My contract requires me to return to work on September 1, but mentally it is nightmare to return so close to when the students return. I need time to pull a few thing together. For example, one of my very first days back at work is the day I coordinate the training of our student employees. So, today was our planning day for the fall semester. All staff, including three of us who aren't officially back to work yet, were there and we chewed our way through topics such as which days which person will cover our drop-in hours to meatier topics such as our new intake system for counseling appointments and the fall slate of workshops and events.
I wish I could knit during these meetings, but realized after the day ended how very much like knitting the meetings are. Several of us have worked together for 16+ years and we've developed a style of coming to consensus on many items that other staffs would simply have decided for them by the Director or by others. We slowly knit together the plans, sometimes unraveling a bit, sometimes knitting in a little decorative design, other times plodding along in garter stitch, but always getting to the point of having a serviceable and even quite good-looking piece of work.
But, it is more tiring than a day of knitting with yarn, I can tell you!
ON MY NEEDLES
I cast on and got through 2 repeats of the feather and fan pattern for my lace scarf. Maybe this will get me interested in picking up the much more complex lace scarf I started about 8 years ago when I was sitting through several ballet classes each week.
I've ordered some new circular needles for sock-making and hope to start a second pair of 2 socks on 2 circs when they arrive. For my first attempt, I happily invested in a pair of Crystal Palace bamboo circulars, which are lovely but have a terribly catchy joint between the needle and the cable. They were a large part of the difficulty I had with my first cast-on socks but are working fine at this point. But, I won't be using them again for socks!
READING LIST
I'm currently reading a lovely book in the Cottage Tails of Beatrix Potter Mystery Series, given to me by a friend. I love to read books that I can describe the reading experience as being like wrapping up in a warm blanket. I think this series qualifies. Plus I've been reading articles in the two latest Spin Off magazines. I subscribed many years ago and am thinking about subscribing again as I get out my wheel and dust it off.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Zigs and Zags
Journeys always take interesting turns -- some expected and some less expected. My journey always takes a zag at this time of year. As an educator, married to an educator, with children in school (hardly children as they are 18 and starting their senior year in high school), daughter of an educator, my life's calendar year has always begun in September. I've worked in higher education for 25 years now and continue to love working with college students, but the September zag seems to be harder to do each year.
Most of my women friends work, but I am one who would love to stay at home. I went back to work when my sons were 3 months old and never had the stay-at-home Mom experience, but I can easily imagine keeping myself very busy staying at home without children. Luckily, I work just 10 months out of the year, since my college has no summer school, and am home for about 2 months every summer. This has dovetailed very nicely with my sons and husbands being home in the summer over the years and allowed my husband to have various interesting summer jobs.
Anyway, I get enthused about my many projects each summer and then hit the zag in late August when it is time to get back to the office and pick up the threads of that life again. In many ways, it is like casting on a new project -- probably most similar to the casting on of my toe-up two socks on two circs earlier this month. I cast on at least four times, and ripped out three of them, before getting it going smoothly. I know that in a few weeks I'll be back in the groove at work, but at the moment it is somewhat painful to be caught between the two worlds.
ON MY NEEDLES
I've read that blogging helps keep you on track with projects. So far, so good!
I finished the Vermont felted bag and then stitched together the handles on the other felted bag I'd made last winter but never finished. Then, I pulled out the Kitty Pi bed that I started last June and finished that. Then I went and bought zippered pillow cases and am ready to felt everything as soon as I get a bit of time to spend in the laundry room. Now, however, I've got an order in for yarn to make another Vermont bag (Christmas presents!) and since we adopted a new kitten this summer (who will be bereft when we all go back to school next week), I'm going to have to make another kitty bed -- possibly the dotty one I found on line.
My Clapotis shawl is making good progress. I've been trying to get one dropped stitch section done a day -- it is so much fun to drop a stitch on purpose and pull it all the way down!
I've picked up my jacket and made a bit of progress on the sleeves. Doing both sleeves at once is really a good idea -- not just for the consistency, but for the psychological benefit of knowing that I won't have to do another sleeve after this one! I've never been much for blocking, but am promising myself to really block these pieces so that it will have that nice, finished look. After the sleeves, I'll just have the collar to knit.
The one thing I haven't touched is the socks, but those will be perfect to take on our camping trip this weekend, so hopefully I'll make some progress there.
Now that the bag is off the needles, I'm thinking about starting the feather and fan scarf that I bought the yarn for from Knit Picks. I'll be using their free pattern and can't remember if I'm making the scarf or shawl -- guess I'd better pull that out.
