FO: Late Night Grading Handwarmers

Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it?
It's amazing how fast September blew by.  After the engagement party, things kind of took off.

I started back at the dance studio, which is 3 nights a week (before I schedule my solos/duos/trios).  I'm loving being back, though it's a hard thought to know that I have half a dozen or so seniors graduating this year.  I'm firmly ignoring that thought until at least May, though I have to start planning senior gifts now (lotta knitting this year- uffda!).
One of my old college friends got married a week after the engagement party.  My house that weekend became a gathering place for old college roommates, and it was amazing!

I haven't seen a lot of those awesome folks in awhile, and it was a ton of dancing, movies, talking, laughing, and late nights.  I loved every minute of it!

I spent the following weekend at the Sandstone Climber's Festival, hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones!  It felt really good to stretch my muscles, sleep in a tent under the stars, and find some new projects to thrash myself on!

(Pic is of my friend Katie working Sigma, a 5.12 line that I haven't touched in 3 years, but I'm going to jump on it first thing next week!)
I'm going to be heading to Sandstone next week a few times to hopefully project some routes, and I couldn't be more excited to actually work hard and push myself!
I also was appointed to be the faculty adviser for my school's honor society, which is great- more face-time with students!  I'm also now going to start teaching 4 credits at my old University in October, so my schedule is about to get super crazy!
Throughout all of this, I've been trying to keep up my knitting, and been mildly successful.
Case in point- a long-standing project that's been idling at the bottom of my knitting drawer finally got finished a week ago- my Late Night Grading handwarmers for my chilly office!

Pattern: Carrie Handwarmers by Doris Chang
Yarn: Malabrigo Rios in Archangel
Needles: Size 6 DPN's, bamboo
Timeframe: March 3-Sept 23

Mods: I knit in the round instead of flat, and to get a thumb, I added a 12-stitch thumb gusset.  I kept the gusset in the moss-stitch that the rest of the pattern asked for.
Worst Part: This took way too long to make.  I shouldn't have let them languish.  Also, when I finished, because I was eyeballing the entire thing, I knit one slightly shorter than the other.  It's only visible when you lay the handwarmers side by side, but it'll still both me just a little.
Best Part: I love that I finished these in time to wear with fall colors, and I love the way they look when stretched out on my hands!

I'm actually really excited about the next post- I finally have some underwater pictures to share from my recent diving adventures! :)
Until then... more knitting, lots of grading, lots of choreographing, and lots of snuggling with these guys... :)

FO: Gift Hats

So one of the big events that kind of ended my summer was my brother's surprise Fiesta Engagement Party last weekend!

It was a ton of fun, and we had about 70 people show up to wish my brother and his betrothed their well wishes.  My dad flew up from Florida for the festivities, a keg was tapped, tequila was passed around, and eventually...

a conga line was set up.  

My family is kind of amazing at partying- festivities went on well into the night.

Another cool thing that happened?

I was asked to be a Bridesmaid in the wedding!  SOOOOO excited!  I'm kind of a professional bridesmaid by now.  I can bridesmaid the crap out of a wedding. :)

The next day, despite some headaches, the partying continued on the golf course!

I don't golf.  I feel like I've explained this before.  Me golfing is like a two-year-old who's had too many juice boxes swinging a pinata stick around their head.  It just doesn't work.  

So what do I do instead?

Hang out on the golf cart and get in 4 hours of quality knitting time!

18 holes of golf means that I started and finished an entire hat- the second of two gift hats I knit for people over the last couple of weeks!  Really happy to get these done, because Christmas knitting is beginning to loom...

Pattern: Turn-a-Square by Jared Flood

Yarn: Leftover Cascade 220 in a forest green and a dark blue (the tags are long gone) and Noro in Worsted.  I'm not actually sure what kind- Maeby may have run off with the tag...

Timeframe: August 25-September 6 for both hats!  Woowoo!

Worst Part: None.

Best Part: Knowing that I have this pattern MEMORIZED, since I've knit this hat so many times... uffda! 

Onward to a barter knit, and some knits for myself to wear as the weather begins to turn!

