A Few Knitting Photos

I finally have photos of my pinwheel sweater which I hope doesn't make me look like a walking bull's eye. I am wearing it to death because it's warm, funky, and soft. I no longer fear short row shaping, I can tell you that.

Here's the shell scarf I'm giving my sister for Christmas/Chanuka aka the Annual Gift Exchange. It's made of Ball and Skein either merino and silk or alpaca and silk. I've lost the label, but any way you fondle it, the yarn is softer than butter.
I also finished my second gecko, this one for a little friend of ours. It's almost too cute to send. It's from a Morehouse Merino pattern and is fairly mindless tv knitting. I learned how to make pockets from this project, though, so it's best not to zone out completely.

Time Flies and So Does the Snow

I can't believe it's November and I haven't posted since last spring. Time flies as they say. And what fun we had this summer and fall. We spent two weeks in paradise, also known as Perrydise, also known as Perry, Maine in late July. The weather was pretty bad, but we didn't care. We had a snug little cabin overlooking the water, complete with woodstove, which we fired up. The boys weren't as interested in dam building and rock skipping as they were last year. Instead they were into daredevil biking that involved pretty much freefalling down the biggest hill they could find. The trail started in the woods, then fell sharply into a field. They took advantage of gravity until my younger son wiped out in a spill worthy of wide world of sports "agony of defeat" footage. After that we biked more moderately.

I forgot to mention the birding in my original post (those of you reading this for the first time wouldn't know that). We had phenomenal birds here, including Nelson's saltmarsh sparrow, otherwise known as the hissing bird. Warblers were moving around in family groups (predominantly black throated green and redstarts), and there were irrupted finches including white winged crossbills. Shorebirds were just starting to arrive. We watched bald eagles several days (like having our own bald eagle channel). Also had various flycatchers, including alder. Highly recommend this spot for avid birders.

I love my new teaching job. I like working with GT students, I like the autonomy and flexibility of being on the road, I like helping other teachers, and I especially like being able to pee when I need to. It has given me a new lease on my professional life. It's not without challenges. I am not connected to a staff. Sometimes I feel like I don't know what's going on in the buildings. But mostly I don't care about those things and if lunch is quiet, I remind myself that I am not correcting bags of work every weekend. Shhh. I'm afraid someone will find out and make me start again.

We built a porch this fall, which I hoped to show you, but I'm having trouble uploading the picture. It was sort of a leap of faith that we plan to stay, at least for a season, to enjoy it. But we have a history of porch building and leaving. It's been the kiss of departure for two buildings now. Hopefully we'll be able to work things out so we can stay here a while longer. Work issues are what would uproot us. Vibing for good work for good pay.

Today we had noticeable snow flurries, bitter winds, and all in all midwinter conditions here, yet we haven't even had Thanksgiving! Where is the windmill when we could really profit from it? Winter snuck up so fast this year that I haven't done the usual boot sorting and snowpant purging that I usually do. Playing catch up now.

I have been knitting Morehouse Merino geckos for the boys. They are adorable and easy. Still working on a shell-patterned lace scarf from Barbara Walker's second stitch treasury. The yarn is merino-silk from Ball and Skein in Vermont. Lovely stuff. Itching to make another foliage hat out of my second ball of Malabrigo and/or a Center Square hat (both knitty patterns). I also finished the blessed pinwheel sweater, which I have been wearing to death. I ditched the pattern and had to cut and sew to make it work, but all in all it's not bad and I learned many valuable things. Among them are picot edgings, short row shaping, and to trust myself enough to freewheel something when it's not working. Not that this sweater will *ever* win any awards at the State Fair, but I like it. The yarn is buttery soft (though already pilling) and warm, lovely in lace and texture patterns, but the folks at Crystal Palace would be well advised to pull the pinwheel pattern.

And finally, one political note. I am, for once, proud of America. For once we have done the right thing and elected someone who I think is a good man with the right vision. I'm ashamed of Maine's latest bout of public racism, yet sadly not surprised. I have heard some sad things from my kids at school. They have no exposure to people of color here, especially in central Maine, and apparently no one to stand up and counter their misperceptions with tolerance. I guess I know what I need to do. But still I'm hopeful for the first time in eight years. So here's to new hope in the world and to peace in the new year.

Spring Madness

It's spring here in central Maine. I can tell by counting my black fly bites. That, and the birds are back. My happy little kingdom rings with birdsong pretty much all day. The bobolinks kick it off at first light, followed by savannah and song sparrows, and two warblers nesting like bookends at either end of the yard--a chestnut sided and a common yellowthroat. The sound of birds drifts from the woods beyond the cornfield to reach my driveway when I walk out with my coffee to greet the new day, a giant yet faint woodwind symphony. I have been out ogling these little buggers like mad--we have at least eight species of warbler on my road, plus my favorite fly catcher-- the great crested-- which among other things says, "weep, weep."

Then there are the screeching birds: the killdeer. They nest in the cornfield but raise the babies in our yard now--mostly. They play chicken with the traffic and dart back to the cornfield several times a day. My heart is in my throat as I watch them. I think the screeching birds lost one of their babies overnight. There were two, but we've seen only one all day. There's no evidence of roadkill so I have to assume something else got it. There are many, many predators here, something the screeching birds alerted us to last summer when they first moved in. All night long their alarms went off--loud enough to wake us up. We had to look out the window to see what imminent attack was coming. We didn't get much sleep.

