Happy New Year
I haven't signed in here for a long time, but I'm still alive and kicking. More later.
Happy New Year
I haven't signed in here for a long time, but I'm still alive and kicking. More later.
What this election season has demonstrated to me in stark colors is the fact that a prediction that Mike Farris made in The Teaching Home a couple decades ago is coming to naught. He was convinced that because homeschooling families were having more kids and that Christian homeschooling families were instilling their values that the culture was going to change and that by now we would "be winning.". What I am observing, at least among the homeschooled adults who were in our homeschool group, that to a very large extent what has happened is that the culture changed them. Their certainly are exceptions, and I cherish each and everyone of those exceptional people, but it has to break the heart of homeschooled moms to find that their daughters are reading Fifty Shades of Gray or putting rainbow flags on their profile picture. I am watching kids who grew up in pretty orthodox homes falling prey to the emergent church movement, or abandoning Christianity entirely.
What this election season has demonstrated to me in stark colors is the fact that a prediction that Mike Farris made in The Teaching Home a couple decades ago is coming to naught. He was convinced that because homeschooling families were having more kids and that Christian homeschooling families were instilling their values that the culture was going to change and that by now we would "be winning.". What I am observing, at least among the homeschooled adults who were in our homeschool group, that to a very large extent what has happened is that the culture changed them. Their certainly are exceptions, and I cherish each and everyone of those exceptional people, but it has to break the heart of homeschooled moms to find that their daughters are reading Fifty Shades of Gray or putting rainbow flags on their profile picture. I am watching kids who grew up in pretty orthodox homes falling prey to the emergent church movement, or abandoning Christianity entirely.
I finally finished the February Lady Sweater. It's actually not a difficult pattern (so long as you keep your wits about you, if you don't there's some frogging involved!). It came out fitting perfectly. My sleeves are longer than the picture that came with the pattern (deliberately so) and the sweater itself is also longer. I have probably about 3/4 of a skein of the yarn left.
That yarn that I bought for the Effortless Cardigan clearly was looking for a major makeover. I started a February Lady Sweater (a pattern I've been meaning to try for a couple of years, and got a new enthusiasm for when my daughter made one for herself and said how easy it was). Every single person in the family indicated either by look or actual expression something along the lines of "do you REALLY like that color?" Now I must admit that I'd had my doubts about the color myself. I bought it because it was the type of yarn I wanted and it was the only color the store had with enough skeins to make a sweater for me. My doubts really came from the fact that, while it might have been a decent color for me before my hair started to go gray, it really didn't work all that well with the graying hair. It also was sort of the color of baby sheep poop. So I could kind of see the all around objections.
Well, I finished the Effortless Cardigan yesterday, tried it on and decided that I hated it. The yarn clearly didn't want to be that. The sweater was way too big (despite the fact that I "got gauge") it hung funny, it just plain looked stupid. My daughter told me on Thursday, when I was already having serious doubts about the project, that she thought that pattern probably only looked good on someone who was six feet tall and weighed 110 pounds. Since I am neither of those and never will be either of those, it didn't look good on me. So I spent three hours unraveling the sweater (and if I'd only unraveled the sleeves first it would have gone faster). Now I've cast on and knit the first dozen rows of a February Lady Sweater. Abby just made one and I really liked it. So far my first modification is to decide I don't like the ultra heavy buttons that the designer used, so I'm using a simpler buttonhole than she suggests and will go with slightly smaller buttons. Because I've got other knitting to do, this will almost certainly not be done by Christmas. So I guess it's a good thing I have the other two sweaters I've knit this year.
That sweater I wasn't so sure about got completely unsolicited compliments this week from three total strangers. First the loan officer at the credit union complimented it, when I said I'd made it she was astonished because she said it didn't look homemade. Then, a nurse at the hospital (who saw me knitting) asked me if I made the sweater too and told me how much she liked it. Then the checkout person in the cafeteria told me how nice my sweater looked and asked if I'd made it. Three times in three days (twice in one day). I guess it's a winner. I think it's partly the color, which is a pretty incredibly pretty blue. But since everyone is also complimenting how well it's made, I guess I did a good job of it.
The sweater is finished, got waylaid by necessary sock knitting, and some personal glitches, but it's now done (well except for a few ends that need to be woven in, but which I'm sort of waiting for Green Mt. Fiber's finishing class to do properly). Now I'm doing my post project assessment. I don't know if I like the ties, I think I might prefer a button closure. The length is certainly attractive enough, but it's a bit shorter than I usually wear. I'm still not sure about the length of the sleeves (although I've already lengthened them once). I think perhaps it's that these sleeves don't have ribbing at the wrist so they slide up pretty easily when you're moving around. I don't really want them a lot longer because they'll get in the way when I'm doing things like cooking, but they sort of feel funny when I stretch out my arms