Finished Object Friday the Sixth!

 I did it! I finally finished the Gryffindor scarf!

I love how it turned out! In fact I'm already planning on making another one (in Ravenclaw colors though) for myself. For mine I'll probably do another K1P1 like I did with the Slytherin scarf though; knitting in the round is simple and easy, but it uses up SO much arm and takes so long! This scarf alone used six skeins of lion brand! It seemed like the K1P1 scarf went by much quicker and used less yarn (9 skeins, but the Knit Picks skeins were much much smaller than Lion Brand's)

By the time I finished it, the scarf was longer than I was tall! (I meant to get a picture of it, but it totally slipped my mind.) It was also wide enough to fit over my husband's head without any stretching. Sheesh! (Note to self, make it narrower next time...)

Since it was knit in the round it's very thick and warm but I don't know if my former co-worker will get a chance to wear it at all since it's 80 degrees here right now (I apologize to my friends who live in colder climates and are probably thinking 'go ahead, just rub it in!' That is not my intention at all. I actually hate this sudden weather change - not two days ago it was nice and wet and raining and now, it's hot and dry. My sinuses are NOT happy at the moment)


Now, to finish the baby blanket!

 

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WIP Wednesday the Thirty Sixth..

Work on the baby blanket has been halted because I am SO close to finishing the Gryffindor scarf! SO CLOSE!

(The last yellow stripe)

(The beginning of the last red stripe!)

Will I finish it by Friday? I guess you'll have to come back and see! 

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Finished Object Friday the Fifth!

The yarn I needed to finish my husband's scarf came in last week - and it was a perfect match in color, weight, and texture! So the weekend was spent putting the finishing touches on his scarf... and...

TA DA! It's done! Only took me 6 months (man I am a SLOW knitter!) and I'm ashamed to admit I'm already planning on making another scarf - this time it'll be in ravenclaw colors with a slip stitch edging...

I also finished reading another book this week - that's four in one week! Granted, most of them were under 300 pages, so they were quick reads, but still. I think I need to slow down on reading a bit...

Check out more Finished Objects at Tami's Amis!

WIP Wednesday the Thirty Fifth...

Sorry for not updating last week - I've been adjusting to my new schedule at work, and just didn't do a lot of knitting or crocheting. This week I managed to make some progress!

I'm currently only two yellow rows and two red rows away from finishing the scarf. At the same time I'm worried that it may be too short and look awkward. It's a long scarf, but it's also pretty wide so I feel like it should be longer. I guess I'll decide when I hit 10 red rows and go from there.

I've started the second repeat of the pattern on the baby blanket:

I really like how it's turning out.

I've also done a bit of writing:

I've realized I don't mind writing old school style - I just don't like doing it in pen because there's no way to edit except to cross out stuff... and then if you don't like a lot of what you've done, you end up with a page full of black swirls.

On other fronts I'm now flying solo at work. I'm still running to my coworkers for help when I have tough problems (which feels like 99.9% of the time) but they're really happy with how I'm doing, and they keep complimenting me on how professional I am - which is a big change from my former job. I love it.

I've also caught up on my reading. I finished Autumn: the City, which is a zombie-esque novel, yesterday. The premise is that most of the population is suddenly killed by an unknown virus within minutes while a select few aren't affected at all and watch as their friends and families die around them in horror. The survivors try to band together, but then the dead come back to life, and slowly, over time become more and more aggressive. The first Autumn book was about the survivors out in the countryside and small towns. This second one focused mostly on the survivors left in the city and their struggle to get to safety.

I also finished The Poison Diaries. I had seen this young adult book while the husband and I were visiting Alnwick, and was intrigued, but opted not to spend the money on it at the time. Over the weekend I was looking around on my nook and lo and behold, the ebook version was available for only a couple of dollars! It's set in Victorian era England, and starts off well, but the ending was a bit confusing. There's a second book in the series, but it's not as cheap as the first one yet, so I'll have to wait for awhile before I buy it.

I hope the rest of your projects are going well, and that you've also found some interesting books to read!

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Happy New Year!

Some truly wonderful things happened last year: I got married, I went on a wonderful honeymoon, I have a new job with a company that I really like and some pretty awesome coworkers, and I continue to have and hang out with some of the best friends in the world.

But there was also a lot of bad: I lost my Grandma H, and one of my closest friends. I was let go by a company I thought I'd be with forever, and I found out that my Aunt was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and we still don't know what's going on with my other Grandma. (Not that that will stop her, as I'm pretty sure she will out live us all!) Also a lot of my friends had some really hard times too. I think this is the first year in memory where almost everyone I knew went 'Oh, 2011 is almost over with?! Thank God!!!'

This year I plan to continue working on loosing weight and getting in better shape. I have a couple of really good incentives to do so - namely the zombie obstacle course that's supposed to be coming to Southern California soon. I plan to continue working on my knitting skills and branching out to more complicated projects. I also plan to finish a story for once!

So here's to 2012! As my husband said last night, 'May she be a damned sight better than the old one'