A Finished 21st Birthday Scarf

A happy scarf for a happy birthday present:

I made this scarf using a half ounce of Habu silk mohair blend, and it's super soft. The recipient helped me pick the yarn, and she requested something simple but light and a little lacy. I knew, in theory, that knitting every row in a skinny mohair on larger needles (I went with US size 9) would create an open almost lacy effect, but I'd never done it before. Personally, I'm really happy with the results. I just hope the Birthday Girl is also pleased.

Below is a picture I took of the scarf when it was about half way done. As you can see, I used the new Knit Picks Options Needles, and I really liked them. They arrived, as a late birthday present from my father, on the day I was ready to cast on. Clearly, I was fated to use them because they even matched the yarn!


Knitting it went by in a flash, but I procrastinated a bit with the blocking. Really, I'm not super experienced when it comes to blocking my knitting, but I've read so many places about the benefits of blocking, particularly anything lacey, that I decide to make an attempt in the hopes that it opens, evens, and lengthens the scarf. But, as you can see, I haven't yet perfected my blocking setup.


Dan joked that I'd made a runway for the cat. Luckily, she stayed away from it after the first time I chased her off. Most of it was pinned to a towel on the kitchen table, but it was a little too long, so I tied one end to a chair. Dan observed that the process looks like I put my knitting on the rack. What do you think?


I know it's not the ideal way to block a scarf, but, if anything, it's a little cleaner and fresher now that it bathed and straightened up for the party tomorrow night. I'll try to get one final shot of the Birthday Girl in her clean new scarf to add to the blog this weekend.

Edited to add: Here's a picture of the Birthday Girl backdropped by a ridiculous amount of booze for her 21st. She seemed happy with the scarf, and wore it until she got worried about the possibility of an encounter between the scarf and the earlier mentioned booze.

Scarf Saga

Two years ago, my wonderful sister sent me a lovely bunch of soft, bulky alpaca yarn for my birthday. It was love at first sight, reigniting my knitting passion, something that had smoldered with lingering projects and little attention through my first year of graduate school. I immediately cast on for a new scarf. When I ran out of two of the colors before finishing my project, my sister was a great sport. She quickly mailed more of the required colors in the matching dye lot. When it was done, I loved my scarf.

Eventually I made a matching hat. For some reason, I had sharp pangs of desire for a hat with earflaps. I played with designs for a while, eventually making something up that I was happy with. I felt quite cozy and styling with my matching alpaca hat and scarf.


Then, last spring, tragedy struck: I left my scarf on the bus. I knew immediately and turned back, but the accordion door was already shut and the bus moved on. After many calls to the bus station and several visits to their lost and found, it was clear: a stranger had my scarf.

What to do? After a period of anger—at myself and the scarf thief—I decided that the only course of action left to me was to find more of the yarn, and to make another scarf. I mean, really—the hat simply wouldn't look so snappy without its mate. Now, that mission is almost complete.


In this picture you can see the two scarves I knit during the past week. One is a delicate silk and mohair scarf for a friend, and the other is my NEW scarf. Both need a little more attention before they are complete (ends to hide and blocking to be done), but I'm really happy with both. I'll post another picture of each when they're completely finished. In the mean time, I have a bunch of bits and partial skeins left of the alpaca yarn. I think another scarf, perhaps for a very nice sister, is in order.

My Recipe for a Fun Section Meeting

This started as a response to one of my fellow gradstudents when she displayed frustration with her students after they were unresponsive in an early morning section meeting. First I told her to make them dance and sing. Then I wrote this, but it became too long to just be a comment on her blog, so I decided it can be a post on mine.

OK. Here's a real suggestion for sections:

When students come in, tell them that they need to do a little writing and that you will collect it at the end of class (sometimes I use these to take role). Write instructions on the board:

1. Spend 4-5 minutes brainstorming themes from the readings.
2. Write down 3 "significant" or "memorable" details from the reading (with page references or quotes).
3. Then I usually end it with one more definition type question that relates to something they SHOULD know at this point, but many are still confused about (for example, in my Russian History class: "What's the difference between a peasant and a serf?").

After giving them enough time to do this stuff (I love watching them writing and thinking), make them share their themes as a big group. Write them on the board. If their really reluctant to share, make them go in a circle. Then make them get in small groups to share their details from the readings and talk about how they relate to the themes on the board. After they've had time to share, make each group report on what they talked about (Encourage them during this point with statements like: Did you come-up with similar details from the text? If not, were they related to similar themes? etc, etc.) Encourage other groups to ask questions of the group that is presenting. Then, after all groups have shared, make some nice transition statements to move them to the last question they had to write about. Make them turn to the person next to them and share their answers. Then, after they shared, ask them what the answer is. After they figure it out as a group, ask them why this is an important issue...

