Knitting and Horses

I have been busy with classes, western riding team, and some knitting. Classes have been going well with the occasional lack of sleep but that is life. Beowulf is interesting as I am slowly learning Old English.

My computer has decided that now is the time to start a slow slide to death. This makes doing some of my homework a little interesting as the speakers have decided that they don't always want to work.

The riding team is fun. I will post some pictures eventually.

The team, jumping off a wall.

Progress continues on the hat, I am on my second chart about half way through it. A friend let me borrow her hand cards so I am working on processing some of my raw alpaca fiber.

The hat

M was in a play called "Summer at Yasnaya Polyana" it was a student directed and created work. The play was about Tolstoy, his wife and a piano player. M was the piano player and she had a beard.

It was worth going to and seeing, I do not feel bad for skipping the other two plays as I had a free ticket due to being a student.
The weather has turned and now there is mud everywhere.
ON that note, the Doctor is coming and with him comes soufflé girl.

On a positive note Kilgharrah(my bike) now has lights, not just the reflectors. And yes that requires a dancing Ood.

Back at college

 I have returned to college and thus my time is consumed by attending classes and doing homework. Also I joined the Western Riding team at the college, which is fun even when I can't feel my toes from the cold.

In knitting news, I started a new pair of socks for me, they are Lothlorien socks in a green yarn, it is looking like they will be absolutely amazing. Beyond that I have not done as much knitting as I would like, but I did finish a Weeping Angel I was making for a friend.

My angel, my roommate's angel and Doctor, and our xmas presents to each other.
Alternatively, the angels have the phone boxes.

During the last major snowstorm I spun enough yarn for a hat, the hat will be me.

The snowstorm dropped about 2 feet of snow on the college and shut it down for 2.5 days, however we never lost power or anything, just had a large amount of snow.

That black rail thing is a bike rack in front of one of the dorms

The rest of college life is about normal, lots of work, not enough sleep.

Just because it is Valentines Day, here is  a selection of valentines I found using Google.

My roommate gave me this one

In which there is yarn and life

Sorry about disappearing for a little bit. Life got a little busy for a bit, there was thanksgiving, school work and life in general getting in the way, especially finals. I survived finals without going totally over the edge, by that I mean that I continued to shower. Home now, had a interesting drive as the weather wasn't the best.

For Thanksgiving my family continued the tradition of cooking food the entire day, there was stuffing, turkey, potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, two pies, and I made popovers.  Popovers are a wonderful food.

After I got back to school, M and I decorated for xmas. We hung lights in both of our rooms and in the hallway, M then put up a small advent calendar. The lights in the hallway looked really good.

Since the semester is over I will be getting off of the caffeine  that means I will now be drinking no coffee or any tea with caffeine in it for an entire week. Life is much less enjoyable with caffeine withdrawal.

In knitting news, I finished Grandma's present and mailed it to her, Mom's scarf has had all the ends finally sewn in, the blanket thing I am making is in the second skien. Merlin and I have be producing some decent yarns, I have a project in mind for them. I have started on Dad's present, and will hopefully finish it in time for xmas. My brother's present can resume progress no that I have gotten more yarn for it. Mom's birthday present is already taken care of.

Ending one month, beginning another

Ending October is a bittersweet experience. October had its good and bad points. For the good points: we had mountain day, the changing leaves were beautiful, I went to Rocky Horror picture show for the first time, knit, took lots of photos the heron that hangs out at my college.

Let's not go into the bad points as they are kind of sucky, suffice to say that parts of October were horrible.

In happier news, I have been making progress on my brother's hat, except I am now running out of yarn (pretty sure that I have more at home).

Yes, I have Star Wars sheets

It really doesn't look like a fish yet.

I went to a Halloween concert and there was someone dressed as Loki from the Avengers, so I got him to hold the hat! Not sure why all my friends weren't really impressed that I managed to get a boy to hold my knitting (I go to a women's college, not many men).

