Week Sixteen: Decisions and Revisions

The calculus train is barrelling along past Reimann Sum station now, and I’m staying in my seat and taking all the notes I can. I’m keeping up with my homework on antiderivatives, summation notation, indefinite integrals, and definite integrals. There will be an exam in two weeks covering this material, and I’m not scared of it. The biggest problems this week have been (a) slipping on the frosty ramp outside the house and bruising my hip, shoulder, hand, and ego; (b) getting almost to school and realizing I was driving the car that didn’t have the commuter window-sticker; and (c) getting so wrapped up in my homework that I lost track of time and was a minute or two late to class. They didn’t all happen on the same day (but two of them did).

The smaller the interval you measure, the closer you get to an accurate estimate of the area under the curve.

Of course, I know me by now, and when things are going well I tend to extrapolate the success to the nth degree. If I solve one computer hardware issue I think I should work as a Genius at the Apple Store. If I write a haiku I wonder how I’ll ever have time to finish my epic metered saga. One good pot of soup, and I’m thinking up graphic treatments for a cookbook series. If I think of an improved mousetrap design, I fret over my inability to purchase enough warehouse space to store all the inventory. That sort of thing. It’s more amusing now that I can catch myself in the act of making ridiculous or disproportionate future plans, and ground myself gently back in reality.

Thoughts like these have started me wondering about my academic future. Enough people have asked me if I were going back to school this fall that I started wondering, too. I went from “no” to “probably not” to “maybe” to “I think I’ll change my major to Pure Mathematics and get a full time job too and edit at night and invent cold fusion” in the space of an afternoon. Well, except for the cold fusion. I’m sure someone else has that all worked out by now.

I caught the thought, then I held it and took a more critical look at it. The physics professors seem distressed at the thought of my being a math major. What are you going to do with a math degree? Well, the same thing I was going to do with a physics degree at age forty-coughcoughcough — learn everything I can about what I’m interested in, while I still can. I’m interested in education but not in teaching, but who knows? With four technically oriented kids, being able to teach math might come in extremely handy. I’m interested in the history of math, the history of science, and the history of language. I don’t have five lifetimes in which to read everything, so I need to choose my reading matter carefully. For that, a structured course seems like a good idea. What’s it all good for? Well, it’s going to help me become more like me. That should be the purpose of education — to help you develop your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. It’s your choice as to whether you apply that towards finding a job or not. Personally, I think that this experience and education will eventually land me in a place where I’m making a living, but I just can’t see all the details from here. Not yet.

The math-and-numbers side of me is now being balanced by my words-and-letters side. I’m not just playing Words With Friends and Scramble any more; I’ve gotten a client who would like me to edit his book manuscript and help him get published. While I’m waiting for him to sign and return his contract, I’ll go ahead and hard-copy edit his first two chapters and keep track of my time so I can figure out my rates for future jobs. I’m also editing a friend’s dissertation for chapter-by-chapter publication in an academic journal. I’m reading fiction and nonfiction. I’m writing every day and blogging every week. And I’m still playing Words With Friends and Scramble. Finding point-scoring combinations among the letter tiles isn’t interfering with my “mathing” any more, so I’m just trying to stay balanced.

Then there’s knitting, that combination of wool, coding, artistic expression, and applied topology. I’m doing finishing (weaving in loose ends) on a huge project, turning a heel on a sock, designing a mathematically and artistically geeky scarf, and knitting a lace-edged narrow shawl that’s a therapeutic exercise.  My friend Bonnie has taught me how to do a Long-Tail cast-on — in fact, this patient woman has taught it to me twice so far — so I have a new tool in that particular toolbox.

As usual, all I need is time. T.S. Eliot assures me that won’t be an issue:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
— “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Week Seven: Renewal

After much agonizing, I have decided to renew a library book which I detest. Two weeks ago, there I was at the library, minding my own business, having dropped by to pick up a series of graphic novel-style mathematics books for my 6-year-old son. On my way to check out the books, I happened to notice a new arrival — a book on Euclid and his amazing book, Elements. I thought it would make a good introduction to book and author before I sat down and tackled Elements for myself.

