Settled

I have pretty much got my apartment set up the way I want (I ended up going to buy a 6th bookcase--I'm going to need it!) and have even got most of my decorative items where I want them, so now it's on to other projects. Like re-sorting all my embroidery floss that I lugged across the ocean and back and now needs new boxes. I'm working on acquiring kitchen tools as I need them, working through the huge stack of reading for school, and of course working on some knitting and spinning!

I gave my finished pink/purple yarn a bath right after I moved but forgot to take pictures of it, so here are the finished skeins in all their glory. Now to figure out what project they go with... I'm pretty please with my increasing skills, and despite my fears it looks like the two main skeins aren't too different.

On Sunday I started working on my birthday gift from Beth- some lovely alpaca that she dyed. I spun up half of it that afternoon, but I'm stalled out a bit because I can't decide if I want to 2 or 3 ply it, and if I'm going to do it 2 ply, if I want to have two seperat balls, or ply from the center and outside of the cake at once. The problem with that last method is there is a high potential for a mess as I don't have any kind of kate to help me tension, but at the same time that will guarantee that every little bit gets used. Hmm...

I'm still working on the baby sweater; one arm is getting close to done, and the long tedious ribbing is already done, so I should be able to finish this off quickly. So cute! And I like how my two-color ribbing turned out.

The main thing I've been working on is my Cityscape Tank, in Lion Brand Coboo, a cotton-linen blend. I love the color and got the yarn at a great price over the 4th of July, but it is rather splitty, so while it's a very simple stitch pattern (sooooo sick of twisted ribbing!), I have to watch pretty carefully to make sure I'm not splitting stitches. I'm pondering how I'm going to weave those ends in and if I need to do anything extra. I'm thinking I might need to do clasp-weft joins to help keep the ends from fraying, but that might make it worse. Hmm... White this isn't exciting to knit, I love the excellent shaping of the finished product, and have found hopes of getting to wear it soon. It's not like Texas is going to run out of summer!

One of the best parts of having my own place has been having my own kitchen again. I've been enjoying meal planning, shopping, and then cooking. I made hamburger buns last week; not quite what I was hoping for, but definitely edible!

I also bought a mini waffle maker, and after an initial trial run on Sunday with a waffle omelette,

I used it tonight to make supper, and I LOVE IT. I never knew I had a tinny waffle maker void in my life, but now I have some fun ideas for things to 'waffle' that I can't wait to try!

Well, that's what I've been up to so far! I'm having company over tomorrow, so I'm trying something out to see if it works as well in real life as it did in my head! Also, I seriously need to get a cooling rack for my baking...