Facebook Secret Pals

Oh! I almost forgot. If any of you are on facebook, there is a secret pals group that is forming. Search for the group "Secret Knitting Pals" and join up! You have until June 12.

Nothing's better at curing Homesickness than....

A beer festival! (and some knitting.)

Sorry that I haven't written in a while and that the last time I wrote it was a depressing note about how I wasn't enjoying being in Germany and didn't really have anything to do about knitting. At all. Hopefully this entry will have more knitting content, but of course there has to be some beer!

Ok, so I'll get the knitting stuff in first. Tubey is coming along nicely. I finished the sleeves!

Now just to do the body. I think I've calculated that I'm halfway done now though. Yay! It's a little looser in the sleeves than I would have liked. And I'm not liking the colors (the green) as much as I did when I bought it and it was separate from the black. And those dang color changes look like crap. Sigh. Well, if nothing else I'll have a warm comfy sweater for those days I just want to stay inside.

The Snicket Socks are coming along rather slowly (I've been working on Tubey!) but I'm not half a repeat away from starting the heel.

I think I've figured out what to do about the pattern and the instep. We'll see how it turns out.

The lace scarf for my mom is also coming along. I have 1.5-2 feet of it done (I've been working on Tubey!)

I'm not a huge fan of the lace pattern. Especially in the dark yarn. But she chose them both. So I'll do it for her.

Well. Umm. That's all the knitting content. Ha. Now for the beer!

So there's a local beer festival going on right now called the Bergkirchweih. Apparently it's the 3rd largest beer festival in Bavaria. And it's about a 2 minute walk from my apartment. So C and I have been going up there every night and getting dinner or a beer or both. Here are some pictures from it.

An oompa band and Miss Bergkirchweih 2007

The first beer from the "first" keg of the festival and C and I sharing a "Mass" (1 L of beer)

Sauerkraut, Bratwurst, and an Ox sandwich. Yum! and 2 "Krugs" to hold all of our beer

Lots of People!

Can I go Home yet?

OK, so this post probably won't have much to do about knitting. But I'm going to put it out there anyways because the knitting community seems like a great group of people who won't mind me going on a little about myself (and if you do care, you should probably stop reading now).

So about... 1.75 years ago (August 2005) I had this fantastic idea that I wanted to come live in Europe for a while. I was 6 months removed from my 6 month study abroad term and missing stuff like yummy pastries and travelling all the time and the fantatstic German beer. So I decided to apply for a Fulbright, even though according to my college it was way too late for me to get everything together. But I did and I ended up getting the fellowship and now I'm here living in Germany. You see, at the time this was a great idea. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after college. Grad school, which had seemed a given since I started attending preschool (that's what 2 parents with advanced degrees will get you), wasn't really all that appealing any more. So I decided to put it all off, head to Europe, and hopefully have a great time. As luck would have it, C got a position teaching English in France and we were both going to be in Europe and it was going to be great!

Fast forward to now. Well, it hasn't been great. For the first 8 months C and I were 7 hours and about 80euros apart. We tried to see eachother 1 or 2 weekends a month, and because he worked at a school he got a lot of holidays, but after having been around eachother almost 24/7 for the past year, that just didn't cut it. Long distance relationships SUCK! We have both vowed to never let that happen again... I only hope it can work out that it doesn't.

Now his program is done, and he is living with me! Which is great! Most of the time. It has nothing to do with him. Just the accomodations in which we live. Living in an approximately 280 square foot apartment, one room (except for the bathroom), with 2 stove burners and a dorm size fridge was tolerable for one person. Sure, I have to sleep on a sofa bed, and I have limited options as to what I can cook, but I have internet so it's ok! Now the slightly larger than twin size bed is just a touch small for 2 people. We bought a microwave and a mini oven in February, but food is still limited. And there just isn't any privacy (which is tolerable when it's just the 2 of us, but when we have 1 or 2 people visiting, gets... annoying.).

My job has kind of stalled. I don't have any reason to do the research (chemistry research in a grad student lab... where I'm a nobody) other than for the "fun" of it.. and nothing seems to be working for me. I feel like I'm in limbo where I'm trying to plan for when we head back to the states in less than 2 months so I don't have to live with my parents for long... but everytime I apply for a job it seems they need someone RIGHT NOW. So I want to move forward, but there's a wall. There's nothing for me here, and I have no idea what is in store for me back home.

And I miss my car. And Taco Bell. And things being open after 8pm or on Sundays.

Europe (Germany specifically) isn't all bad. There are fantastic pastries. And Nutella. And AMAZING beer (for cheap!!). And it's nice (most of the time) to walk everywhere and take public transportation and feel like you're being good to yourself and the environment for doing so. And the trains here are awesome! But walking to grocery store and having to carry everything back every other day or so gets old. Especially when you live a good bit away. And travelling is great (see Venice!) when I get the chance, but I feel bad taking off of "work" and having a tiny apartment that costs more than half of your monthly stipend doesn't leave a lot extra to travel on.