Wrong, wrong, couldn’t have been more wrong. I started hating this book on Page Three.

Don’t even point.

Wait — now that I look back at it, I realize that I started hating this book waaaaaay before Page Three. Because I hate that the quote from Blaise Pascal that appears before the preface is in untranslated French.

I also hate the preface, which gave me my first sense of the author’s writing style.

It got worse from there.

I soon decided that the only proper course of action for me was to write a scathing review of this book so that I could warn off any of its potential readers. Time is precious these days. If I could establish that this book is a waste of both time and space, we could all move happily on to the next item in the queue. However, I didn’t think it would be fair to be nasty about a freshly published book that I didn’t actually finish reading. (Think back to high school. Can you imagine your Literature teacher’s reaction if you had attempted to turn in a book report on a novel you didn’t finish?) So, I struggled forward, trying to keep my temper. It wasn’t my book, so I couldn’t throw it with great force. I did toss it aside often, though. Then I would think, “It’s not that long. I can really get through this” and pick it up again. Then I would yell “I HATE THIS BOOK!” and put it down again. So my progress in the reading of it was not that swift or consistent over the last two weeks.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the library… the book is due this Friday. I had 48 hours left to read the book, and 96 hours’ worth of more pleasant and useful things to do within that 48 hours.

So I’m going to try to renew it tomorrow. Between chapters, or segments, or paragraphs perhaps, I shall be sharpening my pen and charging up my electrons. I have two more weeks…. unless someone else, perhaps the author’s mother, is on a waiting list for it.

Slop season. Not spring.

One might also look out one’s window here in Wisconsin and imagine that spring is coming and this is a time of renewal. Think again, bucko, it’s only mid-February. Just because you can see patches of grass amongst the snow, slush, and mud doesn’t mean the crocuses are coming any time soon, nor should they dare. And you should probably stay inside yourself if you know what’s good for you. Flu, whooping cough, and black ice are laying for you.

So. Until Spring is really here and there are better things to read that don’t have such a tight deadline and bizarre moral imperative, there is knitting to do. The dropped-stitch lace scarf is complete and has been entered on the Finished Projects page. I have cast on for a Wingspan scarf/shawl and gotten a couple of sections done. It has kind of an unusual construction, but the knitting itself is quite easy. So far, there are three of us in my local knitting group who are making them.

Wingspan in progress

(I don’t know why I can’t get the photo to show up. Sorry, just click the link.)

During the past week I have also gotten my oldest child signed up for his freshman year of high school. He is almost 14. He is almost as tall as I am (he checks this every morning). However, he is nowhere close to understanding just how ambitious his desired schedule actually is: Honors English, Eastern Cultures, Science 9, Geometry, P.E., German 1, and Intro to Engineering. I can’t wait until we get started on this in the fall and pour hormones into the mixture, add heat, and see what happens! He is a bright boy — he will just have to work harder at this than he realizes.

And now, a special announcement:

UNWIND 2013

I’m happy to announce that we are in the planning stages for the 6th “Unwind” social event, to be held Saturday, September 7, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin.

This event is NOT an official Sheep & Wool event, nor is it an official Ravelry event. It is a private party that you are invited to! The price of admission (which is cheaper, the earlier you register) covers dinner, a goody bag, a chance at a door prize, and the chance to hang out with some seriously fun knitters, crocheters, spinners, and others! And yes, you can and totally should bring your needles, hooks, wheel, spindle, and what-have-you. All the cool people are doing it.

On your registration form you can also choose to purchase a T-shirt. When you arrive at the Festival on Friday or Saturday and check in at our table in the main building, which should be just in front of the fence around the Silent Auction items, you will pick up your goody bag and T-shirt.

