Coming up for air, finally

School is out for the summer! I didn't know how crazy the last few weeks of school would be. My kids would always come home and tell me, "We're not doing anything." I didn't realize the teachers were running like little hamsters on exercise wheels. At least, that's what I've felt like the past few weeks. We had final exams scheduled on Monday - Wednesday last week, a short schedule (25 min. classes) followed by a barbeque and play day in the afternoon Thursday, and a half-day with an awards ceremony yesterday. Leading up to finals, I wanted to get as much additional information covered in each class as I could, then review for finals. Competing with this plan were several class & club trips which had students missing partial or entire days of school that last week before finals. Hmm -- maybe I do have something to request of the new principal next year. There are so many kids missing school for so many trips like this. The timing was really bad, too. I added 6 points to each Algebra 1 student's final exam score just to make the class average on the test a 75. Ouch. Have I been talking to myself all year?

I'm not really done with the end-of-year wrap up. I'll have to go back in Tuesday (when summer school starts, but I'm not teaching summer school; I need a break!) Grades are turned in, but I have to requisition supplies for next year, and turn in various paperwork.

I am about halfway through a 4-week summer intersession course for my certification. It is a lot of work! Three credit hours in 4 weeks. Very intense. So these past 2 weeks have been doubly busy. Now I get to breathe a little, and maybe even knit. Haven't even touched my knitting in days, and when I have, I didn't get much done.

I did get to attend the Spring Fling hosted by The Loopy Ewe in St. Louis 4 weeks ago. It was a great weekend. I took a sock designing class from Cookie A., and got to visit The Loopy Ewe in person. Fun!

Upcoming events include the kids' birthdays -- my daughter will be 20 on Monday, and my son will be 16 on Thursday. Of course, this will involve taking a driver's test and getting a driver's license. The only problem is that in our rural area, the testing sites are open on weird schedules like the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month, or the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. So we've pinpointed the one place that will be open that day. The only hiccup in the plan is that we'll be in St. Louis for the Stitch n Pitch game on Wednesday evening, and will spend the night there. We'll have to make sure we head home in time to get to the driver's testing place before it closes. That will cut short any shopping time in St. Louis, which will disappoint my daughter, I'm sure. C'est la vie.

Saturday (again?)

Yesterday felt like Saturday. We didn't have school -- it was our last remaining day of Spring Break. The earlier part of the week we were in school to make up snow days. And flood days.

I had made an appointment to take my car in to the dealership to take care of a recall. But since the nearest VW dealer is 150 miles away, in St. Louis, I wanted to make sure they went over it and took care of anything else that needed to be done. So they asked if I could leave it first thing in the morning. The easiest way to do that was to go up Thursday, stay in a hotel, and take the car to them. They got me a rental car to use while they worked on mine. My son went with me, and we went to the Gateway Arch.

He'd been there before, but had never taken the tram ride to the top. So we did that -- it was a gray day, but we could still see pretty far. The view from inside the top of the Arch, on the Missouri side:

After the Arch, we went to Kirkwood Knittery to buy Stitch n' Pitch tickets. This year, the St. Louis game is May 28th, so it won't be as hot as last year's August game. I might have also found some Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed on sale, and purchased 2 colors. Unfortunately, not enough of either one to make a sweater, and I don't think they'd really go together too well. But I remedied that with an order from the Knitting Garden this morning. Now I'll have enough for 2 sweaters! I'll work out any dyelot issues later. The dark green is #408 Cedar; the dark brown is #411 Granary.

My daughter needed shoes (I think I'm going to have to start calling her Imelda), so she drove up from Springfield to meet us in St. Louis so I could buy her some shoes. Fortunately, she already knew what she wanted, and where to get them, so all I had to do was pay for them.

