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.

New Year's Eve

Two months? I've not been here for two whole months? Sorry, and thanks for checking in....

After tying up a few of those things that have to be done by the end of the year (paying property taxes, renewing license plates for the pickup, mailing Christmas cards), I am back at the house, steeling myself to grade the final exams I gave a couple of weeks ago, and then enter the grades in the computer.

But you're here for knitting, I think. I finally finished the Conwy socks from Knitting on the Road. I'd been working on them, off & on, for over a year. I'm not sure what the problem was. But I like them, and have worn them several times.


Christmas knitting consisted of 3 pair of felted clogs, one of which was wrapped in it's pre-felted state. "Um, I know I have big feet, but...." I didn't even take pics of all of them. Here's the pair for my daughter's sorority sister:
I was able to visit Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS over Thanksgiving weekend. I found some gorgeous wool/silk yarn and a pattern for Cabled Artist's gloves, and my daughter, who was with me (in a yarn store!?!) asked me to make them for her. I made a few modifications to the original pattern -- added 2x2 ribbing at the start & finish, and knitted a little bit of a thumb, instead of leaving just a hole there.

I'm currently working on my 1st pair of men's felted clogs, for the child on my right in this picture:

He's 15 years old, nearly as tall as his father (he stood on his toes in just about all of the family pics taken recently, to make himself look taller, because he's 15...), and wears size 12 shoes. Also in the works is a pair of socks for his big feet. First sock is done, and I'm about halfway through the second.

I'll try to get back here tomorrow...

I did it, and I'm not sorry

I took a deep breath and had my little frogging party last night. The best part was that all of my felted joins held, and I have one big ball of black yarn, instead of several smaller ones. I went down 2 needle sizes (from 10.5 down to 9) and cast on again. The only problem I foresee now is that I'm likely to be a little compulsive about knitting this until it gets back to the length it was before frogging.

No school today, as there is a boil water order in our little town today. There was a leak in a water main, and they were working on it yesterday, leaving the town without water for several hours. We got out of school an hour early because there was no water at school (hand sanitizer in the bathrooms, because they can't wash their hands; toilets can't be flushed, etc.). The water is back on, but the system needs to be flushed so the water is safe to drink & wash hands.

So it will be an errand day. My car needs an oil change. There are various specialty light bulbs in the house that need replacing (my Ott Lite bulb, a circular fluorescent in the kitchen). I need patty paper and a hanging file frame for school.

I think I'm going to have to frog

I'm still here, and believe it or not, doing some knitting. Unfortunately, I've been in denial regarding my gauge on this project for awhile, and have finally concluded that I'm going to have to rip. Rats.
This is the body of the Ski Jacket, from Veronik Avery's book Knitting Classic Style: 35 Modern Designs Inspired by Fashion's Archives. Nice, n'est-ce pas? Only problem is, it's supposed to be 14 sts to 4" and I'm getting about 13 or 13.5 sts to 4". So the whole thing is going to be at least 3" bigger around than I want it to be. Gauge swatch? Um, no, but I did the sleeves first and they were right on for gauge. They are knit circularly, however, and the body is knit flat. Who knew my gauge would be off by that much changing from circular to flat knitting?
This is what the yarn used to be in a former life:
I don't remember where I found this sweater pattern. I do know it was early-to-mid-80s, and the yarn was from a going-out-of-business yarn store. The color pattern is slip-stitch. I don't like the pink. I'm not even including it in the reincarnated sweater, though I am using the grey and light grey. The pockets added bulk around my middle. I gave this sweater to my mother, who gave it back to me in September ("it's itchy, and I just don't wear it"). Black isn't really a good color on her, anyway.
I'm still trying to convince myself that I should frog. The yarn is Lopi, which is single-ply, and has a tendency to pull apart. Fortunately, felted joins work really well, so all of the little balls of yarn from the original frogging session have become one long strand as I knit.

Coming up for air

I have an odd sense of freedom right now. You and I both know I'm probably deluding myself. There is surely something I should be doing.

I'm going to a new teacher workshop tomorrow, so I had to have stuff prepared for a substitute. As long as I was doing that, I got my plans done for Wednesday, too. Mondays are when assignments are due in my college class, and today's has been turned in. I have a whole week before the next one is due (uh oh, this is how we get down to those late Sunday evenings, and working through planning period & lunch on Mondays).

So... knitting. I started a mitten out of sock yarn and decided that sock yarn isn't the right material for mittens -- too thin. So I started Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens with the same sock yarn plus a cone of undyed Henry's Attic Kona fingering weight (scroll down). This is a stranded pattern, so they'll be thicker. I'm just about halfway done with the corrugated ribbing on the cuff, and I'm really liking it. I like knitting it; I like the way it looks. I'm getting much better at tensioning the yarn in my right hand (I usually knit Continental, so for 2-color knitting, I have one color in each hand, and was having some difficulty with tension in my right hand).

