A Few Really Good Things

My last full week of summer vacation (insert sad face) has had some ups and some downs.  Let's focus on the ups.

1. I finally found the buttons I had been searching for and finished Swing. The pattern is now available at Ravelry, Shopit.com, and Etsy.com for $6.00 (US).  Check it out!
2.  Audrey's Country Crafts is giving me FREE advertising for my Etsy.com store for the entire month of August, so go there when you finish reading and show her some love!
3.  I started to clean, card, and spin that alpaca fiber that I bought at the beginning of July, and though it has been a labor-intensive process because the alpaca lady's fleece was full of tiny wood shavings that had to be removed by hand, I added a little soy silk and it spins up beautifully!!!  It's going to be like wearing a cloud when I have enough to knit with.  I'm very excited! (and there's some of the carded roving for sale at my Etsy shop).
4.  I was invited to be a guest blogger at Chubby Cheeks Thinks during the month of August (how cool is that!), so check out her blog and show her some love, too!
5.  The pattern for Swing is all but done and should be available on Monday.  I've already gotten some emails about it, so that makes me super excited, too! 
6.  I finished up all but one of the sewing projects that I had been putting off this summer.  The last one is a table cloth of sorts for a table in my classroom, and I will have to measure it when I go to my "retreat" with the principal. One cannot have too much of the school colors in one's classroom, you know.
7.  My husband managed to finagle an 8 ft. cardboard cut-out of Johnny Depp as The Madd Hatter for me yesterday.  It's going up in my classroom.  Originally, I was given permission to paint a mural on one of the walls in my classroom to display state standards for the classes that I teach; but then I was told that I would be getting a smart board, which is a good thing, and I had to give up on the mural idea.  So, since my wall space is now limited, The Madd Hatter is going to, with purposeful irony, be the figurehead of the state standard.  (insert wry smile). 
8. Finally, with the exception of a lace scarf and a pair of fingerless mitts for myself (those will be next week's one-day project) with my new Suri (alpaca) Merino.  Allow me to show off the man gloves that I've finished for Honey for cold weather motorcycle weather.  Already he's put in an order for another pair for Boy Scout Camping, which they seem to do A LOT of in the winter--like every other weekend, for Heaven's sakes!  I modified the Cigar pattern that I found in Ravelry--increased the needle size, didn't make full fingers, but increased the finger lengths and the length of the glove post-ribbing.