Just like most knitters, I love puns! Especially for my knitting projects. To me, a project isn't really finished unless it has a ridiculous name. These names usually are plays on the original names of the patterns. For example, my Southeast Village is named that because the original sweater by Josh Bennet is called East Village, but since I am from the South East of Florida/US I felt like it would be appropriate to name it after the region I am from.
In other cases I just like really bad puns. A prime example is my Not So Mal-Abrigo, malabrigo is the name of the yarn I used. In spanish malabrigo sort of translates into bad-sweater. The yarn is named after a sort of mythical place in Uruguay that is so cold you also have to be knitting to keep warm, according to an interview with the dyers. So the name of my ravelry project page is "Not so Bad-Sweater", and it is made out of bad-sweater yarn. Hehe...hehe.
If you ever feel the need to see a fair amount of ridiculous project names, you could really just look through my ravelry page. There are plenty.
I am about to add another, but I am kind of lacking inspiration for my most recent cast on project. I just cast on the cable guy sweater. That is the name of the original sweater pattern, and I feel really unoriginal calling it that. I guess that is the main reason why I feel the need to come up with bad puns, I really just want to be original and unique.
This is what it is going to end up looking like(except without the rolled collar, substitute in your head a one by one twisted rib) I am making it out of rowan lima and this is how far I have gotten so far.
It is going to end up really pretty, but I was feeling a major mental block when I tried to write this post, but I guess that is just silly.
Speaking of silly, here is something my mom wants me to make.
His name is Eco Eric, and he is a free little leaflet from rowan that my mom found in the yarn shop. She paid for the yarn, so I guess I'll go it.
So I finally wore my South East Village to school! It was kind of cold, and by that I mean that it was in the 50s with the wind chill on top of the Metro Rail platforms in the morning. But I still got to wear it! And I got a picture!
It was photobombed by my friend Josh, but I think it adds character to the picture.
It fits pretty well I think. The only thing that is sort of off about the sweater is the fact that because of the chest shaping, the added stitches are in stockinette while the main pattern is a slipped stitch pattern that pulls the fabric in vertically. This makes a lot of excess fabric on the sides underneath the armpits. I think I can block it out the next time I wash the sweater. Of course that won't happen for a while since there isn't a high probability of it getting much wear soon.
I feel like such a preppy guy with the sweater and the collared shirt underneath!
Stay fierce and preppy!
I always get this awesome feeling when my friends wear my yarn creations. Especially when they are just fooling around with one of my weirdly shaped scarves. If you are involved in the yarn world, for the most part, triangle scarves seem pretty normal, they are a fun shape to make and are a great platform for interesting designs. But to normal people, they are the most mysticizing thing. Triangle scarves are an enigma that they will never understand. This becomes quite an issue when I bring my large collection of what I call "kerchief-triangle scarf-thingey-doobers", like my 22.5 degrees scarfs. They are probably one of my favorite accessories. To my friends they are very exotic scarves. They simply have no idea what to do with them.
As evidenced by my friend who turned into a bandit when he saw my scarf.
This is the witch Stephanie!
But it is so endearing to see them having fun with my scarves, but the thing my friends love the most are my blankets. While we at Allstate(as seen in my post Allstate Post), my blankets were much appreciated. Whenever I get the chance I'll take a picture of my friends being ridiculous with my blankets.
To me, pictures like these are the cutest things my friends can appreciate my crocheting and knitting. I hope if my knitting can do something, it can make people feel warm and cozy and make them giggle a little when they see these pictures.
Stay fierce and fabulous!
If you have been with my for a while(or have taken the time to read the back logs) I talked about my audition in this post and I revealed that I got into the reading choir in this post about my concert. I like to keep continuity this is going to be a recap of all the awesome stuff I did, and I will start with at the beginning.
Tuesday: I spent most of Tuesday just being in this stupor of excitement of all the fun I would have Allstate. I would leave tomorrow at eight in the morning and I could barely contain myself, when I got home after school I spent the rest of the night planning out all of my outfits out for the next five days and that is always tons of fun. I back for 7 days because you never know if you are going to need it.
I also had to pack my yarn, but I could not decide what I wanted to bring with me. I had just cast off a vanilla sock and I cast on the second one and knitted like two rows of ribbing, but those are in a red and didn't excited me too much. I made sure to pack the blanket I started for my brother, but that didn't excite me much either. In the end I realized that I wasn't going to get much knitting done so I just stuck with these two projects(foreshadowing).