The one item of progress made in my knitting world is the installation of a door between the room where I knit (called the fireplace room, it now has a lovely gas stove in it for warmth and ambience) and the living room where my family likes to watch movies (hurrah for Netflix). Now I can knit to my own music (or podcasts!) instead of to whatever soundtrack is on the TV at the moment. Mucho thanks to my Dad for helping us put that up yesterday!!
Most of my women friends work, but I am one who would love to stay at home. I went back to work when my sons were 3 months old and never had the stay-at-home Mom experience, but I can easily imagine keeping myself very busy staying at home without children. Luckily, I work just 10 months out of the year, since my college has no summer school, and am home for about 2 months every summer. This has dovetailed very nicely with my sons and husbands being home in the summer over the years and allowed my husband to have various interesting summer jobs.
Anyway, I get enthused about my many projects each summer and then hit the zag in late August when it is time to get back to the office and pick up the threads of that life again. In many ways, it is like casting on a new project -- probably most similar to the casting on of my toe-up two socks on two circs earlier this month. I cast on at least four times, and ripped out three of them, before getting it going smoothly. I know that in a few weeks I'll be back in the groove at work, but at the moment it is somewhat painful to be caught between the two worlds.
ON MY NEEDLES
I've read that blogging helps keep you on track with projects. So far, so good!
I finished the Vermont felted bag and then stitched together the handles on the other felted bag I'd made last winter but never finished. Then, I pulled out the Kitty Pi bed that I started last June and finished that. Then I went and bought zippered pillow cases and am ready to felt everything as soon as I get a bit of time to spend in the laundry room. Now, however, I've got an order in for yarn to make another Vermont bag (Christmas presents!) and since we adopted a new kitten this summer (who will be bereft when we all go back to school next week), I'm going to have to make another kitty bed -- possibly the dotty one I found on line.
My Clapotis shawl is making good progress. I've been trying to get one dropped stitch section done a day -- it is so much fun to drop a stitch on purpose and pull it all the way down!
I've picked up my jacket and made a bit of progress on the sleeves. Doing both sleeves at once is really a good idea -- not just for the consistency, but for the psychological benefit of knowing that I won't have to do another sleeve after this one! I've never been much for blocking, but am promising myself to really block these pieces so that it will have that nice, finished look. After the sleeves, I'll just have the collar to knit.
The one thing I haven't touched is the socks, but those will be perfect to take on our camping trip this weekend, so hopefully I'll make some progress there.
Now that the bag is off the needles, I'm thinking about starting the feather and fan scarf that I bought the yarn for from Knit Picks. I'll be using their free pattern and can't remember if I'm making the scarf or shawl -- guess I'd better pull that out.
The one item of progress made in my knitting world is the installation of a door between the room where I knit (called the fireplace room, it now has a lovely gas stove in it for warmth and ambience) and the living room where my family likes to watch movies (hurrah for Netflix). Now I can knit to my own music (or podcasts!) instead of to whatever soundtrack is on the TV at the moment. Mucho thanks to my Dad for helping us put that up yesterday!!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Knitting Journey Introduction
I've found myself on a knitting journey this summer. It is a trip I didn't plan to take, rather, I fell into it. I haven't decided which direction the journey is going -- sometimes it feels like I'm going forward, but other times I feel like I'm going back to earlier times in my own life. I'm enjoying the journey and look forward to the unexpected views along the way.
I've always been a crafter of some sort. I learned to knit when I was 6 years old. I got a learn to knit kit for Christmas and started with a bright purple square which actually ended up being a triangle. It worked just fine as a cape for my Barbie doll. In high school I continued to knit some, though rarely finished a project. I also started sewing my own clothing and did finish a lot of those projects. I graduated from high school in the Bicentennial year and became interested in quilting after attending an exhibition of traditional crafts. Imagine my delight when my freshman year roommate showed up with two kayaks and a spinning wheel! Luckily, the kayaks couldn't get around the corner into our room and had to be stored elsewhere on campus, but we had the only spinning wheel on campus in our room! I continued to knit sporadically in college (though I knew no one else who knit). I also spent a January term at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, KY in my junior year and made a mountain dulcimer that still hangs on my wall and quilted a couple of pillow covers.
