Interesting Times

With all this shelter-in-place I had thought that I would have way more time to blog. I certainly have lots of photos that can make it in this space, and stories to tell. I saw myself typing along happily, cranking out one blogpost after another. The reality, however, looks different. This is my third attempt to write - it's not that I don't have time - I do. I'm not going anywhere either - who is these days? Still, I didn't get comfortable in front of my computer (I never get comfortable here anyway), at least not to compose enticing blogposts that my readers would breathlessly read, hungry for more.

Instead, I'm trying to make the best of a dire situation, finding my own routine to make my days meaningful. Some days this works better than others. None of these days found me writing those blogposts though...

When I venture outside for walks in the neighborhood I carry my phone with me, listening to audiobooks (currently "My Antonia" by Willa Cather) and keeping my distance from other people. Sometimes it's quite the dance happening on the sidewalks and the streets when we try to give each other a wide space. You probably all experience the same. We are reduced to the neighborhoods for walking now since all the parks, open spaces and beaches have been closed. At the first weekend of our "house arrest" thousands of people were crowding those places, not keeping a safe distance - the county didn't have a choice but to shut it all down. I miss my walks around the lake with my friend, hiking up the mountains or just driving out to the coast to spend a few hours at the ocean.

The flowers in my neighborhood like the California poppies in the photo above or the pink Arctotis below make bright and colorful spots.

Grocery shopping has become a time consuming chore. Yesterday I stood in line for 50 minutes - knowing that this might happen I had brought my Kindle and could at least spend the time with a good book (I'm reading "Broken for You" by Stephanie Kallos at the moment). At least the store - I shop at Trader Joe's - is always well stocked. I also shop for my elderly neighbors which gives me the feeling that I am at least a little bit helpful. I guess we all have similar stories to tell about shopping, standing in line, avoiding being exposed.

Thankfully the farmers market is still open. It has moved to a different location and has less booths than usual, but this is a great way to support our local farmers and get fresh produce. It's not too crowded and market management does a good job in avoiding crowds or telling groups that stand together chatting to leave the aisles. Every booth is taped off and usually there is one person who handles the produce and another who deals with the money. By now most people are wearing masks - many of us still have one or two N95 masks left over from the fires - and are careful in keeping a safe distance. However, I do miss the friendly conversations that are so typical for shopping at the farmers market. The only person I talked with for more than the usual "how are you" and "stay healthy" was the mushroom guy.

Kaefer came home for a few days during her spring break. All classes in her next - and last - quarter will be taught online, and we think there will be no commencement for the class of 2020. It's a little bit sad for all those graduates, but the important thing is THAT she graduates and everybody stays healthy. After four days she had to go back since her job with Student Services defines her as an essential employee and therefore she has to go to work. This is the only time when she actually sees her friends - again observing a safe distance - and I do believe that this is better for her than staying with her boring parents. While she was here, we were binge watching "Silent Witness" and playing Rummikub.

Fortunately there is always something to knit. Another birds hat was finished and sold two days after I had listed it in my Etsy shop. A box with lots of yarn goodness arrived that I will turn into more hats and socks. Leftover yarn is used to knit up cute little cats that can be used as ornaments, bookmarks, gift tags - whatever you can think of.

I'm also still making my own paper. I had ordered a few stencils and I'm quite excited to use them. This whole paper making can get pretty addictive and I'm still not sure what I will make out of it. The idea in the class was to make small journals and I'm still considering this. But I also think that they would make cool backgrounds for a photo or could be turned into cards. I guess I will just let them sit for a while and something will come up. It usually does.

The majority of my time, however, is being spent preparing my online German class and work for the German School. Using the educator platform of Zoom we are now able to offer our students online classes. Since I'm the head teacher of the local campus I'm also a board member, which means that I attend the board meetings and am involved in the decision making. Our last in-person meeting was when we decided to close the school because of the coronavirus. Since then we have met online to figure out how to go on and offer our students a continuous opportunity of learning German. It meant a lot of extra work for us teachers since teaching online requires way more preparation than in-class teaching. We also had to learn Zoom's education platform which thankfully is easy to navigate - even our least "techie" people learned it and know how to use it at least at a very basic level. I love the ability to screen-share, break up smaller groups in "breakout rooms" and just how easy it is. My high school is doing their distance learning via Zoom as well - I guess the company is doing really well right now.

