pattern: Martha from Rowan Magazine 28
yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, Crush (color 144)
started: January 8, 2007
completed: April 11, 2008
This month at the library I work at we’re doing a Pedometer Challenge. There are different teams around the library competing for the highest weekly average. My average last week wasn’t great but this week is definitely going to be better. Biking can be converted to steps, so we dusted off our bikes this weekend. I’ve already biked over nine miles these last two days. My new walking shoes will be a huge help in motivating me to continue walking to work on those days that my seat is too sore to ride my bike.
pattern modified from Tweedy Vest by Mona Schmidt from Knitscene, Fall/Winter 2005
yarn: Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed, color: 20008
started: November 22, 2007
completed: February 10, 2008
The semester is winding down and there is still so much to be done. I’m looking forward to summer and growing vegetables again. Today I noticed the hostas we planted last year are coming up. They’re in a pot that we buried in the ground that we can dig up and put on our front porch. I just hope the apartment people don’t come by and chop them off thinking that they are weeds. My summer schedule is going to be a bit less crazy than this semester. I have two classes - Non-Fiction for Children and Adult Popular Literature. There will be a lot of reading but I loved reading for my Children’s Lit class last semester.
pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann from The Knitting Workshop
yarn: Berocco Cotton 100 in Blue (9198) and Lime (9225)
started: March 18, 2008
finished: March 28, 2008
Lately, I’ve been knitting washcloths. I’m nearly finished with my third in as many weeks. Maybe it’s spring fever, maybe it’s finally finishing the Martha sweater, maybe it’s feeling too pressed for time.
Six years ago on April 18, 2002 I started my lowly little blog. Last year, I noted all of the projects I’d worked on since April 2002. It’s been sort of a slow knitting year for me with school and all of the sewing that I did last summer. Since last April: I’ve started Library School, knitted two baby sweaters, finished the pair of Go with the Flow socks, completed a pair of Anniversary socks, and knitted one Waving Lace sock. I also finished the Moderne Baby Blanket. For myself, the Tweedy vest was knitted in a matter of a few months and the biggest accomplishment was finishing the Martha sweater. In the sewing department, I made six skirts for myself, several bags, two adorable bunnies, made my first quilt and started another quilt (which is a surprise).
It’s been a while since I posted. I’m still alive and am very busy with school, my practicum at the local public library and my assistantship. I started on Sunday but it didn’t feel appropriate to lead off with but you can read it here (by clicking the “View the rest of this entry…”), if you so desire. I was having an extremely analytical evening the other night and that’s when I wrote it. While I’ve been busy with classes, I’ve managed to finish my tweedy vest (photos to come soon). One of my assignments for my Media Literacy class this week was to find a favorite YouTube video. I have several and have managed to somehow while away an hour here and there browsing through YouTube videos. Here’s my favorite and I thought you’d all enjoy it. You thought that library school was all about learning about library service and library theory, obviously there’s more to it.
My friend Dorie, who is an amazing quilter has three quilts that are part of an exhibit in New York. They are so adorable and so inspiring. I truly admire her work.
I receive Knitting Daily as an email and usually feel inspired by them. Then this post “The Year of Knitting Fearlessly” appeared in my email last week. I’ve been thinking about it all week and the idea of knitting fearlessly seems to fit so well into my established goals this year. Will this be the year that I finally tackle my fear of knitting an entire cabled sweater (don’t ask me why it’s taken so long)? Or knit my first fair-isle sweater? I’ve always wanted to make the little yoke sweater on the cover of Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. This may be my year.
Another project that has been sitting for several years that I’ve been fearful of but am still truly in love with but have always been afraid of even starting is the Garter Stitch Jacket. First it has nine bazillion colors and each color only lasts about two rows meaning that it will be a real pain to deal with all of the ends. For right now, I’m focused on finishing up Martha and the Tweedy vest.
Is this going to be a fearless knitting year for you? What are you planning on trying this year that’s new for you?
Yesterday was a big day around town with a new local library opening. We were in line about fifteen minutes before the library opened and by 1pm the line was really long. I’ve never seen so many people in a library. Very exciting for two librarians! There were long lines to check out materials. It was so exciting to be in the library on opening day. It’s beautiful and just a welcoming space. I’m sure I’ll be spending a lot of time there studying in the coming semester. To top it all off, we watched the local news coverage of the library opening last night and for a split second, Bryan was shown walking into the new library.
December 2, 2007 at 12:59 pm
· Filed under library, school
While I’m working away on assignments that are due this last week of my first semester of library school. I thought you might enjoy seeing just how much students have changed.
Update December 3
- One major project down with a few minor adjustments. The presentation for the project is done!
- One more paper to finish, my last of the make-up assignments I missed in October.
- Another major project due on Thursday, which is coming along nicely. Yesterday I had my doubts but after class today I’m feeling a lot more confident about it.
Looking forward to Friday for several reasons. I hope to have my paper and project done by Thursday evening so I have Friday free. It’s my birthday and I’m determined NOT to do homework that day.
I love these moments I’ve been having lately. They’re moments where I get off the bus, I’m walking through campus and it dawns on me, “I’m in grad school.” Yes, I’ve been in school for about five weeks but these moments are interesting. For years I’ve thought about going back to school and wondered what would it be like. This morning as I was walking to the library, an image of what I’d thought grad school would be like immediately flashed in my head and everything seemed so right. Do you ever have moments where you suddenly feel, “this is exactly where I’m supposed to be”? In my mind, I didn’t expect to be married while in grad school but I’m very happy that I have Bryan to keep me sane.
