Some FOs and some new stash

I can't quite seem to keep the inflow/outflow balance even, much as I may try, but two objects rolled off the needles this week; one is a true FO, and the other is the first of a pair of socks.  I stuck to my usual SSS-avoidance tactic, though, and promptly cast on for the second sock, so with luck I'll get those done before next summer's solstice rolls around.

The first FO is the Whippoorwill shawl.

(Modelled here by Younger Daughter.)  This was a fun knit, well-written pattern, gorgeous fiber.  I knitted it out of Frog Tree Pediboo, which has a gorgeous drape and weight, thanks to the bamboo fiber, plus plenty of loft from the merino.  A very nice shawl fiber.

It's a simple pattern, but it definitely does the trick.

This is one I'll wear a lot (and I love the colors!!).

I also finished the first of the Alhambra socks.

I continue to love everything about these - the pattern, the yarn, the combination of colors, everything.  I also continue to find it a challenge, which is why these are taking me so long.  I really, really need to concentrate on the charts as I work, especially the charts for the leg.

It's well worth it, though.  I'm thinking that if I were to go through and put in more of my usual chart landmarks (for example, I tend to draw a vertical line down the chart every five stitches or so, with a very dark one right in the middles, as it helps me to better track where I am), that might help (I don't know why I didn't do that to begin with, but there you have it).  And I really do keep finding myself tripped up by the fact that the dark squares on the chart correspond to the yellow while the lighter squares correspond to the blue.  It's a little mind game to keep that straight somehow.

But so worth it! 

The second sock is on the needles.  This is the second pair of socks (of three) that I was hoping to finish for Sock Summit (the first was the hand-knit socks).  We'll see...

I also got a most lovely and unexpected package in the mail last week, from my sister-in-law (she who gives excellent fiber-related gifts).  She has recently taken up dyeing (for which I am very grateful, as I am still sticking to my guns on the whole not-dyeing thing), and will you look at the fruits of her labors?

Superwash merino.  How gorgeous is that?  The girls have both attempted to lay claim to the one on the left.  I am as yet unsure whether I will let them get away with it.

But I can tell you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this next one is minemineallmine.

Do you see that?  The colors are even richer in person, and I love everything about it.  It's a superwash merino/mulberry silk blend, and it's stunning.  I haven't even come close yet to finding a pattern that's good enough for it, so for now I pet it and love it.  It makes me very happy.

In other news, I'm going to take a bit of a blog-post writing hiatus for the next few weeks.  July is hectic, and I haven't been as good as I ought to be about posting (or about keeping up on blogs in general, although I do try!!), so I figure I'll make it official and say that I'll be back in a few weeks.

But I will leave you with this.  Last weekend, we went to the local Scottish Games, as we are wont to do this time of year.  And, as we are also wont to do, we made sure to wend our way to the beer tent in time to listen to the Wicked Tinkers during one of their sets (if you don't know the Wicked Tinkers and like that sort of thing, I think they're great).  At one point, their cute young drummer hopped up onto a table to play, and Rick caught this little interplay on the camera:

"What does a Scotsman really wear under his kilt?" (says she, the hand there on the left)

"And wouldn't you like to know?"

He was so speedy-quick that I can only assume this has happened before.  And so is mystery (and modesty) preserved.

Mail, and some thoughts

So, since my knitting is not all that interesting (look! another hat!  look! a second sleeve!), I thought I'd share some of the lovely things that have arrived in the mail lately. (Warning, Illuminations Sock club SPOILER.)  As a quick update, though, the second sleeve is finished, the pieces of the sweater are blocked, and all that's left is seaming and knitting the collar.  I have one more hat to knit, too; when Ellen posted on Rav this morning that we've got almost the entire Senate hatted, I figured I could do a bit extra to get us all the way there, right?  In light of the fact that public discourse continues in its trend of calling for violence against people exercising their right to free speech (in this case directed against union supporters), I think the hats and their call for civil discourse are more critical than ever.

