please ignore the quality of these pictures

That’s right, Nashville.  Look who’s wearing wool:

Deal with it.

Fall has arrived, however tentatively, and I couldn’t be happier about the shift to cooler temperatures.  Breaking out the wool was a bit optimistic of me — I was about half-way through my mile-and-a-half walk to campus this morning (at 8:30!) before the shawl came off and I admitted defeat — but still, the mere fact that I made it out the door with something wooly around my neck is a good sign.

Also, look what followed me to school the other day:

Yep, Ms. Beauregarde.  I haven’t forgotten about you, but boy are you going to take a while.  Yesterday was an especially long and tedious one; this was my treat to keep the boring at bay.  Worked like a charm.

where have i been?

A good question.  It seems like the semester has claimed all of my free moments and scheduled meetings.  Meetings to which I cannot bring my knitting.

Good thing I decided to dedicate Saturday to catching up on all kinds of useless television.  As a result, my Idlewood is getting pretty darn long.  You might not be able to tell, but I’m almost through the waist shaping.  After that, it’s smooth sailing through some stockinette …

In other news, Jodi totally inspired a bout of copycat-itis.  Have you seen her lovely Whippoorwill?  I not only saw it, but immediately copied it.

Remember my silky stripey Ishbel?  Yeah.  It wasn’t really working out and I finally had to face facts: the guage was too loose, the shape too shallow … it was time to let it go.  That Sundara yarn is just too pretty to waste on a project that wasn’t coming together.

So I ripped and immediately cast on:

Much better.

In other news, it’s finally cooled off here just enough for my poor often-wilted garden to perk up.  They’re hiding, but those plants have peppers on them!  My tomatoes are still MIA, but I’m holding out hope …

yeah, it was that kind of day

So summer is not over in Nashville.  I’m beginning to think it might be here to stay.  Forever.  And ever.  It’s pretty lame, really: I’ve got all of these kicky shawls and shawlettes I can only wear indoors … where the air conditioning is set at “frostbite”.  Then I wander out-of-doors — to go to class, buy some gummy bears, make copies, commit acts of tom foolery in front of my students — only to find myself over dressed.

That might be why I’m kissing my beer at the end of a very. long. day.  In which I tried — and failed — to vanquish Faust I.  I might have knit a row and a half of my Idlewood.  The cowl is complete, the body is in an advanced state of shaping, and all systems are a go.

Except fall isn’t here yet.

boring cowl progress

Well, that’s not quite true.  I’ve moved past the cowl …

… and am now working on the body.  The waist decreases, to be exact.

All of that sweet disappearing EcoWool.  So far, so good with the project: it’s knitting up super quickly — or would be if only I had more knitting time –, the pattern is easy to follow, the wool is a rustic, full-bodied woolly dream.  I can’t wait to finish this up and then wait (impatiently) for fall to arrive.

Then I’ve got so many EcoWool sweater projects that I want to start: stripes!, twenty ten, OWLS … and, and, and.  Oh my!  You’d think I lived somewhere that offered both extended severe winters and ample time for knitting.  Neither of these things is true.  And yet, hope will not die.

Which is not unrelated to something else that arrived in the mail: yarn!

The Crown Mountain Farms sock hop yarn club never fails to make my day when I find some new handspun lovely in my mailbox.  This is called Free Bird and will — someday — become something extra purty.

why am i showing you this?

Today was a day sponsored by rampant dumbassery.  It didn’t start that way, I even managed to get up early … which is probably why it ended with me inadvertently changing the combination on my laptop lock, thus very securely attaching my computer to my campus desk.  This was not good.

This was very bad.  This was hacksaw, bolt cutter bad.

I grit my teeth and settled in to try out all 729 possible combinations.  (Please don’t tell me if my math is wrong.  It is probably wrong.  All I know is that it had to be a depressingly large number.)  Sweet healing power of wool, what needed to click clicked at #128.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I’d just turned on Bachelor Pad and was sure I was in for a tedious couple of hours.

So that’s why I’m showing you a picture of my computer, safe at home with me in my pajamas.  The only question that remains: What can tomorrow bring?

off kilter

The new semester is here, and with it have come the usual upheavals: new classes, new faces, new routines.  I even have a new desk on campus.

It’s all a little overwhelming.  I’m feeling decidedly off kilter … and am busily trying to get my priorities in order.  And trying really hard not to be too disappointed when plans fall through at the last minute, as work slowly creeps in on everyone’s free time.

Good thing I have a lovely cowl to keep me company …

… my fingers busy …

… and my free minutes full.

It’s slow but sure progress and there is certainly no hurry: Nashville isn’t cooling off any time soon.