Then class time is probably up.

As you can imagine, there are many possible variations on this recipe for a section meeting.

.............

Oy, why did I write this? Now someone else has to tell me how to concentrate and be productive when I'm supposed to be reading student papers.

As for knitting, I'm done knitting both scarves, and now each just needs a little finishing so that they can be pretty. Pictures and finished object posts to come.

SCARF MADNESS

My little California beach town has very mild weather. The summers are sunny, but not hot. The winters are wet, but not freezing. Overall, mild. Yet, I insist that it has good scarf weather.

As a child of the North West, I am a devout follower of the layering school of dressing. Will it rain all day? Is that morning grey deceiving? Will we have sunshine, winds, or rainbows? Or maybe, all of the above? Here in costal central California, my heavy wool layers are not necessary, but my scarf is a must. Observe, for example, Halloween.


This town has Halloween festivities at least 20 times larger and more raucous than any other place I've lived. About half the population of the city converges on a one mile stretch of downtown. And although many of the revelers are scantily clad, don't let looks be deceiving: even here, nights are quite cold in late October.


This guy, and others dressed like him, must have been freezing. Me? I was fine—I wore a scarf.


Perhaps in reaction to witnessing all that shivering on Halloween, I have gone completely SCARF MAD. After less than a week, I have almost finished knitting two scarves, and I have plans to knit at least one more ASAP.


I took this picture yesterday at knitting group. More knitting progress has taken place since then.

Say it with me: "WE LOVE SCARVES!"

Favorites

The always charming creator of Friknits is soliciting fellow knitters to share their favorite finished objects. Upon reading her post I immediately wanted to join the fun, but I don't have pictures of many FOs on my blog. In fact, there's only one, and it was back in June. I guess that's what I get for knitting a blanket...

Anyway, I've never been good at ranking favorites. As a small child I remember being nervous if I had a favorite stuffed animal (what if it hurt the other animals' feelings?). Even now I abhor surveys where I have to rate things by numbers (How do you feel? 1-10), and I don't really believe in grading (even though I've been responsible for determining my students' grades for the past 3 years). It's not that I don't think some things are better than others; it's that people often don't discuss what characteristics they ascribe the most value to. Thus I want to clarify how I chose my "favorite." Was it be based on the yarn or pattern? Or, perhaps the utility or attractiveness of the finished item? Hmmm.

Here are the criteria for my "favorite":

1) difficulty of project and effort invested;
2) how much I learned while making it;
3) pride in finished results.

Without further ado:



I made this baby sweater and matching tam using a pattern from an old issue of Interweave Knits. My family sent pictures last winter after my little niece grew big enough to wear the outfit her aunt sent. I love these pictures (so cute!), but you can't see the sweater design too well. It crosses over in front and buttons on top of the shoulders. Plus, the pattern uses plain stockinet, ribbing, and seed stitch.


In one picture she looks like she's about to take a bite out of the hippo. It makes me smile. The ability to make people smile should also be on my list....

Ack!

I am discouraged and weary. Is there something wrong with me? Yesterday I was told that I haven't been doing enough when I comment on student papers.... It made me cry. I just don't know how I can do more.

No knitting to show you. I did finish seaming the baby sweater, but I didn't block it. Should I? Does it matter? Personally, I'm not sure.

OK. Time for some inspiration. This is Corrie:


I took the picture during knitting group a couple weeks ago. See the sweater she is wearing? She made it almost entirely using a pair of chopsticks. Yah, chopsticks. And the yarn for the sweater? Well, she got that from recycling a thrift store sweater. Inventive, creative, and resourceful--that's Corrie. Plus, she's completely humble about the whole thing. She said she made the sweater a few years ago when she was completely broke and desperate to knit.

See? Amazing things are completely possible.

Back to work.

The way of Yarn

I just want to point out that there are many people more obsessed than I am....


I saw this car as I was leaving my favorite coffee shop, and I couldn't help but snap a picture. I'm hoping the yarn-loving car owner doesn't mind that I'm posting this online.

