Important Life Decisions (and as always, Crocheting)

Last week was a very good week. I got my Valentine's name for #bookishvday2015, and I went straight to work! I have made her a few more things besides the bat amigurumi, but just in case she finds this blog, I want to keep some of it a secret!

Not only did I make a lot of things this week, I also made some important decisions about my future.

1) I will be in school for another full year. Originally I was going to do summer classes to finish all of my core classes, and student teach in the Fall of 2015. However, as many deadlines started to fall upon me (and after my adviser's urging) I decided that it wasn't worth the stress it would cause me to go through with my original plan. Though, I don't mind it that much. As you can see above, my school is a beautiful  place. But that beauty does come at a hefty price tag. I visited the financial aid office to make sure that my scholarships would be active for a fifth year. Apparently, a music education degree is only supposed to require 129 hours of course work. However, after this semester I will have completed 127 hours, but still have 25 more hours to complete (including my student teaching)!
"How did this happen?!" The woman asked me. Well, unfortunately, with voice as my primary instrument, I have to take certain vocal classes that are not necessarily on my program plan, therefore, in the eyes of the financial aid/registrar's office, they are not required to graduate. So now, I have to submit a letter to them explaining why I need this fifth year, but it is "very likely" that my scholarships will carry over. Well, they had better! I did not give so much money to this school to have to go somewhere else and not graduate from here!

2) I am going to open an Etsy store this summer. Without the worry of summer classes, I can run the store and make things (almost) full time. I will be looking for a real job also, but I just want to crochet all the time, and it would be great to make some money off it and fund my yarn habit.

What is that on that statue's coffee cup you ask? Why, it looks like a cozy! THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS A COZY. That's right, folks, I yarn bombed! I will admit, it is a very very small yarn bomb, but I'm just getting started! I'm thinking of learning some new stitches, and just making tubes out of them to go around some railings around campus. There are also plenty of statues like this one that look like they need something to keep them warm at night.

 All of those things are all great, but one of the highlights of my week was going to the Humane Society with Rachel (best friend status) and hanging out with the kitties!

On the left is Hermione, a maine coon/tortie mix, and on the right is her brother, Ron, a maine coon/tabby mix. You guys, if you want to get a dog or a cat please please please go adopt one from your local pound or humane society. Most of them will be spayed or neutered before they are adopted out, and ALL THEY WANT IS LOVE. 

Over the weekend I went home for a night and got to hang out with my kitty (below). She has never tried to play with my yarn, but I left my room for 5 minutes and come back to this. She was playing with it, but when I caught her she started acting cute (of course).

 Over the past few days I've finished two puff stitch hats, and two chocolate frog containers. (I just love them!)
I used Red Heart Boutique Treasure on the hat to the right, and Read Heart Boutique Unforgettable for the hat above. Unforgettable is varying in it's weight through out the skein, and my puff stitches ended up a lot smaller, resulting in a lot more rows than the one in Treasure, but I actually like the Unforgettable one more! It fits my head better.

For the chocolate frog boxes I used this FREE pattern as well as blue Red Heart Super Saver, and yellow Vanna's Choice. The smaller one is the pattern exactly, except I added a round to the lid.
The bigger one is just one more round in the base, the sides, and the top. It has a little problem holding it's shape, I'm thinking I can get floral wire and use it to keep it more angular and box-like.

I also started on a new granny square for my Cosy Giant Granny blanket. I didn't take any photos, sorry!

On Sunday night I got all of my yarn out. I wanted to see what I have and organize it in some way. I came to the realization that I have a lot of yarn. Am I addicted to buying yarn? Maybe. The photo below is arranged by brand. I have the most Caron, which doesn't really surprise me seeing as I'm making a huge blanket out of it.

I have so much Unforgettable because of the blanket that I started making, then frogged. It just wasn't working for me, the yarn is too hard to work with for bigger projects. It just gets under my skin. The mess of yarn on the bottom right is all unidentified. A mixture of Mill End's and some baby yarn that I didn't keep the wrapping for.

I didn't want to put it away. I just wanted to look at it. Unfortunately, I had to, because it took up most of my dorm room floor. Oops!