Accomplishment

About two years ago, one of my new year's resolutions was to knit a sweater.  The year 2011, my friends, is THE YEAR.  I'm giddy with excitement in reaching a goal and bursting with anticipation for cooler weather (it is only 99 degrees right now with a heat index of 104).  The swatching worked because it fits!  In this moment, I feel like I can do anything. 

The pattern is Melissa LeBarre's Tea Leaves Cardigan.  The yarn is Cascade 220 Heathers # 9452.  I used almost 5 skeins with one complete skein left over.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I need a matching hat?

Christmas Crafting

Thank goodness for twelve days of Christmas-- I'm going to need all of them. My dining room table still looks like the first photo. I'll clean it off for tomorrow, but I still have plans for more sewing of Christmas gifts. I've sent out about 40 or so felt bird ornaments into the world with a few more to hatch tonight.

Peace to all this Christmas Eve.

Solstice Sunflower

On this solstice day, I present my daughter's sunflower and sky blanket. I started it with the advent of this blog several years ago. You can see its beginnings on my first post if you scroll down to the very bottom. I had just turned forty years old and had just finished my son's rainbow blanket. While I didn't work on it constantly (many other sewing and knitting projects intervened), it was a constant companion throughout many days and nights. With its completion, I'm busy sewing gifts for Christmas and other celebrations.

Solstice greetings!

October's End

The above photos were taken by my daughter for a visual arts project at school around the theme of "together we can." She visited my after-school knitting club and tried to capture how learning to knit often involves one-on-one instruction-- sometimes with "teaching hands" and "learning hands" wrapped up together with yarn and needles. This knitting club has been one of the bright spots of my October.

October also brought several challenges. This entire school year has been a rocky ride that has eaten up what used to be little bits of free time. I used to blog several times a week! Lately, I only seem to manage a few posts per month.

All of October's challenges, however, were not daunting. Some of the pleasant opportunities were:

• Taking a weekend trip to Birmingham for the Writing and Illustrating for Kids conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (Sarah Campbell, a writing buddy and fellow traveler from Jackson, wrote a wonderful description of the conference here;
  
• Learning how to cook Chicken Tikka Masala, Baighan Bartha, Naan, and Aloo Gobi Masala with some good friends;
• Reading Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder with my daughter and thinking about "common magic;"
  
• Watching both of my children participate and progress in their Tae-Kwan-Do classes;
• Reveling in rain after a long time without.

With less than three days left in this month, I'm anticipating:

• Enjoying cooler, more fall-like temperatures;
• Carving two, large pumpkins and three, small pumpkins to welcome hallowed haints and saints;
• Strolling through the neighborhood in search of fall colors peeking out here and there.

Knitting Together

As promised. . . some photos of my after school knitting club at St. Therese Catholic School. Several of my students had been asking me to have a knitting club for several years. When I agreed to offer the after school activity, I did not expect that twenty-five third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders would sign-up. What is more, sign-up forms keep rolling in as other students see their friends knitting and want to learn.

We have met several times this year, and a few of the students are already able to mentor other students (love that). Thank goodness I now have some help teaching! I was barely able to catch my breath at the first few meetings. I'm also helping students one-on-one or two-on-two in the mornings before school.

One mother has already come to class with her daughter because she wants to learn, too. How cool is that? Another mother asked if she may come next week. Inter-grades and inter-generational (love that, too). Our club has several boys and more who want to join. The school principals want to learn, and I plan to have students teach them. One student has completed her first project-- a headband!

Knitting with students in the morning and after school has been a joyful part of the last few weeks. I am looking forward to their creations and accomplishments. Mostly, I'm looking forward to what we will laugh about and share while we knit, knit, knit, knit.

Maybe we will purl a little, too, in a month or so!

Finishing

One of my main goals for the summer is to clean out and organize the house from top to bottom. Ambitious, I know, but I have started!

Is it cheating if in the process of organizing and cleaning out my knitting stash and supplies (previously scattered in 5 different places) I decided to actually finish some projects? The first finish was my socks. Then, I wove in the ends to five washcloths, fingerless mits, and a log cabin blanket. Then, I frogged several flawed projects from my early knitting days to reclaim some nice yarn. Then, I felted (instead of frogging) a largish, circular, rug I made during Hurricane Katrina. Then, I decided to look for a good sweater pattern to knit as my first sweater: thinking of this one. Any other suggestions?

I'm definitely and hopelessly diverted, but I did gather all of my knitting supplies in one place, and I discovered a leak behind a wall (the shower?) that warped some floorboards beneath boxes full of stuff. You never know where finishing a bunch of old projects will lead. This time, weaving in ends = calling a plumber.

Knitting in the Afternoon

I have been so lucky this week to knit with friends (and cats) for three afternoons in a row. After swim team, chores, extra chores, and errands, we have been able to sit in my sitting room with some relaxing tea and spend a few hours doing something we all love to do with each other--slipping stitches and bits of conversation in between the hard parts.

Jennifer is working her heel flap. She loves the stripe pattern her yarn is making and is interested to see how the stripes change as the heel is turned.