We have a cap of 150 attendees, so if you want to come, please sign up early. We can take walk-ins at check-in time at the Festival grounds, but NOT at the event itself.

Updates, discussions, and Q&A should take place in the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival group on Ravelry.

If you would like to help sponsor the event or donate a door prize, please email me or PM me on Ravelry.

I hope to see you there — I’ll be the one wearing the Doctor Who Scarf!

Week Four: The sum of the parts

If a pile of unrelated halves could add up to a shorter pile of related wholes, I’d have more progress to report — at least, progress in the Finis! Mission Accomplished! Level Complete! sort of way. But, to paraphrase Buzz Lightyear, “That isn’t my way, is it?”

Well then, let’s see what we do have.

I finished one slipper (half of a pair) and a washcloth.

(no new picture since last week. feel free to use your imagination.)

Here is half of a sock that I cast on for while watching my alma mater play hockey against the team whose TV coverage I can actually receive in my home.

Half a sock is better than…. no, it’s still just half a sock.

Wait…. here’s half of a pair of socks! That’s better, right?

The sock for which I had sufficient yarn.

To tell the truth, I actually showed up at Thursday morning knitting group with this sock just to prove that I had actually knit a sock. We’re a little funny about socks, my group is. If you don’t make socks at all, we’re fine with that. It’s a lifestyle choice we can both understand and respect. If you tried making socks and you suck at making socks, we’re fine with that. Oh, we will tease you about it, but really, we’re fine with that, too. But if you can make socks and nobody ever sees you making socks, well… we seem to have a problem with that. The gang actually chipped in the summer before last and made a birthday present for me out of sock needles, sock yarn, and a sock pattern because I “never make socks.”

This sock had an interesting origin. I discovered somehow that Wisconsin would be playing Miami University last weekend. Now, if you know much about Sports of Any Kind, you should know right away that this is an Unusual Occurrence, as Miami is usually in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and Wisconsin is in the Big Ten/11/12/13 Conference. However, when it comes to HOCKEY, it’s a little bit different. You play the nearest hockey teams. Sometimes, and more often than you might think necessary, you play teams in Alaska. Now, Miami has recently had a most excellent hockey team and Wisconsin, so far as I knew, wasn’t on the college-hockey-playing map. This year has been an exception; Miami has struggled, while Wisconsin built up an impressive winning streak. Even Miami’s “hockey blog” group predicted that, at best, Miami would win one and lose one over the weekend.

That’s exactly what happened. Wisconsin won the Friday night game as I cast on for this Miami-colored [and coincidentally Wisconsin-colored] sockette made from stash yarn. And Miami broke Wisconsin’s streak by winning the second game on Saturday night, when I was just past the gusset stitches. They were exciting games to watch — although the kidlets still don’t quite understand why I wasn’t rooting for Wisconsin — and I got one sock out of it. Sadly, after weighing the leftover yarn, I’ve concluded that I probably won’t have enough red yarn to make a mate for it. I’ve had plenty of suggestions that I simply reverse the colors in the second sock…. but that isn’t my way, is it?

No, it isn’t.

So I just sent a message to the only person on Ravelry who has a skein of this yarn that they’re willing to sell or trade. Come icing or high-sticking, my little hockey sock will have a mate that well and truly matches.

I haven’t knitted a stitch of the drop-stitch lace scarf, and though I did cast on and knit a couple of rows on the next Gigi slipper, it wasn’t even enough to take a picture of, so that’s all the progress that’s worth reporting on the knitting front.

But on the resolution front? Any news there?

This post takes care of Resolution #1 for the time being. And I made some progress on Resolution #3 by getting my butt down to campus this week and setting myself up for success in calculus. Yesterday I even studied and took extensive notes. I had forgotten quite a bit since I had to suspend my studies, but I finally did find the place in the textbook before which I need not go, and I will re-educate myself from there. I’ll make copies of my notes and start taking on homework problems starting tomorrow. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I’ll be ready for the Most Excellent Job in technical editing.