My best new bird this year is alder flycatcher, seen from a canoe.

We have other bird problems too. In late June the farmer will hay the fields, which sadly belong to him and not us. Bye bye bobolink babies. All of you with hayfields out there, don't hitch up the mower til late July, OK? That way meadowlarks and bobolinks have a better chance of fledgling, living to return next spring, and ultimately escape extinction. Meadowlark populations are down 72 percent in the last 40 years, according to an Audubon study.

Like teachers everywhere, I'm hanging on by my fingernails for the end of school. Next year I'll be the elementary gifted and talented teacher in our district. I'm alternately thrilled and terrified. No more easy 6 mile commute. Now I'll run to all the elementary schools in the district. Excellent timing with $4/gallon gas prices (or whatever the immorally greedy oil companies get away with by then). On the other hand, no more classroom management, to which I say Hallelujah.

And to spring, I say hallelujah too. It was a long winter, a cruel April, and now I'm holding all of us together with duct tape.

Bird In Hand Posing as Oven Mitt?

The first mitten has come out a wee bit bigger than expected, even on size 2 needles. But pretty? Gosh it's pretty. Even though you can't see the flower motif around the cuff. My hubby, who has custody of the camera, took this photo. If I can pry the camera out of his briefcase, I'll take a better shot. Or better yet, take one of the second mitten in progress, in which I demonstrate how I learn from my mistakes.

Ah mistakes. When will I knit something flawlessly the first time? I somehow ended the rows of braid on the cuff smack in the middle of the back where it really shows. The thumb is wonky (too long, lumpy), and then there's the small--or should I say big?--size problem. Alas. This is not to be my perfect knit.

But I don't really care. They're so pretty.

Knitting has consumed me. I wake up in the morning and it's a toss up which comes first: coffee or my needles--at least on weekends. I guess as addictions go, it's fairly benign, at least if you don't add up the stash enhancement forays into Yardgoods. And at least I usually have something to show for myself afterwards. I knit in front of the TV. I knit in the car. I knit standing up at the dining room table when I really should be cleaning. As if cleaning should or could compete with knitting. I force myself to do schoolwork mostly so I can knit afterwards.

I joined Ravelry (I'm pinetreeknitter ) and spend an embarrassing amount of time searching out yarn, patterns, and knitting publications on the web. Time I could spend writing, which I keep saying I like to do. Funny how I'd rather knit than write. Writing takes thinking--and it's not like knitting doesn't, especially math, especially when I decide to wing it and make up my own baby socks and hat (this weekend's project), but somehow I manage not to put my butt in the chair to actually work on the bobolink story I keep saying I'm writing....I will, I swear. Maybe over February vacation. After I finish the Kate Gilbert Bird in Hand mittens.

You see, I've also been consumed by teaching. Teaching is one of those things that you can't just show up and do. You have to prepare the work. You have to assess it later. You have to keep track of too damned much stuff--who did their homework, who didn't, who understands the concepts, who doesn't, who I'm challenging, who needs a little hand-holding, whose relationship needs fostering, what administrative annoyances--like progress reports and report cards--need attention.

I plan units on spreadsheets now because otherwise I just never get to all the things I need to. This month we have to trade in our trusty old Dells for Macs. THAT won't cause any issues. Buried under all of that is why I got into teaching in the first place: to make school a better place for kids. To pass on a love of reading and writing. And most of all to pass on a lifelong thirst for learning. When you're in the middle of it, and it doesn't seem like it's going all that well, that you're not making the impact you think you should, it's hard to step back and know what effect you're really having. I swear it's the most bipolar experience a person with "normal" mental health can have.

Success can skate right up to you though. At the ice rink yesterday, a former student glided over to say hello, then her mom caught me up. Her daughter was completely prepared for middle school, she said, because of the writing I had done with her. It was the best kind of present a teacher could get, and one I badly needed. My so-called failures chase around inside my head as I try to fall asleep. If only I'd talked about leads before they took the writing prompt. I did back in November, but they forgot everything we practiced. If only I'd insisted they use a brainstorming format, then they'd have ideas and examples. I went to bed last night chewing on that. I woke up this morning with heartburn.

So thank God, at least one family thinks I know what I'm doing (and there are lots more than one--but when you're in a negative thought loop, that's all you notice. Why is it that the negative thoughts beat out the positives?)

So what have I been knitting you ask? There were the cunnin' pink slightly fuzzy cabled baby socks, and matching hat with a ruffled brim which I made for the custodian at school--well, for his baby. I wanted to learn how to make ruffles, so I read through a pattern for something else and modified it for my own nefarious purposes.

I straightened out the Taos pinwheel sweater too--figured out how to do the short rows so I really do have vertical sides to expand. I only had to rip it, I don't know, four times. But there it is waiting for a front.

Then there are the Bird in Hand mittens in dark purple and bright green. I'm using Cascade 220 which is lovely to work with and economical. I finally understand why it's such a crowd pleaser. I bet my husband is going to buy me a yarn swift and ball winder now that he's also experienced the pleasures of Cascade 220. He enjoyed figuring out how to drink beer while his outstretched arms were surrounded by wool.

When I finally clear out Taos and the mittens, I have mossy green alpaca/wool set aside for a Green Mountain Spinnery artisan's vest for my put-upon husband. He'll get it if he manages to keep his hat til spring.