I lined up someone to drive me, so I'm taking my car in today for them to figure out why the air bag light won't turn off. I also went out early in the cold and dark to clean out the car - get all the papers out of it (I tend to get my mail and drop any junk mail in the car, where it piles up) and moved all my field stuff (long sleeved shirt, Ivy Block, dbh tape, plant identification books) to the way-back of the car, since they said they might need to take out the driver's seat. I'm going to take it out after my exam today and leave it, with hopes of getting it back Friday. (Tomorrow I don't give any exams so I can just stay home).
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I'm closing in on finishing Potter...I started the decreases for the raglan sleeve on the second sleeve last night but didn't get terribly far. I contemplated bringing it to finish while invigilating the exam this morning, but the ball of yarn it's being knit off is one of those giant Stylecraft balls and lugging it around the classroom was unappealing.
I'm not sure what sweater I will start next. I do plan on pulling Ropes and Picots out of its stall and taking it with me over break, hopefully to get a bunch more done on it. I'm not sure whether to do a vest (the Skye Tweed Vest has been on the to-be-knit list for several years) or the pretty feather-and-fan mohair sweater that I got the kit for a couple birthdays ago.
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Caught the last few moments of a program on Elbert Hubbard (The Arts and Crafts guy - don't confuse him with the Scientology guy)
Interestingly, he was born in the town (well, the other town of the pair of towns) where my parents live (but is better known from upstate New York, where he established his workshops).
He was an interesting guy...some people claim he was kind of a fraud or a charlatan, others say he was sincere in his beliefs. I don't know. I've read some of his writing and find his ideas interesting...he doesn't really seem to come down in any kind of cut-and-dried political stance, at least not in the sense of the caricatures that political stances (or at least, the current definition of "liberal" vs. "conservative") have become. On the one hand, he wound up (after an early flirtation with being fond of it) a staunch rejector of socialism...and yet, he still had the Roycroft shops, where things were made by hand, and not necessarily as quickly or cheaply as could be made...I guess I find him interesting because he seems like he was a complicated man, and you can't just explain what he thought in a few soundbites. And I have to admit I like the idea of honoring craftsmanship, of there being a place in the world for people doing things well and the "old fashioned" way. Perhaps you might call him a Populist, but he didn't have the same rejection of and revulsion for big business that many Populists do.
He went off on the Lusitania to cover the war in Europe... he and his wife wound up dying when that ship was sunk. (I wonder what went through his mind in those last minutes...he had, after the sinking of the Titanic, written an essay praising Ida Straus, for rejecting a place in the lifeboat so that she and her husband could perish together.)
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Amazingly, so far no "how on earth did I earn that grade?" e-mails, but we shall see.
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I'm starting to think about projects to take on break (it's about a week now, before I go on break. I still can't quite believe it). Definitely the socks-in-progress, also some yarn for other socks not yet started. Ropes and Picots. Maybe some yarn for fingerless mitts: I have a couple of the colorways of the "Bloomsbury group" inspired yarn that Shaefer yarns did a few years back and could never quite bring myself to knit them up into socks (because socks can WEAR OUT!) and these colors are too pretty.
And toys. I'm already thinking of taking a couple of Rebecca Danger patterns and some sockweight yarn and making a couple of small toys.
And then someone posted on Ravelry how they knit up the Kath Dalmeny platypus pattern in dark teal and gold Red Heart yarn and voila, Perry the Platypus.
Now I want one. So, as I drove to the local mart of wal (I needed to stock up on milk and such, seeing as I was going to be without a car for at least a day and a half), I said to myself, "I know what I'm going to do today." And I found the yarn I need. (I now see that to be truly show-authentic, I should do the tail in sort of a light brown, though I suppose I could just use the gold for that too). I think I might just photocopy the pattern out of my book (to save room) and carry along the yarn and pattern and make myself a Perry.
(I'm becoming far, far less of a wool snob for things like toys and pillows, especially after finding a teddy bear I knit, that had sat on a shelf for a while...well, the carpet beetles I THOUGHT I had got rid of found the wool yarn and that bear now has a hole in its butt. Better an indestructible plastic-type yarn for something like that, I think now.)
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