As for my knitting, I am an awful procrastinator when it comes to the non-knitting finishing elements of projects. The baby sweater is still waiting for a bit of attention, and I just realized this morning that the fishes are almost done. . . . which means that soon I will have hours and hours of sewing and HUNDREDS of ends to hide (And, no, I am not exaggerating when I say "HUNDREDS". I will have over 200 fishes, each with two ends, plus any ends created in the sewing-up process. (Though, I have been imagining using fish ends to sew with, which might head off more end creation, but at the moment this is all purely theoretical.)).

An end hiding party is clearly in order. Anyone game? Perhaps we can watch Project Runway on DVD and drink tea?

Ends! You cannot defeat me! I WILL PREVAIL!

Socktoberfest, here I come!

The wind is blowing, the leaves are changing, and October is half over. Thus, Socktoberfest is also at its midpoint, and I have yet to make an entry about the festival of socks going on in knit-blog-land. Basically, as explained by Lolly, the sock party organizer, it's a month long celebration of sock knitting. Writing about Socktoberfest means revealing my sordid sock knitting past. Lucky for you, it's not a long history.

I am one of over 1800 participants in this year's Socktober festivities. Many of the participants are avid sock knitters, skilled in their craft and with fantastic socks flying off their needles. Me? Well, I'm not that much of a sock knitting girl. So far I only have one finished sock to my credit. But to my defense: it is a lace patterned knee-high. Sadly, it wants to fall down, and I am having a hard time bringing myself to finish its match. Unfaithfully, last spring I turned to a new sock project for solace:


Where did I get the pattern? Well, I wanted to try the toe-up method, so I used the tutorial on Knitty. Creating the toe was an exciting process, and then I started zipping around and around the foot. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make the heel from this direction. So I turned to my only book about knitting socks, Cat Bordi's Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. But there still remains one problem: I am using double pointed needles, not two circulars.


I know that experienced sock knitters can make conversions between sock patterns in their sleep, but I am not yet a member of that happy club. Sadly, the little purple sock, with its neat little rows of stitches, sat without attention or progress for the summer.

Happy for me, Socktoberfest is the perfect time to pickup my neglected sock. It is now getting the attention it deserves, and, maybe, I'll have another finished sock to be proud of by the end of the month. If only the two matched....


Oh, and I have a sweet new t-shirt, thanks to my fabulous sister. Other "knotty knitters" can purchase their own here.

Surprise

The scene last night:

It is evening, around 9:00. Dan and Amanda have just finished eating dinner and are resting for a few minutes before Amanda will go out and work some more. Both show signs of fatigue. There is a loud knock at the door. Dan and Amanda are briefly startled by the unexpected sound They exchange looks, and Amanda goes to reveal the identity of their nighttime visitor. She peeks through the window and then smiles as she quickly opens the door.

"It's Erin!" she announces with excitement.

----------------------

Erin is the fastest knitter I know and, most importantly, my dear friend. In fact, we met entirely through knitting. Over a year ago, I spent much of my summer indexing a book. One day I was working at a table outside a cafe (and a yarn store), and I saw a group of young people knitting and crocheting. When I was ready for a little break from indexing, I went over to the group to say hello. Erin immediately asked if I knit and invited me to join her group. The rest is, as they say, history. I became Erin's most loyal knitting group attendee, and we became good friends.

Currently, Erin is so busy that she doesn't come to knitting group, and I have sort of inherited its leadership. Not only does she have a fulltime job fighting mortgage fraud, she decided to go back to school for her MBA, and she is working at the CA Renaissance Fair on the weekends. She is amazingly driven, but no longer can make it to knitting on the weekends. I miss her, and was really happy to see her last night, if only for a few minutes. She stopped by to present me with a thoughtful birthday gift, which she hadn't had time to give to me on my birthday: a beaded necklace that she made herself.

Thank you, sweetie!


I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Erin for something else: this blog. You see, Erin inspired this blog. I became interested in writing a knitting blog after seeing hers. Although she is currently too busy to knit much (and thus there aren't many new entries), Erin's blog is a wonderful record of her creativity and productivity. Plus, when I expressed interest in starting my own knitting blog, she was full of encouragement and support (as she has been with all of my knitting adventures).

So Erin, thanks for everything. And remember: I'll keep the knitting group going, but I look forward to you coming back someday. Plus, you know you can always call me if you want a friend to knit with, study with, or talk with.

