Lots of little things

Well, I've been pretty busy lately! Between my classes, accompanying for assemblies and the choir, 'real life' chores and errands, and this and that, it's been two months of school! The first trimester is over and I'm writing report cards, and test week is over (PRAISE the Lord). So, other than work, here's a look at what I've been up to these last few weeks, in no particular order.

I have had this booties pattern around for awhile, and as I've got a niece or nephew on the way I decide to pull it out. I made the first one with some random sock leftovers I had,

and once I had that done I decided to go whole hog and tackle my first two color brioche project. I decided to make the booties Ravenclaw colors, as it's totally going to be brilliant, and found that I rather like two color brioching. So, Ravenclaw booties to join the other items for Lil' Bean!

As I start my new life here in the States, I’ve been thinking about how I want to build new traditions as well as honor the ones I grew up with. I’ll likely be spending Christmas at my parents and using my original stocking there, but I’ve wanted to make myself a knit one—just for decoration (it feels like a new level of lame to fill one’s own stocking!) after I feel in love with a particular colorwork pattern I found. I am using some leftovers from my Crazy Stripes cardigan and a little new yarn in the dark blue. I’ve done a lot of simple knitting since I moved, and I’m enjoying something with a little more challenge. I did have a heartbreaking moment on Sunday when I realized there was an ‘at the same time’ direction that I had blown past, so I had to pull out 10 rows of colorwork, but if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right, so here we are. In my defense the pattern is not the clearest, and since I was just working from the chart it was understandable that I missed the critical sentence. I shall soon be back where I was though, and hope to be turning the heel by the end of this week!

Most of my first trimester of teaching has been taken up with the Birds of a Feather wrap in the lovely yarn from Chicken Coop Dyeworks. It was a simple knit (which I managed to make mistakes in nonetheless), and the finished wrap is beautiful! I hope to be able to wear it to the fiber festival next weekend, so I can show the dyer what I did with her beautiful yarn.

In non-knitting news, I carved two pumpkins for Halloween, and enjoyed it immensely. The barfing one is still alright, but I had to toss the Star Trek one this weekend as it was full of nasty mold. It's so nice to live where I can do things like this again!

Something else I’ve started working on and have a firm deadline on is the last stocking for a high school friend of mine. Way back when I was a freshman at ETBU, Rebekah had a Christmas wedding, and I gave her a pair of stockings like the ones my family has. She loved them, and when her first child was born I made him one. I had to use a different alphabet, but was able to make it coordinating with the ones I made for Rebekah and her husband. A few years later she had a little girl, so I did my best to make her stocking coordinate by analyzing pictures of her brother’s, and then Rebekah had another little girl last year, so once again I’m pulling out my stocking supplies. I was a little smarter after the second kid’s stocking, and saved a lot of the notions, but I had to re-start the cuff as it would have been a very different size than the other two. The cuffs aren’t fancy, but did require some creative work as the online alphabet pattern generator I had used is no longer available. I was able to piece together the letters I need from random things I saved over a decade ago, and I found something someone else made using that alphabet pattern generator that let me get the tricky lowercase g I needed. I hope to do the actual stocking over Thanksgiving, as I’ll have access to my mother’s tools and embellishments. Not having an ironing board (yet) makes some things quite tricky! Pictures once I've got a bit more done.

I haven't tried too many things in my little kitchen yet, but I did make pumpkin cinnamon rolls for Columbus day,

and stuffed eggplant Parmesan. Both a lot of work, but so good!

Well, that's about enough for now. I'm going to go pull on a pair of handknit socks, make some tea, and finish getting ready for tomorrow. Another cold front blew through--yay!

Parting shot: My crazy pumpkin cat loves socks and shoes, and apparently these pairs are particularly wonderful.

Happy, but teacher tired!

I didn't mean to go so long between posts, but school is taking up a lot of my time and energy right now, and what is leftover is usually more fun to spend on my actual hobbies. I've got a pretty good rhythm going now, and I'm starting to feel like I've got the hang of things (dangerous!), so hopefully I can keep working in more and more bits of 'life.'

To sum up a few of the highlights of the last six weeks or so...

