Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Since I've got nothing...

...and you guys seemed intrigued, I'll give some explanations for yesterday's photo montage. 'Cause otherwise, I'm out of ideas. (The new drug - Singulair - is making it possible to breathe again, so I'm feeling better. Probably just in time for side effects of my pneumonia vaccine to kick in. Whee!)

I'll do them in the order I posted them yesterday, and I warn you, a lot of them are fiber related. No, really. I haven't knit or spun much since I got sick at Christmas, but I've been THINKING about fiber stuff a lot.

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I watched a hockey game last night (Penguins beat the Sabers, woohoo). See the guy there, in the black jersey with the Penguin on it? That's (pretty sure) Sidney Crosby. He's the dude who scored the gold-medal winning goal at the Olympics last week. He plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Since he scored that goal, the whole city of Pittsburgh has been laughing about how conflicted they are: Sure, the USA lost to Canada at the last second, but IT WAS A PENGUIN WHO SCORED THE GOAL! No one can decide if they're happy or not. The radio commentary has been particularly hilarious.

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Since knitting the Hex Jacket (Rav link to my project page), I've been brooding over hexagonal garment construction. I'm not sure I can improve on Norah Gaugahn, but if I ever get a good idea, I intend to knit it up. I've gone so far as printing out hexagonal 'graph' paper and cutting out garment shapes.

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Well, geez, plants, I think about those all the time. Still have a low-grade urge to knit a chloroplast. I've been putting it off, figuring if I go back to school I can use the idea for some kind of project in some sort of botany or biology class.

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This is what I call Easter grass, the fake plastic shredded stuff you put in Easter baskets. I've been eyeing it in stores, thinking "I could spin that" and speculating on art-yarn projects to be done. I have a bad feeling I'm going to break down and buy a couple packs, even if I just 'file' it in the Fiber Box.

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Lately the Goober's been into dinosaurs. If I ever start feeling human, the goal is to figure out what museum around here has the most dinos in it, and take her.

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Cats. Yeah, cats. Thanks to SekhmetYouFucker, they are often foremost in my mind. You know, the domestication of cats is a really screwed up subject. I keep meaning to do a blog post about it.

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Along with dinosaurs, the Goober has discovered the joy of cool-looking rocks. She calls everything that doesn't look like gravel a mineral. It's really funny. What I need to find is the natural history museum. Dinosaurs and rocks. She'll be in heaven.

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I wanna spin yarn that looks like the Northern Lights. Lots of it. And then knit some kind of pretty cardigan. It'll likely never happen, but I want to.

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This is modular origami. That's when you make twelve, twenty, thirty identical little bits, then fit them all together to make something like the photo above. I've done it off and on since I broke my hand, and have concluded that I need to do some again. It's really good for individual finger strength and dexterity. (Better even than knitting for dexterity, believe it or not.) Now I just need to find somewhere in Pittsburgh that sells origami paper. Or perhaps order some off line...

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This is not my work. But it's what I've got in mind (along with matching earrings and perhaps a pin) for the watch gears that are too big to fit through the orifice on my spinning wheel (and therefore won't be used in the yarn I'm working on). Once I get the Etsy shop established again, I'm thinking of selling some stuff like this, and perhaps stitch markers. Don't know. We'll see.

13 comments:

Catrijn vanden Westhende said...

Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Oakland is what you want, quite nice. http://www.carnegiemnh.org/

Emily said...

Just checked out that museum...oh, definitely. Family membership is kinda steep, but the Goob is only 4, and maybe a membership for thee & whatever discount a 4-year-old could get?

I'm so GLAD you are feeling better.

amy said...

I was going to say, don't forget to check out local universities. We went to a really fantastic natural history museum at one of the schools near WEBS (I think it was Amherst, but there are so many up there, I'm not sure without looking it up) and it had great dino and geology stuff, and it was FREE. I love free. ;)

Alwen said...

Do0d! Go here: http://www.carnegiemnh.org/dinosaurs/

They even have a webcam so you can preview where you're going.
http://www.carnegiemnh.org/dinosaurs/cam.htm

Gad, the internet is kewl. Now I want to go there.

Amy Lane said...

Oh darn it... I was all gonna guess and then I scrolled up and saw you'd answered it all! That was too bad--I was having a cool time figuring out your mind!

I'm glad you survived February-- for our family, it's always been plague month. A couple of years, it was FOUR SICK PEOPLE, turning into vegetation and sweat on the couch. So I sympathize. But march is here, and I bet even the snow smells a little like spring...

Catie said...

Interesting thought process. I keep wanting to knit a neuron - have even gone so far as to sketch it and think about learning how to needle felt so that I could put in a soma... and perhaps getting a rattle to make it a geeky baby toy (minus the felting details)... Have you seen Biology 101 on Ravelry? I totally want to make it for a friend's birthday.

NeedleTart said...

I agree about February. My Mom's b-day is in the month, I always get sick, and Mom and Dad both died in 2001. Does that make us some sort of relative?
I am also often told I must see the world sideways because who else would think of these things?

Anonymous said...

Singulair is amazing. I've been on it for a few years now, and I love it.

If you ever come back to Ohio, Cincinnati has a cool museum in an old train station. One section is Ohio history, one is natural history, and there's a kid's section downstairs that I think the Goober would have a blast in. Those three are permanent, but there are other OMNIMAX and exhibits that rotate through every so often (there was one on the Romanovs not too long ago). The admission is decent (http://www.cincymuseum.org/information_center/hours_admissions_directions/) - just an idea.

Anonymous said...

Take a trip over to Philadelphia. Lots of neat museums there. The Goob would love it. I used to take my children and until I totally ran out of steam, my grandchildren. They all loved that place.

Arianne said...

Pssst. Mushrooms(erm...fungi) aren't plants...
;)

kate said...

I adored the dinosaur hall over at the Carnegie when I was the Goob's age. They've recently updated it, and while it's all shiny and modern and I guess the dinosaurs are standing properly and whatnot, I kind of wanted to yell "You killed my childhood!" The old dinosaur hall had this awesome mysterious-1930's-movie-Indiana-Jones vibe where it felt like you yourself could make an amazing discovery at any moment. Now, not so much. (The 'vibe' was probably just dirt, anyway.) But the new one is very pretty!

The Carnegie Science Center is also pretty cool.

Liz said...

The modular origami is amazing; I'd love to see more pictures of that sort of thing! Hope you continue to feel better.

PuppyTherapy said...

Has Dooie disappeared? I'm going to start a netvestigation into her lack of being in touch with Puppy!!!!!! Arrrrrrrrgh