Knitting Tea Party

Today was Knit In Public Day. The library hosted a get-together on the front lawn, and a lady from the yarn shop downtown came as well. (And handed out coupons. Evil woman. I saw everyone from our little group at the yarn shop right after the library thing was over!)

Our knitting group, Weekly Fiber, meets Saturday mornings at various coffee shops to chat and knit (or crochet or embroider or hand sew or whatever--mostly knit). We assumed this event would just be a "come set up your lawn chairs wherever and chat" kind of thing, so we decided to bring a table and chairs, and I brought my fancy antique tea cups, tea set, coffee pot, and cloth napkins. That way we could still get our usual caffeine fix! One lady also brought muffins and scones.


It ended up that the library had a display of knitting books, chairs, and an awning... on the other side of the tree where we had room to set up in the shade. We felt slightly anti-social, sitting apart, but we enjoyed ourselves, and several people came over to say hi.

Melissa, Ann, me

After a while, a woman and her just-out-of-college daughter joined us and enjoyed some tea and conversation. It was a lovely morning with perfect weather! We're all very glad we went.

***

Last week when I lived in the Luxury Tent for a couple of days, I got on a 1920's kick and researched fashion, shoes, hairstyles, makeup, food.... This website was a great help (and makes me really want to go to that event)! Then, of course, I decided to sew my own 20's dress. It wasn't just flappers! Very few women wore fringed dresses, headbands with feathers, and rolled down stockings. (There were no fishnets unless you were *gasp* in a burlesque show or similar.) However, long strings of beads were popular with everyone!

I liked the look of the boat-neck, kimono sleeve dresses, and rather than sew on trim, I wanted to do embroidery. I didn't use a pattern, just traced a t-shirt for the general shape, measured the length I wanted it to be, and made it a little extra big to begin with--it's easy to make things shorter, but rather harder to make them longer!


I had the dress mostly "built" in a day. Over the next few nights, I did the embroidery, starting out with the little flowers on the sash (which were pretty wonky, but it's not really noticeable), then doing the ones along the neckline and bottom hem.


The neck facing was the most fiddly bit. I ended up hand-stitching a little of it because I had to fudge it to make it work, but I think it turned out fine.


The skirt is in four panels: the front and back are flat and plain, and the two narrower panels at the hips are gathered. The embroidery pattern (which I made up) could be little four-petal flowers, like lilacs.


I call this dress the Lilac Garden Party Dress.

Hello again!

I haven't posted anything for nearly two months, and I can't think of anything much to say right now... so here's a little bit of an update.

There are two weeks left in the quarter. Ten days. Ten days left with a bunch of 13-year-olds who are slowly losing their minds as Christmas break approaches. Pray for us all, that we survive! And, more than that, that we actually learn some things, too.

For a number of reasons, some legitimate and some stupid, our finances are extra tight right now. Therefore, I am going to make most of our Christmas gifts this year. I was going to clean off my sewing/crafting table this weekend, but I watched movies and knit ALL DAY yesterday and ran errands and planned and graded for this week of school today, so it didn't get done. Maybe if I do it incrementally in the evenings this week, it'll be ready for crafting this weekend.

Matt has had a sore throat/sniffly nose/horrible-sounding cough for over a week now. Thank the Lord I haven't caught his cold! (I'll probably get hit the very last week of school.)

Oh, if anyone reads this on Facebook or through an RSS feed or something similar, I have a little widget in my sidebar of my "favorites" on etsy.com. If I see something cute that I like, I add it as a favorite so you, too, can see cute things! It's a fun website where people can sell their handmade items, and it's a lot of fun to poke around on. You can search by craft, key word, or even color! They also have lots of treasuries and collections of similar items (and the collections are put together by sellers, buyers, and people who work there), as well as interviews with artists and articles on a variety of topics. Check it out if you haven't!

It has hardly snowed here at all this winter, and, indeed, has been pretty pleasant all around! During the week of Thanksgiving, we had lows at -3 overnight and highs of about 15, but other than that, it's been sunny or a little cloudy and around 40-50 most days. This is fine with me, since it means I might be slightly less sick of winter than I usually am come February. It is always nice to have a white Christmas, though, and I'd be fine with another snow day this December like we had last year!

I am about to start book 8 of the Anne of Green Gables series. I re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right before we saw the movie. At school, I'm almost done with Inkspell. I'll probably read Voyage of the Dawn Treader for the 234th time before the movie comes out. I just started Edgar Sawtelle, though I might come back to it later as I'm not sure I'm in the mood for it right now. I'm going to start reading a kid-ified version of Treasure Island to my students, and might read the real version of it myself. I'm also thinking a little bit about reading the original Tarzan, just because. Thoughts? Suggestions?

