Walking to Webs...

I got a little distracted on my way to Webs.
Wouldn't this make the most amazing skirt?

Oscar the Scrappy.

This plant was a Secret Santa present two years ago, and I think he has survived long enough to deserve a name. I think I will name him Oscar. I was amazed when he bloomed again last winter, and then somehow managed to survive a very ill-advised attempt at repotting this summer. Perhaps not ill-advised, as the roots had become pot-bound, but it was definitely a poorly executed rescue. In the aftermath of the re-potting I stuck this lil' guy outside so he could get more sun, and I think the scarring on that out-of-focus leaf is from the time spent outdoors. When Oscar is feeling under the weather (i.e., unwatered) he doesn't change color, but all of the leaves start feeling very thin and pliable. A few times I have been completely neglectful, and at first a leaf or two falls off. Then if I don't notice in time an entire stalk will fall off from the base, which is the most disturbing plant disaster I have ever encountered. Maybe it isn't clear in the picture, but the resemblance to hands is really intense. Once they're detatched the long stalks resemble severed limbs. Oscar may not be as pristine and full of blooms as when I received him, but he certainly makes up for it by being scrappy. Maybe now that he has a name I'll be more consistent in my caretaking.

So far there is only the one flower, but there are plenty of buds waiting in the wings. They're all pretty miniscule, though, so I'm not sure they're going to flower at all. The single gigantic bud finally opened up yesterday. Isn't that stamen an amazing color of pink?
Today I frogged not only one but two knitting projects. Character building stuff. I'm excited to have found these free charts, however. Not because I want to knit a German Shepard or some candy corn, mind you, but because they have a link to blank knitting charts along the top. (On the other hand, I admit to liking the sock sheep quite a bit.)

I've been reading the archives of See Eunny Knit, and her explanation of un-venting simple cables (as well as Ariel Barton's 2004 Knitty article about why charts are your friends) have made the idea of using a chart much less intimidating. Since the brief mention a few weeks ago I've been plodding along on a grey scarf, and keeping track of each row was becoming a hassle. I think starting over with the pattern set from the beginning should help immensely.

"So, what do you collect?"

Before Thanksgiving Mo and I walked down to Webs to buy yarn for the plane, and on the way back we stopped in a small shop, Memory Lane Antiques. I saw an orange Fiestaware creamer which I adored, mostly because of the contrast between the orange Le Creuset type color outside with the plain white inside and along the rim. I resisted temptation, mostly because it looked like it needed a thorough cleaning, but I kept thinking about it. Walking home, knitting on the plane, I kept worrying that someone else would visit the store and recognize the intrinsic awesomeness of the miniature orange pitcher. I even checked on ebay to see if I could find a suitable replacement, just in case, but none of the creamers looked half as interesting, and with shipping they would have cost twice as much. It was more than a week after Thanksgiving before I got back to the store.


Success! The shopkeeper asked if I collected anything, and he seemed to think it was really strange that I came back just because I liked the colors so much.

In the typography studio we're excruciatingly close to printing everything. Every section but one was completely finished at the beginning of class, and we started dividing up into pages. The entire book will be 32 pages long, and the text should take up about 23 pages with 25 lines per page. Actually, I shouldn't say that we divided everything up into pages; I spent the entire class helping finish up that last section. Having twice underestimated how long it would take me to finish my own part, I had to help once I realized how many hours of typesetting remained for the unfinished section. We finished up a sizable chunk of it, and setting the rest should take less than 2 hours.

Barry said he would be coming in every morning until we finish, so I'm planning on going in tomorrow. I'm hoping that I'll be able to use one of the presses to finish up an earlier project.

In other news, it just so happens that my house has an iron in the closet. How great is that? The ironing board cover is beyond sketchy, but a pillowcase or two can fix that. Now I have access to pretty much everything it takes to make a quilt. Dangerous.

Gigantic Mums!

Don't these last two look like they're from Sesame Street?

There's also a room overflowing with normal sized mums, but by now they're fairly wilted and sad looking. It's surprising how much flowers will be past their prime in less than a week.

This is Mo hard at work pinching back mums over the summer:

Photobooth

I've never been a huge fan of having icons, but there's a story behind this one.

At the beginning of the year, my house had a week long Big Sib-Little Sib project. All of the first years and transfers were secretly given a Big Sib, who would leave little presents outside their door, or make a chalking outside, or generally do something nice for them without revealing the identity of the Big Sib. I ended up being a Big Sib almost by accident, and I'm glad I did because planning secret little presents to leave was a lot of fun.

