School's Out for Summer!

Oh, hello! School has actually been out for over a week for the students. Teachers had to go back for a couple of days after Memorial Day. This was my 7th year of teaching. Whew. Time flies ...

The kid who was a high school sophomore my first year of teaching graduated from college last month, and commissioned in the USArmy as a 2LT. He's home for a few weeks before he has to report for his Basic Officer Leadership Course.

His sister completed her master's degree in Urban Planning 2 years ago and is working for a city where she gets to practice her Southern mannerisms.  We are about to be a completely empty nest here.

Camp Loopy: I wasn't going to play this year, to the point that I didn't order yarn during the Camp Loopy Store Week, when I could have gotten a 20% discount. But as soon as school was out and things slowed down, there I was ordering yarn for a project.

My project is Romi Hill's Zephyr Cove.

I haven't done this in so long, I don't even have much to offer in terms of pictures. So many picture-taking devices, I don't even know where the pictures I want are. I have been knitting during my long absence from the blog, and using Ravelry to keep track of my projects. My Ravelry projects page is here.

Gratuitous cat picture:

A little detour into ice cream making

Shortly after Sheri wrote about her ice cream machine and the recipe book she purchased with it, I decided to follow suit and get both for myself. The first ice cream I made was a recipe from the book that came with the machine. More cream than milk, about a 2:1 ratio. I didn't really like the taste, or more accurately, the feel of it. Hard to explain.  So I turned to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home, which I had already perused and decided that the recipes looked like too much work. I started in the current season, which was Autumn. First recipe: The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream In the World. Results: delicious! Used 2 bowls, a 4-qt pan, a whisk, a heatproof spatula. Lots of dirty dishes (and no dishwasher). But absolutely worthwhile. Jeni's recipes use approximately a 1:2 ratio of cream to milk. They also include a little bit of cream cheese and corn syrup, corn starch, and no eggs. I don't use her quick-chill method after cooking the ice cream base; instead I pour it into a container & chill in the fridge overnight.
Next up: Salty Caramel Ice Cream. Verdict: Loved it!
Then: The Buckeye State Ice Cream [Honeyed Peanut Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Freckles] Yum!
Skipped the Star Anise Ice Cream. I needed 1/2 cup of candied fennel seeds. Jeni provides sources for ingredients in the back of the book, but I just wasn't sure about this.
Roasted Pumpkin 5-Spice Ice Cream. Well, my parents liked it a lot. I'm not the world's biggest fan of pumpkin pie, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Then... I skipped the whole winter section. I didn't make ice cream again until late spring. The Roasted Strawberry & Buttermilk Ice Cream was wonderful. So was Savannah Buttermint Ice Cream, though the white chocolate flecks might have been a bit of overkill.

All of a sudden, it was summer. The first recipe in the summer section is Sweet Corn & Black Raspberry Ice Cream. Yes, corn. It gets cooked in with the milk, cream & sugar, then strained so there aren't any pieces of corn in the ice cream (ew!). Couldn't find black raspberries, or even blackberries, so I made the sauce with raspberries. Tastes great, anyway. The ice cream does have a sweet corn flavor, but it's really good, not weird.
Next week: Kona Stout Ice Cream. Coffee & beer -- I'll let you know how it goes.

What I really appreciate about these recipes is that she spells out all of the prep steps so you're not trying to combine corn starch & milk or cream cheese and salt while stirring the milk, cream & sugar and hoping it doesn't boil over. Very well thought out and written.

Que sera, sera

Another new project: the Que Sera cardigan from Knitty. Knitting ADD, much?  Sheri from The Loopy Ewe presented her 2nd quarter challenge, which is to knit adult socks, a sweater or a vest with a yarn that has cotton in it. There was about a week at the end of March where you could get 20% off the yarn you were going to use for the challenge. So I'm making a very girly pink lacy cardigan.  I was going to try to add some waist shaping, similar to the way it's done in the February Fitted Pullover, but I decided I'm not that ambitious. I am rather short in the torso area, so I am making the length of the sizes xs & small, but the circumference of the size large. This is the easiest way to adjust the buttonhole placement, as the front bands are knitted at the same time as the body of the sweater.

Start of Que Sera

One lace repeat

The Perfect Raglan is nearly finished. I am working on the buttonhole bands, but since I do not have buttons, I am more or less stuck until I find some. The buttonholes need to be created to fit the buttons. This will be on hold until I am able to shop for buttons. (One disadvantage to rural living -- shopping options are a bit limited.)