What are your plans over Christmas break, if you get one? (Or even if you don't, you brave souls who are in retail or other professions who have to work Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, New Year's Day, etc. etc.) I plan to read a LOT, knit almost as much, and hopefully watch as much Doctor Who: Season 5 as possible. Oh, and SLEEP IN!

Jan. 6 Poem With Photographs

Handwarmers

1



2



3



for a fellow teacher's daughters.
(My first commission.)

Snips and slivers and
shavings of
white fluff-dust
tickling my nose--
all for pom-poms on a hat.




Sock shopping,
dollar bin digging;
I love Michael's.



Finally come home
to a fluffy, fuzzy fox face;
Frantic, frenetic hopping,
happy, high-spirited yips.

Hello again

Today is my Friday, sort of. I'm only in school two days this week (both schools) because of Thanksgiving break. It won't be too much of a break, but oh well. Wednesday I intend on catching up and (hopefully) even getting ahead in my NaNoWriMo novel. I'm at just over 36,000 words right now, and by the end of today I should be at 40,000, so I'm somewhat behind. (I did write a little over 6,000 words on Sunday, though, which was awesome!) Most of the story is trash and I don't think I'll do anything with it, but for the last week, it's at least been fun to write. I'm making new characters and my MC is seeing new places, and I always love writing description.

I've also been knitting a lot (not at the middle school, but in my college classes), and I currently have 6.3 pairs of wristwarmers knit up (but not sewn--bleh, don't like that part much). I'd like to sell them at the vintage store/art gallery downtown, but if they sit there for a long time and don't sell, maybe I'll open up my old Etsy store and see how they do there. They're all diferrent sizes, colors, and patterns, and by "patterns" I mean stitch patterns. I didn't actually use patterns for any of them, just invented them off the top of my head depending on what kind/color and how much yarn I had. Most of it is leftover little balls after I finished knitting socks, though some of it is from various other projects. All of them are at least partially wool, for warmth and because the shop doesn't seem like a place that caters to people who would like cheap acrylic.

Totally rambling now. After today, I have to be on (the college) campus four more days, and two of them are for finals. AUGHHHHHHHHHH! In a way, I'm really glad, but I'm also kind of freaking terrified. There's still a lot to do between now and then, but I'll get it done! As for the middle school, I have 15 more days, though of course not much will get done the last couple days before Christmas break. I have my last observation on the 9th, and I'm using the lesson plan I wrote for another class, so whew! One less thing to worry about.

Matt and I will be back in our hometown for Thanksgiving with my family, then we both work all weekend. Black Friday I'm working just over 9 hours, while Matt works 12. ICK. (But yay for him, he gets commission!) Then Saturday for both of us, and likely Sunday, too. Freakin retail. I'm glad we have jobs, but we will both be soooo glad when we don't have to go through this ridiculosity every holiday seaason.

So let's see, writing, school, knitting.... That about sums up my life these past few weeks! No promises, but I would like to post here more over my breaks. We'll see how that goes. (Need to work on a new header, too.)

8 Things Friday

1. I was going to say that this (8 Things Friday) seems to be one of the constants in my life lately, but that's not quite true. There are plenty of other constants, like school, work, laundry, school, grocery shopping, and school. Maybe a better word would be "habit" or "routine." I was posting a bit more often a little while back, but then life kept happening (and kept happening) so I'm back to once a week. Well, once a week is better than nothing. I don't know that I have enough stuff to post about more than once a week!

2. Since life keeps happening, I haven't been cooking much at all. Since we can't live off McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Panchero's, but I don't have time in the evenings to make a "real" dinner, we're reduced to packaged stuff. It's not much healthier than fast food (and believe me, my face is protesting in the form of zits, yuck), but it is cheaper. Still, I spent about $20 more on a week's groceries than I usually do. Packaged is cheaper than fast food, but more expensive than actually making it myself. *Sigh* Moving blows. When I'm not at work or doing school, I've been doing stuff for the new house. We need quotes on a new swamp cooler and kitchen countertops (the sellers aren't replacing either before we move in, but giving us a monetary stipend--or whatever it's called--off the price of the house to replace them ourselves), there's a lot of paperwork to do and read over, a lot of calls to make... I gotta delegate some of this to Matt. I want input on the counters, but he can get whatever the heck a/c he wants! I'm not fussed about how he handles the torn back door screen, either.

