Knitting Fun

Our friends are having a baby, so when I saw this pattern for a soft and fluffy crab at knitty.com, I had to knit it for them. I'd like to say I knit it for the baby, but I don't know how much a baby can really appreciate a stuffed crab. I'm not even sure how much a couple of adults can enjoy one, but I hope that since these two are pretty cool and creative, it's an amount greater than 0. I know I've had a lot of fun making it and playing with it.

The knitty one is cute--thanks, Amber Allison (designer). I modified it somewhat, so my crab's legs aren't as fat as hers. I added a little rattle inside, too, so mine is definitely louder. Not that much louder, though; I don't want it to be annoying! Plus as you see, I have a cute hubby to go with mine.



I knit some socks, too. The yarn, Noro Kureyon, did most of the work; I bought it for its crazy colors and color changes. No, the socks do not match--or they do, but not in the typical identical twins way that socks do. The stitch is Falling Leaves, also courtesy of knitty, though I sort of improvised on the sock pattern.

I've been thinking about education a lot lately, of course, but I'm not sure what to post because so many of my ideas are so unformed, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am having a public journal of thoughts that are bound to shift and evolve, especially when those thoughts could affect my career. I will say that I am re-reading Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children, and I'm appreciating it a lot more this time around. I've also been getting into the curriculum for the Elementary Mathematics Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Here are the Core Questions of EML (from last year's slide show):

1. What is involved in expecting complex mathematical work of every student, and enabling it?
2. How can teachers work to reverse patterns of inequity related to race, family income, language, and gender in their teaching of mathematics?
3. What does it take to build a respectful and mathematically-focused learning environment?
4. How can professional educators make the intricate and often “invisible” work of teaching available to and learnable by others?

I am excited about these questions and the opportunity to work with some really cool people this summer!

Pomatomus

I'm on a sock-knitting kick. Here's a photo, taken with my mom's new camera, of the socks I sent her for her birthday. They're my first pair of adult socks in a fingering-weight yarn and a fancy pattern. The yarn is Soxx Appeal from Knit One, Crochet Too, color Marine Blue, 96% merino wool, with a little bit of acrylic for strength and elastic for stretch. And it's machine washable! I'm curious to know how they hold up over time. Knitty is serving me well, with their brilliant array of free sock patterns. The pattern for Mom's socks is called Pomatomus, after the species of fish that inspired the pattern's creator. There's a beautiful pattern to make some fingerless Pomatomus gloves, too ... maybe I can work on that when I finish all the socks on my needles ...

I went to New York last weekend, to hang out with Patrick and celebrate Pulaski Day. We went to MOMA and the Met, and walked around 5th Avenue and Central Park, but my favorite part was still hanging out with friends. We stayed with Mike, a good friend from Patrick's salad days in Iowa, and Mike's lady, Laura; Patrick has been over there on and off for a little more than a week (doing research in various libraries and archives). Here's a picture of their cat, Oliver. I love the pads of his feet.

more a4A

I finished my knitting for newborn Afghans. I enjoyed how quickly it went. It was also really neat to take it to school and show my advisory (homeroom) students what I was up to. Their attention was captured by the cuteness of small knitted things, and we talked about Afghanistan (they remembered watching Osama, a movie I personally didn't like very much, in their Humanities class, but had forgotten that it took place in a real country that exists today). I showed them the pink-and-yellow hat, and they suggested I put a pompom on the next one, so I did. :) It reminds me of ice cream, somehow. The girls expressed interest in learning how to knit for themselves, so on Fridays (designated as Free Day in my advisory), I will start bringing my knitting, and if they bring needles and yarn, I will teach them what I can. I went to Loopy Yarns this weekend, and the proprietor offered some assistance with supplies. I love that store.


It's been cold in Chicago, and snowier than it's been since we moved here. I kind of like it. All the snow on the ground makes it feel like January. Spring will be here before I've realized it! Patrick and I attempted to make an igloo. I got cold, though, so we came in and made soup. :)

We streamed a documentary last night from Netflix, No End in Sight, about the war in Iraq. There are things for which I can be proud of America; some of these are represented in Barack Obama's candidacy for President, in his message of determination and hope. In contrast, I am ashamed of and confused by the way things have gone in Iraq. How did we get so many things wrong? Why didn't our leaders listen to people with regional expertise, or to their own people on the ground? How did we elect leaders whose decision-making calculus relies on sticking with your gut instead of careful study and thought? When Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush made statements about how the war was going, did they really believe what they were saying? Is it better if they were so irresponsible in their research that they did believe it, or if they knew better but lied to the public? Is the same thing happening now on other issues? It was heartbreaking to watch No End in Sight and think about all the lives that have been lost and irreversibly changed by our carelessness. And to be knitting booties for newborns in Afghanistan. I don't know what to tell my students. Do we really learn from the past? Can one person really make enough of a difference to be worth the emotional turmoil of trying? What messages does history have for us?

afghans for Afghans

It is a delight to be able to combine my recreation with doing something useful for the rest of the world, and here is a perfect opportunity! Patrick and I had some nice fresh pasta with friends on Friday, and one of them was excited to tell us about her first donation to afghans for Afghans. Their current push is for hats and socks for newborns at a hospital in Kabul. I hadn't really thought about how cold Afghanistan is. I hope that these donations are really useful ...

