In which I sum up

Well, it’s been a hot minute! December and January were rather overwhelming months due to school, the holidays, dealing with my dad’s melanoma (which has been successfully removed—praise the Lord!), my beloved local yarn store closing (I'm not allowed to buy yarn for awhile now...), dealing with my credit union merging (which was a good thing as I now have a local bank again, but a big process), continuing to try to find a church home, joining Planet Fitness (a surprisingly large thing to incorporate into my life), and the arrival of my beautiful niece, Paisley (I’m finally an aunt!). Valentine’s day marked the end of the second trimester, so I have today off to sleep, finish marking the trimester tests, and get myself set up for the last third of the school year. During that time I’ve been knitting, spinning, and reading of course, so here are some highlights of the last three months of creative efforts.

I have had a blast making things for my niece, Paisley, and about a week before she was born I sent off two sweaters, two pairs of booties, and two hats. As Paisley is a dainty little lady I have a bit of time to wait before she can be wrapped in my knitted love, but it's well worth the wait! I have one more item, a little Jedi cardigan to finish for her,

but I got distracted from the million miles of brown garter stitch by...

tinny envelopes! Hunter Hammerson does it yet again, and created a fiddly little pattern I just had to knit. I've got a few ideas of what to do with these...

Another thing I've been working on is the Winterberry hood, something which has been in my queue for quite awhile. I'm using this delightful red from Lazy Cat Studio that I bought at the East Texas Fiber Fest, and I ended up having to rip the whole thing out due to a) a gauge issue and b) a dye lot issue. This picture is from where I blocked one end to confirm the awful truth I suspected--that it was going to be too small. I'm still sort of pondering if I would rather do a hood or a cowl neck, but as I need to finish a Jedi robe soon I have a bit of time to think it through.

Since last writing I also completed two stockings. This stocking is to complete a set I started over a decade ago as a shower gift for a friend's Christmas wedding. I have since made stockings for all three of her kids, so the family set is complete. It was a bit of a challenge to make this with my somewhat limited space and resources, but I thankfully took good pictures of the other stockings and had saved some of the trim, so I was able to make something that was unique but still fit with the other two siblings stockings.

I also knit myself a stocking to have at my place (I spent Christmas with my 'real' stocking at my parents), and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I used wool leftover from my Crazy Stripes sweater, and I love the traditional pattern. It was fun to knit, and I'm almost tempted to make Neko one for next year.

Lastly, for now, I also played around with these delightful tiny trees, also a Hunter Hammerson pattern. I'd like to make some this summer maybe to have on hand as gifts for next year, but we'll see. I'm still working on my summer dreams and plans...

I'm going to try and get back in the habit of blogging, and I'd like to do a post soon about my recipe challenge to myself, but for right now I need to get to bed--it's a school night!

Parting shot: My brother took this picture of Neko at Christmas, and I absolutely LOVE it! What a handsome ginger pants!

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.

Life keeps interfering with my creative efforts...

I continue to be pretty busy with Lyft, driving lessons, sourcing items for the apartment I'll be moving into in less than a month, regular life stuff, and recently getting ready to leave for the ACCS conference this week. Yes, I have travel knitting and backup travel knitting planned out! I hauled down my carry on to see if I could make it work for what will now be a just over a week long trip (two relative and a friend stop are planned post conference), and filled up my travel sized bottles with shampoo and conditioner. I'm sure everyone else is smarter than me, but I realized that having my two bottles be different shapes or colors helps me remember which is which. Because this is apparently difficult for me. Good thing Walmart gives plenty of variety!

On the crafting front, I've picked up the second half of the car seat poncho, and got it just under where I figured I was going to need to do some math. See, I totally changed the gauge and pattern, so I needed to work out some percentages for the neck shaping. The hood is likely also going to require a bit of math, but I'm hoping it's not too hard to figure out. Wouldn't it have been easier if I had just knit the thing as written? Yes, but then I couldn't have used this yarn, and I like this patter better than the super chunky cables. Plus, isn't it more fun to have to do lots of gauge math?

Between Lyft jobs and reading The Odyssey (pre-school reading for Omnibus), I've been making steady headway on the foot of my second McGonagall sock. I love the colors, the texture of the yarn, and the simplicity of the pattern. This is back up knitting #1 for the trip.