One list and some pictures

This was an action packed week, and I am about to start another. Unfortunately I don't really have time to describe it all for you, but here is a list of some of the things I learned:

• I love the zoo, and I love it even more when I have a camera that allows me to take about 250 shots. (Some of my favorites are scattered through this post.)
• Using a cable cast-on and elastic bind-off isn't hard and looks good.
• All the baby sweaters I knit look like they could be costumes from Star Trek. (Here are shots of the front and back of my newest almost finished project. Now I just have to sew the top seam, hide ends, and try a bit of blocking.)

• It doesn't matter how many times I explain something in an assignment if I am asking students to do something they haven't done before—many won't understand.
• Students need clear time limits and structure for small-group work, no matter how old they are.

• Responding to 20 student papers with detailed suggestions for revisions is time consuming.
• Panicking doesn't help—except maybe when it wakes me up early in the morning, thus allowing an additional hour to read student papers.

• It feels good to pass back 20 papers, each with personalized feedback and comments.
• I love my camera.
• I seem to actually enjoy teaching--even while I'm panicking.

I hope you learned something new this week too!

"Do no harm"

My students turned in their first assignment: a short essay offering a "portrait" of themselves as writers. Reading them, I find myself both fascinated and frustrated. Why? Well, I am extremely interested in my students' stories—one primary purpose of the assignment is for me to get to know them—but, so far, I haven't written any comments on the papers. I am hesitant to begin.

These essays are testaments to the diversity of students' perspectives on writing. Many talk about how they like freedom in writing. They enjoy free writing and wish they had time to keep a journal. Other students lament that they lack the creativity necessary to be a "good writer" and talk about how they prefer to stick to clear formulas for essay organization and development.

My students come from different social and cultural backgrounds. Many of them are bilingual (One talks in her paper about her frustration with juggling three languages—Spanish, Chinese, and English). They are interested in all sorts of subjects and have a variety of different majors—business, biochemistry, history, film, computer science, etc... After each essay I find myself with more questions.

Through my own experience working with student writers, and my experiences as a student, I know that teachers can have a striking impact on their students' writing practices. I keep thinking about my advisor's axiom for teaching writing: "The first rule is to do no harm."

It reminds me of knitting. I originally learned out of frustration with writing during my first year in college. Knitting offered clear progress. Something tangible. Substantial. Writing seemed illusive. I never knew when I was done, and everything could always be better. I hope that my students aren't driven to learn knitting for the same reasons I was.

Happy, happy...

What can I say? Here in the Birthday aftermath, things are looking pretty good: there was a lovely breakfast with lovely company; the butterflies subsided after my class (which went fine, thanks for the well-wishes); and the day ended with a festive evening of good friends, bowling, beer drinking, laughing, and delicious cake!

I even got some knitting related goodies:


Yes, that is a luxurious skein of 400 yards of soft, silky cashmere. (Oh, Holly! Thank you! You have such good taste in yarn!) The brilliant Sabrina found the beautiful embroidered bag on her recent trip to El Salvador. Although Sabrina herself doesn't enjoy the art of playing with sticks and string, she did have my knitting-obsessed ways in mind when buying the bag. (Thanks so much! It will be perfect for a knitting project and a book!)

Really, thank you to everyone who celebrated with me and made my entry into late-twenties lovely and memorable.

Of course, I am terribly silly. My exciting new camera (thanks to Dan, Niko, et al.) was in tow at the bowling ally, but I was so overwhelmed with the general revelries that I completely forgot about it until after the cake was eaten, the games were played, and my lovely friends were putting their shoes back on. Thus, no pictures. Oh well. Just imagine colorful shoes, big smiles, wacky bowling technique (2 of the players had never bowled before ever, and several of the rest of us, including myself, really have no technique to speak of), a few pitchers of beer, and a gorgeous strawberry cream cake.

One last note: goodbye dear borrowed camera. Thank you for putting all 1.3 of your mega pixels toward my bloging efforts. You are a trooper, duct tape and all.

Nerves

I am very nervous/excited/eager/hesitant about Monday. What happens on Monday? Well, that is the first day of my class. When I say that the class is mine, I mean that I am the instructor... the sole instructor. Thus, I am fully responsible for the class. I am nobody's assistant. I am in charge. This is both thrilling and a bit terrifying.

I feel significant pressure, in part, because this is where my life has been leading for many years. In high school many of my teachers predicted that I would teach someday. Since then I have had copious amounts of education and worked as a tutor, workshop provider, teaching assistant, and grader/reader. Yet, Monday will be different. I feel like now is when I'll find out if this is really what am supposed to do with my life.

Breath. Think calm thoughts.

How about knitting?

