Summer break has now begun!

Whew--the 2019-2020 school year is over! Reports are written, books are put away, and I'm allowing myself this week to rest before starting on my summer projects. Over the course of the last week I worked on various projects while I was also finishing up my school work. I worked on some dishcloths as a going away gift for my headmaster and his wife. I'm so sorry to see them go!

And I made a few masks for someone else.

Most of my crafting time was spent with my new loom--I love it so much! I have some super deep stash laceweight that I thought would weave up nicely, so first I tried one set of swatches with some leftovers in another colorway and some sock yarn to see how it wove up with that warp,

and then I did three different warps so I could get a lot of information from two swatches. I wanted to see how the shawl would weave up with either cotton or the wool laceweight as warp, and I wanted to see what kind of fabric the crochet cotton would make because I'd like to make some dishtowels next. Crochet cotton is significantly cheaper than weaving cotton, so I'm hoping I can make it work. I need to do a drying test with the swatch, but overall I'm pretty happy with the fabric.

I decided I liked the plaid look of the wool laceweight, so on Friday I warped up the loom (which takes a loooong time when you're using such fine yarn), and have been happily working on what will be either a scarf or wrap, depending on how this comes out. Lots of yardage--just in time for Stash Dash! The blue ribbon on the side is to help me measure the length of my pieces, as I'm hoping to make an identical second one. However, that kind of depends on how the yardage works out...

The other big project I accomplished last week was to bake a baumkuchen, a German tree cake which is broiled layer by layer. I had been intrigued by the concept since first seeing it on The Great British Baking Show, then on the German Nailed It. I decided that I wanted it to be my birthday cake, and since I was officially done with work Friday morning, it seemed like a great time to try this labor intensive cake. First, I made my own almond paste as I didn't realize you could get it at Wal-Mart.

Then, I used this recipe, but increased it by 20% to fit into the larger springform pan I had. A burned first layer and 21 successful layers later, I had this delightful cake to share with my family this weekend. Well worth the effort, but I don't think I'll make another anytime soon! This cake's flavor improves with age; more of the almond came through the second night.

So that's what I've been up to! I've got a summer top, sweater, some spinning, and a few weaving projects I'm hoping to finish to make my Stash Dash goal of 5k, and I've got plenty of reading, sorting, and planning to do for next school year. I'm looking forward to more relaxing days, and some more free time to create; if only the hot weather could hold off a little longer!

Well...this was not how I envisioned my spring...

It’s now my fourth week of online teaching, and things are falling into a bit more of a pattern. These last four weeks have been made harder by a family loss that we don’t know when we’ll be able to be together for and a right hand/arm injury that I’m pretty sure is tendinitis. I’ve had to be very, very careful how and how much I use my hand, so I haven’t been able to knit much these last few weeks. However, my hand is slowly healing, the weather is improving, and I’m finding ways to keep myself hopeful and remembering how much I do have more than how much I miss. So, here’s a look at what I’ve been doing, mostly over the last two weeks.

Before my hand got bad and before the end of my ‘real’ spring break, I decided to cast on the brioche cowl I had bought a particularly beautiful skein of Chicken Coop Dyeworks yarn for at the East Texas Fiber Fest last fall. I learned a few things about fixing mistakes in brioche (it’s a PAIN), was able to knit sometimes only two rounds a day on it through the pain, and was getting close to completion when I tried it on-

And then I came to the awful conclusion that the cowl was going to be too big. Now, this was 100% my fault as I had added to it because of my gauge, but I had forgotten to take into account how very stretchy brioche is. So, after putting the project in time out for a few days I ripped the whole thing back, cast on fewer stitches, and I’m trying again. This time the yearn is pooling which it didn’t before—I’ll be interested to see how it behaves once I get to the flat part.

Easter was a bit odd this year, as I suspect it was for you too. One of the things I learned from my time overseas is how powerful traditions are. They are a way to help you look beyond where you are at that moment, and a way to connect you with loved ones far away. They are a way to hope, to remember, and to get outside yourself. So, I dyed a few eggs on Good Friday,

made hot crossed buns,

and knit some covers for blown eggs. The knit egg covers isn’t traditional, but making something—particularly something small and fiddly—for holidays is traditional for me.

