*Ding Dong. Ding Dong.*

Ah yes the door bell still works! Can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. What's even more amazing is that I have been at my new job for 4 weeks now! Where has the time gone?

I've been working 5 days a week learning my new job. While it's similar to the work I have done for the past 10 years, there has been new stuff for me to learn since this is my first time working in a law firm. It's been alot to take in and I've had my ups and downs with it. Starting tomorrow I'll be moving to my permanent 3 day a week schedule. Guess they figured I was ready to move to nights. I've been told that nights are extremely busy and I am hoping this is true. I'll need to be kept busy to get through my 12.5 hour shift.

While I haven't been knitting for the past few weeks, I do have some knitting to share. I am almost completely done with my Slanting Gretel Tee. I have just the underarm stitch pick-up and bind-off to do.

I could of had this finished before I started working, but trying it on made me lose my desire. As you all know, I decided to knit this in craptastic yarn that I had in my stash for years, just in case I didn't like it or it didn't fit me properly. Well I can say that I like the sweater on me, it's just a bit too snug across my chest. It will probably fit me perfectly after I lose the 20-30 pounds I want to drop, but until then it will be relegated to the bottom of my sweater draw.

So will I knit it again? Yes I will, but with some changes. I will add about 2 more inches or so in the body length. It really is on the short side and I don't really think people want to see my belly if I reach up to grab something. Overall this is a nice easy pattern. Really knits up quick! I could of had it done in a month if I had dedicated myself to it.

So once my sweater bubble deflated, after the somewhat failing Gretel, I decided to cast on for another pair of socks. I went sock stash diving and came up with this Sanguine Gryphon yarn I bought a couple years ago. It reminded me of summer - sunshine, watermelons and fresh cut grass.

The pattern is from the Sock Innovation book by Cookie A. It's the Angee pattern (my third from the book). This is of course another great little pattern by her. Really does knit up fast. Could probably of had the pair done by now if I had knit a little each day for the past 4 weeks. Never fear though, ya'll know I'll knock it out real soon.

After much deliberation I started another sweater today. I'll share it the next time I post. Hope everyone has a beautiful Easter!

Take Two

As you can see there has been knitting happening in my home! I currently have three projects on the needles. Two of the three are smaller projects (socks to be exact) and at this time are halfway complete. The question is whether or not I will have another FO by the end of January? If I do, that would be a record for me since in 2008 I had 3 FO's. But we shall see what the end of the month brings me. Right now I will share my update on Gretel.

I believe the last time I mentioned Gretel I was fretting about doing the crochet chains and then picking up stitches within them for the armholes. I let the sweater sit for about a week before I plunged forward with this task. One night I just said, "Oh heck with it!" and gave it a whirl. Success was had...

I am quite proud of myself. I am not quite sure what I feared about doing this, but maybe it was because I had only done picking up stitches in a crochet chain once before and it took two tries to get what I thought was right. We'll see when it comes time to unravel the chains if I did indeed do it correctly.

So now I am working on the yoke. I have about three center cable repeats completed thus far. I have read on Ravelry that some people thought the sweater was too short. I am beginning to think the same thing. I worked the body to 14 inches before I separated for the sleeves as the instructions indicated. I'm thinking I should have gone another inch or so, but again it's gonna be one of those wait and see kind of things.

All in all Gretel is knitting up quite fast. The hardest part was concentrating on my location in the chart for the body. I think if I worked on it, Gretel could be done in a week or two.

I would like to thank everyone for their sweet thoughts and hugs on the news of my not getting the job. I did have another recruiter call me this week and today I went in and met with her in regards to a permanent position working inside a law firms Word Processing Center as a WP Operator/Backup Supervisor. I've passed the agency skills test with flying colors. They are forwarding my resume to the law firm. If they want me, I will then go in and take a 4 hour Skills Test at the firm. If I pass to their standard, then I get the interview for the position.

Something the agency rep told me today was, "This firms skills test is one of the hardest in the state." Can I say that this sounds very familiar in that the last agency I went to told me that the investment banks skills test I took was , "Their excel test is one of the most difficult". I left that test with the completed excel graphs matching the originals exactly and didn't get the job. Oye. I am not going to get my hopes up and will walk into the test knowing that I will do the very best that I can. If I get it, hooray. If I don't, there will be something else for me out there.

Hansel and Gretel

The night before Rhinebeck all were a chattering! "What pattern is that?" "O look at this!" "Hey make a note of that!" There was way too much excitement happening inside that hotel room to get much sleep. Pens were flying across paper trying to make any last minute additions to possible wish list items. Alas, when I added the yarn amounts needed to my list for the Slanting Gretel Tee, I had no intention of knitting it myself. My sis had wanted the little note for herself in case she found yarn for it the next day.

Once back in NYC after the weekend festivities, sis and I were decompressing from all the adventure. I was perusing the Fall '09 Interweave Knits and kept coming back to the Tee. Much discussion followed as to whether or not this Tee would look good on me (ya know sometimes the girls just get in the way). Then I remembered I had some really good craptastic yarn that I had purchased way back in the day when I first started knitting. It's "craptastic" 'cause of the yarn content, but "good" because of the color and it would also allow me to tryout this sweater without a big $$$ investment.

So right before Christmas I casted on with my craptastic yarn. I was hesitant at first because of what everyone was saying on Ravelry about it knitting up really big. After some thought, and a good swatch session, I decided to knit two sizes smaller that I normally would and went down to size 4 needles.

As of yesterday this is where I am at. The "slanting" cables going up the front are complete. I've just started the center cable pattern now.

After reading ahead in the Slanting Gretel Tee pattern yesterday, I came to a part under the "Yoke and Sleeves" section where it says I need to create two crochet chains. As soon as my eyes saw that I let out a huge sigh. I know I can handle it, but gosh dangit, can't I get away from the crochet thingie for now?

So what did I do? I balled some luscious yarn I had treated myself to on a mini Brooklyn yarn crawl with Shameka the weekend before Christmas. It was Brooklyn General that kindly took my money in exchange for the Malabrigo Sock Yarn. Not only was I drawn to the yumminess of this yarn, but the color was calling my name very loudly. It's called Terracota. This just happened to be one of the colors I was drawn to during Rhinebeck also.

Anyway, I told Shameka that this yarn was just too nice to be going on my feet. So instead, it's going on my head. I remembered seeing a finished pic of a hat Kim posted on Flickr and thought it would be perfect. Here is the beginning of my own Sockhead hat.

Don't worry, this is just some instant gratification knitting happening here. Slanting Gretel won't be waiting long for my return.