We were supposed to leave little clues with each present, and I wrote mine on the backs of postcards I got this summer. Towards the end of the week I realized that all of my clues had been very tricky, so I decided that some photobooth action was necessary. I happened to know that my little sib is a huge fan of Amelie (as am I, please forgive the lack of accent), so I headed down to the photobooth in town with some requisite disguises.

It's hard to read, but the sign says "Can you guess?"

I love how the glasses start falling off my face from trying to change hats too quickly.


I actually had another layer of disguise which never quite got pictured. I cut out a Zorro mask, but then I forgot about taking off the sunglasses.

Coming soon: The Annual Mum Show, in which plants pretend they were drawn by Dr. Seuss.

The Contest, continued

Such a pretty green color! Send more guesses my way.
First post about the contest here.

Contest!

What follows is a picture of a Weird Thing.


If you can identify said Weird Thing, please leave a comment. Extra brownie points awarded for mentioning mathematical concepts related to this Weird Thing or for Totally Crazy Guesses. If you've seen this Thing in person, please leave only Totally Crazy Guesses. The Winner shall receive a Prize.

In a few days I will post a second picture which is less blurry and shows the entire Weird Thing. As they used to say in Chicago, "Vote early! Vote often!"

No longer an etsy virgin

The trip to San Antonio was good. We performed well, and all of the conductors had positive things to say. The river walk reminded me of lazy rivers in water parks. I'm excited about our trip to Italy at the end of the year; as my dad would say, "It's a good group. It seems like a good group of kids."

So a small secret about me is that I don't check my mail very frequently. This is due in part to my living on the other side of campus, and partly to my disinterest in walking around in the cold after dinner any farther than necessary. However, we have had some bizarrely warm weather around these parts for the past few days, so when we got back from San Antonio on Sunday I was willing to trek across campus in the dark. I was prepared for an empty mailbox (besides the usual letters from the college about registration) because I thought that the earrings couldn't possibly have arrived, but there they were! It was quite the welcome back. My first etsy purchase!


The earrings are such a great color of orange. I don't have that many earrings with me up at school, and most of the earrings I do have lean towards the cooler blue-green side of the spectrum. I think my favorite thing about them is how the color varies slightly throughout. They are the perfect length for my face, and they make me want to wear my hair down, which is highly unusual. More earrings by sulu (as well as a more artful and appealing shot of this pair) can be found online, and Susan writes about forthcoming designs here.

Disaster number one will have to wait until tomorrow.

Voy a Tejas!

If I finish my exam and get packed, that is...

The chamber choir I sing in has been invited to some inaugural collegiate choral convention conference whoosie whatsit, which is in San Antonio. The hotel we're staying in is right on the river walk, which I've heard is the coolest thing in the whole city (town? I clearly know nothing about Texas). We're singing a set of Dvorjak and Rachmaninoff pieces and it's pretty exciting seeing how far we've come with them. At the beginning of the semester it was tough just getting through them; today during sectionals we paid attention to all of the dynamic markings even though our conductor wasn't there.

Unfortunately I have an exam to take tonight, for which I must write up some notes. Adieu!

Knitting in Public

Today I felt like a rebellious knitter. Mo and I went to hear Mary Cowhey read from her book Black Ants and Buddhists at the Cup and Top Cafe. Mary Cowhey is a progressive teacher of first and second grade in Northampton. From her background as an activist and organizer she has an amazing ability to draw on the resources offered by people in the community. She described using primary sources to teach about the cruelty inflicted by the conquistadors, and making signs to encourage voting in order to teach handwriting.

So where does the rebelliousness come in to play? We showed up early to get lunch, and knit while we waited for our food. After we ate, we nursed our drinks, and kept knitting. As empty space became scarce, we relocated to the steps of the hardware store, and continued to knit while we loitered (I should mention that the hardware store was actually closed). Then, most daring of all, we went back to hear Mary Cowhey's reading, and knit through the whole thing.

Even though I'd heard something about World Wide Knit In Public Day before it happened this June, I didn't really understand what it was about. It isn't that I'm a secretive knitter; I've knit in the library, and in the math forum, and I've certainly walked around campus with a ball of yarn stuffed in my coat pocket. But it felt somehow different yesterday. It could have been the difference between knitting in a library and knitting as part of a gathering. No matter how interesting you find someone's knitting, you can't have an enthusiastic discussion in a library about when you made your first baby sock or how you learned to knit from your mother. But I think the largest difference was because Mo and I were both knitting. Seeing one person knitting is interesting, and perhaps unusual enough to ask a question. Seeing two people knitting makes it into a group activity and an invitation to join in. I may have missed WWKIP day this year, but join me and mark your calendar: June 10th, 2007.