Wait, #1 I say? Yes, I'm considering adding a second backup project. The main project I'm planning to take is my Hasukai cowl, the laceweight project with looong rows. Well, not quite as long now that the ruffle is finished, but still too fine for every knitting possibility. I might take one of those hat cakes I keep buying from Michael's now that I think about it... And I'll try and find some interesting places to take pictures of the cowl as I travel.

The very detailed rendition of Thorin's map continues to make progress. I did the red runes this weekend as I needed a break from the black, and found it strangely therapeutic to stitch their shapes and read the message to my self. When you teach The Hobbit several times, you get to the point where you can almost read the runes...

And, I started spinning again, because I want to get this project finished with the singles if not plied before I move next month. I love the rhythm of spinning, the feel of the wool twisting in my hands, and the pleasure of seeing a pretty even single wind onto my bobbin. It's the little things in life...

As further motivation, a good friend sent me these delicious rovings for my birthday which I'm now itching to spin. I can't wait to see how they spin up!

I've been doing a bit of cookie baking lately, and had the chance to try some more Keto recipes for Sunday dinner, but I have some big plans for when I'm in my own place. A jelly roll of some kind will have to be attempted I think... I can't wait!

New life to be launching soon!

Well…imagine that—life happened! Among the life happening was more job interviews, getting a job at Regents Academy in Nacogdoches, several trips down to scope out apartments, observe, and get to know the school and town a little bit, sending my laptop in for service that took MUCH longer than anticipated, holding down the fort while the parents took a two week road trip, and lots of time teaching my brother’s girlfriend how to drive. As of this week I now have my apartment decided on and sorted out, so now it's just thinking through the logistics of moving the stuff I already have and figuring out the most cost/time effective way to get what I need.

There has been knitting of various kinds; the big project through most of April was the Mother’s Day sock commission for a friend of my brothers. I made a pair of Rib is the New Vanilla socks in a lovely petite size 7, as well as an Evenstar bookmark. I enjoyed the making of these items, and it made for good Easter knitting while family was visiting.

I also finished mending my sister’s socks, and once Stash Dash started last week I finished the toe of the first McGonagal sock and started the second. Here is the first shortly after the heel was complete. A note on the Rib is the New Vanilla heel—don’t try and be smart and figure out the ‘flaw’ in the centering of the heel. The designer is right, just do what she says!

While waiting for my sister to get her big sunflower tattoo I knit this soap sack for my lovely new handmade soap—matching dishcloth to follow shortly.

I also finally finished off all those knit towel toppers I've been working on over the last few months. I decided to do the Valentine's ones next year, but I have several to use as gifts as well as a few for my new place. I even got all the buttons on!

For my birthday I started a scarf/cowl using up some deeeep stash (Knitpicks Shimmer—long gone!), but am too lazy to take a picture of the boring looking little big of garter tube that is the first ruffle. Next week maybe!

In addition to knitting, I have been working on some sewing projects too this May. I made several project bags-some as gifts and some for me. I lovethis particular project bag tutorial, and have found it pretty easy to mess with the sizes based on zipper length.

I also started an epic stitching project—mostly back with a few cross stitches. I’ll post an update next week, but here is the outlines of the future Thorin’s map. Loving it! I’ve never used evenweave before, so it’s a bit of a stretch, but the results are so, so worth it.

I've set myself the 3k goal again for Stash Dash this year, so we'll see how that goes. I don't have a lot of languishing projects as they are all only a few months old! But I do want to finish spinning the pink-purple roving and get the carseat poncho done, and both of those are will have some pretty good mileage. A crazy part of my mind is whispering that I could knock out my Ink cardigan--HA! No way I'll have that much time between moving and getting ready for school! A girl can dream though...