You'd think I'd have more to say after a month. I'm going to go knit now.

Phew!

I have survived the first 2 weeks of school. This has brought such a huge change to my daily (used to be "lack of") schedule. Up & out of the house by 7:30 a.m., I teach 6 classes and have one planning period. 4th hour seems to be a good hour for planning, as it gives me a break right in the middle. I am teaching 4 different classes, all of them fairly small, fortunately, but it's been a long time since I had most of this stuff. I need to get a bit further ahead of the kids than I am right now. I feel like we've gotten bogged down a bit by a lack of basic concepts in some of the classes. I don't want to move ahead if they don't get it, but we're still in chapter one in all four classes. I try to get a little more planning done before I leave school (except that's hard to do when you're falling asleep!), then bring 3 of the 4 textbooks home (I have 2 copies of the 4th, so I can leave one at home and one at school). Go through the mail, spend some time on the computer, bare minimum housework, cook dinner, more lesson planning. Oh, and I'm taking an online course for my alternative certification. Not enough hours in the day.

I did finish the Inside Out socks, and have picked up another pair that I started last year, frogged & restarted on a different size needle. They are the Conwy socks from Knitting on the Road: Sock Patterns for the Traveling Knitter, in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in the Jeans color, which is what she used in the book. I think I can snitch a little time out of my day to do 8-10 rounds on a sock, don't you?

I had a really nice surprise about a week ago. A yarn order I'd just about given up on ever seeing finally arrived. All the way from Germany, in a shoebox, in just under 8 weeks:
There's no indication as to why it took so long, but I think the seller was as relieved as I was when it finally arrived. The darker blue at the bottom is already starting to become a sock. Somebody thought it looked like a good place to take a nap.

Note the stack of textbooks in the background. Those are the 3 I bring home every day.

Oh, and my son is currently sporting stitches & pins in his right hand. It was about 5 days from when he broke it (lost his balance & fell) to when we saw the doctor, another 8 days before he saw the orthopedic doctor (on the 2nd day of school), and surgery was scheduled the next day. He's already missed 3 days of school; next appointment is Thursday this week. Nearest doctor is a 50 mile round trip; the surgery was further away -- just over 200 miles round trip. My husband has been good to take him to all these appointments, so I wouldn't need to get a substitute on my 2nd (or 3rd, or 8th, or 12th) day of school.

Who are you?

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Honourable Lady Julie the Sanguine of Divine Intervention Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I dunno -- it seems to fit. Well, kids, I'm about to be a teacher. We had new teacher orientation on Friday, and today & tomorrow are "Professional Development Days" for teachers & staff. The kids will come to school on Wednesday. People keep asking me if I'm ready. Do I look ready? Oh, I mean "Don't I look ready?" Whatever. Wednesday is a half day. Oh, and I'm a sophomore class sponsor. One of four, actually, but 2 are gym teachers/coaches, and claim they will not be available most of the time, and the other is a special ed teacher whom I haven't met. Good times. There's a sophomore class meeting on Wednesday morning. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. I could ask my son, the sophomore. Or his sister, who, as I recall, was quite frustrated with her class sponsors as a sophomore. She's now a sophomore/junior in college.

In case anyone was concerned, I did get an A in Geometry. And I did do a little yarn shopping as a reward. We went to St. Louis for the Stitch N Pitch game last Monday (Cards won!), and I managed to talk my husband into a yarn store stop on Tuesday before we headed home. At Knitorious, I got 2 hanks of Twilight (blue) Alpaca with a Twist Fino, and some plum-colored Trekking XXL, which will make a pair of socks to match an outfit my mother wears quite a bit. I was looking for a shawl pattern I'd seen in an ad in the recent issue of Vogue Knitting. It's the Flight of the Honeybees shawl by Alpaca with a Twist. I had to email the store the next day and have them put aside a 3rd hank for me. They've also ordered the pattern -- I guess it's so new that they didn't have it.

In other knitting, I have finished a pair of Big Black Socks for SocksForSoldiers, and I've also finished the 1st of the Inside Out socks in STR Monsoon (sock club kit from February). It feels like time to work on finishing things and get down to having just one or two projects going at a time, instead of too many to count.

In the photo above, it's right side out (as knitted), and below it's, well, inside out. I love the stripes (no pooling!).

Done, done, done!

All done with my Geometry course! The final exam has been completed and posted. I'm so relieved, I considered a little yarn-shopping reward. Then I realized we usually reward academic performance, not just survival. I have an A in the course so far, but that's without 2 of the 4 tests graded, the big software project, the paper we wrote over a month ago, and a dozen or so homework assignments. Wonder when the course grades are supposed to be posted.