While we were eating lunch, the dealership called and said my car was ready. We headed back that way to return the rental car. Then the phone rang again. They were very apologetic, but something had gone wrong with the car, and they would need to keep it over the weekend. All the VW techs had gone home until Monday. They would arrange for me to keep the rental car all weekend. So we finished our shopping and headed home (150 miles) in the rental. I guess I'll have to get a substitute for my afternoon classes on Monday so I can go back & get my car. There goes my (potential) perfect attendance bonus for this semester.

Sock Madness round 2 pattern was emailed on Monday. By Wednesday night, this was as far as I'd gotten on the first sock of the pair.

It's a completely reversible sock, with a garter stitch short row heel and garter stitch sole. It's going very slowly. I made very little additional progress Thursday or Friday. When I checked the divisions this morning, there were 17 finished in my division. The first 20 advance to the next round this time. Since I'm still working on the first sock, I think I'm pretty much out of the running. So I'm going to make some modifications and finish these my way. I have ripped back to the beginning of the heel. I'm doing an eye-of-partridge heel flap, and I'll do a stockinette sole and standard toe.

The sun is shining, and the grass is green (after all the rain we've had, the sun is a real relief, and the grass has been well watered!). My son walked outside & said he thinks he's going to have to mow the yard. Spring has sprung!

Lots of rain

We're in one of those areas of the country that got 12" of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. In fact, school dismissed early on Tuesday, and was cancelled Wednesday and today. This has been a weird year of weather and cancelled school. One of our neighboring towns, in fact, made national news -- Piedmont, MO is just about 30-40 minutes away. This is very hilly country, criss-crossed by creeks of all sizes. The one down the hill behind our house got way out of its banks, but it's mostly back in now. The sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky. I think the reason school was cancelled is that there are several of our county highways (read: "paved roads" -- 2 lanes, very curvy & hilly, mostly marked with double yellow lines, because there aren't any safe places to pass someone) that are still closed due to flooding.

This is the creek behind the house:
The tree in the foreground (above) is about 9 or 10 yards off the corner of the front porch. The grass is the edge of the yard, and then there's a fairly steep hill going down to the creek. You can see the neighbor's fields & fences at the top of the picture. The picture below was taken from the edge of the hill (about the middle of the picture above), but at the other end of the house.
I think the picture below is roughly the same view, with the creek back where it's supposed to be. The creek is barely visible, in the top left corner, the darker area passing behind the tilted tree and extending up and to the right, about 3/4 of the way across the top of the picture. The lighter area in the top left corner is the gravel bar on the other side of the creek.

Sock Madness started a week ago. The pattern was emailed to participants on Thursday. I printed it out (at school) and started the sock when I got home. Even took it to school the next day and laid it on my desk to work on in odd moments. I only got half a round done, and that was because one of my students wanted to watch me knit. When I got home, I decided I didn't like the way the whole thing looked, so I found some different yarn & started over. Already over 24 hours behind. But I finished sock #1 on Saturday and started sock #2, which I finished on Sunday night around 11:00 p.m. Not too bad. I quickly posted the required finished pic, emailed the moderators with a link to the picture, and went to bed hoping I'd made the cut to go on to round 2. No need to worry. Forty people from each of the 4 divisions are advancing. I thought there were 40 people in each division at the start, until I counted & found 57 in my division. We're still waiting on 46 more people to finish. Only 6 slots left in my division, though (UConn Cast Ons). I do need to catch up on things that didn't get done during those 48 or so hours of concentrated sock knitting, so I'm trying not to knit at all. (HA!)

Back to School

We had only 2 days of school last week. No school on Monday, President's Day, back to school on Tuesday & Wednesday, another ice storm on Thursday, so no school Thursday or Friday. So, lots of knitting time! There were widespread power outages with the ice storm that hit on February 11th, but we only lost power for a little over an hour while we were asleep Monday night. We didn't lose power at all with the storm on Thursday. We lost a few trees, but none in the yard -- we have quite a bit of forested acreage here.