3. I guess this should be another number now. New house! Matt's dad did the inspection, and all was well (but for the things mentioned above, which we got sorted). We just paid a butt-load of money to have it appraised (seriously, why is it so much for a dude with a clipboard to walk around the house and write stuff down??), but since we paid first and last month's rent when we moved into this place, we only have a little bit of rent this month. (It's gone up since we moved in two and a half years ago, which is why we're paying some rent.) However, we will have to buy spackle and spackle stuff to patch the holes where we wall-mounted the TV, and we'll have to get the carpets shampooed by a professional. This all costs money! The good thing is I FINALLY got my Summer alottment (i.e. student loans--apparently we're "too rich" to qualify for government grants anymore) so that will help, too.

4. Pictures, you say?


The front; we're in the middle of a line of townhomes, in a sort of U-shaped area of townhomes. There's a little "park" area off to the left of this picture, between two of the buildings.


Front door opens onto the living room, and up the stairs. New Pergo floors! (They need a little patching up, but oh well.)


Dining area. Don't think we're going to keep our huge table and chair set; might get a little two-seater bar-type set, or something, eventually.


Look at the new stainless steel appliances! The built-in microwave! The glass-top stove of awesomeness!


Loft area upstairs where Matt's computer and stuff will go. The rooms are bathroom, bedroom, bedroom.


Out of my sewing room downstairs is the little backyard. Privacy fence, yay. Also waaaaay overgrown grass in some spots, and dead grass in others. We won't replant/fix/get flowers until next summer, since it will be August by the time we're settled in, and who the heck knows what the weather could be like at that point?

5. Other than house-buying, nothing exciting has been going on. My calves are finally about done being sore from last weekend. We moved our friends DOWN two flights of stairs, and UP one flight into the new place. OW OW OW. And, let's see... yup, very little news. Counting the days til the San Diego trip! So glad I have something to look forward to at the end of this month!

6. Did I say I was knitting a pink shawl? I am. It's 84 stitches wide, alternating stripes of seed stitch and garter (and the stripes are 12 stitches wide) so it's rather slow-going. There are also a BILLION little mistakes that are bugging the crap out of me, but I'm trying to let it go. When it's finished and on, with pretty fringe hanging from the short ends, no one will notice. But gosh dang it! I've thought about putting stitch markers between the stripes so I don't start doing the next pattern too soon or too late, but I don't think I have 6 of them! Usually I just use a little loop of knotted yarn, but I'd probably just knit those into the shawl on accident, so I'd need plastic ones. Just little circles. Hmm, maybe should make a trip to Michael's or something. I'm a skein and about a 6th into it, and I'm thinking it will take about 6 skeins total. I have a ways to go. If I remember, I'll put pics of the shawl up soonish.

7. I wrote most of this last night and then forgot to post it, so I'm going to rush through these last two in order to get it up while it's still Friday. I'll have to do some editing, I'm sure.

8. Can anyone think of a good way to display about 16 aprons, 8 or so vintage hats, and about 21 pair of vintage gloves? They're all going in my new sewing room! (For the aprons, I thought putting them on a "clothesline" on the wall would be cute, but I'm not sure about the hats and gloves. Gloves could go in a basket or box, and hats could hang on the wall, but that's not terribly interesting.)


The gloves and hats. The three pair of gloves separated on the left are the ones I'm not keeping. The rest, I need a place for.

8 Things Friday

1. Oh my gosh it's Friday again! How does this keep happening? It was Sunday, then suddenly Wednesday, now the week's almost over! I guess I've been busy enough that time is just zooming on by!

2. Which is good, because at the end of July (a month and a couple weeks away!) I'm flying to San Diego with Mom to visit my aunt and cousin for a whole week! You can see the ocean RIGHT THERE from her living room picture windows, so I'm sure we'll spend a couple days at the beach. Also shopping (maybe the swap meet), hanging out and watching movies, and maybe a touristy thing like the aquarium or something. I'm so excited!!!

3. School is going well. It's kind of a lot, but I'm getting used to it by now. Not this coming week, but the next week, we go in for our second face-to-face, i.e. three days on campus all day long. Then four weeks more, the last face-to-face, and I'm done with summer semester! The first day the teachers are on campus at the middle school where I'm student teaching is August 11th or 12th, and the kids get there on the 18th. Of course I'll be there with the teachers to set up and get things ready. I'm getting excited! (Can't remember if I said, but I've been placed in 7th grade. Wish me luck!)

