briefly

Today's post is brief, life is pretty full right now. Oh nothing new, just busy ... teaching 45 contact hours in 3 weeks makes for little time for much else right now. Taking photos in daylight - well that is more than I can manage. Its winter here so dark at 8am, and dark again at 4:40 pm. And yet its ok, I'm teaching a knitting elective, and the students are keen ... real keen. I started with a class of 20, of whom 2 said they could knit. That was 1pm Monday, by 4, all had cast on (long tail of course!), knit some, purled some, and most had cast off. Tuesday at 10 am I walked into class a few minutes early to find most were already there and had cast on all ready for that days learning. So Tuesday we did i-cord, and i-cord cast on, and continued to knit some and purl some, Some ribbed, some knit vertical stripes, some cabled. Today we covered increases and decreases(M1l, M1R, Yo, K2tog, and ssk), and they mostly knit a variation of a fish, we had all sorts of shapes and sizes, and some had 3d fins knit on .. tomorrow its pickup from an edge and knit out in another direction. Next week .. who knows?

There was one that left - I'm trying not to think about that*.

So I've been knitting, Peggy is finished, both of them, and they have been to class for show and tell. Poppy has worn them to school .. but I've not got a photo. I will, I promise, next time she is all kitted up for ballet, I plan a photo shoot in full 7 year old ballet regalia, shoes, tights, legwarmers, leotard, and little floaty skirt. I've also been knitting Bayerische, and have finished the leg and on to the heel. Look!

Eunny Jang is one clever detail knitter, the decreases to collapse the traveling stitch pattern into a standard slip stich heel are perfection. I'm just in the first rows of shaping the heel cup ... then its pick up the gusset stitches down the side of the flap, and off down the foot towards the toe. I think I miss EJ's patterns, seems now she is editor there are fewer EJ designs being introduced .... and with Vouge Knitting being rebranded outside the US as 'Designer Knitting', none of the local shops able to get copies, the international subscription rate being ... well just plain outragous as its shipped from england, I dispair that I'll manage to obtain issues regularly again. Still I have the internet and Bayerische to entertain me.

MarjanNZ asked what magazine the hat/beret pattern was in, its in Knit.1, Spring Summer 2009. Currently its in the newsagent/magazine shops in New Zealand. Knit.1 is a little younger than some of the other knitting magazine offerings .. I'd not knit much out of it but usuallly there is something pretty, .. and they do 'dumb-down's some designs - this was a sock issue, so yes I bought it. Dumb-down? Yes they do, this issue has a lace scarf, knit with 3 different lace panels, and ... get this ... you knit each panel separately and then stitch them together. Yes, the idea of following 3 lace charts across a scarf must have seemed to advanced for their imagined readers. Me I think most knitters with a magnetic board and photocopier access could manage that one, hey - I think most would prefer that to seaming a lace scarf together.

Finally - I got a parcel this week, spinning and knitting goodies from J, amazing fiber, but you will just have to wait for daylight so I can take a worthwhile photo.

na Stella


Oh and the one that left, a boy, came into class 20 minutes late, after 30 minutes asked where the loo was, and never came back. The administrator in charge of enrollements reports that he turned up at the main admin block, some 5km away, puffing before lunch and asked to transfer to 'rapid prototyping'! I guess knitting wasn't quick enough? The other boy, yes I had two boys enrol - he is cool, can already knit, monday made a wrist cuff in the round, and tuesday a hat, and on day one was teaching the other final year students how to cast on with the long tail cast on. Its all good here, busy but good.