freedom and discipine

well i managed to get out of one of my teaching days without annoying anyone - there was a ready substitute and an understanding course co-ordinator, so no harm done. the sense of relief is huge, now i just have two hours of australian history on monday afternoons with a much more manageable 50 students. i feel free!

this leaves two days a week now to work on publications and the other research job, so i still need to be disciplined with my time but teaching is such a mental drain, i think i am much better off without it.

speaking of discipline, some of that was required in relation to knitting. i have this little thing where because i was disciplined to within an inch of my life as a child, i still, at nearly 40, feel the need to rebel whereever possible, even if it is counter-productive to myself. like, not getting any knitting finished.

so i decided that socks were car and small space knitting, the shawl was good outdoor knitting (nice big stitches, big needles, easy pattern) and the cardigan, if i had any hope of wearing it this year, needed to become the night time knitting project. if i didnt submit to boring rounds of stocking stitch it would not get finished, so just submit and get it over with.

hence, a lot of the shawl got done this weekend at herding practice (there are some pics at trents flickr, i think there is one or two of me and poss, its been a while and we had fun - trent even hopped back in the ring with jem who is a much improved herder!) and i am going to run out of wool before thats big enough (necessitating an order from nundle at some point in the future).

and lo and behold, last night, sleeve one of lily was complete:



because its stocking stitch its curling up a lot so i have pinned out the sleeve so you can see the picot edge:

the yarn, a possum/merino blend is so soft and lucsious and the possum gives it this silvery haze, its gorgeous. i want to wear it NOW!

but i must be disciplined and do the washing up first. oh, and the other sleeve. and the body. and block it. but you know what i mean....

k xx