Kung Fu Knitting

We watched My Neighbor Totoro this week at my SAP. (Guess whose idea?) And along with this glorious movie was an art project. The kids are usually nuts over making puffball animals: Chicks, jubjubs, alien space monkeys. This time we made various creatures and totoros! O Totoro, Chu Totoro and Chibi Totoro. You might also notice a soot sprite or two and a few Pokemons. And let's not forget the lone tamagotchi (If you can find all of these I will be highly impressed!)

Isn't that just gorgeous? This was my art project today in my school age program. We ordered some Bare WOTA from Knit Picks , picked up some bargain koolaid from Aldis and let them at it, all smocked up of course. Unfortunately I forgot my real camera, otherwise I would have taken some rockin' photos of the process. One of the things that I enjoyed most about this project was watching the different learning paths that students embarked on for their dying. You see I didn't really tell them how to do it. I showed them an example and let them work independently, helping when needed and explanations of different techniques at the appropriate times. It was pretty neat to watch the iterative process that some of the older students went through in their dying. One experimented with mixing right there in her saran wrap and came up with a skein that she called messy wheat. Then she just dropped the dyes in discrete areas, carefully mixing certain spaces. Another young gal experime...

So the date of my upcoming fight has been fluid, to say the least. A number of things have to come together in order for the evening to take place. You have to schedule the venue, the doctors, and the officials. All of which have been mismatched at some point during the last month. But you know it's got to be official when flyers are being posted: I only have to weigh in 10 pounds lighter. (5 by my scale at home. I wish this were the accurate one). Arrggh!!! But there is another official event - FO: Droplet Hat The Droplet Hat from Knitting Nature is complete!!! This one is made from leftover Aracunia Nature Wool. My gauge was dead on - for stitches per inch. Unfortunately, My row gauge was a little off. So the hat is shorter than I would like to wear. So it's not quite complete. See those pink strands of yarn? Those are going to be the center of the earflaps that I am going to knit. I'm just trying to decide if I should knit those flaps in seed stitch or with a line of bo...

I am so lucky to have gotten at least a little bit of Valentines Love! Look at the card that thoughtful Holly sent. It was so unexpected and sweet. Thanks, so much. And inbetween all the working out and such, a little knitting has been getting done. And I have the proof. Actually this guy is getting sewn up at the moment. Can you believe it? I am going to be posting an FO soon! Perhaps I am gaining back some knitting momentum. (To be honest, I think I am gaining back a lot of life momentum at the moment). I've also started a shawlette from the Basil Zephyr that Annie sent me for the one skein exchange. Everytime I look at this yarn I see the flower petal shawl from Elann . So that is what it will become. t won't be anywhere as big as the one pictured on the site, but I think it will be very wearable with the right dresses and such. The pattern is not complicated in the least, but it is lovely. So, all in all, this will be some mindless but relaxing knitting that I am hoping...

I've been saving this post for a while and seeing that I don't really have any knitting content to present at the moment, I decided to show something more than a little quirky from my Atlanta trip. Stone Mountain The South is such a hospitable place. I found the people in Atlanta to be quite nice for the most part, though I didn't hear many, "y'alls" about. But of course, that wouldn't do at a place like Stone Mountain. It's a veritable shrine to Southern history. Witness the flagstones of the Succession: Or better yet, the portraits of the generals. Can you name them all? (Mouseover for the answers.) You could take a cablecar to the top. It's barely visible in the picture. Now of course, a little place like this couldn't exist without a fake little shop town, replete with live blacksmith and black coffin for posing in. Not to mention cotton candy at most every corner and holiday music piped throughout (there was no escape). The streets should ...

I've been missing the blogosphere. I haven't really been able to post or read much lately, so please excuse my recent silence if you've noticed that I have been MIA in the comment zone lately. Actually, I've been training for my upcoming fight (March 3rd)and starting back with school. My days now go something like this: wake up at 5, work out at 5:30, finish at 7, get ready for work, go to Job #1, go to Job #2, work out at 5:30, come home, shower, eat, shoot it's 8:30, go to bed/go out/do homework. Pretty boring. But I have been getting in some sparring. I did 9 rounds last week and hopefully I can get in just as many more in weeks to come. It was a little embarassing because I am so rusty. On Tuesday I sparred with one of the girl fighters from my gym and I got clocked pretty nicely in the chin. My jaw was a little sore for the next few days, but on Wednesday and Thursday I got hit quite a bit more. There's a former professional boxer who is coming down to spar...