Sort Of Spring

It was 36 degrees when I set out on my bike for Urban Sketching this morning. That seems awfully cold for the very end of April. At least I'd remembered to cover my ears, and the cold air turned out to be quite pleasant.

We sketched at a cafe along one of Madison's four lakes, and most of us drew the folksinger who was providing live music. Not my favorite drawing, but not bad for practicing. I told him we were competing to do his next album cover.

It's always fun to see what everyone else has drawn.

Work is getting busy as the end of the year approaches, so there hasn't been a lot of knitting. I did finish the first Magnolia sock.

Here is a close-up so you can see the pattern a little better.

There are crosses (cables involving only two stitches) and cables with four stitches. I do fine on the cables, but a good number of the crosses are in the wrong direction. I will confess to being a fudgy knitter. I think the color changes hide the errors. Besides, these are for me. I'm going to live with the mistakes.

Do you fix ALL your mistakes?

Starts

At long last, spring has arrived here. After all, it's only late April! I was able to take a spin on my favorite vehicle this weekend:

I have to say that it was a bit rough and I need to build up some strength -- but it felt good to be out riding in the sunshine.

I've gotten a good start on the second pattern in the Secret Sock Society run by Helen Stewart. Magnolia is a beautiful pattern:

Once again, I'm using a yarn from Great Lakes Tweed and I love it. However, it's a little busy for such a detailed pattern:

Even so, it's very pretty and I'm going to keep going on this pair. I can always knit a second pair in a different yarn!

I hope you have a wonderful week. Mine is starting out with jury duty!

More Hats

 I had enough yarn left over from my last Fair Isle hat to make a second one. I designed the pattern for this one:

I'm not sure I like it better than the original. You can compare them below. I'd love to hear your thoughts -- yes, constructive criticism is welcome. Mine has more detail, but I think these colors worked better in a simpler design.

And I finished After the Fall. It's a good beach-type read about a group of people on a private plane that crashes.]I think it's out in paperback, and it would be a good vacation novel.

I hope your week is going smoothly. Snow is falling here as I type, with 5 to 7 inches expected. The snow will probably end by 1 a.m., so it's unlikely I'll get a snow day tomorrow. That's probably for the best. I have a lot of work to do before the end of the school year.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

If you read a few blogs, you've seen this adorable handmade card over the last few days:

Yes, it is the handwork of Deb. If you don't know Deb, you can meet her here. In addition to writing a great blog, Deb might be the most generous crafter out there. She is a master of soapmaking, and she gives away her amazing wares:

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Look at that loot! From top left, there are lotion bars (which I use constantly), soaps, lip balm, and facial soap. You cannot buy soaps like these! And I mean that literally: These are superior to any commercial soap out there. Effective, gentle and perfectly scented. And beautiful:

A huge thank you to you, Deb, for your incredible generosity. You are so talented -- and so kind to share your creations.

That was the good. Here is the bad:

Fair Isle is so much fun to knit, but then there are all those ends to weave in. Not so much fun.

And then there's the ugly. Yesterday, my MIL and I took a class at a local fabric store to learn how to free motion quilt. I'm really glad to start learning this skill, but my first attempt is not beautiful.

My MIL, a lifetime seamstress who sews most of her own wardrobe and all my FIL's shirts, took to it right away. And we both learned that quilter's gloves are not optional. Neither is practice!

Also ugly: snow in mid-April. The roads are snow-covered ice. We were able to have breakfast with my parents, but I can't see going out a second time.

Quick Book Reviews

 It's been a while since I reported on my reading, so here we go...

I finally got around to reading A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, and it holds up to its reputation. A good solid read, entertaining, well-written. Not too light -- but not too ponderous either. The characters are wonderful. It's about an irritable middle-aged man whose life is changed when a young couple with two children moves into his neighborhood.

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If you like this, you should try Beartown by the same author. It is darker and more complex, but still has that wonderful writing style.

Zadie Smith bursted on the the literary scene in 2003 with White Teeth, which I loved. It's the story of two middle-aged Englishmen in London who make unlikely friends. It doesn't sound that great when I put it like that, but it really is.

NW sounds so good. It follows four young people of color in London who take very different paths. The writing is experimental -- stream of consciousness, fragmentary, and often frustrating. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to appreciate this one. I finished it, but I'm not sure it was a good use of my reading time.

I'm about halfway through Before the Fall by Noah Hawley, about a group of people who are flying on a private plane that mysteriously drops into the North Atlantic.

It's quite good reading, though not a literary masterpiece. It keeps me turning the pages -- which is exactly what I was looking for!

Sunday Start and Finish

 So, here we are in the middle of winter -- wait! It's April 8! How can the high temps be in the 30's? Not fair! However, I suppose it is good weather for hat knitting. It only took me four days to knit a Crazy Color Hat:

I've started a second one, only I'm designing the colorwork section just for fun. The colored yarn is Ewetopia DK, and it is divine. The gray is MadTosh Charcoal.

And I cast on the second sock in the Secret Sock Society from Helen Stewart. It was 2 inches long when I realized I had made far too many mistakes, so this is how it looks now:

This pattern has lots of cables, which is both great and scary. Great because I need to get better at them and scary because (as rediscovered today) I am terrible at doing them correctly.