The Chevron Urge

Every so often I get gripped by urges to make certain things. During term this usually translates into baking/cooking a particular item on my weekends off, and lately especially when a knitting urge hits I’m rarely in the position to indulge it. But, unlike many other urges, my need to knit chevrons is a very doable itch to scratch…

I did some swatching for a rainbow chevron cowl I plan to knit in May for the KnitGirllls self-striping knit-a-long using some KP Felici. I haven’t decided yet how crazy the narrow stripes will make me, and if it’s worth using both balls simultaneously (and thus having a lot of ends to deal with) to make the stripes wider. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to go down the ‘more work’ way…

The second chevron project I started this weekend. Last fall I citric acid soaked a bunch of cotton (not sure now that it will help as it’s cotton, but the process is long done now!) for a baby blanket for some friends who were expecting at the time. Sadly, we’ll have to wait for heaven to meet that baby, and so I ripped out the blanket, but still wanted to use the yarn. Well, I had been planning to do stripes anyway, so here was the perfect use for the treated yarn. After the long rows in fingering weight yarn on Hitofude, these ones seem to go in a flash! I’m using the free pattern Baby Chevron Blanket pattern; I added a repeat to the body to make up for being a tad short on gauge. Next time I make this (on yes, I don’t think my chevron days are over yet!) I want to use a wool blend and I think I’ll also add a bit of garter to the cast on and bind off edges. However, I’m very pleased with the blanket so far, and might even get it done for Stash Dash. There isn’t a particular baby in mind, but I figure having a baby blanket in progress/reserve can’t hurt!

In order to start the blanket, I had to finish off another project so I could get the needle tips. I’m still not sure about the color combo on this Helix hat, but it is a fun way to use up leftovers! I’m a little afraid that I pulled too tight at the beginnings of the rows when I switched colors, and I also found out that if you’re a boob and use the wrong color it can’t really be fixed except by pulling your work back. I have a feeling I’m going to make more of these, but I might wait until I have a better color palette. I’m sure there is someone somewhere would appreciate this color combo.

One of the big things I worked on last week is a cross stitch project that will, alas, have to be secret for a while, but let’s just say that I now know that if your kit is old enough your floss can develop a distressing tendency to break…a lot. Now I’m tempted to go rummage through my kit stash for another one… While I still have a bit of term break left!

Lastly, today I made hamburger buns for the first time, and I was quite pleased with the result. If nothing else, living out here has sure made it necessary to learn a lot of skills I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. I wasn’t super great at yeast baking when I came out, but my bread almost always turns out well now. Making bagels is fun and easy, and now I have a good bun recipe for when the hamburger urge strikes again. Maybe I should get around to trying crackers like I’ve been saying I would for awhile… Or, maybe I’ll make a Baked Alaska for my birthday cake!

Parting shot: Such an adorable knitting buddy!

Playing with yarn is fun!

I haven't finished much this week as I have several large projects that I'm working through. The problem with large projects is that it takes a long time for obvious progress to be made. But rest assured that my needles and hands have not been idle! I caved and started the Vivid blanket that I've been coveting for awhile now to use up some ends of sock yarn. Plus, being able to finish a square in an evening gives you a great finishing rush!

I've already got the yarn for the next few squares picked out...

I made the Mason Dixon washcloth and since my gauge was too tight the thing buckles, but it's a dishcloth so that's okay. More fiddly than I would usually do for a dishcloth, but I want to try it again with bigger needles and omit the bobbles. Bobbles are evil!

I worked some more on my big cross stitch-

And I worked out a sock conundrum which shall have a post of it's own once I finish the samples. I've been working on many other WIP's and hope to knock out at least one project before next week.

I've been cooking--potato pancakes, where have you BEEN all my life?--and reading quite a bit. Both for school--ancient Egypt is coming up for history, and the Inheritance Cycle because why not? Dragons are always fun, though this series was SO written by a teenage boy. Cleaning has happend--who KNEW it was so much work to scrub walls?--and napping. I got a lovely parcel from Annie and my calendars that were the last part of my Christmas present. I'm working through a Great Course on ancient Egypt, and enjoying the sound of silence. How my soul has needed this breathing space...

2015 in Review and Finishitis is awesome

Well, though I have to give it credit and say that it had its moments, 2015 has not been my best year ever. If I had to pick a word to sum up this year, I think it would have to be loss. I have never cried so much or so hard in one year that I can remember before. I lived the whole year bracing for a big loss in December, and there was another traumatic loss in April as well as several losses back home. Those were almost harder because they meant that the next time I go home I’ll get to experience the pain all over again as they become reality. So, 2015 was the sort of year that you take the calendar out in the backyard and do this with it:

And yes, I felt better. And no, that picture was not in any way staged!

