New Year Progress Report

It was a pretty productive vacation that just FLEW by, even with an extra week of vacation due to the snow storm!  Where did four weeks of vacation go?!

As a last-ditch effort to get something done before the back-to-school craziness, I whipped up this little top-down number over the weekend.  That's right, I said over the weekend. This was a Saturday & Sunday project.  I swear!  There's no new pattern, really.  I just took my Autumn Shrug pattern, changed the ribbing, deleted the ties, and added a button with an I-cord.  The button is coconut shell, which I found at Joanne Fabrics, of all places, on the fly on Saturday afternoon.  I used my Christmas present yarn from Honey--the gorgeously soft elsebeth lavold.  I used 6 skeins of 82 yds each and had enough left over for finishing.  I think it turned out rather lovely for a sweater done on a whim.  And if it looks to you like the stitches are uneven … well this is a two-ply, thick-and-thin yarn.  It gives the sweater a very unique look to the fabric.

These are my New Year's Knitting Resolutions, and I've crossed off what has been done before I go back to the salt mines.

sweater for me (elsebeth lavold Christmas present skeins)
medium Sportsman test gloves
large Sportsman test gloves
extra-large Sportsman test gloves
2 sweaters for Rocket
1 pair of gloves for Scout 2
that gorgeous blackberry cabled cowl sweater for me
Swing for my mom
buttercup beret
socks, socks, socks! (Groovy in progress; waterfall; monkey socks)
Reconstruction Sweater (sleeves not yet done)
cowl for a friend 
another pair of Elegy gloves for me (in progress)
80s Shrug (in progress)
cabled cardigan (hibernating)
yellow Swing (in progress)
Macrame Vest (in progress)
cowl for Honey
black cherry wool/silk cowl


And the semester begins tomorrow with today's catastrophe, and I'm trying to stay busy to avoid the imminent panic attack and stroke that is sure to follow, the meltdown of the one jump drive that has all of the files of my entire 14-year teaching career on it, including all of the Advanced Placement data for my school which is, shall we say, NOT SAVED ANYWHERE ELSE!!!!!  I keep trying to breathe.  My Honey is trying to recover my files using his big computer genius brain; but it's a wait-and-see kind of thing with his rescue software.    This could be the greatest disaster in my personal history.  At this rate, due to panic, the last 4 inches of the Groovy socks could be finished by this evening.