Overshooting the mark

So, I do believe I've mentioned that I have a lot of deadlines. A lot of them. I have a list. Actually, I have a lot of lists. There are the lists that I write on each day's calendar entry, of the things that ought to get done that day (the ones that don't get done have to get rewritten on more realistic dates), and then there are the lists that I put on a little post-it note that I move from day to day because I know darned well they're not actually doing to get done when I think they will, and then there's the list of big ongoing projects about which I should be (and am) feeling a constant state of low-level panic all the time.

Am I the only one who does this?

When my week started, my daily lists had tons and tons of little things (go to this meeting, type up those minutes, prep for that class, etc); my move-as-necessary list had a smaller number of medium-sized projects (write a letter of recommendation and take to class to give to student; put together independent study contracts, get them signed by the department chair, and take to class to give to students; etc); and my big-project list had a number of items with associated drop-dead dates (write grant proposal by 2/2; peer review article by 2/15; write 8,000-word chapter by 2/15).

Did you note that last one? That's the kicker. I've been putting it off. I got just about every single other thing on my list done, plus a few that weren't on the list (like cleaning out my desk trays and putting away all of my knitwear neatly on my closet shelves). I've been getting to the point where all that's left is to either floss the cat or write the dratted chapter. So I blocked out today, and the next two weeks' Thursdays and Fridays for it. In preparation for today, I put together all of my notes from the original presentation, which amounted to a scant 4,235 words (but who was counting), found all the articles I'd used as references when preparing the presentation, plus all of the other things I've written of relevance. I went swimming this morning, and then I sat down, bound and determined to have something that could reasonably be called a "draft" by the end of today, howsoever holey and drafty it might be.

I typed and I wrote and I contemplated and I said BLEH at the computer screen and I cut and I pasted and I sighed and I moaned. (Ask Rick.)

And now I have 9,300 words. Poop.

Rick cackled. I'm calling it a draft and making lists for the next stage, which is going to be quite involved, as I've not said what I need to say to make it clear why I'm saying all of the things that I did say. And it will take more words to do that, which means I need to make some of the words I already have go away. Do you think insect repellent might work?

In the meantime, an absolutely lovely box arrived for me the other day, just when I needed it most (I was still hip-deep in lists, instead of being chin-deep in one big project). It was from Chris, and while there were many things in it that I will be sharing over the next week or so, you have got to see this today.
That, my dears, is two skeins of the most absolutely gorgeous Grandma's Blessing you ever did see, given to me by my dear friend Chris, so that I can knit something along with her for the Knitting Olympics. I just can't get the colors right. That brown is more chocolatey than that.
That's not quite it, either. It's much less ashy than that, and much richer. I'll work on it. In the meantime, go see the yarn she sent Anne; they're variations on a theme, and quite stunning. I think there are a few more variants out there; maybe I can get some pictures to share. And if you're in the mood for luxury, Chris has some of the most gorgeous handpainted cashmere you ever did see. Man, mmm....

So that's where I am. Either too many words or too few, but the yarn? It's just right.

Sticking my head up

So, I've now taught one week of classes and survived. I'm glad to have gotten through the first Monday of the semester, as that's my long day. I get to campus around 8:00 in the morning, and don't leave again until about 8:30 at night. The big stretch is my two afternoon classes, when I basically teach straight through from 4:00 until 8:30. But it went well (although I was definitely hungry by the time I finished and got home!), and my field methods class was as much fun as I'd hoped it would be. It's always hard to tell how it'll go that first night. Basically, the point of the class is to get a person who speaks a language other than English (and preferably a language to which neither I nor my students have been exposed) to come every week to class so that the students can elicit linguistic data from her and then analyze it to learn how the language works.

This semester, a friend of mine who speaks Bengali is the consultant, and she's clearly going to be fabulous. The students are always completely terrified beforehand, because they just don't understand anything about what's going on, or what this kind of thing looks like, or how it feels to have to write down everything someone says and then analyze it. So the first week, I give them about twenty minutes to get basic course business done, and then I get the consultant into the classroom and we do our first elicitation, and the only one that I will run (after this, the students decide what to ask her, and they do the asking and the writing; my job is to help guide them in their planning ahead of time and their analysis afterwards). By the end of the class, half of them still looked scared (normal), and the other half was running high, talking about how much fun that was, and they'd had no idea that it would be so much fun, and they couldn't wait for their turn to do the elicitation. Heh. Gotcha.

