MIA? AWOL? I'm back (Saturday's post)

Wow, laziness got the best of me on Saturday, but I will make up for it.

We had a beautiful, sunny day in New York, so all of us escorted Stephen to his ballet lesson, and then we played at the awesome new Union Square playground. We even saw a butterfly sunning itself on a park bench.

While at Union Square I checked out the farmer's market, which is much larger than the one up by Columbia. Even the stands of the vendors we see at our market are larger at this one. Of course I found the yarn vendors! And a skein of Catskill Merino's Saxon Merino Undyed Lace yarn came home with me. I was so tickled by it that I wound it up into a ball right there in the playground. Soft and creamy, just a little bit of chaff here and there. Absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it (just 225 yds), but it is ready to go when I do.

BSJ

Man, are Baby Surprise Jackets fun to knit! Especially when using yummy yarn. I worked one up over the past few days and hope to get some buttons tomorrow, at which point I'll take a picture (it's too dark now to show off the rich blue of the Lapis colorway).

The morning with the book making kids was fun, especially with Penelope on hand to keep everyone on their toes, so we have books to show, too. Again, too dark now to see all the glitter Isobel put on her handmade piece of paper. She's a girl who loves her sparkle. Wonder where she got that from :)

Glue Fingers

I helped out at Isobel's school today and ended up with Elmer's Glue all over my fingers. Can you remember the last time that happened to you?

At the kids' school the week before Spring Break is called IPW (Integrated Project Week), and groups of students and teachers (in our case ten and two) get together to explore a topic not usually covered in the curriculum for a week. Isobel chose Papermaking and Bookmaking, and I made the "mistake" of mentioning my years of book making experience (albeit on a larger scale, usually having pressmen do the dirty work) to Isobel's teachers, one of whom is leading Isobel's IPW. I said I would come for a morning to help out when they were putting together their books, since an extra pair of adult hands would be helpful when you've got ten first and second graders, glue, and sewing needles.

I ended up spending all day there and am going back tomorrow morning to help finish up their projects, which have to be done before the school Showcase begins at 1pm. Penelope is going to help, too. I'm already exhausted :)

But it's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed spending time with the kids and seeing how they all (teachers and students) interact together in the classroom, albeit not during a typical day. First and second graders are still so squirmy. Some of them gnaw on their shirts (they are still teething, after all). Sometimes they are so excited about their ideas that they forget to raise their hands. And they all want my help. They love interacting with adults who are willing to sit down at their little tables. The teachers are patient and kind and fair yet also human and with high expectations for how the kids should handle themselves and faith in what these children can do. I'm always impressed with how great the teachers and staff at the school are, but this was a special treat for me. A day on the inside, if you will.

I helped out with accordion books for half the kids at the beginning of the day and ended up making my own, which I'm excited about*. And late in the afternoon we decided to "go for it" and make classic bound books, too, which the other half had made in the morning. We managed to get everyone's boards attached to book cloth spines and wrap the boards before the day was done. Tomorrow we'll sew signatures together and attach the book blocks and endpapers to the boards. So much fun. And it was so neat to see how excited the kids were about their books, especially after we copied/shrunk the stories they've been working on all week so they could paste them into their books.

I'll show you my work (and Isobel's) after we get to bring everything home tomorrow. Until then, go smear some Elmer's on your hands and then peel it off. It is still as fun as ever.

*Back in my publishing days when people still bought books at their local book store, the highlight of my job, much as I enjoyed the designing and directing and whatnot, was when I got to make little packaging models. The box manufacturers would send me files showing how the eventual box would be printed on a sheet of cardboard. I would print this out on a piece of letter paper, cut it out on the die-lines, fold it on the fold lines and put together a wee sample of what the box would be like. That way I could understand where to place the graphics on the big sheet that would eventually be cut and folded into a package. I always loved my little models, probably because it was a chance to get out the Exacto knife and tape. But it was also because you turned this simple sheet of paper, with a few folds and cuts, into something completely different. Guess I kind of do that now with sticks and string. See, fun!

Where the Magic Happens

Thought you all might be interested in seeing where I work:

The Magic Factory

So, this is it. My desk is in a corner of the living/dining area right by the kitchen. It's in the middle of everything but out of the way, if that makes sense.

The desk itself is one of those build-your-own from IKEA (I know, they're all "build it yourself", but I chose the top and legs, which are little bookshelves). As you can see the desk has a glass top, so I can tuck things underneath for display - nothing very pretty right now (knitting mags, notebooks, a cutting mat, clippings from magazines, my scales). There's also the laptop (an antique PowerBook G4 - I keep changing my mind on what I want, then having to save more money, then spending some of it on something else, then having to save more, then having to decide all over again because all the new models are coming out soon); it works-ish, and that's what counts right now.

