We stocked up on bottled water and canned goods

Snow Day!


Last night we got slammed with our only real snow storm of the year. I don't know what took so long, but it sure made up for a relatively nice winter with about two feet of heavy fluffy white stuff. Brett and I had both gone into work but got to leave early.

The ride home was scary and we wound up abandoning my car in a city lot overnight and Brett drove us both up the snowy hill to Fly Creek. Today we went back for it and not only had to shovel out those two feet in the driveway to get Brett's car out, but the 4 feet or so the plow had dumped into the drive, AND the snow that had buried my car in the lot. But it hadn't been towed or ticketed and I'm just thrilled we got both cars home safe.

Yesterday we enjoyed the early dismissal and played in the snow a little after we shoveled the first foot of snow out of the driveway.



Today we just bummed around and cooked yummy food and did laundry, but it was nice to have a day off. Our mailbox is completely destroyed, though, and our poor snowman has been buried to his waist.

Those plows toss that snow around but good.

The Olympic Sweater is not looking good folks. The body is done and I'm making good progress on the sleeves but I'm pretty certain the collar is at least a three day bit of knitting and I only have two left! I'll keep knitting away though, like the USA Women's Hockey team playing to the last second, rather than concede defeat.

Olympic Knitting Post Secundum

Olympic Knitting is over half over! I'm starting to get pretty nervous that I won't medal. A few nights ago it looked like this


Today it looks like this



I should be focused and project monogamous, but I'm finding loyalty to seemingly miles of stockinette (knit across 400 stitches, purl back across 400 stitches) hard to stay excited about. If a brilliant pair of colorwork mittens is like the pairs figure skating, then this sweater is probably the men's 30k cross country skiing pursuit: long and repetitive with little chance for dazzle (except this year's thrilling race. Go Sweden!).

The yarn is lovely to knit with and is producing a soft elegantly draping fabric that I really like. It's now too heavy to hold and knit standing, so I've had to stop knit while getting in my bike work out. fortunately, the mindless knitting is good to take with to work. Winter is slow at the bakery and I have about an hour to an hour and a half's worth of spare minutes during any given day. The last couple days I've brought the Olympic Sweater and worked on that between customers and clean up. By the end of tonight, I hope to have finished the body and be casting on for the arms. They are knit over far fewer stitches, completely in the round and only need to be 3/4 length, so they should be just a two day section. Then I'll pick up and knit the shawl collar which I already know is going to be the hardest part.

I have let myself be distracted with other projects. I'm working on a little something for the wedding guests and have done some trials for that experiment. Looking good so far. I've also cleaned up some empty jars I had laying around and hot glued some of the Christmas doilies to them.


And Brett asked if I would draw a tattoo on his arm, so one evening instead of knitting, I designed an arm piece featuring our pets as comic book heroes.





It's all washed off now, of course, but I thought it was pretty awesome.

Knitting Olympics Post Unum

I've been saving this post for something special.

::cue happy parade music::

It's my 100th blog post!

Hooray! When I saw that is was coming up, I knew I wanted it to coincide with my Olympic Knitting post.

For those of you who don't know about the Knitting Olympics, kindly find your way to The Yarn Harlot.

Over the next 17 days, beginning with the torch lighting ceremony tomorrow night, I will be casting on, knitting, binding off, and finishing.......

A WHOLE SWEATER!

That's right. A whole sweater, start to finish. Specifically the Featherweight cardigan at the top of this page.

This will be a challenge because I've never knit a sweater start to finish in 17 days, especially at the gauge this piece is knit at. I'm really excited to see if I can do it. There are no silver medals in the Knitting Olympics, only gold baby!

I've checked my equipment.
I've done my training.



My gauge is on and I'm feeling confident. Let's DO THIS THING!

Update

A few things:

1) Today I had my first paid day as a Hall of Fame Museum Teacher. It was nice to walk around in high heels and a suit jacket with a binder in my arm feeling professional again. Been a little while. I think I'm really going to love the work too, which will largely be teaching thematic units to student groups via videoconference. Unfortunately, it's just a few hours a week for now and I'm still going to need to keep pretty much all my hours at the bakery.

It's hard because I really want to be dedicated to the museum and be flexible and generous with my availability there. I know the more time I invest with them, the more quickly I'll be qualified for all the programs and the more hours I'll get, but I can't afford to ask another day off at the bakery and sacrifice 9 hours for 2 or 4 museum hours. Hopefully, I'll be able to work with my manager at the bakery to get an optimal schedule for both jobs.

2) Brett and I drove all the way to Albany this weekend to eat at the nearest Fuddruckers. (Very good. Probably not worth a four hour drive...) Since we were out there, we checked out a few of the comic stores in the town and one of the yarn shops. (Very good and certainly worth a four hour drive) The yarn shop was the best I've been too since I went to Three Kittens in Minneapolis. They were at the end of a class when we walked in, so it was pretty crowded and a little hard to look closely at everything without being in someone's way.

My qualifications for yarn shops include a few things:
The overall store layout should be organized by weight or fiber content, maybe by brand, and not by color.
There should be an excellent selection of pure wool, preferably Cascade in a variety of colors.
There should be a dedicated sock yarn section, especially if yarn is grouped by brand.
There should be a good rotating display of yarns unique to the store or area. Local fiber, or small dyeworks.

If a store meets two or more of these qualification, chances are good I will come back again and again, because they meld with the things I think are useful and valuable when choosing yarn.

My only issue with the store was that the owner lady gave Brett a little flak. I know she was trying to be funny and warm, but she said to Brett as she passed, "See? You didn't melt!" I mean, come on, the guy took me to Rhinebeck and spent all day walking around in the cold with me, getting into things just because I did. He bought me Cinderella glass knitting needles and beautiful bone needles. He has a good eye and I know he was looking at the yarn just as intently as I was. He's a pro, and I do think it was a little presumptuous to assume not only that he isn't a knitter himself but that he was scared to come in. Honestly. Give the boys a little credit!