done done done!

my sister trying to steal my graduation glory :)

I officially graduated from college! finally. I now hold a bachelor of science in family and consumer sciences in family and consumer sciences (nope I didn't type that twice on accident) and a minor in fashion merchandising!

That qualifies me to knit for a living right?.....right?

I need to go to bed, just wanted to give a quick update on my doneness with school...for now :P

I also just ripped out one of my Christmas gifts for I think the fifth time and I think I finally found a pattern I'm happy with. This was a nice positive note to sleep on tonight since I have to rip out my dad's present tomorrow due to it ending up too small...blegh.

ok night!

the end!

Today is officially my last class day of my undergraduate career! And yes, it has been a career, haha. I'm so ready to graduate! All I have between me and the stage are my physics and history finals next Thursday and Friday, and a presentation I have to show up for on the 15th.

I just got an email from my physics prof with a list of some key terms to know for the final. Seems nice right? There are over 400 "key" terms on the list. what. the. heck?! blegh!

Anyways, I have no idea what I'm going to do once I'm done so if any of yall have any ideas for someone with a bachelor of science in family and consumer sciences and a minor in fashion merchandising...let me know :) I am thinking about seminary, but that won't be for another year and a half I think, unless I take a class or two online, which could be fun. We'll see.

On the knitting front I've finished three of my presents! Well almost, I still need to weave in some ends in my latest completion. At the rate I'm going I might actually finish everything before Christmas.

Ok and one last thing. It's supposed to snow tomorrow! I really hope it does and all this hype isn't for nothing. Apparently it's only snowed six times in the past years in Austin. Poor Austin and it's lack of pretty white snow.

Ok I'm off to do whatever while I wait for my LAST class!

ps. I wrote a hat pattern so I might be posting that soon...we'll see :)

kitty kittens

So I can finally show yall something I've been knitting this semester! I have some dear friends in Sydney, Australia who I decided to send some love to in the form of a package full of goodies. Naturally I had to knit something and I thought Ysolda's kitty stuffies would be perfect.

I picked a neutral variegated yarn I had lying around and had originally planned to add faces in dark brown. Once I finished the kittens I loved their simplicity too much to bother with faces, but I still wanted them to have a little something something extra, ya know?

A bowtie!...and a cute hair bow! Perfect :) One kitten even turned out a bit taller than the other.

I hugged them lots and then packed them away with others goodies, including one of my little knit hearts and sent them around the world. They got the package last week and now the kittens have a cozy loving home. I love knowing something I made with my hands is being loved.

I have officially finished two of my Christmas presents, one I finished tonight and I love. Get excited about all the pictures I'll get to post after Christmas!!

say yes to the...

Ah black Friday. What a lovely day to spend at home watching wedding shows and figuring out all the gifts I plan to make....and not buy :)

Wedding shows. They are my weakness. Not because I'm wedding crazy or super anxious to have my own (though I am excited about mine someday) but because I just love what weddings are about. The joining of two families, outward symbol of love, the commitment to friends, family, the church, each other, and most importantly God. It's so beautiful.

In watching all the wedding shows I get caught up in I've noticed that the core of what weddings are all about has gotten lost in white tulle, matching linens, party favors, and custom designer cocktails. What happened to love? Where did the feeling of community go? Where is God in our weddings? Scarier yet, where is God in our marriages?

Oh right, I'm talking about weddings, marriages are an entirely different topic that I could go on and on and on with.

So on this show Say Yes to the Dress women go to a huge bridal store in New York and try on designer dresses that are thousands of dollars. Usually I'm just whatever about how crazy expensive these dresses are because if these girls want to pay that much, go for it. But, one girl just went on about how and her fiance are teachers and on a budget and she doesn't want her mom to have to pay too much for her dress so she has a tight budget of $3,000. Another bride just got laid off so she wants to keep her dress under $5,000.

Three to five grand for a dress you wear for maybe 7 hours and then never put on again and leave in your closet. I understand how special this dress is, and that the pictures last forever...hopefully. I just can't understand spending so much. I was raised with a thrifty dad, I've learned I'd rather make things than buy them, I'm getting a degree partially based in finance...all these make me gasp at a dress for thousands. I'd like to have an entire wedding under three thousand dollars, not just a dress.