P.S. I’ve started watching Season 3 of Downton Abbey and should be all caught up by Sunday night. Just so you know.

Week Three: Then there were six

With Resolution #2 out of the way, and steady progress being made on Resolution #1, you’d think I would have taken care of Resolutions 3 and 4 by now.

Well…not yet. But I have been working on the reorganizations necessary for accomplishment of #3, and some votes are in as far as the particulars of #4. Unfortunately, there’s a tie, so either (a) more people need to vote [did you know you could vote for more than one item?] or (b) I will have to learn TWO new cast-ons.

Until the ballot boxes are stuffed, I can report that I have made progress on a couple of projects. The drop-stitch lace scarf has 9 repeats complete on it now, and a few minutes with a gram-sensitive kitchen scale and a wooden ruler showed me that I ought to be able to squeeze 28 total repeats from this quantity of yarn, making the finished scarf about 42 inches long.

This is the 33 percent.

I also cast on for another pair of cotton slippers for my grandmother. I have made several pairs for her over the last few years. She wears them out and asks for more. I meant to have started these much earlier, but. I started watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey yesterday, and decided it was the perfect time to cast on for the slippers. And so it was. I have already finished one slipper. Then I decided to take a little break by using the leftover yarn from the first ball to start a matching dishcloth. I’m more than half way done with it, then I should have enough yarn left over to make the second slipper. I’m thinking of edging the washcloth with crochet…. maybe just to see if I remember how.

The little-seen Matching Dishcloth and Slipper set.

Downton Abbey is perfect for garter stitch, or any other knitting you can do without checking on it constantly. And in the episode I watched today (okay one of the episodes; I’m trying to catch up so I can watch Season 3 with the rest of the world), there was the first depiction of knitting. Different sorts of needlework are constantly being mentioned and shown, but this time the red-headed Irish maid, Ethel, had a ball of green yarn she was apparently working into the panel of a sweater.

This is probably Ethel’s most respectable talent.

The weather right now is sunny but cold, and this weekend we go from a high of 38° on Saturday to a high of 15° on Sunday, with temperatures expected to stay frigid for several days. No snow, just bone-chilling cold. Perfect knitting weather. I’m looking forward to finishing these projects and casting on for new things in bright, cheerful colors. Maybe even wild and outrageous colors! Or maybe I will just cast on to make a pile of mittens to replace all the ones my Darling Children have LOST this year. It’s gotten so bad that I have even purchased insulated gloves from the STORE, only to have a child come home wearing only one of them on the afternoon of the first day. ::headdesk:: Perhaps I should just pick a signature color of washable wool blend (I’m considering you, Wool-Ease) and just Never. Stop. Making. Mittens. Out. Of. It. Year-round. For the rest of my days.

They don’t seem to lose the scarves. Maybe I should start making the scarves with the hand-pockets on the ends?

Week Two: The Stripes Add Height

I’m a bit late for “Thursdays are for blogging” but this still counts for a weekly update. So, Resolution #1 continues!

I am pleased to report that Resolution #2 has been knocked out of the park! I finished the scarf and bound it off on Sunday night. Now, usually I would go to Monday-morning knitting and I had planned to present it to Ginnie then. But my So-Called-Twins [born 16 months apart] felt under the weather then, so I stayed home too. While they rested, I cut fringe and attached the tassels to the scarf — a dozen tassels on each end, each one with all seven colors that are in the scarf. I brought it to Tuesday night knitting instead, and she was thrilled to finally have it.

The original plan here was that, since Ginnie only crochets and does not plan to learn to knit, I was going to knit a Doctor Who scarf that she would give to her father, who introduced her to the Doctor in the first place. But plans change, and after I started on the scarf she decided she would crochet one for him. That made a lot more sense, since I didn’t know him at all, so I kept working on the scarf with the intent of giving it to her instead. I cast on in April 2011….

