The holidays are over. I didn't quite finish the fingerless gloves I was working on. I am almost finished with the sweater, I just have one more sleeve. I started cutting out pieces for my niece's baby quilt. Then, I hurt my right arm. It appears to be tendinitis, so I've been resting my arm. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to things soon.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about a feast. No, I don't want to cook one. I just haven't seen any feasts that have impressed me lately, and I was thinking about what I'd do. I'm thinking an early spring feast, French/Italian.

first course (because "remove" isn't period)
Green Poree - a light soup of chard, herbs, and broth
meatballs
bread with butter

second course
roast chicken
turnips with cheese
apple custard tart

third course
lamb casserole - chunks of lamb slow-cooked in broth
cheese gnocchi
asparagus with saffron

fourth course
torta bianca - cheesecake
wafers
confits - candied fennel seeds

Wow, I didn't realize it had been THAT long since I posted, but I've been busy. Work and school have kind of kept me busy. It's done, though, finally! I took the final for the second literacy class tonight, and I'm done! For now...

In order to get a state teaching certificate, I have two choices: non-traditional licensure, or a Master of Arts in teaching. If I go NTLP, I probably have to find a new job, because my school doesn't meet their accreditation standards. I found out today from a co-worker who's in the MAT program at UALR that if I go that route, what I thought would be an advantage is actually very much a drawback. It would cost significantly more money, significantly more interference with my life, since probably 3-4 nights a week, I'd get home at 9 or 10, not to mention homework. The major advantage (I thought) would be that I'd get to stay where I am, but I wouldn't, and in the semester I'd be interning, I wouldn't be paid. With NTLP, it's two 3-week summer sessions and 7 Saturday workshops, one a month from September to April. I know there's homework, but at least I'd have the evenings to do it. Plus, I'd be working full-time at a starting teacher's salary, and qualify for benefits. So now, I think I'm going to hold off on more school. Maybe in a few years, I'll decide I want to go to school and add a certification, be a counselor, or a reading specialist, or something.

So, crafty stuff, I'm almost finished with the February Lady Sweater. The body is finished, I'm working on the first sleeve. That took about 3 tries. and I'm still not sure I got it right. The biggest problem was that I was doing what you normally do knitting stockinette stitch in the round, I knitted the even rows. Well, that was twisting the yarn-overs in such a way that instead of making a hole, the yarn pulled across the hole filled the space, and you couldn't see them. So now I know, when knitting lace in stockinette stitch in the round, knit all the stitches on the even rows, but PURL the yarn-overs.

I've also started another quilt. It's for my grandfather for Christmas. It's very simple. There's this silly old song he used to sing all the time when I was little. The center of the quilt is a plain navy square, and I'm quilting the words on it in white thread. The border is big squares of several different fabrics. It's basically navy, tan, green, and a dark red. Lots of earth tones and, oddly, a couple of butterfly prints, but very naturalistic, not cutesy. I found this great fabric, it's a maroon with a pattern of white dots that looks like Japanese sashiko. I'm trying really hard to finish the center by hand, but, depending on how long it takes to do the middle, I'm quite likely to finish it on the machine. After the middle is done, the rest is going to be very simple quilting on the border, either quilting in the ditch, or an off-set grid, so I'm basically sewing through the middle of each square, but in the ditch would probably be better. Then, I just finish trimming the batting, roll the edge of the backing over the front, and sew it down. That, my knitting, and a new outfit for Candlelight Camp are the big projects I've got lined up. I have some wool flannel, and I want to make a slightly looser cotehardie to wear over a dark red kirtle. I cut out a dark green kirtle a few months ago, and I should probably finish sewing that one first. So, there you go.

Wow, I didn't realize it had been over a month since I posted anything.

The quilt is done! I delivered it Tuesday. I held it up for Hunter to see, and she hugged it. It was the cutest thing ever!

I'm working on knitting the February Lady Sweater. That's pretty much it. The coif pattern order was delayed by Pennsic, but I should be getting it soon.

I'm taking Lara's suggestion to make an embroidered Elizabethan jacket for my next project, but after reading the article about the Maidstone jacket on Extreme Costuming, I think I'm going to start with accessories. Yeah, 1,900 hours on one piece over a year and four months, which the maker admits consumed all of her spare time, except for the 2-week break her husband forced on her is not do-able by next year's Kingdom A&S. I just ordered two embroidered coif patterns from Reconstructing History. I figure I'll try the coif, maybe a little pouch, and then work up to the jacket. It would totally be a winter outfit, but a plain, lightly boned kirtle (like, oh, the Ren Fair Irish dress patterns?) with a jacket would be awesome.

Almost done with the quilt! I've finished all the quilting, I'm working on sewing up the edges now, and it's done! Yea! I will post pictures when all the sewing is finished.

