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.