Frog Pond

I like the Baktus. I like the yarn - CTH Eat your Veggies....and some leftover greens....and the play on words.

I dislike the curling. It's too small a scarf to carry it off.

I also dislike the foul wee beastie who took a chomp out of it.

I don't often re-knit. I will here.

Frog pond, ahoy.

And Done!

Projects in Pairs

Basting. Twin nieces off to college.

Done.

August Focus

So glad it is not a sweltering summer where I live.  Getting stuff DONE as a result.  Witness:  two quick baby sweaters for a double family baby shower.  

I finished them the day before the shower.  This hardly ever happens.

Must dash, though.  Two graduation / off to college quilts to finish.  Eep!

Summer Patchwork

Quiet, yes, but not absent industry.

Lost or Found

I used to lose a lot of things when I was a little girl.  I left stuff in buses, lost track of things, etc.  We knew the way to the local CTA lost and found.  

So I have tried as an adult to be pretty calm about losing stuff. I am not always successful.  Because I lose things amidst "stuff," I try to be better organized.  I try different strategies for routine.  I still lose stuff and I still fret.  Fretting has use - I do work on finding some of these lost things.  

Losing knitting?  I've lost three scarves in the past dozen years.  I've wished them well and have moved on.  I lost three knit socks in the laundry this winter. This is rough, particularly since the singletons don't make up a good fraternal pair amongst them.

I also seem to have lost time for knitting.  

Okay, that's false.  That's cousins to "Wow, you knit?  I wish I had time for that.". Better to say I lost my focus.  Or knitting mojo, as the cool kids put it.

But good news.  I've been working at getting rid of stuff.  I have used some of that knitting time for a nearly regular Sunday sewing routine this late winter. The knitting mojo is creeping back in, just as spring arrives.

This is ye olde honey cowl - using some 8 year old stash.  It will be a gift, so it will move out of here and open up one teeny tiny bit of space - a couple successes in one.

Working on things found.  Working too on letting go.

Beware Yesterday

Ides of March.  

Snow Again.

New Hat.

What Matters

Weeks can be a perplexing jumble.  This was one.  (Uh oh.  This didn't post correctly last week.  Retry)

Colleagues at work, waiting for tenure promotion news learned answers that prompted congratulations here and sympathetic condolence there.  Those are their stories, not mine, but it's reflective of the emotional highs and lows that seem to be sweeping that community.  

I'm really focusing on the immediate work, because of that larger swirl of energy in my work community.  Loving student engagement now, in all sort of ways.  Only occasionally playing Dorothy Parker (if you can't say anything nice....) in the larger workplace, but needing to avoid really plunging into the work or the angst of the larger politics and structural thing.

And then I spent an excellent day observing in a high school.  And I spent a fortune on car repairs (combo of cyclical maintenance, needed headlight, and an under the car whack from wintry pothole/ice/something that left a sound like whirling screws in a blender.

And then.  Call from mother, slipped on ice, broken wrist.  She was one of over a hundred such ice-provoked falls/breaks in the emergency room that day.

And then.  Had finally gotten to mail room to pick up package of generous gifting from the Stash and Burn podcast folks and their year long knit along of a Use it or Lose it variety.

Beautiful Peacock colored hand dyed yarn from Baah!  - 400 yards of it.  May be too lovely for socks.  I spy neckwear.

And Nicole made a project bag to go with it.  And there's a cute podcast logo button.  And an excellent looking circular needle, size three, super lightweight.  And a sample of Eucalan Wrapture.

So.  (I break all the grammar rules.). It has been a week, what?  

What matters is being thankful.  

My mom will have surgery but didn't break hip or head.  Her spirits are good.  (ETA- later prognosis, no surgery!! Yay!)

Jobs are good, and enjoying the core of the work makes it better.  Most grateful.  (Being able to pay for the car repair also fortunate.)

Extra direct thanks to the Stash and Burn podcast hosts and to their splendid vendors. ( I will come back to this to fix links to things when I can. ) ( triple thanks apologies.  This should have been posted over week ago.  Oh technology!)

What's the Deal, February?

Yeah, so I was busy.  Blogging dwindles in knitting land.  Knitting grew sluggish in jpknitsland.

It's okay.  Holidays were lovely.  2013 went away.  January was FULL.  There was a one week roadtrip with mama driving the minibus.  We've had too much winter, all of us.  I had a three week cold, and I slept a lot for a change and tried to take care of myself.  I had a great class and we played hard.  Lots of smiles and laughs.

And.  Yet.

There was a little knitting.  Random Gift Knitting Just Because.

