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.

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...

Rest, in all its forms, is a great gift

It’s amazing what the human body can bear up under short term, and yet again I found myself at a weekend off at precisely the moment before I cracked under the pressure of exerting my dubious super power—the ability to put in 15-16 hour days on 6 or less hours of sleep. This weekend I got some healing sleep, had an evening of brownies and friends, and have had some time to work on knitting projects.

I continue to be ‘star struck’. I think the draw in these are a) they are adorable and b) they are completable in an evening of knitting, so you get that finishing endorphin rush. I have a particular reason to make so many, and I just met my goal of six for particular gifting purposes. I was thinking today it would be fun to make a star bunting out of the leftovers of favorite yarns. Yet another thing to do once I am reunited with my stash! I have a whole scrap box that I can’t wait to put to use.

I have been working on fingerless gloves out of the leftover yarn from my Box Pleat hat, but I realized after birthday party that I was not. going. to. have. enough. yarn. CRUMB. So, I went back to the purple that had been my first thought, and started again. I waffled a few times about whether or not to try and do a more fancy pair, but the reality is I’m getting about an hour average of knitting time during the week, so if I need TWO of these (and I do plan to leave here with two hands), then I should probably stick with my basic rib idea. I did learn when I was increasing for the thumb gusset on the now abandoned pair that I should probably do my increases with two rest rounds between, so at least that knitting wasn’t in vain. So long blue gloves…

This weekend I made hamburger buns which I was rather afraid wouldn’t turn out, but they rose beautifully in the oven so all was well. These are really good buns, and I’ll probably make them sometimes when I’m back Stateside. That being said, I’m not going to be sorry to be living somewhere that I can just *buy* things like hamburger buns!

The ‘lasts’ are starting to come hard and fast now, and I’m getting more and more excited about the coming new phase of my life. It’s a wonderful gift—a new life, but it’s also one that is messy, hard to process, and going to take a lot of work. I’m trying to keep the baby steps going, but sometimes it’s a little overwhelming what all needs to happen between now and December 15th. Oh well, I guess I’ll just go knit a few more stars!

Pathetic amount of knitting

Precious little that is not school related how gone on in my life recently; I had to run an errand into Ikelenge last Monday, and that meant I didn't have any time to do anything other than plan and work. About all I've managed are these two dishcloths (one of which saved me from blowing a gasket during a staff meeting),

and two more little stars. I wanted to use every little bit of this white up, and I had just a smidge of green left, and it turns out it was a good idea to combine the two things.

I also finished the box pleat hat and remembered I had a nice button I could use on the top. I'm not wild about this hat, but all I need it to do is to keep me from freezing in Germany for a week, and it will do that. I wonder if I tried to do this again with a little tighter fit of the body if I'd like it more.

I have a few knitting goals for myself before I leave, so we'll see how that goes with the other great tasks of packing up my house, classroom, finishing a term, and putting on a show!

I've done a bit of cooking this fall; the last weekend I was off I tried the Smitten Kitchen sour cream and pumpkin puddings; I liked not having to make the crust, and the way the sour cream went with it.

I also made some pumpkin soup,

and tried making pizza bread which didn't go super well. Lessons learned!

Parting shot: My little Java cat!

Pathetic, but something

It was a crazy week, and while I got lots of great things done over the weekend, many of them were NOT knitting. I did finish the main part of the ski mask, and after trying it on will begin to knit tentacles for it, but other than that I basically

1) Knit three more stars, seen here first as the first two (the third one has a Halloween color scheme and is still blocking) stars,

and here is the whole handful minus the latest one. Why yes, I'm milking this for all it's worth!

I also finished a dishcloth that has been my 'reading' knitting for the last bit. It's weirdly textured fingering weight cotton I found somewhere out here and have decided to knit up. It also smells really dusty, so I'm debating giving it a bath before gifting it to someone here in parting.

I made bagels, ginerbread cake, and pizza this weekend, cleaned my floors, did my laundry, got rid of three boxes out of my house, took some good naps, talked for a few hours with Ruthie, got to watch a little of Once Upon a Time Season 3 (not a huge fan) and welcomed fall with a hoarded pumpkin spice latte Via and pumpkin spice candle. Last week was...rough...and I'm hoping that this one is better. Especially as I'm in for another crazy weekend on next week!

Packing, Sports Day, very little knitting

This last week has been full of mostly A) packing, b) marking, c) teaching, and D) report card comments. Half-term was Monday and Tuesday, so I had actually watched TWO movies over the weekend, and got to knit. Wednesday I took about an hour out of my evening to celebrate the 4th with Ruthie and Anna; here was our little American second supper/dessert-

Saturday was sports day, so as usual I worked on a sock (the second Coraline) in between handing out ribbons, answer questions, and keeping track of the scores.

