Nutzoid

It's been a really busy several weeks since the last time I screamed through here with a post.  I've been up to my eyeballs at work, been sick with yet another cold, and been busy all over again.  In between my busies, however, I found enough time to finish both of the baby snuggle sacks (just in time for the twins) and one afgan square.

 

 

Over on Ravelry in the Craftlit group, someone put out a call for squares to make an afgan for Heather, who is the voice of Craftlit.  Of course I answered the call, and this is what I sent.  It's made from Lion Brand Amazing in the Mauna Loa colorway and was a snap to do.  I found the pattern for this circle-in-a-square somewhere on the Internets.  Just tonight I promised to send one more square to make up the blanket, so tomorrow I need to seek and find a skein of light or bright purple, do something in a ten-inch square, and get it in the mail as soon as I can.

 

During Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, the Emperor and I took advantage of the good weather and cruised across the state, and among the sights we saw, I got to poke my head into the Yarn Barn of Kansas.  It's a very nice yarn -- no, it's a fiber store, with yarn, tools, swag, spinning wheels, fiber, weaving looms, equipment, books, weaving yarn.... you name it.

 

The Amazing A-- has been designing patterns and selling them at the LYS in my former hometown, and recently I sent away for one of them.  A-- used a seafoam-like crochet stitch to make a cowl, and she used Mini Mochi to get the colors to work out.  While I was at the Yarn Barn, I spied some Mini Mochi and the rest is history.  Or at least, the rest is being crocheted.

You do a round of the seafoam-like crochet stitch in one color, then a round of single crochet in the other color.  It looks kind of late-1960s mod-ish; I'll post a good photo of the finished result when I have it.  The project is pretty easy once you get going (and if you use locking stitch markers for reference) so I'm a little more than halfway through the crocheting.

There are about five weeks left in my semester, and then I'll have my summer break.  I won't be able to be lazy, however, because I have to prepare two classes for the fall semester and try to get a good start on an article for publication.  To get tenure at my institution, all I have to do is get one juried article published in a journal within six years.  That sounds like forever, but it's a really short time because no matter what I do, more than half of the process is dependent on other people -- something I can't control -- and I need to be early, nimble, and prepared to punt.