I also made myself a nice dinner and ate off my inherited china. Because if this isn’t an occasion to use the good china, I don’t know what is!

I also did a bit of sewing Easter Monday. I’ve been doing some research into mask making, and this is my first one-

I made a few modifications to the original tutorial which can be found HERE such as pipecleaner in the bridge of the nose portion, ties out of random lavender bias tape that a younger me bought for some unknown project, and did a bit of top stitching. I’m pretty happy with it, and pleased that I had enough scraps of both fabric and interfacing.

I've also been spinning a bit. There was about 55g of a brightly colored pencil roving that I got from my mom that has been a very cheerful thing to have in my sore hand and on my wheel. I'm plying it up right now, but here is the single on the wheel-

Lastly, as something to look forward to every weekend, I've been driving out to visit the many historic cemeteries near where I live. I've been to four so far; at least two more to go. Once I've hit the ones labeled on the main road, I'll look up some more. There sure are a lot around here, but seeing as I live in the oldest town in Texas it's perhaps not too surprising. It's so nice to get out into the beautiful spring weather, wander around safely, and I quite like reading the names and dates and piecing together tantalizing bits of the stories left behind. It's also nice to have an 'outing' to look forward to; a safe way to go DO something. As always, even in times of worldwide crisis, it's the little things in life that make so much difference.

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.

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...

I've been busy--a mixed blessing!

Life got a bit busier lately; interviews, subbing, trying to make a bit extra via Lyft every week, family stuff, teaching someone to drive, doing my taxes, starting counseling, still filling out some applications... Yeah, I've had a lot going on. However, I've found time to fit some great life stuff in there too! For one thing, driving for Lyft gives me a great chance to do some reading, as well as having small, casual meetings to lots of interesting people. Here are some of my other projects.

Cinnamon rolls! Next time I do this, I'm leaving the corn syrup out of the caramel bottom, as it becomes impossible to chew, and sets up like rock. I bet just sugar and butter won't do that...

I debated the merits of Party Cake v. Pancakes and Syrup Peeps (not pictured but also considered-Root Beer Peeps!).

I learned a lot about the fiddly art of darning handknit socks. I went from these rather terrible efforts,

to these much better ones. I still need to finish the second sock; I kinda had the will to darn knocked out of me after the first one. So. Many. HOLES.

I finished two projects! First, my Fancy Mee shawl (still need to block it, but doesn't the fence make it look good?),

then my Coraline socks--the oldest remaining knitting project. Now, everything else was started in December or later. I'm trying to remember the last time I had only projects that were a few months old...

I had an intimidating job interview in Huston, where I was put up in a swanky suite I barely had time to sleep in, but got to eat at the delightful Hobbit Cafe. They do ALL the Tolkien, and the food was of course excellent. The pictures not so much because it was night and I was exhausted.

I somehow made a stupid mistake on my big project and then resumed what I was supposed to do, but to fix it I had to frog. We're nearing the end of that half of the item now--yay!

And, I've made good progress on my McGonagall socks. I didn't mean to order this base, but I'm kind of glad I did as I'm loving the high twist. It feels very like KP's Hawthorn.

So, that's what I've been up to! I have a busy next few days ahead of me; two interviews, a sub day, and trying to meet my weekly Lyft goal for starters. I'm currently really praying for direction for the fall; where the Lord has for me to serve next, as well as a place where I can not only support myself, but also thrive as a person and a teacher. So, I'll keep riding the crazy boat that is the month of April, and hope to have a better idea of what to work towards by the end of it!

Making and Russian Ho-to's

On Saturday I was able to pick up the bowl I painted at the Mud Hut, and I have to say I was pretty pleased with the results. I love how the lace effect turned out, and overall I'm pretty pleased with my brush work. Now I want to go paint something else!

In honor of Pi Day, I tried out a 1940's pineapple pie recipe. It had a meringue topping which I don't think I realized, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was pretty sweet, but I rather liked the different pie filling.

I have to admit I've been really caught up in the latest season of The Great British Baking Show, so when there was the chance to make soda bread and a trifle for St. Patrick's day, I jumped on it! I made much better soda bread than I used to when I was a teenager, and thought I was a bit worried that the lime jello and the pistachio pudding would clash, they made for a very satisfactory, very green dessert. I'm coming for my sister's title as the trifle queen!

