I just want to FINISH something

I'm in that awful knitting place where I have like 8 REALLY BIG works in progress and I just want to do something different.  I promised myself I'm not gonna start anything new until I finish these and from now on I'm only gonna have two works in progress at once: one nerdy thing for the etsy shop, and one thing that lets me use fun yarn (because cheap michael's yarn is great for amigurumi but sometimes a girl just needs to play with cashmere).  One of my giant works in progress at the moment is what I'm calling a Chaos Afghan.  I purchased a single-skein grab bag from Webs and picked 22 bright, fun yarns from the mix.  I'm crocheting 2 rows of each yarn in a ripple pattern and as I run out of a yarn I drop it out of the pattern and just keep on going with the yarn I have left.  When I run out of yarn it will be done.  This has been a really really fun project, I love playing with a bunch of different yarns.  And its getting pretty close to being done...not counting the gazillion ends I'm going to have to weave in once I'm finished crocheting.  I'm definitely keeping this one but I'll post a picture of it on Etsy as an example of a custom project, I'd love an excuse to buy another grab bag and make another one of these, perhaps in a different color scheme.  Once its all finished I'll get a pic up here too.

I'm OLD. And also some knitting websites.

I turned 23 today...that age sounds rather adult...but yeah...a year into law school with a full fledged yarn addiction I'm not feeling all that grown up.  When my BF turned 24 last May I was like "oh god I can't believe I'm dating someone who's 24.  Thats so OLD!" and now I'm OLD too!
Anyways, while in Hawaii I discovered that my skin is extremely sensitive to sunlight and consequently I spent a lot of time indoors at the hotel (this is not a complaint, the hotel was gorgeous and I got to knit).  Thankfully, the hotel also had free wireless so I've discovered some really cool knitting stuff on the web.  My LYS's facebook page posted a link to the Fall Knit and Crochet Show which just happens to be in Greensboro this year.  YAY for copious amounts of fun with yarn just 45 minutes away from meeeee!  While I contemplated taking every single class, I've decided just to drive up for saturday afternoon to take a fair isle knitting class (fair isle and color knitting in general is something that has terrified me for far too long) and check out the shopping room.  While exploring that website I THEN discovered TKGA (The Knitting Guild Association).  Any knitters reading this should go check out their website immediately, they have all kinds of useful resources.  I'm particularly excited about the knitting correspondence courses that they offer, including their Master Knitting Program.  I want to be a master knitter!  Just you wait, 2 years from now I'll have a law degree and a knitting certificate and I'll go around bragging about the knitting certificate.  Anyways for now I've enrolled in their "Basics, Basics, Basics" course so that I can make sure I have all my basics technically correct (since I have never gotten any knitting help from another human being) before I start the masters program.  I'm SUPER excited about this because I get to knit swatches and then send them in to get feedback from someone who knows much more about knitting than I do :D  My class materials came on friday so I'll be getting started knitting my swatches this week! I'm also getting close to finishing the rainbow spectrum afghan I've been working on...I decided to block every square individually before sewing them together so thats taking a little while but expect pictures of the finished product very soon!  I think its coming together really well but I gotta say, I regret using Cascade 220 yarn for this.  I've been trying to purchase higher quality yarn from WEBS or my LYS for most of my projects, but for even a moderately sized afghan this just costs too much!  This project was super fun to make and I hope to make more to sell on Etsy but in the future I will be using nice, cheap, machine washable Red Heart Super Saver for any afghans.

Big News!

After a summer of working at a law office full time and not knitting nearly enough, I have FINALLY gotten my Etsy shop, Niki's Knerdy Knitting, up and running!  I'm uploading pictures to my computer as I type this and will be adding bunches of new items to the shop throughout the evening, please check it out!  In other news, I'm leaving for vacation to Hawaii (YAY) on friday, lets keep our fingers crossed that the ever inconsistent TSA doesn't take my knitting needles away at security and I can get lots of knitting done on that 12 hour flight.