Still settling in!

 I am still getting our new house in order. I know, we moved back in March, but between school and traveling,  I haven't been able to get the kitchen or my crafts properly organized. However, at least the living room looks good, now that have our new sectional!

The house isn't the only thing that doesn't feel settled. I haven't figured out what my retirement life is going to look like. This is the time when I'd be easing back into teaching, but now the days are wide open. That is not a complaint! I just need some time to figure out how to structure my life. 

Between the transition and my travels, my knitting has been pretty basic this summer. For my travel knitting, I worked on fingerless mitts using Kristen Kapur's recipe. The color of this first pair is more of a pumpkin tone, and they are super soft because the yarn is MadTosh.

Pair No. 2 is a Knit Circus impressionist colorway, so they also feel very good on the hands. Both pairs are knit with fingering weight and are helping me do some stash-busting.

Now I've moved on to another completely mindless cowl: Kaleen, a Berroco pattern. I'm using the recommended yarn, Berroco Millefiori, so it's working out very predictably. 

You can see which yarn is the main color. The accent color is used every four rounds. Although the colors look different in the balls, they actually are blending together a bit too well. (Note: I wound the yarn into balls because the skeins they come in quickly turn into a tangled mess.)

The cowl is almost done, and I hope to start something more interesting this week. Or pick up the Forever Sweater, but that's for another post!

GAAK

 Back when I started blogging -- and I have no idea when that was because my old domain has disappeared -- there were two very active knitting bloggers from Australia. One of them blogged under the name of Rose Red, and she came up with GAAK -- Growth As A Knitter -- to describe those moments when you master something new.

In between unpacking boxes, I achieved GAAK. See if you can tell which fish was done before I'd mastered a new skill:

Look at the close-up:

The tail at the top is seamed incorrectly. So I watched a few videos before seaming the second one and I finally mastered the mattress stitch.  For some reason, this skill has eluded me -- until now!

I have a third fish on the needles because I realized I have a third student who is an avid angler. When I unpack my felt, I'll finish them all off with eyes. 

Keith is finishing a few things at the old house today because the realtor is taking photos tomorrow. The realtor expects it to sell easily, so I look forward to owning only one home sooner rather than later!

Gone Fishing

 Well, not really. I've never fished in my life, and I have no desire to do so. But a few of my students love to fish. So, at the end of the year I'll have three of these to gift to them:

It's the Fish Hat (Dead or Alive) from Knitty, published way back in 2008.

Now that all the big stuff has been moved into our new house, I've been able to do some knitting that requires attention. I figured that I better start now if I'm going to have three knit by mid-June.

The moving isn't quite done. Everyday we bring a carload of stuff over to the new house. I do the putting away while Keith goes back to the old house to clean. We hope to get it on the market in the next week or two.

I'm glad we grabbed this house. The market gets more insane by the day. According to Zillow, our old house has gained $10,000 in value in the last week. Yes, that's one week!

I got my second shot Thursday, and school starts on Monday. It hasn't been a very restful spring break -- but I can't imagine trying to move along with working!

Tomorrow Is Moving Day!

 When we bought our retirement house, the word was that high schools would not open before late April. Nope, we go back April 5. So here we are, moving as I prepare for going back to school -- once I am fully vaccinated.

Somehow I squeezed in a Zoom Passover Seder on Saturday night with the help of a few friends. We kept it small, which I really appreciated after suffering large Zooms for work every day.

I'm feeling a bit scattered, so here are some random thoughts. This came from my grandmother's apartment. She had more than a dozen of these figurines: Royal Copenhagen, Doulton, Lladro.

I desperately wanted this one for the obvious reasons. But as we downsize, I realized that I don't want any of these. At least one of my brothers does, so we'll be packing them carefully for mailing.

My grandmother spent hundreds of dollars on this one alone -- it's now worth about $35. Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't want these chotskies.

Apparently it's breeding time for turkeys. I've never seen them in full flirting condition.

I've moved all my knitting stuff to the new house except for the Adrift shawl

It's very mindless, which is perfect for this week!

The next time I blog, I'll be 2 miles west of here.

Long Slog

Right now everything feels like a long slog. We close on our house next week, so we are sorting, tossing, and packing -- never fun stuff! My union is in prolonged negotiations with the district to figure out how to reopen our schools.

And it turns out my latest sweater project is going to be a long slog, too. This is Porto.

It is a very loose-fitting pull-over knit out of a gorgeous Berroco non-wool yarn. The yarn is listed as DK, but it feels more like fingering. And the rounds get really long before you separate for the sleeves -- like more than 500 stitches! I think it will be worth it in the long run, but it's going to take a while.

My mitered-square blanket is another big project. I'm trying to figure out where to put colors for the last row. Then comes the long slog: the border!

In six to eight weeks, at least some of these issues will be resolved, for now I just have to take things a day at a time.