I did slip, of course, despite a very good start. Started in November, this was the ONLY holiday knitting I was really going to do.  Stash yarn, check.  Existing pattern info (Lace Rib Scarf stitch pattern from Mason Dixon blog), check.  Knitting done on December 24.  Found buttons to use from deep stash.  (I worked in a fabric store way back.)

Whoops.  Went from having three cards of buttons to two, which meant four buttons and not six.
Whoops.  Shopping for buttons, eventually.  Four deep stash buttons go back to the button boxes.
Whoops. Not done in December.  Button sewing today.

Gave, Giftee-smiling, Gone.

But how DID it get to be the end of the first week of February?!?

Cool

Evidently my technology had been withholding a post. This is also evidence of how busy I have been that I only noticed - or remembered? - today.

Still, it was a fall post.  I mention sock weather!

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

I finished the wedding present.

Not cool:  The photos are crummy.  I cannot find the camera.

However, back to cool?  I am trying to have a super healthy autumn.  I am eating ten million vegetables.  Fun with a CSA share. And it is cool enough for soup.

Also cool?

It is cool enough to put on a pair of wool socks.

Facts

 1. My freezer had too many "I'll remember" containers.

 2. Everything is labelled now. I thawed and repackaged a couple soups. I combined a couple "for soup stock" items.

3. I didn't have too much waste to pitch.

4. When my mother comes to visit she will be pleased with the soup offerings. It's our fall and winter visit routine. I am almost too busy, she schedules lots of visits with friends, and we visit over soup late and oatmeal early.

4. The socks I had been knitting (if by knitting you understand neglecting) were just not to gauge ad would have been a tight nightmare at the instep.

5. Cheered by that bit of freezer tending, I frogged the socks in progress.

Friday Rituals on a Textile Blog?

 I was just here last week.  This is fairly shocking.

 

Friday:  Featuring One of those Famous Finished Objects

Yep.  Table runner.  Covering the full seating deck of a love-seat.  Decidedly big for table runner traditions, but who cares.

 

Funny how the blues and yellows in those greens are hightened by digital photog on a grey day.

Quarter circles were stitched by hand.  Squares were stitched by machine.  Judicious machine quilting shadows some of the curved paths.

Bound in time for the wedding.  Whee!

Who Hoppen?

That was how my grandpa would say it.

What Happened Here? What Happened to You? It's Not A Big Crisis, Really, right?   All summed up in Who Hoppen.

Not writing on the blog for over a month? Not A Big Crisis, Really.  Colleagues and friends are having some real crises lately, so it's hard to find much wrong in just being tired at the end of a week. 

I've been living by lists, so here are some samples of evidence that life has progressed Chez Textiles with Not Much Crisis:

1. That I am sitting at my desk on dinner break, getting ready to go into an evening of work on a day that started work at 9:00, on a Friday at that, and in a sentence this long?   Proof I'm working hard.   (I have work I like, in the main.  Not too shabby.)

2. That I am sitting at my desk on dinner break, having polished off the rest of salad left from lunch, moving on to last of the leek and roasted veggie leftover soup I made Saturday, sparing you the list of all the veggies I ate today, (morning noon and night)? Proof I continue to tackle the weekly CSA box of vegetables.

3. That I tried on accidentally a pair of pants I should have pitched some time ago for lack of fitting, and that the pants could actually meet (although with force) at the waist, and that this was heretofore NOT happening at ALL? Proof I am eating really quite healthily with this CSA OMG TOO MANY VEGETABLES plan.  (Meanwhile, the pants weren't quite comfortable.  I'll check back in with them in a month.)

4. That I managed to talk myself out of just calling Jimmy John's and finishing some of this week's packed dinner and lunch supply in the work fridge, having yet a choice of broccoli slaw or red cabbage, grated carrot and roasted beets salad for my third course, if I want it? Proof I am enjoying my cooking adventures. They just have to start, feature, and finish vegetables. Also proof that the aforementioned pair of pants are inspiration.  Gives one hope and stamina.

5. That I have neglected my knitting but had a costume non-drama with the last production - done on time, no late nights? Proof I am REALLY working at being extra productive and efficient, and I'm enjoying some of the payoff.   Because face it, I'm not really as productive and efficient as I want to be, but I need to shush the monkey on my back.

6. That I have cider, both fresh apple and bottled alcoholic kinds, in the fridge at home for some actual weekend time not AT work? Proof I am still TRYING to keep from going nuts, and I have plans to weekend.

7. That I have sewing stacked up at home, several projects deep, and this doesn't bother me at all because when I hit the weekend I make PROGRESS on them? Proof I don't really think working on sewing and knitting projects as a way of taking a break is TOO nuts.   Especially because I'm making PROGRESS.

