Sunflowers and Butterfly...sounds like summer to me!

While the weather yesterday did not speak summer to me (there was a pretty fair frost on the ground yesterday morning), other things have me in the mood for the upcoming summer. There are now officially 2 weeks to go until I'm finished with this semester. I have 4 classes left total (one per day next week), and both of my finals are on the same Thursday the following week. Summer break, here I come!!

I decided that despite my poor performance on Monday's chemistry test that I'm gonna come back, kick fanny, and take names on the final. It's worth more than one exam, so I'm hoping that a stellar performance and the hope of some extra credit will help me out (that and maybe some groveling, which I'm not above). So much studying I will do, as a green pointy-eared fella might say.

In between the studying, I need some stress relief, and crafting always seems to fit the bill (well that and doing stuff outdoors, but the weather hasn't been so conducive to that lately). So I've cast on for Butterfly. The pattern starts with the frilly hem which is worked side to side and then the stitches for the body will be picked up from that. It's an 8 row repeat, and after the third time doing the repeat, I'm starting to get it down a bit so I don't have to go so slow reading the instructions. Here's my progress:

The picture was taken in front of the picture window in our front room in natural light, so the colors are bit more true than the picture I took of the gauge swatch the other night. You can't tell, but there is one bead at each of the points on the bottom of the piece. The purple yarn on the right is waste yarn (which is also why it is so wonky on that end). Later, that end will be grafted to the other end, so the waste yarn will be removed to reveal live stitches.

Also, yesterday I spent more time making some more stitch markers. The ones I have in my Clapotis right now are ginormous, and I wanted some with rings that would better fit the size of the needles. I think some of the ones I have on there now are made for small branches. So I got a little out of control in making these new ones. They are completely addictive, partly for the instant gratification factor, and partly because it feels good to dive into my bead stash. I bought most of these glass beads a few years ago with the intention of making jewelry (that never happened, as knitting always seems to reign here, and I never got really inspired with a design) and some of them are Fimo beads that I made a very long time ago when I lived in Bloomington.

Some of these still need the jump rings attached when I get a chance, but I've at least got enough now to replace all the ones I don't like on my Clapotis.

I particularly like the ones with the sunflower Fimo beads. I also noticed that I made them in pairs or made a pair with another similarly designed third marker. The hematite ones will be fun with smaller rings for smaller needles. I also noticed that I had a lot of green beads. Hmm...anyone want to guess what my favorite color at the time was? It's hard for me to say now what my favorite color is. I'm drawn to so many.

On to other things...this picture was sent to me by the girl in the middle, Kathy. She and I worked together last semester on research. Think I might have posted about that a while ago. There was a contest for best poster, and ours won. Probably because of all the pretty fluorescent pictures of cells. The prize was a $20 gift certificate to the bookstore (which doesn't usefully divvy up between 4 people, so the other two gals bought a frame and some highlighters and put the picture of the 3 of us in it to give to the professor who supervised the research. He was touched, I think. So here we are on the day of the biology symposium posing with our poster. Dr. Kline took the picture, so he couldn't be in it with us. The girl on the far right worked on it this semester after I left. Oh, and that's me on the far left, in case you didn't know. And, yes, that is a Booga Bag in action on my right arm.