Anyway, here is Ginnie. After she posted this picture on Facebook, one of her friends commented that it “made her look so tall.” Yeah. 14-foot-long, foot-wide scarves tend to do that. Personally, I worry it’s going to throw her back out or simply pitch her forward.

So subtle you hardly notice it.

Resolution #3 was to complete my calculus class. Before I do that, I really will need to get things more organized here. The house is in pretty much the usual state of organic disarray, which means it’s going to provide a billion distractions to getting math and my head to coexist again. I still have a valid commuter pass, so I will probably use it to study on campus a few mornings a week. But I don’t really have any progress to report in that area, so…. moving on to Resolution #4: Learn one new cast-on.

Well, now. The ball’s in your court now, isn’t it?

I’m taking a break from some of my long-time WIPs and working on some different things right now to clear my head. I do need to make another pair or two of slippers for my grandmother, but what I picked up yesterday was a ball of turquoise mystery yarn I had bought at the thrift store. [At least, it's turquoise sometimes. It depends on the light source.] I went to the Ravelry pattern database and typed in “halo yarn” and hit Search. I saw immediately the pattern I wanted to use for my unknown-content, unknown-amount of yarn: Easy Lace Ladder Scarf Pattern. It uses a very simple technique but it’s one I hadn’t used before. (Bonus!) You do straight knitting for six rows. On Row 7 you knit each stitch but add 2 yarnovers before you finish the stitch, and you end with a plain knit stitch. On Row 8 you knit the stitches but drop the yarnovers.

I had a lot of problems with this the first time I got to Row 8 because sliding the stitches toward the needle tip pulled the YOs too tight to go from the cable to the needle. After a little time to think about it, I switched to good ol’ aluminum straight needles and eliminated that little issue. As of right now, I have three repeats done on it. The Rav-enabled can follow along there as I post progress shots; I’m calling it “Fuzzy and Blue” after a song from “Sesame Street.” Haven’t heard of it? Haven’t heard it for thirty years or so? Here you go. You’re welcome.

Fuzzy and Blue (vintage Sesame Street)

Ascending and Descending

Whoa! it’s been a week. Not for knitting — no, not so much for that. All I have been able to work on knitwise was blanket squares, and not so many of those. But as I walk through my evolving work-and-study schedule at school, I’m finding pockets of time that I might be able to use for work that requires more concentration, like the DNA Scarf.

I’m definitely in the right spot at work. I sat down this morning to start a blanket square, and by the time two other people had entered the break room, we were having a lively conversation about knitting, crochet, and the lost art of lace tatting. Not one person has wandered in, watched me work for a split second, and commented cheerfully, “Knit one, purl two, huh?!?” Which is refreshing.

As far as school goes, I got through my first astronomy lab (fun) and my first astronomy quiz (got almost everything right), and emerged from the dizzying Chapter One of the precalculus book and its extremely dry review of linear algebra and entered the peaceful and friendly Chapter Two dealing with functions.

[f(a + h) – f(a)]/h, anyone? Come on, it’s fun! And eventually it’s going to have some cool purpose, I just know it is.

Ascending and Descending, M.C. Escher (1960)

I haven’t exercised this week unless you count repeatedly climbing (and descending, let’s not forget descending) several flights of stairs and crossing acres of campus to deliver Extremely Time Critical campus-mail envelopes. I volunteer for that job every chance I get. The air is crisp, the sidewalks aren’t too slippery, and the way I walk, it’s aerobic. And I’ve been drinking very little soda (until the headaches creep back into my temples, then I have just a teensy bit), mostly having flavored green tea water. It tastes better than I’m making it sound. Zero calories, lots of hydration.

