I was recently entranced by a cardi pattern – does that ever happen to you?  It was the Tissue Cardigan in the spring issue of Interweave Knits – I liked the bell sleeve and the woodsy-lace looking yoke.  I’ve had some Brooks Farm Mac Acero in my stash for almost two years now I’d purchased at Stitches Midwest, and was looking for something just like this, something rather uncomplicated that would show off the gradations in the yarn, but something with a bit of drape.  I thought this would be the perfect pairing.

I soon discovered that although the Tissue Cardi is listed under “minimal finishing required” it has quite a lot of finishing and picking up.  The sleeves alone are finished off and picked up three times, in addition to being knitted flat and then seamed.  Being the adventurous knitter that I am, I decided that I could easily convert this to the round and do a whole lot less finishing.

my knitting advisor supervises my knitting closely

Body – The body was designed to be knit in three pieces; I eliminated one stitch on either side and converted it to be knit in one piece with a one-stitch false purl seam.  The body requires a three row garter stitch border at the bottom in smaller needles (which I missed until I was 3″ into the body, so I’ll do that part later as part of the finishing), then one switches to larger needles to do the yos and miles of stockinette.  I left off at the armpits and then went on to the sleeves.

Sleeves – I co 55 sts for the sleeves, joined in round and worked 3 rows garter stitch with US5 needles.  After 1 more row in stockinette, I did *k3 yo* around to get my increases, resulting in a nice, matching set of yarnovers at the cuff.  Two more rows in the smaller needles, then I switched to US7 and completed the rest of the bell, finishing with k2tog decreases and then switching to US5 again for 3 rows of garter st to create the firm band at the top of the bell.  Having done that, I then followed the pattern for the upper portion of the sleeve, except I continued to use US5 as I liked the firmer fabric.  They came out great!

Yoke – the yoke of this sweater is lower at the back center, and then there are stair-step bind-offs 9sts wide alternating rows moving outward, leaving you with a wide U-shape,  Many (not all) of these sts are then picked up to form the yoke.  I’ve decided to accomplish this portion with short-rows instead.   I’ll also be joining the sleeves first; this sweater fits perfectly EZ’s percentage system for a yoked sweater, so I’m using her numbers for underarm sts to join and then doing raglan decreases, again for less finishing.  Still working on a sleeve, so we’ll see how it goes.

I hear a lot right now about “the new normal” in government administration.  Like many vertical markets, governments are slowly realizing the old model of business (and its funding) is gone forever, and that new strategic and practical plans are needed to help people re-tool for “the new normal”.  Re-tooling of course requires change, and change is both dangerous and scary.  How do we get through these tough times with our sanity and our careers intact?

Late last week I had the chance to discuss Leadership on the Line, a book by Harvard’s Ronald A. Heifetz and Martin Linsky, with a great group of local government people.  They were people from nearly every department in area local governments, at a range of levels from non-supervisor to director, gathered as part of an intergovernmental leadership development and discussion group.

The main ideas and questions that bubbled up were varied, from broad and sweeping to detailed discussions of practice.  I took that as a sign that this book gave people some real food for thought as well as practice.  That was due, I believe, because of the book’s mix of discussion about leading other people, leading oneself, and self-care for the leader in high-pressure situations.  Leadership, they noted, is full of a variety of pressures, because it’s aim is helping people change, an inherently dangerous profession.

Leaderhip on the Line is organized around the framework of understanding whether the problem in front of us is adaptive or technical.  Adaptive problems require uncomfortable changes; one example given of adaptive challenges vs technical challenges is heart disease.  Repairing a diseased heart through surgery is a technical problem.  Getting a person with a diseased heart to quit smoking, lose weight, or change their habits is an adaptive challenge.  It requires a changes, those that are often quite difficult,  in the behavior of the person in question.

One question brought up by one of the members was given that resistance frequently accompanies the change brought by adaptive challenges, and that a leader’s job is to help make that change happen, when I am in the position of having to “turn up the heat”, how do I know when the heat has been turned up high enough?  Too high?

We discussed team motivation and building, including some great (and some frankly hilarious) examples of how different groups’ managers build solidarity and recognize their employees’ achievements.  Some mechanisms were formal, some quite silly.  Some of the people in the group weren’t sure if maybe wackiness in team building took things too far.  In my own team building experiences, I can only say I’ve found it not only helpful but essential.

Coming from the software development world, I talked about the practice of standing scrums (daily short meetings used as part of agile software development) I’ve used as a project manager to communicate with my teams during software development projects.  It sparked a lively discussion among some line managers about how non-technical teams might use them to ensure all members of a team are moving down the field towards the goal together.

Overall, I’d recommend the book to anyone dealing with change in their organization (which probably includes most of us right now).  It gave a good blend of theory and practice, with loads of examples from real management examples.  During these difficult economic times, a book like this might be just the thing to helping you find your way through the changes undoubtedly happening inside your own organization today.

Missed the first one, but this is a great idea: using Twitter to chat about Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws and related issues.  This is definitely something I’ll be following in the coming weeks, given the Jan. 1 changes to Illinois’ state FOIA law and the flurry of state law amendments being proposed to change it.

Sunshine Review is implementing a new idea this coming Friday called
FOIA chat Fridays.  This is going to be very similar to the #journchat
conversations on twitter, but instead we’re going to be talking about
FOIA’s.  This week we’re looking to talk about the developments of
FOIA laws, especially in Illinois.  If you or any other FOIA-minded
friends would like to join us please do so.

* The proposed restrictions on the recently enacted FOIA law
* Disadvantages and advantages of the current law
* How the current FOIA law is working for you
* General Q&A

Where: Twitter
When: Friday, March 5th
Time: 1:00 pm CST and 2:00 pm CST
Hashtag: #FOIAchat

Here are some shots I took around town.

A 4.3 earthquake woke up the house this morning.  Guess Mother Earth knows how to celebrate.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful boy!