All the prep for that, plus the many other things on my plate right now (I'm simultaneously longing for the end of February, and terrified by how quickly it's coming), means that I haven't been doing too much knitting. I took the girls with me up to Tehachapi on Sunday to do fieldwork; they played outside in the snow:
while I worked inside and knitted away on the Babushka (which is very good meeting knitting, it turns out). I'm making progress, but it looks exactly the same as it has for quite a while now (in that way that shawls have, midway through), so I won't share any pictures right now.

I did, however, finally get the second set of beads I've been waiting on for the Tibetan Clouds Stole, and I'm really glad I did, because I think we've got a winner. See what you think.
(I think you can click to embiggen.) I am leaning strongly towards the one on the left, which is a silver-lined amber bead, as opposed to the one on the right, which is a copper-lined clear bead. The darker one (on the left) seems subtler to me, while having what looks to me like a richer fire. Opinions? Thoughts? I'm dying to get started on this, but want to finish the Babushka first, as I have both Older Daughter's sweater and a secret project on the needles right now. I'd be feeling bad about the distraction of the secret project, but Younger Daughter will benefit from it (and heck, I wanted to knit it), so at least I'm making good on my promise to each of the girls to produce something for them in the near future.

Meanwhile, the clouds are back, and we're in for some more weather. I don't think it'll be as wild as it was last week, though, when we got so much hail that it actually sat on the lawn for several hours before finally disappearing.
It's just a little surreal, especially with all that green sitting incongruously in the background.
Weird, huh? I'm hoping it doesn't do that again tomorrow, as it's a swim morning for me, and swimming in the hail and sleet isn't as much fun as it sounds (yes, it is an outdoor pool, and yes, it is heated; I'm not even close to crazy enough to swim in an unheated pool)(although I am apparently crazy enough to swim in the sleet; I don't know what that says about me).

Durm und strang

That's what we've got around here, people, durm und strang.

The weather's been wild. On Tuesday, as I was driving to pick the girls up, the radio suddenly piped up with a tornado warning. Yup, you heard me right, tornado. None touched down in our area, but further north they did. Weird. It's been windy ("cyclonic", the weatherpeople keep saying), and there's been hail, and graupel (apparently quite the rare meteorological phenomenon, not to be confused with hail), and rain (almost boring after all those other things). We walked the dogs in the rain this morning, my friend and I, and we got WET. Of course, I'm loving it. But I think I'm probably the only one. And I'll admit that it was a bit shocking yesterday when I headed out to the car in what looked like sprinkles, only to get hailed upon before I'd made it through the parking lot. Ah, well.

Work has also had its share of storms. For example, late last Wednesday, the powers that be lifted the 13-unit cap that had been imposed upon students and told them that they could now register for as many classes as they'd like. Normally, that would give us several days to assess whether or not classes are going to fill before the semester starts. But no. We had Thursday. Because Friday was a staff furlough day, Monday was a campus holiday, and Tuesday was a mandatory furlough day, and classes started bright and early Wednesday morning. All I can say is that yesterday was one long drill in putting out fires. The class I needed to have opened to backfill for a cohort I'm teaching wouldn't open. I was told I could add students with permission numbers, but was given no permission numbers to give students. Meanwhile, none of my online class shells had been populated with students, and this on the first semester I've decided to go paperless with the syllabi. (The upshot of the students not getting populated is that they can't access the class syllabus. Now we know why I've been fighting the whole paperless syllabus trend.)

It goes from there, but I'll stop. The upshot is that while I've been hip-deep in it this whole week, my fiber activities have hit a lull. There's been very little knitting, except today, when I took an hour to go to my on-campus knitting group, and a well-deserved and truly-enjoyed hour it was, too!

Also? I got a nook. Heh. The kicker? Was when my SIL kindly wrote to point out that knitting patterns are pdfs, and I can put pdfs on my e-reader. Boy howdy! How happy was I? Very very happy.

