Finished Baby Surprise Jacket!

Look! Finished!  It’s got some increases that are a little sloppy, but it’s done!  My thanks to Elizabeth Zimmermann for being completely brilliant and my frustration at the terrible directions she gives.  I had problems even with the notes.  But it did take less than 2 balls of yarn.  I would guess I have 30 yards left.

I think these colors are probably the most accurate.  It’s actually kinda cute.  I didn’t add the button holes because I didn’t like the directions, so I ditched them all together.  I may add some clasps or toggle buttons with loops or even a zipper.

 In other news, I will be getting my own classroom again when I take over the junior high classes.  Right now I teach art all day long, traveling from class to class with my cart.  I currently teach K-6th grade, but will now have to rewrite my schedule and see the elementary kids once every 2 weeks instead of every week. I am very sad about that, because I’ve really grown to love seeing my little ones all the time and they are always so happy to see me.  Sigh.  But, now I will be getting a prep period every day, which is awesome!

Happy Anniversary Darby!

I got Darby from Linda one year ago this week. How do I know? Because it was Valentines weekend. So, in addition to a FINISHED PROJECT, I present you all with pictures of my most adorable puppy! Aww, puppy love.

Here is a ball of yarn being taste-tested by Darby.

I’m trying to get her to model and as you can see she isn’t thrilled.

Here she is terrorizing my new scarf…

….this makes her much happier.  Darby loves handknits, she likes to dig in them, bury her face in them yarny goodness, and roll around, shedding all over them.  She’s adorable and I love her.

Look what I’m making!

Y’all know that there is a lovely scarf I want to make, but the yarn shop in Elk Grove didn’t have it when I was there. I was hoping that they would be open today so that I could check and see if they had it, but they were not open today. So, I dug in to my stash and found some Berroco Foliage in Coleus and after looking through several short row scarves, I decided to make Edgar from Knitty.

Now, being that its a day ending in “Y” I’m sick…again. Oh yes, fever and froggy throat and all. The one benefit of being all gross and sick is that my voice is lower. Lower, so that I don’t feel like parents are going to ask if I’m a real teacher and telephone salespeople don’t ask if my mom is home. Of course, neither of those things have happened for a couple years but it takes a while to feel like my voice is that of an adult and not that of a kid. You would think that with being sick i would have my booty in bed right now, instead of sitting up blogging about a new project, but here I am.

Oh yes, on the Baby Surprise Jacket….it’s surprisingly hard, even with the notes I mentioned in an earlier blog. Seriously, it makes me feel like a bit of a dumbass and like I’m bad at math, and I’m neither of those things. I’ve talked to another blogger who actually reads my blog (HI!) and has the same darn problems with the baby surprise sweater that I have.

All righty, I know my blogging is a little disjointed and abbreviated right now and I’m going to blame that on the fever thats been coming and going rather than admitting that I’m not necessarily applying my excellent writing skills to my blog right now. Cause I”m sick….sniff..cough…

Autumn takes a Field Trip

Thats right, I went on a field trip. Now, you all might think that I would be taking a field trip with my students…Ha! This was a knitting foeld trip, full of adults and fibery goodness. My local knitting group organized a field trip to Elk Grove, CA, where we checked out Knitique and The Yarn Shoppe.

At Knitique, I fell in love with a scarf. Now, I’m not normally one to like scarves, particularly those knit on the bias with variegated yarn (both are gross) but THIS scarf was all that I could possible want in a scarf, with gorgeous shades of red, plum, a deep green, blue, just all sorts of deliciousness. Of course, I didn’t take pictures (heaven forbid). Now, Knitique was low on yarn, being that they were preparing for an inventory and the less you have to inventory, well, the less you have to inventory. So they will be ordering some more of this wonderful dk weight, washable wool ArtYarns and when it gets there, i will shell out however much it is to get myself a skein and make the SCARF. By then, I’m sure it will be warm and I won’t be in need of said scarf, but I will have it and it will match my red wool jacket with the toggle buttons and hood that makes me feel like Little Red Riding Hood. It will be awesome.

Now for Reviews: Knitique was small and low on wool (but they were doing inventory so i can forgive that) and very friendly. When we got there, 4 women were already camped out on the chairs and sofa knitting. The ladies were superhelpful about showing me yarn and writing patterns for people and answering questions on the phone. I will be going back to buy yarn and to donate my hats, because they collect hats for chemo patients there, which makes me so happy.

The Yarn Shoppe was way fancier and better organized but they didn’t have the yarn I wanted. Seating at the Yarn Shoppe was in the back for classes and knitting. They had oodles of Noro there, a wall dedicated to it. She even brought out yarns for us to sniff, which was very cool.

So both were very nice, both had awesome scarves that I wanted to make (The Yarn Shoppe had some great colorwork scarves in a DK or lighter yarn) wonderful stuff all around.

