Except for final exams (today) all my summer teaching stuff is done.

And I finished up the last of the soil-invertebrate samples yesterday.

(And I finished both the Bird's Nest Shawl and Cobblestone in the past week and a half).

I feel odd and at loose ends when I have all the stuff I "was" working on done. (Oh, I still have small projects ongoing, and of course the quilt in the frame...but my two "biggest" (in size at least) knitting projects are done).

So I started a new project. I finished winding off the yarn for the Honeycomb vest, cast on, and knit the first few rows.

Yeah. This is gonna be a long-term project, I think. Sport weight yarn on size 3-4 needles. And the ribbing is done in a twisted stitch where you twist not just the knits on the right side, but the purls on the wrong side (eep). I think it will go faster once I get into the main (cabled) section because only 2 rows out of 9 or so are cabled, the rest are just knit and purl (and not twisted knit and purl, either).

I have it along with me for invigilating-knitting.

I have to say there is something I find very satisfying about taking some yarn from my stash (the yarn is the Silky Wool that the pattern recommends, only in a sort of a bottle-green color) and using it. I had bought this last fall on my Mid-Fall Break trip to Stitches and Stuff.

There's also some pleasure in going to my Ravelry "queue" (a list of patterns you want to do sometime) and clicking on "start this project" to move it from the queue to the list of active projects. (I don't keep up with the queue or project page as much as I might, but there is something about them that pleases the more compulsive side of me).

I'm doing a smaller size on the vest than I might otherwise consider doing. I think I bought yarn for the 46" size, but reading the pattern, it points out that the stitch is VERY stretchy (as someone who first made clothes by sewing, and then usually using woven cotton fabrics, I tend to forget how stretchy knitwear is and that negative ease often looks better) and that you should do a size about 3" smaller than you might actually wear, so I'm doing the 41 1/2" size. So hopefully that will be a success. A few of the sweaters I have made have come out a bit too big on me, and I think it's a combination of my sewing experience plus having the "fat girl" message hammered home so effectively to me by society (as I've said before, I am NOT good at discounting others' opinions, even when they are perhaps ill-formed), that I wind up making (and sometimes even buying) bigger, more tentlike clothes.

But the fact is, you really can't disguise what size you are. If you're a big person, wearing loose clothes only makes it more obvious. And while loose clothes have much to recommend them (especially on 90+ degree days), sometimes something more fitted looks better.

So I'm going to try the smaller, fitted size. (I just hope, eight months hence, I am not having to either rip back the entire finished sweater - or, more likely, find someone just a bit smaller than me who looks good in bottle-green and give it to them.)