SpringPlum

Crafting, Parenting, Photography

12 Days Left

So very close to summer vacation, but the days keep getting busier.

So busy in fact the only knitting that I’ve been able to squeeze in was at Sunday’s Stitch ‘n Bitch. Three hours of knitting–eek! I’d have withdrawals if I weren’t too tired for them. Therefore, I’ve decided to dedicate at least one hour each day to knitting or knitting-related activities–yarn shopping and trolling for patterns counts. Starting today. I actually came up with this idea yesterday but…I went to see Indiana Jones instead. Sorry, Harrison Ford with a whip trumps knitting any day of the week.

I’m going to go get my hair cut today. Sounds like no big thing, right? Hah! I get my hair cut about twice a year when I just can’t stand it anymore. It gets whacked off and then it grows for six months. And boy does it grow fast. I realized a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been going through this cycle since I graduated high school–10 years ago! Same hair style too. It is way past time for a change. You’re not supposed to look exactly the same at your high school reunion. Here’s a before photo–

This was taken two years ago at my bridal shower. Doesn’t matter though; same hair cut for 10 years. Only the length has ever changed. Until today! Dum dum da da da dummmmm…

Hooray, Mail!

I stopped by the Woolie Ewe just to see if they happened to have the Jaggerspun Zephyr that I need for the Peacock Feathers shawl. They were out of plum, but even if they did have it, I of course wouldn’t have bought it yet since there’s 3 more weeks of school left, and I am on a schedule. (If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.) I left empty-handed but virtuous–then I checked the mail. See what my husband got me as a job-finding gift–

kp options

Matt is the best. Now I have the needles that I need for the Sheep Shawl as well as the yarn and pattern. Dang it! Must keep resisting…

Also in the mailbox was some yarn from a swap with Moppett. I traded her my Knit Picks Shadow in Grape Jelly for the same yarn but in Jewels.

kp shadow jewels

The photo doesn’t really do the colorway justice. It has faint bits of purple and teal mixed in with the blue. Very pretty and will probably end up as something for my mom.

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Get Outta My Head

The Sheep Shawl haunts me; it calls to me.  It needs to be knit.  Now.  The only reason that I haven’t succumbed to temptation and cast on is that I don’t have the right needle for it.  Whoo.  Dodged that.  Is the fact that I’m also looking at yarn for the Peacock Feathers shawl a bad sign?

On the work front, I signed a contract for my new job next semester.  The school is very nice and so is the district.  No more crappy, depressing, extremely low-paying inner-city job for me.  Super-duper excited.

The Deep End

Behold!  I have started Matt’s socks.

mistake rib toes copy

Hmm, kinda looks a little like a brown, wooly bra?

But what is this?  No DPNs?  That is correct.  I am attempting to magic loop socks.  Not that I’ve ever magic looped socks before.  And I think I may have jumped into the deep end of the pool without swimming lessons or a life preserver or a life guard.  Because I’m not just magic looping socks, I’m doing toe-up socks…two at a time.  Also, because I am lazy in the name of efficiency, I choose not to separate the yarn into two balls and am instead knitting from both ends of the ball at the same time.  It is possible that the yarn has gotten a wee bit tangled a time or two, but I’ve got the hang of it now.  Riiiiight.

I think I may have a problem.  Some knitters collect more yarn than they could use in one lifetime, but I’ve already covered that I try not to buy yarn without a pattern in mind.  Instead, I seem to keep buying patterns even though I don’t have enough time to knit what I’ve got on the needles.  On my way to Sunday’s stitch and bitch, I stopped by the cutest little yarn shop ever:  The Shabby Sheep.  Knowing that I had this little purchasing problem, I still browsed through their massive patterns binders.  And found this treasure–The Peacock Feathers Shawl.  Now it calls to me, begging me to buy yarn for it, pleading to be cast on.  I have made a deal with the patterns in my filing cabinet.  I will start the Scotch Thistle when I am finished with the Voyager Lace, and I will start either the Sheep Shawl or the Peacock on the first day of summer vacation.  Let’s see if I have the willpower to stick to this schedule.

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Strange Things Be Happening

First of all–if any of my lovely readers have noticed the strange goings-on here at the blog over the past two day–things like posts appearing and disappearing–I apologize.  If you haven’t noticed, then why aren’t you spending every waking moment at my blog?  I have been trying out new offline blog writers.  Zoundry Raven was had its good points like being able to install on a flash drive so that I could blog from work, but the page writer was broken and I couldn’t delete posts made in Raven from my dashboard.  I need my pages.  I think that I have settled on Windows Live Writer.  It’s pretty user friendly, works with my LJ crossposter, and I has two different types of WYSIWYGs: plain and with your theme.  The only complaint so far is that once you have saved a local draft or published a post, you can’t delete from Live Writer even though you may have deleted it from dashboard.  I have several test posts that don’t show up on the blog (you may have noticed), but they are stuck on my sidebar.  Still I can live with that.

