A Finished Object

In the name of trying to post more often, I decided to get something of a parade of finished objects on the blog. My productivity as been deeply enhanced by the fact that I have been commuting about 4 hours roundtrip on the train lately, listening to things on my ipod. So, to begin the parade, a multidirectional scarf.




Embarrassingly enough, I do not remember most of the specs on this project, just that the worsted weight wool was purchased at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival and the project was knit on number 7 needles.

One very satisfying piece of the story of this scarf: it is for my friend RG and I had hoped to have it done in time to give it to her when I saw her in early January. No such luck, because of my hand surgery, but I did show it to her--all 1 1/2 triangles of it. She looked at the colors and the pattern and said, "Oh, you know me so well."

Introducing da Vinci

Since I last posted, I have acquired not one, but 2 spinning wheels. I am away from home right now, and so I cannot post pictures of my large Saxony style wheel, but this is my Majacraft Little Gem. I have named the Little Gem da Vinci, not so much because I hope to be a spinning genius but because I think the wheel looks like a drawing out of a da Vinci sketchbook. Here she is:



Please note the little shoe removing bug to her side. That item is one of my favorite things in my parents house,

I wanted a very particular type of wood for my wheel and since I was ordering sight unseen, this turned out to be a bit of a pain in the butt to achieve. (My wheel dealer was a saint and if anyone ever wants to order a Majacraft, let me know and I will pass on her name!) As a result, below, see pictures of the BEAUTIFUL grain on this wheel!




And one more shot, just for good measure:

It's been a while

for which I am very sorry.

In the month since my last post, I have passed my dissertation proposal; gone home for Thanksgiving; graded a set of papers, had surgery on my right hand (and therefore spent a week in a cast, some time on vicodin, and been kind of useless); written, proctored, and graded a final; thrown a cookie party; attended a party; had some tough friend stuff; taken a class with Greta; and bought a loom.

This evening, I have attempted to finish my final grades, pack the car for a 16 hour drive, prepare my home to be away for 2 months, and figure out what I need for two months. I also gave a knitting lesson, had 4 friends stop by, and am working on burning a copy of Middlemarch for the drive. (Many thanks to my friend JD's fabulous husband M for teaching me how to do that last item.) In 9 hours, I leave home for 2 months and my house is not ready for me to go. Sigh. Why is it always like this?

8 Things

The other day, I tagged StacyVerb and she tagged me back, so here goes:

8 TV Shows that I Watch:
Since my TV does not talk to the outside world, this is a bit more of an 8 TV shows that I love and Netflix/own combined with radio shows that I listen to.

1) MASH
2) Gilmore Girls
3) X Files
4) West Wing
5) Big Love
6) Fresh Air
7) Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
8) This American Life

I should note that for the ones above and from here on out: the numbers mean nothing, other than that I don't want to have to keep counting how many I have listed and I am too lazy to go back and delete them.


8 Favorite Restaurants

1) Legal Seafood
2) The Summer Shack
3) Mezza
4) Darwin's
5) Monk's
6) Emma's Pizzeria
7) The Brickstore
8) Palate
(And a few dearly loved places from my home town: Claire's Corner Copia, Town Pizza, Modern Pizza, and Antonio's)

8 Favorite Singers/Bands
okay, this I flat out can't do as 8....

1) Dave Carter and Tracy Grammar (and Tracy in her solo career)
2) Dar Williams
3) REM
4) The Nields (and Nerissa and Katryna Nields in their Duo career)
5) Alison Krauss and Union Station
6) The Beatles
7) Chris Smither
8) Joni Mitchell
9) The Magnetic Fields
10) Belle and Sebastian
(but there is that entire love of people like Madonna and the Kinks as well)

8 Books that I Have Read Recently (and, I have added, that do not have to do with my field of study)

1) The Centaur in the Garden
2) Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish
3) The Emperor's Children
4) Lost in Translation (there are many--this is the one by Eva Hoffman)
5) Where Memories Lie
6) The Sabbathday River
7) The New Year
8) The Queen's Fool

8 Things that Happened Yesterday (It is 12:03 AM Eastern Standard and I am being a literalist.)

1) I went to a farmer's market with ARD and bought purple cauliflower.
2) I went to lunch with Stacy, Brooke, Payton, Celesta, and Ally.
3) I went to my first Handspinner's Guild Meeting.
4) I bought a table loom. (This was a surprise. I was not planning to do so. But Loki's Mama, who was in no way involved in the transaction, tells me that it was a very good buy.)
5) I stopped by my LYS.
6) Greta and I practice our homework.
7) I look care of the Med Student's dog, who submissive peed all over the couch, since, of course, that would make me like her.
8) I had dinner with YA.

8 Things that I am Looking Forward To

1) Thanksgiving
2) Getting better at spinning
3) Being done with the damned baby blanket
4) Watching movies with Loki's Mama.
5) Visiting the Great Frozen Northland.
6) Research Travel
7) Big Yellow
8) Visiting CDM in Madrid next year.