I'll take my socks to the pool this morning. I predict a small crowd of children to gather around me as a I work. Yesterday, one 7-year-old boy was amazed that I could knit socks. I let him try them on his foot, and he said, "These feel soooo good." I said in return, "That is one reason why I make them."

One mom who does not knit remarked that she didn't know anyone made socks by hand any more. "That is really a lost art, isn't it?" she said.

Lost art? Not really. Not if you take a look at all of the knitting blogs. No, I don't have to knit socks. I can buy them in multitudes for dollars. But there will only be one pair of socks like my socks with their hidden mistakes and interwoven memories of making them with friends.

Swimming & Knitting

Swimming and knitting. . . two challenging and fun activities that sum up our summer thus far. The children are participating on swim team for the first time, and I am knitting two socks on two circular needles at the same time for the first time. No, I'm not swimming and knitting at the same time! I'm grateful that all of us have coaches and friends who are helping us along the way in our gross motor and fine motor endeavors.

Swim update: Both children have participated in at least one swim meet and have started a collection of colorful ribbons. They are learning how to do the various strokes better and better every practice. They will have to teach me someday.

Sock update: We have turned the heels and picked up gussets on one side of both socks. Today, two more gusset sides, and we'll be ready for gusset decreases and toe shaping! Yeaa!

Knitting with Friends

my socks with Conn (the cat) as the shadow in the background

Knitting with friends is so much easier than knitting with cats, but I like to do both! Two of my friends joined me on an overcast and sometimes rainy afternoon to knit two socks on two circular needles at the same time. We are using the basic instructions from this book, and we have all pledged to help each other out through the difficult parts (heel flaps, gussets, and toe shaping). All three of us are equal teachers and learners in this endeavor.

Jennifer starts her socks. . .

Sarah knits, knits, knits . . . with Bailey (the dog)
in the background watching the weather outside

Conn the cat hung out with the ladies for the afternoon-- sometimes chasing the grape ball, sometimes inspecting our knitting bags, and sometimes scratching the furniture so that I would throw the ball for him again. After my friends left and the power went out for a little while, he assumed the same spot he had occupied before they arrived. Perhaps he stayed with us all afternoon because he just wanted his chair and cheerful, log cabin pillow back!

Knitting with Cats

I knew it. As soon as I returned home from assembling these two skeins of yarn onto two circular needles to make two socks at the same time, I knew Conn would want to check it out. He had better not mess this project up as he did by partially unraveling a finished dishcloth! Didn't I tell you he has a thing for the kitchen table-- and textiles? Twenty seconds of sitting and knitting, and he was there. No kidding.

Rowan has a thing for textiles, too. She took an afternoon nap on a new seat quilt while Conn investigated the knitting, and I carefully made sense of yarn and needles. This project promises some challenge and some fun-- especially if I have to keep putting the project down to take a few photos.

On the Kitchen Table

I was staging a photo shoot of some recent, mindless knitting projects (still waiting to be finished and severed from their balls), and I realized that the items on the kitchen table were a perfect representation of our lives right now: work, homework, meals, and a little knitting, playing, or reading. I haven't been blogging much lately because May is so busy with end of school activities both for work and for my own children. My portable knitting has followed me here and there for in between times, before times, and after times. The photos below reveal what I cropped out of the frame above.

This seed-stitch washcloth was started back at the end of April for my trip to Chicago. Notice that subsequent washcloths took on a basket weave stitch and bright colors to remind me of the coming summer. The seed-stitch felt a little slow, but the basket weave keeps me going-- just one more section. The gray cat appears on the kitchen table any time and every time it looks like people are about to be around-- homework, breakfast, blogging, photo shoot, dinner, etc.

"Am I in the way?" the furry beast asks. "Why don't you rub that spot behind my ears while you do your work. I'll try very hard not to chew that pencil, but remember I'm just a cat."

Science homework: "Ready to Eat: Omnivores, Carnivores, and Herbivores."

Cat, computer, knitting, homework, book (Gregor and Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins), and Maxis Dragonoid: now it's time to clear it all off and set the table for supper. What are we having? Better figure that out. . .

More Looking

Yesterday afternoon after our trip to LeFleur's Bluff, we had fun with binoculars closer to home in the front yard. Looking up into the trees against the gorgeous, blue sky, we spied a squirrel's nest. Two juvenile squirrels were wrestling on the branch outside of the nest until the parents started barking to warn them that we were all watching them. I brought out my mother's dusty binoculars.

If you look closely at the photo of the binoculars, you can see my reflection taking the photo. I like this image of lens to lens, so I may try to re-capture it in some better light and without the dust.

After the photo shoot, I settled in with some knitting on a blanket that was started last summer at the pool. The colors will go well with the little white and purple flowers starting to spring up in stretches of grass.

November Colors : 3

A new knitting project (to keep me warm when typing at the computer is cold work) and to take to a conference. . .

and

an observation about my Japanese maple: the leaves that reach through to receive more sunlight are turning from green to orange/red much faster than the leaves that stay in the shade closer to the house. I was thinking about this because my friend took a photo of a brilliantly red Japanese maple this morning, but mine doesn't usually turn red until the beginning of December.

I've been blogging for just over a year now, and I'm still looking at this tree (and others) and knitting.