Safety Orange

I have mixed feelings about deer hunting season. Deer are everywhere, including my city back yard.

I'm used to sharing my Hostas and birdseed with them, and it's fun to see the fawns every year.  But, I don't like the idea of them running out of food in the winter and starving.  So, hunting is a necessary remedy to over population.  

This time of year is a challenge for anyone in a rural area who would like to be out and about.  Anytime I've been up North during the deer hunting season I see folks walking down the lane wearing bright orange as a precaution.  

This is what I plan to wear:

Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift + Mucklestone's 200 Fair Isle Motifs

Happy Fair Isle Friday!
 

Next

For the past year, and especially this summer, I've been busy making lace in anticipation of two very important weddings.  Both of my little brother's kids made their wedding plans for this fall, and because I have recently been immersed in Shetland lace, I decided to make each of the brides a shawl.  I made bride number 1 a small crescent shawl in a bright pink color using baby merino wool from Malabrigo.  I do wish I had remembered to take pictures of the finished product.  I will keep alive the dream that I will see her wearing it someday and get a picture then. Here is a shot of it before I blocked it...

  

For bride number 2, whose wedding was yesterday in the rain, I made a rectangle shawl in a soft blue color using baby alpaca handpaint from Misti Alpaca. 

I used the traditional Shetland lace pattern called "candle light" for both shawls.

I'll give lace a short break now!

New hat update

 I have learned a strategy for getting through long Zoom meetings: mindless knitting.  This was one reason that I wanted to start a hat last weekend, so that I would have something to keep my hands busy while attending meetings remotely.  This strategy only works for meetings that don't require me to be a continuously active participant.  For example, I would not knit through a department meeting that I was chairing!  Yesterday I attended a 2 1/2 hour meeting that I was originally going to attend in Chicago.  Instead of 2 travel days and nights in hotels, I was able to observe from my home office.  I probably was able to process more of the details of the meeting that way than if I was there in person.  So, it's not all bad, this Zoom thing.

Plus, I made significant progress on the hat:

After watching some of the Shetland Wool Week events online I began to yearn for a Fair Isle project.  Now there is (another) reason to look forward to the next Zoom meeting!

A much needed break

I signed up to teach an accelerated course, packing 15 weeks of content into half that time, meeting with my class over Zoom 4 times a week.  It's been going well except that I can barely keep up with the constant preparation (teaching online takes longer to set up!) and I'm behind in grading.  Plus, I'm on a big committee (akin to a faculty senate) and I'm co-chairing my department. It seems like I am complaining, but I do feel fortunate 1) to have a job that I like and 2) to be healthy.  

I finally decided to take a day off, to enjoy a beautiful autumn day last weekend.  

I started a new Fair Isle hat.  It's design is only a vague idea rattling around in my head at this point.  I've actually already started it over since this picture was taken.

It was a beautiful day, so I was able to sit on the patio and enjoy the last of the season's flowers.

Then I came inside and worked on a weaving project that has been on the loom for many months.  I was learning some new techniques and am glad to be done with that experiment.  The feline helper decided it was useful as a pillow.

It was clear that he was having trouble keeping his head up.

Crashed!