Big, Braggy News

Hannah has been accepted as a dual enrollee at the school where I teach.  She’ll be high schooler in the morning, college-er in the afternoon.  Studying, if you’re interested, Patient Care Assisting.

GO GET ‘EM, HANNAH!!!

Overwhelmed

Thank you all SO much for your input on my business. . .  plan?  dream?  outline?  Your suggestions were remarkable.

There is an Athens Area Knitters Group on Ravelry that I suppose I should poll, as far as interest at all, and then suggestions for the most convenient location, etc.  I’m filling up a legal pad with ideas and possibilites — we’ll see how far I can take this!

Hannah had her Senior portraits made this afternoon.  How can my baby girl be a Senior?  They did the regulation black drape (more on that in a minute), then allowed her to dress/accessorize any way she wanted to personalize.  Of course, she wanted to pose with Rupert.

Now, as has been oft-alluded-to here, Rupert isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer on a regular day.  But a portrait sitting?  He never has gotten the hang of looking at you when you say his name, so you can imagine how things went down.  Still, it was a tremendous amount of fun, and I’m already anxious to see the proofs next week.

My high school portrait was in a white lace drape/wrap.  All the girls wore white lace.  The guys wore whatever they chose (not the regulation false tuxedos Briton donned.)  I was telling the photographer about that this afternoon, and she seemed genuinely astonished.  Never known of any color but black, she said.  Which set me to thinking, and I realized, I’ve never seen anything but black myself.  Was my high school that revolutionary?

Business

Brought this up on Facebook, and several have asked about it, so:

My lack of desire to teach any longer has turned into a desire to open a knitting business.  Not a knit shop — I don’t really want to have to keep up with inventory and all that.  No, I want to open a place to knit.  To meet and share knowledge and experiences.

Problem is, I don’t know how to turn a profit if I’m not selling anything.  Space is going to be expensive, so there will be rent to cover, not to mention that, if I do this, it will have to be my sole income generator.  How do I do that?

In other news, look at my insanely short hair (new since yesterday):

Very short and very white.

(Provide your own jokes.)

Why, Yes, I am a Crafter

See?

This shows the reverse cable design best, while this

is the color.  I’ve decided against felting, as I like the size as it is now.

I have also been making bags.  Marin*, this one was to be for you:

and you can still have it, if you don’t mind raw seams and glue where the stitches didn’t catch and bare interfacing on the inside, because I got too far ahead of myself and didn’t read directions.  (Seriously — it’’s embarrassingly amateurish.  Not even merit-badge-material.)

This one is a wee bit better:

Though I still didn’t read the lining instructions, and there are raw seams about.

This one is good:

Followed all the directions, and used up a lot of remnant cotton yarn.  I think this makes me diligent and green.

*Tomorrow is her birthday.  An excellent time for you to visit her site and leave a few words of admiration and greeting.

Now You Know My Struggle

Yes, yes, I have things to say here.

Yes, there may even be photos, too.

But, being at home with Hannah every day means extraordinarily limited computer time for Mom.  As in, “Hey, Han — when are you gonna be finished over there?”

“Just a second, Mom.  I’m reading this fanfiction and waiting for this video to download.  And I’m IMing (insert name here) about that costume.”

I turn to Cute Things to sustain me.

Of a Monday

The battery in my camera registers as “exhausted” — which I find endlessly entertaining.

(Stage voice) “I just cannot go on.  Record your memories cranially.  I. . .   must. . .   lie. . .   down.  Bring me a light wrap.”

But I do finally have pictures of the frilling yarn.  The color is completely off, but you can see the ruffling.

Can you sort of see what I mean about the density?  Bigger needles next time.  Definitely.

Watching the US Open the last, what, couple of months?  Last five days, I’ve gotten a lot of stuff done.  Now that it’s over, I’m sort of lost.  Like someone-pin-a-note-to-my-sweater lost.    Wandering aimlessly through the house, mumbling, “Rain delay. . .  Stay out of the rough. . .  That’s going right. . .   Pinpoint accuracy. . .    Crowd favorite. . .”

Sad, really.

Beginnings of a Slowdown

My computer has been resolutely refusing to upload photos from my camera today.  What in the world shall I do for visual accompaniment?

Come on — Laurie and I can’t be the only ones watching golf this weekend. . .

And it struck me earlier that this year’s Knitters’ Hunk contest will be coming up at the end of August.  Hard to believe another year has passed.  Ready your nominees.  And your hormones.

In Nashville, I bought some of that fancy self-frilling yarn (in that very color, as a matter of fact), and have made a little scarflet/neck warmer out of it.  It’s very interesting to work with, and does, indeed, ruffle.  However, the fabric produced with the recommended needle size is extremely dense.  If I ever buy more, I’ll use much, much larger needles to show the ruffles off better.

While watching golf today, I made a scarf out of some random eyelash yarn paired up with some random ribbon tape.  I find I enjoy working with a couple of strands of very different fibers.  Which helps get rid of lots of those odd skeins.

Lots of you probably know about this .  People are taking it really hard.  There’s a concert tonight to benefit employees.  All in all, it’s been a bad year for Athens.

Is It Really Summer Now?

Yesterday, at 8:15 AM, I creeped upstairs to take this picture:

Hannah K. — seventeen years, to the minute, old.

She has spent every day since we returned with friends, so I don’t feel like I’ve seen her at all.  But she seemed to have had a good time yesterday, which is what matters most.

Not too many Tennessee photos to share.  Found a great little teapot-for-one at the Goodwill store:

Reading Peggy Lipton’s autobiography there.  Anyone else’s late-childhood/early teen years impacted by Julie Barnes?

Riley got along with us a wee bit better this trip.  She even jumped into my lap once.  But mostly, she sat on her favorite chair in the library:

Shopping, etc.  were severely curtailed, due to suffocating lack of money.  So, I got a good bit of knitting done.  Like this reversible cables scarf:

Quite a bit to go on it still, so the should-I or shouldn’t-I-felt-it question doesn’t have to be solved immediately.  But it is pressing.

Post

Funny how not blogging for a few days leaves one rusty and, seemingly, incapable of creating an interesting post.

The Tennessee strip was hot and stormy.  In all senses of the words.  We managed to by-pass Bonnaroo traffic going and coming, which was good.  While there, all I really remember is driving.  For some reason, this trip was all about being behind a wheel for me.  I did have lunch with a high school classmate, which was a complete blast.  We did visit with my recently widowed aunt.  But all I remember is looking out a windshield.

So, we are back in Athens, and my summer vacation can truly begin.

So Close

School is over and done for me on Wednesday.  We leave for Nashville Wednesday.  But there are so many things to be done between now and then that it doesn’t really seem like real freedom yet.  Ya know?

Got lots to do, visitation-wise, in Tennessee.  Everyone we missed because of not making it to Uncle Lonnie’s funeral.  Also going to try and meet a couple of high school classmates if it’s at all possible.  My class is trying to put together a non-reunion-year reunion party for August, and my best friend will be back in town for a week in July, so I’ll probably be back up there a couple more times this summer.

Oh, and probably won’t blog while there.  But should be able to Facebook and twitter from my Kindle.  Can’t check e-mail from it, though.  Hmmm. . ..

Bridget, a wonderful friend and penitentiary worker (read her blog;  you’ll understand), asked for some test knitters a while back.  She wondered if a pattern she had written made any sense to others.  Well, it did:

It was lost to me, however, when Hannah noticed the cat-ear-ishness of it: