Keep your fingers crossed!

I have my big job interview tomorrow for a contract teaching position in dh's department. Since his contract runs through the end of the next academic year, we thought it might be nice to try and live together for a change.

Claremont will never be the same.





BUT, when I get back on Thursday I'll fill you all in on the fun stuff I've been doing in the copious amounts of free time I have between work and preparing my lecture for the interview.

Okay, okay, real fiber content

Okay, so yes, I really do knit and spin (and a bunch of other things) with fiber. I don't have the digital camera but this is what I'm working on right now for dh. It's a bit boring but it will be the sort of sweater he will acutally wear. What you can't see in the photo is that the middle panel is a broken rib. I should have the front finished by the time I have access to a camera again.

I found this at the Drops/garnstudio website ( www.garnstudio.com ) where they have posted a ton of free patterns from previous issues of Drops. I have printed out nearly ten for my 'to-do' list.

Next will be the river forest gansey from Handknit Holidays and/or Durrow from the October issue of http://www.magknits.com

Durrow is one of those patterns that is plain enough for the picky male but is still interesting to knit. I'm actually a bit jealous of Jodi Green (the designer) for creating it. I'll post photos of those projects when I get them on needles.

My first fiber related post- sorta

The town of Menton apparently had a good crop of citrus fruit and decided that it needed to become REALLY big sculptures. The theme was fairy tales (Cinderella, Snow white etc.) but you'll notice that the wheel is a flyer wheel and so there will be no thirty foot tall, orange and yellow Sleeping Beauty pricking fingers with this one.

I had to throw in the ants as well although I have no idea what fairy tale they are from. These are so odd, I don't even know what to say. It's an acid trip meets my worst nightmare crossed with a children's book sort of image. And yet they somehow manage to be fun.

Chocolate Bunnies

In honor of the upcoming holidays, I bring you –Chocolate Easter Bunnies!

Is it just me or did you play with your chocolate bunnies as a kid and recreate conversations frighteningly like this one?

The image is courtesy of Nancy back in Elmhurst, IL (my old haunt). Miss you Nance!

Yes, I know I have been neglecting the blog since it’s inception but I have officially had the week from hell all because of one very corrupted statistics program. Blech! This upcoming week may be a close second due to the huge backlog of work that this past week generated but I’m going to pretend that’s not the case and hope that I can be super productive without six shots of espresso a day.

You know you’re tired when six shots just don’t do it.

However, Thuy and I have been living it up this weekend. I spent all day yesterday at a lavender farm a couple of hours away and in the evening, Thuy and I dyed roving with food coloring (and ate the first good Thai food I've had since moving to CA). The bummer of it all is that dh is in Joshua Tree this weekend with the digital camera so I can’t show you anything! The roving will wait for the camera at least and the lavender isn’t in bloom yet so those photos would not have been terribly impressive. See, I’m great at rationalizing.

Photos finally!

It's the weekend and I promised photos of Zion, Bryce and Marius (dh).

If you've never been to Zion, go. All of the guidebooks talk about the bad weather during the early spring but it's still pretty and there are relatively few people around. You'll meet folks on any day hike you go on but there aren't crowds like during the warmer months.

These photos were taken during one of our hikes, with us pretending to be outdoorsy people next to pretty rock.We even got into one of the slot canyons at Zion just before the snow turned really bad. The next time we're going in warm enough weather that we don't need dry suits to do the Narrows. I like the snowflakes in the photo.
More of Zion... with the snow melt making the river a pretty green.

And Bryce. Most of the park (all but the visitors center and two pull offs) was closed due to several inches of snow. And of course most of the photos are hazy because it was foggy and/or snowing the entire time we were there. But here's a picture of Marius during a relatively clear period at a scenic "vista." Of course he's all squinty due to the snow glare and wind, but what can you do?And Red Rock State Park which you pass through on your way to Bryce. We just did drive-by tourism through the park as we were hoping to catch better weather up at Bryce. This was of course the only sun or blue sky we saw for the last two days of our trip. We'll be back.