So, first up was a lovely surprise from Erica, she of the DesigKnit blog which I so enjoy reading.  Erica began experimenting with dyeing a while ago, to my great delight (because it meant that I could live vicariously through her; her weaving adventures serve the same purpose for me), and she has now, to my great delight, started an etsy shop!  The colors that she's working on are just lovely (I have my eye on a couple of those rovings) - I don't think that there's a one that I wouldn't knit or spin.  If you look at this post, as well as in the shop, you can see the results of her experiments with shaded depths in her colors.  You could also look right here:

Isn't that lovely?  I had some terrible trouble capturing the colors - they're very rich, and the range is amazing.  Erica may have gotten it better in the first picture in this post.  See what you think.  In any case, I am so looking forward to spinning this lovely Corriedale - I think I may have found the fiber that will go on my wheel for my March spinning - thank you, Erica!

Also on the fiber front, I inadvertently hopped onto a bandwagon that I didn't realize was in existence.  Towards the end of January, as I was poking about my fiber stash looking for my next spinning project, I happened upon a little baggie of silk hankie that I'd bought some time ago (in Ohio, maybe?), and remembered reading about Ellen's experiment with spinning silk hankies.  A little poking around on Knitty later, I had a plan.  I decided to knit them unspun, which turned out to be much more fun than I thought it would be, actually, and I was working out what I should knit, when the Yarn Harlot posted about her lovely silk hankie mittens (on my birthday, actually - I can't seem to link, but if you look at her February 2 post, you'll see them).  In that post, she happened to mention how many grams of silk hankie it took to do that - to wit, 30g.  I had 9g.  It occurred to me, then, that I wasn't going to get very far with 9g (alas), and that I'd better do something about it.  What didn't occur to me was that ordering silk hankies from BMFA right after the Yarn Harlot had posted about silk hankies from BMFA was going to be rather like hopping on the freeway in LA after someone's announced an imminent tsunami.  Crowded.

But they have arrived, and I love them.  It's only 20g, but I think I can do what I want with that (fingerless mitts), and I'm dying to get to it. 

That's the Blue Brick Wall colorway, and I just love it.  I also love that if the mitts turn out and I want to knit a hat to go with, I could get some yarn dyed up in the same colorway to do that.  Very cool.  See that hint of purple at the top right?  So pretty...

Last but not least, I got my Illuminations Sock club package! (Here comes that spoiler!)  I was very excited about this - I signed up for two sock clubs this year, the Rockin' Sock Club, and the Illuminations Club - the point of the latter was to kind of kick me into colorwork gear in a nice sort of way.  Which made it very entertaining that the first RSC kit was colorwork (not to mention all the freaking out that engendered on the discussion list - many people feared that it was a sign that the whole year would be colorwork).  Nevertheless, RSC won't be socks, so I was very much looking forward to seeing whether I'd want this kit to be socks or not.

I do.

Look how pretty!  These are absolutely my colors (the colorway option I chose for this club was "surprise me" - and I am so happily surprised here!), and I love both the patterns, but think I will do the leaf one.  I have never tried Shibui, which is what this yarn is, and it has silk in it!  Silk!  We all know how I feel about silk.  Mmmm....

So, all in all a week of good packages, don't you think?

Coming together

I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments on my last post.  So many comments just reiterated the point that I was hoping to make: this isn't about political party - there is more than enough incivility to go around.  No group of people is innocent of its vitriolic members.  Alas.  But I can't help but think that speaking out for civility is worth doing.  As a linguist, I have lectured to my students about the difference between freedom of speech and hate speech; I have talked to them about how absolutely, fundamentally necessary it is to insist upon free speech, upon the right of every human being to speak their mind without fear.  Hate speech is not free speech - hate speech makes freedom of speech impossible to practice.  It shuts free speech down by creating fear and hate.  So, as a person who has always stood, passionately and publicly, for freedom of speech, I also stand for civility in the practice of that freedom, so that it is a freedom that we all can enjoy - even, and perhaps especially, people who think differently than I do.

One of the best things about reading everyone's comments was seeing yet again how really diverse everyone who comments here is, in politics, region, race, and religion (just to name a few).  And yet, here we all are, commenting civilly and supportively (whether or not we're in agreement about any particular thing), brought together only by a shared interest in fiber and the manipulation thereof.  It makes me wonder if, as a second act to the knitting of hats, we shouldn't descend upon the capitol with fiber and our fiber manipulation implements of choice, to teach our representatives to knit, crochet, spin, weave, whatever it is we know how to do best - wouldn't you want to be a fly on the wall to hear the conversations that might take place then?  You may say I'm dreamer...