Other then that I have started on a hat that I will give as a xmas gift (Grandma) and I have started to make dishcloths.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was fun and rather amusing. I did wear a mini-skirt however it was accompanied by leggings as it was a little cold to be wearing just a mini-skirt. M wore a red dress I have (I don't really wear it) and her really big boots, which are beyond awesome.

When Hurricane Sandy came through thankfully all we had was some wind and rain, the college kept power the entire time and we had a day off. Of course a portion of the day was used to text back and forth with my family to make sure everyone was ok. My only prep for the storm was setting up contact plans in case of no power, making coffee, and bringing my bike in. My bike lived the entirety of Sandy in my closet, I have also finally named my bike it is now officially known as Kilgharrah, the dragon from Merlin.

I have also on occasion been attempting to drink obscene amounts of teas, in some very interesting combos. Trying to remember to drink non-caffeinated things before bed can be a little hard when you have black teas that you like.

Next up, November, the month of Thanksgiving and the bus ride to home and the cat (dogs too). In November I will be trying to blog every day for the entire month.

Also if you haven't seen this you should watch it now!

I suck at updating

In the month since I last posted I have in no particular order: helped organize a small naginata seminar, driven to and from Washington DC for a naginata tournament, drove in Washington DC, watched Doctor Who, finished my mystery knitting which was my grandmother's birthday present, visited New Jersey, mostly finished Mom's xmas present, started on a present for a friend, decided on some other relatives xmas presents, spent more time on computers then is probably safe, taken lots of random pictures, grafted stitches mostly successfully, debated if I have enough time to attempt to write a book.

Naginata and related things first. On the 22 of September  I helped to lead an one day seminar/extended practice for my naginata club with a visiting sensei from our regional federation. It was fun and many people learned lots of new things. The bigger thing that happen was in October. On the weekend of October the 7th 9 members of the naginata club drove to DC to take part in a seminar, taikai, and shinsa. It took us two cars, three drivers, and ten hours to drive down. I ended up driving the entire way down in a rental vehicle due to a SNAFU situation with the transport plans. After we arrived in the early evening (yes we went on the Jersey Turnpike, no we didn't die) we went and got some food before we got to the house that we were staying at. The old captain of the team had us stay in her house and her parents were wonderful hosts. The seminar was fun and I learned lots, as did the rest of the club who went down, I hope. The taikai went well, I got third in both of the events I competed in, most of the rest of the club did really well in their events and enjoyed themselves immensely. The shinsa went pretty well, we had a range of ranks earned from 4kyu up to 2kyu. The same day as the shinsa there was also a section on bogu training, it was fun and informative. 

The HMS Toaster

The participants

After the events we went into Washington DC to go to the Smithsonian and the monuments. I went to both the Air and Space museum and the Natural history museum. Then we went to the monuments in the dark, we went to the war memorials, they were indescribable. 

On the knitting front I have gotten a fair amount done. I made a mini-Cthulhu for a gift, someone else made him a mini-naginata. I have almost finished Mom's xmas present, I just need to weave in the ends and decide if I want to put fringe on it. Also finished was my mystery knitting, aka Grandma's birthday present. It was a lace shawl in a forest green, I am pretty happy with how it turned out, even if I did spend a couple of days acting like I was crazy. Currently I am working on a gift for a friend who likes the Legend of Zelda games.

Cthulhu will get you in your sleep

Grandma and her shawl

My hat model is a lion

Apparently when I need to finish knitting something in a rush I turn to excessive watching of the Lord of the Rings movies. It's rather fun, if a little strange that I was knitting lace while watching them.

The Link hat that I made involved grafting stitches together in the band, I managed to graft them mostly correctly.

I have started to work again on the pair of gloves that I started over a year ago. Not sure why I stopped working on them at all. Wait I know why, I hate doing the fingers.

I HATE FINGERS

When I visited New Jersey it was the weekend after the naginata event, I spent most of it rushing to finish Grandma's birthday present. I did spend some time with my relatives too, just not a lot of sleep.

In Doctor Who news, I watched the last Pond episode, there was crying and funny noises involved. Baby weeping angels are terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

Also for more random things I have been taking lots of pictures of things around campus.

And the obligatory random video: