Some more spinning and lace

First off, awwwwwwww, isn't she cute?


Yesterday, I washed and set all of these skeins of yarn that I spun up. The brown yarn is from a gift of roving I received in November (or was it October?). It was a trash bag full of roving and I made approximately 858 yards of worsted weight yarn from it.


I'm trying to finish all of the spinning I started on my borrowed wheel. There was a bit of a time crunch because I'm returning it this week. I'm happy to say that everything is finally off of the bobbins, set, and stored in archival photo boxes on one of my shelves. I would have it hanging all over the place but the amount of yarn might scare my cousins and aunt who are coming to visit this week.

Next, instead of cleaning my room for the impending guests, I blocked a shawl. This is the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. I made it out of fingering weight rather than laceweight so this shawl is HUGE.



I ended up having major problems with this simple pattern because I kept running out of yarn. On the last chart, I eliminated the first half of it so there would be enough yarn to make the ends into tips. Then, on the bind off, I ran out of yarn again so I ripped back a few rows and tried again. It was a fast knit but all of the issues I created made it take much longer to finish.

And finally, here is the fingering weight yarn I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool. Isn't it pretty? Those colors are pretty true to life.


Yesterday, while closing the yarn store, I cast on and, by the end of the evening, had this much.


I can definitely understand why so many people have made this pattern. It is a completely thought-free knit which will look great when finished.

MSW, part 2

Be warned, this is a very picture-heavy post.

First thing that really struck me about Maryland Sheep and Wool was the sheer number of people everywhere! Saturday was crazy with all of the lines.


The next thing that strikes you are the animals. I loved looking at all of the different sheep breeds, the sheepdogs, llamas, alpacas, and rabbits. If you are every going to go, don't miss the parade of sheep breeds!





I didn't take any pictures of the various booths because there were just so many! How do you choose what to look at first? So I'll leave you to take a look around the blogsphere to see others' pictures which are a whole lot better than I could have taken.

I really enjoyed watching the Sheep to Shawl contest. No, I was not there to watch the sheep get shorn (that is 8 in the morning, people!) but I did watch the spinning, weaving and finishing of most of the groups.

This brightly colored shawl was the overall winner.

And then there were the purchases. I definitely was going through a green and blue period, wasn't I?


I ended up with a lot of fun stuff, mainly fiber with some yarn thrown in there, too. I bought a bag of completely non-natural, human-made fiber because it was sparkly :) Two different kinds of tencel/merino blends one of which was a purple-blue and the other which was called peacock and was a bluish-green. I couldn't wait and started spinning up the peacock tencel on Sunday night on the new wheel. I also got a silk hankie which was dyed in greens and blues.

I've never worked with Socks that Rock so I bought a skein of the medium weight sock yarn (of course in green). Then I couldn't wait to start knitting on it so I bought some DPNs and got some help winding the skein into a ball. Then I fell down and bought 3 skeins of sock yarn from Tess Designer Yarns (I think that is the name, it isn't in front of me). It is a really pretty mix of light and dark blues and grey. I also fell down and bought a cone of some silk to work up into another lace project.

Luckily, by the time we waited in line for the festival gear, it was way down. I picked up a canvas tote with brown edging and I really like it. The tote, I decided, was a better route than a T-shirt. I'll probably get more use out of the tote.

Of course, I didn't need another drop spindle but I found a really nicely carved one so that jumped in my bag. Speaking of spinning tools, I bought a wheel!


It is a Majacraft Little Gem and is so cute! I tried a lot of different wheels while at the festival and it was a tough decision between a couple. This one folds up very small and is really easy to transport. I'm smitten!

I'll leave you with the picture of my STR socks. I'll pick them back up after I've played with the wheel for a bit :)

Book Meme

I'll post the pictures from MSW in a bit but I came across this meme this morning and couldn't resist!

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods (I love this book)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King (Read this when I was 11, I should probably read it again)
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere (Love, love, love this book)
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

MSW, part 1

Maryland Sheep and Wool was last weekend and, let me tell you, it was a lot of fun! I can't believe that it took me so long to finally go to one! I only went to school right up the road.

Anywho, I drove to Maryland this weekend by way of Gettysburg to meet the librarians for lunch. It was fun to quickly catch up and to see the changes that have been happening there. I also really liked the display they had up about knitting :) Some of the projects were really wonderful.

