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.

On budgets and the stories we tell ourselves

Classes started yesterday, so I'm buried in the usual beginning-of-semester madness (I know that many of you are in the same boat). It was wonderful to see my students again, especially in my upper-division class, which has many students who have taken some of my other classes. That feeling of pleasure is what convinces me, semester after semester, that this really is the job I love best.

The administrative side of things, though, is not my happy place. This semester we are facing a particularly interesting situation, which manifests in increased pressure not to take crashers over our class cap numbers. Now, I actually approve of not going over class caps for a number of philosophical and pedagogical reasons. I can teach better when my classes have the number of students (and no more) that they are designed for. More generally, I can teach better when I have fewer students; when I started here, the goal was for faculty to have about 90 students each semester among their various classes. In the fall semester before furloughs, I had 120+. I just can't do for 120 students what I can do for 90 (up to and including learning all of their names). Note also that we are not paid more for teaching 120 students, even though that adds a third again as much work in terms of grading, etc, and none of our other workload decreases concomitantly. Hence my philosophical approval of the maintenance of class caps.

The added wrinkle this semester has to do with funding. As a state school, we receive a certain amount of money per student. We also receive a target number of full-time equivalent students (FTES) for each academic year. And, we must accept all students in our service area who meet the minimum requirements for entry into the system. All of this seems very reasonable, until I tell you that this semester, we are close to 700 FTES over our target, and that if we can't bring that number into line next semester (by cutting many sections from our schedule), our campus will pay a fine for every full-time equivalent student that goes over our cap + 2%.

That's a lot of abbreviations and numbers, but here's what it boils down to: we may end up paying a fine for teaching too many students.

Yes, you heard that right.

The upshot is that I had to turn away students who are working harder to pay more tuition for a smaller number of possible classes and increased time to graduation. It broke my heart.

In the meantime, I am seeing increasing numbers of bumper stickers around here lambasting big-spending Democrats (the president in particular, but there's a general sense that lefties spend too much money). And I'm getting pretty cranky about it. Because every single time I see one of those, I want to stop the person driving that car and ask them: which of the two presidents prior to this one left us with a budget surplus and actually had plans to pay down our national debt? (Hint: Not the Republican.) And which of those presidents spent hundreds of billions of dollars that we didn't have and left us deeper in dept than we have ever been? (Hint: Not the Democrat.)

In other words, it's not that simple. Let's be completely honest here: both parties spend money. Lots of it. It costs serious amounts of money to run a nation (or a state, or a city). Period. The difference between the left and the right is not in how much they spend. It's in what they choose to spend it on, and where they get the money that they do spend. Do they spend it on corporate welfare or social welfare? Do they spend it on education, or on tax cuts for top earners? Do they get money by raising taxes, or by reducing social services? There are arguments, both philosophical and fiscal, for either position, but we can't have a conversation about the merits and consequences of choosing one over the other if we're busy stating categorically that Democrats are big spenders and Republicans aren't. 'Cause it just ain't so.

Jumping the gun, maybe

I have to say that if I'd intended to shame myself publicly into finishing some projects before casting on new ones, y'all didn't help much with shame generation. There was, instead, a remarkable encouragement of project proliferation. Nevertheless, I felt a bit better about casting on for a new project once I'd finished those others.

Especially since this new project seems to be going exceedingly quickly. Behold, the first Kitten Mitten.
(Modelled by Younger Daughter.) These mittens are more fun than a barrel full of actual kittens. In knitting them, I'm beginning to get a handle on what kinds of stranded knitting I like. To wit: two-color stranded knitting. By this I mean not just two colors per row (although I admit to liking that quite a bit; three+ can get a bit overwhelming), but just two colors altogether. It's not a matter of how it looks - I really love the rich multi-color looks of turkish and fair isle knitting - it's more that with three colors there's fiddling to be done. I can't seem to get into a rhythm with three+ colors the way I can with two. It's very much like beaded knitting; I love the results enough that I will continue to do the knitting, but the knitting itself isn't soothing in the same way that other kinds of knitting (read: lace, and, apparently, two-color stranded knitting) are.
I love these cats (and I love the pin on my bag - another new one). I'm hoping that my niece will love them, too, as these are for her. In theory, they are a Christmas present. (Perhaps now the title of this post will convey some foreshadowing.) But here's the thing. I'm going to see her this week (and can I tell you how excited I am about that? I don't get to see my niece nearly enough for my taste), and I'm zipping right along with the second mitten. Maybe she needs to have them now? You know, just in case of sudden cold weather in Ohio prior to the holiday season? Wouldn't these be perfect Hallowe'en mittens, what with those cats and all?
And check out that fish skeleton! Very spooky, and Hallowe'en is my niece's favorite holiday.

