Dumb People Harsh my Vibe

Hello again. Today has been (and will continue to be for a little while longer) a long day of grading. I've been checking blogs and knitting the scarf as a reward every two papers, but the going has been tough.

The worst break I took all day was to visit the Craig's List help forums to try to piece together a problem we've been having. I think, but can't say for sure, that people selling the same thing (graduation tickets*) are flagging our post as scalping. But when I explained on the help forum that it wasn't scalping if the tickets didn't have a face value and there was no college policy against selling them, they made their attacks personal. There are eight new posts just today for tickets for sale, hence why I suspect it's our competition that's flagging them more than anyone else. I know flamers are just... well, mean-spirited people, but I still take it far too personally. And being at all emotional screws up my grading mindset.

And I started the day in such an optimistic mood, too.

So, I'm going to try to get 2-4 more done tonight and then head to bed. I'm hoping the assignment I've scheduled myself to grade on Friday will allow for more knitting. (Because I do paperless grading, I listen to the computer read papers out loud once, then grade them carefully while making comments. It helps me avoid making comments out of place or too harshly if I read through once first, and knitting keeps me from hitting pause to type something like, "WHAT?" in the comment field. The assignments I'm grading now are projects, not papers, and don't work so well that way.) If I can knit even a little bit more on Friday, I might actually be able to finish this scarf on time...

Anyway, sorry for the work babble. Back to it!

* Just in case anyone was confused, these aren't my tickets as faculty (no such thing). They are my husband's tickets as a graduating senior who doesn't want to walk at commencement. It's his show, so I left the choice to him. We'll be going to the receptions though. :) Free food and congratulations are the best part.

Plug and Post

Check out this Contest by Cass. If you've got a joke, a funny story, advice for an about-to-be-seventeen-year-old, a recommended knit project, and/or a recommended yarn (especially vegan), then it could win you goodies!

I'm afraid I don't have much to post about personally. I've just grading, knitting when I can on the Girl-Chicago scarf, because it needs to be done by Saturday(!), and grading some more.

I didn't already make a big post about it, I don't think, but if anyone has any neighborhood, rental or other housing recommendations for either Buffalo, NY or Tucson, AZ, I'm all ears. When I'm not doing something I should be, I'm surfing craigslist. :)

Weekend Wonder #7

Hello! Welcome to Weekend Wonder No. 7 - an example of colorwork on the loom - part 1.


As any regular readers know, I've been working on two scarves for two friends - a couple - moving to Chicago from here in balmy Charleston. What you see above is the Girl-Chicago scarf in progress. (There's nothing necessarily girly about the pattern, but the yarn and colors make it more feminine. I'm thinking I may make a version in Vikings, Twins, or SUNY Buffalo colors for my husband - but that's a long way off). The recipient isn't a terribly girly-girl, and I wanted something easy to knit but complex enough to be worth making a pattern. I'd been considering designing a plaid for a while, and this slick, bulky yarn doesn't lend itself to a very wide panel, so the above design was invented.

I started by casting on first the white and then the blue - separately - using a crochet chain. I made a chain the length of the number of pegs (16) times two (32) minus one (31). I then slipped the first chain over the first peg, skipped a chain, slipped the next one over the next peg, on down the line. If the last peg is tricky for you, or your chain keeps coming unraveled, then just chain extra, and when you get to the last peg, put your finger or hook in the chain that will be going on that last peg, unravel back to that point, then place the loop on the peg such that the yarn is wrapping around it clockwise. (This assumes you cast on right-to-left like me and that you slip the last peg every time, also like me. As long as the yarn comes around the back of the last peg and crosses to the front of the next peg, you're fine.) The effect, as you can see, is a two-layer look. I really like it, but it will require casting off each color separately if you want your two ends to match. I'll have to save that for next week!