Here is my first finished object in that vein. A hat, 100% wool (Cascade 220). I didn't even have to buy any yarn, just used odds and ends left over from other projects. And it took less than a day. I love knitting baby stuff!

If you are interested in non-monetary donations but don't knit (or crochet), try my new game! FreeRice is a multiple-choice vocabulary test. For every word you get right, sponsors donate 20 grains of rice through the UN to "help end world hunger." You also get points to increase your "vocab level," so the words keep getting harder (i.e., more useless). I've learned some new words, or at least brushed up on my test-taking skills. One of my jobs for next year is to take the GRE. FreeRice can't hurt.

Fun Bits

Patrick found this geography game on some blog. We played it obsessively all through Thanksgiving at his mom's. I pass it along to you ... It's screwing up my links, but who cares, no one uses those anyway!

I beat the game. Hahahaha ...

Mary is off in India now. Well, her flight left this morning, going through Minneapolis and Amsterdam to Hyderabad. 30 hours???

I really have been knitting less. It's just that my friend Michelle had a party and everyone had to bring a purple tree ornament, and I had this purple yarn lying around, so obviously it was going to be better to knit a little purple stocking than to run around looking for a purple ornament. (Filled it with Smarties! Yay!) And then my advisory (homeroom) is having a Secret Santa and I didn't want to buy Amber something, I wanted to make her something, and she loves black and yellow and Winnie the Pooh, so you know ...




And then there are my old projects from before I said I was going to start knitting less, which I want to post because I don't really have another way of keeping track of my knitting, especially the stuff I give away. And it doesn't even matter if I knit more or less anyway. But I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out what the deal is at my school, and what the best way for me to contribute in these last six months is. Some good things are happening. Some other things are crazy. It's hard work, just sorting it out, let alone doing something about it.

I have some catching up to do with posting. In October, I knit this dopey sweater for Don's baby. The yarn is too crazy. I love the fish buttons, though. Don loves to fish. I hope it fits Dino. I have a pretty limited sense of how big babies are and especially of how fast they grow. At least the proportions on this one seem all right. The sleeves were too small, I think, on the fuzzy one I knit for Riley last spring ...

Then I knit this hat for Mali. Learning to make bobbles was cool. It's still kind of dopey-looking though. It started as Norah Gaughan's Droplet Hat, but the "droplets" looked like poo in the brown yarn I was using, so I ripped it back and modified it some. At least the photo is mildly interesting. I made a hat for Denali, too, basically a large version of Coronet on Knitty, in a color Patrick chose called "black cherry" or some such thing. I didn't photo it though. Too bad!

I am really looking forward to the break, less because I want a rest from school than because I really want to see my folks. My brother just turned 22--happy birthday, J!!--and my cousin is just getting her BA--happy graduation, Can!!--and my littlest cousins are getting bigger by the minute. The biggest ones just seem to be getting more sleepy. I had a conversation by phone with one of them over Thanksgiving:

me: hey, how's it going?
"johnny": zzzzz
me: OK then! Happy Thanksgiving!
"johnny": zzzzz
me: love you, man. see you soon!
"johnny": zZzz [snort]

I hope that wasn't too embarrassing. I'll use a pseudonym. Now no one will know who it was. Teehee!

More or Less Knitting

I finished this sweater a couple of weeks ago (including the sleeves, one of which is in my hand in the photo). The pattern is from this fall's issue of Knitty, designed by Ashley Adams Moncrief. Yarn is from Webs, five balls of Berroco Air, color Geothermal, a bulky wool with a little bit of nylon or something for shine. Hooray for Webs clearance! $15 to make this sweater--and my time, which I happily gave. Which actually leads me to the "less" in this post's title. I just went to a great conference (the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum), and I feel reinvigorated about the work that I am doing. Every once in a while, the thought flashes through my brain that maybe I should do something else ... go to med school, or become a lawyer. I also have moments of keenly feeling the reverse, and the Fall Forum filled me with a sense of ownership, that education is my field and what I am doing is my work. I rarely feel this in the classroom, though being a classroom teacher does bring me many moments of joy and pride in my students. The ownership comes to me more from working with adults, organizing ideas and analyzing them, trying to fit thought to practice. I think I am really a pragmatist about most things, not much of a theorist, and the same is true when it comes to education. So I am excited about the leadership role that I have at Young Women's right now, and I am very hopeful that in this third year there, I can contribute more than I gain (while still gaining a lot) and push the school forward, with the help of my wonderful colleagues--one of whom announced today that she is leaving us. Next week. She found another job. I am wondering how to feel about it, how to acknowledge my feeling that it is unfair to the girls to do this in the middle of the year while recognizing all her contributions to the school over the last seven years and her needs for self-actualization. It doesn't seem right to mask or hide any of my thoughts, nor does it seem likely to be good to just lay everything out there. What do leaders do in these situations?

