pants!

After a few depressing excursions to buy maternity pants, I decided to try my hand at a DIY version.  Thanks to Modest Maven's Converted Maternity Pants Tutorial, I am now the proud owner of some stylish, comfortable, LONG ENOUGH maternity corduroy trousers!  I began with some dark mahogany Lands' End slim leg cords.  I love them so much that I own several pairs.

[Photo courtesy of landsend.com]

They were my teaching uniform, and thanks to a belly band I bought at Target, I prolonged their use.  The problem was that the belly band made my pockets inaccessible, and it would slip and slide throughout the day.  I constantly needed to hike it up or down--not really a classroom-friendly endeavor.  I needed a permanent solution.  

I went on a pilgrimage to Joann's with PB right before Thanksgiving, where I found the necessary wide elastic and cotton/lycra fabric.  Bonus: it's ribbed just like the corduroy!  Then out came the seam ripper and off came the waistband.  Because I only have a basic sewing machine, I had to read up on how to sew knits without a serger.  The zigzag stitch seemed to do just fine.  Plus, the tutorial mentions how to reinforce the new stretchy waistband if you want it to be extra strong.

Now to do it all over again with a pair of my french walnut boot cut corduroys...

What's black and white and red all over?

I just finished off the dotty little penguin blanket with red binding, thanks to my sister Anna's advice.  She told me babies respond best to high contrast things because it helps their little eyes develop.  Take that, sickly pink and powder blue!  This color combination is so classic that it'll work for both boys and girls.  

And yet I love it so much that I just might keep it for myself...

penguins!

twist collective: winter 2011

The new Twist Collective came out!  While this issue is full of gorgeous knitting patterns, as always, I fell in love with the dramatic, luminous, jewel-toned skirts featured in the first few pages.

Just when I thought they couldn't get more gorgeous, this photo reveals the brilliant tulle beneath.  It's so...juicy.

[All photos were stolen shamelessly from the winter 2011 issue of Twist Collective.  They were all taken by Jane Heller and can be found in the original here.]

indecision

I've been spinning up the 4 oz. of lovely deep blue merino roving I bought at A Verb for Keeping Warm on our trip to California.  The colorway is called "Baltic."

I knit it right off the drop spindle, which I'm pretty sure is a no-no.

It was supposed to be a cowl, which I figured was the perfect way to use up every single bit of yarn.

But then I plopped it on my head and now I think it might be a hat.

Help me decide!  And then I can spin up that bump of pink and make the opposite.

This is why...

I never mind when seminarians stop by and wind up staying for dinner.

done!

This weekend I attended two wonderful lectures by Fr. Irenei Steenberg during the OISM (Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement) conference at Holy Trinity Seminary.  Obviously, I knit the whole time.  As a result, I've finished a pilot cap in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for Juliana of A Stamp a Day's new baby girl.

I wanted an in-between size to fit a 17" head, so I knit the infant size on size 8 needles, which made it a bit bigger to begin with.  Then I kept knitting on the back (making it 4.75" instead of 4") for a little extra coverage.  We'll see if it works.  I can't wait to see it on her!

Uptown Dowstairs Abbey

It seems impossible to wait until January to see season two of Downton Abbey.  Luckily, the BBC has put out a little something to tide us all over.  (This spoof is FULL of spoilers.  Don't watch unless you've seen all of season one!)

Seminarians, avert your eyes.

My sister Emily loaned me tons of awesome clothes to get me through the freezing winter here.  I fell in love with the beautiful detail on this shirt, but I'm afraid it might not work without a little layering.

 I've noticed that most of my tank tops do a bad job, because they often aren't quite high enough.  So with only about 3 minutes to spare before we walked to church this morning, I dug through my cotton jersey scrap bag from the Alabama Studio Store.  (If you have any vintage handkerchieves lying around, I bet they'd do the trick...) Sure enough, there was a bit of winter white that was just the right size.

I folded it in half,

 slipped it in,

 tucking it into my bra,

 which held it in place better than I expected,

 and then promptly bragged about it to Pete.  

He was duly impressed.

can't get this out of my head:

Downton Abbey

Every Friday night, we have a few of Pete's classmates over for a movie night.  Dowton Abbey is our latest obsession.  If you care to try it, you can watch it online on Netflix.