It was lovely to see my students again, at least on the screen. While I think this is not the best way to learn a foreign language, it is the best we can do of the situation and we have a bit of our wonderful school community back. Our students are grateful and turn up at every lesson, eager to learn. Below you can see what online teaching with my class looks like - I have blurred out the faces of my students, though.

My heart is full with gratitude that I still have both my jobs, that I can teach from home, that my husband can work from home and that we're doing well. I feel for all the people who have lost their jobs during this crisis or who have to stay home without any pay, who have fallen ill or have lost a loved one to the disease. Unfortunately, I don't think that this will be over any time soon. We're in this for a longer run I'm afraid.

When my mood is sinking a bit - thankfully it doesn't happen too often - I snuggle up with the neighbors' cats who come by daily and spend a good amount of time in my garden.

How are you doing in these interesting times? What do you do to spend your time at home in a meaningful way? Please let us know in the comments.

Please stay healthy everyone.

Secret Garden Shawl

Quite a while back I found a beautiful shawl with the name Secret Garden on Alana Dakos' beautiful blog Never Not Knitting. I loved it right from the start, but it took a while until I bought the pattern. When my students at the German School gave me a gift certificate for my favorite yarn store I finally got three skeins of Tosh Merino Light (the recommended yarn in the pattern), a scrumptious hand dyed yarn in fingering weight. I chose the color "tart" which is a rich darker shade of red.

The pattern looked complicated and of course, at the beginning I didn't "get" it, but finally I had a humble beginning.

Despite making a lot of mistakes and redoing entire rows I kept on knitting and after a week it had grown considerably.

Every row in this pattern is different, and every row consists of sections - a section that is repeated several times along the row. After having done several mistakes I got into the habit of counting the stitches in each section, so I marked the beginning of a section with a piece of short yarn. When I was done with a section I simply moved the yarn forward so that I didn't lose count.

As you can see the pattern consists of a lot of cables. I first worked with a bamboo cable needle, but I didn't like it that much. Then I saw a YouTube video where a knitter used a different kind of cable needle that looked like a big hook. One of the craft/fabric stores in town had it and with this the cables were much easier and faster to knit up.

However, this still wasn't my last improvement. After a while I found moving the yarn forward and counting the stitches in each section tiresome. I decided to use small ring markers for each section that would stay there permanently. Now suddenly things really moved along since I didn't have to count the stitches in each section anymore!

Halfway done...

And then disaster struck! About a little more than three quarters along the row my needles broke. Suddenly I had a very short piece of the circle needle in my left hand and the rest in my right one with several stitches dropping off the needle. Holy cow!!! I was close to tears and couldn't move for a few minutes. However, I knew that somehow I had to get the stitches on whatever needle as fast as possible before they messed up the entire pattern. These were very intense moments and it's a wonder that I didn't yell at my poor husband who asked whether he could help me somehow. I just tried to focus and get those stitches back on a needle!

No, I don't have a photo of the disaster - are you kidding me?

The following day I got a new needle and settled back into knitting, one section and one row at a time. The shawl grew and grew...

... until the day before we flew out to Hawai'i it was done. Finished!

I felt wonderful when I had weaved in the last one of the threads. And a little proud as well.

It was quite difficult to get a photo of the entire shawl in all its glory.

There was the option of making a button hole, albeit in a very odd position. It took me two months to buy a button for it and sew it on!

Breezy Ocean Sweater

While browsing Pinterest for knitting patterns one day, I came across "Jessie's Girl" for a lovely, light weight sweater that would be perfect for summer. Kaefer liked it at once and after mentioning that I would love to knit it up for her, she told me I could choose the yarn and the colors. I went to my favorite yarn store and found a gorgeous 47% linen and 53% cotton blend called Good Earth Adorn in the color "Breeze" (304). The colors remind me of the ocean and I was certain that it would compliment Kaefer's complexion perfectly.

