I’ve had the idea in my head for awhile to review some knitting apps for the iPhone & iPod Touch. Currently, I’ve only used a stitch/row counting app, but haven’t been convinced that knitting apps are necessary. Knitting is so pen and paper to me anyway (aside from the thousands of electronic knitting patterns out there, of course!).

Before I delve into my reviews, I wanted to hear from you. Do you use any knitting apps? Have you used any knitting apps in the past? What did you like/dislike about them? Please send me an email at themarioscarf@gmail.com if you want to contribute! I’d love to hear from you.

Wow, my knitting queue is huge right now! Everyone wants some knitwear these days. I have about 5 active projects on needles right now and another one to start. I just wanted to share my three coolest ones really quick.

This is my Cranberry Sauce Hat! It’s the Mushy Peas hat pattern, except I screwed up some increase rows, and ended up with a bucket-style hat. I actually really like it this way. Nugget could not look less amused with me! I used some beautiful merino worsted yarn from Squoosh- her yarn & fiber always dresses to impress. I always enjoy what I order from her shop.

I’ve also started on the February Lady Sweater in a very soft blue in Malabrigo worsted merino.

The color of the blue is actually much softer than this picture shows. And oh my word is this lush. I’m on a total merino worsted kick right now. The goal is to finish this cardigan by the time we leave for San Francisco on March 6. I have to get buttons sewn on, ends woven in, and block the darn thing, so I’m hoping that’s all enough motivation to get it done.

Other projects in my queue include the Totoro mittens for Jason (!) and a cute raspberry stitch cowl in soft moss green for my Etsy shop.

In other life news- I started tutoring in a 6th grade math class this week for grad school and it’s going surprisingly well. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it or enjoy it, but after just one week I’m kinda into it. We’ll see how long that enthusiasm lasts!

I also recently finished reading Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres. Very intense, and very good!

Gosh, I wish I had more to update about. Life just seems to get in the way! But things are going well, and I can’t complain.

Yikes. It looks kinda excessive all piled up like this, but I have big plans for all this yarn! I made a 2010 commitment to myself to make something nice for myself this year, and that starts with the Blue Sky Alpacas Lacy Wrap Sweater for my spring break trip to San Francisco in March.

I figure San Francisco weather in early March will be kinda chilly, and what’s better to combat chilly than with a cute wrap sweater in Malabrigo worsted? This is the first big garment I’ve ever made for myself so I’m really hoping I don’t screw it up too bad. I decided to go with Malabrigo worsted in light blue (Stone Blue 99) because a.) Malabrigo worsted is probably my favorite wool yarn in the whole world, and b.) I LOVE light blue. I’m a rather curvaceous gal and quite short to boot which means this sweater will be challenging, but I have faith in my skills. I’m looking forward to the lace as I’ve not done any patterned lace in a really long time.

The other yarns are Lion Brand and Patons yarn bought with a gift card to Michaels. I plan to use all of these yarns to make items for my shop. I decided this morning that I want to get serious about making a few standard items to sell. I played around with my shop for the past two years and I want to give it a real go this Spring to see if I can make this a part of my life.

I picked up some of Lion Brand’s Nature’s Choice Organic Cotton yarn in ‘Pecan,’ ‘Strawberry,’ and ‘Pistachio.’ I’m really looking forward to using this as it appears and feels to be very similar to Cascade’s Luna line. I usually don’t like a loose ‘boucle’ spun yarn, but I guess there’s something about this style in cotton that works well. I like the colors I got in Organic Cotton, but I hope Lion Brand expands the line because with the quite comparable price of Luna online, I may just stick with Cascade in the future. But I’ll give Organic Cotton a chance before I start professing any brand loyalty.

Ah, what a beautiful day it’s been in Atlanta. It’s so nice to come to the evening and finish the day with lots of winding to do!

Just a little round-up of fun links I found today.

+ Simple crochet circle garland from Quilt While You’re Ahead: I feel confident enough in my crochet skills to try this and use up some of my scrap yarn.

+ Totoro mittens!: Available as a free download on Ravelry (link goes to Ravelry page).

+ Zora cardigan on Knitty.com: Perfect for a Spring Break trip to San Francisco in early March.

+ “Knit Rodeo” cards by LocalGringos on Etsy: The cowgirl kinda looks like Patsy Cline.

And if you’re able to give, please consider donating to the International Red Cross to help Haiti. The Yarn Harlot posted the “Knit-Signal” and I am, too. If you knit (or crochet), please consider posting the Knit-Signal and encourage other knitters to donate. As a grad student I can’t offer much, but the minimum donation on this site is $25, but I figure: a.) I’ll have a roof over my head tonight. 2.) I’ll have clean, running water today. 3.) I can forgo groceries or eating out tonight with the assurance that I’ll be able to get food tomorrow.  4.) I won’t NEED $25 today.

Even for me, $25 isn’t an amount of money I throw around lightly. There are other sties where the minimum donating is $15 or $10. I just hope that you are able to do something to help.  And please, pass on the Knit Signal. Correction: You CAN donate a minimum of $15 at the icrc.org website- just enter 15 in the “different amount” box.