Wednesday: I woke up super early so I could ride the metro rail up to downtown where the bus was supposed to be there by 7:45 and we were suposed to be on the road by 8. I knew we weren't going to leave on time, but I thought that was because a student would be late. My mom and I made sure I was there much too early, around 7:10 am. The bus didn't get there until 8:30. All of the students were there on time, but the bus was super duper late. Alas, it wasn't to bad, even though the driver was kind of awful. We got there in a reasonable amount of time. We usually leave around 12 to get to allstate, but one of the instrumentalists had a rehearsal at 2. We were worried that she would get to her rehearsal late, but we got there right on time. We only had to wait in the bus for 2 hours for the teachers to get registered and to set up the college's booth for the convention. After that we had to wait in the bus for another hour before getting into our rooms. I ended up rooming with two cellos, a double bass, and three instrumentalists.
After we got settled my two best friends and I went exploring around the hotel. Tampa is gorgeous, absolutely beautiful. At least the part we are in is. The hotel is right on the water, I am pretty sure it is an inter coastal water way, but it the same water that the cruise ships dock at in Tampa.
Here is a ridiculous picture, but see how pretty the water is!
My best friend stephanie, who I have mentioned pretty frequently on the blog, and I got married recently(of course facetiously, but we are close enough that we would probably get married if there weren't minor things preventing that). We decided for our fictional marriage we needed to have a honey moon, and thus it was that all state was our honey moon!
I love Steph so much, and I just think this picture is so representive of our relationship over the past 4 years, there are lots of trees and trashcans in the way, but we hold hands either way.
After our little exploration we went to dinner at a nicely redone Sports Bar, and I had a delicious panini. We then headed back to the hotel where we had a meeting with our choir director and talked about our rehearsals. After that we walked across a bridge and went to publix and got tons of food, mostly breakfast food and oreos.
This is essentially what I had for breakfast every single day of all state, yummers!
Thursday: Today is the first day of rehearsals, but first the people in Reading Choir and Concert Choir has to go to a "leadership seminar". It wasn't too bad, at worst it was a little preachy in some parts, but over all it was bearable. I wish I had brought my knitting though.
After that is the first rehearsal and the conductor was pretty awesome, Dr. Z. Randall Stroope. How cool is it to have a first initial, maybe I should start doing that, A. Jacob Wadle. Sounds pretty cool. The rehearsal is essentially just sight reading a giant pile of music. A ton of fun.
The rehearsals are at the Embassy Suites, which is a ton taller than the hotel I stayed at. It has an elevator that faces in and I could not resist going all the way up to the 20th floor.
We then had dinner at five and headed back for more rehearsing. Basically all the same thing, made some new friends and all that jazz.
Friday: The concert was that night, so we have an rehearsals basically all day that day. It is getting pretty tiring on my voice, it is hard to have good technique when you are paying attention to notes and rhythms.
The people in reading choir, just me and my other best friend Sofia had to have a really quick lunch and I still had to get dressed for the concert and do my makeup, so I had a delicious sub and to save time I put the goldfish I would have eaten separately into my sandwich I normally put crackers in my sandwiches to add some texture, but I have never tried putting goldfish into them. I got lots of weird looks, but it was delicious. I got dressed and we did our make up together, so we looked super pretty!
Me and Sofia(ain't she pretty!)
The concert turned out pretty nice, we sang four songs, three of which we sang for the first time in the past two days, and the fourth was something we only saw the cover of.
Turned out pretty nice!
It has been a tradition since my freshman year to go to this Greek Restaurant called Opa! It is always so much fun! We get to dance on tables and there is a belly dancer, and it is just the best time!
All of the vocalists
A clear shot of my butt
Aren't I such a good dancer
Just us booty shaking on a table
I had an awesome time dancing for probably the first time in my life, so this was a major success!
Saturday: This was the last full day of being in Tampa and Sofia and I meant to use it to our fullest! We started out by sight reading with our teachers at a little seminar and then we said good bye to all of the friends we made. I couldn't believe how cool all of these people were!
After that we went publix to get some lunch and we just talked. After lunch we met up some instrumentalists at the hotel and they brought down their double bass and jammed around the piano while Sofia and I played cards with some other new friends.