I've spent a lot of time lesson planning

A dear friend came to visit and we went to NASA among other wonderful adventures

I finished the bowl cozy and use it all the time

I'm nearing the end of my Birds of a Feather shawl--I can't wait to wear it!

This is a terrible picture of the not blurry in real life Weehistoric cardigan for my future niece or nephew- squee!

And in addition to a pair of movie socks, I've got these on the go. Loving the chevrons!

I decorated my house for fall, and have been indulging in fall treats like candy corn, apple cider, and of course, pumpkin spice lattes. I'm enjoying my cat, enjoying my apartment, loving my job, and continuing to work through the process of radical life change. God is good, and I'm so glad to be where I am!

Parting shot: I was sorely tempted, but did NOT buy this mug.

And so the next adventure begins!

As of today, I have officially launched my 10th year of teaching! I have learned so much, made so many mistakes, and while there is a part of me that feels terrible for the teacher I as the last three years, I'm also looking forward to this new chapter. A chapter where I will be supported and encouraged to grow as a teacher. A chapter where my educational philosophy lines up so much better with the school I'm working in. A chapter where I will have some margin space. A chapter where almost anything can happen!

In the week leading up to school, my main project was finishing up my Cityscape Tank. I ended up pulling out the whole upper back and half the upper front when I realized I was doing a decrease incorrectly. It doesn't show super well, but see that rather lumpy, messy line in the first picture, compared to the lovely smooth line in the second?

I re-knit the backs and fronts, joined the shoulders, then completed the edgings in time to wash and block in Friday so I could wear it on Saturday. I LOVE this top--I was afraid it wouldn't fit right or would be too narrow in the straps, but I won the gauge gamble! If I do make it again (sorely tempted), I will probably chance the straps just a bit to make them a tad wider, but this is an exciting new addition to my summer wardrobe!

Also, that finish meant that I not only made my 3k goal for Stash Dash, but I exceeded it and reached 5k for the first time ever! Of course that was in large part due to the spinning I did, but STILL! I'm pretty pleased with what I accomplished.

There were a few trunk shows at my delightful LYS Yarnia last week, so I popped in after inservice on Wednesday and Friday to be tempted. I've got serious plans to save up for a project's worth of Round Table Yarns delightful kettle dyed fingering. And yes, the fact that I'm a medieval lit nerd totally adds to the appeal! The dyer I meet on Friday, Chicken Coop Dyeworks was also delightful, and we found out that we had time in Africa in common. Much to my surprise I was gifted a set of her lovely Leghorn yarn so I could make the shawl pattern, Birds of a Feather, that I had discovered and decided I needed to make with my deep stash Kidsilk Haze.

I'm trying to remember how long I've had that Kidsilk Haze; it must be either pre-Zambia or an early trip home as I'm pretty sure I got it when the yarn store in Tyler downsized... This weekend I cast on, and guys, this is such a beautiful, soft, fluffy thing I can hardly wait for it to be finished so I can wrap myself up in it! And, the yarns go together *perfectly*.

Yesterday I started a necessary thing; a crochet bowl cozy. Since I now have a microwave, it makes sense to have one rather than the rather haphazard use of pot holders I have been practicing so far. I found a knit pattern for the same thing, but this is one of those occasions when I think crochet is much better. Also, I was in the mood for something a little different. So here is the double thick base and the first row of the sides done; hopefully it will be a quick job from there. I might need to get some more cotton...

Today was the first day of school, and while it was a half-day, I had some work to do before leaving. Once I got out to my car I found that my battery had died, so a co-worker jump started me and sent me to the Ford dealership where it just so happens one of my student's father's works. I was taken care of quickly, and was so grateful for an easily resolved issue. It was also nice to make a connection with one of our families. So, while it was a frustrating extra expense, everything is taken care of and I'm all set to go. And, since it was the Starbucks first day of fall, I indulged in my first pumpkin spice latte of the season--even though it was over 100 today. Come quickly fall!

Well, I have a bit more to do before turning into a bed, so I'll leave you with this rare picture of Neko on my lap. Notice that he is curled up on my dark Cityscape tank--that seems to be the only way he'll sit with me for a few minutes. Good thing I bought a lint roller... My black trousers have already fallen prey to him!

