Where My Stitches At?

Have you ordered your Ravelry t-shirt yet?

We were out of town last weekend visiting the NC. Internet access was a whopping $8.95 per day in our hotel, which is too steep for this craft blogger. Surprisingly little knitting was done on the plane. Why? I’ve been teaching a summer school class at a local university and it’s been kicking my ass. I got to grade and compile scores instead of having quality knit time. Thank goodness it is all wrapped up now! Now don’t get me wrong…teaching is super fun, and the students energized me every class session with their enthusiasm and intelligence. But WOW is it exhausting. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I weren’t also working full-time at my regular job.

The one little bit of knitting that I have accomplished recently is an iPod Nano cozy for my sister-in-law (the lovely Miss Hipp). I used the leftover yarn from the Sockapalooza 4 socks and whipped up a cute little seed stitch pouch. Too bad it was half an inch too short! Grrrrr. That’s what I get for thinking I could eyeball the 9 cm length. And you know how seed stitch is — can’t stretch it worth a darn.

So I started over today, this time in 2×2 rib so that it has a bit more give in either direction. Me likey so far.

Some news of my Monkey Sock Swap pal’s socks (agggh! the gauge nightmare!) in my next post.

Hipp Crafts…Courtesy of Flickr

How cool is this? Spell with Flickr rocks! You put in your word, then it searches images on Flickr to spell it out for you. If you don’t like one of the letters, you can click on it to pull up another random selection. It even auto-generates the html code so you can pop it into your blog…presto!

Found this link from the beautiful How about orange… blog. She’s got a lot of other cool craftiness over there. So inspiring.

The Time Suck

Despite getting a Ravelry invite several months ago, I have only just recently logged on and started exploring. Oh my goodness, no wonder people rave about it. All of my internet goof-off time this week – which used to be dedicated to blogs – has been poured into setting up my Ravelry notebook and checking out what others have posted. It is amazing. If you haven’t added yourself to the list for an invite yet, go do it now! You don’t need to have a blog outside, just a Flickr account with photos of your knitting and your stash. Freaking great.

Before I go back to Ravelry today, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve been working on. (I seem to get super-crafty-productive only when I am stressed and busy with work. Anyone else experience the same thing?)

Mom’s Guilt Socks – first one was completed last night, afterthought heel and all:

Child’s Placket Neck Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts (made from this corrected pattern) – for a co-worker’s impending baby:

I still need to close up the underarms and buy some buttons, but this thing is basically done. Super fun and super easy. It’s my first seamless raglan sweater and I LOVE it. I may never go back.

If you want to visit me at Ravelry, I can be found under username “MrsHipp”. Take care, y’all!

(BTW: Those of you in So Cal – did you feel the earthquake a few minutes ago?!?)