After college, living in Scotland for a bit, I discovered a great knitting shop and took a few classes. I had roommates from Switzerland and Denmark who knit and we knit a lot of Lopi sweaters that year. I also learned to knit socks for the first time. Then I moved to Montana and continued to quilt and knit. On an airplane layover I ran into a professor from the college where I worked and discovered in the conversation that she was an avid knitter and spinner. I joined the local spinning guild, bought an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel and started to get excited about spinning. That came to a halt when I moved to Ohio to go to graduate school. There was an active spinning guild there, but I didn't have the time to join. I continued to quilt and sew clothing and do a bit of knitting.
Then came the child-raising years. After graduate school, my husband and I moved back to Maine, where I had grown up, and back to the college I had graduated from. I have worked as a career counselor and administrator (i.e. I oversee our website and library collection, hire and train our student employees, advise students applying to law school, and anything else that comes along and needs doing) for over 20 years now. I have twin sons who just turned 18 and are in their senior year in high school. As you can imagine, the job and the boys have taken an enormous amount of energy over the years, but I have continued to knit and quilt (and sewed a lot of their clothes when they were little -- it was so hard to find fun and colorful boys' clothing at that time!). Somewhere along the way, I also started taking basket weaving classes at a local shop.
Nowadays, I have fallen into several patterns related to my handwork. I got back into knitting regularly when the boys started being on teams or in other activities that required me to wait around for them (for example, I have one sweater that I identify with 4th & 5th grade basketball and another from junior high basketball), and went through a cross-stitch phase while the other son attended ballet classes. I got rather compulsive about baskets for a while, until my family complained that I never gave any of them away. Now I knit year-round, do baskets only in the summer (and only on Tuesdays with my basket ladies group unless I need to finish something between meetings), and quilt intermittently -- usually inspired by attending workshops at the annual quilt show in late July.
So, I'm at this point in my life where I'd love to spend more of my time on my projects. In fact, I often feel an acute physical (or is it psychological?) NEED to work on my projects, but have a distinct lack of time. I think that is probably the heart of my journey and I'm looking forward to facing it head on -- I just need to grab one of my project bags to take along for the ride!
ON MY NEEDLES:
The sleeves (yes, I'm doing both at once so that the increases are even) of the Brocade in Charcoal jacket from Jackets for Work and Play. I love the idea of these tailored, knitted jackets for work in the winter and just happened to have the Cascade 220 the pattern called for, in gray, but not in charcoal.
Two socks on two circs -- my first attempt at socks on circular needles. I went overboard, of course, and am doing the toe-up socks from Kelly Petkin of Knit Picks as my first project. I'm making them out of the sock yarn with Aloe Vera in it and they are turning out a bit big, so I've promised to give them to one of my sons. I'm about half-way up the foot. I've got to get going on them because I've offered to teach a two socks on two circs class at my local yarn store later this fall!
A Clapotis scarf. I kept hearing about this in the Let's Knit 2gether video podcast this summer and finally found the pattern on Knitty.com. I'm making it out of Cascade 220 marled yarn (purple, my favorite color) and am almost done with the increases, which means I'm almost to the interesting part where you start to drop stitches. I hope to get to that part later today.
The Vermont felted bag from Webs on Berkshire Hand Painted from the Great Adirondack Yarn Company (ordered from Webs). I've been listening to the Webs owners' podcast, Ready, Set, Knit, this summer (got me through a lot of woodwork painting on a couple of hot days!) and this project was their second "knit-along." I'm working on the handles at this moment and have started to sew up the bag seams. I have another bag that needs to be felted, so I'll do both at once sometime this weekend, I hope.
Just off my needles: I spent an hour yesterday going through about 5 pairs of socks I'd knitted but hadn't grafted the toes and/or tied in the ends. They are now all in my sock drawer, waiting to be worn when the weather gets a bit colder. I also just finished a Debbie Bliss sweater for the son of a friend. It was a good challenge because the yarn I wanted to use didn't match the gauge, so I had to do a lot of recalculating -- with great results, I must say. And, I just put buttons on several children's/baby sweaters that I'm stashing away for just the right person to come along.
I am hoping that blogging will help me stay on task with my knitting and other projects.
I've always been a crafter of some sort. I learned to knit when I was 6 years old. I got a learn to knit kit for Christmas and started with a bright purple square which actually ended up being a triangle. It worked just fine as a cape for my Barbie doll. In high school I continued to knit some, though rarely finished a project. I also started sewing my own clothing and did finish a lot of those projects. I graduated from high school in the Bicentennial year and became interested in quilting after attending an exhibition of traditional crafts. Imagine my delight when my freshman year roommate showed up with two kayaks and a spinning wheel! Luckily, the kayaks couldn't get around the corner into our room and had to be stored elsewhere on campus, but we had the only spinning wheel on campus in our room! I continued to knit sporadically in college (though I knew no one else who knit). I also spent a January term at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, KY in my junior year and made a mountain dulcimer that still hangs on my wall and quilted a couple of pillow covers.