Starting up

I think I mentioned last time that I have been working to remedy my (formerly) projectless state. I'm being a bit more circumspect about it than I would have expected of myself (I mean, talk about an excuse for a serious bout of startitis!) and have so far only cast on for two projects. I think a third may be in the works, though, as you will see. In the meantime, I've been puttering and reading quite a bit (as well as prepping for classes, which start on Wednesday), and as I read, I've been thinking about whether this might be the year to invest in either a Kindle or a Nook (my birthday's coming up, after all). Imagine: I wouldn't have to worry about making my books stay open while I knit if I had one! But I also wouldn't be able to give my books to Rick or Older Daughter to read when I'm done, as we usually do (no, buying a second e-reader is not an option), and I just can't figure out whether I'd miss the feel of paper in my hands to distraction or not. Opinions? Experiences?

So, in the meantime, I've been working on the first sleeve of Older Daughter's sweater. The plan is to knit a bottom-up raglan, so I'll get the sleeves done and then start the body. It's to be fairly plain, although I'll probably put cabling up the raglan lines, and add an applied i-cord to the edges of the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater. I haven't decided whether I want to put a cable along the v-neck edges or do another applied i-cord there, too. I'm nowhere near that point, so I can dither a while longer.
You'd think I'd knit this up faster, as I'm using heavier yarn on bigger needles than I usually do, but somehow bigger-gauge knitting and I don't get along as well as smaller gauge knitting. What keeps me going is how much I love both the yarn and Older Daughter. She's going to be so happy with this (she's been wanting a sweater), and it's going to look great on her, and the colors of this yarn still make me tremendously happy, even after knitting the Urban Aran out of it for myself. Yes, this is the rest of the Urban Aran yarn, Briar Rose Charity, in one of Chris' gorgeous colorways. I don't know how she does it, I'm just delighted that she does.

I'm also knitting a shawl/scarf for me. This is the Silk Alpaca Bubushka (Rav link), and I'm knitting it out of Jade Sapphire Silk Cashmere laceweight yarn. The single most common comment about this pattern on Ravelry is "oy, the seed stitch!", and I can see why, as almost the entire body is knitted in seed stitch, but that's OK. I can put myself on automatic for that, and knit this in meetings or while reading, so it's not a problem.
This is going to knit up into a very light and very warm little shawl that I think I'll wear a lot; it's a perfect layering piece, or one to throw into a bag in case the day or an office gets chilly.

I also made two purchases this week. I know that I thought I was sure I'd decided to spin myself the Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole, but then I saw this:
Just sitting there, coyly, at Sundara Yarns when I went to look (it's the one on that page called Indian Blanket). It's the exact color I've been imagining for this stole, and it was clearly waiting there for me to find it. So I snapped it up (I'm not stupid), and when it came, it was even better than the pictures make it look; it's like molten chocolate. It's perfect. As you can see in that picture, I've put a few of the beads that I've bought for the stole on it, and am trying to decide which ones I like best.
I have more of the ones on the left (which is the bead that shows best in the picture above, and is the most central bead in the picture above that), but I should be able to get more of the ones on the right. Those are varied, and all three of the other beads on the skein come from that bag. I just can't decide, so I'll probably knit my gauge swatch with a few beads on it, just to see how they look in the knitting itself. Since my other two projects are fairly mindless knitting, this is about to become my concentration project.

I admit that there was a part of me that was wondering what the heck I am going to do now with the alpaca top I'd bought for the stole, but then, serendipitously, I wandered by Stella's blog, where I was reminded of EZ's Green Sweater, which I wanted to knit the minute I read about it on the Twist Collective. In fact, when I went to Schoolhouse Press to buy the pattern, there was a sample, all knit up in alpaca and looking lovely, so now I know exactly what I'm spinning that yarn for. I'll spin it up slowly as a four-ply cabled yarn, and then knit the sweater; with luck, it'll be done by next year at this time (please, don't remember that I said that next year at this time!).

I also bought myself a little present last week. I've been waiting and waiting for more of these to be available, so I snapped one up when they appeared.
That is a Kuchulu, from Jenkins Woodworking. It's 9 grams of spinning loveliness, made out of black and white ebony. Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? And of course, Wanda sent it out right away, wrapped in that gorgeous silk, which is the first thing that I will spin on it. I'm in love, and I keep picking it up to play with. My bigger Turkish spindle, also made by Ed, is a favorite of mine, and I can tell that this one will join its ranks. I think that this is going to spin stunning laceweight, and it will be fabulous for travelling, as it takes up no space to speak of.

However, this post has taken up lots of space, so I will stop here. I hope you are all enjoying a three-day weekend, full of much fun and fiber.

