Look at My Foot!

So my stashbusting continues! My mom bought me a whole lotta skeins of Lion Boucle when I first started knitting. Why? It was really "reasonable" - translation: super cheap. She was being so supportive that there was no way for me to refuse, hence more boucle than I really could ever need. I made a few scarves but unless I wanted to make many, many more I had to find some other way to use more of it at time.

Luckily Lion must have added new patterns to their site or I just had totally missed this one for Slipper socks. Sure, what else do I want to knit in July but warm, furry socks?

So these are my first socks I've ever knit and while boucle hides my mistakes it also was a pain in the butt to knit with DPNs. Don't think I caught the sock-knitting bug that many others have but maybe I'll bust out another pair of these since they were a quick knit and I have several more skeins to go.

And since no one ever wants to look at my foot, I used one of my favorite models, Bo the stuffed moose, to show them off.

Stashbusting Snake

I am not allowing myself to buy any new yarn until I do something with all the random bits of yarn that I seem to have accumulated. Since I don't have enough of any one yarn to make anything big and I have a short attention-span in the summer for knitting I figured a toy would be good. This is the very simple snake from Jess Hutchinson's Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy booklet.


So this snake with the sweet face needs a home. I really don't need any more stuffies at the moment and my niece is normally the recipient of my knitted toys. But I think her mommy would bop me on the head if I gave them one more thing that would require packing in the next few months. So he's up for adoption. Leave me a note or shoot me an email (my address is in my profile - I believe) and he's yours.

Lists and Books - My Dorky Heaven

So here's the thing, I love lists - always have. Shopping lists, to-do lists, movies-to-see lists...As a young girl, I was slightly obsessed with checkboxes and my family has been known to mock me about them to this day. So fine, I included things like "Wake up" "brush teeth" but that was only on important days like the first day of school or camp, etc...

But my favorite list of all and the only permanent, long-standing list is my Book List. I don't remember how the Book List started but it was some point after college I started keeping a list of the books I had read. Initially I just wrote down the title but starting in January 1998 I included the date I completed the book. So I'm going along keeping my list and then a few years back over a dinner the topic comes up and my sister goes, "I keep a list too" and then my mom says "Me too!". Clearly there is something on the XX chromosome in our family that triggers this sort of thing. We were all doing the same things unbeknown st to each other for years. Eerie....

My mother and I have proceeded to debate our lists. Not the content mind you but the actual list format themselves. Mom keeps a file on the computer with author, title, main character names and a synopsis. She can not understand how I can just have the title, it drives her nuts. - an added plus for me.

So last night, I am at book club and found out about this site Good Reads. It's a site to list your books and see what your friends are reading. I have only just started entering books but I can this will give me much list-fetish joy to come.

Check out the Good Reads button to the right and it will connect you to what I'm reading.

My Mother's Daughter

Melon
Originally uploaded by Sarahland

So I went to Haymarket Friday after work to see if I could find some inspiration for a dish to bring to the cooking club I was invited to. More on that a bit later...but something rang in my head as I walked around. It was my mother's voice saying "did you buy a melon?" Leaving Haymarket without a melon is a cardinal sin in my mom's book and since the cantaloupes we looking good a cantaloupe joined me for my T trip home.

But being myself instead of my mom I had to put my own spin on it.

Hence, Melon with Googly Eyes.

Are you Smarter than a Fourth Grader?

A co-worker in my department has a son in the fourth grade who gets these weekly math challenges. I must say for a fourth grader are pretty hard. Usually they are solved with algebra (which they have not learned yet) but the kids are challenged to try to figure it out anyway they can graphs, guessing, pictures etc...Now my co-worker gives these word problems to several of us in the department to work out. Usually it takes me a few minutes to kick out my basic algebra skills and figure it out.

The first time we did it, my co-worker couldn't solve it herself but insisted that my answer had to be wrong because I did it too fast because apparently the rest of my department took over a half hour to solve it (their answers were wrong by the way).

The second time I was critiqued for not showing all of my work . We have yet to do one where I haven't had to explain how to get the correct answer to at least one person.

I know I sound really bitchy and condescending. I fully acknowledge that not everyone is good at math and I'm totally okay with that there are lots of things I can't remember from school. The thing is all of these people work in my department - the ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT!!! They are paid to work with numbers all day and should not look at me oddly because I remember how to do simple algebra!!!

So here's the problem. Feel free to post your answers in the comments.

A magic money box doubles any money put into it and then adds $1. Kara put some money in the box and the box did its magic. She then took this new amount of money and put it back in the box again. After the box did its magic again, Kara took of $31. How much money did Kara originally put into the magic money box?

Washday

Now for something completely different....

I am posting things all out of the order in which I took the classes but that's because it all depends on what I have photos of. Some things require me getting to a scanner and I just haven't managed to do that yet.

Compared to the piece I posted a few days ago this one is on the other end of the spectrum. This is from my class "Washday" with Pamela Huntington. First of all Pam is just wonderful as an instructor, she really wants everyone to enjoy themselves, learn something and most of all have fun. I have to say she was generous both of material things (an amazing amount of supplies) and of spirit. She was the perfect person to have my last class with.

The class was a bit more on the craftier rather than arty side so I was more at home. We painted the frames, cut out and put together paper dolls and then collaged the background, mine pretty simply but I really wanted three dresses on my clothesline. I wasn't sure about the baby but everyone in class loved him so he stayed. Thanks Dad for letting me raid your ephemera! The dresses are all hand sewn and embellished by me and then the ones on the clothesline we dipped in wax. It's hard to see in photos but they are all stiff and gives them a really neat look. And I got to use my Liquid Nails again! Woo-hoo! Michael de Meng would be so proud! Had to make sure that fence wasn't going anywhere. Oh, check out the little goose peeking out of the fence - I love him!

Again, I really like her but she's not so weird.

Message from the blogger

Sorry to interrupt my regularly scheduled ramblings but I was fiddling around with my blog options and I realized that I had it set so only blogger members could post comments. I have now changed it so anyone can post now.

So, comment away! Really! Go ahead!

No, it's okay... I'll just blog in the dark....sniff...

Can you tell Grandma's been helping me with my guilt trips lately? She's a master.