After Gettysburg, I drove to Baltimore where I was spending the weekend with friends. Learning how to play the drums/bongos on Rock Band was fun. (No, there aren't actually bongos in Rock Band. I just hit the drums with my hands because it was less dangerous for myself and others if I didn't use the drumsticks. What can I say? I shouldn't be trusted with sticks.) We also went out to dinner in the Inner Harbor Saturday night and out to a couple of bars (Spring = lots of bachlorette parties). When I was at the festival on Saturday, my friends went out sailing. It was a great day for it!

The festival was so much fun. I met up with some people (Hi, Janelle! Isn't it funny that we didn't see each other the rest of the weekend?) including my friend from Ohio and her friend. They drove past my car on their way to a parking space and we all happened to meet up while I was going back there to dump stuff off and grab my lunch. I spent a lot of money (perhaps too much but, hey, I will call it a graduation present to myself). I don't have my camera with me right now so I will post pictures tomorrow. And *drumroll* I bought a spinning wheel! I am absolutely in love!!!! More tomorrow.

Spring?!

Guess what I woke up to this morning! That's right, snow.









Crazy, huh? By the time I took these pictures, it was already melting. An hour later most of it had dropped off the trees and flowers. I hope the poor lilacs will recover! The tomato looked a little shell-shocked.

In other picture news, I finally took a picture of my finished Forest Canopy Shawl that I made from a skein of Copper Penny from Earthly Hues. It reminds me so much of fall leaves.


I've been playing with the drop spindle recently. On the Lime and Violet Ravelry group, there has been a movement to spin up some of that fiber you have been intimidated by or that you think is just too pretty to use. This is some CJ Kopec 100% merino in Cowgirl Chic.

I started spinning it up at the Equine Affair (basically a really big teaching clinic for horses and riders) a couple of weekends ago. I've been getting better and better with it. Having spun on a spinning wheel made it much easier to use a drop spindle. It has been a challenge learning how to spin merino and use a drop spindle but it has definitely been fun.

Next is a pair of linen handtowels from the Mason-Dixon Knitting pattern. These were good mindless knitting projects. The first one took me a little more than a week to make. The second one, however, only took a weekend. It was the project I took to work on during my 2 day workshop. It made the time go much faster :)


I noticed something funny when I was packing for the overnight stay. Even though it was only a 2 day thing, I had 3 different projects with me. One project was the handtowel. Another is a shawl in the final stages of knitting on the border (after having to rip back a few rows because I ran out of yarn 6 inches before the border was finished. Not that I'm bitter or anything). The third was another shawl not even started yet, only yarn and a pattern.

I was rummaging around my stash trying to figure out what the third project could be in case I somehow miraculously got through the other 2 projects. I came across some sock yarn mom had bought when she was on vacation. It is Regia silk, a silk/merino blend. I love the yarn but I didn't really want to make socks out of it. Instead, I decided to make the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits (hurry, they have their 5 most popular patterns for free until May 14th!). The pattern calls for a laceweight so my shawl is definitely going to be bigger.



It has been a really fast knit. I started it on Sunday and am already close to being finished. There are just 2 charts to go. Unfortunately, somehow, my accident prone self hit the back of my hand on something yesterday evening. Within seconds there was a lump, bruising and lots of pain. It was kind of hard to drive home from work yesterday. I definitely didn't knit last night. Today, I have a lovely bruise, a bump and less pain than before. Fun times. Darn accident prone self.

Meltdown

So this week is not going to be fun. All of my practicum stuff is due on Thursday (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!), I have my first book club meeting on Thursday night but I don't think anyone is going to show up nor have I re-read the book (The Devil Wears Prada), I have a 2 day workshop the next morning which will require me to wake up around 5 am and drive 3 hours in order to get there, I should have gotten a parking pass for it but I didn't, I should have rented a room for Friday night but I haven't, I have a 1 page book review to write for the workshop, also have to put together a 3 minute booktalk for the second day of the workshop, oh, yeah, also need to read the textbook and a novella (An Uncommon Reader) before the first day (have already read the Uncommon Reader and loved it and have skimmed through the textbook but that was almost a year ago), and, on top of all of that, I have to do the "fun" assignment for my stupid class which is 21 in-depth (aka really hard and involved) questions as well as participating in the online discussions regularly. So I'm thinking of hiding in a hole with my knitting, curled in the fetal position . . . .

I'll post again after this week is over! Might even have pictures of the various projects I've been working on.

random

So taking a typing speed test while having a head cold and being on cold medication isn't really the best plan. . . .