Apparently I haven't taken a picture since the sleeves were finished.

Perfect fit raglan

Lace edging

Take Two

I restarted my Perfect Raglan cardigan today, for several reasons:
1. I forgot to subtract 2 stitches from the back neck cast-on to compensate for the raglan eyelets.
2. My crochet cast-on seemed way too loose. This cardigan will get a button band, but I don't think the back neck would ever lay quite right. So I switched to long-tail cast-on.
3. I decided to do the v-neck increases as specified in the lessons, rather than doing them my way. I think they have the same name, but I was doing M1R and M1L by lifting the side of the next/previous stitch, instead of lifting the bar between the stitches and twisting it right or left. Looking at both versions, I'm not sure it makes much difference.

How am I able to look at both of them? I didn't rip out version one yet.  I just found another set of size 6 needle tips and a cable, and started a whole new sweater with a new ball of yarn. It made me feel better -- if the new cast-on hadn't made a difference, then I would have only a little bit of time invested & could have picked up where I left off on the first version. As it is, I think version two is the one I will use, and version one can be ripped out now.

And the ADD continues. I found another Craftsy course, Rigid Heddle Weaving, and signed up for half-price. I do not own a rigid heddle loom, but I am thinking about getting one. My husband walked by while I was watching one of the video lessons and asked, "Why are you learning about that?" Uh, because ... (that always used to get me in trouble with my parents; it's still not a good answer).

And I have just discovered Fleegle's blog, thanks to Wendy. Catching up with older posts, I was reminded about The Queen Susan Shawl, which is a really amazing collaborative effort, and a free pattern. Now I'm thinking about getting yarn for that. Fleegle happens to have just the thing in her Etsy shop.  Hmmm...

(Somebody stop me! Maybe I'm just delirious from Daylight Savings Time induced sleep deprivation. Yeah, that's it.)

Knitting ADD

I did finish the Sock Hop socks, about 2 weeks after that last post. The short-row toes were a bit wonky, so I ripped them out & reknit.

wonky short-row toes

I think I have mentioned that the yarn color is called Free Bird.  Really, it makes me think of The Official Preppy Handbook. I believe I have a copy of that book in a box around here somewhere. 

And I started the Wayward Socks from Cookie A's sock club. Forty-four rounds into the leg of the first sock, I realized I should have made the larger size. So I have ripped those out and restarted.

a bit too narrow, I believe

Then a few days later, I got an email with a link to a Craftsy course on knitting "The Perfect Fit Crazy Lace Cardigan". It was half price, and who doesn't like perfect fit?  So I signed up and watched the first 4 lessons. Then I hunted through my stash for appropriate yarn and found nothing inspiring. (Ouch.)  I went shopping and found some bargain-priced Louisa Harding Jasmine at WEBS.  It arrived on Thursday and I cast on.  I am now 4" into the sweater, and nearly finished with the 1st of 7 skeins of the yarn.

Meanwhile, the new Knitty is up, and as I was browsing the new patterns, I clicked on a link to an excerpt from Clara Parkes' book, The Knitter's Book of Socks. I checked the price at Amazon, and then I clicked on the iBookstore link, and looked at a sample of the book on my ipad. It was in color, where it would have been black & white on my Kindle, and the price was the same for both electronic versions of the book. I bought the iTunes version, and actually read all of it, up to the section where the patterns start.  The first sock (Stepping Stones) is done in worsted weight yarn, and this inspired another shopping expedition (online) -- this time to Eat.Sleep.Knit, where I found a couple of skeins of Malabrigo Rios that looked good. The best part was when I logged into my account, I had a $50 credit from one of their scratch-off cards from a previous order.

And the blanket from back in January? It is waiting (patiently, I hope) for me to get back to it.

Socks and such

Early this month, I got a shipping notice from Cookie A -- the first 2012 sock club shipment would be arriving soon. I decided that I should try to finish a pair of socks before the yarn came & I would want to start the new socks. So I rummaged around and found these:

Sock Hop Free Bird

The first sock was finished, and the second sock was about an inch long. The safety pins along the foot of the first sock are placed every 10th round, to make counting easier.  I'm finding some satisfying symmetry in knitting the same number of rounds for the leg and foot as I have stitches on the needles. In other words, a 64-stitch sock gets a leg that is 64 rounds long, and a foot that is 64 rounds from the end of heel shaping to the start of toe shaping. Oddly, it seems to work out that the foot is just the right length for me. These are just a generic sock, k2p2 rib on the legs, a short-row heel (my favorite is from the Queen Kahuna Crazy Toes & Heels book), and a stockinette foot.