Links

I had all kinds of post thoughts for today. I wanted to (and am about to, in that wonderful way that language allows us to do something while saying that we no longer mean to do it; sort of like those insults that go, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings by telling you how bad that looked...") write all about the fabulous day I had on Tuesday with Anne and Kim, how nice it was to have a chance to spend time with friends whom I just don't get to see often enough. But lucky for me, Anne did a fabulous job of it here, with better pictures than I could ever take (even if I did remember to take my camera along, which I didn't), not to mention photo documentation of both of us in our versions of Sprossling. (Also, for another gorgeous version, go check out Rachael's right here -- stunning.)

And I was going to talk about what I'm knitting (two new projects OTN), and how much I absolutely loved Invictus, and how the start of my semester is looming in imminent fashion.

But I think that what I want to do instead is to send you here, where Stephanie has made an appeal that speaks to what I'm feeling right now. The news coming out of Haiti is horrifying, and I can only imagine the terror of being a mother and a wife and a sister and a friend there now, wondering where my loved ones are and if they are safe. There isn't a lot I can do from here, and talking to my friends and colleagues, I don't think I'm the only one who's feeling helpless in the face of such a catastrophe, but I've sent what I can to Doctors Without Borders, along with my thoughts and hopes.

Sampling

The oddest thing happened to me on Saturday night. I cast my scarf off as I was watching a movie, and then it hit me. I have absolutely no active projects on the needles. (Yes, I do have a couple of those lurking sorts of projects, but there are only two, which isn't bad. But I don't want to be working on those; if I did, they'd be active projects.)

None.

Talk about weird.

So I spent a pleasurable Sunday morning puttering about, setting up to get a couple of new projects on the needles (winding yarn and swatching), and doing some long-neglected spinning. First, the scarf I finished:
This one's for me, and I'm quite happy with it. The colors are very nice.
This (Rav project page) is another Barb's Koigu Ruffle, from Churchmouse. I really do like the results of this pattern, although I admit that the first few and last few rows are a bear. I knitted the whole thing on size six needles (instead of switching to fours for the middle part), using (I am pretty sure, and will correct if I am wrong) Schaefer Nichole yarn, which is quite lovely, having a high twist and gorgeous colors.

So, there I was on a Sunday morning, wondering what to do. I decided to think about it while spinning up the rest of the sock yarn that I started oh so long ago, which resulted in this.
Those are both three-ply yarns. The yarn that's already washed and skeined has one ply each of silk, cashmere, and a long-staple wool. I ran out of the silk without having enough yardage for socks, so I spun up more of the long-staple wool, and the yarn on the niddy-noddy has two plies of the wool, and one of the cashmere. You can see the difference between the two; the new stuff doesn't have that lovely silk shine in it.
I haven't checked wpi yet, but I think that's a fingering weight yarn there. I washed up the new yarn yesterday, and it's bloomed a little bit since then, so they're closer in weight to one another than they look in that picture. I have a total of about 350 yards, and I'm thinking that I'll knit the legs of a pair of socks out of the yarn with the silk, and the feet out of the rest. There's a great pattern that I got ages ago from BMFA that I may use for this; a linen stitch seems like it would show this yarn off beautifully, and the legs and feet are already separate in the pattern. So I may wind this up and add this project to my newly-enhanced list of Things I Am Knitting.

I also started sampling the alpaca for the Tibetan Clouds Stole. I got a terrified lurchy feeling when it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if a) alpaca is going to be too drapey for this, and b) if it's going to do the surface fuzzing/felting that alpaca tends to do to me (see the sweater I'm wearing in the scarf pictures above? Alpaca). If so, it won't work for lace. But I decided that the only way to find out is to sample, and then knit little swatches and throw them in my purse and carry them around for a while. Right? That won't answer the drape question, but it will answer the fuzz question.

My thought was that I'd want a four-ply yarn for this, and the question in my mind was whether I'd like it to be a regular four-ply, or a cabled one (in a cabled four-ply, you spin singles in one direction, then create two 2-ply yarns by spinning the singles together in the direction opposite to which you spun them, then ply those two plied yarns together, spinning in the opposite direction of the first plying pass = same direction in which the singles were spun). I really like cabled yarns, as I think they have a lovely texture, and seem geared towards showing off a beautiful gleaming fiber like this alpaca.