Meetings, more blue knitting, and a trip.

Last week was pretty dull--if you aren't me. Lots of reading, three meetings to start hammering out science--I'm teaching 7th and 8th grade now, Omnibus, and discuss overlap between my government class and Omnibus III. Lots of reading, the beginnings of my 'battle plans,' continuing to make good use of my Prime trial by enjoying Endeavour in the evenings. I love a good mystery show with a complex protagonist... Some cooking, some recreational reading, errands here and there...pretty boring to write about. This weekend I hit the dividing point--the point where it was time to divide and work the front and back of my Cityscape separately. I'm getting close to finishing the back, and as usual Neko had to come inspect the knitting on the floor.

I got (and used!) my new cast iron skillet in the mail-boy have I missed having one. I made do with the frying pan from my set, but it sure helps to have something larger than 9"!

On Friday I drove 6 hours north to Oklahoma City to meet up with some friends for lunch, and as usual forgot to take any pictures. I spent the night with my sister in Plano, then had a busy Saturday in which I visited Half-Price Book, IKEA where I found this lovely thing (among others),

a yarn store where I picked up this delicious gradient to practice full brioche stitch with,

and visited the kitchen outlet in Terrell as there were some things Wal-mart just doesn't have. I suspected when I saw it that I needed a mini cutting board in my life, and it was a good call-love that thing!

This is my last week before a week of teacher training, so I'm trying to get as far ahead as I can with planning and reading, as I'm not sure how involved next week will be. I'm kind of hoping that I can get my tank top finished up this week so I can start knitting for my new niece or nephew, but we'll have to see how it goes. Having a very much wanted baby in the family makes me want to throw everything to the wind and spend all my money and time in creating baby things so that the Little Bean will be in no doubt as to how loved they are by their crazy aunt. However, I'm doing my best to temper my enthusiasm as expressed through wool, and have been having a lot of fun planning what I will make. Grow safe and strong dear one--you are already so, so loved.

Acres of blue knitting and lots of ancient Greece

Last week I finished reading Herodotus's The Histories; while it was a lot to get through in a short time, I really enjoyed it. He had some hilarious theories about things, and was a wide eyed wonderer in a world where few people traveled. I'm working on Oresteia at the moment for those who are interested in tracking my progress through the Omnibus I curriculum! Agamemnon and Cassandra are dead; I'm waiting to meet the titular character in "The Libation Bearers."

Most of my knitting has been on the Cityscape tank, or the never ending project. You guessed it--I've reached the stage where I want the product! This past week there was the interesting development of the shaping that shrinks the twisted rib section. Despite the perfectly straightforward manner of this shaping, I managed to have to do a quick 'fix' job to get everything back to where it was supposed to be. Hopefully I'll be done next week! Not like I'm going to run out of summer to wear it in, I just want to feel like I can cast something else on.

I finished and blocked my Star Trek vertebrae; it's so cute! I'm glad I was fussy with the ribbing--I think it adds a nice touch. I can't wait to see the baby it was knit for wearing it!

I finished, wove in the ends, and finally put the pom-pom on the hat out of Roundhouse Alpaca Farm fiber. Neko decided while I was photographing it that it was HIS. He is mistaken; seeing as how I made the hat from scratch (except for the pom-pom!), it is definitely MINE. He's adorable though, isn't he?

Neko isn't used to being a knitter's cat, but I also realize that cats are just honor bound to be involved in any blocking process they can reach. Behold my sophisticated efforts to protect the vertebrae from cat hair-

This Sunday I took a rest day, and sat down to try out the corner-to-corner crochet technique I saw in a class at Yarnia. It was an interesting challenge, but I don't like the texture of the surface enough to probably mess with it again. I keep thinking of this brilliant thing called double knitting... What you can't see is the shag carpet of ends on the backside where I was not great at planning ahead with color carrying. Another reason to go with double knitting!