The yarn is Sock Hop, from Crown Mountain Farms, colorway is Free Bird. It was a sock club selection, and I really wasn't too sure I liked it when it arrived. In fact, when I started these socks, I planned to give them as a gift. Then the magic happened, and I love the way the striping looks, and the sock is so cushy and soft. So I'll keep them for myself.


Valentine's Day was a snow day, so no school (2nd snow day we've had this winter -- the first was the day before).  My husband went to get the mail and told me when he got home that I hadn't been knitting fast enough. Sure enough, the yarn from the Cookie A sock club had arrived.  It is a gorgeous, soft Merino/Cashmere/Silk blend, from Alisha Goes Around, a yarn company with which I am completely unfamiliar.  The patterns arrived in my Ravelry library -- 2 sock patterns and 2 cookie recipes!  I have decided which of the sock patterns to make, but I do need to finish this Sock Hop sock. I want the needles out of this project to use in the new sock. They're Kollage square dpns, purchased at the Loopy Ewe a couple of years ago.

Richness (of Martens) Fingering in
Genevieve

This is a long weekend, so maybe I'll get one pair of socks finished and the other started. This will be the first time I can remember not having to use Presidents' Day as a make-up day for snow days. Yes, we do have days to make up, but since they happened just last week, we were surveyed for our opinion on whether to use Monday as a make-up day or not, and the overwhelming majority voted not!

Two steps forward, one step back

I finished the first L-shaped section of my garter stitch blanket, and weighed it to get an idea of how much yarn I had used. It weighs 15.9 oz., according to my handy digital kitchen scale. Just a smidge under a pound. And this piece represents about 1/8 of the blanket. This is going to be an 8-pound blanket!

I was scanning the pattern to put it on my ipad (a new trick I learned this past week -- knitting patterns on my ipad do not get crinkled or lost like paper patterns do!) and my eyes caught a note at the bottom of the page. This pattern was originally written in 1962 (older than me!), and the note at the bottom of the page (in The Opinionated Knitter, where the pattern is reprinted in its original form) says that the yarn used in the pattern used to have 30 more yards per 4 oz skein than it does now. It currently has 85 yards per skein, so as used in the original pattern, it would have been 115 yards, which means the Sheepsdown is actually very close in size to the Brunswick Aspen that I am using, that there isn't enough of to make the blanket with the yarn doubled.  I found a size 15 circular needle and cast on 24 stitches to see what gauge I would get. It wasn't quite 2 stitches per inch, so I started calculating how many stitches I would need to cast on to get a 12" wide strip. Then I measured the bed, to see how big a blanket I would need to cover the mattress. I cast on 32 stitches, which would make about a 15" wide strip, but would have made a 5' x 7.5' blanket. Too long. My husband says, "well, you need enough to tuck under the mattress." No, we are not tucking a hand-knit blanket under the mattress.

The proportions of this blanket do not match any mattress, so I decided just to go back to the original 24 stitch cast-on and follow the pattern. If I want the blanket to be wider (more square), I can add a strip along one or both of the long edges. By this time, after much knitting and ripping, reading, calculating, and dithering, I realized that the gauge I'm getting with this yarn on size 15 needles is probably very close to the original pattern's gauge, based on the width of the piece so far, and the dimensions of the finished blanket in the pattern. So I'll have enough yarn to make the blanket, maybe even 2 of them! That is, if I can find the other 11 skeins. I looked yesterday, and I have 13 of what I'm fairly certain was 24 skeins.  But I still like the two-tone idea. So ... we'll see.

Here's the new start, using a single strand of the yarn on size 15 needles, laid on top of the piece knit with doubled yarn on size 17 needles. Not much narrower, but it is not as thick. Still, I think it will make a nice, warm blanket.

It's been awhile

Oh, goodness. It's been a very long while since I've been here.

I finished my Diamond Fantasy Shawl. It's beautiful, and I haven't worn it yet. Hmm... need to find something to put together with it. It is unblocked in this photo (sorry).