I feel stuck in the life of a college student, and, believe it or not, I'm ready to grow up.

(Sorry that was really rambly and didn't make a lot of sense... I just had to get it out somewhere, and apparently the internet was the place it needed to go.)

P.S.

Knitting-wise not much happening. A friend who was travelling around Europe stopped by the last day my brother was here/the next day and so I was crammed into my apartment with lots of people and hostessing duties. I did get the chance to work on my Snicket socks a little more.. almost time for the heel!.. but I am having a hard time figuring out what to do. You see.. the pattern just says "continue the pattern across the instep" but that wouldn't be centered, and if I center it, there aren't enough stitches to do the cables along the edge. I think I have kind of a general type (haha... great grammar!) idea of what I'm going to do. Hopefully it will work. I would also like to work on Tubey a little. I'm still stalled at the same spot there... right before the color change on the second sleeve. Maybe that will be my project for this week!

Venice! (and Yarn and Knitting of course..)

Hey!

Venice was great! Well... good. Venice would have been better if had been me and my boyfriend. Or me and anyone but just my brother who thinks a trip to Europe involves sleeping 15 hours a day and once you've seen one canal/bridge you've seen them all. Sigh. C'est la vie.

Anyways, a few pictures (ok, LOTS of pictures... sorry) for your enjoyment.

A view of Venice from the plane. This was taken on the way back, but I figured it was a nice picture to start out the whole "Venice" picture thing with.

Yum. Cappuccino and a chocolate croissant like thing for breakfast. (That is my brother's hand and plain croissant-- boys don't appreciate chocolate--in the background)

Piazza San Marco (AKA St. Mark's Square) from a water bus.

A self-portrait* from St. Mark's Basillica over-looking the square. (*Yes, I had to take a self-portrait because my brother decided that 2 minutes was long enough to look at a famous square.)

Canals are pretty....

Really... they are pretty!

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal with some gondolas... from a water bus. I know, I'm talented.

The nearby island of Murano is famous for its glass. Below is a picture of someone making a part of a chandelier.

Glass Christmas tree.. in May. But it's pretty!

Close up on the tree.

And now for some knitting... my Snicket Socks managed to come with me! Here they are by a canal in Venice while I was out wandering about after my brother decided to take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon of our 1.5 days in Venice. Sigh. But it turned out OK because it started to rain while I was out (the only rain we had) and on the other side of this bridge I just happened to pop into a store that sold yarn. And I bought some. By the time I was done (only 20 minutes or so) it had stopped raining. I'm pretty sure that was a sign that me and this yarn were meant to be. More about the yarn later.

Yummy pesto and some yummy wine. I had to drink the whole half bottle by myself because it was the smallest size of wine they sold (no glasses!) and my brother didn't want any (sigh again).

Fish stand outside our hotel.. it was really colorful!

New knitting bags! So now I'm up to 5. I already had Germany, Austria and Paris. My boyfriend (C as you recall me naming him... yet I haven't really used it) bought me the Luxembourg one because we had been there before I began collecting the bags and he lived only 30 minutes south by train when he was in France. I bought the Italy one on the trip.

The 2 pretty balls of 40% mohair and 60% Dralon (R) ?? by a company called Tropical Lane. The line is Follie di Colore and it's a blue/purple (more purple than it looks in the pictures). It's really soft and nice.. and was only a little more than $5 for 50g/150m (if that's not a good deal, please don't tell me. I convinced myself I could buy it because I thought it was a good price.... and it was pretty/soft/yummy). I'm thinking a scarf because I don't know if I have enough for much else. Any ideas anyone?

Well I suppose that's all for now. Sorry there's not so much knitting content. I got another repeat done on the Snicket Socks and have knit a fair bit more on the lace scarf (it was my 6 hours in a train to and from a beer festival knit) but the pictures aren't all that exciting (at least not as exciting as Venice!).

What I'm up to

Well, living in a foreign country is great, but along with it comes everyone and their mother-in-law wanting to visit! So I just wanted to put out a little update that I may not be posting for a little bit. My brother is coming today and will be here until next Saturday. I'm hoping to get some knitting done in the midst of travelling, but we'll see!

Quick update on knitting: I haven't worked on anything except Tubey since the last post. I am a row or 2 away from the stripes on the second sleeve. For some reason I haven't found much time to knit this week.

OK, that's all for now. I may be able to fanagle a little time for posting, but we'll see. Pictures from the trip (Venice!) will definitely be posted later.

WIP update and some past FOs

Hi Again.

First an update on my WIPs. The lace scarf isn't progressing very quickly. Other things seem to be grabbing my attention, so no update pictures for that.

Tubey has progressed some. I finished the first sleeve and decided to bind it off with an i-cord binding. I picked up the stitches from my crochet provisional cast on and have begun knitting the second sleeve.

I haven't worked on my Jaywalkers at all. I rewound the ball of multi-colored yarn, but don't think I'll use it for Jaywalkers again. I didn't like the pooling at a larger circumference so I guess I'll save it for another pair of socks.

