It's winter

And winter is a grand time of year to sit back, sip cocoa, and knit.

The first semester of school is drawing to a close. We've made good progress. I can't say that we've enjoyed Tapestry of Grace, since it fell by the wayside in our second week. Nor can I say that my students delight in studying all their spare moments, for they don't. One scholar would rather build unique buildings, and the other would rather doodle, knit, read, or all three simultaneously. Still, we worked through the first half of the Homer workbook, are on track to finish our Singapore text (and series) before spring, and are moving along in Latin.

I love new beginnings. Already I'm thinking about tossing out all the work from the first semester and having clean and tidy notebooks for January. I'll have to do that with my own books ... 'sides, it wouldn't last but a week with my children's. Before we get to those new beginnings, we need to do our mandated yearly testing. That will be next week sandwiched in among baking, crafting, and yes, building unique buildings.

I haven't knit any new swatches for my Master's program since last week, but I have gotten a good bit of writing done. I even had a friend test my pattern for Bavarian Twisted Stitch. She persevered through the twisted purls, and announced that my pattern is fine. I don't know that she'll ever work the stitch back-and-forth again, though. I did finish up two pieces of footwear, decide to save one for after Christmas (since I have my doubts the first will fit ... I'll just have one to re-do that way), and the yarn for the other two socks is on order. I forgot I've got two children to make pajamas for ... but I've got fabric for one of them, and it got pre-washed yesterday!

My Quest of the Month is to figure out How to do a Norwegian Gore. It's explained in Folk Socks, but it has never made sense to me. There are just Plumb Too Many Stitches in the finger portion of the mitt after working the thumb opening. Even the charts agree. If you've got a chart for mittens that's 60 stitches wide, and you add in 10 stitches for a thumb gore, and keep them, you've got 10 stitches more on the needles than you have on the chart. Pffft. I suppose it could be a typo ... but there's a similarly wrought gore in the Fall '93 Knitter's magazine, and two identical typos stretches my credulity.

I love Christmas baking. Today we made Swedish Rusks (aka Italian Biscotti), and one of these days will be just right for a batch of Stollen. And then sugar cookies, and then spritz, and then ... oh, too many good things.