Wollen Sie mit mir stricken? My Weekend, Part 1

I had a long weekend all to myself, which means that all my usual schedule-stick-to-it-ive-ness goes straight out the window. I stay up to all hours of the night, eat lots of junk food at strange times of the day, and basically can't make myself do any work. For example, I have a new stack of papers to grade this weekend, and here I am, blogging instead of starting them. I know. I know I should start, but they don't need to be finished until next week! Instead, I got caught up on things both knitting and non-knitting related. I'm going to list them in an attempt to make myself feel as though I did get lots accomplished this weekend, even if it wasn't work-related.

1. I did laundry. This was crucial, because I was running out of clean clothes that are work-appropriate (no holes). I hate doing laundry, so this was a major accomplishment. I was able to knit on the sleeve of my Tangled Yoke cardigan while the clothes dried:



This is sleeve #2. I like doing the sleeves of a sweater first, because by the time I get bogged down in the middle of the body and feel like shoving it out of the way in favor of something shinier, the sleeves will stare at me from the bottom of the project bag with little puppy-dog eyes, saying things like "You have to finish the body to give meaning to our existence!" and "What, you gonna give up now? You're more than a third of the way done! " and "Don't be a wuss. It's a friggin' seamless raglan with one little cable. Almost half of it is plain stockinette. You bored? Put on a movie or something and get going." The sleeves taunt and plead. It can get annoying, but they help me get the job done.

2. I went grocery shopping. I'm going to go ahead and give myself a pat on the back for this one, too, as it means I did not go out for avocado & cheese omelettes, curry, and Italian food all weekend. I feel very disciplined for eating so many (3) bananas this weekend. I was not able to knit while grocery shopping, however.

3. I obtained a German-language instruction audiobook. It's the Michel Thomas basic German series, and I really wish Audible.com had the whole introductory set. I listened to the first 1/2 hour, and it was really good. Thanks for helping me find a good one, Liz. I already knew the German verb stricken, and I was seriously able to put together the title of this post* in my head about 20 minutes in. I tried to knit while listening, but you're supposed to stop the program and respond to the questions out loud when it beeps, and I kept having to put my knitting down to hit pause on the computer. But I didn't mind, I was enjoying myself so much. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to learn a language!

4. I knit on my Fiddlehead mittens.



Oh. My. Goodness. I am in love with these mittens. I want to leave my significant other and move into a tiny swanky downtown studio apartment with these mittens. We will go out for martinis and expensive food that doesn't even pretend to nourish you and then to very hip clubs... Okay, maybe I'm getting carried away, but I'm at least mildly obsessed. I started these things on Wednesday. I am now finished with the outer shells, which need to be washed and blocked before I can start the lining. I want to have these done in time to take them to Germany, which means about a week from Friday. As long as I can devote another day next weekend to knitting and not get distracted by the lovely lovely wheel, I think I'll be good.

That's it for now. I'll try to post again during the week with an update on the spinning.

*Do you want to knit with me?