SNOW DAY!

It started snowing during 2nd hour today, and it wasn't too long before the decision was made to dismiss early. By a little after 11:00 a.m., we had the kids on the busses, and we were in the parking lot cleaning the snow off our vehicles. I brushed the snow off the back window, worked my way around the car, and had to brush off the back window again before I got in the car. I don't think we'll have school tomorrow.
Here's what it looked like a couple of hours ago, and it's been snowing steadily since it started:

The same building (we call it the machine shed) a couple of days ago, after a very windy day:

The little tiny guy on the roof is my 6'2.5" tall husband. The wind caught the edge of the roof (the corner to the left) and peeled it up, lathe and all. He was able to get it unbent and fastened back down.

I finished the socks for my son. Now the poor little kid (whose feet are men's size 12) won't have cold toes.

Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport, Camouflage
pattern: a combination of things -- I did an Aloha toe from Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes & Heels, increasing to 64 sts, then knitted a stockinette foot. I did a really cool heel from Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters, then did 3x1 ribbing until I ran out of yarn. Undid a row and bound off. Actually, I also went around the sock and laddered the 3rd knit stitch on each rib about 15 rows and latched it back up from the inside to turn that section into 2x2 rib at the top of the sock. The yarn in the needle below the socks is all that is left from 2 skeins of Shepherd Sport.

Then I decided to start a sock for myself. This is Tempted Hand Painted Yarns, fingering weight, 100% merino superwash wool, recently purchased from The Loopy Ewe. The color is called "Tease". Our school colors are red & white & black, so I thought they'd be sort of school-colors socks. Yes, that's gray, not white. Whatever. I started with the same Aloha Toe mentioned above, then decided to try one of the socks in the Cat Bordhi book. Settling on the Dove Socks on p. 73, I knit the foot to my length, then started the increases. Then the pooling became more like striping, and while each type of patterning is ok on its own, I don't think I like the combination. You can see that I had already removed the needles before I took this picture. But I didn't rip it out right away, and a couple of days later I realized that I didn't need to rip all of it out. I ripped back to the start of the increases/stripes and will continue on with the zig-zaggy pooling until it's long enough to do a short-row heel, then the leg. Since the number of stitches in a row won't change, the foot and leg of the sock should not do this stripey thing.

Goodness, I'm sleepy. I think I'm going to take a nap.

Crazy hair

We're having a "spirit week" at school -- this Friday is Homecoming. It's a small school, no football, so we do a Homecoming basketball game in January. Today was crazy hair day.
Cell phone picture taken by my son. Don't click & make it bigger -- you'll pixellate me! The child's almost a foot taller than me, hence the looming down angle.

Friday!

T.G.I.F. And I mean that most sincerely. Around 2:00 this afternoon, I'd have sold you my Algebra 1 class for pocket change. But I'm all better now. Figured out what they're going to do on Monday. They'll enjoy it. Lots. Really, it will help them learn what they weren't paying attention to today.

Second quarter grades are in the computer. I just have to do something about a couple of kids who transferred in and don't have first quarter grades, so the semester grade is wrong. And I have a couple of others who should have incompletes because they were out sick so much they missed tests.

So now I have a little knitting time, and I can finish the felt clogs for big foot my son. And start another pair for another young man who has slightly smaller feet.

Happy New Year!

It's snowing, but I don't think that was in the forecast. It doesn't even show up on the radar map. I wouldn't mind if it continued, but our College Girl was planning to drive to St. Louis today, to spend a few days with friends.

This is what a 19-year old thinks we looked like in the '80s.

Her Sunday School class had a New Year's Eve '80s-themed party last night. I spent a good chunk of the '80s in college, and I know I never dressed like that! I remember owning several Shaker sweaters, which I wore with polo shirts underneath, collars popped up. Come to think of it, I owned several other obnoxiously oversized sweaters then. Not hand-knit sweaters ... although there was one, in that sort of sparkly red Red Heart acrylic. That put the brakes on the sweater knitting for a long time....

I am nearly finished with the Ski Jacket from Knitting Classic Style. All I have left to do is run in the ends in the colorwork section of the yoke, and add buttons. Well, I need to buy buttons first, and we don't even have a fabric store anymore.

The bigfoot slippers are lacking the outer sole on the second slipper, then felting. We'll have to take some pre-felting measurements. They're huge!

As we start this new year, I am trying to decide how best to use my limited knitting time. I still have a rather long list of works-in-progress; many of them have achieved UFO (unfinished object) status. I could continue whittling that list down; it would be nice to finish them and get the needles back. But there is also new yarn for new projects that I would love to start. Too many options.

The snow has stopped -- we have sunshine and blue skies dotted with clouds, a dusting of snow on the ground.

Back to school tomorrow. I'll try to keep up with the blog a little better. I'm also on Ravelry, as JulieC.