Well, I keep knitting fishes, and I'm afraid that anyone reading this blog is probably getting a bit bored with the fishes and starting to wonder if I am capable of making anything else.

(An aside: I spoke with my Dad on the phone yesterday, and he suggested that a fish obsession may run in the family. He used to have an aquarium cleaning business (when he was about my age?), and my sister's first word was "ish" meaning "fish," probably because my parents sat her in front of the aquarium to entertain her when she was very little.)

Perhaps, I will wrestle up some more original knitting content by combining the two themes of this blog entry: teaching and knitting.

I have taught many people how to knit. Here is one:


This is my friend Holly at our knitting group last weekend. (You can see the entryway to my favorite LYS, the Swift Stitch, in the background.) She is working on her second project: a knit-one, purl-one ribbed scarf that she started more months ago than she cares to admit. I taught her knitting basics last fall, and she quickly knit up a very pretty garter rib scarf. Unfortunately, her knitting was stalled when she cut off the tip of one of her fingers at work. Now, she has healed and returned to the project. I predict that she will be done knitting the scarf very soon.

I'm happy to teach anyone to knit who shows an interest. I've shown random women at parties. My 11-year-old brother picked it up from me in a snap (Cody is 12 now and leaves very sweet little comments on this blog). I taught one of my favorite baristas. I've shown classmates and coworkers. A couple of times I've helped students who approached me after class with knitting questions instead of history questions.

Maybe I should just breakout the yarn on Monday. Our first class could be a little knitting party. It will be my Birthday.

My name is Amanda, and I am a fish addict.

Behold the wonder that is 131 fishes!!! And yet, I must make more, MORE!!!


All I knit is fishes. The baby sweater stalled when I got my big new bag of fishy yarn. At this point I am so familiar with the pattern that fish just spring from my hands. I like to stack them up when I finish several of the same color. Dan caught me petting them. It's definitely addiction.

Happy Birthdays!

The many birthdays in my family this week make me think about all of the wonderful things there are to celebrate at each point in a person's life. Happy Birthday to:

My funny Apple Jack who turned 80 on Sunday!
My dear husband who is 34 today!
My sweet niece who will be 1 on Saturday!


Dan and I both found this little guy too cute to pass up, and we sent him as part of our package to little Katie.

What else am I celebrating?


A giant bag of yarn for me to knit into many, many little fishes! It's almost enough to make me forget that school starts next week, but not quite.

Cameras are (not) quitters!

Today I have sad news: The digital camera I am borrowing has quit cooperating.

I also have good news: I ordered myself a new camera for my very own! (Of course, I will happily share with Dan, but I am the most excited about it.)

Thus, it looks like this may be a pictureless blog for a few weeks (I didn't pay for extra quick shipping, so it may take a while for the camera to arrive)--unless, perchance, the camera decides to be friendly again, but I am skeptical. Apparently it can sense that it has been rejected because it stopped working right after I ordered the new camera. Thus, here I am with no ability to show you the little project I have been working on instead of fishes.

But wait... what's this?


The camera mysteriously took a picture when I was trying to demonstrate how it isn't working.... Apparently it's just trying to be contrary.

Yay! You do get to see my progress on the baby sweater! I am using the yarn I showed you a few weeks ago. Despite actually being the yarn called for in the pattern (a rare occurrence), I've been having gauge issues. I'm hoping that the final product will fit the newborn sweetie. The sweater's design is rather interesting: it's knit in one piece from side to side, the sleeves are picked up and knit, and then the garment is seamed across the top of the arms and shoulders. The whole thing is closed with a tie, a kind of variation on a kimono.

Soon I will buy more fish yarn--it's on sale. Fishy, fishy, fishy.

Knitting with Dan and Conan

This week Dan and I celebrated the seventh anniversary of our first kiss. We have been together for seven years... that's over one fourth of my life! What did we do on the day itself? Well, not much because Dan worked all day, and then I went on an evening odyssey to pick up my friend Kelly and her husband from the San Francisco Airport. So really, we spent little of the day together. We did, however enjoy a pleasant lunch with Conan of Cimmeria.


Dan and I try to have lunch together whenever possible. Normally this means that I pick him up from the hardware store where he works, and then we sit in the car next to the park or beach and eat whatever we have for lunch that day. After eating, we often read to each other. When he reads, I knit.

