Time flies...

...whenever you are not watching it closely. So, what am I doing this summer besides hanging out?

(1) Getting back into working out. Not exercising for 7 months and then working out - it's hard and very tiring. Who knew? Yes, I am out of shape but I'm working on it.
(2) Taking care of various things - car repair, dental repair, doctor's visit, DMV stuff - etc. etc. all that stuff that I never have time to take care of during school.
(3) Completing classes for Masters. I have two more.

Yep, just a tad busy. Anyway, not been working on any posted projects lately as quite some time ago I decided that making felted slippers for gifts would be a Good Idea. 4 pair had to be done by the end of July - so well, that's what I've been doing when not taking care of the above stuff.  These are DONE except for sewing up and then throwing in the washer for the magic shrinking process.

Yay! Now I can go back to other projects instead of working on one more pair of slippers.

And... here they are! All done and pretty.

Who works at the post office anyway?

So today I come home to this:

What is the problem here you may ask. A box? Cool. Someone sending me something? Even more cool.

The problem is that this is a box that I shipped out from the Post Office yesterday. Why is it on my doorstep? I really don't know. My only guess at this point is that the Postal Employee who looked at this did not know the meaning of the words From and To. So, off the post office tomorrow...

However, Clapotis is coming along. I've been knitting on it every day. Yes, it is boring but the drop stitches make it all worth it. There is a lot more than there was last time but the Giant Ball of Yarn has not appreciably diminished. Thank goodness for my kitchen scale which assures me that yes, this ball is 2 oz lighter than it used to be.

Knitting Project Gone Awry

So, last week as I was working on the lace pattern shrug I've been putting together I realized that somehow I had cast on 32 stitches for the left sleeve and only 24 for the right. The shrug is worked in one piece and the sleeves are cast on dolman style. Of course, I only found the error when I was actually finished with the sleeve section. I thought of many different things I could do, but really that's an unfixable error so... the shrug is currently back to balls of yarn and I'll have to start over. Seriously Disgusted. HOW did I MISS THAT?

To console myself I turned this giant hank of yarn:

Into a giant ball of yarn (which took a while). I think guesstimating that there's about 1600 yards in this hank. So... to ease my pain I cast on for Clapotis. Because, hey, everyone else has one so I should have one too. I like it so far, and there's no sleeves to make me crazy and I've got plenty of yarn.

Why am I a teacher again?

This week was crazy at school because it's nice weather plus multi-cultural week which means all of the kids are bouncing off the walls and not thinking they have to do anything like learn, and especially not something hard, like learning math. Which is a problem cause I'm there to teach them. And, it looks like we're going to be under some re-structuring plan (which when it has been implemented at other sites, has not shown any IMPROVEMENT in test scores - so... why is it something that must be done to RAISE the scores?? I wonder.)

Also, started the next class towards my Master's which is Educational Law. Sounds like fun right? Not. I couldn't get the book for cheaper either, cause the edition that I need is a special edition only created for National University. But hey, they'll "give" me 50% if I want to sell it back to them. Sounds like a deal to me.

So, in the spirit of procrastination that I have down to a fine science I decided that working on various knitting projects was much more important.

I swatched for Heroine. I ended up with quite a large swatch because my stitch and row gauge is off. I think the Lamb's Pride Bulky is heavier than two strands of Cascade 220. I don't want to knit more tightly because in order to get a good felt, there needs to be space in between the fibers for the agitation needed, and the fabric I've got right now feels good. I also wanted to test out 1x1 rib because I don't know if I want those folded back sections in the front. This swatch ended up taking most of a skein. Good thing I've got a LOT of this yarn to play with!

I also spent quite a bit of time winding up a skein of laceweight that I'm going to use to make a wedding shawl for a good friend of mine. I'm planning to knit Muir. Winding this yarn turned into a challenge though. What is with the little bits? No, I didn't break it. So, apparently I have 1.60 ounces of laceweight and 0.15 ounces of random ends that they added into the skein to make weight. To add insult to injury, they didn't connect the ends in any way. Suddenly the end would appear, and then I'd have to hunt around in the skein for another end to start winding again. It might not have been so bad, but I managed to start from the crap end, so for a while there I was really wondering if I was going to end up with 50 little tiny balls of yarn. Finally, though  I hit the major portion and then I was much happier.

I also worked quite a bit on this basic shrug I'm putting together. I've got a diagonal V lace pattern going on. I have now found out that no matter how basic the lace pattern is I still have to pay attention, cause otherwise I end up with a lacy effect, but not necessarily the one I was going for. My autopilot brain has a different idea of where the holes should go apparently. I've done quite a bit of fixing along with knitting on this project.

So, I flatten it out and look at it this morning... (cue ominous music) and there is a hole where there's not supposed to be one. And not one row down or anything easy like that. No. It's 1/2 way down the fabric. HOW did it get there without me noticing? It's not like I haven't been checking and fixing errors along the way. I am looking at this nearly every row to make sure that I haven't yet again put a hole where it's not supposed to be.

So... what to do, what to do. I completely refuse to rip the whole thing back. That's at least 20 rows. No way.

So, I pull out the stitches until I can get to the hole and fix it. The thing is with a lace pattern, you can't just drop one stitch and then bring it back up. No. You have to get all of the associated k2togethers and Slip Knit Pass stitches too. I ended up with this messy looking stuff. Now I've got a diagonal ripped out section that I have to now recreate row by row.

I couldn't have done it if I didn't have the center back stitch as an anchor. Otherwise, I think I might have really had to take out the whole thing. It was a bit fiddly but finally..

Success!

And - I swear, I will check EVERY row to make sure that I haven't somehow messed up the pattern again.