What really bothers me is not the price of these dresses, that's not the heart of the matter. I'm so discouraged by these brides that make a wedding more about a dress, or a cake, or the perfect venue and not about the marriage they are going into. The commitment to love and become one with the man in their life somehow gets lost in the fanfare of the party.

I'm not sure what this post was supposed to accomplish, maybe I just needed to get that out so I could continue to watch my wedding shows, haha.


Anyways, I need to clean, knit, put some Christmas lights up and hopefully meet up with an old friend later!

so...

I know I know...I've been everywhere but here!

Here's a brief list of what's going on with me.

• graduate college in 25 days (only 3 more class days!)
  
• lots of Christmas knitting that I can't tell you about yet
• trying to figure out what God's will for my life is
• lots of time with David
• helping out at my church a lot
• mania practice starts very soon
• no swine flu...yet

So I haven't been on here much because I can't really post pics of anything I've been knitting or planning. I hope to have lots of pictures and posts after Christmas though. Maybe I'll sew something tomorrow in between three writing intensive assignments...we shall see though.

love!

community

A magazine I subscribe to and enjoy is Relevant Magazine. They also have a ridiculously funny podcast that has made me look like a big weirdo on the bus numerous times.

Last year the people at Relevant started a new branch called Neue which is targeted toward church leaders. They put out a quarterly book zine with some pretty inspiring and thought provoking articles. I just read one today and it really made me think. Here's an excerpt from the article about community by Jimmy Spencer

"Community is simply the network of relationships that are birthed from working together. This important work is to reflect Jesus and His message so strongly that it compels those we encounter to ask us why we are so unique. We at The Sherma Movement call this Viral Jesus. Unfortunately, we spend so much time motivating and training people how to do the work of the Church, we often have little time to actually do the work. I would implore leaders to get workers into society and allow them to experience, and sometimes fail at, being Jesus to others. This work builds the Kingdom, matures us and produces real community amongst those who participate. This is the Kingdom of God.

We should be conforming people to the image of Jesus. Not ourselves. God community is a beautiful mosaic of different people and practices. Adding unique people to our community refines us into who God intended us to be."

As a leader in my church this really spoke to me. The community we are building in our college group....is it for fun, or for the Kingdom?

Five of us are going to New Orleans this weekend to help the baptist mission there hand out candy to kids on Halloween and to help get all their Christmas decorations up. This place demands a lot of hard work and a heart for that community, and I love it. Every time I go though, I'm reminded that I need the same heart for the people of my own community in Austin. I need to yearn to love those that others don't, but who Jesus would go straight to. I pray my church develops this same yearning that I so desire.

We are beginning a campaign to raise money to build a new sanctuary in our church in an effort to reach out to our community more. I pray that in this process we, as a body, grow closer together because we are all working for the same cause. I pray we remember that it's for the Kingdom of God, and not just for a newer bigger building.

This was long, I hope some of yall made it to the end. I guess I should stop reading articles that tug at my heart and read some for my class in a few hours, haha.

ps. I graduate in less than 8 weeks!
pps. I've been thinking about seminary lately and I feel very drawn to marriage and family counseling or something along those lines. If you think about it, pray for clarity in listening to what God has for me :)

full of oops

My blogging is getting really spaced out...oops!

I'd like to say it's because school is getting hectic (now that I'm so close to graduating!), or that I'm super busy at church all the time but it isn't and I'm not. Considering I have two writing intensive classes and a science, my work load is pretty easy, and I haven't gotten behind on anything which is just crazy for me, ha.

Church activities do keep me busy but not in an insane way. Our college group is going through a growth spurt, but I don't mean in the size kind of way. We've all grown so close together. Such a great way to grow in a church :) Even though I'm graduating in less than two months I plan to stay in the group until next December when David graduates (hopefully!!)

The rest of my life is filled with far too many Disney tv shows, food network competitions and whatever else David makes me watch. Don't get me wrong, these shows have their advantages. There are NO skanky girl commercials on late at night on Disney and the content and language is always clean. Though my humor level and knack for intelligent conversation maybe lowering, I find it refreshing to not have my mind bombarded with the level of sex, language, and violence that society has deemed normal for prime time television. When I do watch adult shows it's usually just the office, haha.

