Ouch

I just finished the dish shift from hell...two and a half hours of scrubbing dishes and wiping counters and tabletops and I missed lunch and I'm exhausted. Gonna try a different shift next time. Let's hope cooking goes better than that just did!

Life in Berkeley

I moved back up here Thursday/Saturday (left to help move Logan into his dorm) and now am adjusting to life in the co-ops. So far things are going okay but I'm actually looking forward to school starting and having some structure to my days. Plus I'm excited about classes : ) Social psychology, personality psychology, sociology of the family and an education class - should be fun.

Today was the first really enjoyable day I've had here so far, I went to Starbucks and got a vanilla latte and pumpkin bread (so very good) and finished Knitting Lessons by Lela Nargi, then wandered around Half Price Books for a bit, bought Knitting for Good by Betsy Greer, met a friend at the movies and saw The Time Traveler's Wife, went to the speed-dating/roommate finding thing put on by the house and met more of the girls living here, went to the kitchen orientation (I am so unprepared to cook dinner for all 50 or so people on Wednesday...crap) and now I've spent wayyy too much time adding pictures of all the projects I've finished so far. It was a good day : )

Dad's koala

Koala 2, originally uploaded by limelady722.

This is the last thing I've finished so far, a toy for Dad.

This is an enlarged version of a pattern I found at http://knittedtoybox.blogspot.com/. I followed the pattern but used a much thicker yarn than suggested and size 8 needles. It looks very, very weird from the back (must learn how to seriously finish something like this, can't sew up things for the life of me) and is another odd, hopefully sort of charming toy to keep the penguin company.

Oh and the face! Haha I had to finish it in time for Dad's birthday so instead of sewing on eyes and a nose in black thread I just colored some fabric I had lying around with a Sharpie (I know, I'm sad) and then sewed that onto the head. Yeah...

Koala!

Koala 1, originally uploaded by limelady722.

It looks pretty pudgy here, but you can see it a bit more clearly.

Mom's scarf

Mom Scarf 3, originally uploaded by limelady722.

After I finished the toys for Tom I had nothing to knit. So I used the green yarn Mom had picked out when I tried to teach her to knit (she didn't really enjoy it) and started practicing stockinette stitch while I worked on a scarf for her.

Once I learned how to purl, it felt like the entire world of knitting just opened up. Essentially everything (it seems) is made up of just knit and purl stitches, so I was finally free to try out patterns and make more interesting things. This was my first experience adding in a second color (even if I only did it once) and I loved how it looked. It was so gratifying to see the neat V's connect in a line, the green divided from the cream.

The one thing I wish I'd known when I made this was how badly stockinette can curl in on itself without a different stitch on the edges to hold it in place. I tried blocking it (another first) to keep it flatter and it sort of helped, but not completely. Oh well! I'll know next time.

Scarf numero dos, from the back

Mom Scarf 4, originally uploaded by limelady722.

Scarf numero dos, all laid out

Mom Scarf 5, originally uploaded by limelady722.

I took this picture standing on a chair off to the right of it, so the perspective's a little weird. The green side is not longer than the cream, actually it's a bit shorter, and the scarf is pretty long.