A Bit Dilettante

So lately I’ve had a little trouble settling to anything.  In my last few days of summer break I’ve been dabbling in a little of this and a little of that.

A little house cleaning and a little napping.  A little laundry and a little visiting with friends.

A little spinning.

Some Blue Faced Leicester top I got in Logan, Utah.  It’s been mostly marinating in my stash since 2009.  I call it Wasatch Blue after the mountains there.

Even with the stuff I’ve been doing the most of, I can’t seem to settle.

I’ve been reading, of course.

Please note, however, that each of those four books has a bookmark in them.  And don’t even ask how many are started on the Kindle.

Then there’s the knitting.  Lots of works in progress.

Jeanie, in the Fleece Artist from Nova Scotia.  About a third of the way done, maybe.

It won’t look like much until it’s finished and blocked, of course.

I finished a pair of socks.

Ribbelmuster in Knit Picks Essential Multi.  They came out a little wild, even for me.

I’ve done one of another pair.

“Whitby” from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road, in the Opal yarn I got in Grand Rapids.

But I’ve moved on to Lacy’s birthday socks.  Since her birthday was in April and she finally told me what pattern she wanted.

Absinthe in Malabrigo Sock.  That girl is always issuing me a challenge one way or another.  These are my first toe-up socks and I had to learn a neat new cast-on for them.

So maybe I’ve been a little obsessed with socks lately.  In an ADD way.

All of that comes to a screeching halt tomorrow as it’s back to work with Meet Your Teacher Night.  Now I’ll have to pretend to be the grown-up, focused one.

Advertisement

Lost in Translation

I love words.  As a reader, librarian, and blogger, this is not really news.  But I will sometimes play around with words just for the sound of it or compose things in my head before speaking or writing.

All of which to say that as I was contemplating my recent reading material, the old proverb about judging a book by its cover leapt to mind.

(Mentioned by an old friend via snail mail recently, so I dug up a copy.)

So just for fun, I ran “You can’t judge a book by its cover” through Babel Fish from English to Korean and back again.  What I got was:  “You can’t in compliance with it handguard of the judge books.”  The internet — always good for amusement if nothing else.

And I am rather fond of this apple green cover . . .

on one of my favorite Christmas gifts.

 

 

 

Seeing Red

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve trained my mum well to bring me yarn from wherever she and my dad go in their retirement travels.  Last February they spent a month in Gulf Shores, Alabama, (pre-oil spill) avoiding the Indiana winter, and brought me back some great Berocco Seduce in a brilliant red.  I finally got it knitted up into a fun little scarf.

Sorry for the poor lighting, it’s done on the Mac PhotoBooth cam.

So when I wore my new scarf this past week, I was haunted by the phrase “red scarf girl” and the idea that somewhere in the recesses of my brain there was a link with that phrase to some sort of totalitarian control of young people.   Not surprisingly, librarian brains pick up all sorts of weird phrases and links, usually having to do with books.  A little investigation revealed that, yes, it was a book.

It’s the story of Ji-Li Jiang’s experiences as a teenager during the Cultural Revolution and her journey from a follower of Chairman Mao into a thoughtful person who questions the dictates of power.

Then, just a couple of days later, Kay of Mason-Dixon posted about her contribution to the Red Scarf Project.  If I got some bulky yarn maybe I could get another red scarf whipped out before December 15.

Since they’re everywhere, you know.