Rock out with your socks out

About a month or so ago, I was planning to buy a new laptop. After realizing that our tax refund wasn't going to be as big as I initially thought, I decided to put that off for a while. Maybe next year. Next year, maybe I'll get this.

On to the knittin'...

Finally finished those damn Gryffindor scarves for my labmates. They were certainly tedious, but they look real nice. Here's the one I made for Allison, who shares my office (two Allisons in one room! Hilarious!) It's freaking huge, but it'll serve her well when she's driving her scooter to campus on those lovely thirty-degree rainy mornings. Too bad I didn't finish it a week ago.

(I appear to have no arms in this picture. Creepy.)

Guess what? I finished my first-ever pair of socks! They're a bit wonky (and the photo's a bit blurry), but they're mine; therefore, they are awesome. Behold!

So, now that I'm addicted, I started a pair for Paul, too. I'm using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino: 55% merino, 33% microfiber, 12% cashmere, 100% yum. Harriet helped me with the cuff:

Where were you today, Harriet, when I turned the heel? Huh? WHERE WERE YOU?!?!?

Snowflake

As Paul mentioned, we planned a short trip to Lexington on Saturday to meet our new neice. She's remarkably gorgeous for someone who just spent nine months all smooshed up in a uterus. Some photos:

She slept for all but about five minutes of our visit, but I suppose it's tough to be a good hostess when you're only four days old. We're planning on making the trip again next weekend, as Paul's mom will be in town as well.

I finally had the chance to give Beth and Rod the baby blanket I finished a couple of months ago:

I don't have a good full-size image of it, but it's made of Bernat Cottontots, has a garter stitch edge, and is about the size of, well, a baby blanket.

In other knitting news, I'm working on a couple of Harry Potter Gryffindor scarves for people in my lab. I'm following this pattern in the interest of authenticity, which unfortunately means that it's taking forever and is relatively mindless knitting (thousands upon thousands of basic knit stitches with a color change every now and again). I'm also not a big fan of the yarn I'm using (some Bernat acrylic something-or-other), but it was cheap and the people I'm knitting for aren't that picky. It'll be nice to work with something soft after this... I'm thinking it may be sock season.

Wish you were here

Hello from Santa Fe!

It really is pretty here. And warm (comparatively), and sunny, and it smells of sage and mesquite. Today I took a break from attending talks like "A mesocosm and rototorque reactor approach for investigating effects of contaminants on biofilm communities from prairie aquatic ecosystems" and "Effects of fungal and bacterial interactions on leaf decomposition in stream microcosms" and walked around town for a bit. Some photos:

What doesn't kill me...

I'm taking a quick break from studying to mention that I'm still here. Busier than hell, but I'm still here. In addition to schoolwork (including homework for a class I'm not even officially taking... yeah, I know, but it's a good class), I've started a leaf litter decomposition study in a number of local springs (which means three full field days between this past Monday and next, plus lots and lots of lab work). And then there's the presentation I'm giving to the Salt River Watershed Watch tomorrow night, and grant proposals, and stressing about procedures for assessing microbial biomass and community composition on leaf disks and worrying about my graduate committee and research plans and everything else under the sun, and... thud. (That's the sound of me collapsing in an exhausted heap.) My trip to Santa Fe for the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting the week after next will be a welcome break. And yeah, even that's school-related.

Here's photographic evidence of how hardworking I've been lately:

Here I am retrieving a leaf bag from one of my study sites. The smudge on my butt is a lovely mixture of mud and bovine excrement. And no, said butt is not as huge in real life as it is in waders.

"If you were into ceramics, you'd be my Hairy Potter"

Seeing as this is the first post, I should probably write some sort of short introduction or note of welcome or the like. However, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to write about particularly nerdy things, either (though I suppose knitting can be nerdy... knerdy?) because I made a lot of things over the past couple of weeks and I'd rather discuss those than talk about research proposals and leaf litter decomposition experiments.

Here is the scarf I made for the National World War II Museum's Knit Your Bit campaign. It's a simple 3x3 rib in Lamb's Pride Worsted.

I had enough yarn left over to make Paul one of his own (though slightly different: it's narrower, is knit in 2x2 rib, and has wider stripes). Though he is not a World War II veteran, Paul does possess a shirt indicating that he is an "All-American Grandpa".


Here's a pair of Fetching fingerless gloves in Mission Falls 1824 Wool (merino superwash, yay!) I altered the pattern slightly -- I made them smaller (eight pattern repeats instead of nine) and skipped the picot edging. I think they turned out really well, especially considering this was my first time trying cables and only my second time using double-pointed needles. Plus, I learned a new cast on method.


Because I wanted to try short rows, I also made myself one of these Calorimetry hats. It turned out a bit bigger than I'd like, so I thought I might felt it, but it's ribbed, so I'm not sure if that'd work very well. The yarn (Patons Soy Wool Stripes) is really nice but would be a pain in the ass to frog, so the hat's just going to sit there for now, unphotographed.

Have a happy and healthy new year, everyone.