In knitting news I finished up the Alzheimer mat circle project, had a lovely lunch with the friend who commissioned them, and was relieved that she loved what I had made. Now I know a lot more than I used to about both bobbles and yarn crafting in circles. Plus, I got rid of several little bits of yarn--bonus!

I'm trying to get my (admittedly) self-imposed hand towel knitting finished, so I finally decided on some buttons and had a sewing on 'party' on the six or so finished towels, and am trying to get the rest of my seasonal ones finished up so I can move on to something else. I wasn't super impressed with my home town's button offerings, but decided I could live with the cheap Wal-Mart ones. Boy do I hope the nice ones I saved from my old towels turn up back on this side of the ocean eventually...

And lastly, I've been trying to get my Fancy Mee scarf/shawl finished up. I decided it was too small after finishing the last section,

and while I totally plan to add an edging, I wanted to use up more of my yarn and have it be just a bit bigger. I don't have a proper stitch dictionary anymore, and after looking through what I had and what my mom has, I turned to the internet and found this-

I liked the individual elements of the stitch and the look of the loops, but the problem was it was in Russian. Some more Googling had me a conversion for the Russian chart symbols, but there were still some parts I couldn't figure out. I noodled around with a swatch, but then found a forum on Ravelry where you could get help with Russian pattern translation. I ended up watching the suggested Russian how-to video, which ended up with me realizing there was a mistake in the chart and how to achieve the desired look. I was afraid it wasn't going to work as it looked a terrible mess until I worked a row or two past the loops, but I think it's going to block out even better than it eventually settled. On to the edging!

I'm trying to get a few things cleared out so I can get back to work on my Ink cardigan; I was reminded that Stash Dash is coming up! This year I'll be able to spin as well, so I might stretch myself and go for the 5K...we'll have to see how busy I am!

Parting shot: Silver Grizzly coffee, good company (sister and brother-in-law), and knitting are always a good idea on a Monday morning!

Sometimes, spit happens

Let's just say...there has been a lot of 'spit' lately. As in fighting off a depressive bout, not hearing back from people who said they would contact you sooner, my mom's surgery, emotional exhaustion, random back pain, and to top things off I apparently picked up bronchitis. Ain't nobody got time for that! So, lots of stuff. However, in the midst of all that I've been working on several items. Let's recap, shall we?

I managed to brilliantly match the stripes on the Vinovias, BUT

despite ripping out the stress-knit toe (hospital visiting will do that to you) to redo it, there STILL was a bit of the next color on the second toe. Oh well, I am soooo done with this project. They will still keep Tiffany's feet warm, and I'm ready to move on to the next sock.

I also plied up the first third of the pinky-purple stuff from Rebekah, and WOW. Just WOW. Not only am I getting much better as a spinner, but boy is this stuff lovely! Now I just need to get the other thirds spun...

This weekend, because I figured I could use the finishing endorphins, I picked up probably my oldest surviving WIP, a hanging dishtowel that I abandoned all but done before heading to Africa. Well, a few minutes work added the green top, and now I just need to figure out either a) where I put the buttons I have, or b) find something suitable to buy.

This helped kickstart my making a second one this weekend, only this one is for a trade with a friend. Apparently, having bronchitis plays HAVOC with my ability to count, so I had to rip this out...more times than I'd care to admit. However, it was worth it as I'm digging both the color combination, but also the fact that I KNOW it's just as it should be.

I've been making good progress on my Fancy Mee shawl as well. I'm really wondering how big this will end up, and if I need to add to it. At the moment, I'm just enjoying the ride...

I did some cooking before/as I got sick this weekend. I made bagels for Saturday breakfast,

as well as this adorable apple pie for my Dad's birthday dinner. Pretty pleased if I do say so myself!

So, that pretty much gets you caught up on what I've been doing for the last two weeks or so, and hopefully I can kick this plague and get my life back sooner rather than later! Parting shot: Sister dates at the Grizz with your new Chickenboots bag which is AMAZING helps a lot of things.