FO: Camping Socks

My August Adventures have concluded for now, and it's back to school and work (and next week- dance!) for at least a month or so for me.  That's not to say I'm going to stop doing all of my activities- if anything, I feel like I barely have time to sit down and relax, between school, dance, training for climbing, diving, and hanging out with friends (one last wedding this weekend!).  It's okay, though- I need to be busy right now.  I'm good at busy. :)
I'll wrap up my August Adventures in another post, but for today, I want to share an FO that I had originally finished at the end of my climbing trip to Colorado.  Unfortunately, the Chubbs-monster got her little face in it and... well, you probably know the rest of the story.

Yep.
Not surprised.
I ended up finishing these camping socks right at the end of August, and I'm excited to wear them to keep my toes cozy when I go climbing up the shore this fall!

Pattern: Climb by Jane Richmond (I own her incredible book Journey, and can't wait to make more patterns from it!)
Yarn: Wildefoote Sock Yarn in gray, red, and cream-white

Needles: Size 2 DPN (I used bamboo)
Timeframe: May 18th-August 25th
Mods: Only a small one- Increased 2 stitches about every inch or so above the heel (only 3 times, so 9 stitches total increase) to take into account my big tap-dancer calves).

Worst Part: Leaving them out for five minutes- which is all it took for the kitten-monster to destroy them.
Best Part: I love the heel on these!  I might use this heel when doing toe-up from now on.

FO: Venga Las Chicas Hats

For the past two years, I've spent my MEA break (which is mid-October for you non-MN readers) heading down to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky to climb with a group of incredible lady climbers!
I've been increasingly drawn to do all-lady climbing trips.  It's very empowering, very supportive, and the dynamic is different than going with just guys or even a mixed group.  Numerous female climbers have written great essays about this, Instagram has the awesome #climblikeagirl, and pros have posted fantastic videos about the importance of climbing with just ladies.
To move on.
I wanted to commemorate the incredible women that I was climbing with by doing something special for them.  When I found the Malabrigo Rios yarn in the colorway of Jupiter, all I could think about was how much it looked like the deep red rock of the Gorge.  I bought three skeins, and what resulted were four hats for my amazing climbing partners: Val, Amanda, Zay, and Emily!

I call them the Venga Las Chicas Hats; "Venga" is the phrase often shouted at Spanish crags to encourage a climber up the wall, so hopefully these hats will encourage my lady friends! :)

Pattern: Scrollwork by Irina Dmitrieva, part of the Wool People 4 catalogue from BrooklynTweed (both links go to Ravelry pages)
Yarn: 3 skeins of Malabrigo Rios in Jupiter

Needles: size 4 for the brim, size 7 for the body, all bamboo.
Timeframe: May 17th-August 11th, 2015.  I finished about a hat a month, though it could have been done a little sooner if I had focused on it. :)

Mods: None until the final hat- I was definitely running out of yarn on hat #4, so on the crown decrease, I skipped the row where I didn't decrease for probably 8 rows.  I was super close to running out of yarn just as I was finishing the hat, as you can see:

and I'm very very glad that I did those quicker decreases.  I feel like it's kind of hard to tell that it happened!
Worst Part: There were points where knitting the same hat pattern so many times in a row got a little bit repetitive, but the pattern was interesting enough that I didn't really mind too much.  To be fair, I've knit a billion Turn a Square hats, so at least these had a little more variety with the cables.

Best Part: Giving them to the ladies and having them wear them out to climb.  :)

Adventure August: Part I

I just got back from about two weeks out in Colorado, doing the climbing and hiking thing, and it was incredible.  :)  It was exactly what I needed after a bit of a rough summer (minus some awesome patches).  The coolest part about this trip was going with two of my closest friends for an all-ladies trip.  We all seemed to need this trip for different reasons, and it was so cool to come together as a group before we all split off across the US once again.
Highlights of the trip include:

Seeing our old Duluth friend Peter!

He gave us a local's tour of Boulder Canyon in Colorado, and we had an incredible time climbing amazing rock and staying at his place!

Finding another Duluthian, Hannah, who did quite a few days of climbing with us even as she settled in to Boulder herself!

I jumped on my first V5 in Rocky Mountain National Park, and was literally one move away from finishing it successfully after only a handful of tries.  I left it as a project- guess I'll have to go back again!  Ooooh darn... ;)

We were in town for the Boulder farmer's market and craft show, where we got to try sample after sample of organic, non-GMO, natural, gluten-free everything.  It was a little crazy!

We ate so well on this trip!  My friend Amanda was an incredible cook, and every meal was full of delicious fresh veggies that she cooked up effortlessly, usually without a recipe.  It inspired me to begin eating wholly and well again now that I'm back home, especially since I felt incredible the entire time I was eating out there!

