Snapshots

It's both hard to believe and a relief that summer break is soon to be over. Of course I'm enjoying the slower days, having time to inhale books (I read both the second and the third Stormlight Archive books by Brandon Sanderson in a month each--they are well over 1,000 pages of awesomeness!), to tackle fiddly project, and to start brewing my own kombucha, I'm also looking forward to being with my co-workers and students again. While I'm sure the fall will have lots of challenges and frustrations, it's about time to change gears a bit. So, here are the crafting snapshots from my summer-

My new summer top--I love it!

A beautifully cabled gnome for a friend's new house.

I made bias tape for the first time--why did it take me so long to try this?

The reason I tried my hand at bias tape, was so I could use it on this vinyl bag project, using a Chickenboots pattern from SewSewLive.

While at my grandmother's memorial earlier this month I bought this yarn which reminded me of her from her local yarn store, and made it into this cowl. I'm looking forward to the cold weather so I can start rocking it!

I'm going to be going on another trip next week, on which I will finally get to meet my niece, so I decided on a whim to make her this elephant toy that's been sitting in my Ravelry queue for years. It's all in one piece which is quite clever, but I think when I make it again I'm going to place the ears better.

I continue to work on my huge double weaving project. Here is what things look like currently on my loom-

And here is the finished first half of the ruana. I haven't washed the fabric yet; I'm hoping the super obvious tight spot down the fold line will relax out. The second half has been fighting me after a great start; best I can figure I did a bad job of packing the warp, so after some desperate intervention tonight hopefully things will go more smoothly until I get the weaving finished.

Parting shot--my super talented sister took this amazing picture of me using long exposure when we were together for the memorial. It's good to remember that there is more to life than the challenges of 2020!

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!

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!

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...