Moving Notice

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Out of My Mind, Back in 5 Minutes . . . Or 2 Months

I've definitely got some catching up to do. The start of the school year has been crazy. Too many students, new building, too many students, merging three faculties, too many students. I love the age group I am working with, just think the schedule is a killer. Today my assistant took a day off and I had to deal with 180 students on my own. Enough to make me want to skip blogging again, but fortunately my sister made me promise to update it . . .

At least the books are on the shelves.









Photo taken in a rare but mercifully student-free moment.


I was off to see the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting exhibit at the Indiana State Museum when last we spoke. I really did go:

It was pretty cool. I think my 3 muggle friends even enjoyed it. As always, click for bigger images.

Muggle friend Lacy just had her baby Saturday. A healthy girl -- already showered in handknits.

I've been working on my handspun sweater.

I think it's going to be one of those hovering in the background projects for a while.

A big storm went through a few weeks ago.

Neighbor's tree, my yard.

I scored some books at the local library's discard sale for 10 cents each.

A Barbara Walker stitch dictionary, a Kaffe Fassett, Vogue knits, and a traditional Fair Isle book, among others.

Tis the season for stealth knitting. The holidays are fast approaching and I'm busy. I have finished my grandmother's Christmas socks (perfectly safe shown here, as my 88 year old grandparents hate computers and to my knowledge have never even been on the Internet).

The ball band from the yarn fits perfectly, a great way of keeping the washing info together with the socks.

Coming Soon . . .

An actual, fer sure blog post. Yup. Just as soon as I can retrieve the replacement battery for the camera from my desk at work and download some pix. I promise.

What I Have and Haven't Done

I did work most of the summer trying to get the new library up and running at school (kids start Aug. 13).

I didn't blog for most of the month (I think there's a correlation there).

I did get a chunk of the "Cotton Candy" yarn spun.



















I didn't meet my Tour de Fleece goal.















I did annoy Lady Jane by being so busy (which means less play time for her).















I didn't find the mini-clothespins to complete this baby room decoration for a friend of mine.
















I did (almost -- do buttons count?) finish this sweater for her upcoming baby, since baby's mommy and daddy are big football fans.















I didn't take a picture at the baby shower I went to in Chicago this past weekend.

I did visit a yarn store while there and scored some neat alpaca/silk laceweight, which I have plans for already.

Now I must be off -- her royal highness needs more cat food, and I have to go to the library before joining some friends for the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting exhibit.

Mostly Books (a.ka. the Attack of the Parenthesis)

Last year on this date I arrived in beautiful Cape Breton. Sigh. I'd love to take another road trip, but it doesn't look like it's on the agenda this summer.

However, for those of you who like to browse here for book suggestions [Laura :-) ] here's a "few" I've read lately.

• Several in the Daisy Dalrymple 1920s mystery series by Carola Dunn: Damsel in Distress, Dead in the Water, the Winter Garden Mystery
• Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue by Bob Drury & Tom Clavin -- the story of a 1944 typhoon that struck the Pacific Fleet during WWII. Not my usual type of read (as much as I like history, World War II is not one of my favorites and the book had some harrowing passages) but it was on audio at the public library so I gave it a try. Coincindentally, John McCain's grandfather featured prominently.
• The Tomb of Zeus by Barbara Cleverly -- another 1920s mystery, set at an archaeological dig on Crete
• Pushing Up Daisies by Rosemary Harris -- landscaper Paula Holliday stumbles upon body in the course of her work. I really liked her interaction with the cops, especially "MOM," Sgt. Mike O'Malley. Unfortunately this seems the first in the series and I don't think any others are out yet.
• Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan -- a novel set at the time of the Halifax explosion in 1917. I picked it up last year on my trip (in Halifax, of course).
• Several children's books: The Court of the Stone Children by Eleanor Cameron, Magyk and Flyte by Angie Sage (my oldest niece is two books ahead of me on this series), Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford (my younger niece would like this; it's a hoot), and The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. That last one I'd read when I was young and thought I'd reread it since I bought a copy for the new library.
• I also got on a fantasy kick and read or listened to several Tamora Pierce books: Wild Magic, Wolf Speaker, The Circle of Magic Quartet, Trickster's Choice.
• I listened to A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman while I did a lot of my quilt work -- kind of a downer, what with the plague, wars, exploitation of peasants, etc. And not being able to see all that French written out (I'm such a visual person) drove me crazy. But it was very informative.
• A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights by Sherry H. Penny and James D. Livingston -- an interesting biography picked up at Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY, last summer.