Also completed all 3 Camp Loopy projects last summer, and earned the completion prize, a skein of Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin, in Blaue Tinte (blue).

The first Camp Loopy project was a 2-color project to wear around your neck or shoulders, and mine was Clockwork by Stephen West, in the 2 colors I mentioned in my previous post. I gave it to my sister for Christmas, as she's a purple girl.

The second was something to wear on your hands or feet, that had to include cables.  I chose Cookie A's BFF Socks in madelinetosh tosh sock, in Ink. They're perfect with blue jeans.

The third and final project could be anything, as long as it used at least 800 yards of yarn and was completed by September 15th. This one was a big challenge, as we couldn't start until August 15th, and my district went back to school just a couple of days later.  My project was Amy Herzog's February Fitted Pullover in Dream in Color Classy, in "Don't Be Blue". I really like the way this sweater fits, and am looking forward to knitting more of Amy Herzog's designs.

My daughter received a GAP-tastic cowl for Christmas, which I made with Malabrigo Yarn Chunky, 3 skeins of Continental Blue. I used just about every last inch of the yarn. And I don't have a picture.

My most recently (re-)started project is the Elizabeth Zimmerman Garter Stitch Blanket. I discovered a partially-completed block "A" (the L-shaped pieces toward the center) in KnitPicks Cadena. It had been hibernating so long that I couldn't even remember the plan. I did recall that I was going to use the 24 skeins of Brunswick Aspen I had acquired many years ago at a going-out-of-business yarn store sale. And that I had decided to supplement that with another yarn so that I could make a big blanket. But I took a look at the beautiful version created by Jared Flood (brooklyntweed), and read through his blog post on it. I realized that I have just over 2500 yards of the Brunswick Aspen, and that I should be able to knit with it doubled and approximate the 2-stitches-per-inch gauge from the original pattern. So I ripped out what I had started, and began again with doubled yarn and bigger needles, and I am nearly finished with the first "A" block. The math teacher in me is constantly calculating, however, and I have a mystery. I have about 1250 yards of doubled yarn, and the original pattern was made with 850 yards of yarn. I am getting approximately the same gauge, but I have no doubt that I will run out of yarn long before I finish knitting this. So my current debate is whether to turn my "A" block into a "B" block, and hope I can make both of them with the yarn I have, and get the closest possible color match in another yarn to finish the blanket, or a contrast color, or just a lighter shade of a similar color. Or continue with the "A" block, and make a "B" block with the remainder of the yarn I have, then use new yarn for another "A" & "B". Hmm... yes, I think I like this last idea. Then I'll put them together with each "A" block inside the other color "B" block.

And a little Christmas special: the kids & their cousins raided Grandma's closet so they could have an "Ugly Christmas sweater" group photo. Much merriment ensued. The next-to-last one on the right is possibly handmade (crocheted) but she can only move her arms out about 6" from her sides in it -- a strange garment.

Reflection Shawl & Camp Loopy

I have been doing some knitting!  I have finished a small shawl called the Reflection Shawl (Ravelry link). The yarn is Fleece Artist BFL sock yarn. More details on my Ravelry project page.

Fiber friends: if you're not on Ravelry, please join! It's a wonderful place to share projects, get ideas, keep track of your stash & what's going on in the fiber world. You can spend as much or as little time there as suits you.

Today I decided that I'm going to participate in Camp Loopy this summer.  To that end, I have just ordered 2 skeins of Enchanted Knoll Farm fingering weight yarn, in Araucana (greens) & Tia Dalma (purples). I am going to use it to make either Clockwork or Daybreak.  You have until June 10th to order and get the Camp Loopy discount.

Camp knitting starts on June 15th. In the meantime, I have dug an older UFO out and I'm going to try to get it finished this time! It's the Diamond Fantasy Shawl by Sivia Harding. Seems I started it 5 years ago *cough*.  I am currently on the 8th of 10 repeats of the 20-row chart. The rows get longer by 2 stitches every other row. It's just a little bigger than it was in this picture on Ravelry.

There's a First Time for Everything

I have been married to this man for almost 29 years. He is retired from the Army and is teaching JROTC (high school).

He does this with his students several times a year. Today, he invited his family to join in the fun.  Our son has done this before, but this was the first time for both of the female members of the household.
The kids are ready to go: 

I thought about chickening out, but they wouldn't let me.

The boy child went first.

Then the girl.

