holiday cards!

Oh dear god, it's December. It's a bit of an understatement to say there hasn't been a whole lot of knitting or wayfaring or pretty much anything other than work this year - but despite being insanely busy and not doing any of those fun things, I managed to get my act together enough to a) buy a heat embossing gun and b) make some holiday cards these last few nights. It's the first remotely craft-y thing I've done in ages, and even though they came out a little smudged and uneven, I'm still pretty pleased with them:

They're not quite as awesome as my rabbit cards of two years ago, but the Year of the Rabbit only rolls around so often, and in the meantime I like my giant tree stamp:

And also embossing! Nothing like covering your entire kitchen with glitter and messiness because you're a grown up. 

As crazy as this year has been, I *have* managed to get some knitting in, and even some designing. Whether I manage to write any of it up or photograph it in a timely fashion is another question, but for now, here's a sneak peak of the stitch pattern :) And here's hoping for a wonderful holiday season for you all and an amazing, happy and healthy 2013! I'm hoping to finish this year on a good note, hanging out in Vietnam - so more from there, hopefully! 

it's june!

Oh my god, how is it June already? This year is flying by. The Ingenue sweater, not so much - I finished the body (finally!) and am making my way through the first sleeve now. In a perfect world I'd be knitting a lot faster, but, I work all the freakin' time and type like a maniac for most of it, which means I can't knit in the rare free time I do have, or my arms would actually fall off. 

Speaking of work, I went to NYC for one last work trip, where I ate cheese cake and was too busy to do much else:

mmm, cheesecake...

... and then came back to LA, where I had one glorious day off and ate this: 

... because I was feeling nostalgic for New York. Magnolia cupcakes in LA = proof that California really is the best state now. 

I also bought yarn for the first time in months! Having vowed to buy no new yarn at the start of this year, I figured six months was a respectable amount of time to wait before venturing into one of LA's many awesome yarn shops. They're not particularly summery colors and it's rapidly getting too hot to imagine being near wool, but, yay nonetheless! 

one skein & one month in...

One month and one skein in (and about 2 days off since my last post later), here is what my Ingenue sweater is looking like! Hooray for Sanguine Gryphon codex! And why yes, I am using safety pins as stitch markers because I can't find any of the gajillion stitch markers that I swear I do own, and which end up pretty much everywhere anywhere I live, except when I'm looking for them. Now that the dust is finally settling and I'm a little more used to life and work in Los Angeles, I am feeling much more inclined to knit now - I just don't have the time! Fortunately I have my first (and only, until we finish shooting) two day weekend in a few days, and I fully intend to spend as little of it as possible wearing shoes or doing respectable grown-up things like errands or laundry, and instead spending it knitting with an audio book on my couch. Best! Weekend! Ever!  

One of the reasons I'm getting virtually no free time is that I've had to go to New York for work a few times lately. I say "had to" but really it was so exciting that I didn't even mind the lack of sleep or free time. I hadn't been to New York since I moved away and started traveling four years ago, so being back - even for ten seconds, and spending virtually all of it working - was crazy exciting. 

So that's here! Busy but good and trying to knit more :) 

april snapshots

above: painting the backs of my ikea bookshelves

There hasn't been much knitting since I got back to LA. In the midst of starting a new job and moving into my new apartment and everything else, I hadn't really felt the urge to knit - which is immensely frustrating! But I've gotten a few bits and pieces in, and now that I'm sort of settling into a routine - albeit a routine where I work 12 hour days 6 days a week - I'm trying to pick up more projects..

... like this Ingenue sweater in Sanguine Gryphon codex that I started this weekend ...

... or this tea leaves cardigan for my BFF. It was *supposed* to be a 30th birthday present but she turned 30 in February. 

I also made this Crooked Paths hat, which I promptly gave away and never got the chance to properly photograph. It was massive on me.

But mostly I'm just settling into life back in California! Hopefully soon I'll be settled enough to find the cord that connects my real camera to the computer :) 

snapshots of new orleans!

No knitting worth writing about, unfortunately - but here are a few cellphone snapshots of what I've been up to! I spent the last five weeks in New Orleans, working too much to knit or, sadly, explore as much as I'd like. 

The last five weeks were a bit intense. Besides working 12+ hour days, my boyfriend of 3+ years and I ended up breaking up - so maybe starting that Mr. Darcy sweater last summer was bad luck after all (on a related note, does anyone want like 10 balls of boyfriend sweater yarn?) As sad as I am, though,  it is a huge relief to no longer feel pulled between Scotland and California - and to realize I can put down roots near my family now.

(As excited as I am to settle down a bit, being in a new city for 5 weeks just reminded me how much I love exploring new places, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for lots of wayfaring in the future!) 

Also there was this whole Mardi Gras thing, you may have heard of it. I absolutely loved it, even if I did buy and then promptly loose a pretty fascinator hat amidst all the festivities. Dancing in the streets, strangers in crazy costumes - it was a great time and exactly what I needed to take my mind of things. 

So now I'm back with family in Los Angeles indefinitely, trying to figure out what and where comes next.  Right now I'm just happy to have a little downtime and to catch up on all that knitting I dragged with me to Louisiana and then barely had time to touch! 

fo: bandana cowl

As part of my new years resolution to use up some of the stash I already have, I cast on this Bandana Cowl a few day ago, using an errant ball of Malabrigo Twist that I bought more than a year ago. I want to say the color is zinc, but I wouldn't swear to it - in any case, it's a very pretty light grey with an overtone of pink to it. I'm pretty happy with the yarn - pattern combination, as it was *just* enough yarn (I actually omitted the final decrease round, just to be safe) and the resulting cowl is squishy and cozy. Knitting this totally reminded me that Twist may be my favorite Malabrigo base, it's just so crazy soft. 

The Bandana Cowl pattern itself is very pretty and easy to follow. If I had any fear of short rows in the past, I definitely do not now, because there are a *lot* of them in this pattern, and you definitely get used to them. This was exactly the kind of pattern I wanted to knit - something fast, mindless enough for late night tv watching, and good for using whatever you have on hand, rather than something you have to buy new yarn for. The resulting garment is a bit slouchier than I'd imagined, but I like it nonetheless :) 

Raveled here. 

fo: selbu modern

Yay, Fair Isle hat! I'd been afraid of Fair Isle for so long - I tried doing it once, when we were living in Tokyo, and it just kept unraveling in my hands, and the whole thing just put me off the technique for ages. I'd been wanting to learn it properly for some time, though, since there are so many gorgeous patterns using Fair Isle out there. This time, it came much easier, possibly because I bothered to read the online tutorial carefully for once (something I am extremely bad about), even if it took awhile to get the hang of holding yarn in both my right and left hands (usually I just hold my yarn in my right hand). It's not perfect, but I'm still pretty happy with it - the excitement I felt while knitting this was almost akin to the excitement I felt the first time I knit anything: I couldn't believe I was actually doing it. 

The pattern is the deservedly popular Selbu Modern, which is free and easy to follow. I'd definitely recommend it as a first Fair Isle pattern - having just two colors to negotiate made my life easier, and it was easy to fall into the rhythm of the pattern and not have to look at the chart too much once I got into it. I used the recommend yarns, the Fibre Company's Fingering Canopy, which I also liked a lot - the finished hat feels just fuzzy enough. I blocked over a dinner plate, and am very happy with the resulting fit.

 Raveled here.