After a while we got bored and started making some card houses, pretty good for super slippery cards
Later that day we watched the women's choir and the mixed choir sing. They were pretty good, the most enjoyable part is the inevitable faintings, this year there was only one, but still pretty funny!
During the day the chaperons went to publix and got a feast of brownies and oreos and cupcakes. And after the concerts we got pizza and had a sleep over feast. Eventually me, Steph and Sofia got bored of the underclassman watching twilight and headed back to her room and listened to music and eventually slept.
Sunday: We headed out at 9 in the morning, all of us extremely sad for leaving Tampa, but happy for the experiences.
Now I am just left with a lot of new friends, memories and a pile of sheet music I have no idea what to do with.
So before the break my brother got his early decision letter from his top school for secondary education Drexel University in Philadelphia!I don't usually make very many things for my brother, mainly because he doesn't wear many knitted things, but I thought to repay him for dealing with my constant rehearsing in my room I would make him a blanket. Not just any blanket, but a blanket in drexel colours, those being blue and yellow.
I knew the only yarn that would survive college life would be red heart super saver, so I started off with that and found bright shades of blue and yellow perfect for this blanket and for college. The next step was to pick the pattern because I was definitely getting bored of granny squares. The first thing I thought was what is his favorite shape? I asked him, and because he is a smart ass he said a dodecahedron, and I restricted the conditions to regular polygons and he said he really likes hexagons, being that he is an architecture student. I scoured my queue because I remembered seeing a blanket with hexagon motifs, and I found the Hexagonal Blanket. It is so simple and nice and I started up on the blanket and it is turning out awesome. I haven't picked out a name for yet, I was thinking either "the sexagon blanket", but for now it is just the Hexagonal Throw.
I have two and a half squares done out of 18, so I better get working.
Stay fierce and fabulous!
As far as 2013 goes, I kind of want to work with a lot more colour. 2012 wasn't exactly drab, but as far as my accessories were concerned, definitely not sure colourful. My blankets were pieces of amazing colour, but my hats and scarves and sweaters were just not super exciting in the colour department. So I have decided to start 2013 off right with my Confetti Barf Scarf. Despite the negative connotations associated with the word "Barf" I actually really like this colour way.
Ella Rae-Lace Merino colour way #102
It is so much fun and it knits up super nice. I hasn't been pooling or flashing in ways that make me anxious.
The pattern is knitting up really interestingly. The pattern is basically three short row triangles with a border, and for its simplicity, it is surprising fun to knit, seeing the rows get shorter and shorter so gradually. I just started the third triangle, so now I just have to blast through it and knit the border, hopefully I can finish it before allstate so I can show it off in Tampa.
Stay fierce and fabulous
Screw resolutions, mine are going to be revolutions! Prepare for life altering changes(yay for redundancy)! I really don't think I am going to be revolutionary, but I think I can try to keep up with the changes I wrote about in my Rosh Hashanah post. I owe you guys an update.
Here are all the resolutions 1. Start reading more real literature 2. Crochet more for charities 3. Make sure to be on top of homework, junior year is not the time to slack off. 4. Be a leader for the tenor section you are now leading. 5. Exercise more/do that 5k 6. Learn more and lessen other's suffering And here is how they are going 1. Ehhh, not very good on this one. I got a kindle for Christmas, so I'll definitely be doing more reading, but I am not promising any high literature. I guess I should amend that to say read more. 2.I did ok, made a good like 20 hats, but I think I should do some more in the new year. I got to rack up those service hours. 3. Pretty good, only got one B last quarter, and I think I am doing ok this quarter, except for that B in AP chemistry, but it doesn't look like it is going anywhere. 4. I guess I am doing ok, we have definitely gotten better, but the real test of that is coming up when we do the Children's Mass by John Rutter. Although my personal progress as a singer has been pretty good, but I still need to get those boys in order. 5. Kind of sorta, junior year is pretty busy. I am not going as far or fast as I was after the first nine weeks, but I didn't have as much time, but now that the concert is over I am going to get back on that horse. 6. This is my life motto basically. Helped some people out and gotten quite a few dogs adopted, so that has got to mean something. So I have some amending to do, I don't really have any more resolutions. I might want to bake some more, but that is pretty much it. I think this summer I want to knit some more lace shawls Stay fierce and fabulous
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