It’s a beautiful day here in Atlanta, and I’m all the more thankful for it! I hope things are well where you are.

First off, many thanks to San (www.san-smith.com) who gave me her pass to the Neil Gaiman reading at Agnes Scott. I totally fudged myself by not bringing either of my two Neil Gaiman books to be signed, but I really enjoyed the reading. And I got to see an Internet pal Jessi (www.casual-dread.blogspot.com) and thanks to Jessi for letting me sit with her and getting a great view of Neil Gaiman! We had to wait a good long while to meet Neil (he signed books for every person in the chapel- maybe 400 people!), but when we did get up to him, I said I was an English teacher (ok, little white lie, but I am in school to be one!) and that I was impressed by how his books get reluctant readers to pick up a book (which is quite true!). He hadn’t looked up to speak to nearly anyone before us, but he looked up and responded along the lines that he’d heard that a lot and was glad to encourage young readers.

So yay! That was very exciting and I’m sad that San couldn’t go, but feeling very fortunate that I got to meet him and get a picture with him. I have pictures of Jessi and her friends on Flickr, and she has a picture of us with Neil. Weird camera acrobatics last night.

Anyway. The other thing I wanted to post about today was Lion Brand patterns. I was flipping through some blogs and someone posted a few photos of the wonderful crochet patterns Lion Brand has for FREE on their website. I’m still very biased towards knitting, but the winds may be a-changing now that I’ve seen the fantastic patterns on their site.

I LOVE this granny square scarf. It’s featured with a soft mohair yarn which makes it look cute and modern. Granny squares have a tendency to come off kinda clunky and old-fashioned (or maybe I just always picture the afghans my Nana made in the 70s), but I really like how bright and fun this scarf looks. The picture links to the pattern, but you need to be signed into the Lion Brand site in order to view it.

I also really liked this scalloped, lacy scarf.

Last summer I made a cute knitted dress for a girl I’d babysat with a light linen yarn. This pattern is similar to the dress I made, but I’m really digging the new handpainted yarn from Lion Brand that looks like a Noro colorway.

What a cute little outfit for the winter? I want to make this as a Christmas gift for the little one I’m sitting for now. She could wear a long-sleeve onesie and leggings or tights under it. With a soft wool it would be perfect for winter wear.

I’m hoping to add a few more items to my Etsy shop this afternoon before I go out to babysit for the evening. I’m thinking it may be a much later update, but debating between adding handspun yarn and knitting up some of my handspun. I think there are so many established and popular handspun yarn sellers on Etsy that I may be wasting my time listing just plain yarn. I’ve had a raspberry colored yarn with over 250 yards (!) sitting in my shop since March. I’ve always wondered if I shouldn’t just knit up and see how that goes. I don’t know. Are there more knitters on Etsy or people who want already-knitted items?

One of the yarns I will probably list is a beauty I’ve been holding onto for a long time thinking I would ply it. But I really like it as a single.

It’s a little over-wound in a few spots, but I plan on soaking it and giving it a good WHACK and stretch before listing it. I spun this in January and didn’t intend at all for this to be listed so close to Christmas. It reminds me more of roses and leaves than Christmas. But oh well. Now’s the time.

I better get on with my real life chores today. Have a lovely day!

Finals are OVER and I’m happy to report that I received another 4.0 this semester. I am making up big time for my undergraduate GPA. Also, my professor wants me to submit one of my final exam essays to a peer-reviewed education journal. Cool!

And I gotta tell ya, there is nothing better than coming home on a freezing cold, rainy day to a package. Especially when inside the package you find:

A hand-crocheted Jayne hat! OMG WHEEE! Thank you so much, Julia! This totally made my day.

I will be adding a few new items to my Etsy shop this week. I lowered my prices to make holiday shopping a touch more affordable, and I’m willing to (reasonably) negotiate on what’s still in there. I’ll be adding at least two other scarves and some handspun yarn. http://cassinator.etsy.com

Have a lovely weekend!

I bought bananas from Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market thinking they might quickly brown with the intention of baking something with them. They were about an hour away from black death this evening so I ran by a local chain grocery to grab some pecans, and found some peanut butter swirl chocolate chips at a major discount so I was like, “OH YEAH” and made some “Elvis” cookies! (I took pics with my iPhone, so apologies for the graininess.)

I based my cookies on this recipe from Simply Recipes: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_cookies/

I wanted to share a bunch of things over the past week, but finals are eating my brain. No wonder I had dreams about a zombie attack last night. The zombies detested the color orange… what does that symbolize? Hopefully it’s not bad news about this blanket I started for a friend’s baby.

Ah, Crochet. I misjudged you. It still feels incredibly awkward in my hands, but I’m not giving up on this blanket. I’ve frogged it about 6 times already, but here we are. My fear was that all crochet patterns looked like stuff my Nana used to make- weird Christmas doilies and toilet roll covers. But I realized that crochet comes in handy for a lot of things like grocery fruit bags and flowers and zig zag blankets. This one’s supposed to be in Auburn colors- baby’s mama went to Auburn, as pretty much everyone in her clan did as well. I’ll get back to you on whether I make crocheting a habit, although I’m willing to experiment as I try to learn how to read crochet patterns.