The pattern was easy and straight forward, and with my Knitter's Pride Dreamz wood needles (my favorite knitting needles) I happily knitted along. The sweater knitted up quickly and was no problem to create while watching movies and/or chatting with friends. It was done in no time at all. While knitting it I already thought that it was rather big. Just in case I didn't weave in the ends because I had that odd feeling that I might have to unravel it...

And indeed! When Kaefer tried it on, it was beautiful, but just too large for her small frame (I had followed the pattern for the smallest size to the T). My gauge was correct, I knew that from the swatch I made before starting out.

So I unraveled the entire sweater and started over again.

The sweater is intended to be oversize, so I had to keep that in mind when I counted out my new number of stitches and figured out the math how to do the neck opening. Since I had less stitches the second time around the sweater knitted up even faster, and I already knew where I had to pay special attention. Again, I didn't weave in any ends until I was sure that the sweater would fit Kaefer.

And it did. We were both really happy with the final result. I still have some yarn left over and am trying to come up with something else to knit - probably some doll clothes.

*****

At the beginning of June I was interviewed by the lovely Emma Kay from Katoomba in New South Wales, Australia, for the Rainbow Artists Team on Etsy. I enjoyed answering all her questions and to finally see the entire interview on the Rainbow Artists blog. If you want to read it, you can find it here.

Sheep in a meadow

Sometimes I would like to meet my terrible needlework teacher from fourth grade again, just to be my eight year old self again and sticking out my tongue at her, showing her that all her humiliating behavior didn't stop me in the end (although it took many many years until I picked up those knitting needles again). She probably would have never thought that I was actually able to knit a sweater! Well, she's long gone I assume, sitting on a cloud knitting slippers for the angels (or "horn warmers" for the devil?).

Two weeks ago I finished this baby cardigan - the very first cardigan I ever knit. It is far from perfect, but I'm immensely proud of it.

I first saw it in my favorite yarn store and immediately thought that this would be perfect for a very special girl whose first birthday is at the end of this month. She lives in the Chicago area and can definitely use a warm sweater. The owner of the store gave me the link to the pattern on Ravelry, and a few days later I cast on the stitches. If you look at the pictures of the original pattern you see that it is a bit different than the cardigan I made, which was inspired by the yarn store.

Instead of two there is only one line of sheep, happily hopping along the "meadow". I think two lines are just too busy for such a small piece of clothing. My sheep are purled with two strings to give them a more fluffy look - they're sheep after all! While we were in Colorado over winter break I found these adorable sheep buttons at a yarn store in Boulder - they had the right size and were just perfect for my project!

I used Malabrigo Rios yarn in lettuce - a pure superwash merino wool that is perfect for baby clothes. I love this yarn. It feels good, is very soft and easy to work with. I usually knit with bamboo needles and the stitches smoothly glide off those needles. It makes for fast knitting.

Here is the cardigan - probably still too big for that special girl, but she will grow into it.

Navajo-Churro Sheep Wool

While on our way to Kayenta and Monument Valley in Arizona the day before Christmas Eve, we stayed the night in the Cameron Trading Post. This is a beautiful motel under Navajo management that we return to again and again. The rooms are big, tastefully furnished and absolutely quiet. The rates are very affordable especially when you take into consideration that the motel is rather close to the Grand Canyon. If you don't want to stay with the crowds, this is the place.

However, I don't want to write about the motel, but something that you can buy in the Trading Post: yarn. Not any kind of yarn, but wool from Navajo-Churro Sheep. The sheep are raised locally, the wool is harvested and dyed locally and some of it is sold in the Trading Post. It actually hangs in long strings from the ceiling and you just have to pick your colors.

It's very affordable as well, so nothing could stop me. I was in a knitter's heaven! The colors have beautiful names as well - rusty rose (on top), fuchsia (back right), jaded dreams (front left), peacock (front right) and sea foam (back left). Jaded dreams was the only color that was difficult to photograph.

Kaefer chose fuchsia, I'm going to knit some warm socks for her. Peacock will be for a friend and the other three are for me. All of them will probably be worked into warm socks since I constantly have cold feet. Our house is not particularly warm in the winter, especially not at ground level, and that's where my feet usually are!

This is the only picture that shows the jaded dream in a realistic way - and the peacock is closer to its real color as well.

My Friday Finds for this week - I just love yarn!