I say all this to then say, I'm still knitting! I just have this problem lately of starting a new project before I finish another one, so I never have pictures to share of finished projects. Soon I will be making my Christmas knitting list and knitting like a crazy grandma up until December 24 at midnight I'm sure.

My biggest project is that blanket I mentioned a few weeks ago. All I have is this pic from my iphone to show you, but I think it gets across how awesome it is. It's super soft too, I love it.

I'm almost done with a gift for some special friends and will post pics when they get to their new homes, hopefully sooner than later. I might also be doing a little halloween accessory knitting this weekend, we'll see.

This post was random and longer than I planned, oops!

I'm crazy..

so the other day i got sucked into trying to crochet again. It wasn't that bad and I understood what I was doing so I had the crazy idea to look into crocheted blanket patterns. I've always heard crocheting is faster than knitting so it seemed like a decent idea to crochet a blanket. after looking, falling in love with, and obsessing over the blanket idea I did a swatch run to see if I could even manage the crocheting.

I did. but. It was soooo slow! In the amount of time it took me to crochet a chain and then the first row on it I was able to do an almost full knit swatch.

So, I started looking for zig-zag/wavy knit blanket patterns and found a great free one on lion brand's ravelry page.

I went out and bought yarn and new needles for this project on Friday and I'm already through 2 5 inch stripes! I'm not sure why exactly I thought it was a good idea to start a new big project right now, but I did...ah well.

It's light gray, turquoise and peacock (so light and dark teal) and I love it. The yarn is from hobby lobby, called I Love This Yarn!, and is so stinkin soft. I'm hoping I can get it done in the next few weeks in time for the cooler weather that I'm hoping i coming soon.

81 degrees at 1am in October is just not acceptable!

lists

to knit:

• 485920 preemie caps (or until i use up my baby yarn)
• Sophie's green beret
• Christmas stuffies for my little cousins
• Christmas scarf for MeMaw
• David's annual Christmas hat
• Christmas gifts for the rest of my family

oh. my. goodness.

A lot of people I know are starting to have babies now too, so I want to come up with a cute knit/sewn baby gift to start making them all. There's pressure to make it cute and special enough to not get lost in the sea of baby stuff everyone gives. I love the thought of one of my knit toys becoming a childhood favorite :)

rain. rain. rain.

I know it's good for the earth and all, but I really hate driving in it...and I have a lot of driving to do this week. My Austin>San Marcos commute, jaw appointment in San Antonio today (my dad is driving half of the way!), and then on Thursday I'm headed to College station to see two of my favorite girls!

Yay for Sophie and Carolyn!

I'll be coming back to Austin Friday afternoon and then getting on a bus for Great Fall. I'm very excited about this year's Great Fall. Our college group has grown so much stronger and closer as friends, so it should be loads of fun.

On the knitting front I've been working on some premie caps for my church's Threads of Love organization. We knit/crochet/sew caps, blankets and vests for babies that are born premature. The hats are so tiny and cute. It amazes me that there are babies so small (I was a 9 pounder, and nearly 2 feet long...poor mom).

I wrote out my own pattern for the caps and I hope to get it up on here in the next week or so once I make sure the sizes I have are good. Maybe some of my knitting readers can knit a few up! You can seriously make on in the time it takes to watch a movie. I made a cute pink one while watching Bride Wars the other night.

Oh AND, I had a lovely lazy day with David yesterday. He didn't feel well and ended up staying home from school, then got some sad news from a friend so he was feeling a little blegh. I decided it was a nice day to be out and about so we ventured out to Bee Cave and got some yummy frozen yogurt at Yogurt Planet, got him a snazzy new hat at Marshalls and picked up a few other things along the way. We then ended up at his cousin's 8th grade football game where he ran a touchdown in the first play, then the team didn't score again, heh. It was beautiful weather though and enjoyable to sit with his family for a while. Then we watched Big Bang Theory with my mom and followed that up with Coraline with Casey and Whitney. A wonderfully relaxing day spent with the boy I love :)

i know he looks sad here but apparently this is his modeling face