headed over to Joanns and picked out yarn for my Circley Blanket of Wonderfulness

It is basically a stripey circle of double crochet increasing 12 stitches every round. I am using Lionbrand homespun because I like sharing my blankets with my friends and acrylics are the best for that in case of wool allergies.

Better Weather and Friends

As all my friends say "Sweater weather is better weather"

As you all know, I live in the swamp at the southern tip of Florida called Miami. Most of the time it is hot and humid. Normally I sweat just walking up the stairs to my first period class. It is well into fall, but only last week did it get cold, and by cold I mean it got below 65 degrees Fahrenheit, so not that cold, but most definitely cold enough for hand knit sweaters. I thought I might share some of these pictures with you, starting with my outfit yesterday.

that is my Turn a Square Hat, and my pretty friend making faces.

Here is earlier in the week with my best friend steph on the train. If you can actually see it, I am wearing my Wash Sweater

Aren't my friends beautiful, especially Cheyenne :)