A few other things came together this past weekend as well.  On Friday afternoon, knowing that our girls were going to a school Parents' Night Out (fundraiser for Younger Daughter's class), Rick and I were dithering about what to do with our sudden spare time when a dear friend called to tell me that she was sure it was too late and too much but she suddenly couldn't use her tickets to the Kodo drummers, and did we want them?  Why, yes!  Yes, we do!  And off we went.  It was unreal.  Like standing in the middle of a crashing wave.  I don't know what to say except that if you ever get a chance to go, grab it and don't look back.

Then, on Saturday, Rick took the kids and that same dear friend's son and went to see the naval airshow down in San Diego.  They had an absolutely wonderful time, and I got five hours alone to do laundry, clean the house, and then (as my reward) spin and knit.  As part of my commitment to myself to spin at least two ounces of fiber a month, I sat down first to spin the superwash BFL from Sincere Sheep that I bought at the Dixon fiber festival last fall.

I split the four ounces into three equal bumps, and am spinning them worsted, with the goal of making myself a pair of socks from the results.

Much as I love woollen spinning (which, for me, is rather like petting kittens, in that it is great fun and has variable results depending on many factors apparently beyond my control or ken - things might go smoothly, or I might end up with fur everywhere - who knows?), it is nice to go back to worsted spinning - it appeals to the control freak in me.  Hello, my name is Jocelyn, and I know where my twist is.  Heh.

I am also plugging away on the sweater for my mom. I can't remember if I posted the starter picture of the first half of the front?

There it is again.  I am now done with that half, and almost done with the second half of the front (I should be able to finish that tonight).  I need to get another hat knitted, and then I can cast on for the back.  I am still very happy with the general squishiness factor of the yarn.  I am also, being me, a bit worried about the size.  I have knitted my gauge swatch, I got the measurements from my mom, but I'm going to fret about it until it's on her body and it fits.  Am I the only one who seems to think that fretting is a crucial part of garment creation?

I'm also working away on the yarn from the first RSC shipment of the year (warning - SPOILER).  Much as I loved the two patterns that came with this shipment (if you're interested, you can pop onto the Rav thread - there are pictures), they were both stranded colorwork knitted in mediumweight sock yarn (quite thick), and while I actually cast on to start a pair, I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never wear them here in sunny SoCal, so I frogged them.  I decided instead that this is the perfect yarn to finally knit myself a Daybreak Shawl, and I have cast on and am working my way through the first, solid colored, section.  This will be a slow, long-term knit, to be picked up when I go to a meeting or am reading a book.  Lots and lots and lots of stockinette.  I don't have a picture of what's been knitted, but here are the two yarns together; I am delighted beyond words with these colors.

I will be wearing this one a lot once it's done, I think.

Out of the mouths of babes

I had occasion to have dinner the other night alone with Younger Daughter while Rick and Older Daughter were at soccer practice. As we discussed our plans for the rest of the evening, I mentioned that I was going to finish plying the batt I'd started spinning. She commented, apropos of nothing that I seem to have a lot of yarn, to which I replied that yes, I did have some yarn stashed away. She then asked, "But Mama, what are you going to do with all of that yarn when you can't knit anymore?" As if such a thing were imminent. I said, "Why wouldn't I knit anymore?", and she said, "You know, when you get old." Again, as if such a thing were imminent.

Hmmm... I thought about it for a moment, and then pointed out to her that I'd only been really knitting for about six or seven years, and that I could easily knit another thirty years, and still not be as old as Memere is now. (Sorry, mom, but I think you'll see where I'm going with this in a moment.) She looked utterly enlightened, and not a little surprised, because it's pretty clear that her Memere still has plenty of life left in her, even at thirty years older than her aged mother. Memere could probably even summon up the energy to knit! It occurs to me that, from her perspective, Mom and I are both just Older, and Adults, and probably more alike to her in our adulthood relative to her feeling of non-adulthood than we are different from one another because of our ages. Maybe kids just don't see generations like we do. In any case, she seemed reassured that I wasn't going to fall by the knitterly wayside with a roomful of yarn left unknit.

Especially not this yarn.
Isn't it lovely? That's the angora/pollworth batt that I mentioned last time. This is a pretty close representation of its actual color, which is "pesto". I love it truly, madly, deeply.
This, plus more, is destined to become a pair of hats for my mother and me. I'll probably cast on for the first one tonight.