Has anyone else noticed that weekdays are longer than Saturday and Sunday?

Like a Ton Bricks

The re-entry to work has hit me like a ton of bricks.  So much to do and only one quarter left before summer! So, excuse me for falling behind on blog-reading.

I'm still working at reducing my stash through hat-knitting. (If you are related to me, guess what you are getting for Hanukkah or Christmas!)

I've begun Alaska in Knit Circus yarn:

The Crazy Color Hat will soon be eating up some Ewetopia mini-skeins. It's not too exciting with just the brim:

I have to admit to being a tad tired of ribbing!

During spring break, I found some books at the library about making folk-style art. I've aways shied away from this style because it requires symmetry. But with some directions, it turns out not to be too difficult. Also, my symmetry isn't exact.

I'm thinking about scanning it into my computer and turning it into textile art.

I did get some organizing done in my craft room during break. Turns out I need to provide storage for cats:

Only two days until the weekend!

I Guess This Is OK

 I have a long list of things I was going to accomplish over spring break. Very little of it is checked off. Part of the reason is that I'm still experiencing side effects from my treatment. But I also think I'm suffering from plain old work burn out.

I've been nibbling away at projects, like this Toboggan Run hat:

 It's part of my stash-busting efforts. All I know about the yarn is that it's been in my stash for a long time, it's worsted, and it's very soft. It might be Dream in Color, but that's just a guess.

I've taken some nice walks to a coffee shop, where I've drawn my latte, a habit of Liz Steel. Steel is a well-known Urban Sketcher, and I just finished her online watercolor class, which I loved. It gave me the confidence to start using watercolor all the time.

 One of our last assignments in the watercolor class was to paint cupcakes. This was a fun one!

Somehow I resisted eating any of the cupcakes, though I did gobble down the macaroons!

Passover starts tomorrow night, and I promised to bring all sorts of food. Then my oven died yesterday. I guess I'll have to invite myself to someone's kitchen later today to finish my contributions!

Love Vacation; Miss the Kids

I can't lie: I am totally ready for Spring Break, even though my main activity is going to be decluttering my house. Certainly there will be time for things like this Barley Light hat in unidentified stash yarn:

I do miss our students, though. I have worked with some amazing young people over the years. As a special ed teacher, I am limited by law in what I can say about our students. But today I can share with you one of the most joyful humans I have ever encountered:

I was Stephon's case manager when he was in 8th grade, and it was a pleasure. Stephon is just a happy person. He is also crazy about dragons. Back in 8th grade, he drew them constantly. The best way to get him to do schoolwork was to promise drawing time when the work was complete. When he moved into high school, he started building dragons out of pipe cleaners and clay. And now he has a one-man show at our school art gallery.

I can share this with you because Stephon went public with his art and his special status in a local newspaper. You can read more about him here.

It is no secret that this is a challenging time to be a teacher; however, it is truly and honor to work with teen-agers, to get to know them, and (I hope!) help them a little bit along the way.

On Socks

What is it about socks that grabs so many knitters? After all, as my husband never gets tired of pointing out: "You can buy three pairs for $9.99 at Farm and Fleet." And yet, many of us would rather pay $20 or more for yarn and then devote dozens of hours to produce a single pair.

A pair of plan vanilla socks pops with KnitCircus yarn.

I know what got me started: a skein of Opal sock yarn with specks of bright colors against a background of white. It became my first pair of socks (which I think my mother still wears) or, more accurately, my first pair of fingering-weight socks. Before taking on fingering-weight and size 1 needles, I practiced by knitting a handful of pairs in worsted weight -- a method I highly recommend.

These are Keith's Hanukkah socks. He rarely wears them because they are "too pretty" to wear, he says.

Once I knit up that Opal yarn, I was never again without at least one pair of socks on the needles. I swear I could knit a pair of plain stockinette socks in my sleep. They've become my go-to project for meetings and other settings that require simple knitting.

My Winter Rose socks in Great Lakes Tweed yarn.

But my favorite pairs tend to incorporate lace, and one of the best lace socks I've knit are these orange ones, Winter Rose by Helen Stewart. This pattern is downright meditative. I know I'll knit these again.

I am quite rigid about how I knit socks, though I'd like to branch out. At this point, I only knit cuff-down and I always use a heel flap/gusset construction. And I like DPNs. This summer I really want to learn toe-up on one long circular needle.

These are my current "meetings" socks. I bought the yarn on clearance, not realizing that it would knit up so well. They are Hermoine's Everyday Socks, which is beginning to be my plain vanilla. I just love the texture of this pattern.

The only bad thing I can say about sock knitting is that it tends to lead to sock-yarn stash explosion. It's so easy to buy "just one skein." It's amazing how fast those skeins accumulate. I suspect they multiply in the dark of a Rubbermaid bin because there is no way that I bought that much sock yarn.

I have quite a few pairs in my sock drawer, and I love giving socks as gifts. But at the rate I'm knitting them, I may need to make more friends to expand my sock-giving!