There were some fun little exciting bits, as well.  I mean, you can't have a climbing trip without some "huh" moments!  For instance, I did a very long moderate 5.9 that became slick and tough when it started raining on me mid-route.  I had to clean the draws, then when I was lowered, we realized exactly how long the route was when this was how much rope there was left!  At least I made it... :)

On our rest day walking around Fort Collins, we went to a chocolate shop similar to the one in the movie Chocolat and tried a flight of chocolate (similar to a flight of beer).  I've never really done anything like that before, and it was delicious!  We were all dissolving into giggle fits as we enjoyed the chocolate tasting, and each of us walked off with some truffles and hot chocolate to enjoy when the weather turns.

We ended the trip bouldering in Rocky Mountain National Park again.  I absolutely loved the hike in, and it only solidified how much I truly love the mountains.  And long approaches.  And climbing incredible rock.  And trips with friends.
This trip was exactly what I needed put my head and my thoughts back in order, and to gain back that positive and happy energy that I felt had dwindled after such a rough summer.
It's amazing how therapeutic climbing and friends can be when you need to heal your soul. :)

Adventure Augusts- Begin

I just got off the Superior Hiking Trail with my parents, I taught dance camp, and now I'm heading off to Colorado to hang out with a bunch of different friends for an awesome CLIMBING TRIP! :)
I'll regale part I of my August Adventure in just under 2 weeks.
For now, I'm off. :)

July Craziness

After climbing in Spearfish, it's been non-stop busy for me.  I decided that in order to keep my sanity, I would only really keep up on instagram (and occasionally facebook) and take a hiatus from writing on the blog.  This was partly because I was gone 4 days every weekend, and partly because I've been so busy that knitting has taken a back seat this summer.
Instead, here's what I've been up to this last month!

Almost every weekend, I've been trying to get down to the lake to enjoy time with family.  It's really cool that as I get older, I want to spend more time with my ridiculous family members.  And one really awesome thing- my brother got engaged!  We're adding a Kendra to my immediate family, and I couldn't be happier with my almost-sister-in-law!

(Myself, Brit, and Kendra hanging out on the lake!)
I spent my Mon-Thu teaching a summer term course at my college, which was really intense and really fast-paced.  Luckily, I had time in the afternoon to do a few awesome activities...

like picking strawberries with my friend Alex...

and passing the last navigation dive for my Advanced Diver Certification!  It feels SO cool to know that I've passed, and I have over a dozen dives under my belt- half of them in Lake Superior!  Diving scares the crap out of me, so getting to a point that I'm finally feeling a little more comfortable underwater is incredible!
My last two weekends have been filled with wedding related parties for one of my best college friends, Lady Lust!

Her rehearsal at Pizza Luce in downtown was delicious...

and I got to help assemble everything from bouquets to boutineers to drawing names and dates on hangers.

The wedding was fantastic, and one of the best parts was being able to hang out with all my old college friends that I haven't seen in far too long.  My old roommates Mark and Larissa attempted to coerce me to move down to the cities so I can hang out with them more often.  It was hard to say no!

I'm so glad I was part of Kate's special day, and it only fueled my desire to see them all more often!
I ended the weekend hanging out with my family, as my Dad flew up from Florida for a couple of weeks of MN summer awesomeness!  We did an entire day on Sunday on the water, touring the entire Lake Minnetonka area and jumping in whenever it got too hot out (which was just about every bay).  I've really missed having my dad around, and having all of the family together was fantastic.

I drove back to Duluth late Sunday, and last night was a special performance by my summer tap dance students down on the Duluth Boardwalk!

We performed the song we'd been working on the last few weeks, and the girls performed amazingly!  None of them seemed nervous, it looked like they had fun, and we even had a good size crowd!
Tonight is my last night of summer dance, and tomorrow I'll be taking my Mom, Dad, brother, and Kendra out on the Superior Hiking Trail for a couple of days of backpacking.  From there, back to the lake for the weekend, then a day of dance camp, then on Tuesday I'm off for a 10-day climbing trip in Colorado with two of my best friends!
Things don't seem like they're going to slow down until school starts at the end of August, but I'll attempt to do a better job of shorter posts with pics more often.
And maybe- just maybe- some finished knitting projects. ;)