4. We're looking at houses, finally, on Tuesday night. Not just driving around to see the neighborhoods and possibly peeking in windows, but having appointments and seeing inside and with a realtor! Woohoo! If they let us take pictures, I'd love to! Then I can share our favorites with you, as well as keep track for our own sake.

5. I saw the cutest bike ever tonight while I was driving! It was light blue but the fenders, the middle of the body, and the seat were patchwork! Literally painted patchwork like squares of cute vintage-looking calico! I WANT IT! (Matt said, "You didn't ride the last bike you had!" and I said, "But I would ride this one! And take it for walks and give it baths and feed it, I promise, pleeeeease?!") I'm sure it was super-expensive at some fancy bike shop, but holy crap! So cute! I could probably do something like that to a bike, someday, if I ever get a bike again.

6. Let's see, crafty news... I've been doing baby shower gifts, one per week, for the last three weeks! (Actually I still need to do Haley's blanket, but I'll do that Sunday.) So nothing new with the charm squares quilt I was doing, and I'm DONE with baby hats for now! (I have a good stockpile of them for future baby showers, too.) I'm knitting a really simple shawl out of a nice rose-pink, kind of heathered, wool yarn. Just Patons from Michael's, nothing fancy. It's seven "stripes" going vertically, alternating seed stitch and garter. Really simple, so it's good to do while watching movies or yakking at knit night. I also want to make a very simple (geeze, I'm all about simple crafting lately, I guess) dress or two from this pattern. It's more of a square neckline when it's on; I've made it before several times for Ren faire outfits, and once for a nightgown. I'll make the sleeves short and draw elastic through the ends so they kind of puff up a bit, and put a drawstring or sash under the bust for an empire shape. Maybe some trim or a ruffle at the bottom hem, about knee-length or slightly shorter. I have a light blue sheet (from Goodwill!) that would be great for that, and maybe a circle skirt or something too, and heaven knows enough other cottons I could use. It's just finding the time!!

7. The first Downtown Farmer's Market of the year was yesterday, and I worked til close (i.e. 9:45) so we didn't get to go. I'd really like to go this Thursday, though! The zucchinni should be starting to get good, ooh, and watermelons! Also it's nice to just walk around and listen to the music, since they usually have at least one live band/performer. Also: free samples! Yummm!

8.Come onnnnnnn, Summer! I'm done with this whole overcast, chilly-ish, sprinkling on and off crap. Be sunny! Be hot! I know I'll whine about being sweaty and all, but after the stupidly long Winter we had, and the weird, hot-then-freezing Spring, I'M READY!

Hair and Stuff

Tried something new the other day with my hair. I think it turned out kinda cute! I just washed it that morning and put it up in clips to sort-of dry, then did the rolls and put the rest in a side-ponytail that afternoon. Would've been cuter if the ponytail was a little curled, or at least not the usual bushy craziness it is right after washing, but oh well. (I did the same style for work the next day after sleeping in rag curlers; much better.) It actually stayed in pretty well, too, despite moving around a bit and being out in the wind a little. I think a combination of damp + spray gel works well to keep my hair in a style.




Whooosh!


Arty pose

One just for fun:



I wore this to Jen's baby shower (the one having twins), to which I brought these:



Both prints are 100% cotton. The green with ladybugs has solid yellow flannel backing, and the yellow with ladybugs has green solid flannel backing.



Hats I started when I first learned about all the pregnant ladies last winter. There are little leaves at the top; someone at the shower said to stick these hats on them, put them in orange, and call them pumpkins for Halloween!

I made great big calendars for June and July to keep track of my work schedules and Matt's, as well as school deadlines, trips, and holidays. I'm not referring to it a whole lot just yet, but I do like having both our work schedules in one place so we can plan things.

Third time in the space of a week that I've posted! Who knows where the insanity will stop??

8 Things Friday

1. Oh my goodness. Once again, it's been a week since my last post. I hate only posting once a week! I want to talk to you all more often than that and (hopefully) you want to hear from me more often! I just feel like I've barely had time to breathe this last week. Taking my online classes has been an adjustment, for one thing. When I'm at home and feel like I could/should be doing other things, I'm doing school work. I spent most of yesterday in the library, and that was great! I got a lot done, I was alone in my little area most of the time with free wireless so I could watch the videos with my headphones on, and text Matt now and then. It was just... a LOT of school. Secondly, whenever I'm not doing school or errands (grocery shopping, laundry, dropping off rent check, etc.) I'm at work! Though I've requested, after next week, to only close til 9:30 once or maaaaybe twice a week. Hopefully I'll work no later than 5 or 6 the rest of the days, then I can go home, make dinner and take a little break to eat it, then do school for a couple hours. And hopefully on my days off I can get a fair amount of school done, then relax the rest of the day. (Pshh. Yeah, we'll see how that works out.)