Since the kids are on Spring Break for the next two weeks, I'm trying to come up with some things we can do so I won't ... you know ... go crazy. Ahem. So, on the desk there's a copy of The Best Things to Do in New York City: 1001 Ideas, which is a really entertaining and informative book. I came up with a bunch of things I'd like to do with the kids, some of which I hadn't known about before. Did you know that there is a botanical garden on Staten Island, and it has a garden designed like The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (one of my all-time favorite books)? And the Queens County Farm Museum raises heritage breed sheep! I may actually be excited about Spring Break.

You may also notice Little Red Riding Penelope's picnic basket, the hand-crafted tinker toy-esque and index card versions of 3-D Rectangular Prisms Isobel made in school, my swift, my Palm Pre on its Touchstone (best charger ever, and a great little phone - I really like the keyboard), and a bag from Knitty City.

What else? My file thingy with folders for the kids, client stuff, clippings of decorating ideas and three sets of Farrow and Ball paint chips collected over the years - their paint names are as delightful as their hues. My pencil cup is a lovely bit of Burleigh Ironstone I bought when the Stonewall Kitchen at the Atrium Mall closed, and is filled with colored pencils, Sharpie Fine markers (note to self: I need more of those), a nail file, and various scissors, which no one else is allowed to touch. Peeking out behind the laptop is a giant, pale blue, plastic clothespin holding tax info and a picture of Isobel from last summer. I should add pictures of Penelope, Stephen, and Nick, shouldn't I?

On the walls are my "Comfort on the North Shore Line" poster from the Chicago Historical Society (hey, I bought it when it was still a Society - I know it's a full-blown Museum now, though I haven't visited, but I should next time I'm in town) and an IKEA bulletin board covered with project sheets to keep me focussed on in-process work (otherwise I would fly off in a million directions and never get anything done), sizing chart information, and Isobel's school schedule, since they have a two-week schedule, and I could never keep it all in my head. I'm happy I remember to pick her up on the days I'm supposed to pick her up. There used to be more (and more interesting) things on the board, but the cats  took it into their heads that the ephemera must be attacked and taken down. It was not pretty, nor was what I said to the cats. Even still, one of the project sheets has been gnawed on and the schedule comes down once a week or so.

There's a red, rolling set of drawers from IKEA that fits underneath the desk and holds computer cords, notecards, old notebooks, and other paraphenalia (sewing kit, *my* tape, *my* glue stick - shhh, don't tell the kids about that) that would fly all over if not contained. I've started to put some of my knitting books on the shelves, which have mostly held the "tall" kids books until now (if you have kids, you know that invariably there are those books that will not fit on your regular shelves). And what desk in a kid-home would be complete without little tea and coffee cups from IKEA to corral pins and a seam ripper and bits of ribbon? Mine, of course, are pale blue, which the girls don't seem to miss at all.

The lamp is Nick's and used to sit on the piano until I inherited my grandmother's brass lamp. I'll have to give you more of an apartment tour in future posts, I guess.

So, this is where pattern writing, blog posting, and all that email sending take place. Magic ;)

Winner: In the Shallows and STR Nyame contest

I know I promised to announce the winner this morning, but I went to the gym - I really need to get in shape! Thanks to the random number generator, the winner is

Michele said...

that color is gorgeous! this would be great knit up as your In The Shallows shawl.

no signs of spring here yet. we had blizzard conditions again this morning. tomorrow i think i will go buy myself an orchid plant because i'm dying to have something around that's growing.

March 4, 2011 9:39 PM 

Thanks so much for you comment, Michele! Please send me an email with your mailing address (lovely Blogger won't give me your email address), and I'll send the yarn to you. And be sure to include your Ravelry ID, if you have one, so I can add In the Shallows to your library.

I'm mulling over another contest - let you know tomorrow. In the meantime I have to go work on a Baby Surprise Jacket for a new baby who surprised his parents by arriving a month early. It's madelinetosh Sock in Lapis, and I am in love with the color!

FO: Grés

Some of you who "knew" me over on Purly may remember my Twitter Sweater adventure of last October and this January (looks like there is one more set of tweets to be consolidated - soon). I'm not sure if I will write up a pattern, since I tweeted what I did as I went along, but I thought you might want to see some pictures, which I took while messing around with my camera, tripod, and remote:

Eep

Nick just asked me if I'd blogged today, and I've been so busy on a graphic design idea that I forgot! Eep, indeed. We had a quiet day at home, since the March lion has been in full roar all day. Cupcakes were made and decorated with lots of sugary bits by someone blonde. And not much else happened. I didn't even knit much. Shocking, I know. I'll blog more tomorrow, perhaps about the Grés sweater - it's been finished long enough.