Tomorrow I'm going to a full day of work, and then I'm driving a van of 10 people to the mountains of Nagano for our big, weekend-long soccer tournament. So what did I just HAVE to do tonight?

Block this leaf lace shawl, of course! I finished this ages ago, but there was no rush to block it as I was going to give it to my tea ceremony teacher when I leave Japan next year. But now the dearest friend and co-worker, who has been nothing short of a savior to me the whole time I've worked in Japan, is getting married. It's all very low-key and being done at city hall on Sunday, and I just know that she will die when she opens this wedding prezzie at work next week. She absolutely fawns over any handknit item I wear to work and is always full of positive energy (and gossip!). How could I NOT give it to her?

Ship over that next batch of yarn Mum, just T-minus 10 months to get the next one finished.

Posted by Molly at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I may not have time to actually knit these days, but it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it. I may have to go buy those extra needles for log-cabining after all!

This is a great film.

Posted by Molly at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend was another busy one, as I worked late Friday night, all day Saturday and then headed out for a pubquiz and party straight after work that night. Then the day after the party we fit in a soccer practice (I scored twice!) and some tennis. Thank goodness I had today (Monday) off to recover. Not much time for knitting even today, but I can finally reveal my most recent endeavor.

Team shirts! We decided that our 4-person team for the pub quiz really needed to have shirts and I had been itching to try out the whole freezer paper stencil fad. Of course, I was a bit overzealous for my first ever t-shirt making, and decided to make two-sided shirts with our team logo on the front and our own personalized backs (mine is pictured, but luckily all the other ones were considerably shorter). All in all, it was not too hard, but BOY oh BOY did it take a long time to cut out all those stencils! A friend even took pity on me and worked together with me on it for about 8 hours.

The shirts came out nicely even though I didn't have real fabric paint. All I could find was normal craft paint and a "fabric safe" meduim that mixed together, made it into fabric paint. I think that it also would have turned out better if I'd ironed freezer paper on the inside of the shirt to stabilize it as well. But I don't know how to find freezer paper in Japan so I am really trying to stretch the special rush shipment that I got from my mom as far as it will go. The stencils pucked a little bit when they got wet and pulled away from the fabric so we had some small seepage problems. But all in all, they look pretty amazing and everyone was duly impressed. After all, you wouldn't want them to look TOO perfect and store-made, would you? That just wouldn't be any fun.

Needless to say, we didn't even place in the pub quiz. But we were most definitely the best-dressed and I got the team spirit award.

Just for fun, and because I doubt anyone will know, I'll send a prize to anyone who can guess why I have "My Killer Blowgun" on the back of my shirt.

Posted by Molly at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hi! Remember me? Don't worry, I'm still alive! The last few weeks have been a blur of fun times, with hardly any knitting going on in between. I missed my poor blog! Now the weather is finally cooling down (yessssssss!), my nights are starting to free up, and I'm back, hopefully to stay.

It doesn't look like I've made much progress since last time, but I actually had to rip and re-knit this twice! ARGH. That has not helped on the non-knitting front. Turns out that baby number 2 is fatter than baby number 1, and mom asked that I make the biggest size after seeing the absolutely adorable pink one. "That way he can wear it as long as possible!," she told me. How could I tell her I had already started? So it came out and I started knitting again. The fact that she is SO excited made that easier to bear. But then I made it about this far again and realized that I had dropped a stitch on the edge of a cable about 3 inches down when I was watching a movie with some friends in the dark.* Very frustrating but I plugged through and am finally getting my groove back and am hoping this baby will knit itself quickly.

I am dying to knit more log cabin squares, but as you may remember, it takes the same size needles as Trellis and I have yet to actually buy another pair. It's not even that I'm cheap (though it's true that knitting needles aren't free!) but more that I really need to finish this soon so I can deliver it to its anxious recipient. I don't need any colorful and mindless distractions. I'm doing the best that I can here!

And I know it's not Saturday or anything, but I wanted to share the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. This is what the sunrise looks like from 3,776 meters. I climbed a mountain, in case you didn't know, and I'm still in the telling everyone phase.

Yay, I'm happy to be back!

*Is it ever ok to pull out a headlamp for knitting during a movie in someone's home? I know some people don't like watching movies with the lights on, but this seems like a good compromise, no?

Posted by Molly at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Looking back at my previous post about Trellis, do you notice anything weird? Maybe not, because the ends of the sleeves are cut off. Apparently I don't know my baby proportions well, as the sleeves were RIDICULOUSLY long when I finally gifted it. Oops! As soon the family had it out of the package, everyone was cracking up at the sleeves. Once they mentioned it, I realized that they did look a bit long, and had a good laugh. Of course they were the perfect recipients, and ooohed and ahhed over the handiwork despite the long sleeves. And really, they were right to point out that it looks cute even with the cuffs rolled back (a lot). Sadly, it was ridiculously hot so there are no gratuitous baby shots to show yet, but I'm sure they'll send some when it gets cold.

As it turns out, the smaller baby is just about as big as his older cousin so I'm ripping back my blue Trellis (which was promised this weekend but not yet delivered) and starting over. I will be shortening the sleeves by one whole pattern repeat. I wonder if I followed the pattern or accidentally added in an extra repeat.

I haven't been knitting much lately and I fear that might not change anytime soon. My idea of a perfect night used to be coming home from work, having dinner and settling in on the couch to knit by 7 while I watch the news, or a tape of some reality tv show from home. But this year I have a lot more commitments and only one free night per week, if that. Don't get me wrong, I love everything else that I'm doing these days and wouldn't give it up.. but I wish there was more time for everything! And with the bug problems of late, hanging around my apartment really isn't as relaxing as it used to be. This weekend I'm climbing Mount Fuji and at the end of the month is my soccer debut in a national tournament (hope it's not TOO serious, ha), but I might be able to fit some crafting in between. We'll see!!

Posted by Molly at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)