8. That I finished another sewing project - quilted table runner, though it is large enough to be considered on steroids? I'm moving stash AND UFO's.

So that's life from the No Big Crisis perspective.  The crap at work and the sighs about family stuff can't come out to play.  When Grandpa asked "Who Hoppen?" in that silly gruff voice with a fake furrowed brow over the twinkle in the eye, we girls would giggle in spite of ourselves. 

Dinner break is over.  
Happy to have work I like.  
Happy to be well-fed.  
Happy I get to sleep in a little tomorrow.

Hope your weekend has some simple pleasures and No Big Crisis.
 

Journey

Road trip

Conference

Visits

Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North, Virginia near the Cumberland Gap. A couple additional hurry-throughs.

A little knitting.
A little reading.
A little breathing.

Nice to do some things on the summer list as well as to follow a few impulses.

Impulsively threw some slipper knitting into the car.  Wasn't in the summer stash knitting list, but definite stash knitting all the same.  This was a full skein of Noro Kureyon from a years-forgotten impulse purchase.  Have to guess which second skein will yield a sisterly slipper mate.  Then on to more slippers for three sisters and their mama, my wise friend Liesl.

I have unpacked halfway, swept and mopped.  Need to get cranking and leave for the day, but I wanted the bathroom floor to dry.  Time to plan the rest of today's productive reentry into life and work and summer's end.

Hope your summer journeys are fruitful.

Steamy Summer O' Stash

Happy to have a good reason to make and take a quick baby quilt along for a visit to one of my knit camp friends.

Curiously non-babe colors in the juvenile print fabric my sister passed from her stash to mine.  The maroon print in the center sported some of the same colors as the animal filled backing.  Found some neglected 5x5 squares, the right amount of batting, and voila!  Two days, though rightly could have been a one day project.

Lunch with visiting and knitting leads to completion of October birthday gift.  

Am elbow deep in a couple quilt tops, 14 placemats, and a table runner.   Very steamy day, though.  May have to take some of the latter and go find a table in an air conditioned location for some basting time.

What was that about summer of stash?  I'm determined to finish that table runner and the holiday placemats.  Stash, UFO, call them what you will, they shall be finished.  And leave.

Quilt one - some stash, along with a little new acquisition because all two of next year's grads listed turquoise in lists of favorite colors.  That was the picture from the prior post.  Did I mention that there are four high school grads next spring?  I am on a mission.

Quilt two surprised me today.  Those neglected 5x5 squares I hauled out of storage?  The remainder are now 4-patches.  Culling out some unwanted stash as I move along to put in large alternating shadow blocks.  It will go to church for the young people's quilt making project for charity.  Last summer I  stitched up several from the coordinator's prepped fabric bundles for volunteers.  This summer I am determined to donate some stash as well as sewing to the effort.  The kids start out the year tying some quilts. Later they move into the rest of the process and do some start to finish.  It seems to work well for them to get a start with some prepared tops.

It feels like Progress, though today seems slow moving.  I think I will take another shower and move on to some air conditioned productivity.  

Vacation?

Why yes, it is!

Anniversary FO

My mom gave me a number of my grandmother's UFO's.  Among them was a repair project.  At their wedding, my aunt and uncle had received an afghan made by the groom's sister.  Years of good use and little boys toes and perhaps a couple outdoor cats napping inside in the winter window sun had resulted in some damaged squares.

My grandmother had the afghan to see if the rest of the squares could be resewn into a lap throw.  The mission moved on to me.  No rush, my mother said.  

This past week I realized there was a 35th  anniversary to mark.  Well.

Five damaged squares removed.  An end row removed for reconfiguring.  Some border crochet undone at one end.

Voila.  Three days.  

It's anniversary day, and it's going in the mail.

A Fourth of July Morning

How nice it is to be sitting at my mother's kitchen table, looking at cookbooks, drinking iced coffee from a silly glass.  I've worked past the halfway point on my nephew's scarf replacement.  October birthday package nearly prepped!

Breakfast was lovely, too. Local berries.  Yum.  Definitely a cereal morning.

I'm going back to doing some garage scraping and priming.  Call me strange - and you'd not be the first - but this makes for a lovely 4th of July morning!

Another From The Basket Of Partly Done

These bags of hand piecing have been in progress for many years:

I finished last week.  Meanwhile, I am redirecting the project.

There was a plan for 8 columns of six - a wall hanging.  I haven't been able to recreate the actual plan - never did make a schematic.

I regrouped and came up with a plan.  Wedding gift table runner.  

Ready for backing and quilting. 

And I'm even ahead - the wedding is September!