wednesdays are for blogging?

I think I'm going to try to make a habit of writing here every Wednesday. It's my work-at-home day, which means I can actually make some time for it! So, what have I been up to lately? Well, I voted yesterday: Suffice it to say, I am NOT a happy camper today, despite the gorgeous…

Vahtralehed pattern, now available!

I finally had a chance to get a little bit caught up, and am now able to make good on my promise to release the pattern before the end of October, if only just barely! The name "Vahtralehed" comes from the Estonian for "maple leaves"; I wanted the title of the pattern to reflect the…

new beginnings

This is a time for new beginnings, at least if you're a person of the academic persuasion. In two days, I'll start teaching the writing class I've been preparing for over the summer. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous as all get-out...I still wonder why on earth they trust me to teach…

making up lost time

I've been knitting like a fiend the last couple of days, and have knit enough to reach the point where I realized, on the first time around, that I had 4 too many stitches in the body. My "break" (between the class I was teaching, and the pedagogy class I'm taking in preparation for the…

In Appreciation of Elizabeth Zimmermann

Today would be Elizabeth Zimmermann's 100th birthday. Like so many other knitters, I am indebted to her genius, and her willingness to teach, share, and encourage us to be fearless, thoughtful knitters. Her books were a primary source of information and inspiration when I began to embark on the process of knitting sweaters for myself.…

progressing.

Time just keeps marching forward, much faster than I'd like for it to. This week is the last week of the summer class I'm teaching, after which I'll have a very brief break before I start ramping things up for the writing course I'll be teaching Fall and Spring next year. So many of the…

le Tour, sans gansey?

For the last 3 years, I've participated in the Tour de France Knitalong, watching those amazing cyclists while working towards knitting ganseys. The gansey theme was at first completely accidental; I'd been wanting to learn how to construct a gansey, and figured that the Sampler Gansey from Beth Brown-Reinsel's fantastic book would make a nice…

things i am thinking about

Stimpy is very thoughtful (Photo of cat, to placate those who believe that ideally, all blog posts should contain photos. Of which group I would be a member.) I have a lot of knitting-type things on my mind, so I thought I'd do a bit of a brain-dump, because I also have a lot of…

progress report

I've ended up having so many active projects going on at once now, and it's a bit nuts. I really should try to be better about not starting (or re-starting, in some cases) a whole load of projects every time I get a break, because I wind up just feeling overwhelmed by it all, and…

too much!

Although I haven't been posting here in the last couple weeks, I've been taking advantage of having some time to relax, and have been crafting up a storm while I'm at it! Taking a cue from Ms. Frick, I'm going to catch y'all up on what I've been up to, in list-form. Thing the first:…

hooray!

I finished grading my stack of exam answers this morning, and have spent the rest of the day being a knitting fiend. There's still a bit more administrative work to be done before I'm totally done with my teaching duties this semester, but oh, how nice it feels to be (pretty much) done! I've made…

almost there.

The semester is almost over now. My students take their final exam on Thursday morning, and then there's the grading left to do, but I should be done with things just in time to celebrate the Solstice, which is nice. I could definitely use a break. I decided to take a brief break from work…

just a peek..

Artsy Fartsy Mitten Cuff Hello, I am a swatch ...at some of what I'm up to lately: reknitting my Estonian-style mittens, writing the pattern as I go, and swatching with some St-Denis Nordique, for a new yoked sweater design. I'm quite tied up on the teaching front at the moment, between the writing tutoring, the…

happy fall, y’all.

I figure today's as good a day as any to debut my newest sweater: I've tentatively named this design "Haapsalu Autumn", Haapsalu being the town in Estonia from which the nupp/lace motifs that inspired the maple leaf design came. Here are the details: Ravelry Project Page Pattern: My own, inspired by the Haapsalu style lace…

just a quick update

I don't have a whole lot to say, but since Thursdays are my "work at home" day, I actually have a chance to write on the blog, so I figured I'd take advantage of it. The semester is moving along at a steady clip, and I'm pretty much constantly on the edge (well, over the…