Focus

Took Friday for myself. Focused on small things.

Made sure I was eating foods I picked up at the Farmer's market as well as pantry/freezer food on hand. Made lovely avgolemono soup for lunch. Prepared a nice salad for supper and a quick pasta sauce of young onions, cilantro, and some lemon zest from the soup making to go with some local cheese ravioli in the freezer.

Decided my day off needed to focus on some knitting in progress. Finished the cowl I'd started on Wednesday.




I've been itching to tackle some yet-to-decide projects, and the patterns have been out and about. Put away patterns that could stand to return to their file drawer and figured I'd focus on other knitting in progress. Attacked the Pomatomus only to find I didn't have that pattern with the knitting. Must have migrated to work. Got as far as I could. Will look for the pattern a few days before printing it up again.


Picked up the spring striped socks which had already been cast on. Made fair progress. Paused at this point to tackle the other, as I'd decided these socks might manage to match, and if I tackle the same stretch twice, I'll retain the progress & choices more easily.

I have commencement duties this weekend. Decided not to go to the farmer's market today as I would have little cooking opportunity this weekend. Besides, there's enough at home. I can focus.

This is the weekend I flip my summer-to-summer list of finished knitting. Really want to cast on for something sizeable, and I don't know if my weekend will have enough time to finish much else that's currently on the needles. Still, for now I'll just stick with the focus plan.

Spring, if we squint

I made it to our first farmer's market day - a limited market, naturally. With a little Memorial Day domesticity, I found I had a nice little spring collection on my counter. The maple syrup is from Trader Joe's - the "lesser grade" deemed good for cooking is just the thing, I think. I rather like it as a standard table syrup. Reminds me of homemade: my uncle has a tradition of making his own maple syrup when the spring works for him. (He has quite the setup. I wish I lived near enough or were flexible with my schedule enough to go up and do the maple thing with him.)


At the farmer's market I picked up rhubarb and made a crumble straight away. This is now an ex crumble. It was particularly good. The 3 bunches of asparagus are now down to one. It's cool, today, and I think I'll be using up the rest in a small batch of asparagus avgolemono from the Moosewood Simple Suppers. I think that's the book in which I saw the recipe.

Spring cooking is a good break from reading mountains of papers.


So is startitis.


Dishcloths from yarn remnants.

Not sexy knitting, but I really needed breaks.


Yes, that many papers.

Elizabeth at Sable will soon despair of endless blog images of cowls, the next ubiquitous fingerless mitt. I promise to tackle something challenging soon.

This is Nova Seal's Birthday Cowl.

The yarn has more blue than I captured. I didn't permit myself time for better photography during my breaks from paper reading.

And on that note, with grades in, I go home to unplug for a day.
I hear it may rain - a perfect spring stay-in-and-knit day.
(Perhaps not a good day for more squinty photography.)

I may have the key to a warmer spring -

-- as I have just finished the at-home shawl for better desk-sitting comfort. You know how this goes. It's bound to turn warm, too warm for sitting around with a shawl. I'll get one night of use all the same: I do believe it will still be pretty cool here tonight.

Pattern was from Knitty - Spanish Dancer. I inadvertently skipped the first row of knitting after picking up stitches from the provisional cast off. Turns out to have been a fine thing after all.

RAN OUT of the Schoeller & Stahl Hobby Kids yarn in the last stretch of the ruffle. This is not any sort of a problem for a project that was supposed to be a stash buster. 10 skeins, zip, done. Used a strand of leftover Lanett red and a strand of Baby Ull pink to finish the last row, and then I cast off with just the pink. Both of these were conveniently also in the stash, so I'm feeling fairly smug about some successful use of yarn that's been sitting at home.



Never did get a photo of the Dream Swatch done back in March. Here it is, although the photo is perhaps a little darker. Clouds kept coming and going this morning - witness the two tones of pink above.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

I'm busy reading papers and exams.

In the spirit of these, I cheerfully cut and paste from the Internet, The Source of All Knowledge Inaccurately Quoted and Frequently Uncredited, a few quotes attributed to a notable playwright, poet, and wit.

The fact that several quotes appear in multiple versions either indicates that the man liked his material enough to use it often, or that we are soon to be subject to nothing but the vaguest degrees of accuracy in anything verbal.

To that end, I give you, without checking my sources:
Thoughts Suited For the End of a Term
- out of context -
from
Oscar Wilde.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
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I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
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I am not young enough to know everything.
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A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
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All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
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Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
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Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
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Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
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I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
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I am not young enough to know everything.
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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
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I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
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I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
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It is always the unreadable that occurs.
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The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

(Knitting progress shall resurface when I give myself permission to sneak knitting, photography, AND blogging into my breaks from reading papers.)

Suburban Park Cowl

It was still a little cold.
I had a day off.
I wanted a quick knit.
I don't live in Dolores Park.

Tuscany blocked, at last..............

This sat for months awaiting blocking.

Had to wait for other projects to be done so I could have a clear and guilt-free cutting table.

Conjoined Pastimes Soy silk:


The dress form shot:


The recipient was delighted.