I do realize that we're really nowhere near Hallowe'en, and that, in fact, most of the country is suffering a heat wave of epic proportions. I'll be honest, I'm just really hoping that she likes them as much as I do, and I'm selfish enough to want to give them to her in person. We'll see. I suppose it will depend in part on how much knitting I can get done tonight and tomorrow on the drive north. We certainly have some good audiobooks ready to go (I'm downloading them now); Lene just wrote a blog post today extolling Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, and was so convincing that I promptly went over to Audible to download it. I've got Younger Daughter convinced it'll be exciting - I'm pretty sure Older Daughter will be quickly won over.

This is our first trip north since Grandmom passed away, and we're heading up for her memorial. It will be wonderful to see everyone, and very strange not to see Grandmom. We get back on Monday and I start teaching on Tuesday, so I will probably be offline until the end of next week. I feel like there should be something better to say to end this post, but can't think of what it might be, so I'll just let it stand at that.

Veni, vidi, knitti

I either inspired or scared myself with my list the other day. The results?

Done.
Project details: Circle Socks (modified), Colinette Jitterbug, size 1 needles. For Younger Daughter, who danced around upon their receipt, singing, "I have fish on my feet! I have fish on my feet!"

Done.
Project details: Wool and Camel Down Ripple Scarf. Schaefer Nichole. Gifted to Older Daughter, who hasn't taken it off, even though it's pretty warm around here these days.

And done.
Project details forthcoming. This is a test knit of Anne's Pea Vines shawl, in the smallest size.
It has nupps, which charmed me to pieces, even though they're a bit fussy to knit.
I love this little shawl. And it was so much fun to knit! Because it's cast on at the long edge, every row gets shorter. I don't know about the rest of you, but shorter rows, coupled with charts that I get to cross off, makes for a very compelling knit.
(See the nupps there in the upper right quadrant? Aren't they fun?) And when the results are this wonderful, it's pretty hard to put down. I cast this on Thursday night. I would have finished last night, but I got tired, went too fast, and had to extricate myself from a small lace dilemma. So I finished this morning instead. It's drying now.
Modelling shots and project details to follow.

Now can I cast on something new?

Admitting the problem

Is the first step to recovery, right?

In the case of the proliferation of projects, I'm unconvinced. Maybe I need to sign a non-proliferation agreement with someone? But who would agree to something like that? All the knitters I know are busily encouraging me in my abandon.

I may have too many projects on the needles. And goodness knows I have too many more lined up to be knitted! I don't have a lot of pictures, so there will be more Rav linking than I usually do (so if you're going to follow along, you may want to log in right now), but it seems like it might be a good idea to come (marginally) clean before the semester starts, so I can see just how big the problem is.

1. The zigzag scarf. But that may not be such a problem, since I tried it on last night, and even though I haven't finished the ball of yarn, it really is long enough -- much longer, and it'll be out of control. I think I'll be casting that off sometime today, just for the satisfaction of it. I'm not even going to block it I don't think, so once I weave the ends in, I'm done.
2. The tropical fish socks. I've got the heel turned on the second one, and am working my way down the foot. That should go fairly quickly, and those may be the perfect project for Older Daughter's soccer game tomorrow (the first of the season). So those may be done soon, too.
3. The latest test knit for Anne. (AKA Pea Vines) I'm only just halfway done with the first chart on this, but I am in love. The yarn is fabulous, the pattern is fun -- it turns out that nupps really are addictive, and so cute when they're done that they're irresistible! I'll be posting more about this as I progress. The good news on this project is that it's bottom up, so the rows will get shorter rather than longer, and I will speed up as I go, rather than slowing down.
4. The cardi cozy. I started this forever and a day ago, and left it to languish. I recently picked it up again and figured out where the heck I was in the pattern, and where I needed to go next, and am now halfway down the first sleeve. It annoys me, so I'm having trouble sticking with it. But I'm not going to rip it out now, both because I think (although I'm not sure) that this will be something I'll wear quite a bit once it's done, and also because KidSilk Haze does not, in my experience, frog very well. Maybe if I hate it, it will be someone's Christmas present?
5. And speaking of Christmas presents, I just bought yarn to cast on for mittens for my neice. I saw these and fell utterly in love. I bought the pattern last night, and the yarn earlier this week, and I will be casting on soon (this is where the startitis is showing).
6. I am also considering a yarn purchase for this. I have the pattern, and all the cool kids at my LYS are making one, and I figure it'll be good soccer knitting once the socks are done, right? I considered getting some Noro Silk Garden for it (I've always wanted to try Noro), until I realized I'd need seven (7) balls, and a) my LYS only has two of each colorway (thank goodness, because) b) that would break my yarn budget for the next decade. I'm thinking Mini Mochi instead. That may be taken care of this afternoon.

