Winter Hiatus

I have been unemployed since just before Christmas and am letting myself heal after 11 years of being a cube slave in corporate America. I am not saying I don't plan on working again, or even that I will never work in a cubical again. But I am allowing myself the luxury of being picky - for at least a couple months. I ended up in IT almost by accident. I am very good at it but I want to make sure that this is what I want to do. Programming is just one skill I have and I don't want to spend my life in IT if it is not a conscious decision.

I am spending my days knitting, making soup, baking bread, catching up on long-ignored paperwork, and a little bit of yoga here and there. The weather is cooperating quite well - we have had more snow and cold than we have had in a very long time. My family is being very supportive - in exchange for a much less stressed-out mom, a clean house, home-cooked meals and hand-knit mittens they are putting up with a much, much, much tighter budget quite well.

But so that I don't find myself back in the silicon mines with nothing but mittens and a clean house to show for it, I signed up for the Master Knitter program through TKGA. This is really exciting, and rigorous enough to make it worthwhile. I need to put together a loose leaf notebook which includes an essay on the care of knitwear, the answers to 17 essay questions, 16 swatches, and a hat made exactly to a pattern. The hardest part of the pattern is that it makes one really ugly hat. Knitting ugly is always more work. Once I am done I will mail it in for review. I hear few succeed the first time. But I really like receiving feedback on what I do so that's a good thing. The committee will send it back with comments, letting me know which answers fall short or which swatches need to be re-knit. Once they accept it all, it's on to level Two!

I am going to try a couple practice swatches today. I figure I will experiment with some yarn I already have and see what size needles I want to use and which yarns block best All the instructions say is a light colored worsted weight yarn so I am going to try it with some Classic Merino, some Cascade 220, and any other worsted I have in the stash.

Hat & Cowl #2

This post is dedicated to Old Lady Pen Pal who was the latest of many who have pointed out that I have not gotten back to my blog commitment in over a year

This will also mark the first time I have ever "published" anything I have knit on the Internet. I have made things which were much more impressive, but not as recently as this (finished and photographed in the last 15 minutes)


Every year is a new adventure searching for the perfect head gear for up north Wisconsin winters. Last year was the "helmet" year - lots of hats with ear flaps. The problem with the helmet is that it may be -5 when I walk to work in the morning but by the afternoon it might well be a balmy 18 degrees. Too hot for ear flaps once I have acclimated to the season.

So this year is the "hat and matching dicky" year. I figure this way I can cover ears, throat, chin and even nose in the morning and strut around in just a hat and a bit of a cowl in the afternoon.
My first attempt is my constant companion... it is light weight and fairly shapeless but warm! I have taken to wearing it almost non-stop.

This one is slightly heavier and has more shaping - including just a touch of ribbing at the neck. It is 70% wool & 30% silk and is destined to be oldest daughter's 25th birthday present this Sunday

sweet soil afternoon

dirty hands knitting

barefoot garden-prayer dance

sweet soil afternoon