Summer Fantasies

Summer vacation has finally begun--long awaited, and, this year, (I think) well deserved. I like teaching high school--every day presents new challenges and new successes--but who doesn't love a five week holiday?

I think it's true for all of us, though, that when vacation comes, there is an imminent feeling of catch-up. There are so many things I have been wanting to do, so let's get down to it! And yet, it's vacation--why not be lazy? Enjoy it!

Well, for me (sadly, perhaps), I always have a sense of urgency--counting down the days from the beginning to see how many I have left! There are so many things to do! This summer, I have a lot of goals--too many, I know--but I'll do my best to get the most out of my time off.

Of course, there's knitting. I am right now working on a pair of Cookie A's Hedera socks. I started them during finals week to take a break from correcting exams, and the first sock is just about done--I'm a couple of inches away from the toe decreases. After I finish the socks, I'll finish the Razor Cami I am still mustering up the patience to fix. Who knows after that? I just bought some lovely Fair Silk--enough for another summer tank, I think--and I'm hoping to do something very lacy and open. I've been browsing through the Barbara Walker volumes to find something that really sparks me, but there are so many things that are beautiful that I'd love to try my hand at...which has made me start thinking about making a sampler, just for the fun and for the practice. But we'll see.

Besides the knitting, I have a list of books a mile long that I want to (or I have to) read. Teaching literature has made me realize that since college, my analytical mind has gotten a little lazy. I've been reading for pleasure for too many years! So this summer, for me, is partially about prepping for the next term, but it's also about giving my brain a mental workout. So, it's an interesting melange of authors and genres--Nabokov, Bellow, Toni Morrison, Bronte, Henry James, Saramago. I'm especially looking forward to reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, which was highly recommended by several friends of mine, but I've heard it's quite the heartbreaker, so I need to be in the right place for that. That'll wait until the peak of my vacation.

Besides reading, there is sewing. I've been itching to drag out my sewing machine for weeks, but it's just too much of an undertaking during the school year. I have been daydreaming about making these pants in a green linen I picked up last year. And I also have a few of my own ideas for blouses in a couple of cotton prints that I found a while back.

Needless to say, the list is a just a touch too long for five weeks, but better have too much than boredom. Any vacation of the year!

Spinning up some daydreams

It seems that blogging for me is like getting together with old friends--all too infrequent but often thought about. Embarrassing though it is that my last post was last year, I really do have some excuses for that. First off, I moved in with my boyfriend early in the year. And then I started a new job. I'm teaching high school, now, of all things. And not only is it high school, but I'm lucky enough to be teaching literature classes. It has been a time of learning for me, and of growth, and of doubt and then learning again. It has been a very busy, very stressful, and, frankly, very exhausting three months, but I love it. And now summer vacation is just around the corner, and though I should be doing this right now:

I'm actually daydreaming about doing more of this:

Even though I have actually been quite busy, I have a very long train ride every day, and on days when I'm all caught up on my correcting, I don't have a book I'm feverishly trying to finish reading, or I'm not brain dead from not getting enough sleep, I actually do get quite a bit of knitting done. Though it hasn't been a very plentiful blogging time for me, the knitting is fruitful!

Last winter, I did get a few small projects done that I really did

mean to blog about and never seemed to get to. So, for example: I finished a pair of Susie's Reading Mitts (brought to you by Dancing Ewe Yarns) which I wore all winter. Those mitts were gratifying as a quick project I could knit up so that my hands wouldn't freeze in my apartment with no heat! (One of the "charms" of living in Tokyo!) See how the window behind me is open? Well, why not, when you're going to chill from the draft anyway?

I also knitted up a lot of hats last year. You had already seen the Couvercle and Tychus from previous posts. But I also designed a few of my own, including both of these.

The hat I'm wearing my boyfriend aptly named Matcha Latte--it's green and white and fluffy. It was a very simple crocheted hat. And this picture is particularly cool because I was in Kumamoto, a city on Japan's southern island, Kyushu, on a business trip. Behind me you can kind of see Kumamoto Castle, one of two black castles in Japan.

The hat on the right I made for my boyfriend. It's a simple study in cables, and I called it Trellis. I had found the softest, most fabulous 100% merino (Nikke Success) that I knew would be perfect for my boyfriend's bare head, and this is what came of it.

After that I was commissioned to make a matching hat and scarf set. Six feet of cables wore down my patience a little, but the end result was worth it. Technically, I haven't finished it yet--I'm still trying to sew on a backing, which has been frustrating to say the least. But, unfortunately, these aren't double sided cables, and I can't bear to have the backside be unsightly. So it's yet another goal for this summer so that I can get it to my client...that sounds so strange...before next winter. It has been an accomplishment for me to even have someone want to pay me for knitting, and a dream come true. Except for the fact that there's no way I'd be able to make a real living at it. Not at my speed, anyhow--a project every month or two just won't cut it!

After that, I started my new job, and the other projects I've been working on have been, well, smaller. Although not unimportant. It's been a learning time for me, even in knitting.

The doilies on the left have been a good project for the train. An easy one or two day reward during some of the most stressful weeks of the semester, and great crochet practice. The patterns came from some Japanese books from the Asahi Crochet 100 Series called Lacework mini-doily and Lacework floral design. I may not be able to read Japanese fluently, but following patterns is pretty much universal--it's a great skill to have as a knitter or crocheter.

The middle project was my first pair of (finished) socks. I chose a really simple pattern just to get used to the grammar and technique of sock knitting, Thuja. And it is true what they say about shaping the heel--just go through the short row pattern with faith, and it all makes sense in the end.

The green work-in-progress on the right is Razor Cami, which has been stalled out, to my dismay. I don't know how I managed to do it, but I dropped a whole pile of stitches, and I need to frog about ten rows. I was smart enough to put everything I had on a holding thread and try to get the needles back in below the dropped stitches, but due to the nature of the diagonal lace, that's easier said than done. So when I've mustered up the patience, I'll go back and get through counting all those stitches and figuring out where the extras have come from. It's a shame, though, since I'm only a few inches from finishing it. I hope I'll be able to wear it before the summer weather eases itself into fall. But luckily, here in Tokyo, it should stay warm until late October.

I guess that has just about caught me up. I have a lot of other projects on the burners, but I'll save them for hopefully not-so-distant future posts. In the meantime, I'm going to make the most of my summer vacation--I have a lot of sewing and knitting to do!