guess what?

I’m done!  No more exams … ever!

I did the ritual clearing of the books this morning.  Look what I’ll be taking back to the library:

In stages.  I don’t know if this many books will even fit in my car.  I certainly know that I can’t carry them all at once.

And this isn’t even counting the ones still on campus.

Or the ones I actually bought.

So now that all this test business is done, I finally have time to concentrate on what’s really important in life.

First off:

the smelling of the congratulatory roses.

To be followed by some quality time with my new knitting books, bought in a
fit of pre-exam stress and hysteria.  They are quite wonderful, though.  Yarnplay, especially, has lots of great colors and ideas … I’m very tempted to try some stripes.  Wild, outrageous stripes.

I think Elizabeth Zimmermann would approve.

Speaking of which, I am *so* going to give her fair isle yoke sweater a try sometime.  After I deal with this:

Oh yes, Lady Stash-a-Lot has been busy.  Nothing like stress to make you think you need lots and lots of yarn.  To be fair, or at least to rationalize a bit, a lot of this was 1) cheap and 2) for Christmas gifts or 3) made me feel really good and carefree.

So this is my next project.  Christmas stash reduction.  I’ve never finished a sweater; yet, I’m thinking thoughts of sweaters (improbably) presented as gifts to various family members. 

Or a lot of IOUs.

hide-n-seek

Look what I’ve been hiding …

Well, not really hiding, just working on quietly.  It’s a perfect in-between project; or watching tv project; or just a few minutes of relaxation project.  The mistake rib gives it a great squishy texture … and the angora makes it so soft and fuzzy — it’s like knitting a bunny.

The Noro Kochoran, you might remember, started life as a basket weave scarf, but the texture just wasn’t right.  I’m glad I kept fiddling until I found Mr. Right.   Now that the weather has turned cool, I can’t wait to finish up and wear it.  I’m contemplating matching glovelettes. 

Speaking of cooler weather, I’ve been wearing this quite a bit:

My very first scarf.  The yarn shop lady talked me into some very expensive Debbie Bliss cashmerino chunky (I didn’t know any better, I hadn’t yet discovered Lion Brand), which I quickly riddled with improbable mistakes.  It’s got a bunch of strange holes and twisted stitches and messy edges and was knit in stockinette, but, you know, I still like it a lot.  Not only is it soft and warm … it’s a nice reminder that it doesn’t really matter how many mistakes you make if the final product works for you.  I like that it looks handmade by a beginner — exactly what I was.  I thought about frogging it and making something else, but I think I’ll keep it.  With The Big Exam coming up, it’s nice to have a reminder that sometimes just doing something imperfect is okay.

finito

The Halfobi from chiagu (finally) all seamed up.  The seaming was actually quite fun — thanks for the encouragement and tips! — and once I got the hang of it, went quite quickly.  The single crochet border around the body was a nice finishing touch.

what to do?

So I did a lot of knitting yesterday while watching baseball with Mr. B.  His team won; all is well.  Except, perhaps, with my knitting.  Yep, the easy v-neck raglan is turning mutinous.  It’s my fault, really.  I got impatient with the ribbing around the body and quit a bit early, even though I wanted a nice wide band of 2 x 2 ribbing around the bottom.  I was just so excited to almost have a sweater … and I didn’t want a really long sweater since I knew it was already w – i – d – e.  And I was basing my measurements not so much on the pattern as on one of my very favorite sweaters.  So this one is a bit short, not bad, just a tiny bit shorter than I might have wanted in an ideal world.  But okay.  Just a little short.  The gauge gods were obviously against me, though, because my sleeves have to be much wider than suggested in the pattern — okay, a lot wider — as row gauge turned out to be important.  Okay.  Wide sleeves, a bit short.  I can deal.  It’s my first sweater.  Flaming pain in my arse, indeed. 

Doesn’t it look innocent?  Nope.  A cobra coiled to strike.

But I kept on knitting.  It was a slow game and I certainly didn’t want to correct any tests.  So here I am at the cuff ribbing.  And things are a bit funky.  Not as funky as the ribbing that led to my twisted stitches discovery, but decidedly amateurish. 


I thought about ripping back and re-knitting the cuff and hem ribbing, but I just don’t know if I’m up for that.  I thought perhaps switching to a smaller needle would help, but I don’t want the ribbing to hug too much, if that makes sense.  I think I’ll end up just keeping it as is; a monument to my growing pains or some such. 

According to Montse Stanley’s ginormous Knitter’s Handbook [wonderful!] — which I bought today in hopes of finding a solution to my ugly ribbing — it’s a problem of control.  And I have noticed that I stretch the yarn too much when switching from knit to purl.

[Speaking of knitting books, where did all of the new ones come from?!  I placed a mammoth order this afternoon ... so much fun stuff to look at.]

I think I’m just going to let the sweater alone for a day or two, maybe start something quick and simple, and think out what I want to do.  It’s probably just exam-paranoia talking.

Ful-on done

So I turned in my first fellowship application today and am feeling pretty great.  One more thing off the list of stress-inducing-activities! 

On to the knitting.  The knitting has been sorely neglected in the last couple of weeks — as has my housekeeping and general fashion consciousness (of which I have precious little to begin with).  But there is miniscule progress to report.