I only have three and a half more days at Sakeji, so it's going to be pretty wild with tying up loose ends, handing over my class and duties (have fun with *that* sub!), and finishing my packing which is more than packing, it's stage 3 of 4 in my move back to the States. So, don't expect to hear too much from me till I've slept off the worst of the jet leg next week! I'm so excited about traveling, being home, seeing my family, and welcoming a new brother to the clan. I'm excited about being in Dubai for a day, the first Starbucks, having time to knit and breath, and going to some movies. This year is 2/3 done--I'm in the home stretch!

A lovely cowl, a loss, a new treat, and new shoes

This last week has been pretty busy getting ready for term to start, so I have pretty much only been knitting on one project. Not only am I planning for this term, but I’m trying to leave an ironed out curriculum including weekly projections for my successor. And despite my exhaustive record keeping, there is so often some funny thing every term that makes it hard to set out what a ‘normal’ term 2 should look like. A teacher’s work is never done…

It’s been all chevrons, all the time here in the bush! When I started my rainbow chevron cowl I did a bunch of math, figured 15 repeats would do it, and started. I did a few rows of garter in black for the bottom, and then started alternating the two skeins of rainbow Felici. When I tried it on however, it was going to be way too big. Weird; from my swatch I was expecting each repeat to be 1.75”, and they were clocking in at more like 2.75.” I felt wounded that my taking the time to swatch had not paid off but, math is math, so, RIP!

I did 7 rows of garter this time, and only 12 repeats figuring that would hit the sweet spot for a no-wrap cowl—not too tight, but not so loose it doesn’t keep you warm. Well, now my repeats are more like 2,” and the cowl is just on the edge of being too small. So…either I am terrible at measuring, or the knitting fates have seen fit to smite me. Thankfully I can live with the size it is, and I have a feeling that a little blocking will also help. The only thing I’m not thrilled about is the rolling edging; I was hoping the garter would fix that. I’m not sure if I had done less garter if it would have rolled less, or if it is just an integral part of the structure of this stitch pattern. Maybe I’ll do fewer rows at the top and see what happens, or maybe it will block out?

This week brought the sad news that a favorite musician of mine, Jed Marum, had passed away. I had the privilege of seeing him perform live a few times at Four Winds Faire, and he was one of my favorites for several reasons. First of all I loved his rich baritone voice, and second I appreciated that unlike many other shows at faires, Jed’s never was raunchy or off color. I enjoyed the wide range of songs he played, and his original songs were thought provoking and moving. Jed was a born story teller, and there was a great story to go with many of his songs. Several years ago when I attended the Celtic Music Festival out at the faire, Jed performed with many of the people who were there, and also helped run the sound to support his fellow musicians. He loved to collaborate with other musicians, and never gave the impression it was the "Jed show." I had hoped to make it to Dallas to hear him again this summer, but sadly I’ll never get to do that. The world is always poorer whenever anyone dies, but this week it’s been sad to think of a world without such a talented musician, faire gentleman, and gifted storyteller. He will be missed.

I was off this first weekend, and I saw a recipe for cinnamon roll pancakes pop up on Facebook. Intrigued, I saw I had all the ingredients, so Sunday night I tried it out.

A few notes if you should decide to embark on this journey. A) The sugar makes a real mess--be warned! You're going to need some hot water to clean it up. B) The filling mixture would do at least two batches of pancakes; I'm stashing mine in the fridge for round two. C) I don't have cream cheese to spare, so I just made a regular glaze icing--which was fine! But I can only imagine how good the cream cheese one would be...

Parting shot: I can't get over how CLEAN and NEW these are! My green converse served nobly and well for almost 5 years; it's time for another pair.

Very little to show for last week

So, most of last week was taken up with:

* Trying to go to town
* Turning back because the road was seriously flooded and there was *no way*
* Trying again the next day and making it out--a 12 hour trip
* Enjoying good Sri Lankan food and time with dear friends
* Having a dentist appointment which included a cleaning and two small fillings * Lots of shopping
* Getting to eat out twice--such a treat!
* A 16 hour trip back up country

Other than those minor details, I did a tiny bit of knitting at the dentists--a Trillian--that I hope to incorporate into my Stash Dash strategy.

Today, I made bread because I needed to, pie because I've been watching the second season of Pushing Daisies, and hummus because I now have tahini and I love it. It's the little things in life...

I also spent a lot of time the day I didn't get to leave and since I've been back working on a project that shall sadly have to be secret for awhile yet, but let's just say it's been a nice break from the endless sweater. Speaking of which, I decided to add a repeat before doing the ribbing at the end; I'm terrified that it will actually end up in practice being a smidge too short, so we shall have to see. The next time I make a Hitofude, I'm going to do three extra repeats before I start the body increases.

So, I settle back into my normal holiday routine. Reading--while I can. Cooking--while I can. Knitting--while I can. Doing PD--while I can. Letting my soul breath--while I can. I'm hoping I can get enough soul rest into myself in the next three weeks that I can start my second to last term with renewed joy and enthusiasm; it's going to be a hard journey, but I'm committed to finishing the calling.

Parting shot: Javacat in a box!