The casting on wouldn't seem too bad, except for the languishing items in my list, to wit:
7. The sweater I started for Older Daughter ages and ages ago. I think, given her recent growth (she is now officially taller than I, to her everlasting -- and it will be everlasting, since it's not going to suddenly reverse itself -- delight), that it is probably already too small. Therefore, I decided this morning that I'll rip the part of the sleeve I've got and start again from the ground up. I need to rejigger the math. I really should make this my soccer knitting instead of Bermuda, since it's very plain. Maybe I'll be a grown-up and do that. (Who's taking bets on how this turns out?)
8. Complicated pair of socks the first. (AKA Bex) If you could put a picture next to the definition of "languish" in the dictionary, it would be a picture of these socks. I adore the results, but the chart and the knitting are both fiddly, and I haven't been in the mood for fiddly lately. They're fiddly in a way that lace isn't; I can knit most moves in lace pretty fast (barring nupps -- I dare anyone to knit those quickly -- and p3tog tbl, which I think I'm excused in being rather slow at), but these cables are a bit of a bear. So I'm being recalcitrant.
9. Complicated pair of socks the second. (AKA the Turkish socks) I feel a little bad about starting another colorwork project when I've already got these on the needles, especially since I adore them. The only reason they went into time out is because I decided to mess with the pattern (they were going to be too big for me), and I need to make sure I've got everything lined up to move on to the next section. I will definitely get back to these. And last but not least:
10. My lovely and much-adored beaded shawl. No reason for this to be languishing, except that it's got beads, so it can't travel, and I'm onto the bit where I repeat the same chart forever and ever until the end of time. I'm not really good about that (hence my love of triangles and faroese shawls; there's always something new to look forward to), but I will most definitely get back to this one, as it makes me happy.

There are two other projecs that are currently a twinkle in my eye:
1. The wine dark sea redux. I have the yarn, and I started swatching (a year ago, sigh). I need to start thinking about that, doing some math, and deciding for sure on the edging I want to do.
2. The silk road socks I have planned. I've charted out the pattern I made up based on something I saw at the Silk Road exhibit a few weeks ago, and I bought some yarn and paired it with yarn from my stash, but I absolutely will not (hear me now) cast on for a third colorwork project. I promise. Here's the yarn, though. What do you think about these colors together? They're close to those in the original weaving that I saw. I'll post a picture of my chart next time.
I'll let that one marinate a bit longer.

So there it is, eight on the needles, two about to start, and two in early planning stages. How does that compare with everyone else? Am I completely out of control? Do we need to stage an intervention?

You let me know. Meanwhile, I think I hear some nupps calling.

Packages

Once again, life has conspired to keep me away from the blog (not to mention my knitting and spinning!). Some things have been good, some more stressful, but that's kind of the way things go, no? Among the good things is the fact that I've had more time than usual lately to go hiking in the morning with Tilly, and, until today, mornings have all included a lovely marine layer, which makes for cool hiking. I've also gotten to spend some time with friends whom I haven't seen all summer, and that's been wonderful. And on Sunday, we took Younger Daughter up to Ventura for a feis, which she greatly enjoyed. I think it helped that she won first place in a reel special, and winning in a special entails a trophy. Her trophy was, shall we say, perhaps excessively large (trust me on this); she doesn't agree. I'm waiting on some photos from a friend who had a camera (all we had, alas, was a cell phone; what can I say? We weren't thinking clearly at 5:15 am when we left the house -- I wonder why...). I'll share when they come in.

So, with all of that, my knitting and spinning progress is slow, and not particularly blog-worthy. However, I have gotten some wonderful mail lately, so I'll share that instead.

First, and best of all, my new spindle bag came in the mail last week, courtesy of my dear friend over at Nana Sadie Rose. This bag is the result of a suggestion made by another of her customers who spins, and it's exactly what I've been waiting for, without even knowing it!
(I think that if you click to embiggen, you'll be able to read that pin; it makes me laugh.)

It matches my beloved needle case; I love the spirals in this fabric, so I decided to go with that again. I ordered the longest of the three potential strap lengths, with the idea that I'm going to be able to wear this across my chest, hanging on my left side in the perfect place to feed fiber from as I spin. My big hope is that if I keep this near the kitchen, I can sit at one of our bar stools and spin while chatting with Rick of an evening; right now, my spindles live in my fiber room, and they don't get as much use as I'd like.
I'm also hoping that this will make it easy to grab and go, when I want to take my spindle along to other places. There's plenty of room in there for fiber at the bottom of the bag (which means extra insulation for the spindle), and probably for another spindle, as well. You can see all the pockets on the sides -- there are more that you can't see, so there's lots of structure on the sides to protect the spindle (and room for necessary stuff).
I'm not sure if you can see it there, but the spindle is held in place with a loop, which makes for easy storage and easy access. I'm absolutely delighted with this, and so glad that I ordered one instantaneously upon hearing about them (and so glad that my dear friend made time to put it together so quickly, on top of everything else she's sewing right now!!). This is going to get a lot of use (and, I'm guessing, a lot of compliments).

