One back. One front. Two sleeves. One year. One happy knitter.

Next up - blocking, seaming, collar, cuffs. Expect a finished sweater by the weekend.

Wow - it’s been a while since I’ve posted. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything worthy of posting! Needless to say, there has not been a lot of knitting happening lately.

I was hoping to wait and post when I finished Salina, but unfortunately, the end of that sweater is not yet in sight. Here’s where I’m at… about 1/3 of the way through the last sleeve. Sleeves take a loooong time to knit! Especially on size 4 needles. I’m not going to be knitting another sweater on size 4 needles any time soon!

Since Salina is one of those seemingly never ending projects, I thought I should start a quick-and-easy pair of socks so that I actually finish something sometime this winter.

This is a plain old 64 stitch stockinette sock on size 1 ebony needles. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill, in Wild Cherry. It’s not quite as electric pink in person. I started this on Saturday night, and got just past the heel on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be done with the pair in a week or so, and can get back to the dreaded sleeve.

- Making sloooow progress on Salina. Less than one sleeve to go, plus finishing. Salina may see the light of day before spring arrives, if I’m lucky. I’d post pictures, but they wouldn’t be terribly interesting… red. stockinette. lots of red stockinette.
- I ran a mara-FUN on Sunday. 2.62 miles. Whee! And I felt like a total slacker at the end, because at that point, three of my friends were at about mile 11 of the California International Marathon. It was great to actually do the run and prove to myself that I could do it (and in a terrific-for-me time of 23:47), since I haven’t exactly been preparing for it. Now I’m having some crazy thoughts of training for a half-marathon in the spring and a full marathon in the fall. Apparently I have too much free time on my hands. Ha.
- Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. Only 19 more shopping days. Yikes. Thank goodness I’m not knitting for anyone!
- Finally, in the “I can’t believe I’m putting this on my blog for everyone in the world to read, but I think it’s important enough to openly discuss” category - I had my annual womanly doctor appointment today, and the nurse practitioner recommended that an IUD might be something for me to consider. I’ve spent the last hour and a half googling it, with very mixed results. There are some scary stories out there, but I love the idea of not having to think about it every day, and not being reliant on hormones that give me horrible acne and affect my moods. Anyone out there have any first hand experiences (good or bad) they’d be willing to share? If so, please comment or send me an e-mail (link is above, in my header). Thanks!

- I’m going to Stitches West in February, and taking a Norwegian knitting class. Can someone tell me the difference between Norwegian knitting and Fair Isle knitting? Anyone? Even Google hasn’t been able to give me a good answer. Perhaps I will have to wait until February to find out.

- I started the sleeves (ok, one sleeve) for Salina. The front and back have been done since earlier this year (March?), and I really want to finish the sweater so I can wear it.

- The unfortunate truth is that Salina probably won’t be finished before the end of the year. Work is really busy right now, which leaves precious little time for things like sleeping and eating, much less knitting or blogging.

- Grumperina posted pictures from Victorian Lace Today, which looks like a fabulous book. So much lace, so little time! Anyway, Christmas is coming, and I know that Santa reads my blog. So, Santa? I’d love this book for Christmas!

Whew! What a miserable couple of weeks it has been. But, I am elated to have it behind me, and now comes the torturous three month wait for my results. I have no idea how I did on the exam, but I honestly did the best I could, which, really, is all I could ask for.

Yesterday was the first day in nearly four years that I didn’t have to think about law or worry about studying. Boy, was it a good feeling! And, to make the day even better, it was Todd’s birthday. To celebrate, I scheduled an introductory pilot lesson for him as a birthday gift. He’s been tossing around the idea of getting his pilot’s license for a while now, and since I’m finally done with school, I figured it is now his turn to go off and make his dreams happen.

Here are some pictures of the flight. I got to ride along (!) in the back seat of the plane. Other than the take-off and landing, Todd flew the plane pretty much the whole time we were in the air, with the instructor telling him exactly what to do. Crazy!

I also managed to get a little knitting done (very little!) during study breaks the past two weeks. I forgave the Claudia socks and finished sock number two.

These socks are so soft! I highly recommend Claudia Handpainted sock yarn for those of you who like variegated yarns. It is soft, and lovely to knit with. If you don’t mind a little freaky pooling, it is luscious stuff. I won’t be using it again though, because I cannot get past the fact that two socks will inevitably pool differently and end up not matching. It drives me nuts! No more variegated sock yarn for me, other than the yarn already in my stash. Self-striping and solid colored yarns are the only sock yarns for me!

I treated myself to a bunch more sock yarn yesterday - including some for my Sockapaloooza pal - several skeins of Opal Gems merino in different solid colors. I haven’t picked out a pattern yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be using one of the stitch patterns from the Sensational Knitted Socks book.

I haven’t made much more progress on Salina. I cast on for the front, and knit the waistband plus the decrease section.

I think this will be my one of my red projects for Lolly’s Project Spectrum. I’m also going to knit a pair of socks out of the pretty pink and brown yarn that Dani gifted me during the Knitter’s Review Secret Pal exchange.

We’re heading off on our post-bar vacation tomorrow. Initially, we were planning on flying to Vancouver for a week, but due to astronomically priced plane tickets, we scaled down the trip and decided to drive up to Lake Tahoe and ski at Squaw Valley for 6 days instead. I’m looking forward to a fun week of skiing, knitting, and relaxing!

Oh, and I can’t forget to say thanks to everyone for the yarn suggestions after my last post! Everyone’s ideas were really helpful, and at some point I want to try all of the yarns you mentioned. And, I might actually be able to do so, since now I have ALL this extra time on my hands. :)

It all started with a swatch, really. You see, I had this yarn. Lovely, red yarn. And I was tired of knitting with tiny dpns. And the socks were turning out to be different colors, which was making me very unhappy. And, truth be told, I cannot focus on anything for more than, oh, 5 minutes these days.

And so, this lovely little swatch of cranberry Dale Sisik -

Suddenly became this -

Why, it’s a nearly finished Salina back! Bet you didn’t see that coming. Me either. I don’t imagine this sweater will be finished anytime soon, but I’m plugging away at a few rows each day. At least until I decide to forgive the Claudia socks for being different colors and pick up sock #2 again.