I am unlikely to be knitting much in the next X weeks. I am going to finish Denali's hat (I have to post pictures of the one I knit for Mali!), and throw myself into work. While maintaining a sense of perspective and humility. Wish me luck.

New Knitting

Here are some pictures of my August-September knitting project. It's the biggest piece I have ever actually finished. :) And it might not be finished. Lots of people have suggested that I add a few more hexagons to make it a dress that could be worn without pants. I haven't reached a verdict on that. It is knit in elann.com's Lara, 100% gassed cotton (I think the gassing somehow gives it a silky sheen?), color Brick. The pattern is from Knitting Nature, by Norah Gaughan. I modified the back by adding crisscross straps instead of another half-hexagon, and I made it longer, and I also gave it waist-shaping as kelp! suggested.

More Feet!

I knit my first socks this weekend! For real human feet, not futons. :) It's way too hot to wear them now, but I wanted a quick project, and this one delivered.




Speaking of quick projects, I discovered recently that cooking gives much faster satisfaction than knitting. Homemade pizza, quiche, curries ... and now, mulberry tart! inspired by a rhubarb tart that Steve made when we were in DC. The best part is, the mulberries are fresh, organic, and locally grown--on a tree in our neighborhood! We went berry-picking this afternoon. Just delightful. We must've picked two pounds of berries.

Feet

Patrick's mom, Mary, came to visit us last weekend. It was lovely, but so short! We went to the Chicago Botanic Gardens again; the day was perfect, and I was really amazed by how much had changed since we were there last just a month ago. Instead of tulips, all the irises were blooming, and a crazy plant called Tower of Jewels. All the pictures are on Patrick's camera, so you'll have to wait or else visit his blog for that. After the gardens, we went shopping at a mall across the highway with a Trader Joe's (hooray for strawberry popsicles!) and a Loehmann's, which Mary likes a lot and where I tried on almost everything that was white in an effort to find something to wear to the Moving Up ceremony in a couple of weeks. Patrick was a very good sport (I think he has a career as a personal shopping assistant if this history PhD business doesn't work out), and Mary found a few nice things, too.

Back at the condo, Patrick and I discovered that all our futon-moving--what with Mary's visit this weekend, my dad's visit two weeks ago (I have to blog about that, too. It was a great visit), and the normal sliding around when we sit on it--has been scratching up the floor! There was only one thing for it: the futon's wooden feet needed socks. So I knit some up with size 5 needles and a ball of KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, a 100% wool yarn that I got pretty inexpensively online. The corners are kind of messy looking, but oh well! The color is Hollyberry. Yay!

It's gotten hot here. You came at just the right time, Dad. Luckily, while I have several more days with my girls working on final presentations and ceremonies, I have no more formal class! Summer, summer, summer!!!

Oh and by the way, I added some labels to my posts. If you click on "family," for example, you'll see all the posts I've ever made with that label. :)

Knitting Update

Well, I had originally planned to post pictures of my hexagon blanket, but I put that project to the side for a while. I enjoyed working each hexagon, but I'm still only halfway through. A baby sweater goes much more quickly. This one is knit in Berroco Plush, 100% nylon ... I wanted cotton, but I couldn't resist how soft this stuff feels. The pattern is called "Gary" (which I think is a stupid name for a sweater, but oh well), by Anny Blatt. Na'amah helped me choose the buttons at my local yarn store, Loopy Yarns. A lovely place where the people are mostly very nice and un-condescending (unlike the snotty knitters at some other yarn stores I've been to).

I made up my own pattern, based on a knitty.com pattern called "Argosy," for this headband for Na'amah. It started with my desire for a neckwarmer--not a scarf (the main difference being that there are no ends to wrap and unwrap and otherwise fiddle with)--that was more interesting than a plain rectangle. I ended up knitting myself one, but then wearing it as a hat (my ears are more sensitive than my neck). So when Na'amah came to visit, she picked out this lovely Cleckheaton yarn (the darker green is a wool/silk blend; the lighter one is just wool), and I modified my original design to be more head-shaped. There was enough left to knit a short scarf, in case her neck does get cold.

My dad is here for a week. He's hoping to finally see Chicago this time--but we have other plans. On Wednesday, he's judging the Science Fair at my school, and we're also planning to solicit his help in re-doing the floor in our pantry. We spent half of today at Costco, using his membership to purchase our way toward happiness in the form of 52 ounces of Nutella, more of that great basmati rice, and endless cereal. We're still only about 1/2 way through the toilet paper we bought when Patrick's dad was here last (he was thrilled to take us to Costco, too).

As a final note, more flowers for Mother's Day. Tulips, this time, at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Love you, Mom! We must go there next time you visit.