Behold:

A completed easy v-neck body and the beginnings of the first arm!  Really quite fun on stubby little circular needles.  Unfortunately, the project isn’t portable at all … so it doesn’t get to travel.  Not that I have that many opportunities to knit on campus … I imagine my students would take it amiss if I wipped out the needles and went to town while they did some more or less dismal group work.

The Zimmermania project is stalled at "barely started."  My whole one-project-at-a-time fetish is slowing down the knitting there; I really thought I’d be done with Mr. V-Neck in no time.  Ha.  Here’s my pathetic "progress":

It’s more of a headband than anything.  But it’s super soft thanks to the Debbie Bliss merino chunky.

Oooh, I got goodies in the mail too.  Because obviously two projects aren’t enough. 

I’m almost certain this was a stress purchase, pure and simple.  It’s intended for a cardigan for la madre, she who cannot bear wool.  A lovely cotton / acrylic blend that’s super soft and relatively light.  The color is a nice sage green — not as gray as the picture makes it seem. 

Here’s what I have in mind:

If it gets finished, it would be a nice Christmans present.  We’ll see. 

Perhaps Mother’s Day?

an almost finished …

… sweater!  Yay! 

This is the easy v-neck raglan over at the fabulous glampyre — my first real sweater.  I had to fudge a bit and increase two stitches in the body to get the ribbing to come out evenly.  Always forget to calculate something.  But no matter how I tried, 158 stitches was not divisible by 4.  Or any other number convenient for ribbing; just to be difficult I wasn’t digging the 1×1 option.

My knitting binge was fueled by bad British television (Netflix!) and a burning desire not to think about work.  If it weren’t already 2 a.m. I’d try to finish the body section — only the ribbing left to do.  I’m mighty tempted, but I do have to be functional tomorrow to rewrite the dreaded grant proposal of much failure and low self-esteem.

No real progress to report on the Zimmermania sweater; I’ve decided to wait until I’m finished with the flaming v-neck.   

problem solved!

Okay, so it was pretty easy to fix, after all.  Not that I figured it out or anything, but after a consultation with Mr. B. all is well with the site.

I hope to begin a Zimmermania project later today …

Safari?

I’ve noticed that on Safari the whole site is mysteriously linked to Zimmermania.  I have no idea how this happened and my attempts to fix it have been without success.  I’ll keep trying …

[edited to add: Internet Explorer is bizarre as well.  Is it just crazy Mac world?  Something with Firefox not wanting to share?  gah!]

it’s not easy …

So I’m still kind of in hyperventilation mode with all of this work that needs to be done:

especially for my humungous class of intermediate German-learners, not to mention the other stuff I’m supposed to be doing … the reading and writing about, um, you know, that thing I do [if you happen to have dissertation suggestions, please let me know].

And somehow it’s already time for Zimmermania to start.  Tomorrow.  I just realized that don’t know what I’m going to knit; this is my first knitalong and I don’t want to mess it up with a tardy start.  So I went to the stash:


Remember this stuff?  It’s still gorgeous and springy and lofty — and all that I have on hand in sufficient quantities — not to mention colorful.  I really wanted to do something a bit more complex, like the fair isle yoke sweater (or cardigan) from Knitting Around.  Given my current work — and stress — load, such an ambitious project seems neither advisable nor feasible.  Instead, I think I’ll go for a simple seamless raglan sweater.  Baby steps.  Small goals.

Speaking of baby steps, the easy v-neck raglan is coming along, albeit slowly:

I’ve finished the raglan increases, separated the sleeves from the body, and am now just knitting the body section.  I like my clothes big, so the raglan increases seemed to go on forever, but now I’ve reached ultimate reading knitting nirvana and can just knit for inches and inches.  The weather is starting to turn cool, too … good incentive to keep going.

coffee please

So. Much. To. Do.  Argh. 

I survived the first day of classes (no need for cat furniture in the end) — with 20 students, twice the acceptable number, none of whom recognized me as the teacher, but assumed I was another freshman aimlessly wandering about looking for the right room, and not enough chairs or photocopies — only to find myself confronted with the horrible reality that I have much too much to do in too little time (obviously).

It doesn’t seem like much on paper … but, take my word for it, writing a fellowship proposal and special topic questions, and finalizing a reading list do take time.  And remember the 20 students?  Who will be turning in short descriptions of Otto Dix’s "Metropolis" on Monday, as well as expecting some kind of "lesson plan" or "classroom activities" so they can "learn".  Whatever.

But look, presents!

From the best crocheting sister in the world.  I like the potholders so much I’m afraid to use them, which kind of defeats the purpose.  The scarf is great, too.  I really like the colors … and the shiny soy (apparently it’s a soy / wool blend of some kind).

Despite everything, I’ve even managed a little knitting.  No mention of seaming, you’ll notice, but I’ll get that done some day when I have a bit more time and energy to devote to (for me) relatively finicky stitching.  Anyway, I’ve started the easy V-neck raglan from glampyre using the Rowan flaming (pain in my arse):

So far, so good.  No catastrophes … I even joined the fronts successfully and am now blissfully knitting in the round.