So I was pleased to weigh myself on the Wii this morning and see that I had finally met my incremental goal. It took me about three weeks to lose two pounds, but I did it. The next goal is to lose two pounds by two weeks from now, and by healthier means than by catching a bit of the stomach-bug that’s apparently making the rounds of the house. Jack had an awful day of it on Thursday and stayed home from school on Friday too for good measure; Colleen stayed home from school on Friday as a sort of preventative attempt; Tommy has it now and let’s just say we’ll be washing a lot of bedding today. Poor critters.

Resolution Update

1. I am publishing this post on Saturday as I promised. Check.
2. Knitted about three blanket squares. I need a recount on that particular project.
3. I rehomed a hand-knitted sweater this week. Unfortunately, it was Tyrone, which I absent-mindedly put in the regular wash, thinking the wool was Superwash. Oops. Yep, it felted and would no longer fit my heartbroken five-year-old. (Who promptly insisted I had to knit him a new sweater, RIGHT NOW.) I passed the sweater along to the owners of the local coffee shop where my knitting group meets; their little boy just turned one year old. Anyway, in all other areas, clutter abounds. There is work to do here.
4. Doing well on my Precalculus homework and Astronomy work. The first Precalc exam will be February 10; the first Astronomy exam should be February 14.
5. I met my incremental weight-loss goal of two pounds and have set my sights on the next two pounds.

Slowly out of the blocks

This week is my last week at home before school starts for me again next Tuesday. (I haven’t figured out why college has the day off but all the other schools are open, but hey! it gives me one last kid-free Monday morning knitting meeting before I never see my “morning friends” again.) I’m trying to finish up loose ends, make phone calls, start preparing for the new semester, and generally fix a lot of things this week.

In the past few days I have been wondering a few things.

1. I don’t stay wide awake while I’m reading textbooks like I used to 30 years ago. I wonder why that is?

2. I will be on campus from 7:45am to 3pm every day. (Add an hour a day of travel time.) I wonder when I will keep up with my social networking?

3. This also means I won’t be able to attend Monday and Thursday morning knitting sessions in the group I founded. I wonder how I’m make progress on my lofty knitting-related resolutions?

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm….

Anyway, I’ve been struggling forward with my DNA Scarf. It’s a pattern that takes a lot of concentration on my part and/or silence on the part of others. Or at least the “right” kind of noise. As of this post, I have finished 2.5 repeats. I know where all the errors are, and the scarf is well aware it is being created on borrowed time. If a fatal error does occur, I will NOT re-knit this yarn into this scarf, but into something completely different. A lace shawl, perhaps. Yes, a lovely Kelly Green alpaca lace shawl….. And then I will stuff it in a box and refuse to let it see the light of day. (If events escalate to this point, the yarn and the pattern will have deserved it. Trust me.)

DNA Scarf - 2.5 repeats

In the meantime, I’m approaching the project as a test of the strength of my own stubbornness. Do I really want to make this scarf? Do I really want to keep all my resolutions? Do I really want to follow my own rules? Do I really NOT want to have to announce on my blog that I screwed up so wretchedly that I decided to knit a massive lace rationalization?

In other struggles, I weighed in this morning on the Wii before I did a 30 minute free run. My weight is up a little from last time, but overall it’s still a loss from a week ago. If I keep at it on the dual fronts of Europe diet and Russia exercise, I will get all my numbers down and get healthier and stronger over time. Not-eating-doughnuts would probably help, too.

See you on Saturday for the regular blog post with all the Happy Happy Fun Time Number Crunching!

The Shortest Yard

Then there were seven.

Last night I utterly dedicated myself to finishing 198 Yards of Heaven. To translate, that means I really wanted to finish my toque, but Dale-Harriet was held up doing “other” fun things besides knitting and wouldn’t be to Knit Night until, well, later.

I told myself I’d just do a few rows until she showed up with the toque yarn.

I pulled the lace project out of its bag, looked at it carefully, and realized the removable purple tape I’d used to mark the pattern row had fallen off.

I asked the Sow’s Ear staff to pull up my Ravelry project listing on their computer so I could see what row I was on, and realized I hadn’t been very specific about that lately.