I finished one Tempted "Tease" sock, and started the other. The toe I like to do is easier on circulars than on dpns, so I dug out a circular needle to do it. Then I decided to just keep going, using Magic Loop. It seems to be going so much faster. Not that I'm done with dpns -- just feeling more Magic Loop-y right now.

I also switched my Big Black (soldier) Sock to Magic Loop. Unfortunately, the yarn I'm using is no longer on the approved yarn list for SFS. So these socks will be for my husband. Good thing I was making his size!

I dug out another UFO -- my Diamond Fantasy Shawl, in Handmaiden Sea Silk, in the Glacier colorway.

I have no idea why this has been ignored for so long. Since I picked it up a few days ago, I have completed 2 chart repeats. Part of the impetus for this is that there is another knitalong on Sivia's Yahoo group, for her Moonshadow stole. I got the kit for it, from WoolGirl, and would love to start it, but I'm really not good with more than one lace project at a time. There are two other shawl knitalongs which will be starting soon, as well. One is for an Orkney Pi (based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl) on the EZasPi group (first part of pattern will be posted 2/29), and the other is MysticLight, the sequel to the MysticWaters shawl by Anna of Knit & Knag. (This one starts March 26th. Signups close on March 25th.) I have yarn on order from the UK for the Orkey Pi, and have already ordered and received my yarn for MysticLight. More when those KALs actually start.

Just in case that's not enough, I'm also signed up for Sock Madness, which is scheduled to start March 13th. If you've missed the sign-ups (they're closed), you can still be a spectator. I participated last year, but was knocked out in the first round. And I wasn't working last year.

Day 4 - The ice is melting

We went to school Monday morning, the freezing rain started, and we were dismissed before 1st hour was over. The precipitation continued all that day, and there was no school on Tuesday. It stayed cold and gray, and nothing melted on Tuesday, so no school Wednesday. The sun finally came out (briefly) on Wednesday, but the temp. never got above freezing, and our country roads and gravel parking lots remained sheets of ice, so no school today, either. The sun is shining brightly today, and the temperature is in the upper 30s (F), so we are finally getting melting. In fact, we are sitting here listening to hundreds of little chunks of ice from tree limbs hitting our metal roof and sliding down (it's an A-frame; the roof goes all the way to the ground).

I am experiencing whatever you call it when you want to start a new project about every 2 or 3 hours, nevermind the current pile of works-in-progress. I have been working on a Big Black Sock for Socks for Soldiers. This is only my 3rd pair since joining (8/25/2006). Not an impressive statistic. (Safety pins mark every tenth row on leg & foot, giving me a better chance of making a second sock to match.)

My Tempted Yarns "Tease" sock has been re-knit with a short-row heel, and I am starting the leg. I'm much happier with how it looks this time.

I started making an Aibhlinn (cowl) last Friday night, thinking it would be my take-along project as I went to a "Teachers as ACT Coaches" workshop about 3 hours away last Saturday. Turns out, it was carried along, but I never took it out of my bag to work on it. I figured it would be easier to explain knitting neckwear to non-knitters, than to explain hand-knit socks. The yarn is Elann.com Pasticcio, 100% cotton aran weight, in a color called Deep Denim. I don't see it in the current listing.

Yesterday, I got a package from KnitPicks, with The Best of Interweave Knits and the yarn (Andean Silk)to make the Cabaret Raglan. I think instead of knitting it as written, I'm going to knit it in the round, adding waist shaping, attaching the sleeves, and continuing with the raglan shaping in the round. That will require some thinking, but hey, I'm a math teacher. I can do it! So I thought I should do a swatch in the round. The pattern gauge is 17 sts per 4", so I cast on 34 sts and joined. This way, it should be 4" across when I lay it flat to measure. After about 3 rounds, I realized that I could just start a sleeve as my gauge swatch, so I ripped that out and cast on the 46 sts required for the sleeve. I finished the sleeve increases last night, and am about an inch or so from the point where I'll have to put it on a holder until the other sleeve and body are ready.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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.