2015 was the year of Kenya, the year where I passed two more steps closer to being a ‘hopeless case,’ and the year where as I came to a very important truth as I lay whimpering in the dark with my stressed out body screaming at me. 2015 was a day of seizing moments of happiness and celebration as hard as I could, and the year where I realized that my body is not 16 any more (obvious really, but a bit of a harsh wake up sometimes!). 2015, feel free to let the door hit you on the way out. There is no time travel yet, so I never have to step foot in you again!

So, let’s talk about my year end finisitis! In quick sucession these projects flew off the needles/out of my hands. The mini Christmas tree skirt that I’m a little afraid is too small but I DON’T CARE RIGHT NOW.

The socks that I actually knit three of…the ones that betrayed me with their color repeat on the toes!

The Ned scarf that Beth and I did as a knit-a-long. She totally finished before me! Now I want to make a coordinating hat… Note the cool nails.

And of course nothing says Christmas like Borg cubes!

I spent New Years Eve watching The Empire Strikes Back 'with' my family and enjoying some snarky texts. The cat was not impressed by Han's scruffy good looks or one of the biggest movie plot twists of all time. Figures! Have a happy, nerdy New Year, and let hope that 2016 is a great year for everyone.

Parting Shot: Awesome crossover!

Christmas Day

You might wonder why I’m compulsively blogging these last few days. Partly, because even though it’s a totally one sided conversation, I feel I have to speak somehow or go crazy—the aloneness is starting to wear a little. Partially it’s because I’m going to so much effort to keep my family’s traditions, and I feel like there has to be some kind of record out there to prove that I didn’t give in! And partially, it’s because blogging means that I’m not doing school work, so it’s a declaration of holiday. So, more blog!

This morning I slept in a bit as I was up pretty late last night. I was up late partially because I was watching another episode of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell with my family. So far we love Norrell, Childermass and Stephen, but think the Gentlemen needs more fairy charm. While he was dangerous and sinister, he was also whimsical and charming in his dangerous amorality.

I was also up late because I was playing and singing Christmas carols since (intentionally in deference to the carol hating person on station or not) we have not sung any Christmas carols together that I know of since the kids left, and I’m sorry, there MUST be carols sung on Christmas Eve! Also, as is tradition for me ever since my senior year of university when I took music history, I listened to both the Renaissance and the modern version of “O Magnum Mysterium” by candle light. Pausing to listen to the divine music and reflect on the greatest of mysteries is a nice way to end an often busy day.

I made my family’s famous breakfast casserole, and Beth’s apple cider. Yes, that is the TARDIS holding the spices!

I enjoyed watching The Muppet Christmas Carol while eating my brunch, and then I opened the gifts from my family that had arrived on time. Seeing their love in the things they chose for me was so special, and also made me miss them more! I had an adorable cat in a bag,

and I finished my SHIELD ornament.

I took a nap this afternoon, processed 6 cups of mangoes, listened to my Christmas Day pick,

and then went over to the Ronald’s for a light supper and some games. All in all a pleasant day; of course I would rather have been with my family, but all in all today was a good day. And in this year... that is something. Merry Christmas wherever you are, and may this time of light and love refresh you for the new year ahead.

Christmas Eve

Today was mostly spent in the kitchen preparing for the station Christmas dinner and washing the billion and one dishes that despite my best efforts seem to follow my cooking endeavors. I’ve been listening to and enjoying my Christmas Eve pick,

and looking forward to our next set of dual continent Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell viewing.

Today I made Smitten Kitchen's pecan pie which looks and tastes AMAZING,

way too much eggnog, (which included the new experience of making condensed milk—I might have condensed mine a smidge too much…)

and a green bean casserole (which involved making yogurt which didn’t set up in time).

Last night I finished the second of my Japanese ornaments that I stitched last year and got them both on the tree,

and this morning I actually woke up after 7! My sleep cycles this week has been all over the place…

Wishing you all the best as we remember the magnum mysterium; God became man and lived among us.