I did start a new pair of socks though. It's the Snicket Socks from MagKnits September 2006 issue. I see them as a warm up for the bayerische socks I mentioned in my last post. I'm doing them in Lana Grossa Meilenweit Tweed fingering weight yarn. The base color is kind of near rust with green, yellow, and blue specks dispersed throughout. Here are some pictures of what I have so far.

That's about all that's going on in WIP-land. I'm considering not starting any socks for a while because I have joined my first KAL... Summer of Socks 2007. The actual KAL begins on the summer solstice (June 21) so I have a while to wait. There are contests for the greatest number of pairs of socks knit.. and a vacation photo contest. It's a bummer it doesn't begin earlier because I'm going on a trip to Venice in about a week and I could get some great gondola/sock pictures! I'm going to keep working on the Snicket socks, but I think that may be my last pair until the end of June.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of FOs from the past. Nothing too exciting so I won't go into detail on them. If you want more detail on anything specific, leave a comment and I'll write about it in my next post.

WIPs and YARN!!!

Happy May Day to everyone!

Here in Germany that means that I have the day off from work and have the time to take pictures and update my blog.

Some non-knitting related content first. C (what I will be calling my boyfriend) arrived here late on Sunday exhausted from the 10+ hours of travelling and lugging 3 large bags along for the ride. We have figured out a place for most everything (including the yarn!) and have been having a great time actually being able to see eachother.

Of course that is not all without knitting. I taught C how to knit back in October when he visited and he has been steadily working away at some garter stitch "scarves" for an afghan. Now that he's here I can teach him how to purl, etc. and maybe he can get a little variety in his knitting. I have a feeling he's getting a little bored with it. We watched some Tigers baseball on the computer (mlb.tv is a lifesend!) and I knit. It was great!

Anyways, on to what I know you've been wanting to see: YARN! I took some pictures of the stash that I have here with me in Germany. Some of my stash was sent home recently with my parents when they visited. I figured I could get sock yarn so much cheaper here, I might as well buy some and send it back. So I did. Here's what's left though:


Starting in the upper left: Some Regia fingering weight in a very pretty green (bayerische socks are the plan), unknown brand sport weight in blues and greys (socks for C), Meilenweit fingering in various blues, Meilenweit fingering in pretty, tweedy jewel tones. Next row: Fortissima Socka fingering weight in a grey tweed (socks for C maybe), Schachenmayr Nomotta in a DK weight red/orange tweed (socks.. maybe?), Meilenweit fingering weight in teal and yellow tweed, Four Seasons fingering weight in blues and greens, and OnLine Supersocke 100 fingering weight in dark greens and black tweed (socks for my dad).

Not as exciting, but starting in the upper left: Feria chunky weight in red/orange/browns plied with a cream... very pretty!, Bernat worsted weight maroon and cream, Schachenmayr Nomotta ribbon yarn in German flag colors (don't ask.). Next row: Fabiani yarns from bulky to chunky (leftovers from the Danica scarf I made).

That's about it yarn wise... other than a few things that are WIPs or slated to become so. Speaking of WIPs, lets get into those.

First: in the "Austria" bag.. Tubey! I am knitting this from DK weight? (125m/50g) Lana Grossa Numero Uno in a black tweed and a very pretty green (the same color as the yarn for the bayerische socks!!) on 5mm (US size 8) needles.

I have the back and almost one sleeve done. It's seeming a little baggy in the arm, but I think it'll work out. I'm going to change it up a bit and do an i-cord bind off at the end. As you can see from the 3rd picture, I haven't quite mastered changing colors in the round. Hopefully that will be on the underside of my arm, haha. The color seems to be a little washed out. The green is more like the sock yarn above. I've made my own stripe design for the sleeves and body, so we'll see how that turns out. It's loosely based upon the Fibonacci sequence. The body will be mostly the green color with black striping at the top and bottom.

In the "Germany" bag I have a lace scarf for my mom. It's made from OnLine Supersocke 100 in a magenta/white/black self-striping tweed. The pattern is from the Harmony Guides Vol. 2 stitch dictionary and is called "wavy eyelet rib." I've adapted it slightly by taking out one of the repeats of the second half of the lace repeat. Kind of confusing, but you would understand if you saw the pattern. Anyways, here are some pictures:

The second picture is a little truer in color, though not quite as bright. More subtle color changes.

Last (and perhaps least) I am working on some Jaywalkers.

I forgot, however, to try them on sooner than this, and have come to discover that they do not fit over my foot. SAD. They now look like this:

Yup. Ripped out. I decided I didn't really like how the yarn pooled at a wider width (you can kind of tell at the gusset in the above picture) so I am considering using my German flag sock yarn (ok, so I became slightly obsessed with the German flag.. I am living in Germany right now..) to do the pattern. Decisions to come on a later post.

I was going to entertain you with some recent FOs such as my Danica scarf, etc., but now realize this post is excessively long. Really. I'm sure you stopped reading a long time ago. I'll do another post in the next few days with some FOs.