August Carpentry

It seems like I always end up building something the weekend before school starts. A couple of years ago it was bookcases for school. Last year I made a cabinet to keep homeroom files and hold my podium. Today it was two bookcases for the new thesis room.





I finished the second one and trimmed them both out. When I get home from school tomorrow I'll stain them, Tuesday I'll poly them, Wednesday they'll make their way up to the second floor.

I got quite a bit of sewing done this weekend, too. I made the Italian Blouse (short sleeves) in a wine Indian batik. I would have finished it, but it seems that my automatic buttonhole stitch gets stuck half way through. Luckily I tried it out on some scrap material. This is the new Janome 8080 I bought over spring break. The plan then was to take my Viking in to be serviced. Did I? Of course, not. So I took that in on Saturday and when I get it back I'll take the Janome in. It's still under warranty (hopefully I'll find the receipt). So the Italian Blouse waits. I did finish two pairs of pants. One was a gray tencel twill and the other a cotton lycra twill. I hemmed them tonight. This makes the 7th and 8th pair of Cruise Pants. I have navy blue linen and natural linen ready to cut for two more. Cut out, and ready to sew, are the Zipper Jacket (short) and the Casablanca Blouse (shorter version, without the tie).

Cleaning Up

Don't worry, I'm not spending too much time cleaning my house! What I am doing is trying to finish up some nearly done projects that were forgotten when something new caught my eye.

My Coup d'Etat cardigan was done and ready to be sewn together. Unfortunately I see now that one sleeve is smaller, both in width and length, than the other. I think I may have forgotten to change to the larger needle as the fabric seems to be a bit denser too. That's what happens when you knit a project over a period of years. Yes, YEARS.

I started my teal corrie LoTech Sweat last August and took it to school with me. The only time I worked on it was in spare moments in study hall. Those spare moments added up and I brought it home in June with only half of one front and the hood to go.

Throughout this busy summer I have been carding the corrie tweed and spinning it up. This was all measured out in 60 gram bags so it's no-brain work to card up two bags, spin a bobbin from each and ply. I have put way too much time into trying to get a decent picture of this yarn. I think it's because I love it so much but every picture ends up looking like mud. I've tried every exposure setting imaginable and finally ended up pulling the fabric shade down and then using no flash and a cloudy setting. I think the problem was that the window was messing with the meter even though there wasn't any direct light coming in. It still looks rather blah, but then again, blah is often misunderstood.



I painted Josh's old room, now known as the Thesis Room! I finally found the hardware to put the sliding doors back on the closet, so this fabric will be stripped to make a rag rug for the room.



If I can keep to the schedule I've made for myself, I'll be spending every Saturday for the rest of this year in that room. Hopefully the very soothing sage green will not be so soothing that I can't write.

Go Team Socks

Once I got my spelling straight these socks started to fly. I have a lot of this yarn and I think I'll go down to a zero (these are 1s) next time. These are a little loose for socks, but I'll only be wearing them a few times a year so no ripping at this point, plus the two color knitting on the heel makes a nicely reinforced fabric.



I've had a chance to get back to spinning the tweed corrie. I cannot tell you how soft and fluffy this yarn is. I don't care if it's going to pill, I know this will be one of my comfort sweaters. I have enough to make it slightly oversized the way I like my weekend, hanging around sweaters. The skies are clearing up, maybe I can get a good picture today.

Just Keeping Me Grounded

The last I looked the name of my school was N--- Area High School. So why did my Go Team sock read NASH?



I was tempted to keep it that way. I mean who's really going to read it anyway? But the tension was a little funky so I ripped back and did it again.



It's still a little wobbly around the N but I'm hoping washing and blocking will even it out. I didn't remember how tricky it was to do stranded knitting on dpns. You want to give a little tug to keep the stitch from being too loose, but then you don't want to tighten the carried yarn.

While I was redoing the wording on the sock, I spent time rewatching Sara Lamb's Warp Painting. I need to just bite the bullet and cut the warp for the kimono already. You have to understand my apprehension considering my mishaps over the last month. What was that about too many irons in the fire?

At Last

Finally, I got something finished this summer. It's not much, but considering my track record with socks - I'll take it!

My summer classes are DONE. I have one more class in September, but that's an action based research class and the project will be the first chapter of my thesis. I finished my last paper today. Now all I have to do is one more project with a short (4 page) rationale.

On to my summer. We joined Charlestown Farm this year and we get to pick up lovely produce each week.



Along with the produce we pick up, there are fields for pick-it-yourself crops. We've had strawberries, snow peas, raspberries, and there's always herbs and fresh flowers. This was a bonus last week when we got to pick enough to freeze.



Hopefully I'll get to some fiber.