8 Things I Wish For

1) More time with the goddaughter
2) Getting to travel to distant lands
3) Much success to the new administration.
4) True love
5) More time to write
6) Excellent students
7) More time with friends
8) Chickens

8 People I am Tagging
see, tagging people last time did not go so well, but:

Melissa
KJ
Kris
Kosher Academic
Livia Augusta
Knitting Angel

Randomly and Weirdly Me

The lovely and talented Melissa has tagged me for a Random and Weirdly Me post!

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself, some random, some weird.
3 Tag 7 people (if possible) at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Without further ado ... here are my seven random and weird things about me:

1. I named my bicycle after Rudyard Kipling. It goes by Kip.
2. My closest women friends include a Mormon, an Orthodox Jew, and a devotee of Isis. And those women are all friends with each other.
3. Every really close guy friend I have is a minister or minister in training, except for my best friend from college.
4. I am ABD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. I have a huge crush on Ira Glass.
6. I really want to own chickens.
7. I own 3 copies of Harry Potter Book 1: The American Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the British Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and the French Harry Potter et L'Ecole de however it is that you spell Sorcerer's in French.

I am tagging:
Knitting Angel
Kosher Academic
StacyVerb
Livia Augusta
Lazuli

Some of the projects mentioned in the post below.

My first sweater for an adult, which just happens to also be for me. Which is kind of exciting, because I have only made myself one other thing, ever. (Though several things on the needles right now are for me.)



Most of a Mountain Tango Sock, Mountain Tango being a Mountain Colors barefoot colorway.



The baby blanket, which is not knitting at all but rather my very first crochet project.



Given the goals set for this project, I should probably note that it has grown a lot since this photo was taken.

So I have always been a person who runs a high stress level. First grade almost killed me. My mother has stories about waking up to see a distraught child in a floor length nightgown standing by her bed. I would be upset because I had forgotten that I had homework. In my mom's story, the assignment was to count the fire hydrants in the neighborhood. My mother pointed out that because our neighborhood did not have city water, it also did not have hydrants. I then had a melt down--what if the teacher did not believe me?

So recently, I have had any number of things to be stressed out about. Mostly, first thing in the morning, I am supposed to email my dissertation proposal to my committee. I think it is all set. Lazuli has read over it and I have made about 98% of the corrections that she suggested. (She was right about the other 2%, but I was a bit too stressed to make all of the changes.) I just felt the need to read it over one last time before sending it out.

I have also been (as usual) stressed about money, time, my weight, and my teaching. That said, I have found an entirely new thing to worry about. I am stressed out about knitting. The weight of my knitting To Do list is getting to me, as are all of the UFOs handing around my house. My therapist looked very concerned when she figured out that the knitting was a major source of stress. Now, normally, Dr. S is quite the knitting enabler. I once bought about $100 of yarn on line, impulsively, while studying for quals and she basically said, "Can you still pay your bills?" I said yes, and she said, "So, what is the problem? It is not like the yarn is going to go bad." I am quite impressed by this attitude, especially coming from someone who does not knit. She was much less thrilled when she learned that my free floating anxiety had decided to freak out about how many projects I want to be working on right now. She reminded me that knitting is supposed to be theraputic. She reminded me that not all gifts need to be hand knit. And we agreed that it was reasonable of me to decide not to cast on a new project until I had knocked some of the other projects out of the queue.

The problem with this plan is that I will want to cast on my new sweater as soon as I have defended my proposal. You see, I bought the yarn 2 months ago, but the store has agreed to hold it for me to be a post proposal defense treat. So in the next week, I want to knock off some projects. I defend my proposal on the 19th. I will not be able to go to the yarn store, for our ritual winding of the yarn and drinking of celebratory beverage until Thursday. So I need to have gotten some knitting done between now and then. Luckily, there is not much work that I can do (other than the endless grading) between now and then. Here, then, are my goals for the rest of the week:

By Friday:
Finish the sweater for the now several months old NYR.
Finish Mountain Tango Sock number 1 and cast on Mountain Tango Sock number 2
(This way, I can take Mountain Tango Sock number 2 on my backpacking trip and the sweater will be ready to be gifted at Chorus rehearsal on Monday.)

By Thursday, the day of much celebrating:
Finish the baby blanket for IGRSF or IGRFS (I can't remember the order of the kid's last names.)
Finish my first sweater for myself.
Make more progress on the Mountain Tango socks

I actually do think that all of this may be possible. We will see and we will hope for a long night of knitting tomorrow at knitting group.

Before the Election

Just a quick photo of something that Lazuli and I saw at SAFF:



The man who had designed and was selling the blanket says that he has been looking for a bumpersticker that says "Rednecks for Obama." Said he is proud to be a redneck and is voting for Obama anyway.