Congratulations on arriving to the last week of instruction of YOUR ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL CAREERS!! I'm so excited for you all! ProgressUmmm... yeah so I made a lot of progress. I guess I kind of hit my knitting stride. Also, I turned out to be an accidental genius because knitting goes great with grading the recordings of your book club meetings, so... Here I am. In the very position of finishing something faster than I thought I would. I can't stress enough how this never happens in my life. In my update a week ago, I had just finished the yoke and knitted about 12 inches or so total of the body of the sweater. This week I completely finished the body, all 25 some odd inches of it. I also knitted about 12 inches of one of the sleeves. In the first and second weeks of this project I knitted about 1 skein per week, which is 200 yards (400 yards total). This past week I knitted nearly two entire skeins in just a week, which means I accomplished almost exactly double the number of stitches. When I started on the sleeves I switched over to the four 5 millimeter double-sided needles, which I think you'll agree are crazy looking. I'm also doing fancy stitches again: decreasing instead of increasing, and varying two different textures, the garter stitch and the stockinette stitch. Updated DeadlineYeah, so I'm updating my deadline by moving it up, WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. I think I can have this sweater finished the by June 15th. Skills, Obstacles, MistakesThere have been mistakes (like the neckline mentioned in my first update), and detours (like finishing Bracken's coat as related in the second update), but more than anything else, I think I've learned a LOT. Also, kind of amazingly, the sweater is on track to be an actual wearable piece of clothing. As I discussed in my project proposal, this has not always been the case with past knitting projects. Planning My Next ProjectI've gotten really excited about planning my next project. I bought some new yarn with the idea of making a coat for Birdie so that she isn't so jealous of Bracken. BUT. I changed my mind. First of all, the yarn is super, super soft and such a crazy color. Also, even though it's single ply like the roving yarn I used for Bracken's yellow sweater, it's a different weight. It's super bulky instead of bulky, which might make the jacket a bit trickier. So, I've decided I'm going to make myself the pinkest and longest scarf in the world. Final ThoughtsI cooked up this crazy project idea because I wanted our last generative thing together to be something meaningful to each of us. And I was feeling the languishing, as I mentioned to you back in the intro post to the project. I designed my project to try to counteract the languishing and get back to a flourishing, as described by that New York Times article. As astonished as I am that things are going more quickly than I imagined, and that the thing twirling off my needles is taking a shape close to the one I was aiming for, I am even more amazed that planning and executing this weird knitting project actually did bring me closer to the flourishing end of the scale. I don't understand it, but I'm grateful. I hope that your experience with your own project brought you some sense of joy or satisfaction, as well.
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AuthorI'm a Houston high school teacher. Welcome to my adapted, socially-distanced, quarantined AP English Literature and Composition classroom. Archives
May 2021
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