The Monday Beast

Happy Monday!

Right, then - let's just move past the cheer and right to what you're here for. There has been progress, though probably meager and maybe even pathetic for the REAL knitters out there, on the mermaid shawl. Lace might be more fun to knit if it didn't 1) look like something a toddler made before it is blocked and 2) because you don't know how it will look, a certain sense of apprehension moves in when you realize how much time you are investing in a shaky endeavor. It takes confidence to knit and patience to stick with it. Therefore, I am only three repeats into the basic center square. Is the glass half full? I'm thinking so because I really love the way this hand-dyed yarn is wiggling out in the lace pattern. This weekend, I wore my 'Mountain Mama' poncho out in the REAL world. I gave it to myself after it didn't sell for the first five hours I had it out at a three day show. It was hard to do but I was cold and I've always loved it, anyway. I made this a few summers back when I first got my herd of Cotswolds. It is entirely handspun, and knit - duh! and most of the color work is my own first attempts at dyeing. Also, it has no pattern and the color work was totally 'organic' (this means I had no freaking idea what I was doing). I got so many compliments on it that I may just never take it off. Incidentally, I am including it today - not because I am desperate for attention, but because I sometimes forget that I am a real knitter and spinner.

Alas, my few minutes of coffee break are over. It is back to the kitchen cleaning, teaching, running around pulling my hair out grindstone. Though, you shouldn't feel too bad for me, I have been sneaking up to my loft since last night to work on a dress I am making. Okay, so far I've only cut it out but, now that I have threatened, begged, and sacrificed many non-electric devices before my sadistic sewing machine, she seems to be working better and I see some sewing time in sight. Just a minute in the brag corner, though. Things 1, 2, and 3 are working on a dragon, China, Chinese New Year, world geography, cultural unit thingie and part of that is that we are making our own maps. Of course, China is the country we are mapping. Friday morning, we worked on the 'silk route'. I handed them some card stock kimonos I had cut out and some scraps of silk and told them to decorate them. Oh, the complaining and whining and fighting over the glue! But, after a few minutes, thing 2 said, "You know, this is really fun". So, to depict the Silk Route through China, here are just a few of the kimonos they decorated and glued to the map. Pretty snazzy, eh?