This is the first year I haven’t handmade all my Christmas presents in awhile. I have a feeling most of my gifts will be from Etsy. The only person who’s asked me to make them anything is a friend who sent me this picture from SoHo in NYC:

I told her I’d make her a scaled-down version with chunky yarn. I don’t think I could make a scarf of Tom Baker proportions in 24 days!

Anywho, back to the coffee and finishing this project. I procrastinated all the way to the bitter end on this one and I’m really gonna pay for it, but I’m not a quitter!

Lots of pictures and links tonight!

On Sunday I saw the matinee performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at my friend’s high school. Her kids did a great job and I was happy to see everything come together. I visited the school earlier in the week to attend their final dress rehearsal and take pictures. When the student who the Gigantor Pink Sweater was made for came out, I nearly lost it laughing because he pulled the hat down too far and came out like this:

I gave him a few pointers on wearing the hat a tad more “jaunty” and I was glad to see he figured it out for the actual performance! That right there is my very first sweater, ladies and gents!

This week is all business, though. I have a presentation in each of my classes this week. One is a book presentation on Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl. I’m sort of winging that one. I taught myself how to play “Happy Birthday” on my new ukulele to play as I enter the classroom in character, just like Stargirl sings to people in the cafeteria. I also stitched up a little “Cinnamon” rat out of an old t-shirt.

I plan on getting a classmate to tape my book presentation tomorrow night so that I can save it for posterity’s sake. Actually, I live to embarrass myself on the Internet (see above). Really, I’m kinda excited about walking, playing the ukulele, and singing at the same time, and if I can pull it off, I’ll be damn proud of myself!

My other project is for my Content Area Literacy course on how to activate students’ prior knowledge on a particular subject, and ways to get them excited and motivated about the upcoming lesson or unit. My group covered four subjects of high school, and I made a website with iWeb to share our information. I got to cover English-Language Arts and am particularly proud of my motivation ideas. You can check out our website at: http://web.me.com/cassiecsmith/Interest_Ignition/Home.html.

After Thanksgiving, I’m turning in my completed list of twenty-four young adult books that I’ve read this semester. I just started Little Brother by Cory Doctorow this evening, and am extremely fascinated by its premise. The l337 speak and hax0r language in the novel makes me have to read certain passages a few times to make sure I completely understand what’s just been said, but so far (20 pages in) I’m enjoying the novel. And bonus that it’s an ex-library book from Cleveland!

Also due after Thanksgiving is another project for my young adult lit class involving the creation of learning centers. Like centers in kindergarten only for high school students and way cooler. My learning centers are all about comics and graphic novels. Again, I’m using iWeb to create a website to showcase my learning centers and w00t- iWeb has a comic book theme! So I borrowed one of Jason’s many superhero shirts and totally geeked out.

Tee-hee. Anyone know why I have those two super hero ladies next to me on the page? I’ll give you a clue- look in the blue box to the left.

Also after Thanksgiving, I may do a tiny neighborhood craft show. Key word is may. I’m not sure if I’ll have enough stuff to show, but really I wouldn’t be going to make a lot of money. It’d definitely be more for the fun of being around other crafters.

As for Thanksgiving itself, I will most likely be traveling to Carbondale, Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) to visit my mom’s entire family. My grandmother had a massive stroke this past Friday and is still in the hospital, but fortunately she’s been able to speak when she’s conscious and can recognize people around her. All of my mom’s siblings are up there with her, and my brother and I will probably be up there, too. My poor dad has to work next week so he’ll be home alone with the pets. I may stop off in my new favorite city of Nashville if my friends are in town, but don’t expect too much excitement. I haven’t been to Carbondale in over ten years so maybe there’ll be something new to see. I finished some pretty blue socks for my grandmother and it’ll be nice to give her those while she’s recovering.

I didn’t want to end this post on a downer. So here’s a cute picture of me and the little girl I babysit riding the kiddie train at Zoo Atlanta. Happy Thanksgiving!

I finally finished the Gigantor Pink Sweater and matching Pink Tam tonight. I cannot stop giggling over the fact that I got my boyfriend to put both on, but sadly he would not allow pictures. I, on the other hand, am a glutton for punishment. Here’s the [video] I made after I finished the tam. I’m whispering because Jason was in the adjacent room and I didn’t want him to laugh at me. Yeah.

And here’s the (almost) whole shebang:

It is intentionally supposed to look crap because the character who will wear it in a high school musical this weekend knitted it. “Mr. Biggley” from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying has the pleasure of some handmade knitwear! I’ll take pictures at tomorrow night’s dress rehearsal, which I am attending because apparently the numbers I choreographed are the best of the show so far! It’s been a nice trip down musical theater memory lane the past few weeks. And getting the chance to knit my first sweater vest was the cherry on top… even if it does look crap.

What’s the Eddie Izzard line about looking cool and looking like a dickhead?