The slip stitches on the ends are both colors held together. I carry both colors across the row simultaneously; the key to getting the varied stripes is twisting the strands between every stitch. What you can see in this picture on the left is that I have knit a blue stitch (on the peg with the green marker) and then a white stitch to its right. I will then cross the blue over the white. If the next stitch was to be blue, that's all I would do - cross blue over white, and knit blue. But because the next stitch will be white (two white stripes in a row) I cross the blue over white, then white over blue as well. Making this twist prevents the loop that would be formed by the blue running along the back without the white to hold it in. This would be fine on a hat or other garment if it didn't go more than three stitches, but I twist in the blue here for two reasons. One, it makes the other side of the scarf more consistent (see below). Two, it creates a dotted stripe of one color (here blue) peeking through the other (here white).

(Needle knitters, please ignore this part.) The scarf is done in garter stitch - all knit left to right, all purl right to left. On the purl pass, I twist the yarns in the opposite direction - right over left - to avoid twisting the skeins up and because it's easier for me.

So, how does the reverse look? Like static, actually, with stripes of solid color. I could have avoided the latter by keeping the alternate color running along with the main color, but I wanted to vary the texture of the scarf. Those solid rows are not knit with both colors. The plaid itself if indiscernible from the reverse, which was my intent. To me, it looks a bit like a blizzard of color - we used to call TV static snow for a reason after all. And that's Chicago.

The other scarf, just to give you a little preview, is done in linked treble crochet and looks like this:


I'll talk more about the rest of both scarves in future posts. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Tucson or Bust!

And the decision has been made. This fall Mr. Man will begin the anthropology PhD program at SUNY Buffalo, and I will begin the MFA creative writing at the University of Arizona. To celebrate, Mr. Man bought me a necklace to replace a chain I recently broke for one of my favorite pendants - a little viking ship with an amber sail. It was really sweet of him to think of it, especially all on his own.

Not many days off for me in the near future. We need to get on the apartment hunt big time (if you know of pet friendly rentals in either city, comment or email or Ravelry message JennieMac PLEASE) as well as paying bills, doing laundry, srategizing packing for a move, studying/prepping and grading finals... all that good stuff. But, I will also be getting some good work on the Guy-Chicago scarf done, because I've finally found a stitch I like. And I have to get the Girl-Chicago done by next Saturday, so I'll be working on that as well.

I get a little time to myself tomorrow when Mr. Man goes in for a final, so I hope to work on the next Weekend Wonder then.

Oh, P.S. I've got a fresh haircut and other girly salon stuff. Life is looking up. ;)

Le Tired

Crash. Pretty soon, I'm going to crash.

Yesterday was the last day of classes, so much joy would have been had, except I had a chunk of grading I sworn I would get done. So I taught and prepped and graded from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. with two meal breaks. Afterward, we went to an end of the semester party and I stupidly stayed out until after 2. The drinks and the dancing were much needed, but especially after spending today in the field, I am le tired, not to mention achy and sore.

Internet at home is down, so I'm limited in my blogging ability. With any luck, it will fix itself or the serviceman coming tomorrow will come early. If he doesn't, I'll have to cancel my much needed hair cut appointment and will be very depressed.

I am dying for some me-time that - hopefully tonight or tomorrow.

The only news on the crafting front is that I am still frustrated with a scarf that is not turning out as wanted. I've got a couple things I can work on that are going better, and that's my plan for the next few days. Right now, I'm going to pack up and work on the strapless top until Mr. Man is ready to walk home.

Sorry for both the radio silence and the bleh post - I blame the latter on my caffeine wearing off!

Weekend Whatever

Hello all! As I sat here grading - and I'm not as done as I'd like to be by a mile! - I realized I never made up my mind about the Weekend Wonder issue! Well, the clock made up my mind for me. I'm not going to be able to think of something creative in the next hour and a half while I'm grading, so I declare this the first weekend off. I'll probably take every seventh weekend off, though I do have to admit that I've been trying to think of something good to do for post #50, which is coming up soon.
Back to work - have a good week!

The Price of Admission

Both crafting and not crafting blogging today, folks! Step right up! Two for the price of one!

So, which shall I start with? I think the crafting.