61 words

Speedtest

Tax season hatred

I HATE, HATE, HATE taxes. They are the bane of the public library staff. They are EVIL. And this tax stimulus package is even more EVIL. It makes this tax season worse than normal because people who don't normally file are coming in with no idea what they are supposed to do or what they need. Don't get me wrong, every tax season is bad because people always come in with no idea what form they should fill out. (How do you get to be in your 40s and have no idea what form you should pick up?!) But this one appears to be even worse than normal. You could not pay me enough to work for the IRS right now. I can't wait until tax season is over. I was discussing with my boss whether or not it would be worse to be an accountant right now. She pointed out that accountants can at least choose how many clients they can handle (and who they choose to be a client). The library gets everyone else (and usually the confused ones). Tomorrow should be "fun."

Best in Show

**ETA: Did you know about flickrSLiDR? The flickr badge just wasn't working out well because something with the coding for the javascript version (the one that acts like a slideshow) wasn't written correctly so it wouldn't post. FlickrSLiDR, however, let me embed the entire set as a slideshow. Enjoy!

The edible book festival I made that VERY red cake happened last Tuesday. This flickr badge has all of the pictures I took there.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Doesn't it look like a lot of fun? The best part was winning Best in Show for my Mount Vesuvius cake. The liquid jello, lemon juice and baking soda worked perfectly and lava flowed all over the place! Though it did make the cake rather lemon-y . . .

Lookie! Pictures!

I got my act together and started uploading pictures! Because, really, who likes a blog post without pictures? :)

First up, impulse purchases. I should not be allowed to go anywhere near anything small and cute in craft stores. That is how I ended up coming back to work with these little guys.

Tiny pots! With tiny bulbs in them! Cute!!!! OK, I'm finished now. I'm trying to grow them at work. We will see if this works. Sometimes I really have a black thumb.

Now we have some pictures of the BSJs. Aren't they cute, too?


Here is the blue one in the middle of the folding magic that is the BSJ. One second it is this blobby mass. . .

Then you start to fold it. . .
And *poof* jacket!
Here is a blob in progress.

On to the next project! The Forest Canopy Shawl in Copper Penny. Here is the skein (the flash gave it a rather pinker hue). I kept meaning to take a picture of it in the natural light but I kept forgetting and then was too impatient to wait to cast on with it.


Seconds after I took the picture of the skein, I cast on and, by the time I went to bed, had a couple of inches done. Guess that is what happens when you start on a Buffy and a Bones marathon. (Hulu.com has the entire 1st & 2nd seasons of Buffy and just put up the entire 1st season of Bones. Ah, hulu, you must stop (but don't really) because it is getting detrimental to my getting to bed before midnight.) Anyway, this next picture is a couple of days later.


Late last night (darn you, hulu), I was nearing the end of the shawl. Now, keep in mind that I flew in the face of common sense and knit the shawl without any lifelines. Crazy, I know. Especially crazy when you realize that you have 9 rather long rows left to do and only have enough yarn to do 3. So, at 1 am, I ripped out one 7 row pattern repeat very, very carefully. I picked up the stitches and decided, upon consideration, that it would be smarter to go to bed than to try to finish the remaining 9 rows.

So this morning, I finished knitting and bound it all off. It took a bath in woolwash and I stretched it out to block.


I didn't take any pictures of the blocking process because my room is such a disaster area. Remember me posting a picture a while ago about the disaster I call my fiber corner? Well, now it is NOTHING in comparison to the rest of the room. After next week, I'll have to go something about it.

Back to the shawl, I'll take some FO pictures of it tomorrow or the day after. All I can say about it is that I am completely in love with it. The copper/fall colors of the yarn are wonderful! Tricia at Earthly Hues did a great job. The shawl took me only 4 days to make. The pattern is great because you can make it out of any weight yarn. You just choose the needle size you like for a lacey look and do as many pattern repeats as you want. I can't wait to show you the pictures.

This evening, I realized that mom was having her church circle over tomorrow night. Normally that would not present a problem but it does this time. Tuesday is the edible book festival at my practicum library. Edible books, if you haven't heard about it, are edible pieces that represent books or book titles. This is an international event will people all across the world making books from food on or around April 1st (April Fool's day, hehe). My book is going to be Pompeii by Robert Harris. So I'm making a volcano out of round Devil's Food Cakes stacked on top of each other. Then, in the top one, I'm going to be putting a shot glass with a jello mixture that will foam out when you add lemon juice. I definitely couldn't bake the cakes in the middle of the church circle tomorrow so an extra task was added to my evening of finishing homework. The cakes turned out extraordinarily RED didn't they?