After all of my experimenting and note-taking, I have this:
On the bobbin there, I have the singles, the two ply, and the cabled four ply. I haven't done a regular four ply yet, but I did end up liking the two ply more than I thought I would, so I may knit a swatch in that as well. For those who are interested, the singles came in at 30+ wpi (wraps per inch), the two ply at 21, and the cabled four ply at 18, which is a laceweight yarn. I have eight yards of the cabled four ply (2 gms), and 30 yards of the two ply (3 gms).
There they are, two ply on the left, cabled four ply on the right. Isn't that shiny? It has that distinctive oily alpaca feel, too. (This is a good thing, in spite of the way it sounds when I type it.)
Cabled four ply.
Two ply.

I think I like the cabled four ply, but we'll see how they act when I knit little swatches (and whether I can get beads on them, but I think I can). What do you all think? I should have plenty of fiber either way. I bought 400 gms (14 ounces), which means I should be able to get the 1,000 yards I need with no problem, even if I go the four-ply route.

OK, I think I'll stop there, and leave the question of the rest of the list of Things I Am Knitting (none of which are even cast on yet) for the next post. There's some pretty stuff in there, so be prepared.

Oops

So, I think I mentioned that I really want to knit the Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole by Sivia Harding from The Knitter's Book of Wool? (BTW, that book? Seriously the most awesome book ever. I loved everything about it: the discussion of wool in general, the discussion of sheep breeds in particular, the patterns -- the patterns! I want to knit lots of them, which isn't always the case in a knitting book, you know? If you don't have it, go out and buy it. I'll wait.) So I've been poking around, looking for yarn, thinking that I'd just take my time since I really love that pattern in a sort of obsessive kind of way (beads! it has beads! 732 to of them, to be precise), and I want it to be exactly right (no pressure, though).

Well, it turns out that I secretly wanted to spin this shawl (who knew?), because I just bought 14 ounces of stunning brown alpaca top (the one in the middle, called "bark"). Oops. I also went to our local bead store to get beads for the girls' hats and to look for beads for the shawl. I bought a small bag of something that might work with the alpaca, although I’m not sure; I'll have to wait until I've spun up some of the top and then test it out. And then, just in case the beads don't work with the top, I also bought some copper wire that would definitely work with those beads because I’ve always wanted to try knitting with wire, and hey! $2.95 ain’t bad.

Oops.

Am I the only one who has these problems?

A very productive weekend

It was only a three-day weekend (for Rick, that is; I'm still out of school, as is Older Daughter, Younger Daughter had to go back this morning), but we got a lot done. And we got it done in spite of the fact that I am currently sick as a dog. (Yes, I went to the doctor this morning, finally. And yes, I am now on drugs; this sinus infection is apparently so bad that the idea of taking X-rays was bandied about. I have been told to get better quickly lest they carry out their threat.)

First, we (finally!) painted Younger Daughter's room. She's been waiting patiently, and we've been holding off on moving the set of cubbies that Rick built into her room (for desperately-needed storage) until the painting was done, as they were to be bolted to the walls (a hangover from living in earthquake country; we bolt all tall furniture to the walls), and we didn't want to have to unscrew them to take them out for painting. She picked a green color that none of us was sure about (except her) until it went on the walls, and then we all loved it. It required two coats on the bottom half of the room, as the past owners had painted the walls in two colors, darker on the bottom and lighter on the top, but it was worth it. Her room looks like springtime.
That's a little washed out, as it's cloudy today, and her window is shaded by trees; I'll try to get a better picture when the sun is shining in the window, as the patterns that the leaves make on that wall are really lovely. The best way I can think of to describe this color is to say that it reminds me a bit of the color of key lime pie. You may not be able to tell, but those bedspreads are pink, and the pink and green combination is much nicer than I'd have thought it would be. She's completely thrilled with the whole thing, happy that we would let her choose a color and then would spend all that time painting her room. She even invited her sister for a "sleep over" last night to celebrate (this is something that they do, occasionally), and they went to bed early, as they were so excited to be sleeping in her "new" room. It was worth all of the painting with a sinus headache to see her face when everything was put together, no doubt about it.

