Progress (Sorta)

Look! It’s a sleeve(let)!

…and that’s pretty much all I have for you this week. It’s hot, work is exhausting, and my house is doing its best to steal all my time and money. Knitting is still happening, but on a fingering weight sweater progress is just not happening visibly. So instead, here is a picture of the cool moth that freaked out all my kids at recess today.

I Survived!

It felt like a close call from time to time, but I managed to survive to Winter Break! Time to put up some decorations,

bake some cookies,

and finish some knitting.

Return to sanity: begin.

P.S. Because I know you’ll ask, the hat pattern is Kris Carlson’s Nubby.

I Do, In Fact, Have Internet

Hi all. It occurs to me I haven’t updated in…2 weeks? I’m still here, but we had an unexpected death in the family and we’ve all been scrambling to stay afloat, so the blog has kind of fallen by the wayside. Hopefully next week I’ll get up a proper post, but in the mean time here are a couple quick and dirty photos of the Flaming June sweater. It’s been done for ages but I somehow never managed to post photos or mark in done on Ravelry!

Happy Halloween!

One of Those Weeks

I have a new design I was hoping to finish knitting this week, but we’re giving the state reading test next week and I’ve been pretty darn zapped all week. Literally all I’ve been able to manage knitting is a few desperate rounds of the “comfort knitting” self-stripers.

And I do mean a few desperate rounds. Yes, that is not even an insole. And yes, that is still the first sock.

On the other hand, it is also Teacher Appreciation Week, and my students are adorable. My house is full of flowers.

Mini Startitis

Apparently mental exhaustion is a pretty good cure for startitis. I gave myself permission to cast on whatever struck my fancy over the weekend, since I’d finished all my active WIPs except the sample for an upcoming design. So what did I cast on?

A very sensible pair of Smitten Glittens to replace my ones that are finally wearing out, and

Pattern is Snowflake #13 by Angela Grabowski

a couple of these super-fast little snowflakes to hand out to coworkers along with some cookies on Friday. That’s it. Two little bitty projects. I am so darn tired and ready for Winter Break I have absolutely no desire to start anything else either. I think I’m doing it wrong.

Messy Little Frustrations

The Black Hole is still chugging along largely unchanged, and I’ve reached a point where I’m growing suspicious I will run out of yarn for my Hatteras Hat. I’ve stopped knitting on it in the hopes my yarn will magically breed while it’s resting. Or something.

 

Additionally, I have a coworker I work closely with who is expecting a baby in February. I’d been starting to suss out what her nursery is like and get a feel for what baby knits she might want, thinking I should get on that soon. Well, turns out the school is going to have a baby shower for her in mid-December. As in like, 2 weeks from now. I have absolutely no pattern picked or yarn bought, let alone project started. Crap.

This is a week where knitting does not feel good. Time to do something else, I think.

P.S. Christine Guest is giving away a copy of my pattern Lovely. Hop on over to her blog if you want to enter to win!

No Time for Knitting!

That’s not strictly true, but I have been coming home late and putting in several more hours of paperwork and planning from home pretty much since I went back to school. While I do try to get at least a row or two done each day for sanity’s sake, there has definitely been a lot less knitting time than normal lately.

But I have accomplished this:

 

Maybe by this time next week it’ll be totally done! How sad is it that that may actually be over-ambitious?

Moved!

Well, all our stuff is officially out of the apartment, and the keys are turned over and out of our possession. I don’t even begin to know where exactly all our stuff is, but presumably it’s around here somewhere! One thing I have managed to find is my sweater collection though.

 

I went a little crazy and arranged them both by weight (well, heavy vs. light) and color. We’ll see how long that lasts. It does really make it obvious just how many green sweaters I have though. Time to start working on some other colors there.

While we were loading up the truck my sister asked me to make her a steering wheel cover for her birthday (in late August) and hoped that it wasn’t too late to ask. Steering wheels are not sweaters; a month is plenty of time! Remember that Pima Silk I had, where I couldn’t decide what to make, but wanted something where it would be touched a lot? Well, guess whose favorite color is purple? It’s a bit paler than she normally wears, but she’ll like it, I think. AND the nice cool cotton-silk blend will feel awesome under her hands sitting in traffic in the hot sun! Now to figure out where my needles are packed…

Messy Frogging

Remember that mysterious swatch of stockinette in my last post? It was a project in the same yarn I from the dye lots post. In the dye lots post I mentioned that I had frogged that particular project. Well, I spent all the time between those two posts working up the yarn in what I thought would be a more appropriate project…and then yesterday I ripped it all out again. I think the simple truth is I just do. not. like. this. yarn. It makes me a little sad, because it used to be a lovely line of yarn. Back into the stash it goes until I either find a perfect project (eye roll) or trade it for something better.

Between all that ripping and some house-buying drama, I was in serious need of some relatively mindless comfort knitting. My travel project became my main project last night. I suppose that created a bit of a silver lining – now I finally have an FO I can show off on the blog immediately. Yay socks!

PS -Happy Canada Day, Canadian readers!

Fiber Therapy

It’s hard to believe this break is almost over. Despite it being a lot more busy than I would have hoped, I still had plenty of time for fibery goodness. First I swatched up a bit of colorwork for a change and sent off a submission for a new design.

Then there was also that sleeve I posted about Monday, which I’ve since reworked successfully. I also finished some lovely cabling for a design that’ll probably be released in late summer or early fall. I took the occasion to put together a nice little tutorial on grafting cables as well. That’ll come out next week.

The main thing I’ve actually indulged in this week is spinning, though. I have been on a serious spinning kick. It included an utterly failed attempt at Andean plying which we won’t talk about. It also resulted in all the lovely 2-ply below though, which is growing ever more even but I suspect still not quite even enough to replace store-bought in a pattern. Not a clue what I’ll use it for yet, but it sure is pretty!