I'll take pictures when I start putting them together after the meeting tomorrow. It's so exciting!

In another sidenote, have you ever listened to a radio station where it is like they have reached into your head, found your favorite songs and favorite types of music, and started playing them? A new station came to the area and it is like they know exactly the kinds of music I will like even if I had never heard the artists before. For a while tonight I was listening to playlists on iTunes then I switched to the streaming audio on the station's website and it was like nothing had changed. I had never found a station before that was such a good match for my tastes. Interesting.

Some FOs and WIPs (w/o pictures)

I really need to rip apart my computer tower and get my memory card out of it. I guess I was sleep deprived the last time I was going to upload pictures. My computer has different slots for all different types of memory cards. In my lack of sleep haze I accidentally put the card in the wrong slot and it fell down into the guts of the tower. I've just been too lazy to unscrew the cover and take it apart. So I'm going to blame the lack of pictures on lack of sleep.

Do you remember that I was working on Wicked? Well, I finished it the other day and just had to sew the pocket down. It took me another couple of days to actually do that simple thing. Because it is actually thinking about being spring and getting warm, I needed to get it finished to actually be able to wear it this season. So yesterday morning I sewed the pocket down and wore it all around. I really liked the color. I swear that I will take pictures and post them here.

To answer Kristi's question, I went to the BSJ Wiki for information about the BSJ. It has some really great pictures and suggestions for making them. I found suggestions somewhere (probably a discussion on ravelry) for different weights of yarn and their corresponding needles and age range for the jackets. I'm making my DK weight jackets on a US size 6 needle and it will probably be for a 6-9 month old. The suggestions said you could use either a US 6 or 7 with a DK yarn.

I think my BSJ love might have dulled because I'm not thinking about casing on for another one and the one I was in the middle of has been languishing. Instead, I'm casting on for another Forest Canopy Shawl with the most gorgeous sock yarn from Earthly Hues in the colorway Copper Penny. If you haven't seen Tricia's yarn yet, go over to her Etsy shop or the shop blog or her webpage right now. I'll wait. Back? All of her yarns (and fiber) are dyed with all natural dyes. You wouldn't believe the colors she gets with them! I bet you thought natural dyes only come in browns and greens. I really, really love this one deep red shade. Yummmm. Anyway, the second I saw the Copper Penny color, I instantly thought of leaves in the fall. The subtlety of the colors are perfect for this shawl. The pattern is great because you can use any weight of yarn and make as many repeats as you want. I started it last night and am already a couple of inches in.

Crazy horses

Well, the past couple of days have been all sorts of fun with the horses. My friend just bought a horse, Jazz, in northern Ohio on Sunday. She is an adorable and petite Quarter Horse that looks more Thoroughbred-y than Quarter Horse-y (aka she is a lot more delicate looking than most Quarter Horses).

Jazz looking pretty

Jazz went out with the other 4 horses on Sunday afternoon. We let Java out with her first because he was least likely to bother Jazz. The entire time Java was out there, Cali was screaming in the stall and lunging at the door with her ears back and teeth bared. (She was very jealous of her man talking to a younger woman.) Java looked from Cali to Jazz to us, pondered, and walked to us rather than upset his mare.

Next, we let Bo out and he really wanted to be friends with Jazz. She is much more his size than anyone else and you could tell that he desperately wanted to say "hi." She took it in stride and firmly established that he was not to push her around.

Bo and Jazz

Bo looking very muddy

Capone was the next one to meet Jazz. He tried to bully her but she firmly said "I don't think so!" and threatened to kick him if he pushed her around.

Finally, we got ready to let Cali out. All the humans went to the safety of the stalls to stay out of the horses' way. We expected lots of screaming, kicking and biting between the mares. Cali burst out of the stall and ran straight to Java. She herded Java away from the new mare and refused to let him get anywhere near her. She didn't even say anything to Jazz, didn't sniff her, didn't go anywhere near her except to drive Java away. He looks very resigned to the whole thing.

Cali doing her "Pretty Warmblood" face

Java and Capone

Anyway, yesterday was when the real fun began. Everyone was going to go out to ride which has never happened before with all of our busy schedules. But it was like the perfect storm with everyone getting out of class or off of work at 5. So everyone was planning to be out at the barn at 5:30 and ready to ride by 6. As I was driving to the barn, I got a call from Diana and she said "The horses are gone." It turns out that someone (probably Jazz) ran through the fence in the back, breaking the wire, and let all 5 horses out.