I think I also mentioned a couple of additional fallings-down from last weekend's fiber adventure. Both of them happened at the Carolina Homespun booth, which was amazing, not only for what it contained (an insane amount of wonderful stuff), but also because that's where I ran into Beverly, who'd mentioned in the comments that she'd be at Lambtown, and that she might say hi if she recognized me and it didn't seem too stalker-y. Well, I (serendipitously and entirely accidentally) saved her from that by accosting her as a complete stranger over the spindles to ask what she thought of them (apparently I have no shame when it comes to figuring out how someone could spin on those spindles that look more like nostepinnes to me than spindles). I should mention here that Beverly is a class-A enabler, too; as I dithered over the silk that I showed off in the last post, she stuck her head in that booth to tell me she'd bought one of their batts and that it was really wonderful. I committed to the silk very soon thereafter. It was nice to meet you, Beverly!

So, at Carolina Homespun, I bought myself this:
Silk/cashmere, in the colorway Persimmon. I kept walking up to it and picking it up, so I figured I should probably just commit. Doesn't it just scream "fall"? This may be the next thing to go on my wheel (although I confess that it feels too decadent to spin for some reason; I need to get over that feeling that I'm not good enough of a spinner for things like this).

The other purchase was one that my mom made. I have long been considering getting one of these "for the girls". Recognizing that "for the girls" really meant "for me and the girls", I have held off (no new fiber sports, right?). I showed it to mom and told her that I'd thought about getting them one for Christmas, and she said maybe she could do that. We chatted back and forth about it, until one of the weavers from the sheep to shawl competition heard us and told us how much she loves rigid heddle looms, that that's all she uses, and that this little one is a great one to start with and to do small projects with. That plus pointing out a few of the beautiful woven (as opposed to knit) scarves running around the fair pretty much did it. When I checked out with the fiber, mom checked out with the loom. (Thanks, mom!) I'm about halfway through warping it for the first time, and will probably finish that job this weekend and set the girls loose on it. Meanwhile, I'm contemplating what fiber in my stash might do well for weaving...

It knits like yarn

So, I swatched with the handspun I posted pictures of last time, and it seems to be acting like, well, not to put too fine a point on it - yarn. I made yarn! Yarn that can be knitted! Into a garment! (I hope. Still keeping my fingers crossed that I've calculated my yardages correctly, or the sleeves on this will be "bracelet length"; read: I didn't have enough yarn for the usual length.)
That appears to be knitting, doesn't it? I can get even closer, and it still looks like knitting.
Yup, lumpy and bumpy a bit, but I am still very happy. What this means, of course, is that I am absurdly proud of a feat that, two hundred years ago, could have been accomplished by a seven-year-old. Nevertheless.
The way this sweater works is that I knit the shoulder straps, then picked up stitches and am now knitting down the back for a bit; I will do the same for the front for the same length, then join them together and knit in the round until the body is finished. This is a lot of stockinette, so I'd planned to save it for knitting in meetings. That may not work, as I'm having a lot of fun with this thing. On the other hand, there may be other distractions on the horizon.

This brings me to a request I've been meaning to make. Could all y'all please, really just please, stop finding beautiful things to knit? You're killing me here. The latest distraction came from Lori. I've already bought the pattern and am in the process of assessing the stash (do you think Briar Rose alpaca laceweight held double would work? I really want it to...).

I beg of you, no more!

As promised

Spinning!!

As I've mentioned, I've been working my way through 15 lovely ounces of Blue-Faced Leicester (BFL) from Briar Rose. This fiber spins like a dream, and it has the gorgeous longwool luster that I adore. When I was in Ohio looking at fiber in the Briar Rose booth, I kept finding myself reaching for those lustrous bumps of wool, and every single time it was BFL; I feel the same way about some of the other longwools, there's just something about them that looks like silk. They are definitely not as soft as wools like Merino (nor as soft as silk, for that matter), and I think that if I were to try to spin them worsted, as my spinning preference lies, they wouldn't be as gorgeous as they could be. But this experiment of spinning this fiber woollen has worked out beautifully, I think. For non-spinners, it basically means that instead of getting a tighly-spun yarn with very little air in it (the kind of yarn that's perfect for socks), I ended up with a bouncy two-ply yarn with lots of air and loft in it. I am so glad that I didn't keep saving it "for best", because now I have five skeins of lovely yarn; I haven't counted just how much yardage I have exactly, but I think it's about 220 yards per skein, so, if I'm calculating correctly, that's a sweater's worth. Hooray!