On the cooking front I had the brain wave to make mini meatloafs- future supers + shorter cooking times. I used the keto recipe I found earlier because I liked it, and I also had all the stuff on hand. Bacon and cheese of course don't hurt the taste either!

Well, I have my third school meeting early tomorrow morning, so I'd better sign off. As a parting shot, I've been enjoying this delightful window display downtown; I'm not sure if I want the octopus or the diving helmet more...

Reading

I absolutely have made boring to look at progress on two project this week, and I'll show you a progress picture of the big one in a minute, but to put things in a bit of perspective, this is what is taking up big chunks of my day.

The blue circle are the resource books (not to mention a few binders) that I need to be familiar with for this school year, the green are the books I've already read, and the blue are the ones I need to/am currently reading. I'm hoping to finish Herodotus in the next few days as well as do an online course for teachers at my new school before I go in for another Omnibus orientation meeting on Thursday. And I have that stack to keep working through, as well as hopefully get my science materials so I can start working through that too. So, simple knitting it has been for while I relax in the evening after a days reading with a few errands thrown in. One of many reason why I wanted to move down as close to two months before school as I could!

In addition to doing a lot of reading, I've been doing a few other things. All my DMC embroidery floss is now neatly put away in boxes again--I brought it back from Zambia in bags to save weight.

I made a small cake with my mini spring-form pans,

and I tried mini pizza waffles- some more tweaking is needed, but they were acceptable.

I splurged on some beautiful yarn that I've wanted since I first saw it a few months ago and Yarnia just got a fresh stock of- Amanda Hope's Aegean colorway. Not only is her yarn amazing, but it's also locally dyed!

And, I'm almost ready to start the bust shaping on my Cityscape tank; I'm adding a bit of length as I have a long torso 'cause I'm tall, but I need to do a bit of knitting math before I determine exactly how much. If my stich gauge was slightly off, my row gauge likely is as well.

Sorry for that last picture being a bit blurry; I had interference from a certain Ginger Pants while trying to photograph it. It's so nice to have a cat around the house again!

Well, that's all for now; more history of the Persian war in Greece tomorrow!

Settled

I have pretty much got my apartment set up the way I want (I ended up going to buy a 6th bookcase--I'm going to need it!) and have even got most of my decorative items where I want them, so now it's on to other projects. Like re-sorting all my embroidery floss that I lugged across the ocean and back and now needs new boxes. I'm working on acquiring kitchen tools as I need them, working through the huge stack of reading for school, and of course working on some knitting and spinning!

I gave my finished pink/purple yarn a bath right after I moved but forgot to take pictures of it, so here are the finished skeins in all their glory. Now to figure out what project they go with... I'm pretty please with my increasing skills, and despite my fears it looks like the two main skeins aren't too different.

On Sunday I started working on my birthday gift from Beth- some lovely alpaca that she dyed. I spun up half of it that afternoon, but I'm stalled out a bit because I can't decide if I want to 2 or 3 ply it, and if I'm going to do it 2 ply, if I want to have two seperat balls, or ply from the center and outside of the cake at once. The problem with that last method is there is a high potential for a mess as I don't have any kind of kate to help me tension, but at the same time that will guarantee that every little bit gets used. Hmm...

I'm still working on the baby sweater; one arm is getting close to done, and the long tedious ribbing is already done, so I should be able to finish this off quickly. So cute! And I like how my two-color ribbing turned out.

The main thing I've been working on is my Cityscape Tank, in Lion Brand Coboo, a cotton-linen blend. I love the color and got the yarn at a great price over the 4th of July, but it is rather splitty, so while it's a very simple stitch pattern (sooooo sick of twisted ribbing!), I have to watch pretty carefully to make sure I'm not splitting stitches. I'm pondering how I'm going to weave those ends in and if I need to do anything extra. I'm thinking I might need to do clasp-weft joins to help keep the ends from fraying, but that might make it worse. Hmm... White this isn't exciting to knit, I love the excellent shaping of the finished product, and have found hopes of getting to wear it soon. It's not like Texas is going to run out of summer!

One of the best parts of having my own place has been having my own kitchen again. I've been enjoying meal planning, shopping, and then cooking. I made hamburger buns last week; not quite what I was hoping for, but definitely edible!