After college, living in Scotland for a bit, I discovered a great knitting shop and took a few classes. I had roommates from Switzerland and Denmark who knit and we knit a lot of Lopi sweaters that year. I also learned to knit socks for the first time. Then I moved to Montana and continued to quilt and knit. On an airplane layover I ran into a professor from the college where I worked and discovered in the conversation that she was an avid knitter and spinner. I joined the local spinning guild, bought an Ashford Traveller spinning wheel and started to get excited about spinning. That came to a halt when I moved to Ohio to go to graduate school. There was an active spinning guild there, but I didn't have the time to join. I continued to quilt and sew clothing and do a bit of knitting.
Then came the child-raising years. After graduate school, my husband and I moved back to Maine, where I had grown up, and back to the college I had graduated from. I have worked as a career counselor and administrator (i.e. I oversee our website and library collection, hire and train our student employees, advise students applying to law school, and anything else that comes along and needs doing) for over 20 years now. I have twin sons who just turned 18 and are in their senior year in high school. As you can imagine, the job and the boys have taken an enormous amount of energy over the years, but I have continued to knit and quilt (and sewed a lot of their clothes when they were little -- it was so hard to find fun and colorful boys' clothing at that time!). Somewhere along the way, I also started taking basket weaving classes at a local shop.
Nowadays, I have fallen into several patterns related to my handwork. I got back into knitting regularly when the boys started being on teams or in other activities that required me to wait around for them (for example, I have one sweater that I identify with 4th & 5th grade basketball and another from junior high basketball), and went through a cross-stitch phase while the other son attended ballet classes. I got rather compulsive about baskets for a while, until my family complained that I never gave any of them away. Now I knit year-round, do baskets only in the summer (and only on Tuesdays with my basket ladies group unless I need to finish something between meetings), and quilt intermittently -- usually inspired by attending workshops at the annual quilt show in late July.
So, I'm at this point in my life where I'd love to spend more of my time on my projects. In fact, I often feel an acute physical (or is it psychological?) NEED to work on my projects, but have a distinct lack of time. I think that is probably the heart of my journey and I'm looking forward to facing it head on -- I just need to grab one of my project bags to take along for the ride!
ON MY NEEDLES:
The sleeves (yes, I'm doing both at once so that the increases are even) of the Brocade in Charcoal jacket from Jackets for Work and Play. I love the idea of these tailored, knitted jackets for work in the winter and just happened to have the Cascade 220 the pattern called for, in gray, but not in charcoal.
Two socks on two circs -- my first attempt at socks on circular needles. I went overboard, of course, and am doing the toe-up socks from Kelly Petkin of Knit Picks as my first project. I'm making them out of the sock yarn with Aloe Vera in it and they are turning out a bit big, so I've promised to give them to one of my sons. I'm about half-way up the foot. I've got to get going on them because I've offered to teach a two socks on two circs class at my local yarn store later this fall!
A Clapotis scarf. I kept hearing about this in the Let's Knit 2gether video podcast this summer and finally found the pattern on Knitty.com. I'm making it out of Cascade 220 marled yarn (purple, my favorite color) and am almost done with the increases, which means I'm almost to the interesting part where you start to drop stitches. I hope to get to that part later today.
The Vermont felted bag from Webs on Berkshire Hand Painted from the Great Adirondack Yarn Company (ordered from Webs). I've been listening to the Webs owners' podcast, Ready, Set, Knit, this summer (got me through a lot of woodwork painting on a couple of hot days!) and this project was their second "knit-along." I'm working on the handles at this moment and have started to sew up the bag seams. I have another bag that needs to be felted, so I'll do both at once sometime this weekend, I hope.
Just off my needles: I spent an hour yesterday going through about 5 pairs of socks I'd knitted but hadn't grafted the toes and/or tied in the ends. They are now all in my sock drawer, waiting to be worn when the weather gets a bit colder. I also just finished a Debbie Bliss sweater for the son of a friend. It was a good challenge because the yarn I wanted to use didn't match the gauge, so I had to do a lot of recalculating -- with great results, I must say. And, I just put buttons on several children's/baby sweaters that I'm stashing away for just the right person to come along.
I am hoping that blogging will help me stay on task with my knitting and other projects.
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