Spring Break Begins!

 Here is a look at my finished sweater! I am so happy with it. 

Even though it is 100% wool, it is lightweight. Of course, it is too warm to wear around here now, but next fall it will feel good. I joked with a colleague that I could wear all my knitted things to Iceland one day, and she said that if I go, I can buy wonderful yarn. Yes--to knit up sweaters to wear for future trips to Iceland, I said.

This morning I did a cable cast on and am starting some corrugated ribbing for a hat. This beginning was fiddly as ever, but making a hat is a nice in-between type project, something that doesn't take 200 million days to complete. Next up, I've got another color work yoke sweater planned to use up that neutral color yarn I changed my mind about.

Yesterday, day ONE of spring break, I hiked Blood Mountain again, but came at it from Lake Winfield Scott.

Standing here, I realized that I have a picture of myself in probably this exact spot some thirty years ago! It was early morning then too, and I was coming off the trail from overnight camping and having a little breakfast with my dog by the lake. 

The day started out sunny, but clouds rolled in while we ate our lunch on top of the mountain. Luckily, the cold wind died out, and it made for a peaceful and cool tramp back down through the woods. This time we didn't take the super rocky Freeman trail around the side of the mountain, but a more wooded decent back to the lake. Some flowers were just beginning to peep out, and I will hopefully be able to come back to see them all in bloom. I think then I will not go with the hiking group, as their pace can be pretty fast and stopping for many photos leaves you behind (I had to run to catch up when I paused to tie my shoe!).

Today, day TWO of spring break, I spent time preparing the soil in the big bed for annuals in my front yard, and tidying up the vegetable garden area. It doesn't sound like much--but it was a full day's work!

I am so happy to be able to have this time to celebrate my beautiful plants and the outdoors! I hope you have a great week!

Celebrating the Last Day of Winter Outdoors

The last day of winter here was happily spring-like! I joined a few brave souls for a mountain hike. I say brave because the number of people who dropped out of the hike was about ten--maybe a little more. I think they got scared off by the black skies and pelting rain the day before.

The trail was soggy here and there, but not a problem, my waterproof boots held up well! We climbed Blood Mountain, the highest peak on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and rambled over other trails to give us a good 9+ miles.

The trail was extremely rocky--which I like--managing the puzzle of where to put your foot. It always makes me think of mountain goats, how easily they seem to scramble. But they've got four feet and are lower to the ground, so perhaps it is easier for them to maneuver, eh? Anyway, we crossed little creeks all day, and that is fun to me too. The stones were surprisingly unslippery--or maybe that's down to my good boots again. 

Mountain laurel and rhododendron grew along the paths. In a few weeks they will be blooming! I hope to get back to the mountains when they do. It was great to see the brown woods going green. And of course the views of the surrounding hills were different without all the leaves.

We stopped to eat our lunch at a shelter, but it was too cold to sit at the table in the shade. We chose to sit in the sun on the ground. 

It was just such a 100% great all around day!

At home, the garden is coming to life and I really have to get out there and get to work next weekend--although there is another hike tempting me.

My sweater is finally done and blocking! One hank of yarn was a little off color--had a lot of yellowish streaks in it like it was at the end of the dye lot. I'm not bothered. Chalk it up as looking "distressed." I'm sure not many people will notice. The hank was all one sleeve and the top of the next.

I'm glad I went with the green for the body. It looks good doesn't it? I'm very happy with this end result.

Crazy Testing and Knitting Sweaters

Last week I was soooo busy with work. Each day I came home and just wanted to collapse on the bed. We have to test every kid in our program (about 250 students). They have to take 4 different federally  mandated tests. They have to take the tests in small groups on computers. They have to wear headphones and record their voice which they are loath to do. During testing, we had moments when the server went down intermittently. We had a REAL fire with fire trucks and ambulances (no one was hurt). We had a child break into tears from stress. We had many student aides running around rounding up kids who forgot about the test or who thought if they didn't report to testing we would forget about them.

All of that PLUS normal school. 

So, now that is behind me, I am trying to catch my breath. 

The days are getting longer and daffodils are starting to show their faces around the neighborhood.

Yesterday was one of those "spring teasers"--warm and sunny.

I got a beautiful box of tea as a gift in the mail and have been trying a different flavor each day. 

My sweater is coming along. It's almost time to do the bottom rib. Then on to the sleeves!

I am determined not to get stuck on sleeve island. I have some more yarn--so lovely I've been keeping it out on my table so I can admire it. (All of this wool is from Barret Wool Co. and is sheepy, American wool). I plan to use this in combination with all that neutral colored yarn I first planned to use before I switched to the green for this Forsythian.  I'm still forming ideas about what I will actually make, though I am pretty sure it will be Lunenburg Pullover . I think this must be the year of the sweater! There are so many I want to make. 

Nice wool sweaters for my tropical climate!! 

I was joking (sort of) with my husband that I should get a sewing machine and learn how to sew simple cotton dresses. That would be more useful. Once upon a time I was gifted a fantastic sewing machine. This was many, many years ago. But I never really learned to sew and loaned the machine to someone who never gave it back. Probably sewing machines are even more fantastic today. 

Who knows? Maybe one day I will start to sew. ???

Here's hoping this week is a little more sane than the last. Some guys are coming to fix my pond again tomorrow. May the third time be a charm!

After the Snow

Look at these gorgeous tulips my dear husband gave me! It's so nice to have happy, bright flowers in the house on these gray winter days.