While Conan, with his barbarian ways, is a violent and ruthless icon for masculinity, reading Robert E. Howard's stories is very entertaining. (Dan and I both agree that the stories actually written by Howard are the best.) He depicts Conan's bloody, swashbuckling adventures very cinemagraphicly, and with a philosophical sensibility which takes you by surprise. While Howard's representations of women and "the races" make me cringe occasionally, they are a reflection of the racism and sexism of 1930s United States (and the 1960s when Howard's stories gained popularity), just as Conan's brutality is a reflection of the world he lives in.

Anyway, knitting with Dan and Conan gives me something to look forward to on workdays, and I look forward to many more years of knitting and reading with my sweetie!

Grey skies

Last night a random woman at the grocery store said I "look smart" and asked me how to spell the name of the town just east of where I live. I answered, but I don't know if I was right because I have a terrible weakness: a spelling deficiency.

Those of you who know me realize that I am not exaggerating when I say that I really do have terrible spelling problems, problems that are sometimes incongruous with other elements of my life. For example, before returning to school to pursue my PhD, I worked at a writing center for five years--that's correct, a girl who can't spell her way out of a paper bag helped college students refine their writing for five years. As a teaching assistant, my current source of financial support, my students correct my spelling on a regular basis. I have become very dependent on various "spell-check" devices, and I rarely have confidence in my ability to spot the difference between correctly and incorrectly spelled words.

Thus, today when beginning my blog, I didn't know if my title should be "Grey skies" or "Gray skies." Entering both into my word processing program didn't clarify the situation because both spell something, and the thesaurus function in my computer was also unhelpful. The entire time I had a hunch that "gray" is correct as a color, and "grey" is used in other situations such as "greyhound," etc. Yet, I needed to find confirmation.

After a bit of hunting, I made a discovery. According to Wikipedia's entry on variations in American and English spelling, the correct American way to spell the humble color follows my earlier hunch—gray. But, it is acceptable to follow the British spelling when one wants to attribute a positive aspect to the color, instead of dwelling on dull or negative connotations associated with "grayness."


And, although it is overcast at the beach today, I do not find it dull or depressing. I think it is lovely. As a child of the pacific northwest, I find grey skies homey and rather pleasant. Life would get boring if the sky were always blue. (Plus, when the skies are grey, there are less tourists crowding my little town.)

I want to proudly point out that I have 11 colors of fish at this point in my blanket (not all are in the picture below). Two of those colors are grey, and I like them. Grey fishes, and skies, are a source of joy in my life.

Red fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish

All I knit is fish. I have several really interesting projects waiting for some attention, but all I've done this week is make approximately two fish every day. (That is, all I've done as far as knitting is concerned. The grading and writing part of my life has been really busy lately.)


At the same time, aren't they sweet and clever? Look at the clever shaping which produces the fin. And the yarn is such a good, economic choice. It's Lion Brand Wool-Ease--which means that the resulting blanket will be machine washable, and I have been using coupons to buy a few skeins from the craftstore each of the past few months.


Even Niko approves of my thrifty yarn selection! But, it's a good thing that I'm not paying too much for the yarn, because it will take a lot to finish this thing. I currently have 70 finished fish, but the sweet hubby and I both agree that I will need at least twice that number to make a decent sized blanket for an adult sized person to snuggle with on the couch. I'm trying not to think about how many ends I will have to hide when I'm done...

Summer bounty

My summer has begun!

I'm already well into August, but it wasn't summer until now. Why? Because it didn't feel like it before now. I was busy, traveling etc, and until now I haven't had any time to just get down to work on all of my summer tasks (reading, preparing to teach, and working on my dissertation proposal, to name just a few).

The other thing about summer: I have time to go to the farmer's market!


I haven't been able to go to the local farmer's market for months because I had work conflicts during spring quarter, and then I left the country for over a month. Now, I have tasty locally grown nectarines, lemon cucumbers, the sweetest peppers ever, tiny squash, organic cilantro, and a gorgeous gigantic heirloom tomato! Now it tastes like summer.

I also have another kind of summer bounty: yarn!


Here are my new acquisitions for summer knitting. The lovely light blue is lace weight alpaca for the Icarus Shawl from the Summer 2006 volume of Interweave Knits. The light green is amazingly soft cotton yarn for a gift for my classmate's baby who is due in fall. For months I've had visions of making a nice little green sweater for her little sprout... and I can now realize my vision using this yarn which I found in Olympia, WA last week while I was there visiting family.

Oh, and here is a picture of my cat. She was very interested in what I was doing outside, and I couldn't help but take a picture of her watching me through the window.


Yay for summer!