However, I had been kind enough to leave a cyber-note to myself that the stitch count was now accurate, and that was enough for me to be able to resume work.

Then I knit and knit and knit. Six long rows of pattern. Six more rows to the ending. Four rows that made an eyelet row and a row of 1×1 ribbing.

And then it was eleven o’clock at night. Time for the store to close, and not enough time to work a lace bind-off with what I was beginning to believe was not enough yarn.

“Just buy some more,” someone suggested. Well… that wasn’t possible, since the yarn I used for this project were the only two remaining skeins of it, purchased from this very store at least two years ago. 200 yards of it, for a pattern titled “198 Yards of Heaven.”

So I packed everything up, and turned a 60 minute drive home into a hair-raising, no-caffeine-needed 90 minute drive home in the first snow of the season. The roads weren’t slippery, really, it was just that I couldn’t see them, or very much of them, most of the time. That’s all.

This morning I ordered the children to watch television (it’s a rough life, but they woke me after four full hours of sleep and I wanted to reward them somehow) while I took the project into another room to bind it off.

I carefully measured my remaining yarn before starting the bind-off row, and I had 7 yards. Surely, seven yards would be plenty for working a four-foot edge.

(You already know the answer, don’t you?)

But you don’t know the solution — I used the yarn leftover from the first skein of yarn, which I had made into a little bobbin with a twist-tie.

Ha ha ha, one more project finished, and I have three whole yards left over from the 200! 198 Yards of Heaven, my ass! More like 197! Bwahahahahaaaaaaa!

And after I bribe the digital camera with some new lithium batteries, it will release my photographs and I will insert them in the appropriate positions in this post.

P.S. Dale-Harriet DID bring the matching yarn. You’re next, toque!

A wedding and a funeral

I’m still here, but my priorities got changed for me over the last couple of weeks. I can’t even remember if I’ve gotten any knitting done since the last post — did I mention I finished a Doctor Who Scarf, all but for the fringe? — because real life sort of took over.

My brother got engaged, and I knitted his fiancée a pair of Bronte’s Mitts fingerless mittens in alpaca for her birthday. So I guess I did finish something! They arrived on her Actual Birthday and she likes them.

Bronte Mitts for Lydia

Then school started — all four kids on the bus at the same time. I waited twenty minutes, then dashed off to the coffee shop to celebrate with the other local moms I hadn’t seen all summer.

Then it was the second day of school. It wasn’t memorable until midnight, when we got a call to tell us there was a tragedy and school was cancelled for Friday. There were no details, and I spend the night tossing, turning, and sporadically searching the internet to figure out what had happened. It was 10:30 the next day when I discovered that our principal’s only son had been killed in a car accident after their car was struck by a suspected drunk driver. Treyton was a classmate of my middle boy — they were just six years old. It took me hours before I could compose myself to tell my children what had happened. It was a long and angry weekend for me, with my husband away and my kids grieving and venting at their completely different developmental stages.

On Monday we had a little family cookout, and on Tuesday it was time for school again. (“How was school today, Jack?” “Treyton’s dead.” “Yep.”)

On Wednesday school was cancelled for Treyton’s funeral. And although his mother made a passionate and moving 19-minute eulogy that would make anyone set their drink down and call a cab, I won’t embed it here. I heard it live, but it’s very hard to listen to. If you want to find it for yourself — particularly if you’re struggling with the issue of drunk driving or other bad choices at your house — go to www.todaystmj4.com for “Raw video: Treyton Kilar’s Eulogy.” I don’t know how long it will be available. If you know me via Facebook you can find it on my wall.

On Thursday I was taking my youngest son into town with me and he asked, “Mom, when is my next school day?” He goes on M-W-F and had already missed an F, an M, and a W.

