I did manage to finish one Pyroclastic sock but I don’t even remember when. Such is the crazy whirlwind that my life has morphed into. And I fear that I’ll suffer from single sock syndrome if I don’t start the second soon.

There is also another heatwave looming so the weather’s become most un-knitterly…How I long for a nice hot fire and six inches of snow!

Just kidding.

I had some visitors in town recently – Ali, Max and Kelsi – and have therefore been unable to knit much. I promise some progress shots real soon. I thank you for your patience.

What you see pictured is my new classroom. It’s not much but it’s MINE – all MINE! Yes, folks. Tomorrow I start my new career as a high school photography, yearbook and “crafts” teacher. (Sorry – no pictures of the “crafts” room yet but trust me, it’s cool. WAY cool).

I’m so excited. I can’t tell you. But also terrified. Terrified because I’m going to meet 150 teenagers and I’m not exactly sure what I’ll say to them.

I better think of something before tomorrow.

Back to the classroom…I even have a LOFT. How cool is that?

A loft full of Mac computers upon which eager and well-behaved students will produce the school’s yearbook. Or else.

There’s also a tech assistant named Gussie that the county sends out to connect the computers and troubleshoot them when they’re not working correctly and upgrade the software when needed. That last point might be a moot one because the yearbook rep informed me today that the entire yearbook will be laid out completely online, using the publisher’s proprietary software. hmmm. Should be fun!

And here’s my desk, complete with chalkboard. Those are really rare these days. I mean how old skool. I even had to ask about 10 people at the school for chalk before the admin dug deep into her drawer and produced a couple sticks.

I love it. I absolutely love it.

Adding to the excitement that is my life, I’ve been house-sitting and chicken sitting this past week.

In one week, three chickens have produced 10 eggs for me. Kerb installed a really cool trap door at the side of the hen house for the sole purpose of collecting eggs.

See?

The weather was beautiful and hot today. At last! Summer has arrived just in time for the start of school.

Isn’t that the way it happens every year?

The Rebecca Shrug is officially dead. RIP. Frogged. Good God did I really start this thing over 18 months ago!?!?!? With high hopes too I might add.

I’ll spare you the boring details but needless to say, it’s already been re-purposed. I LOVE when that happens! Read on…

When Ali sent me a text requesting that I knit her a shrug, in less than a week and in the middles of final projects, how could I resist? I did a quick search for “easy shrug patterns” and the unshaped shrug appeared, on first glance, to be the quickest. At long last, I had a project for the frogged Lion Wool-ease (above).

After a couple of false starts in which I used the wrong needle size (using size 8US instead of 8mm – damn Canadians!) I hit my stride with a double strand of the yarn and Voila! the shrug practically knit itself. I knocked this baby out in three days – in the midst of school projects no less! – but it could easily be knit in a couple of hours.

Shown on Ali is the medium (26 stitches) but I’m considering a larger, roomier size for myself. I’ve got plenty of this yarn left.

While up in Ashland, we did a little photo shoot in Lithia Park. I had no idea how stunningly beautiful this park is and how far into the forest it extends with peaceful deer grazing on its lawns. It’s the Central/Golden Gate Park of Ashland and there’s lots more to explore – I’ve only just begun!

I’d also forgotten how good Ali looks next to a big giant Oregon fir tree.

How appropriate that as I’m about to hit the road again, I began the Traveling Woman Shawl. Yesterday. Tomorrow I head to Ashland for a quickie trip to see Alice.

The Traveling Woman Shawl, you may remember, was all the rage at the Ravelry meet up a few months ago so it seems fitting that I’m knitting mine out of Malabrigo sock in the color “Ravelry Red.” Red is notoriously difficult to color correct and I’m not sure if I really captured it here, but it’s a stunning hand-dyed red. Trust me on this one.

Did I tell you about my plan to only wear three colors?

It started when I was packing for Chicago. I thought it would greatly simplify my life if I only wore three colors – black, gray and red. Of course, there are bits of other colors like white which are used as accents, in things like scarves, etc.

Today I picked up a skirt by Nomadic Traders in a lovely print of – what else? – black and white and gray. It’s a little big but oh so comfortable.

And a couple of weeks ago I splurged on some silver earrings at Ethnic Arts. The centers are actually buttons but they kind of look like candy to me.

Ok I’m going to continue my preparations for tomorrow’s trip. I hope to enjoy some blueberry picking and a little cycling and perhaps a play or movie and time with my daughter. See you next week!

I presented expectant mother Maggie, the finished baby layette one week ago but I confess that I have been slow to post the finished photos – for a variety of reasons. The jacket was inspired by one I saw on the blog of EarthChicKnits. I thought it was so cool that I immediately cast on and it turned out to be a fun little knit.

I loved that she knit the cardigan from sock yarn so I used the Jitterbug I had left but was a little mad at myself for using one ball to knit the sleepy hollow socks (I originally had two balls). What was I thinking? I ordered more but of course the dye lot didn’t match up. Major lesson learned here. Like they say, make sure you buy enough – MORE than enough!

The other pieces of the layette were improvised and my intention is to post the patterns. Soon. This is where I’m stalled. The socks and hat are simple enough, and I’ve made them both numerous times. But the little leggings were a bit of a challenge to say the least.

I was originally inspired by a pair I saw on BrooklynTweed’s blog but the pattern was nowhere to be found. There really aren’t any baby pants patterns written for magic loop much less for circular needles.

So I will try and overcome my writer’s block and get these patterns to you post haste. After all, I can count on you, dear reader and fellow knitter, to point out any  mistakes to me – and I hope you will!

Being at the Oakland Art Murmur last night reminded me of a photo I took last year, of “Bean” and also of an online Photoshop tutorial I recently came across. If you’re like me and you can’t afford a really long or a really fast lens, you can “fake” selective focus or shallow depth of field (aka bokeh) by using a channel mask and blur filter. Be warned that the resulting file size will be HUGE – this one came to a whopping 41 MB! However, I like the results of this technique. I have used a different method that entailed a layer mask and gradient and wasn’t satisfied with the results. Perhaps the blurry background is too pronounced. What do you think? Check it out here if you’re interested in experimenting.

I don’t really but who cares.

I was in Sausalito last week and I checked out a new LYS on my way to the beach. At the Raverly meet up a few months ago, I had won a gift card to Bluebird Yarn & Fiber Crafts and I’m sorry I don’t have any photos to share with you. I didn’t bring my camera – can you believe it? I’m so neurotic about getting sand in my camera, that I don’t bring it to the beach unless I’m with people I really want to photograph.

But I want to let you know that BYFC is a wonderful little shop, definitely worth checking out, with a fabulous selection of fiber – and if you go during the week like I did, you might even find parking.

So I purchased another skein of Noro Kureyon Sock to make another pair of striped socks and also a button. A button which I have yet to affix. But shhhhhhhhhhhhhh….