Unravelled Wednesday

First the knitting: If you look closely, you can see that I've begun to knit the right front of the Einstein Coat. I'm enjoying all this garter stitch. VERY relaxing!

BTW, a skein of Cascade Ecological is very large:

I'm finally starting on a pair of mittens for Rachel. It's going to take me all year to knit the beautiful Songbird Mittens. The pattern isn't that difficult, but there are lots of long floats, and I'm very slow at catching those. 

I've been on an English mystery journey for the last four months. I fell in love with the BBC Shetland mystery series Shetland a year ago. The series is based on books by British writer Ann Cleeves. So I read her other series, the Vera Stanhope novels. Then I read all the Shetland books, and I just finished the last one:

So, I can tell you that the books are better than the TV shows. All the books are worth reading, though I am partial to the Shetland series.

 That said, the Shetland series is worth watching. Each book is an entire season, so you get an in-depth story. I personally do not like the Vera TV series. Each book gets 3 episodes, so the stories are stripped down. Also, there are a million seasons and only 6 books, so it's an entirely different animal.

Joining up with Kat for Unravelled Wednesday.

 

Sweater Weather

 I will admit to being a fan of the Upper Midwest. I've spent most of my life here, but I also lived in Pittsburgh and Annapolis. I did like both of those places -- especially Pittsburgh -- but I'm a Wisconsin girl. And if there is one time of year that this is a glorious place to live, it's early October, when the colors are changing, the temperature is mild, and the mosquitos are gone.

I've been biking a lot and just enjoying our lovely tree-line streets:

It's also the perfect time to start a sweater. I put a lot of thought into this one as I've knit a few that were too small. I avoided raglan-sleeves because they don't work well with my broad shoulders. I landed on the Adult Modular Cardigan and went up a size. It's a layering piece, so I'm OK with it being on the big side.

It starts with the back: a simple garter-stitch rectangle and a huge mitered square. So far, it's going well.

Something that's not going so well in Wisconsin is the virus:

That big dark blob encompasses Green Bay and Door County. Madison is in a less-terrible color -- but still pretty bad. I've heard that Door County became jammed with tourists who didn't believe in masks. So Vicki, please be careful!

The upside to lots of Covid is that I expect to be able to continue teaching virtually. I hate teaching virtually (who doesn't?) but it is far better than dying. However, things in Madison are quite discouraging. A few weeks after teachers signed their 2020-21-year contracts in June, which included small raises, the school board cut our raises. I'm pretty sure that's illegal and that we will eventually get our tiny raises, but it is quite disheartening to have our pay cut (and the amount we pay toward our health insurance doubled!) when teaching is harder than ever.

If you were able to retire before Covid, thank your lucky stars! 

Every Weekend Should Last Three Days

 It has been a quiet but lovely Labor Day weekend. Some socially distanced gatherings with friends, phone chats with those who are farther away. But a lot of it looked like this:

Just me and Kola hanging out. Yes, she often maintains the oddest positions. My pain levels were up and my sleep was scanty, so it was nice to relax. Students attend school for the first day tomorrow, so I need to be ready to go in the morning. 

I finished the handwork on my summer quilt, and I'm not 100% happy with it. All the fabric was hand dyed or painted by me. And I think it's pretty obvious that it is hand-quilted in the Kantha style.

But I do like the appliqued leaves, so for lack of a better name, I called it Leafing.

I picked up the Brennivin cardigan I started a year ago. I'll try to get a photo, but at this point it's just a big blue-gray blob. It's knit from the bottom up and then separated for the sleeves. I like this design, but you do end up with a big blob in the middle of the process.

I hope your holiday weekend turned out to be what you wanted.

Loving Summer

Even though I went into school yesterday and worked for a full day, I am just loving summer. Just being able to get up and savor coffee and craft in the morning is a luxury that I treasure. I hate having to be at work before 8 a.m.  I'd love a job that didn't start until 9, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

We've had some spectacular sunny days. Last Saturday, I took advantage of one by going sketching twice. In the morning I sketched with some friends at a park near my house, where I worked on a tree. I need some lessons in foliage!

In the afternoon, another sketcher and I drove out to a county park to paint the ruins of an old farmhouse. You can judge for yourself how well I did.

And here is my rendering:

It was both fun and hard to capture the stones and the angles. My friend gave me some advise on doing foliage, and I think it helped.

Also, I realized that I put up an old photo of my Fullerton Cardigan. Here is a more recent one.

Almost done!

What I've Learned in the Past Week

1. It is amazing how much more knitting I can get done when I'm not working full time! (See sweater below.)

Flowers from my sweet Mom.

2. Any surgery than involves anesthesia is exhausting.

3. You can't hurry healing. In fact, it's the opposite: You have to slow down to heal. This is a challenge for some of us.

This is the body of a cardigan. More in future posts.

4. Knitting is the absolute best thing to do when you're recuperating, especially mindless stockinette.

Another hat in my effort to stash-bust.

5. You should not check your email when you are sick leave. You just end up working for free. Ask me how I know!