Sweaters Galore

Today is cast-on day for my favorite annual knit-along! Very Shannon's Summer Sweater KAL! I look forward to it every year and plan way, way too many sweaters. This year is no different, except that I'm going to finish all of my sweaters-in-progress first. First-ish. ;) I will allow myself one new sweater as I work on the others.

I have some gorgeous alpaca for Ginny's Cardigan and a trip home next week that will afford me some time to get a start on it (and finish up the Narcissa Socks from the same magazine...and look like a big ol' HP nerd going home again ;]).

I'm looking forward to having a whole host of new sweaters from my pile of knitted stuff beside the futon. I hope it all works out like I plan!

Do you care to join? You can knit any sweater you like! There are great prizes, amazing sponsors, helpful posts, and a huge community of wonderful ladies knitting along! The Ravelry thread is full of incredible pattern ideas if you need any. ;)

Too Many Bunnies, Too Little Space

My busy summer has become more manageable, thank goodness! So now I hope to be back to my regular posting schedule. :) That means I'll have to find something for Friday, though...hmmm....

My latest and greatest works-in-progress have been 1) acclimating to a house with five rabbits in it and 2) cleaning the house so the room we lost to the new bunnies reappears in helpful storage areas.

It took about a week of panic (we have FIVE RABBITS!) before John worked his magic and improved everybun's life. Now I think, "We can do five rabbits." It means constant vigilance and daily cleaning, but we've got it worked out now, I think. Meet T-Rex and Ophelia:

They desperately needed a new home so their mom could go off to the UK to become a bunny vet. We didn't want them to go to a shelter or an inexperienced home, so we're keeping them here. It might be short-term, it'll likely be forever, but we're happy to have them one way or another. They are very good bunnies, which automatically wins half the battle. :)

Spike and Sweetpea got a new enclosure out of the deal. They are very, very happy and have been on their best behavior in a long time, haha. Teddy gets a room (with John) to himself where he is pampered and gets to run freely much more often, so he's also much happier. Happy bunnies are a happy house!

Like I said, they do take up a lot of room, which has made me realize how much clutter I have in our part of the living room. Today I cleaned up my studying corner of the living room a bit. It mostly involved removing books that need to be renewed or returned to the library. Many will likely move into my office, but since I'll be moving offices very soon, I'm just going to have to put up with stacks of books around for a little while.

I also had to make room for my new sewing machine, which proved a tighter fit than I had anticipated. Everything looks a little bit neater now, though (I'll share a photo when I've picked my organizational piles up off the floor ;]), and that's all I can hope for. I need to go through a yarn pile that has been growing like the Blob next to the futon. :S I've fooled myself into believing that I've been stingy with the yarn buying recently....Such is the life of a knitter, though, eh?

I'm knitting like crazy on two sweaters. If I don't find something finished lying around, I'll show you the giant sweater Friday.

Where's the Hammock?

Hi! I've missed you! I'm optimistically hoping that summer will now stop kicking my ass so I can enjoy it a bit and spend some more time here.

So many things have happened! I got the new phone and still have not started a case for it, but thank you for your suggestions! I have a vision forming. You can still weigh in! Last weekend my aunt got married and I got to hang out with lots of family I don't see very often. It was a lot of fun. Tuesday, we acquired two foster buns and we have been loving them like crazy. Expect many pictures.

On the knitting front, I have a sweater that needs 4 more inches on each sleeve and it'll be done (it's going to sit for a while before I get back to it, so don't get too excited!) and I started this sweater:

I shouldn't have, but I couldn't tell it no any longer! It will be Levenwick. You might remember that I started one a year and a half ago. It was a beautiful shade of blue. Alas, I didn't have enough for the sweater. :( It became this sweater instead (which I'm still on the fence about, but haven't re-blocked yet).

So, I found some yarn a couple months ago and scooped it up. I might have just forgotten about the whole thing and made other lovely sweaters, but an amazingly kind reader of these 'ere blog gifted the pattern to me for my birthday last year and that so touched me that I absolutely must have a beautiful Levenwick for her to see! It's perfect so far and I definitely have enough yarn to finish it this time, so I'm knitting quickly and blissfully.

Andi of Untangling Knots is co-hosting an Outfit-Along. She is knitting a garment to pair with a garment she will sew. I've had the fabric for a dress for six months now and I received a sewing machine last week, so...I'm sort of unofficially joining along, I think. I will probably chicken out on the dress, but this sweater will look super cute with it whenever I do get around to it. :)

How is your summer going? Busy like mine? Nice and relaxing (I hope!)? Full of fun? :)

Pattern Ideas?

I got a new phone last month, which means new apps, which means I can type blogs up on my phone on the bus much easier and maybe even add pictures*, so I hopefully won't be quite so blog-faily. :) Just pretend like I did blog last week and the week before. :S I thought about it really hard, but mind-to-blog must not be a thing yet.

A new phone also means that I need to knit a new phone cozy.

It's a leedle bit small...

I haven't had a lot of time to think about what a new one will look like since I've been knitting so hard on two big projects and thinking about dissertation and researchy things. I hope you can help me!

Two required features are a pocket for the phone (of course!) and a pocket for my bus pass and I.D. Should I knit it, sew it, or crochet it? What sort of closure should it have? This button thing isn't ideal. It takes too long to get the phone out. If I knit or crochet it, should I do ribbing and cables again, just ribbing, just cables, or something else? I can imagine lace working....

Do you have a cozy for your phone? What does it look like? What do you like and dislike about it?

I'm absolutely willing to write up a pattern for whatever we come up with so I'm not hogging ideas just for my own use. ;)

My silence has been part part-time job, part school work (the two are intertwined, really), and part adventures with John. I'll tell you about the adventures very soon. Probably Friday if I can't figure out how to wear my latest FO by then. How the heck are you guys?! I miss you!

*I tried. Didn't work. Oh well, a little extra effort never hurt anyone. :)