Harry Potter and more

Well, I read the newest Potter last night. Picked it up around 5, finished it around 1:30 am. I won't spoil anyone else's read of the book, but I have to say I'm ambivalent about it. I mean, I liked the book. It was worth the wait. But I hate the way she's wrapped up the story. It seems slapdash, careless. Somehow, I didn't expect that from Rowling, not with Harry.

I've been really restless, knitting-wise, this past week. I've flitted from project to project to dreaming of next projects. I haven't knit much on Mariel (I'm about half way done with the front, so I have that and the sleeves left to do). I have some Lang Colombo, a cotton-silk blend in an aran or bulkier gauge, that I've been playing with, trying to find a stitch pattern I like. It's a beautiful yarn, and it shows great stitch definition, but it's also a heavy yarn. I only have about 600 yards of it, so I've been looking for a stitch pattern that doesn't eat a lot of yarn, that's also not too open. Being a teacher, I have no use for any item that's got "holes" in it, unless it's a cardigan. (SoCal doesn't really get cold enough, ever, for me to go for the layering look.)

I managed another couple of inches on my sister's cashmere scarf. (I'm making two for her, both in cashmere. One, 100% cashmere, in off-white, the other in Elann's baby cashmere blend, in claret. The 100% one is the one I've worked on this week) That yarn is incredibly soft and yummy. I love knitting with it, the feel of it in my hands. I'm going to have a hard time actually sending this off to my sister. Good thing I don't actually wear scarves, I guess. Well, good for my sister, anyway.

My Ilga Leja pattern arrived this week. It came complete with errata! Fortunately, none of the corrections were for my size, so I didn't really have to worry about them. Now I'm just pondering things like what yarn, and what color, to make it in. I'm not a fan of DK yarns. I much prefer worsted or bulkier ((I'm an ADD knitter, so faster is better!) I do have some lovely Rowan Pure Wool DK, but it's in a deep, foresty green, and I'm not sure I want to make that lovely jacket in green. I know I don't want it in any sort of beige, though, although it's beautiful in that color on the model. I'm just not a beige kind of woman, I guess. White, okay. Beige, not so much. I used to love grey, but as I've greyed, I've moved away from that color, too. I tend toward deep colors. Wines, any true blue-red, deep purples (aubergine), royal or darker blues, forest or darker greens. Black, or white. I don't do much with pastels. But this jacket seems to need the softer look of pastels. So, I'm pondering.

I also got some Katia Diva, in a black/white mix, this week. Very bulky, almost an astrakhan sort of look. 20 skeins, at 33 yards a skein. Knits up on 11s ~ 13s. Obviously some sort of jacket, but I haven't decided on what yet. I think it's going to marinate in the stash for a bit, until it begins to cool down some here. (It's actually been cool, for here, the last couple of weeks. 80s and 90s is cool, for my area in July. I'm not missing the 100+ temps, though!)

I was glad to see a stash that is way bigger than mine, this week. Bets posted on Elann about it, and CatBookMom mentioned it, so I had to take a look. All I can say is "WOW!" I feel ever so much better about my own stash, having seen that one. Although I do envy her all those glass-front cabinets. What a great storage item! And CBM was right, I have seen LYS with a lot less yarn than that.

I'm already getting antsy for school to start up again, and it doesn't until the end of August. I'll be back in my classroom, setting up, a couple of weeks before then, though. Unpaid, of course. (My district thinks you can set up a completely stripped classroom, tables and chairs piled in the center of the room, in a half-day, between staff meetings in the morning, and parent visits in the afternoon. Idiocy.) And I've decided to get my Masters, finally. I've put it off for so long, and it just doesn't make sense. It means a higher pay scale for me, of course. But the main reason I'm going for it is I need some new strategies for teaching reading. Every year, the classes we get seem to be worse and worse readers, and my partner teacher and I have run out of strategies for changing that. So, I'm going for an MA Ed, in Reading and Literacy Skills. Between parent meetings, fundraisers for the DC trip, and my online Masters program, this next year is going to be a really busy one for me.

I've already been doing tons of reading on reading. Amazon has loved me, lately! I've gotten books on assessments of reading, diagnostics on reading, what to do with the info you get from all those diagnostics and assessments, current theory on reading, what it is, how it's learned, etc. It's not light reading, but some of it has been valuable. Some of it's been Doh!, but I guess it really doesn't hurt to have what you already know confirmed by some "experts".

I'm going to have a wheelchair-bound student, this next year. Tiny boy, with some sort of disease that makes him extremely fragile, and keeps him tiny. He's been at our school since kindergarten, and I don't think he's grown even 2 inches since then. I've been spending some time this summer trying to work out ways to include him in some of the activities I do with my kids, since his participation is pretty limited in any physical sense. He comes with aides for the whole day, so that's something else I'll need to adjust for. Another adult in the room! Wow! What a luxury that will be. His 4th grade teacher told me she placed him with me specifically, because I'm more "structured" than my partner, and he needs that. I've never thought of myself that way, so I've been examining myself a bit, too, this summer. I do establish routines with my kids, and I do chunk instruction, and give them plans for accomplishing tasks, so maybe I am structured. I'm still thinking about that.

Anyway, this is just rambling on and on, and I should get offline and do some knitting. Or reading. Or pondering. Just something!