I've started exercising again. I figure if Dara Torres can make the Olympics at 41, I can get into shape (although, round is already a shape). Note to self: taking the iPod to the gym does no good if you leave the earbuds in the car.

Tour de Niece, Tour de Fleece

So my nieces were staying with Grandma and Grandpa this past week, prompting a visit to the Indianapolis Children's Museum, one of the coolest places in town (whether you're a kid or not).

There's the 1917 carousel that I rode as a kid.

Science Works, where you can get wet.

A race car where you can pretend to be the next Danica Patrick (or Sarah Fisher).

A really cool climbing wall which Niece the Younger termed "Mt. Everest."

And my favorite, Dale Chihuly's Fireworks of Glass.

You can go to the lower level beneath the sculpture and look up at a "kaleidescope."

So now the nieces are back in Iowa and Aunt Ariadne is on to the Tour de Fleece.

My goal is to finish spinning this bag of wool I bought back in April. It is a wonderful color (close in the second picture, although it's almost impossible to get an accurate color with my camera). But it is very course and so doesn't draft extremely easily and "wants" to be spun thinly, so it's taking a while. If I spin about an hour a day surely I'll have it done by July 27?

Boxes of Books

Well, I'm into the new library and during the last week I've unpacked and checked in 80 boxes of new books.















I've still got the processing to do on these, plus the boxes of books being transferred from other schools. By the time I unpacked the 80th box, I was actually tired of handling books, something that is very rare for me.














Return to work has brought my quilting to a screeching halt. However, before the books came in, I had a sort of assembly line thing going.

I set up the squares, aligned and ready to go.














Yes, my machine is a ca. 1970 Singer Touch and Sew Model 648. It was my mum's when I was a kid and therefore the one I learned to sew on. I like its simplicity and durability.














Anyway, I next sew two squares together, over and over, without stopping to cut the threads, which would slow me way down.














After I have a string of these, I cut and trim the threads.















Pressing the double squares open, I get these . . .














Which I then join to get these four-square blocks.
















I did get all the four-square blocks finished, now I "just" have to sew them together to make the quilt top, baste the sandwich of top, batting, and backing, and finally quilt and bind it.

This will probably wait a while, though. The quilting seems like a "big project" which requires chunks of time and dragging out the sewing machine. On the other hand, my knitting is a pick-up-and-go-anytime type of thing, so I will probably be doing more of that until I get another chunk of time. (The first quilt I made took 10 years of pulling out and putting away before I finished it.)

What I've Been Up to Since May 10

No, the mess in the office didn't bury me, it just felt like it. May is always a crazy busy time in a school. This year was added the fact that I am moving books and opening a new library in another building. So we had to be packed and ready to leave a day or two after school was out. Boxes of books -- one reason I had not planned to move for quite a while after buying a house. Well, I'm not moving house and I'm still packing books!















I finished spinning the Blue Faced Leicester and with it added to the alpaca I'd spun I think I have enough for a sweater. I've started on it; pictures when I've made some headway.














I finished a lace table topper for my assistant who retired at the end of May. Here it is blocking.














I dyed some wool -- the picture's fuzzy but the color's pretty true.















And in an unusal (for me) departure into other realms of textile arts, I've been working towards quilting. More on that soon.

We've also been dodging tornadoes, storms, and floods for the last two weeks. There's another one rolling in now, wouldn't you know.

Why I Haven't Posted Much Lately

Ode to the Yarn Harlot*

*Complete doggerel produced by theta brain waves upon waking this morning.

On yesterday's date
The Harlot came to our wonderful state (Indy's in the middle)
But at Bazbeaux we stopped and ate (yum)
So my line ticket did not rate
And today there's too much on my plate
So I couldn't stay too late
I didn't meet her -- that I hate
But Steph was absolutely great
The true tale of Calgary she did relate
Her visit was worth the wait!

We totally freaked out the muggles. Scott, the bookstore guy, took photos to prove to his friends that his job was scarier than theirs. Stephanie spoke for about an hour and a half on muggles, knitting, brain research, and life. And that sentence in no way conveys the hilarious and complete and utter fun of the evening.

Fibery Goodness

Just a quick posting before I collapse on the couch after a 13 hour work day.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the local "Fiber Event." One of my male co-workers calls it the "Lint Event" which at least has the felicity of rhyming.

There were lots of sheeps.















My muggle friend Lacy really wants an alpaca.















Lacy had never been to a fiber show before and found it amusing that things were sold by the ounce and there were lots of needles.

I bought a bag of this yummy looking wool.















It spins up into singles that look like this.

Felting Alert!

Before:

After:

Finally, Lacy, who's an art teacher, found this in the art room and wants me to set it up. Think I need another fiber addiction?