Waiting

That's a nearly live look at my apartment.  Boxes, boxes, everywhere.  Glassware waiting for the movers to pack.  Me, somewhat anxiously waiting their arrival (they're not due for another 40 minutes, but already I'm anxious), and thus deciding to blog instead of pace.

OK, this image has already changed, as I looked down, saw my shredder, took off its wheels and taped its cord to it, and put it by all the boxes.

Anyway, if I haven't posted much recently (as I haven't, after quite a good start to April), it's just from the sheer overwhelming number of things that are going on, good and bad.

• I got tenure!
• The end of the academic year.
• Preparing for a move (this move, mostly into storage, and a little bit that's coming with me to places else during my sabbatical [though after saying for weeks to my mother that I wouldn't have any trouble fitting that "little bit" into my car, I'm now realizing just how very full my little car is going to be]).
• Preparing for a trip to Moscow that was going to start on Tuesday but which has been postponed by 10 days because of visa complications; this is actually probably a very good thing, as the preparing for this has taken a back seat to preparing for the move, so having a bit of enforced breathing space is not necessarily a bad thing; also, it works better for my landlady in Moscow (yes, E again!).
• An unexpected and very sad funeral--my graduate advisor, who I'd known was sick but hadn't realized was that sick.

And there's probably other stuff, too, but that's all I can think of right now.  Anyway, it's been filled with work and emotional swings, and thus has been exhausting.

Of course, knitting has helped keep me sane.  A few weeks ago I started to try to finish everything I currently had on needles, as part of my planning what to do with all my yarn during this next year.  I picked out yarn for three sweaters to bring with me, plus a good selection of needles.  I picked out two projects for this trip to Moscow:  socks and a lace shawl, neither of which has been started, but both of which I'm ready to start.

I finished a pair of socks which are currently packed somewhere and thus unphotographable.  I finished an experiment that I'm still not sure worked.

At some sale last summer I picked up this yarn--Auracania nature cotton, I think.  Four skeins, which is all there was of it.  It's a very slubby, thick and thin yarn.

In the recent past, I decided to see how it worked with the famed February lady sweater.  This is an adult sized version of a baby sweater--and of a baby sweater I've knit.  I started it with the normal garter stitch yoke (it's a top down sweater), but decided I didn't really like the yarn in garter stitch all that much.  So I instead kept garter stitch at the neckline and in panels down the front, but otherwise switched to stockinette.  When I'd done I think 15 raglan increases for the sleeves I thought, hmmm, I think this is big enough, and sure enough it was actually more than big enough.  So I started the body, did that until I just about ran out of yarn, and then finished the sleeves with a couple of rows of garter stitch with some signicant decreases right away, in order to give them a slight puff sleeve look.

There's actually also a third buttonhole, but I didn't think the sweater needed another button further down.

It's all a bit too big, but kind of nice for all that.

OK, back to pacing anxiously.

Comments

[Ellen]

Wow, that's a lot going on! Congratulations on the huge achievement of tenure. Hope you're able to take some deep breaths and take it all in. The sweater is very cute and wearable, too.

[desiknitter]

Congratulations once again on tenure!! You have to tell me how you celebrated.
You're probably already in Chicago by the time I've got round to reading my blogs, but hope the move was ok. I am so sorry to hear about your grad advisor - I've heard you say good things about him, which is more than what most students say about theirs....

Post some more pics of the sweater, no! I like how it looks, but can't really tell the fit from this one.