My first admission is that I'm suffering from some serious project polygamy. (Is that polyandry or polygyny, do you think?) I'm currently working on the strapless and retro femme tops from Sensual Crochet, one man's scarf design that I just CANNOT get going, and a woman's knit scarf design which I think is working (take number three is at 45 rows and looks good I think). In my head, I'm also working on three mitten designs in crochet, two of which I've charted (two variations that I'm going to call Scandinavian Sock Monkey Mittens - you'll see why eventually). :) I've also got an eye mask I just remembered that is only waiting to be bound off and seamed; I have no idea why I haven't just done it already.

That man's scarf - specifically a man's scarf because it's intended as a gift for a Guy Friend, as is the woman's scarf meant for a Girl Friend - is really being a pain these last couple weeks. It's yarn I bought two weeks ago; I love working with it, but I'm having a hell of a time designing something I like. The knitted designs I tried were all too open in gauge, and there's no way to get around that except to double the yarn or buy a fine gauge loom, which I'm not willing to do.

I really think Guy Friend will like the colors better than Girl Friend, so I'm sticking with it. I decided to make it in Tunisian crochet, but I know if I just do it in simple stitch it'll curl. Right now, I've been doing six row sections of different stitch patterns (combinations of tss, tks, tps, and staggered tss, as well as what I think might be Tunisian double crochet, but I'm not certain). I'm trying to find one or more I like enough to do the whole scarf out of it, but I'm nearing 30 rows with nothing I love in sight. I'm thinking I'll try a couple rows of seed stitch or a checkerboard pattern. I think one of those will be the winner, but we'll have to see.

The bottom line of all that is the second admission, which is that I have no idea what tomorrow's Weekend Wonder will be. :) I was thinking I might skip it to give myself one weekend off from it every six WWs, but I haven't decided.

I'm also thinking about a bigger admission that I began making public in the last few days, which is the big Opportunity I mentioned a couple posts back. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I'm a college professor getting ready to take a leave of absence because I'm experiencing some serious burn out and career doubt. Part of the reason I became a professor was that I wanted to write, enjoyed teaching, and knew that if I succeeded at it, academia would be a much more secure position than professional writing or a lot of other career options. (Ah, tenure. Here and here, too.) Another part of the reason I became a professor is that I have a very strong tendency to do things because I should. Because I should. Not really for any other reason, just general societal, cultural, sometimes familial, and sometimes personal expectations and shoulds.

There are a lot of things I really enjoy about teaching, but also many things I don't. I won't detail either here because, well, this should be at least a somewhat fun blog, not a diatribe or homily. What I would really like to do is some of the parts of my job, like the writing and the teaching, but perhaps without the service obligations, or perhaps without the heavy course load of my small school, or perhaps at a more interdisciplinary institution, since that's the nature of my work, or perhaps just less.

What I've been planning to do on my leave is focus on my writing and possibly take some graduate classes and begin working toward a PhD.* I say possibly because I wanted Mr. Man to choose the PhD program that was best for him** and then work around that, in no small part because I was being VERY wishy washy during application season. One thing I did last fall was submit applications to MFA programs in writing at the schools where Mr. Man was applying. My first choice in terms of program quality was the University of Arizona, which was Mr. Man's fourth choice out of four.

Surprisingly to both of us (low self esteem much?), not only was he accepted to his two top choices, as you know, but recently I was accepted to Arizona. So, now our tough choice is whether or not to live apart for the two years I'd be in the program. Today, I'm leaning toward it, but yesterday I wasn't. And that was the big admission I made public this week. Many of my colleagues thought I was applying to PhD programs, but to be honest, the only reason I was thinking PhD was so I'd be more competitive in academia. If I'm not going to stay in academia, I don't need to invest the time or energy in a PhD. That said, enrolling in an MFA writing program could be great for my writing, but it would be a really big step away from my current position.

Craft, think, and breathe. Repeat.

Time to go wake my husband from his nap. We're headed out for a busy night - first an a cappella concert, then an awards ceremony for one of his majors, then a gallery opening/art extravaganza/thing for a friend. Should be fun. Should be dinner in there somewhere.

I'll be back tomorrow!

* I have two terminal graduate degrees but no PhD.
** He chose Buffalo! Anyone from Buffalo?