And then it was my turn. The hardest part was stepping off the top of the tower onto a tiny little ledge about 2 feet down the wall. The actual coming down part wasn't too bad. I decided once was enough for today, though.

Both kids went down more than once. I'll give it a go again sometime.

Knitting content:
I worked on a pair of olive drab socks for Socks for Soldiers on the drive there & back. Got about 30 rounds done (72 sts per round on size 0 needles). Pics maybe tomorrow. 

It's a universal truth ;-)

Combat Knitters

Another link I wanted to share -- a Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030905233.html

A good deed

Hello again!
This blog has been long-neglected, and I have to admit I haven't been reading anyone else's blogs regularly. There are only so many hours in a day, and many of the things I would like to do just don't get done.
Teaching -- creating lessons, grading student work, trying to figure out yet another way to present the lesson as the first (second, third...) try didn't quite work -- takes up the vast majority of my time.  It's frustrating. There are enough bright spots to keep me coming back to it, though.

At any rate, I wanted to post this so that the few people who do visit this blog will know about this raffle for a good cause:
http://www.knitalk.com/Community/entry.php?143-The-Great-American-Afghan-for-Sue

Spread the word!

If there had been social networking back then...

"This never happens here"

Here's what my morning looked like:

This picture was on the homepage of the Des Moines Register for awhile this morning. We're here for a conference my husband is attending. The text below was a hotlink to the article on the site. Heavy rains caused flash flooding, which in turn caused a storm drain to collapse. My car has been towed, and will likely be totalled. The water was up over the hood at one point.

D.M. swamped after a.m. downpour

• Power is out for many in Des Moines and streets are swamped with this morning's sudden rainfall. Morning traffic was locked up on a number of metro-area arteries. Part of an Urbandale parking lot is now a sinkhole after a storm sewer collapsed.

And how's your day going?

Knitting content (!):
I started the Mr Greenjeans sweater on the trip up here (about 8 hours in the car), and it's about 1/4 done. Or, I'm about done with the 1st of 4 balls of yarn. I hope I'm at least 1/4 done! As usual, I have left home without the thing that lets the computer read the camera card, so the pics are stuck in the camera for now.

How's Your Summer Going?

Goodness, has it been that long again? I do appreciate those of you who have the patience & fortitude to keep checking to see if I've posted anything.

First and foremost, I'm still working on writing curriculum. Well, you and I both know that I'm really procrastinating more than actually working on it, or it would be done by now. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel? And the format in which we're supposed to do it makes very little sense to me.  Bah -- I just need to buckle down & do it.

On the fiber front, as I was perusing blogs the other day, I found a link at the wonderful TECHknitting blog to a series of tutorials called Fit to Flatter on the stash, knit, repeat blog. Spent the rest of that day and part of the next reading the series (which has 3 more installments to come) and looking at the sweater patterns she recommended for my body type, adding to my Ravelry queue, editing others out of my queue ("what was I thinking?"). This expanded into adding to my Ravelry stash (I haven't added pics, so it's not really fun to look at, but I love how Ravelry links stash to queue -- sometimes I forget which yarn is for which project).

Then I went yarn shopping. Yikes. I found yarn in wishlists or abandoned in shopping carts (online) that I have no idea what I was going to make with it. So I started another list on my Palm Centro (phone) to help me remember. And (sound a trumpet, or something) I didn't buy anything! Go, me!  Instead, I pulled out a cotton tank that I started last summer and worked on it. Old pic, as I'm too lazy to take a new one, and I did just 8 rounds (1 repeat) on it the other day.

And, because I don't have enough else going on, I also joined the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry. My poor spinning wheel had gone upstairs when we set up the Christmas tree in December, and hadn't been heard from since. I brought it down, dusted it, oiled it, and then tried to see if I could remember how to spin (like falling off a bike? Just get back on!). I am working on some very soft, lovely feeling but visually not exciting dark blue-faced Leicester. I don't remember what I was going to do with it, what size I'm trying to spin it. I'm just going with whatever I get.

Catastrophic equipment failure ended my first evening's spinning. The cotter pin that secures the attachment of the footman to the treadle worked itself out (or maybe it was missing when I started, and the treadle yoke pin -- I'm having to look in the manual to get the correct names for these parts -- just took that long to work itself out). My handy son found a cotter pin, and put things back together, but I was done for the night. The next day, I found 2 white plastic washers on the floor that obviously should have been included when we put it back together. Had to consult the manual to figure out exactly where they went, but finally got the wheel back together. It does have a rather annoying squeak if I'm spinning slowly. I think it's where the leather part of the footman rubs against the treadle yoke, and the only way I can figure to make it stop is to spin faster.