By the time I got to the barn, Diana had heard from her husband that 4 horses had been found a few miles away, trotting down the center of the very busy and hilly road. A passerby was able to (somehow) corral them in a paddock of a run-down barn. Then he started calling horse people in the area. Someone knew that we had 2 greys and 2 bays so he drove to the barn and said where he had put them. All of us were thinking "But we really need that number to be 2 greys and 3 bays." Everyone was worried that the missing horse was going to be the new girl.

Diana's husband and father hitched up my trailer and drove over to the place where the 4 were captured. Greta had luckily gotten to the barn at that point and went with them. She definitely stopped them from trying to capture a horse statue and put it in the trailer :) They put Cali and Capone in the trailer and took them back to our barn.

At this point, I've gotten to the barn and Diana and I are getting all of our saddles and bridles for Bo and Java. We still had to find Jazz so one of our only options is to ride back to the barn the way they might have come. We were definitely blazing our own trails. In two areas we had to ride over fallen wire fences because that was the only way to get home. I'm so glad that neither gelding was stupid while doing that. It could have been a real mess. In another spot we had to go through a creek that had a 2-3 foot drop down into water with a steep (and narrow) deer trail leading to the stream. Bo definitely said "no" to that idea so Java went first. We were headed in the direction of home so there was no stopping Java! He blazed down the incline and ran up the other steep side, luckily avoiding all of the holes along the way. Bo followed right after him because he definitely did not want to get left behind!

While we were riding back and calling for Jazz, Diana's husband and Jazz's owner took a truck and went driving through a neighbor's field to see if they could see Jazz. Greta was saddling up Capone, getting ready to ride toward us to see if she would meet Jazz along the way. Diana's father took off on foot to follow the horse tracks. The people in the car spotted Jazz in the distance in the field behind the barn property. We think that she heard us calling her and started for the voices. They called Greta and she went out there. Jazz wouldn't come to a human on foot but she would follow Capone. Greta was able to get her back through the fence though the mare broke through the fence again in another spot. Once again, we were very lucky that no legs got cut up.

Diana and I were 2 fields away but we were able to see Jazz and Capone so we knew that everyone was safe. When we got back to the barn, everyone realized that Diana's father was still out looking for the mare and that he didn't have a cell phone (he doesn't like them so he never carries one). So Diana, Greta and I rode back out to try to find him. We rode directly to the top of the hill of the field behind the property and were able to see him. So finally we got everyone back to the barn.

None of the horses had a mark on them even after all of their excitement! We were just so lucky!

We kept riding around the arena to cool out our horses and so that Jazz's owner, Carol, would have time to saddle her up. Jazz was not pleased about this idea and started to act up a little bit. I got on her and, after a mini battle, we finally started to go around without popping up or giving little jumps. After a much longer period of time, we put Carol back on Jazz and they had a mini lesson.

Oh, I forgot to mention in all of this excitement that I had locked my keys in my car. Of course, my cell phone was in the car so luckily I was always around someone who had their phone still on them. Greta had to drive me home to pick up the extra set of keys and then back out to the barn. It was definitely a long and eventful day!

When I went out to the barn this morning to take pictures, everyone was thankfully still in the paddock where we had put them! Java is still looking browbeaten with Cali telling him where to go. Bo has definitely taken to Jazz and will stand up to Capone for her. If Capone trys to push her around, Bo will get between them with his ears pinned and head snaking. He is in love :)

BSJ madness

I've become a wee bit obsessed with the Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) pattern. And by a wee bit I mean that I've made 3 now and am going to be starting with a 4th soon. I hardly ever make a pattern over and over (unless it is something like fingerless gloves or socks, of course) because it bores me. This pattern, however, is the perfect quick thoughtless knit.

I had 2 balls of DK baby yarn in my stash that I wanted to use up in yellow and blue. So I started on an all yellow one. I proceeded to run out of yarn on the button band and had to buy another skein of yellow. (How is this helping to deplete the stash?) While there I decided to buy a pink skein, too. In order to make sure there was enough blue, I put in a stripe of yellow and did the button band in yellow. Wouldn't you know it but there was more than enough blue in the ball to make the added yellow completely unnecessary. Bah! Both the original yellow ball and the blue ball were supposed to be the same yardage but obviously one of them was lying. The next baby sweater I made was pink with yellow stripe and button band. I now have tons of pink left over so I might get one more ball of pink and make a completely pink jacket. Two of my coworkers offered to buy one off of me, one for a new granddaughter and one for a new niece.