I have enrolled in a Fall semester course -- one of those I need for Alternative Certification. It's called Teaching Reading in Secondary School. I will be teaching math, but it looks like everyone has to take this.

I went by the school to pick up the teacher's editions of the textbooks I'll be using -- 4 big heavy books. And yes, I will be teaching Geometry, but I expect there's a world of difference between high school geometry and the brain wrenching course I just finished. I just don't remember yelling at my geometry homework in high school (of course, that was in 9th grade, which was ... um, 30 years ago, and memories can fade).

So, my poor little Inside Out sock got frogged back to before the heel. I originally took out 8 rows, then decided to err on the side of caution and reknitted 3 rows before re-doing the heel and the 25 rows of the leg I'd already done. It's better, maybe still a little loose, but that gives it a little room in case it shrinks in the wash, right?

The new clue is out for MS3. If I'd had time to work on it this past week, I would have stopped at row 286 instead of doing 287, inserting a lifeline, and completing the clue, which ends at row 335. But I'm still on row 230. The 5th clue takes us off in a bit of a new direction, which has nonplussed and disconcerted a number of people. I think some people expressed disappointment with the "wing" before they had any idea what it was going to look like. It's not really anything weird, just a diagonally knitted triangle attached to the end with short rows. The stole will not be symmetrical, but it won't look kooky either.

We have acquired a Wii -- our college daughter bought it today, her last day of work. She's headed back to school next Friday & wanted something to play with, I guess. I think she's justifying it as a birthday present for her dad (whose b'day is over 2 weeks away), but they've got it set up and they're playing with it now.

Looking forward to a relaxing, no geometry weekend!

**Sigh**

As it turns out, what looked like light at the end of the tunnel was really the headlight of an oncoming train, in the form of a ginormous final exam, posted today, due Friday by midnight. The good news is that the test originally due tonight is now due Thursday. Uh, what?

I'm going to go have lunch with the women from my Sunday School class, and then I'm going to come home and be a geometry head student. I got through the heel of my Inside Out sock, then did the 1st 25 rows of the leg. It's looking good, but I think the foot is a little long. I think I'm going to leave it that way, though. Or not. I just tried it on again, and it looks like I can pinch 8 -10 extra rows at the tip of the toe. Rats rats rats. Can't even operate a ruler.

I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel

My inner geek spent some 4 hours today playing with Geometry software (Geometer's Sketchpad), finishing the big project that is due Thursday by midnight. One big sigh of relief. There's still a test due tomorrow by midnight, and a smaller homework assignment due Wednesday night. I have done quite a bit of the test. Sometimes I need to take a long thinking break after I start writing a proof. [e.g. Can I do this? Or am I leaping to conclusions, skipping steps?] At least the professor is answering emails. I forgot to ask questions when I got stuck on the last test.

Knitting? A little -- another of the mumblety-teen works-in-progress, the Inside Out socks in STR mediumweight Monsoon, the February sock club kit.

It looks like another 13-14 rounds until I start the heel.

I would rather...

I would rather knit than do geometry. No surprise there. I did 10 rows of MS3 today, then worked on my way-too-long-on-the-needles Big Black Socks for Socks for Soldiers. I have never made a sock that took more than one 50g skein of fingering weight yarn before. Right now, they look like Big Black pedicure socks.

The legs could be an inch or so shorter -- at the time I was knitting them, there was some discussion about the legs needing to be 14" before the heel flap. And they look so skinny because they're 2x2 rib all the way down. The safety pins mark every 10th row.

I was a bit surprised to discover that I'd rather do housework than geometry. I spent the afternoon puttering around, picking up the stacks of old newspapers & catalogs, clearing off part of the coffee table. I should have been doing geometry. There's only one more week -- a test due Tuesday and a big project due Thursday. I can do this. I have to do this. Blah.

Busy, busy

It seems like it's been all geometry, all the time, around here, but really it hasn't. I am just 20 rows into clue 4 of MS3 right now, but I hope to pick it up and do 10 rows a day between now & when the next clue comes out on August 3rd. That's also the last day of my geometry class (hooray!).

Our crazy kitten reminds me of those little alien creatures on Buzz Lightyear. I just picture them saying "Ahhhh" as a group. The kitten runs for the refrigerator every time we open the door, and if she gets there before we close it, she has that same "Ahhhh" look on her face -- what is this wondrous place, brightly lit, with all these interesting smells? She also has to supervise every litter box cleaning, every document printed from the computer, every dish washed. She's a busy girl... who steals lettuce, and eats it.


