Winter Break!

Winter break is here! And it feels great, even though it will be busy. I am frantically baking cookies and working on decluttering. Keith and I have looked at two houses in the past couple weeks, and they are selling very fast. So we need to get our house in order!

I finished the mitts I designed in Isaac's honor, and I need to write a note and drop them off for his mom. Writing that note will be the hardest thing I do during break

I do have some good news. My mom is recovering from Covid. It is a slow recovery, but 4 weeks after she got sick she is able to go to the grocery store. She is very tired and has some other symptoms, but it looks like she'll be OK.

I finished Rachel's mittens. They are simple, but very squishy and warm.

With the leftover yarn, I was able to make a matching hat.

We have been having pretty mild winter weather with high's in the 30s, so at least I can get out and walk with my buddies. Keith was able to bike 26 miles last week, which brings his yearly total to 7,000 miles. Impressive, huh? And it is cold enough for me to wear my hand-knits:

The cats are definitely in winter break mode:

Like all sane people, we are planning on a quiet Christmas with just the two of us. I will deliver plates of cookies on the 24th, but that's as close as I'll get to family and friends. It's a small price to pay for staying alive!

No News Is Good News

 I have news, and none of it is good.

My phone rang at 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, and I knew what that meant. My mom had had a Covid test the previous day. Yep, she is positive, and it's been very rough. My brothers found out that UW-Madison was administering a monoclonal antibody infusion and they got her in the very next day!

But she has been feeling terrible. She was in the ER earlier this week, where they discovered a blood clot in her lungs. She is on Eliquis now and still feeling awful. She has just about every risk factor there is, so we are very worried.

She lives in the independent living section of a retirement community, which is terrible for this situation. Her community is filled with Covid, and I have a heart condition, so we can't go in. We hired a company to send a nursing aide every day, but they are so short-staffed that they don't make it every day.

Then I got a call from my principal on Wednesday. "I have really bad news about a former student, she said. A student I had been very close to going back to 8th grade, had died unexpectedly on Tuesday at the age of 19.

My heart is broken. Isaac lived in my neighborhood so we've stayed in touch. The first time I met him in 8th grade, he said, "No teacher has ever liked me, and you won't either." Of course, I fell in love right then and there. I cannot imagine how his parents are getting through this. He was an only child, and he had an amazingly close relationship with his mom -- who is also a special ed teacher and who worked at a middle school with me.

Because I don't know what to do with my grief, I designed a unisex mitt in Isaac's honor. His mom is very active in outdoor sports, so the first pair goes to her.

Then there is the Republican legislature in Wisconsin, which wants teachers back in school in January -- no matter how bad community spread is. We are counting on the Democratic governor to veto this bill. The GOP does not have enough members to override a veto. 

It is a dark time. 

Cooking & Knitting

 To make up for two nights of parent-teacher conferences, I have the day off, so I am alternating between cooking and knitting. 

I'm doing a socially distant potluck with friends. We are each going to make a couple dishes and package them up for the six participating households. Then we'll meet at the Arboretum, exchange food, take a walk, and regather later via Zoom to eat. I think it will be fun. 

I started a pair of mittens for my daughter, but the cuff turned out horribly large. I should have read the Ravelry comments first because there are some issues with the pattern. Besides, I don't enjoy doing corrugated rib. I'm very slow at it.

So I frogged the mitten and chose a simple slip-stitch pattern. Now I'm flying along.

This very warm and squishy, so I think it'll work.

As always, Kola keeps us smiling. Apparently she wants to quilt:

Wishing you all the happiest and safest of Thanksgivings!

All About Knitting

 I am not going to whine about my job in this post (though, I certainly have enough material to do so!). This week, I had a knitting victory: I finished a sweater that actually fits me! All my previous attempts were on the small side.

It's on the big side, but it works for this layering piece. I also think I'm going to add buttons so it hangs more evenly. It has i-cord edging, which was easy to do, but very hard to join in pattern. This is the first seamed sweater I've knit, and I have to admit that the first side I seamed is a bit wonky.

The yarn is buttery soft Shepherd's Wool. It is 100% wool and 0% itch. However, like most soft yarns, it pills. I'm OK with that, since I can't tolerate most wools. I only take it off to sleep because I am so in love with it!