If I do sell the jackets, I think I will swear them to secrecy that they got them from me just so I won't have to keep making them for people. There is a possibility that Thalia will be having the BSJ as a class at the Needling Yarn in the summer so I could also point people to that. I just don't want to be stuck making stuff for people. That sounds harsh but is true. After a while the newness and charm of the BSJ will surely wear off and I won't be interested in making another one for a very long while. But that would be the only thing that coworkers would ask for. So, yes, I think swearing them to secrecy is a very good idea.

So very tired

This post is probably going to be very boring and not about knitting. It is all about tired Anne. What riviting drama. I'm very happy this week is coming to an end. I can't remember if I've talked about my practicum on this blog much. If not, I'll give you a short recap. If I have, please excuse the tired mind. Doing a practicum, or working in a library, is one option for my library science masters. (The other option is writing a thesis. See why I chose to do the practicum?) Practicums are great for people who have never worked in a library setting before. You get to actually work as a librarian and do all sorts of different work depending on your library.

I've been building webpages, working the reference desk, collecting materials for library instruction, coming up with a podcast/series of instructional segments and author talks, and attending staff meetings. I'm sure I've done more but it is hard to think of it right now. As interesting as the work is, I'm just tired.

The praticum is 100 hours with an additional 50 hours on a project or paper. Today I wrapped up 80 hours. I've been working at my practicum site 10 hours a week since the middle of January. Most of the weeks, I've worked one morning 9-12 and then gone to my actual job to work 12:30-9 and then worked 9-4:30 on Friday at the practicum. The past two weeks, however, I've had to work at my job on Friday so that messes up the practicum schedule. So I've been working at least 2 mornings and a couple of hours on Saturday when the reference desk is staffed. This week, however, is even more different because I've worked 3 mornings at the practicum. Three 12 hour days in one week sucks. I don't know how people do it! The library will be closed on Saturday because that is when Spring Break starts.

I can't even tell you how much I am looking forward to it! I will have the whole week off from anything to do with the practicum. Then as a bonus, my practicum supervisor will be out of town the next week so I will have that week off too! (From the practicum, at least. I still have to go to my actual job obviously!) Well, I might have to go in Friday to help record some author book talks but that will be a lot shorter than a 9-4:30 day and will be very interesting.

On Monday, I recorded a sound bite/instructional segment about using the library catalog and requesting books from other institutions. Next, I added screenshots to the sound. It was pretty good if I do say so myself :)

In other library related news, I'm going to be doing a book talk for a group of retired schoolteachers/other influential ladies of the community in April. This will be my first chance to do a booktalk and I'm really excited/nervous. Trying to find books which interest them is really challenging because a) I've never done this before and b) I have no idea what they might like. There is a book called The Booktalker's Bible from which I will be borrowing heavily. I will also be talking about Tom Brokaw's book, Boom, because we are doing that for a One Book, One Community program during National Library Week. I really should get on reading that. How in the world am I going to be able to talk to a group of people who lived through the 60s when I wasn't even born for another 20 years?! Anyway, I hope this book talk will go well. If it does, I will be able to go to a lot of other groups. You would be amazed the number of places that want someone to come to talk to them about books. Now if only I could find a way to combine the knitting and the book talking :)

Shamless switching

I've finished knitting the body of Wicked and have started on the front pocket. Well, I did work on it until I got bored with that. So I put the pocket on an extra needle and started on the sleeves instead. Then I got distracted again by the lure of . . . .

The Baby Surprise Jacket or BSJ as it is known to many. What can I say, Wicked was getting really heavy and the BSJ had the added allure of a fast knit, being much lighter, being able to use some sock yarn that I probably wouldn't make socks out of, and being able to use up some stash yarn. So who cares that I have multiple projects on the verge of being finished? Don't judge me! ;)

I'm simply amazed that something that looks like this could turn out to be a baby jacket. It looks more like an amoeba!

After finishing wicked and some of the other small projects, I'm going to have to make one with two strands of sock yarn together for a slightly larger baby. This could be a perfect way for me to use up some of the sock yarn! In cleaning out my yarn/fiber corner, I've discovered way more than I remembered. I think it is reproducing.