I'm not keeping up with the Tour very well (either the spinning or the actual bike race that inspired it). I have spun about 50g of my fiber in two sessions. I thought I might actually spin daily and improve my techniques.
Pics (now that I have located the camera so I can get the files onto the computer):

Where I was at the start, and where I am now, about 50g spun

I am very glad I took the "before" picture. I can see progress in the pics, which wasn't as obvious in person.

Have a great day/week/month. I'll try to show up here a little more often.

Oh, hi

Well, thank you for checking in. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Currently feeling a bit like a big snowball rolling downhill, gathering debris & more snow as it gains momentum.

The school year is coming to a close. Seniors have one more week. Graduation will be the following Friday. In the meantime, the seniors' last week is also the week we are doing End of Course (EOC) testing (those state tests that determine whether we're leaving children behind). This coming week will be a bit of a mess. All of the testing is going to be done in my room and the adjoining math classroom; the rooms are separated by a heavy curtain that will be pushed open.  The kids are allowed at least 2 class periods to take each test, so during testing, not only will I be booted out of my room every day (except the 2 days of math tests), but everyone who is not testing is going to remain in their 2nd hour class for 2 hours, then in their 5th hour class for 2 hours, so we don't have people moving around and disturbing those who are testing.  I can keep my 5th hour busy for 2 hours every day; there are only 5 students, and 4 of them are seniors. They are in the highest-level math course we offer, and have some extensive reviewing to do before they take their final exam on Thursday. But 2nd hour is a whole different story. They are not in an EOC tested course, or we could use the extra time for review. I teach another section of the same course, and I will not see those students at all next week, as they are in my 6th hour class. So 2nd hour has 10 hours of class while 6th hour has none. I'll have to figure out some way to keep them busy and learning, even though we will probably have to meet in the library or computer lab. Oh, computer lab, you say -- there must be math things they can do on the computer. Probably so -- I'll just have to figure out what, since we haven't been using the computers much.

My daughter will be graduating from college this coming Friday, then there's a wedding for one of her friends on Saturday. These events are approximately 150  miles apart. Son graduates from high school the following Friday. Then we have one more week of school. Please do not begin to think that I will be lying by the pool (if I had one) for 3 months until school starts again. There is so much to do over the summer for school -- it contributes to that snowball feeling.

Actual knitting content:
Who has time to knit? Really, days go by and I don't touch the knitting. But I have been trying to get in a little "sanity break" with some knitting the past few days. I received my Loopy Ewe May sock club shipment yesterday, and wound the yarn immediately. I cast on for the scarf project this morning. Well, I wasn't going to, since I have so many works-in-progress, but when I checked my needles, I did have the recommended size available, so it must have been meant to happen, right? I am making the scarf rather than the socks because I saw so many pretty lace scarves/shawls at the Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling 2 weekends ago. My roommate (hi, Mel!) had a whole wardrobe of them with her. So I decided I need to make some.

Spring Fling was wonderful, of course. Sheri is a master event planner. A whole weekend of knitting, Starbucks coffee, knitting classes, a trip to shop at The Loopy Ewe, meeting like-minded people from all over the US and several foreign countries (at least those who got out before flights were grounded by volcanic ash). I forgot my camera, though, so no pics. There are several with me in them on the Spring Fling Flickr group, and one on Sheri's blog. (Scroll down to the 5th picture. That's me in the foreground, exhausted from yarn shopping!) The class I took was taught by Jared Flood (brooklyntweed). It was a seamless sweater class. He's a very good teacher. I enjoyed the class, and will be trying some of his suggestions as I work on the sweaters that I currently have on the needles, as well as future projects.

One of those on-the-needles sweaters is the youth-sized sweater for Afghans for Afghans. Unfortunately, I am not going to meet the new deadline. But I have finished the body, worked in the round to the armholes. I have a partial sleeve, too, as I decided to work on that a few days ago. Hmm - I haven't incorporated Jared's short-row shaping into the sweater body. I wonder if it would be fewer short-rows for a smaller sweater.  I'll have to look at the sweater directions I'm following (Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop, basic sweater) and see how she does the shoulder & back-neck shaping, and maybe try the short-rows instead.