When I wasn't painting, I was knitting (it's hard to sleep with a sinus infection, I find, no matter how worn out and tired I am; not to share too much information, but my nose has been very productive, too...). And Sprossling is finished! That makes this my first FO for 2010. I stayed up last night to finish the making up, and then steam-blocked it when I got back from the doctor this morning. Forgive the photo shoot; I'm not looking so great right now, but this sweater is, so I had to share.
I think I need to block the button bands just a bit more. But I think I got the fit nailed on this one, finally.
The shoulder seams hit at pretty close to the right place (maybe a titch low?), and the length is good, on both sleeves and body, and it's curve-skimming without being tight (the shaping helps with that, as does the ribbing in the pattern).
The sleeve color did end up being a bit lighter than that of the body, just enough that I'm really glad I reknitted the first one; I had to use some of the darker yarn in the top part of the sleeve, but I'd planned ahead for that and alternated, somewhat randomly, between two balls of yarn, which seems to have done the trick, because I can't tell, looking at the picture, which is which.
So, there is it. To recap: this is a test-knit of Sprossling (Anne hasn't released the pattern yet, I don't think), using Lanas Puras Melosa fingering weight yarn (I still don't see this colorway up there; they must be out), on size four needles (and size twos for the edging). I used just under three balls of yarn for the size medium, as promised. I love this pattern; the lace motif is completely intuitive, and utterly memorizable (this from the woman who can't memorize lace patterns to save her life), and it was kind of fun to figure out how much of each repeat to include when doing the increases and decreases -- definitely a lesson in the concept of not doing an ssk or k2tog unless there was room for its corresponding yo (and vice versa). I can tell already that I'm going to be wearing this one a LOT, as it goes with all of the things I most like to wear.

So here I am, no big projects OTN. I do need to knit up a pair of fingerless mitts for my brother-in-law for his birthday, which is coming up quickly (Geri, don't tell), but I have the yarn for that already and just need to decide on a pattern (maybe another pair of the Paris-Roubaix mitts? Rick loves his...). And I've got that list of requests from the family (socks, scarf, and sweater). But I also have my eye on this, maybe knitted up in this? Meanwhile, I'm going to go sit and my spinning wheel and contemplate.

Happy New Year!

It's here. 2010. Weird.

Rick said he heard a joke the other day that the "noughties" were over. It's too bad. I spent the whole decade wishing people would get with the program and start saying things like, "The winter of ought three sure was a dry one!" But they never did.

Along the lines of weird, it occurs to me sometimes (it's actually occurred to me ever since we had Older Daughter) that there will come a time when Older Daughter will seem ever so much older than Younger Daughter, simply because she was born in 1998, while Younger Daughter was born in this millenium (2001). In case you think I'm crazy, think about the sense of difference in first impressions of people born in 1898 rather than, say, 1905. Big difference, right?

Also weird, this is the third start to a decade that Rick and I have shared together. And our second with Older Daughter. Hunh.

Anyhoo, such are my thoughts on a New Year's day.

We started the new year off right, though. I spent yesterday cleaning up the house, getting things straightened out, and tossing and organizing the stash. My wall of the den now looks like this:
The big change was to get a pile of new acquisitions (especially of roving) into the bin there under the baskets, and to put the things that I most want to knit into the top basket, where it's more easily seen and accessed. I also got together those thing that I most want to spin next and put those in the roving basket.
The rest of the stash is in other bins on my shelves.
I even went around the house, gathering up those spare skeins that tend to accumulate in odd corners (or is that just me?). So it's all where it belongs now, I know where everything is, and I just wish I had ten hands so I could knit and spin everything I want to, all at once!

Alas, I don't, so I'm focusing on Sprossling for now. I'm most of the way done with the second Sleeve #1, and I think that I will definitely be knitting Sleeve #2 out of that same ball of yarn. The difference isn't drastic, but it's there, and it'll bug me if the sleeves don't match. See what you think.
The middle piece there is the lighter sleeve. It's not just me, it does show up, but not enough to make things look bad, just enough that I want the sleeves to be the same. It's all right; if this sweater does indeed fit the way I'm hoping it will, it's going to be one I wear a lot (I adore both this pattern and this cornflower blue), so it's worth a bit of time on the front end.

I'm also quite charmed with the buttons.
I think they're going to look really good running down the front.
What do you think?

So, today started off right. Older Daughter and I went to a yoga class at our studio, which just reopened after a two-week hiatus to install cork floors (instead of the old, not-so-nice carpet). This morning was the first yoga class, and it was very full, not only of people but of wonderful energy. It was definitely the right way to start the new year together.

And now, it's a gorgeous sunny day. The bees are humming in the sage,
and the flowers are all blooming,
and I think it's time to go sit outside and knit.

Happy New Year!