Chris is truly an artist with color. I never cease to be blown away by the things she can do with dye; her colorways are so organic, every one of them tells me a story about something that I love. The colors in this wool remind me of the blues and browns and grays of Sierra granite, perhaps my favorite rock on earth, up to and including the big rounded river rocks that make me so happy. (Am I the only person who has a favorite rock? Maybe it has to do with all of my early childhood memories of playing on huge boulders in the mountains or in Yosemite, with that particular feel of decomposed granite and pine needles under my feet, and the smell of cold pine and campfire in the air, the way that smell changes as the sun begins to warm the trees and the rocks, the sound of a creek nearby, the rough stone under my hands when I climbed, and the give of the earth when I jumped off and landed... There's nothing like a good granite boulder.)

My woollen spinning still isn't even, which means that the resulting yarn isn't even, so I'm not sure how this will knit up. It seems to range between a heavy sport and a worsted weight yarn, and one skein (in spite of mixing up the bobbins as I plied) feels like it's a lighter yarn that the others, so I may have to mix that in as I knit to keep it from being too obvious.
You can see the changing weights there. Does anyone who is more experienced at knitting their handspun into sweaters have a sense of whether I'm in trouble here?

I am thinking that I have finally spun the yarn that I need to knit Cloisters, a sweater I saw in Spin-Off ages ago, and that I've been wanting to knit ever since. (There's a better picture of it here; it's the green sweater fifth from the left in the top row.) I think that the plain stockinette body will show off the colors nicely, and the lace pattern is simple enough not to be too obscured by the vagaries of handspun yarn. I also think it'll be a simple enough knit that it will be soothing during this busy time of the semester, and one of those really wearable sweaters, like a sweatshirt, but uniquely mine.

I will leave you with some granite to consider.

Pictorial update

I have survived the first week of classes. That's always a good sign, since it means that it's time to start settling down into a routine for the next twelve or thirteen weeks, until the chaos of Thanksgiving and finals comes around. I'm still finding my feet with all of the schedule changes, though. This is the downside to being a teacher and having kids in school at the same time: all of us have everything shift around at the same time at the beginning of the school year. Everything from class times, to soccer practice, to dance practice move right about now, and I spend the first several weeks of September obsessively checking my calendar, sure that I've forgotten something crucial (mostly because it has been known to happen).

But I did mean to share at least some pictures from our trip up to the Bay Area for Grandmom's memorial. Her actual memorial service was beautiful, a completely fitting tribute to her life. I think that it was harder to get through, for me, than it might have been right after she passed away; at that point my sense of her readiness was vivid, and while "happy" isn't the right word, maybe some of you know that feeling of vicarious relief for someone who was really OK with having reached the end of a long and good life. By now, though, I've had time to remember how much I miss her, and how much I'm going to miss her, and hearing people talk about the person she was, in the years before the end stages of her life, just reminded me more vividly of how much I enjoyed her company and valued her friendship.

The other good thing about the trip, though, was the gathering of family. The girls got to spend more time with their cousin, whom they absolutely adore, and we got to spend time with lots of people, but especially Rick's brother and sister-in-law, whose company we really enjoy, and which we don't get enough of. We dragged them to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens, where the girls grabbed their own maps, and requested that we not follow too closely behind them.
So we wandered around on our own, taking in the sights.
Some of which were rather unexpected.
We got to chat a while, and visit.
We saw trees that didn't seem like they should be thriving quite so well as they were.
Plants that were aptly named, like this spiral aloe.
And plants whose names didn't seem to fit them quite so well.
(That little sign says "Giant Stipa", in case you can't read it.)