I also bought a mini waffle maker, and after an initial trial run on Sunday with a waffle omelette,

I used it tonight to make supper, and I LOVE IT. I never knew I had a tinny waffle maker void in my life, but now I have some fun ideas for things to 'waffle' that I can't wait to try!

Well, that's what I've been up to so far! I'm having company over tomorrow, so I'm trying something out to see if it works as well in real life as it did in my head! Also, I seriously need to get a cooling rack for my baking...

Queen of her own castle again!

I totally meant to get this posted Monday… Yeah… Turns out unpacking is a pretty big job! Not to mention getting a cat settled, working on stocking your kitchen (food and tools), and getting all the details of running an apartment set up.

My goal is to be pretty much unpacked by today, a week from the commencement of unpacking, so we’ll see how that goes. While I’ve done the bulk of it and am mostly working on details now, I’m also making sure to take knitting and Netflix breaks from time to time! On today’s list is the last touches on the stash reorganize, as I found the bins I wanted at the dollar store, as well as sorting out the knits I want to keep, and the ones that can move on.

I’ve been working from the kitchen back, and spent a good chunk of time Sunday organizing my books so I could put them on my bookshelves. Unlike a lovely friend of mine who makes her bookshelves into art by organizing by color, I tend to organize by genre and how much I love the book. I enjoy the process of sorting and shelving, just like I greatly enjoyed processing books when I volunteered at the library this summer. While I did that I removed books that I no longer had to have in physical form so I could take them to my favorite used bookstore. I also remembered that I have another box or two of books coming from overseas while I was in the midst of sorting, and quickly realized that I was going to need another bookcase. So, I went to Walmart today and got another of the 5 shelf bookcases, and did a bit of work on Libib removing the no longer needed tags and deleting the books I’m culling. The question is, how long will that bookcase last me?

In the midst of all the moving crazy, I have some finished objects! While on my big trip to the ACCS conference and to visit both sets of Grandparents, I finished my McGonogal socks. I can’t wait for the weather to get cool enough for me to enjoy them! I didn’t mean to order the twisty sock base, but I loved the texture and will absolutely certainly consider buying it again!

As it’s still Stash Dash, the huge project I really wanted to finish was the car seat poncho. I found that using the percentage method to adjust the stitch counts worked quite well, and rather to my surprise I had enough to not only complete the hood, but also to do the ribbing! I had only a tiny ball of yarn left, and was rather pleased that this particular game of yarn chicken went well. I kind of want to get the same yarn and do this again, but with a different stitch pattern perhaps, and I know I want to change the short row shaping on the hood a bit. I wasn’t wild about that visible line of decreases, and I’m pretty sure I know how to fix it.

In the continuing sprit of Stash Dash, and because I have a childish need to whack the fuzzy pom pom on the crown of the finished hat, I’m trying to finish my re-knit of the Color Dipped hat out of my alpaca handspun. Fisherman’s rib is delightfully squishy, but I find I burn out on ribs pretty fast. So, now that I’m in my own place, hopefully I can get this finished up and ready for the next time I encounter some cold weather. Wow—I’m going to have real seasons again!

On of my projects this weekend was to get my Non-Euclidean Heel socks past the heel turn so I could work on them during my planned movie date, Spiderman Far From Home on Tuesday. That part went fine, but then I apparently dropped a stitch right off the bat, and had to laboriously ladder it back up once I got home and had proper lighting. Oh well, I know the risks!

I've been doing some baby things because a) they are fast, b) great way to stash-bust, and c) I like to have some gifts on hand for deserving babies. I just need to sew the pom-pom on this hat I started during LU's graduation and it's ready to,

And I'm working through the ribbing on another Baby Vertebra. I'm doing two color ribbing; still not sure it was brilliant or a mistake, but I'm committed at the moment!

And, while it hasn't recieved much love lately, I did work quite a bit on my Hasukai cowl while I was traveling in June. I'm going to love it once it's done!

I'll write a bit more about some cooking efforts later, but for now I'll close out with this picture of my handsome little ging- he can be a real butt, but I'm enjoying his company!