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.

Thank you Geek Crafts!

So today I was checking out my shop stats on Etsy to see if my facebook page (Niki's Knerdy Knitting on Facebook) was generating any traffic when I discovered that several views had been directed from my FAVORITE blog: Geek Crafts .  They featured my Soot Sprites on one of their postings today!  I am super excited to have them notice me just a week after I listed items for sale in my shop.  Thank you Geek Crafts, you guys almost made me start jumping around and squealing in a very quiet resort lounge in Hawaii :D On that note, Hawaii is completely gorgeous and fabulous, look at this big manta ray I saw swimming around in the ocean just a few feet away from me!  And of course, I've been doing lots of knitting (my needles made it through security after all!).  I've started a new project just for this trip, its an afghan made of 49 squares: 7x7 to represent all the colors of the rainbow!  Here is my progress so far, you can see I've incorporated all the combinations of red, orange, and yellow and am just starting work on the green sections:

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.

Some Pictures

So the other day I took out ALL my yarn and works in progress and unsold items and laid them out in my living room and took a bunch of pictures.  It was pretty epic.  Unfortunately, those pictures are on my camera and my camera is in Chapel Hill and I am in Raleigh.  My car died and trapped me here away most of my yarn :( I'm having separation anxiety.  However, I do have some pictures from NerdCon of finished items that I've been meaning to post so here they are:

Chesire Cat 

Chesire came out a little creepy.  I always feel like he's looking at me...and contemplating eating me.

Space Invader Illusion Knit

Goomba

This one is really cool.  If you look at it straight on  you just see stripes but if you look at it from the right angle the pattern emerges!  Its difficult to photograph the effect but its really neat in person.  When I get back to Chapel Hill and my camera I'll be posting a photo of a larger illusion knit of Bruce Tim's Joker.

NerdCon

NerdCon went fabulously.  I found new homes for Pikachu, Sackboy, some Soot Sprites, and a spiky hat.  It was super fun seeing everyone's costumes and all the awesome stuff the other vendors had.  I'll definitely be looking for more cons like this in the future (and I'll be better prepared with more plushies!).  I plan to get everything I didn't sell at NerdCon up on my Etsy shop this week but I'll be taking a bit of time off knitting and crocheting in order to focus on exams.  Once my life is slightly less hectic I'm going to start working on creating my own amigurumi patterns!  Thanks to someone's suggestion at NerdCon, a MineCraft Creeper will be first on the list!  I'm also looking forward to more illusion knitting (pictures to come!) and experimenting with sock knitting and tunisian crochet.

Eyes!

 Pikachu is officially done!  I finally got around to buying supplies other than yarn.  Soon I will have Soot Sprites complete with googly eyes too.

Aaaand this is what a Cheshire Cat looks like before being sewn, stuffed, and embroidered.  I'm hoping the finishing touches make him a bit less...erm...terrifying.  This project has taught me that knitting rather than crocheting plushies is NOT as similar as you would think.  He's knitted on straight needles whereas usually I crochet in the round...in the end that means that in addition to the normal stuffing and sewing all the pieces together, his body and limbs all need seams sewn as well.  I may try to adapt this pattern to crocheting once NerdCon and exams are over and I have free time again.

I was a useful human being today!

Yay me!  Today, in addition to going to class, I filed my taxes, rewrote my resume, and found out where/when I need to go to see a criminal proceeding to write about for my criminal law class.  Now I can spend the rest of the day making more plushies for NerdCon!  Oh and if someone out there wants to hire me...I could send you a copy of that rewritten resume...please?