 

I spent this weekend cleaning up after last weekend's storm. So many scattered small limbs and pinecones! Some went on the mulch pile and some got put in yard waste cans. Because of the consistent cold, some things I hoped would be perennial, like lantana and Mexican heather, froze out. But, here and there I saw little promises of spring flowers.

I spent a little bit of time on the body of my sweater--and I think I am going to be okay with the colors.

My students (and me too!!) were all hoping for another snowy day on Friday, but it was not to be. School was on as usual.  

The pond repair men came and patched the leak, but 24 hours later, the water had dropped again. Boo! They will have to come again and replace the whole liner in the upper pond. Until then, the stream remains dry. The Kinglets and the Eastern Phoebe were dip diving into the remaining water before it sank too low and then pretty much dried up altogether. I am going to fill up my birdbath saucer (it used to be a hanging bird bath, but I lost the chain and hook in the move). I'll  put it near the stream. Haha. That seems like an old lady thing to do! But, I am kind of an old lady I guess.

Happy End of January to you all!

Spring

 Oh my goodness! Is it May already?

April was a fast and busy month. I finished knitting my Stopover sweater! I am super excited about how well it turned out.  These colors were suggested by the pattern. I am not good at dreaming up my own color combinations or adapting other yarns. Often, I am attracted to a pattern because of the colors in the picture. I loved these colors.

I am excited to try another sweater like this, but I'm going to wait until the weather cools down. Right now, I'm working on a little rabbit.  He came as part of a kit.

So far I have the head and one ear done. 

I haven't been knitting too much because I wanted to get the garden planted. I have spent a lot of time working on the vegetables and planting lots of flower seeds.

The plants just love this sunny space and it has been fun to watch everything grow day by day. 

It has also been irritating to find plants (though not the vegetables--thank goodness) devoured by slugs. I trap them in jar lids filled with beer. Most of them are very small (but they are plentiful). I did find one mack-daddy of a slug though. (Alas, he never made it to the 'bar').

School is winding down and everyone is tired, teachers and students. It will be good to see an end to this school year. We are all on a countdown. I am looking forward to a long break.

The Icelandic Sweater

It rained yesterday and all through the night, but today I was able to walk a trail with friends. It was a little sloggy with mud here and there, but it was good to be outside in the sun and fresh air.

It has been another slow weekend. A little housework, a little homework, a little knitting.

I've got the bottom of a sweater made and now am at the place to stop and make the sleeves. The yarn is Lettilopi, sticky Icelandic wool. When I was a girl, well about 18 years old, a guy I knew (my former locker mate) went to Iceland. He sent his mother a bunch of sweaters he had made there, those classic Icelandic type sweaters with a patterned yoke. I remember her taking them out of a bag, three or four of them, laying them out and showing them to ladies at church. 

I was struck. I wanted to make something like that! I could picture him, sitting somewhere quiet in the evenings as a fire crackled, knitting. I wanted to be him. 

And I have remembered those sweaters and my image of him all these years. When I learned to knit, it was with one eye on that old dream.
So, here it is. The beginning of my patterned yoke sweaters. I hope to make quite a few, even though I live in a most un-Iceland like climate. But that cold place is part of the dream too, going there and sitting indoors quietly some evening as the fire flickers.

Little, by little I'll get there. 

A New Year and Knitting Overload

 And so begins a new year. It is a factious, discordant beginning. As if worries over Covid weren't enough, now many of us are sitting in awe and dismay at the unweaving of our social fabric. I want to acknowledge this here, but I don't really want to dwell on it. I just want this space to be a place to take a moment to breathe.

It has been a little cold here, and I haven't been outside much. We explored an outdoor park last weekend, having heard there was a lake in there somewhere, which there was.

As winter crept in (always slowly here in the south), the leaves on our Japanese maple turned rusty red, and then brilliant red and fell.

I finished knitting the Harebell Cardigan I have been wanting to make for a long time. The yarn (Berroco Tuscan Tweed) went on close out, so I knew I had to hop to it and get this out of my head and onto my needles. It is a just about the most perfect thing I think I've knitted. It fits just right! 

On election night, I started to knit this colorwork cowl so that I would have something to focus my mind on other than the television my husband had on in the next room.  In the end, even though this is soft and cozy, the colors are just too intense for me. But, who knows, maybe I'll grow to like it better.

It really has been a time of going quickly from one knitting project to the next. After the somewhat disappointing cowl, I cast on right away and made this hat from a free pattern I got this summer. Funny that it is the August Hat and I made it in December.  I gave it to my work colleague. It was my first Latvian braid, which was fun to do.

I got in one more knit when school was out for the holidays. This super quick sweater is made with bulky yarn so it was done really fast. Although I love this colorway, the yarn pilled up and shed a lot when I blocked it. I am thinking of making it again in 100% wool, although that may be too hot for my semi-tropical zone.

So--it sure looks like I did a ton of knitting doesn't it? Perhaps I did. Perhaps I needed to occupy my mind!

Just this last week, during our runoff elections, once again, I took to the next room with my needles and yarn. I had supported Ossoff and Warnock for months (Ossoff for years, really). I even went to do face-to-face canvassing, something totally new for me. When Warnock won, (of course, I had been popping in and out of the TV room all night) I was so happy I cried. My goodness!

What I made that night was this random little smiley monster.  The pattern calls him the Little Kindness Monster and I would like him to be a kind of avatar for the moment.