The girls kept playing with their maps.
Until we hauled them off to see the little amphitheater in the redwood grove where we were married.
Lest you think that I've completely lost the thread (pun intended) with this supposed knitting blog, my sister-in-law and I did, in fact, manage to visit two yarn stores while we were there (and can I just tell you how much fun it is to have a partner in crime on these trips? even if she is a terrible enabler...). We went to Stash, where we spent a lovely time browsing before deciding on our yarn. You should see the stunning coppery silk laceweight that my sister-in-law bought -- there was no way I could have let her walk out without it. And I decided that it was time to try some Noro sock yarn, which I'm working up into plain meeting socks (as in, socks that I can knit without thinking about them, during meetings).
I'm not quite sure I'm 100% convinced about the whole Noro thing, but more on that another time. Then, when we were in the City, I mentioned something to Rick about having heard there was a fabulous yarn store that was really worth a trip, and he, lovely enabler that he is, promptly hauled out his phone and found it for us. He even got us directions. So off we went to Imagiknit, about which all I can say is, boy howdy. We were a little overwhelmed.
In a sort of hysteric kind of way. There were two rooms chock full of yarn. Perhaps more amazingly, when we both looked to match a skein we'd found so we could get more of something, the folks who worked there would calmly say things like, "Well, it looks like we have 30 more of that colorway in the stock room" (!!), and then they'd go and get more. Unreal.

I managed to walk away with (only) three skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn for a sweater. I adore this colorway. Love it. It's the first yarn I picked up when I walked in (you can see it in that picture up there), and after looking at yarn for an hour, I was still clutching it to my chest and refusing to put it down. That seemed like a sign.
I'll work on getting a better picture, because the blues are more robin's-eggy, like in the picture up above. I'm thinking this will be the perfect yarn for Anne's latest henley, no?

So there you have it. There was also a trip to Muir Woods in there, and a walk across some of the Golden Gate (of which I have no pictures, but I'm sure someone does). Lots of good food. Lots of good company.

This past weekend has been a busy one, too, with two birthday parties, a feis, and a bat mitzvah so far. But today there is nothing scheduled for me except a date with the washing machine and my spinning wheel. Just what the doctor ordered, I think.

Shiny object distractions

Years ago, when I was in grad school, my friend had a wonderful dog named Romeo. Ro was the perfect dog for taking on walks or bike rides (he had boundless energy), and he loved nothing more than a good game of fetch, with either ball or frisbee. However, he did have this tendency to run madly after a ball, only to suddenly find himself utterly distracted by something else (tree! dog! squirrel! car!), whereupon we were the ones fetching the ball that he'd lost in his distraction. My friend called him the Shiny Object Distraction Dog (she also happened to be dating a highly distractable man at the time, whom we subsequently called the Shiny Object Distraction Boy).

As of yesterday morning, I became the Shiny Object Distraction Knitter. But honestly, I defy any of you to say that you wouldn't have done the same. Off I went, just before 9:00 in the morning, to a knitting class at my beloved LYS. It was a wonderful class, and I daresay a good time was had by all. By the time I had to leave, I had completed the class project, and was wearing it proudly.
How much fun is that? And I've totally fallen down the rabbithole, because this morning, I finished this:
Oops.

And let's be honest. The only reason why I don't have at least one more finished (you can only imagine the daughterous clamor for bracelets) is because I don't have any more of the findings that I would need to make them. You can see them there: incredibly powerful magnets (which are a Shiny Object Distraction in their own right; I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing with mine when we were out to dinner last night. Look! They stick to the table! And the knife! And the salt shaker! And...!!)
I knew I should have gone back yesterday afternoon and cleaned her out of these. This project is the perfect project for using up fingering-weight yarn (of which I tend to have insane amounts); it only takes about 15 yards. It does take up lots of beads (between 200 and 240 for the size I'm making), but I have all of those beads I ordered that I'm not using for the Tibetan Clouds Stole, so it's not like there's a dearth of beads chez moi these days. I anticipate that this will be known by my friends and family as The Year of the Beaded Bracelet, because these seem like the perfect gift. I wonder if Rick would wear one...?

I knitted that blue one first, because it seemed like the perfect go-with-denim bracelet, and my uniform of choice is denim bottoms (jeans or skirts) and a relatively plain top. One must add bling to such an outfit, mustn't one? And then, just as I finished and was wandering around the store, forcing innocent standers-by to admire my handiwork, I saw this skein of yarn.
Fate. It was Fate, I tell you. Don't they go together perfectly? (The colorway is named, appropriately enough, Denim.) This yarn is destined to become a Just Enough Ruffles Scarf, I think; I spent an inordinate amount of time on Ravelry last night, looking for a scarflet in that very elongated triangle shape I'm loving, and that was finally the pattern that I bought. I haven't cast on yet, though, so if anyone knows of another one that I should consider, now's a good time to shout about it.

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.

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!