I ran into the lady whose job I was originally supposed to take this year when we were out for dinner on Friday. She was very nice, she asked where I was now, and how I was doing. She is now teaching music at another school. I asked her what happened at the other school, and she said she didn't know, she was just as surprised as everyone else, and then she said, very firmly "but we're much happier where we are now." So, it looks like that job falling through was a good thing, after all.

So far, I like the new job. There are a few things I don't like, the slightly lower pay and slightly longer hours, but I feel good about it. I've come to realize that one of the most important things about a job is knowing that the boss has your back. Even if you don't like everything about it, even if they occasionally fall short, if they really try to work with you, it makes all the difference in the world. Thinking back on it, I really became disenchanted with my old job the week that my assistant had a nervous breakdown. It was the very end of the 2007/2008 school year, and my assistant at the time was having some kind of personal drama, and she fell apart. For most of that week, she didn't come to work, she only called in once, and the rumor was she was staying out to drown her sorrows. I can only imagine how mortified her children must have been over this crap. I had 18 kids in my class. My boss never got me a sub, didn't come to sub herself, just left me to deal. It wasn't just because it was the end of the year, either, this year, when the other teacher was out, and we had 24 kids between us, she subbed, but she wasn't going to miss her soaps, or whatever she left at 11:30 to do every day. Never mind that I barely had time to get my own lunch out, never mind that I needed someone to either help clean up after lunch, or watch the kids so I could clean up, it was time for her to go, so she left. Conversely, my new boss has stayed later than anyone, has been right there with us, doing exactly what she was asking us to do, and has laid it out that she expects all of us to help each other and to be courteous to each other. Yeah, I think I'm in a better place now.

Ok, the kitchen is done, and it's awesome! The only thing that's missing now is a countertop that isn't mauve, but the rest of it looks so good, I can live with the mauve counter for now.

I've pretty much given up on the garden. My tomato plants went into the ground in June, and now they're still less than 12 inches tall. The marigolds are doing fine, but otherwise, the weeds have almost completely taken over. I may get a couple of beets out of the garden, but I think everything else is a lost cause.

I think there may be a couple of factors. The soil probably needs fertilizer, but I think the big problem is that the garden area just plain doesn't get enough sunlight. How I got any tomatoes last year, I don't know. It's almost as if the trees have gotten leafier since last year.

I think a much better place to put a garden bed is going to be along the back fence. That seems to get more sun than most of the backyard. The front yard gets plenty of sun, but I just don't want to put a vegetable garden in the front. I think it's going to be a few years before I'll be able to really do a vegetable garden. I just haven't been able to give it the time it needs, or had the energy for it, between moving and working on the house last summer and recovering from the accident and finding a new job this summer. I may try to clear the weeds and plant some collards and rutabaga, but I don't know now.

When it cools off, I'm going to do the newspaper thing to control the weeds, or maybe use a plastic row-cover, and then in the spring, I'll sow wildflower seeds in that bed. When I'm ready to grow veggies, I think I'll build a wooden bed, and fill it with garden soil and compost, and maybe put stones around it to make it more permanent. Of course, I'm hoping I'll have a little reason to put this off for a couple of years....

The kitchen has been primed. I need to put another coat on the area over the cabinets, but the rest of the kitchen has had 2 coats. I was going to use the leftover paint from the hall, but I finally found a green that won't look awful with the mauve counte top and backsplash, so I think I'm going to save the other paint for the back bedroom. I got a floor for the laundry room, it's a cross between a floating floor and peel-and-stick. The tile sections have tabs to fasten to each other, like a floating laminate floor, but they are held together with adhesive, instead of locking grooves. It's supposed to be waterproof. I will never understand what would make that dense carpet, with backing that is essentially a sponge, seem like a good idea for the kitchen and the laundry room. Any water soaks the padding and stays forever. I will be so happy to have it out of the house.

The kitchen is almost completely naked now. There's one stubborn spot over the stove, and a little bit of backing paper hanging off the soffett, but otherwise, the only wallpaper left in the kitchen is what's behind the refrigerator. Quite frankly, anybody who would care what the wall behind the fridge looks like is not really someone whose opinion I particularly care to hear. Today, I'm going to try to strip the wallpaper in the laundry room, except what's behind the washer and dryer. Wednesday, we're going to try to get some help moving the washer and dryer, and then Thursday, I'll remove the wallpaper on that wall. I need to wash the kitchen walls, too, so maybe tomorrow I can patch some places. The wallpaper was covering painted-over wallpaper. It stuck to the wall pretty well, there were a few places where it came off, and I can just patch those places.

I bought fabric to make a baby quilt for my niece/nephew-to-be. The design is going to be pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. The center is going to be hexagons, and on the corner blocks on the outer border, I'm going to applique bees.