This past weekend was a busy one of readings, papers and a tiny bit of knitting. My first grad school paper was due on Monday and I handed it in early on Sunday night. (We post our papers online, which saves some headaches and the panic of getting to campus without my paper.) Wednesday, my second paper was due and next week I have two more papers. These first two papers were a bit challenging, just getting words on the page can be so daunting. Now I feel like I can get the next two done without any problems. The paper due this coming Monday is really interesting. I have to research an organization for my intellectual freedom class and discuss how they would be an ally in a book challenge situation. I’m researching the American Booksellers Association, an association of independent booksellers, which has been really interesting. The entire intellectual freedom class has really made me more aware of books that are currently being challenged and what it means for librarians. There are two challenges in the news now in Maine and Alabama.
Onto other news, I finally sent off the quilt to its rightful owners, baby (born in June) and mother received the blanket on Monday, I can show it off here now. It’s my first quilt and I’m quite proud of it. I’m working on my second quilt and it’s another secret project. I’m hoping to get some serious work done on it this Saturday during my Saturday Sew-over with S.
Last week, I also started another baby project in Rowan Demin, which is going quite quickly. The baby was born in May so I’m hoping to get it to the mother soon. There are so many babies being born this year that’s it’s been quite difficult to keep up.
Well, I’ve managed to survive two weeks of classes. There have been meltdowns and self doubts about getting through school but yesterday it all seemed to come together. I’m truly enjoying my classes, especially Children’s Lit. What isn’t fun about reading picture books for class? Today, we discussed the picture books we read for class and I had one of those “this is totally what library school is supposed to be about for me” moments. In my readings for today, I discovered a few picture books that have come on the scene since my childhood that I really liked, such as Good Night, Good Knight, The Princess and the Pea, which has my favorite artwork of all of them, and No, David!. And I’ve also rediscovered some books such as Where the Wild Things Are, My Friend Rabbit and a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin that I hadn’t read before. (I always remember the Rumpelstiltskin my parents read to me as a child that was illustrated by Edward Gorey, which is still how I envision the little man.)
There have also been the serious library school readings about information that had my head swimming a few weeks ago. It’s all about reawakening that intellectual mind of mine that’s been sleeping in the back of my head for over 10 years. (I didn’t need it when I was getting my computer science degree, that called for the practical mind.) My first paper is due in about twelve days and I’m nervous about it but know that I’m fully capable of writing 800 words easily.
My assistantship at the reference desk is going well and I’m starting to get a handle on how to answer some questions with confidence. It’s definitely challenging and I’ve learned so much in the last two weeks at the desk.
My knitting and sewing have suffered a bit from my busyness with school, as I completely expected they would. I did manage to finish the Moderne Baby Blanket two weeks ago and blocked it last week but just got around to taking photos today. I’m also making myself work on the Go With the Flow socks, which are almost finished. Last night as I was working on the socks at knit night, I realized I made a somewhat blaring mistake that I refuse to fix. On one sock there are four lace ribs on top of the foot and on the other sock there are five lace ribs. I’m so close to being finished with my third sock of the pair (I had to reknit one of the feet) that I’m leaving them as is and calling it a design element. (Photos of evidence coming soon.) Just before school started I started another quilt that’s a bit of a funky monkey quilt but that will have to be for another day.
My goals this weekend are to get all of my readings finished for my Monday classes, finish the Go With the Flow sock, hem two skirts, and possibly work on the panel skirt that I started and have neglected since mid-July. It’s a lot but if I put my mind to it I think I can do it.
Since I’m so immersed into the whole library thing now, I love finding random library-related things now, such as this song that I found out about on The Shifted Librarian blog.
My life has changed drastically in the last two weeks. I’ve gone from being a circulation clerk at a public library to a graduate assistant at the third largest academic library in the United States and the largest library at a public university in the world. These last five days have felt very surreal. I start classes on Wednesday and I’m sure it will all very even more surreal then. I’m taking Children’s Literature, Intellectual Freedom for Youth and the required class, Information Organization and Access. Of course, my excitement about classes started a few weeks ago when I was able to access some of the syllabic for classes online and found out the reading lists for two of my classes. I’m really excited about my two youth-based classes. When I was able to access the Children’s Lit list, I immediately checked out a few of the books for the first week of class and have already finished them. For my Intellectual Freedom class, one of the books for the first week of class is either the first Harry Potter book or any of the other ones if we’ve already read the first one, which is a perfect excuse to read the fifth book.
Knitting-wise, I’ve finished the Moderne Baby Blanket, have to give it a bath and then I’ll take some photos to show it off. It’s gorgeous and huge. I didn’t expect it to be 48 inches by 44 inches, but it will make the perfect lap blanket when the kid is older. Sewing-wise, I finished the baby quilt and just need to snap some photos and send it off. I started another baby quilt on Saturday that’s coming along nicely. As I learned with the last quilt, the top goes quickly, it’s the back and binding that takes a while.
Sorry for the photo-less entry. I hope to get the photos of the blankets up soon.
Another project that has been sitting for several years that I’ve been fearful of but am still truly in love with but have always been afraid of even starting is the Garter Stitch Jacket. First it has nine bazillion colors and each color only lasts about two rows meaning that it will be a real pain to deal with all of the ends. For right now, I’m focused on finishing up Martha and the Tweedy vest. 
