A Road Trip And Some Knitting

Yesterday we took a quick trip down to Aggieland!  We wanted to take a look at Caleb's apartment for next year and see the campus.  We figured it will make move in easier when there are about 70,000 other Aggies and their families trying to move in also.  It gave us a chance to check out the driving route (although in August we'll just be following all the other cars with A&M stickers) and we got some measurements and figured out what he needs in his space.

We wandered around campus and found the Oceanography building.  It was a perfect day to wander since the temperature was in the mid 70's and breezy.  It's not often that that happens at the end of May in Texas!  (This was a good thing because Siri doesn't do as well with walking directions as she does with driving directions, at least on this campus.)

We also saw Kyle Field, the home of Aggie football!  

I did a little knitting in the car too.  This is a Musselburgh hat, knit in Western Sky Knits Magnolia Sock in Icon.  It's a great hat pattern - you just start knitting and then figure gauge and sizing once you've gotten it started.

Overall it was a great day!  Caleb is very happy with his apartment, he likes the campus, and is looking forward to this fall.  We're very excited for him!

Aggie Stripes

For the last two years Caleb has lived in the dorms at Texas A&M Galveston.  This fall he will be in his very first apartment at Texas A&M College Station.  That means he'll have a sofa!  (In addition to a kitchen and washer and dryer and all sorts of other amenities.)  So I decided he might want a throw blanket for his sofa, so I ordered some Cascade 220 Superwash and got to work!

I decided to use Lucy of Attic 24's* Granny Stripe Blanket directions, but switched up the stripe pattern.  I decided to make him an Aggie Stripe blanket, but making a white blanket for anyone (let alone a 21 year old and whoever comes over to hang out) sounds like a nightmare.  So while I'm fully aware that A&M's colors are maroon and white, I'm using maroon and pale gray.  I decided to make the majority of the blanket gray and use narrower maroon stripes.  It's overcast this morning, so the maroon looks darker than it is, but it's a good match for the maroon used on the A&M website.  I'm almost finished with my second wide, gray stripe.  

The way the pattern is written, each color is worked for two rows and I'm keeping things in pairs as well.  I'm working seven pairs of gray rows and one pair of maroon rows for each repeat.  I've just carried the gray up the side since the maroon is so narrow, but I'm cutting and restarting the maroon.  I haven't decided if I'll add a border or not, but I'll probably do something narrow for stability.  It's going to be a very simple blanket, but I think that's the kind of blanket Caleb would prefer.

*I've said it before and I'll continue saying it, she writes the BEST crochet tutorials!  You need to know the difference between US and UK crochet terms (she always states which one she's using), but she uses very clear pictures and good directions to walk you step by step through a pattern.  If you ever want to learn to crochet, Attic 24 is a great place to start.

A Crash and Burn, But Also, Rising From The Ashes

In April I started knitting the Sous Sous pullover.  Before I began I looked at Ravelry projects to see what other knitters had said about it.  There were a few who knit it exactly as written and were happy with it.  More of them had made changes, and while a few of those were for fit, most were to correct issues with the pattern.  I knew this going in.  I made notes.  I read the pattern ahead of time.  I thought I had a plan.

Wow, was I wrong!  I was almost finished with the back before I ran into trouble, but when things went wrong, they really went wrong.  At that point you have two choices, stick with it and try to fix the problems, or just stop.  I chose the second.  Moving forward would have required moving backward (which I don't have a problem doing, on general principle) and rewriting/refiguring part of the pattern.  It can be done, but I'm kind of on a time limit for this sweater since I was knitting it for the ESK 2nd Quarter Craft-A-Long.  If I'm going to have to do all of that, I don't want to feel rushed.

So I frogged it.  Then I went looking at patterns.  I started out looking at sweaters, but I decided to knit something completely different.

This is Ebb Tide.  It's a poncho, or maybe a capelet.  I'm not sure where one ends and the other begins.  These seriously chunky cables add a lot of texture to something that's mostly stockinette stitch.  I'm knitting it in Yarn Love Amy March DK in Orchid (the same yarn I attempted to use for Sous Sous).

At some point I would like to knit the Sous Sous pullover.  I love the look of the finished sample, but first I will have to sit down and figure out what is going on.  Or maybe I'll find another pattern and just plug in the stitch pattern.  I don't have to decide that now though.

Have a great weekend!

Shortie Socks

Last time I was here I had a pair of finished socks.  I fully planned to take a little break from sock knitting for a couple of weeks, but then ESK did a Flash Craft A Long Challenge for shortie socks.  Rose City Rollers were one of the patterns we could use and I've knit them before, so that's what I made.  Four pairs in two weeks, and yes, we did run down to Galveston during that time to move Caleb out of the dorm (I took a pair of socks with me).

The first pair was knit from Madelinetosh Twist Light in Dopamine.  (This was a very bright blue leaning Dopamine.  Most of the Dopamine I've knit with previously was more blue green.)

Then I knit a pair using some of the leftover Dopamine and some Sweet Georgia Yarn Tough Love Sock in Sunken Treasure.

The third pair was entirely Sunken Treasure.

Finally, I knit the last pair using Madelinetosh Twist Light in Hydroponic, then Dopamine (from an earlier, more blue green skein), and finally Sweet Georgia Yarn Tough Love Sock in Magician.

This was a great way to work through some leftover, partial skeins and now I have four new pairs of shortie socks.

We're still unpacking stuff around here.  Caleb will be moving into his first apartment this fall so we're figuring out the differences between living in a dorm and living in an apartment.  It's all very exciting!

Finished Socks!

I finished my Imber Stripe Socks.  These are knit exactly as the pattern is written, using Cascade Heritage Sock in Snow and Riviera Heather, with a little bit of Dream in Color Smooshy in Milky Spite for the cuffs and toes.

I will probably do some more stranded colorwork socks because there are some stranded colorwork sweaters I want to make, but I need some more practice first.

I'm going to take a little blogging break, but I'll be back later next week.  It's time to head down to Galveston and move Caleb out of his dorm.  This will be the last time we go to Galveston for A&M related things because Caleb has decided to change his major.  He's going to do Oceanography (which isn't a huge change from Marine Sciences), but that degree isn't offered at Galveston.  When he goes back to school this fall, he'll be at College Station!  He's going to the Aggie Mother Ship!  (Also, I'm pretty sure the fact that you can get an Oceanography degree in landlocked College Station is an Aggie joke, but I'm not allowed to tell those anymore.). He'll be going from a campus of about 2,000 students to about 70,000, but he's excited about it, and we're excited for him.  Also, he'll be about 100 miles closer to home.  Switching campuses was super easy because he was already an Aggie*, so he emailed an advisor there, she got him sorted out and registered for class and he found an apartment with a friend.  We've got some more stuff to figure out, but we'll get it done.

Have a great weekend!

 

*There are four A&M schools that are Aggies: College Station, Galveston, McAllen, and Qatar.  All the other Texas A&M schools are other things, not Aggies.