The Dweebmachine

This summer has been amazing! I am so sad to say that it will be over in a couple weeks. As soon as I got into Virginia, I hit up my favorite places to eat, along with a creative reuse center not far from my mom's place, and local yarn store. Food and yarn are my priorities. After about a week of knitting (and one blog post) my sister's came to town! We spent a day here then traveled to a couple southern cities known for being a little witchy and a lot fun. Asheville, North Carolina is a beautiful place. Lots of OG hipster vibes. There is a lot of good coffee, antiques, and a beautiful Folk Art Museum. We stopped at a little winery on the way there because we'd been driving a while and wanted a break. We even hiked a mountain in the rain! It was beautiful but exhausting. Then we hit the road and went to a rhyming town in Tennessee: Nashville. Nashville was a little more of a city than I like, but we had a great time. The old library is pretty muc

 My oh my, has it really been a whole month? I guess so! In the past month I finished the school year, tracked down paperwork to bring my dog to the US, flew back to Virginia, got a hair cut, and visited many of my old haunts. I love it here, at least I do for the time being. Once the weather heats up I will NOT like it so much. I fly back to Guatemala the end of next month. So, what are my plans for the summer? Well, I'm going on a roadtrip with my sisters, stopping in Ohio to visit my brother and his children, teaching a knitting class July 9, and selling at a sci-fi mini-con July 23-24. That brings me to what's on the needles: SO. MANY. THINGS. I found out I was going to be a vendor with only two months to plan. I gave away my entire inventory before I left, so I had to start from scratch. I have a goal of 5 scarves ✓ 10 cowls (halfway) 20 hats (5 to go) Bookmarks once I meet those quotas   As a part of this, I needed to make example projects for my knitting class. I am happ

 I have been so remiss in posting, but as I said in my last one, work became overwhelming so I retreated from everything. In fact, I was so stressed I couldn't settle on a knitting project and I started several that I didn't finish. Happily about 2 weeks ago I emerged from the doldrums and finished up a couple projects and even made a blanket! This will be more of a catch up post of things I've done over the past couple months. I finally finished that 40's waffle sweater! I love it on my friend I made a blanket using super bulky chenille yarn from Dollar City (Guatemala's answer to Dollarama) While binge watching seasons 11-13 of Doctor Who (Jodie Whittaker is my favorite Doctor), I had the idea to make a scarf using the 4th Doctor's pattern in 13's colors. Super happy with the result I started a sampler blanket using a random picker wheel for color and stitch The cotton mitered square blanket is still underway

I have had this post as a draft for ages because the life of a preschool teacher can never be predicted. I was in the doldrums for a long time, but I'm back! Hopefully that means more blog posts... Anyway Back in late January (just after my birthday) a friend of mine from Ireland came back to the US. She'd been stuck at home because of COVID, so she only just got back from Christmas. As a birthday/Christmas gift she gave me some beautiful Irish wool in dark speckled green and a grey-white. The quality is amazing and I absolutely LOVED working with it. Well, a few days after she gave me the yarn I had a dream...a song to sing...No. No going off with Abba lyrics. Okay, so I had a dream of the sweater I would make with it. There were a few variations in the dream, boat neck, long sleeves, no sleeves, mock turtleneck...but there was a deep green ribbing and a thick white, thin green stripe on each one. I thought about the weather here and decided to go with a sleeveless mock turtle

 I had a wonderful day today, what with the cool drizzly weather (a welcome change for the hottest February I've ever experienced; admittedly I am in Guatemala...) and an orchid exhibit just next to my apartment! A couple friend's (one was a member of the orchid society in Guatemala) and I met for a little coffee and a nice visit. The exhibit was small, but it had all local to Guatemala orchids! There were micro-orchids,  The orchids are growing in the center of the leaves! grassy orchids,  and of course the Monja Blanca, the national orchid to Guatemala.                 According to my friend it's a sort of albino variant of a pink orchid.  It was really nice to discuss the different things and a little about how many were discovered because of Orchidmania in the Victorian era. It's dark, but the petals are GREEN! And well, I've been watching a of 80's TV, so I channeled a Murder She Wrote

As promised here's a quick roundup of projects I'm currently working on:   First up, the waffle pullover! It's from a vintage pattern, my second attempt at using one. I put it aside when I had a dream about a sweater, which happens to be my next project: an Irish wool striped pullover Finally, I have a mitered square blanket I'm working on in between things, not that I've had time in a few weeks. It's using cotton from right here in Guatemala! Well most of it. I had a few scraps of cotton that I brought with me from the US.

 It's been a while, hasn't it? It's been a very stressful few weeks! First my birthday, which was not stressful, but rather busy. I made a complex dessert and a curry. I had a couple friends over for dinner, games, and cocktails. It was amazing. One got me some really nice Irish yarn! Birthday cake, knife included A little drunk chilling on the couch Then at the last minute the Guatemalan government decided we could teach in person when the city was on Red, which it couldn't do before. We found out at 5:00pm the night before (and the day after my birthday 😭). I adapted and managed to get to work with only a little annoyance. But on Tuesday, after being back only two days, I was forced to quarantine because two of my students tested positive. Then a parent did. Then another parent. So, a week of stress over if I was infected, because I HAD been exposed...We came back Wednesday, with parents of COVID positive children angry they had to wait a week, because of

 I've been really busy the past couple of weeks, but I haven't at the same time. My school went virtual for two weeks because 40% of my division and 30% or so of others were in quarantine. I'm talking teachers, not students. We were allowed to work from home, so I did. I appreciated the opportunity to ease back in. However, let me just say: teaching is HARD. Teaching 3 year olds is HARD. If we are virtual, it's a little physically easier, but it's emotionally exhausting. In person, it's both. We go back in person on Monday. It's Saturday now. I do love my job, though. Early Childhood education is a joy. Okay, so it doesn't really feel like a New Year, because the past several months bleed together. COVID life is wild. I always make resolutions to grow as a person each year, and this year I thought of them, but I never did anything about it. I like to draw out something that represents them, so I have a visual to motivate me. This year its: Remember who y

 There was this blanket I heard about ages and ages back, near to when I started in 2018. I don't remember exactly when I found it, but it came up repeatedly. As a novice knitter, I was intimidated by a large blanket, so I pushed it out of my mind. By the time I was ready, I had started selling things. I had to get ready for a convention, so no time. On and on the excuses came: art show, Christmas gifts, quarantine. Sure, quarantine in 2020 was probably the best time to make a blanket, but this one was never really high on my list of things to do. I had a list of sweaters I wanted to make, a couple half started projects to finish, and techniques I wanted to learn. Quarantine eased, and I was hired in Guatemala. Cue the list of projects that will use up yarn AND I could bring with me. This project uses up yarn, but I never would have been able to get it here. And since moving here, I fell in love with blankets, even though it never really gets that cold in Guatemala. But hey, it'