I finished the Tweed Baby Blanket at the Spring Fling. I haven't run in the ends or blocked it yet, though.

Then I made replacement soles for my Felted Clogs. Haven't sewn them up & felted them yet. This is an experiment -- the outer layer of the soles was starting to get holes, and then the puppy helped improve the holes. So I thought I'd try knitting and felting a new outer layer, snipping off the old one, and attaching the new one. And I have the pieces of a pair of French Press Felted Slippers completed, but not sewn together or felted.  It seems that my to-do list should be pretty obvious.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Southeast Missouri. About 65 degrees F for a high temp today. The past few days have been around 80 degrees.  I hope your weather is good, too, and if not, that you can curl up with your knitting & enjoy a quiet day at home.
Our first iris appeared last weekend; lots more have bloomed in the past week.

Talking about weather reminded me about Prom last Saturday. The weather went bad, and just to ensure this would be a Prom nobody would forget, we had to evacuate to the storm shelter sometime before 10 p.m., as the tornado siren was blaring.  Too bad there's no sound system in there -- we could have plugged in someone's ipod and continued dancing.  I think the dj packed up and left at that point, so prom was over an hour early. They were anticipating another round of bad weather later, but it passed by on either side of us. This is my son and his date. The prom theme was "A Night Under the Stars". The junior class and their sponsors did a wonderful job transforming the (unairconditioned) gym for the event. Just realized he's standing in the stream.

Yum!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Catching up

My high school history/government teacher said that we use the word "up" too much, that it is redundant in most cases. I don't think a post titled "Catching" would make much sense, though.

Over a month has gone by since my last post. It's been a busy time. The Olympic knitting project was a fail. [But Afghans for Afghans is doing a part 2 for their youth campaign, with an early May deadline. Maybe I can get the sweater done by then.] Progress to date:

The February KAL for the Loopy Ewe Spring Fling was also a fail. This is as far as I got. And there's a mistake in it -- I'm missing a stitch on the top of the foot, all the way up. So I'll either have to repeat the mistake on the 2nd sock or rip this out and have a do-over.

Not that either of those incomplete projects has kept me from starting at least one more. In this case, it's the March KAL for Spring Fling: a Jared Flood (brooklyntweed) pattern. I chose the Tweed Baby Blanket. The center is all garter stitch, done on the diagonal. Really not too bad. I'm on the more mindless decreasing part, so I don't even have to count stitches anymore.

A week ago, we got home from a week-long ski trip in Winter Park, CO. My husband and I hadn't skied in about 20 years, and the kids had never skied. We had lessons for a couple of days, then took a day off, then skied the next 3 days. I spent most of my time following the 17-year-old (boy child) down the mountain as fast as he could go. Practicing his turns, of course, but no stopping to rest until we got back to the bottom of the chair lift. Legs burning. Whew. It was a great week. I think when I grow up, I want to move to Colorado and be a ski instructor. What? It could happen. Our instructor was retired from something like 30 years as an accountant. I'd need to stock up on sunscreen, though. Here's the whole gang, day 2: me, my husband, his brother, the kids.

School is in upheaval again. For the second year in a row, we have lost or gotten rid of the high school principal. This one intended to at least finish out the year, but something happened while I was in Colorado, and he left. My son, who is a senior this year, has had a different principal every year he's been in high school. Last year's mess could be counted as 3 principals in one year: the new one who started the year, the one who filled in after he left, and the one who was hired at the end of March to finish the year, who moved to the elementary school to be the principal there this year. Now he's having to do double-duty with the middle-school principal and a third administrator to cover the high school for the remainder of the year. Fortunately, all 3 schools are on the same campus, within easy walking distance.

[Just to clarify: our ski vacation was scheduled for Spring Break. Unfortunately, Mother Nature provided us with snow days that had to be made up, so Spring Break turned into make-up days. So school was in session and my poor students had to muddle along without me, with a "mean" sub who made them work all week.]

Grades were due last Monday by the end of the school day. I did take stuff with me to Colorado, and did some work, but it was an intense couple of days getting grades in. No time for frivolities like knitting or reading email. So I'm also catching up on my ridiculous amount of unread email. As well as planning lessons, writing curriculum.... oh, and I should get started on the taxes, too, I suppose. :-(

Happy Valentine's Day