Work-In-Progress Wednesday - #17

Thank you all for your warm welcome back into the blogging world, I'm so excited to be joining you all again!

I have an embarrassingly long backlog of WIPs right now, but we've all been there, right?  So, I'll show you the three that I'm putting real time into right now.

knitting

Narragansett/ This sweater was a recent travel project, all I have to do after that trip is the other sleeve.  The yarn is a mystery wool that my mother uncovered recently on one of her adventures, I'll tell you that story in the near future.

Swirling Gauntlets/ I just needed more cables in my life, we all know that feeling right?  Also, this is some more super special yarn gifted to me by my best friend, Rebecca.

Rowan Felted Tweed dk

crochet

Sock Scrap Blanket/ I've been slowly working on this for about a year, it all started with me having a whole bunch of sock yarn scraps of the same yarn and wanting to do, something, anything, with them.  I'm still not sure what I'll end up stitching these into, any ideas?

Araucania Itata Multy

Anyone else suffering from an intense desire to knit all the sweaters?

Back to work

I've been away from my beloved blog for almost a year now and I've missed it!  I've missed my wonderful, supportive readers especially.  So sorry for the extended absence.

Just because this blog has been stagnant, does not mean that I have been!

I'm still working away on my graduate studies slowly, but surely:

One of my fellow students said something along the lines of "graduate school is all about endurance".  I'm starting to think that he is right!

I have been knitting sweaters:

Because you can never have too many sweaters right?

I have been obsessed with finding the perfect granola recipe:

Please share your favorite if you have one, I've been inspired by this Buzzfeed post.

I have been learning bookmaking:

Using recycled materials mostly as I practice and learn more.

Kitty is snoozing away as always:

It's hard work being a kitty.

Plus so much more I hope to share with you very soon!

Business trips are

It's been a little while since I've said hello, predictably life has become even more busy than I could ever imagine and I haven't been able to keep up with my favorite people!

I have been reading posts when I have a spare moment, and I'm obviously not the only person who has been busy.  I've been seeing so many inspirational finished projects and Audry has finished her book of patterns (which is even more amazing than I ever could have envisioned).

I'm currently on my way to Boston for a business trip.  It is a stressful time for a trip, I'm having to leave my experiments in the hands of someone else for a few days.  But it does give me some time to check in!

I've been knitting, spinning, and crocheting for at least a few moments every day, it's what keeps me sane after all.

My favorite project to work on is currently my scrap yarn granny blanket, I'm definitely getting better at crochet.

I've been knitting with some soft alpaca handspun.  This is going to be a warm hat for a friend. 

Mostly my life has been consumed with work.  My project is massive and I have a lot of responsibilities, but I'm constantly learning new skills and it is honestly a dream come true.  If you are at all interested in my work, we just had a press conference and reporters descended on the labs.  I was excited to get to show off my new microscope (which has lasers, I'll have you know) to several film crews. '

Fox News - Wake Forest teaming with feds to test for chemical warfare antidotes

I hope you are all well, I hope to be around more now that things have slowed down a little bit.

After work collapse

Surely you've experienced those days when you get home after a long day of work and nothing feels better than collapsing on the couch.

This has been happening a lot to me lately.  It could be because working at the institute surrounded by so many brillant people and the high expectations expected of students there is making me work towards a whole new level of efficiency and training me to be more adaptable.  I have to the realization that I am moving away from simply being a molecular biologist to more of a biomedical engineer.  I've found my dream job.

Of course stage 2 of my recharge time is working with yarn.  If I have the energy, I work on the more complex sweater pattern I wrote about last post.

If I'm more exhausted than usual I succumb to my obsession with knitting my whole stash, which lately has been simple crocheting:

This is destined to become the first of a set of placemats (this is special yarn, I want to put it on display)

This is going to be part of the most comfy kitty bed ever and help me use up even more scraps (I have no idea where they all come from!) 

...because this kitty isn't spoiled enough as it is.  

I have no idea why she gets a gray tummy during the summer, it is probably because she is "part fancy cat" as my mother would say.