Can’t have a post without a picture.  Here’s a butterfly:

pastel butterfly copy

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We Have Ways of Making You Talk

Instead of a swift, I usually have Matt my husband or the other Matt hold my yarn.  But today, my husband was using his hands to play video games, so I had to improvise.

 

Here’s the swift in action-

 

It doesn’t spin, so I have to hold the yarn above Bedtime Bear’s head to the yarn feeds right, but I feel this is an excellent solution.  Also Bedtime Bear doesn’t take the yarn on a trip around the house like Matt does.

This Must Be What Knitting Feels Like

Finished the Simon Tam.  Had to knit it sneaky like, on my planning period.  I had no papers to grade and no lessons to plan, so what else was I to do?  Looks purty darn good too.  This is the hat still blocked over a dinner plate.

 

Once I got the hang of the brioche stitches, I loved this pattern all the way up until I reached the decreases.  Getting the needle in the right place to k2tog under the yarn overs was some of the most physically taxing knitting that I’ve ever done.  I broke out in to a sweat–I huffed and puffed like a freight train.  But I still like the pattern enough to want to knit it again for myself in some more Lorna’s Laces Bullfrogs and Butterflies that I have in a pink color.  Of course, it helps that I would be knitting a…sing it with me now…Raspberry Beret!

Reader Auntie P turned me onto the Sock Wars.  Sounds like it could be some fast and furious fun.  What do you think?

Me and Job–We’re Like “This”

This week was a bit of a trial.

  • Wednesday–I found out that if I want to continue my position next year, I have to do so with a 22% pay cut. 
  • Thursday–Due to the storms that ravaged North Texas, the school that I teach at had no power, but the district decided that we’d still have class.  Until you’ve been trapped in the dark for 8 hours with a bunch of unhappy teenagers, you haven’t lived.

 

This is what most of my neighborhood looked like.  I’ve never seen this much destruction that wasn’t caused by a tornado.

  • Friday–I walk into my classroom to find out that it had been broken into and vandalized.  The little creeps tore papers up, pulled a shelf full of books onto the floor, and broke a computer monitor.

I’m a little reluctant to go to work on Monday–I might find a body in my room or something equally bad.

Project First

Went to the DFW Fiber Fest this weekend. Lots and lots of eye candy there. Bought myself some purty new stitch markers and a new pattern that will most likely end up as my sister’s Christmas present. I didn’t buy any new yarn though. Hardcore stashers are now clutching their chests and reeling, I know, but I’ve got several project in the queue, and if I get too many I start feeling a little outnumbered. Sure, there was tons of yarn that I coveted; however, I’m more of a pattern/project first type of gal. In the past when I’ve bought yarn of a whim with no goal in mind…well, let’s just say it’s all still sitting in my stash cabinet, hoping (in vain) one day to become a fully formed, knitted item.

Books on impulse are a completely different matter.

It’s Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook and it’s fabulous.  Praises to Half-Price Books.  The amount cast-ons and bind-offs are worth the price of admission alone.  This book isn’t for the weak-hearted, so the aforementioned stashers shouldn’t buy it until shock of my non-yarn wears off.

In the spirit of the fiber festival, I cast on a new project.

Simon Tam Brim

The yarn is Lorna’s Laces’ Bullfrogs and Butterflies and the pattern is The Simon Tam.  I altered the pattern a little (of course I did).  Instead of the tubular cast-on I used the lace cast-on, and the ribbing is k2p2 because my k1p1 ribbing looks like crap.

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Away Goes A Gift

I finished the Moc-A-Socs.  They are so cute that I think I may need insulin.

moc-a-soc-both1-copy.jpg

Time to drop them in the mail.  Although I am very excited about giving my very first handmade baby gift to my cousins, it’s always a little hard to send something you’ve made away.  At least at Christmas gatherings I get to see people open what I worked so hard on so the separation anxiety is eased a little.  But when you put them in the mailbox, you just have to hope that they arrive and imagine that they are pleased.

To ease the pain, I bought The Sheep Shawl pattern with the intention of buying the yarn in a month or two as a summer project.  Then I saw this–

Ladyslipper Zephyr

on a shelf at The Woolie Ewe.  They didn’t have any Jaggerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 the last time I was there.  What a lovely surprise.  Poor Linnea had to watch me debate yarn colors for at least fifteen minutes.  Since this was the yarn I was going to buy eventually, I decided to make then be now.  Seize the yarn!

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