Moved...

Oops! I moved and forgot my forwarding address! I can now be found here:

Green Apples: A Knitting blog

I don't teach until 5:30 tonight, which gives me plenty of time to sit around in my pajamas and knit. I'm actually kind of worried, because at the moment my studio numbers are down significantly. Last spring I had 20 students, in the summer I had 15 (numbers always go down in the summer) and now, as of the first week of lessons, I have 1o or 11. Of course, numbers always go up once the other classes start, and the late starters get around to signing up. But still... nervous. Somebody's got to pay the yarn bill around here, you know what I'm saying? I should probably recruit more aggressively, but I just hate doing that sort of thing. It feels so silly. I guess I could probably take on piano students, but I don't really like teaching piano.

I still have my church job though, which as of late has begun paying more, and it's still high wedding season around here, plus I've been doing an extra mass most weekends, so no worries for awhile. Marc says that I'm the world's biggest worrier, and at some point I should probably get it into my head that I don't only have myself to depend on, but still... it's a hard mental switch to make.

In news of the knitting kind, I finally have a progress picture of Rusted root.
Details:
Knitpicks shine sport in green apple.
Size 6 needles.
I'm 16 rounds in.

This is such a fun knit - the lace keeps it interesting, and I adore this yarn color.

I've also made some progress on my Multidirectional scarf


I kind of like that the colors are subtle in this one (Noro silk garden #82.) I'm not pleased with the ridge you get from doing the short rows, but looking at other scarves it appears to be normal. I actually restarted once because I thought I was doing something wrong, so I'm a little behind on this one.

I went thrifting yesterday and bought cookbooks!
I didn't start cooking until a year or two ago, and now I'm totally hooked. I'm not vegetarian, but I do love vegetables far more than meat, so I mostly cook vegetarian dishes or those that are light in meat. I've been drooling over these all afternoon, trying to decide what to try for dinner.

I am a sad, sad person. I tried to resist the allure of the Knitpicks summer yarn sale, but I was no match for it. Ok, so maybe I didn't try so hard...

Rusted Root is coming along very quickly, so I feel justified in my spending! I'm halfway through the increases. I had to restart it once because I inadvertently twisted the join, but it's all better now!

I ordered Main line in Blueberry, for an Hourglass sweater from "Last Minute Knitted gifts". I know it seems a little odd... but in truth I am not a fan of wool sweaters. It doesn't really get cold enough here for me to wear a wool sweater with my coat more than a week out of the year. I appreciate that mercy, as I'm the worst person to deal with in cold weather. Tonight, for instance, Marc and our friend Jason wanted to walk to play triva, maybe 3 blocks away. Me? I drove because the temperature was under 70. Yes, I know... sad.

I also got shine worsted in Green Apple and Wave, for a something red (ok, green) cardigan and the Looking Glass top from the Summer 06 Interweave Knits. I also got Shine sport in Silver sage and Aquarmarine, for the "Somewhat Cowl" and yet another cardigan (I'm not sure which one yet). And some random Merino Style in Asparagus for a scarf. Why yes, since you ask, I am obsessed with the color green. It's sad, really.

My order is still pending... even if it ships tomorrow, experience tells me that it won't arrive til Tuesday. I think waiting for yarn is the worst part!

Clapotis and some other new FOs!

My previous knitting posts can be found here.

I finally finished Clapotis! It was in serious danger of becoming the neverending project, but after 3 weeks it's finally finished. I don't think I'm going to block it, because I like how it curls up as a scarf.


























I want to make another one now... it's a sickness I tell you! Yarn is Knitpicks memories in the "Redwood forest" colorway. I used size 6 needles, and added 1 repeat to the increase sectionand 3 to the straight section.

I also completed an Odessa hat, sans beads, out of Merino Style in Dusk.



I'm not as insane as I look in this picture, I promise! I need a new camera... I'm not totally sure about me in this sort of hat, but I bet I'll appreciate it this winter!

I also finished an Airy scarf, from Last Minute Knitted gifts


I don't really love this scarf - maybe in a bright color it would be nicer. I just hated working with the Kidsilk Haze, and I think I'm pretty unlikely to use it again.

My last FO of this set, Voodoo wristwarmers, in WotA Amethyst Heather


I tell myself that I can become a wristwarmer person. I like these, but I didn't love the Heathered wool - it was strangely splitty and sheds a lot. Not too itchy though, so that's good.

My current WIPs are a Multidirectional scarf, in Noro Silk Garden 82

and a Rusted Root sweater in Green Apple Shine sport. I don't have any pics of that yet, but so far I love it!

Whew... so clearly I've been doing tons of knitting on my vacation. And now I see that Knitpicks is having a sale... and there's a new Knitty... I'm cursed to buy more I think.

My new home and weekend adventures

I'm experimenting with moving my blog here from wordpress. I like wordpress well enough, but there are still a few things about Blogger than I prefer.

I've haven't been teaching for several weeks, as we make the transition from Summer to Fall sessions. I start back up tonight with several new students, and then it's back to the land of "working when everyone else is free".

Marc and I were going to take a trip to Boston during my time off, but then we were invited to a wedding in Santa Fe in October, so we decided to save our big trip for that. Instead we took a few days last week to visit Bardstown Kentucky. We live in Louisville, which is only 40 minutes or so from Bardstown, but it was nice to have a relaxing trip with no pressures. There's actually a surprising amount to do for a small town. Usually I'm a city girl, but we made our own fun.

Yes, that's right... we stayed in a jail for the first night. Our room (the "Library" room) was actually very nice and I enjoyed it, although there were a few rooms I peeked in that were a little too "jail-like" for my taste. One of the rooms in particular had giant old beams covering the ceiling, and the nickname "the upstairs dungeon" because it had been the punishment cell. You could not have paid me enough to stay there. The newest part of the jail is still set up as it was, and you can wander through it on your way to breakfast (which is in the courtyard where they used to do hangings.) Marc wandered back there, only to be startled in the dark by a mannequin set up in one of the old cells. Bardstown's tourist attractions have quite an affinity for scary mannequins.

For instance, we went to the Civil War Museum, which was lame in exactly the way I thought it would be - lots of random uniforms and guns, and descriptions where "Fort Sumter" is misspelled as "Sumpter" over and over again. But then, in the middle of the museum, there was inexplicably this:

Why yes, that is indeed a mannequin holding a saw, cutting off another mannquin's leg. I can't even begin to express what a bad idea it is to give a dummy a saw. I've seen that movie, thanks.


We visited the Abbey of Gethsemani (where Thomas Merton lived), where Marc was able to buy cheese made by monks and a book about explaining Catholicism to Evangelicals.

We visited the Kentucky Railroad museum, which wasn't terribly large or exciting, but I did get a picture of the sign from the station near where I live


My grandpa worked for L&N (Louisville - Nashville) railroad. I remember going to the museum with him, and him proudly pointing out the cars and engines he had worked on. And Marc loves trains (well, loves to build models of them out of Legos) so it was a good trip.

The second night we stayed at another B&B, where we somehow managed to accidentally rent the entire guesthouse. It was awesome - we had two whole floors to ourselves!

So it was a pretty nice trip. I bought a green scarf at a thrift store, and they had coffee. What more do you need?