By the time we left the second shop it was getting ready to storm. I had to take off to see boyfriend (heehee) and go see Juno, which I’ve already told you all to go and see.

So now I have plans for my next project, when I finally finish the baby surprise jacket and the never-ending baby blanket.

Oh yes, I got to fondle some cashmere yarn. Oh My God, I will make something out of it one day, when I’m willing to shell out $30 for a ball of yarn. Oh yes, a tasty scarf for myself or a luxurious floppy beret. Mmmmmhmmmm. Cashmere.

You Have to go see “Juno”

Thats right my knitterly friends, I’m giving you an order to see “Juno”. I need to have girls to talk about it with because my new boyfriend(heehee) took me to see it. I was told that if it sucked he would get to choose the next movie…Rambo… and even he, as a boy, had to admit it was a good movie. Now, I don’t usually recommend movies because they are obvious and easily recalled but this movie was frikkin great. Go see it. Thats an order.

Shhh…I cried during the movie…twice. It was great. I responded to both Ellen Page’s depiction of a girl who is carrying a kid she doesn’t want/feel emotionally attached to and I responded especially to Jennifer Garner’s portrayal of a woman desperately wanting to child and being terrified to lose her kid again. The whole damn movie was great. Go see it. And then leave me a comment about it so I have girls to talk to.

Oh yes, I almost forgot.  It even got boyfriend (heehee) to ask serious questions about having children, adoption, abortion, and birth.  I learned something about him and he learned about me.  How cool is that?

In Which Autumn gets a Boyfriend

Okay, I’m going to talk about knitting first, because you knitters out there shouldn’t have to slog through 2 paragraphs of dating nonsense to read about my knitting projects.  I am STILL working on the Baby Surprise Jacket.  I have once again messed up. I put markers in orange to indicate the front and blue for the back.  Then I forgot which was which. Then somewhere I ended up with 4 extra stitches and did 20 minutes of knit-math to figure out how to do extra decreases so I wouldn’t have to frog yet again.

What you can’t see is my little notebook under the knitting, where I cross off each row when I finish it, and have all these little math bits to solve the “too many stitches” problem.  I’m hoping to have this finished before I’m 30. which only gives me….lets see….1 year and 8 months.  I thought this was supposed to be quick.

In Darby news, she is fine ya’all. I know thats why you check my blog.  I took some pictures of her asleep on the bed, but they are all dark and my bed doesn’t look particularly stylish (she’s asleep on a purple sheet that needs to be put away and an afghan all on top of a brown paisley duvet, all poorly lit, you can imagine how less-than-impressive it is).  So here she is being adorable and trying to convince me to play with her, while I’m trying to pluck my eyebrows in the bathroom. Guess which won, the eyebrows or the pup.

The pup always wins.

So I have a free membership to match.com.  It’s because I was on there for 9 months and while I did meet Pilot, I never was able to establish a serious relationship (the kind that leads to marriage and babies).  So, after complaining to my brother that all the men who are interested in me are So-Cal Faire geeks I went ahead and used my free 6 month membership.  Maybe because I’ve had a year to get over my ex dumping me (it’s really been that long!) or maybe its because I live in California again, but I actually met guys I was interested in (2 or 3 anyway).  No more dates where he talks about how smart he is, or dates where food is launched across the table on to me, no more dates where the date is sweating profusely and shaking like a leaf (unless you count me, but I do it in the car so they can’t see it…I’m all sorts of confident when I walk in the door).  Thats right, more or less real dates.

So, now that I’ve met someone and we have decided to date only each other (honestly, it makes me a little nervous, it’s like a real relationship and I haven’t been in one in a goodly while) I’m on match telling the rest of the boys that I’m not available any more. I go onto a chat function to let the college kid know, figuring he wouldn’t mind seeing as how he has chickened out on our last 2 dates, and he’s upset! Saying he was going to drive down and suprise me with chocolates! I want to believe him, but seriously, he never called me and when I texted him (twice) he thought I was someone else.  So, while he’s making me feel bad (cause I didn’t let on that I was seeing other people) I’m also wondering if he’s full of shit, because our only date was like 3 weeks ago and he never arranged a second date.  So you tell me, all you knitters out there, whats the deal?

Oh yeah, and I have a boyfriend. I feel like I’m 14 years old again saying that. I told my ex today that I’m seeing someone. He was agog, nearest I can tell. he asked how i was doing, harassing all the boys in Stockton and I told him there was just one. He really was surprised, I think. I mean, we don’t hardly even talk anymore, but it is weird to hear about each other moving on with our lives.

So, new boyfriend (heehee) will thusly be known as “E” or, more likely, “New Boyfriend (Heehee)”. I like him. He’s very calm and funny and nice. It’s all very exciting…and terrifying (Heehee).