On Friday we were sort of back to normal, but now it was time for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival (Hi, Lael!) and the final details for UNWIND, the Saturday night social event I’ve been coordinating for a few years now. I didn’t have any money to blow at the festival, so I was safe there. (I still have fiber from the last three years to spin up, anyway.) And the party seemed to go well — 113 guests, about 50 door prizes, and everyone got home safely. We’re doing it again next year and we’ll have more details soon. (The planning for next year went off like a shot when I delegated the venue and catering decisions to my friend Bonnie.)

Today was another normal old school day, but since the husband is away on a business trip through Thursday, there’s a lot more on my shoulders and I wish there were more time to knit. I’m working on a prayer shawl for Treyton’s mother, but the progress on it is somewhat unusual. I started a different prayer shawl pattern, but abandoned it after 1 row. This pattern was on the top of a stack of patterns I had printed out last April when my former father-in-law died, but I had never used it. I frogged the other project, cast on for the new pattern, and got a quick start. But now it seems I am called to knit only a few rows on it every day. The universe has made it clear that this is to be a methodical and meditative project.

I haven’t made the other two hats for the kids, but I did start a toque for myself as designed by my friend Dale-Harriet. I used up all the yarn she gave me and it won’t take long to finish it. I just have to wait until the next time we cross paths so I can get more Cascade, and I don’t know when that will be.

I’ll miss the next Late Night Knitting at the Sow’s Ear because the aforementioned middle son will be the ring bearer in a wedding that takes place this Saturday (the rehearsal is Friday night and we’re going to need it, trust me). We bought him a tuxedo for this, and he’s looking forward to it, but occasionally he does panic and freak out at stuff, so I’m a little tense as we get closer to it. I wonder how much weight I can lose in a week, just in case I need to go strolling down the aisle myself, hand in hand with a six-year-old.

That’s enough and I’m tired. I’m going to do some simple knitting and get some rest. Most of today, I’ve felt as if I was on the verge of some sort of episode, and I’m sure you can understand why.

Only 100 rows

I finished the purple hat to go with Colleen’s gloves. See?

And I have been chugging along on the Doctor Who Scarf, until I now have just five stripes left to knit — 100 rows. Because I’ve been knitting in my ends as I go whenever switching colors, I won’t have that to do at the end of the work. I have just two ends to weave in from where I joined a new skein of brick red in the middle of a stripe, and the end left over after I bind off. Then it’s just cutting and attaching the fringe, and it’s all done.

I haven’t bothered to measure it for months. The only way I can knit on it is to keep it all rolled up and have it on my lap while I knit. It’s too big to work on in the car, and not especially portable anywhere else.

But.

I just might time it so I can finish the main knitting at The Sow’s Ear this Friday night. That’s worth ringing the bell for!

Then, of course, it will be time to knit Jack’s and Tommy’s hats, start a tocque for myself, and finish all the lace and/or wristwarmers I’ve got going. I discovered a German knitting designer the other day who has a bunch of beautiful lace patterns up on Ravelry, and a handful of them are free. (download, download, download, print print print) Her name is Birgit Freyer and her site is http://www.Die-WollLust.de — “Knitting Delights.” She does publish charted patterns rather than line-by-line directions, so be advised. But oh my goodness, it’s lovely stuff.

UNWIND registrations are over 50 now. Keep those forms coming in, don’t wait until the last minute! (Which would be September 1.)

Oh yeah — I dubbed the blue and green alpaca sock yarn scarf as my Official Car Knitting. I had it with me yesterday on the way to a family party. As long as I can remember to cap the needles so the whole project doesn’t slide off, and I can keep from snapping the needles, I’m good. And as long as I don’t get impatient. I really wanted a lacier look for this scarf, and should have used much larger needles. But there’s no way in hell I’m ripping it out at this stage. Consider it a lesson learned for the next scarf made with sock yarn. This one looks lovely at the gauge it’s in. It’s just going to be done when it’s done and that’s the best I can do.

So, what’s your Endless Project? How do you motivate yourself to keep plugging away at it?