adventures in knitting.

Right before Christmas my friends and I decided to take up knitting and currently it's the only crafty sort of thing I have time for. The great thing about knitting is that it's portable, which means I can knit during class or chapel.  A couple of my teachers really don't mind if I knit in class-- I'm a kinesthetic learner so it works out well for me.  I also find the process soothing and relaxing.  My first knitting project was a scarf for Joshua.  I'd call it successful despite a few holes/dropped stitches at the beginning of the scarf.  What do you think?

 

I've kind of always thought that I could teach myself to make anything within the realm of crafty things.  Now, after entering the world of knitting, I'm thinking I should revise said thought to "within the realm of paper crafts and sewing." Knitting has proven to be a bit more difficult than I expected.  With some lovely yarn I received for Christmas I knitted scarf number 2, which turned out to be too wide.  Much, much too wide.  I unraveled it and realized that to get good at knitting I must keep trying.  Here's the unraveling of the super wide scarf:

Scarf number three, knit with wool yarn, turned out pretty well, though.  This one is for my sister, but I will admit that I wore it for three days straight before giving it to her.

Currently I am knitting a scarf for myself from the unraveled yarn of failed scarf number 2.  I decided to challenge myself a bit and learn a new stitch.  Scarf number four is my attempt at moss stitch, which is basically just alternating every stitch between knit stitch and purl stitch.  So in the world of knitting it's not really a challenge.  All my knitting knowledge comes from this site and knitting inspiration comes from soulemama.  I hope someday to be knitting sweaters in an hour like she does.  But for now, I will stick to scarves.

 p.s. I have used those large-ish wooden needles shown above in all four of my knitting projects.  They're great.

i have seven bridesmaids!

Since I love paper and craft projects,  I figured I might as well do something with paper to make asking my bridesmaids a little more creative.  I saw this idea for making a paper doll chain of bridesmaid here.  I had a free afternoon one day in January, so I started cutting away.  I didn't actually have paper long enough for all seven of my bridesmaids, so I made a chain of five and a chain of two and glued them together.  It wasn't perfect, but it worked.  I went to town cutting seven of each girl's hair and dresses in purple, grey and green.  Those aren't quite exactly my wedding colors and as of now I have no idea what my bridesmaids will actually be wearing, but these are just paper dolls.  The hair was my favorite.  It made it more fun that each of my bridesmaids have kind of distinct hair.

All of my bridesmaids are in Greenville so I asked them all in person.  I also didn't include many details about what they will wear/do because they all live close and we will be talking about it a lot in person over the next few months.  My four roommates all screamed when I asked them and everyone was excited.  I'm excited.  It's going to be great to have them participating in my wedding ceremony in a special way.  Josh and I believe that the wedding ceremony is a sacrament of the church. These seven girls are a part of my church community, so it only seems right to have them by my side as I participate in this sacrament and marry Josh.  Community is important to us and while Josh and I are the two getting married, we can't do this all on our own.  We need our community to support and helps us, give us a different perspective when we disagree, make us laugh and encourage us.

Well this post got a little more deep than I expected.  Anyway, here are some pictures of the finished product.

 

 

best thing ever.

Three weeks ago, on a Monday night, Joshua asked me to be with him forever.  And it's pretty much the best thing ever.  So here's how it happened:
(Warning:  this is the detailed version of the story, so grab a cup of coffee and stay a while.)

On Sunday we planned to scrapbook and hang out at our favorite porch swing spot on Monday night. We've been frequenting this porch swing ever since our freshman year.  Monday night comes and we enjoy a nice time of eating and working on our scrapbook.  Before heading over to the porch swing, Josh suggested we bring the ukulele so we could play some songs and sing together.  (Josh is teaching me how to play and I know two songs!)  I kind of complained about that idea because my hands would get too cold, but he told me to bring some gloves and I complied.  As we approached the swing, Josh bent down and plugged in a lamp that was placed next to the swing.  A couple of blankets were neatly covering the swing, as well.  At this moment my mind was racing and I thought maybe this would be the night that he was going to propose.  But then I reminded myself that he didn't have a ring. (We had gone ring shopping earlier and picked out a ring that Josh and I planned to go pick up on Wednesday.  But it was Monday night, so he couldn't have gotten the ring yet.)  All that was running through my mind in the split second between when Josh plugged in the light and when he said "I just thought it would be fun to do something nice for us."  That brought me back down to reality and we sat down.  I played the two songs I knew, with Josh singing along.  It was really fun.  Little did I know that the evening would get even more fun!  Then I handed Josh the ukulele and asked him to play a song for me.  Josh said he'd play a song that he wrote for me.  He's written me a few songs in the past, so I was confused when I didn't recognize the song.  But it was all about us, about how we met and grew to love each other.  And then Josh got down on his knee, opened up a little box and asked me to marry him.  I was so giggly and excited, but confused about how he had the ring.  And then I looked and saw it was a little ring made from twine.  It was adorable.  I continued to giggle and smile and hug Josh and at some point I told him "yes."  I had told Josh when we went ring shopping that I still wanted the proposal to be a surprise.  Well, he definitely surprised me and it was perfect.  After playing the song for me once more and calling our families, we went back to celebrate with our friends.  On Wednesday we went to pick up the ring and that too was perfect.

I am overjoyed that I get to journey through this crazy life with you, Josh. 

*Engagement photos by my dear friend Allison of Allison Jean Photo.  More coming soon!