2. I've been down to totally decaf coffee the last couple weeks--one cup per morning--and today is my first day with no coffee and black tea instead. I've been sort of missing that little caffiene jolt first thing of the day, but since I eased off full-strength coffee slowly, I had no afternoon withdrawal headaches! And I'll still have coffee (decaf mostly, but regular when I need it for early meetings and such) occasionally. Eventually, I'm hoping to get "down" to some green and/or red tea, maybe white, because I do like drinking something hot and cozy in the mornings. Just green/red/white tea will be better for me!

3. Baby shower #2 is this Sunday! I need to run to Wal-Mart or somewhere and grab about 12 cloth diapers for a game (probably "guess the melted chocolate candy in the diaper") and then to give to the mommy because she's going to use cloth diapers. Also need to make HER babies' blankets (this is the one with twins) and finish the hats (need to do the leaf on top of one and weave the ends in on both). I only have a little four-hour shift tomorrow night, so I'll get that done in the morning.

4. I want to start walking again! It's summer and nice out in the mornings and evenings, and I miss it! (So does my aching back!) Again, I have some major time constraints, but I'm going to just say twice a week for a walk. If I can do that, I'll be happy, and if I can do more than twice a week, great! I also do want to start back up with my Wii Fit (once more because of my poor back and hips and legs). I'm going to say three times a week for that, though more would be awesome. Hopefully once my work schedule gets a little more reliable, that will be a possibility.

5. To help with all of this, I want to get a big sheet of posterboard and chop it into halves or maybe fourths, and make monthly calendars. One thing I keep wanting to do is have my work schedule and Matt's in one place so we can plan things. Also trips and holidays and such, and especially school work! I think if, at the beginning of each week, I sit down and figure out exactly what I have to do--how long the videos are, how much research and how much plain reading--I can break it up into managable two- to -three-hour chunks, and have it all laid out. Hoping to get that done tomorrow morning, too!

6. I don't want you to think that I'm super-overwhelmed with school, or that I'm getting discouraged. On the contrary! Here's part of an email I sent my mom a few days ago:

I'm just feeling like this is really where I want and need to be, FINALLY. THIS is what I'm supposed to do with my life. From my few days on campus in class, it sounds like a constant challenge. Yes, it will be stressful and frustrating at times, and I won't always know what to do or how to do it. But all my retail jobs have been, after about six months, "Okay, now I know everything there is to know about working at (store). Ummm, now what? I'm bored." So I quit and found a new job! With teaching, it won't be the same thing every day (to an extent--the schedule and the kids will be, but the material won't). It will be a constant challenge--and by challenge I guess I mean "brain exercise"--to plan lessons and grade papers and figure out what way of teaching and learning works best for what kids. I like leading, I like problem-solving. I like doing little extras (even at work now) to stand out and improve the place I'm at. I just feel completely at peace with this decision, and thank the Lord that things worked out the way they did. Yes, I cried all day when I didn't get accepted to grad school. Yes, I'm sick of retail. Yes, living in Denver/Ft. Collins/Boulder would have been fun and exciting and different. But I love where I live now, and I really think I will love being a middle school or high school English teacher.

So don't worry too much about me, okay? This will all be sooo worth it, and I'm so excited to learn everything and see everything this next year!

7. I watched Taken tonight and it was really good! But (very mild spoiler in the brackets, don't read if you're easily influenced by other people's views on things) {{it seemed to end really abruptly. Like action action action... it's over!}} But other than that, ooooh! I heart Liam Neeson, and the whole thing was very suspenseful and exciting.

8. I am watching some Gilmore Girls now to calm down. I'm on the first disc of Season 6; only one season left after this! :( However, I did just buy the first two seasons of The Tudors on a really good sale! So even though I borrowed Season One from a friend a while back, maybe I'll get into that again. And then Matt bought Season One of the original Star Trek series, and the bits and pieces I saw while he was watching it were somewhat amusing, if entirely ridiculous. (Apparently we're big fans of buying whole TV series on DVD.)