Another trip to St. Louis & back home today, this time with the 15-year old as a passenger & my husband doing the driving. We took our son to spend about a week & a half with his uncle & cousin. I think they'll be working most of the time, believe it or not. The boys are about 7 months apart in age & get along really well. Anyway, I finished the knitting part of the project I mentioned working on last trip. It's the Doctor's Bag from Knit 2 Together, by Tracey Ullman & Mel Clark. I got the book from Amazon.com recently, for $5.50! It's still 80% off (go now! that's less than some individual patterns cost!). I used some lovely handspun bulky yarn from Handpaintedyarn.com, in a color that was labeled Black Forest when I received it, but something else when I ordered it. It's black/charcoal/grey, but the grey parts look purplish in sunlight. Really pretty. The stitch pattern is a herringbone, the fabric is thick & soft. Anyway, now there will be sewing together, finding handles & lining fabric, etc. So it could be awhile before it's really done.

Clue 3 done!

I did 30 rows of Clue 3 on Thursday, and the other 20 yesterday morning, so I'm caught up, not that there's a schedule. Clue 4 was released yesterday morning, 135 rows long; we won't get another clue for 2 more weeks. This one has added to the mystery -- a major change in the pattern on the last row, and we've been told to put in a lifeline at row 287, even if we don't use lifelines. Nothing seems to be special about that row -- there are 48 rows above it that don't seem different from the rows below that one.

I haven't started clue 4 yet, but I think I'm going to go do 10 rows or so. We have all this extra time so people can read Harry Potter (I still haven't read the previous 2 books in the series). My children will get first dibs, assuming we can pick up a copy of the book tomorrow, so it'll be awhile before I get to it, anyway.

We made a 6 hour round trip to St. Louis to pick up our daughter yesterday. The China-Back Complex Fire (more than one fire) was contained, so they were shipping people to other fires, and apparently no one had a spot for a trainee. So she came home. She's had a taste of what it's like to be out on fire detail, and I don't think she wants to go as a radio operator again -- too much like office work! I'm glad she's home.

I was able to get some knitting done on the way to the airport. Not MS3 -- that's not traveling knitting. I was working on a project I haven't previously mentioned on the blog. The surprise in all of this is that my chauffeur was a 15-year-old with a learner's permit. How much knitting would you have accomplished? He did really well -- we covered everything from winding country roads and twisty 2-lane highways to 8 lanes of interstate with speed limits up to 70 mph.

Clue 2 finished

Mystery Stole 3, that is.

I'm taking a day off from Geometry. Next homework is not due until Tuesday. So I did the last 20 rows of Clue 2, then the first 10 of Clue 3. Once I'm done here, I may just kick my son out of my chair and do 10 more rows. Clue 4 is going to be posted tomorrow.

I got paperwork in the mail from the school district today. W-4 forms (federal and state), retirement system enrollment, etc. So much to do, so little time! School starts August 15th! I know that's nearly a week earlier than last year, and the year before.

Our little helper kitty is just 3 1/2 months old or so. I was taking pictures of her and after that first flash, she sat down and posed nicely:

...in the kitchen sink. I don't know what she was doing in there; I just take the pictures.

Silver Anniversary

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary! Where have the years gone? It really doesn't seem like it's been that long. Wish I could find a picture from July 16, 1982. It would be pretty funny.

Our daughter is working at the local Forest Service office, as she has the past 2 summers. Last week, she finally got certified as non-operations personnel for wildland fire supression. That means she can go out on fire detail (2 weeks), but will be a radio operator at the base, rather than digging fire line. She was called today, to go out somewhere on the California/Oregon border. She's going as a trainee, with another woman from the local office. She's pretty excited. They drove to St. Louis this evening, flying out early in the morning.

I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that after several hours of work and some quantity of chocolate consumed, I finished my geometry test and have uploaded it.

Geometry or crochet?

How about both? Seriously, my geometry assignment a couple of days ago linked to this web page: Crocheting the Hyperbolic Plane. Go have a look. Scroll down to see crochet instructions. Keep scrolling to find pictures of actual, um, whatever they are. Maybe I could get extra credit if I make one ;-)

Actually, my grade right now is an A, so no worries... yet. He's a bit behind on grading the homework, so we got an extension on the due date for test #2. Originally due last night at midnight, it's now due Tuesday at midnight. Guess who hasn't started it yet. Instead, I did 20 rows on the Mystery Stole.

Geometry homework

"Can I help?"

Only 3 more weeks. So far, so good.

I've even managed to do some knitting. This is clue 1 of Mystery Stole 3. Clue 2 was posted last Friday, and I've done about 6 rows of it (out of 50). Next clue will be posted tomorrow. It's not a race, it's not a race. Besides, I have a geometry test due at midnight tomorrow, so I need to get that done first. My little helper (in the photo above) is stepping on my keyboard, making it a bit difficult to type anything that makes sense. We'll blame her for any typos....