The pattern is the Adult Modular Cardigan. I'm linking the pattern here because it's really hard to find on Ravelry: Adult Modular Cardigan Jacket.

I've already picked out my next sweater: Porto, made with Berroco Medina, which has no wool.

The stashing could get pretty bad around here. Sunset Yarn just opened its doors a half mile from my house. It is in the cutest building:

It is absolutely adorable inside, too, but it's not like I can really hang out in there at this point. It's Madison's only yarn shop at the moment, so I hope she makes it through the pandemic. Plus, the owner is super nice.

Fortunately, I needed yarn. My daughter wants a pair of gray mittens, and I didn't have anything appropriate in my stash, so I picked up some Rowan worsted

Moving from Miami to Denver is a big change. I know her hands get cold, so I'm making her stranded mittens. 

Sadly, I will be working much of the weekend. But I do need to find some time for those mittens!

It's All About Covid These Days

 Let's get the complaining out of the way first. This has to be the worst time in history to be a special ed teacher. Betsy DeVos waived requirements for regular ed, but not special ed. As a result, the federal and state bureaucrats have developed mountains of extra paperwork. It's truly overwhelming and accounts for my blogging lapse. At least I have company in the "office."

A sane person would cut back the time she spends with students, but I just can't do that. Half my caseload is freshmen this year, and they need support! I even worked this morning -- and I never work on the weekends.

Wisconsin is Ground Zero for Covid, so we are sheltering place, even though the state legislature and courts won't let the governor issue an order. That means lots of knitting time. The next time you see this, it will be a sweater:

I seamed the sides -- my first seaming project -- during a Zoom bat mitzvah yesterday. They are not perfect. I don't care. The sweater fits me and is cozy. It just needs an icord edging now.

We do go the grocery store. I've been going to a Mexican grocery that is owned by parents of one of my students. It's the only way we can communicate, given my Spanish and their English. Along the way, I've developed a passion for Mexican junk food:

Bubu Lubu may be a silly name, but they are addictive! And the Emperador cookies are pretty darn good, too!

I expect November to be my most challenging month for work because I have 5 IEP meetings (with all the paperwork that goes with them!), so I won't be checking in with all of you as much as I'd like. Oh, and then there's the A-bomb of paperwork which was dumped on us Wednesday. But this too will pass!

Published in todays NYT!

 Last Sunday, the New York Times put out a call for sketches to be published in today's print edition's At Home section. I was so thrilled to see this made the cut:

I'm sending a copy of the original because it's much bigger and clearer than the version in the paper.

It's a small victory -- but still, pretty darn cool!

Finishes on Friday

I'm pleased with this mitered-square blanket. I made up the pattern to use up the colored yarn, which is the now-discontinued Julia yarn by Kristen Nicholas. The gray is that workhorse: Cascade 220. I crocheted the edges, which is a new skill for me. It's a bit wonky.

I know I should block it, but it's cold and rainy here, so I'm just going to start using it!

I finished my second coffee-cup mini-quilt. I think that having two cups is more satisfactory, 

What do you think?

I finally finished a sketch I started a month ago, when it was warm enough to draw outside. This is a gorgeous house on Lake Monona.

 And here is a very special finish I'm looking forward to:

 I eat one candy bar on the 1st and 15th of every month. When this is empty, the school year will be over! 

And since it's Friday, here's a feline. Kola enjoying HBO's "Succession" with me

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 Just a quickie. I'm working on another coffee cup mini-quilt:

Keith doesn't like the gray background (the last quilt had a very colorful background) but I think this could work.

Some Happy Things

  As winter hovers, we Midwesterners are eking out every outdoor activity we can. My Urban Sketching group met at the UW Arboretum on Sunday. My sketch is the ugly one. I can't seem to get the hang of trees.

I'll sure miss seeing these folks over the winter.

I finished a project that is making me happy. 

Of course, it is: It's a coffee-themed mini quilt. The background is from cotton scraps left on my cutting board from a throw I'm quilting. The cup is felted wool, and the "steam" is made from beads.

I am also happy with these mitts that will be making their way to my daughter in Denver.

The pattern is Align Mitts. It's free and well-written. I zipped through these with a Madtosh speckled yarn.

And there are some good things about working from home. Sometimes I have company while I'm teaching:

She slept all through a Biology class!

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!