My other big package came in the mail yesterday. I'd been starting to wonder if it might not be about the right time to be hearing something about that wonderful fleece I got lo these several months ago. You might remember my excitement?
Well, that giant bag of fleece has turned into several very large bumps of the most beautifully-prepared fiber, to the tune of about two pounds (I need to weigh them to get a more accurate count).
Isn't that lovely? It turned out a gorgeous browny-grey, once the many colors in the locks had been cleaned and blended. I'm so glad that I've been working on my woollen spinning, because I think that's exactly how this should be spun up, into a nice airy two-ply. I want to finish the singles from the bump of Briar Rose BFL I've been spinning as soon as I can, so I can get going with this, and to do that I need more bobbins. So I bit the bullet and ordered three more bobbins for my Lendrum; I figure that should set me up nicely to spin on the Lendrum, and then ply on the Ashford.

So, that's all the news that's fit to print. I have a few more ideas and projects cooking, so with luck I'll have something involving progress to share the next time I post. Meanwhile, summer is finally here (it's in the 90s today!), so I'm off to find somewhere cool to sit.

Lace, and ramping up

I mentioned lace in my last post, and that's because I actually finished something, and that something is lace. A whole object (not just the first half of a pair), yay! It feels like it's been a while since I've done that; this whole summer has been about trying things out and playing a bit here and a bit there, practicing my dillentantism, but the school year approaches, and I'm finding myself slowing working my way back into a more disciplined mindset. (Slowly, I said, slowly; so don't go expecting any imminent miracles of productivity.)
This is the Pear and Trellis scarf (one of Anne's patterns). I hadn't knitted this pattern yet, and goodness knows why, because it's completely addictive, and very intuitive, and the results are lovely. It seems to work nicely with this variegated yarn (not all lace does), but I'm betting it would be equally gorgeous in a more monochromatic yarn (a silk blend, mmm...).
The ends are pretty all on their own, which is nice. And the lace pattern was intuitive enough that I had no trouble tracking what I was doing -- I knitted most of this while watching the Tour, with its many exciting moments between Schleck and Contador, not to mention the need to watch Cav come out of nowhere to take sprint finish after sprint finish. I miss the Tour already...
So, to recap, this is the Pear and Trellis scarf (Rav project page here), knitted for my friend Vivienne's birthday (she doesn't read the blog, so no spoilers here). I used Punta Yarns Merisock Handpainted yarn, on a size four needle. It knitted up quickly and blocked beautifully. I loved the yarn, and am very happy that I bought a skein (in a different colorway) for myself.

In other news, I'm ramping up for the school year, which starts for Older Daughter on Tuesday (an ungodly early date to start school, if you ask me; we're just starting to get our first beach-worthy days around here!). Although Younger Daughter and I don't go back until the end of the month, I put my syllabi together last week, just so I could see how all the dates work out, and I typed up all the end-of-chapter exercises from the new edition of one of my textbooks, so I could see how they go, and post them online for easy access. Of course, the posting part has been delayed by the fact that we are switching our online class support program again. This makes the third time since I started here. I always wonder whether our administration realizes how much time that takes; it certainly isn't something for which there's a code in our workload reporting -- just one more time sink that no-one acknowledges (like the difference between teaching the same class to 35 vs 45 students; no-one wants to admit that it takes more time to do that, even though it seems eminently obvious to me). Ah, well. I have a few more weeks to wrap my brain around that, and to build my containers before classes start.

We are also still hanging fire with regard to Older Daughter's orchestra, although it looks like the superintendent has succeeded in entirely gutting the middle school music program, as well as the majority of the high school music program. He has also cancelled the technology class (it's supposed to get folded into science; one wonders if those teachers are getting paid more for their increased workload), and he combined (get this) foreign language and PE (so students spend half of the period time during the week doing one, and the other half doing the other). He insists that it's to allow students to spend more time on the basics (because it's all about the test scores, doncha know). Furthermore, they've put Older Daughter into algebra again (the usual eighth grade math) even though she took that class last year and passed it. I've asked Rick to do battle on that one; there's only so many windmills at which I can tilt at a time. When did we become a nation with no regard for education? (Nota bene: I don't consider passing standardized tests to be "education"; I freely admit that this is a personal bias.)

I will defer the full-fledged rant for another day, I think, and go and spin some lovely BFL instead.