Little Bird Bag

Now that I have finished the afghan for my brother-in-law, I am starting a new project. I found a very cute bag on Knitty.com (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTlittlebird.php) and I am currently working on it. It shouldn’t take too long, despite my less than perfect knitting skills. Crochet is easier, but there are so many things you can do with knitting, I would like to be better at it. I also found a new store to buy yarn. Since I have given up on Wal-Mart, I found a store nearby that has a large variety of quality yarn – which means shelling out more for it, but, I think it’s worth it. The yarn is great, the selection is great, the lady who works in the store is very helpful, and its local, not an evil corporation. I like it. Yay for the Hillsborough Yarn Shop. For this project, I’m using Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride in Cranberry Swirl, a bright reddish pink with a slight variegation, 85% wool and 15% mohair (what is mohair, anyway? I need to look it up). Anyway, I will be making a foray into felting as well. This may end up as a Christmas gift, and if it works out, I may try another with gray yarn and red embroidery.

Dress Remix

Being small means that a lot of my clothes don’t fit when I buy them. And being financially limited means that I don’t take them to a tailor. I do a lot of alterations myself. My most recent was not necessarily a fit issue. I have had this dress for almost ten years, and only wore it once. I received a lot of compliments on it, but I felt that all the material was a little overwhelming, and looked rather sack-like on my frame. I needed a black dress for our choir’s Christmas cantata, so voila – I pulled this one out and hemmed it. Really hemmed it. I added a sash that I already owned to cinch the waist a bit, and it rather worked. Not a huge deal of work – just hack the bottom 12 inches off and sew a hem with the sewing machine, but I think it turned out well.

Possession

For some reason, I had resisted reading A.S. Byatt's Possession after it had been suggested in one of my first graduate classes. (We had a choice, reading Possession or read her Angels and Insects. I chose the later because it was the end of the semester and it was shorter). However, the other day, with nothing to read, I came across Possession in the library and decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed it, partly because it gives such a different perspective on academia. In this model, English studies is full of intrigue and romance - rather different than the actual experience (although I find it satisfying). I am still not a huge fan of the poets, still preferring Victorian fiction, but it is nice to think about how poems might have had personal context for the poets, rather than being something I have to read without any hope of understanding it.

November Snow

An unprecedented event has occurred. Never in my memory have we had snow this early in NC. Usually, we are lucky to get this kind of heavy dusting in January or February, much less in November, before Thanksgiving no less. However, it seems to be confirmation of what my mom has said is in the Old Farmer's Almanac - colder weather this winter with a lot more snow than usual - at least for our area.

Listen to Your Reading Assignment

While I am largely a visual learner, I have found that audio reading has its benefits. Sometimes, reading assignments are so long that if I were to sit and read the entire thing, I would have time to do nothing else. But, if I listen to the book, I can do other things, like clean, crochet, cook, etc. Librivox is a website catalog of audio recordings of books that are in the public domain - which means it's free. They have most of the books I have needed for my 18th and 19th century classes. I have found that it works well if I listen to every other chapter, reading the ones in between. The only downside is, of course, that you can read faster than someone else can read to you - but it does mean that you can multi-task. And some of the readers have rather nice reading voices and they make attempts at reading with feeling and voice.

Gluten Tolerant!

Wow, after three months of near starvation (OK, a gross exaggeration), and no gluten, it now appears that I do not, in fact, have a gluten intolerance. Which is super good news on the one hand - pizza! pasta! bread! cake! And just in time for Thanksgiving, too. But, on the other hand, it means that I still don't know what's causing the headaches...

Autumnal Glory

The leaves have been gorgeous for the past few days, so I'm sure that means they are about to disappear. I took a few pics this afternoon to memorialize them - we have been having beautiful, warm weather, which I am sure is about to disappear also.