Lexi has been making everyone pony bead necklaces for a while now, so Matt bought her some smaller beads and I volunteered a ball point craft needle, and she’s been quite busy making elastic and plastic bead bracelets and necklaces. So far, I’m the only human that she’s deigned to provide with a necklace, vast majority of her employment is adorning her considerable herd of My Little Ponies.

Josey is also being very nice to me. I was treated to muffins earlier in the week, and found that the dishes had been washed. The crowning achievement was a room that stayed clean(ish) all week. That was nice.

Why all the niceness? I have no idea, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Nothing is missing or broken, the house hasn’t burnt down and all their school work is done– they are just being spontaneously nice. I’m just going to appreciate it.

It’s the last week of my Business 105 course, all my courses are accelerated, so this week instead of the usual two assignments I have three. And it’s the Thursday before a weekend craft show, so of course I have three assignments in different stages of incompletion. I have until Saturday to turn them in, but I’d rather not push it until the eleventh hour.

I’ll be staying at my Mom’s over the weekend (since she’s also going to be at the craft fair.) I’m going to try to remember to bring the camera with me so I can document what we affectionately refer to as “Beanie Baby Hell” for your amusement. I’ve tried in the past to describe the 9 layers of Beanie Baby Hell to people but words fall short of the actual experience, inevitably people think I am exaggerating.

And if it doesn’t place my life in direct peril (it might) I’ll also snap some pics of the craft room of death. That room, as tempting and delightful as it’s contents might be, has tried to take lives in the past, including my own– maybe it actually has claimed lives and we just don’t know it yet, because the bodies are so cleverly concealed by bolts of fabric and boxes of notions like a plush cask of Monticello.
My theory is that the craft room operates much the same as a pitcher plant, promising the sweet nectar of endless crafting and leading it’s victims to inevitable destruction. What sinister secrets it hides behind a facade of innocent polar fleece and bolts of broadcloth have yet to be revealed.

Enough procrastinating for me. I’m off to finish my schoolwork so I can go outside and play.

So I know I’ve said it before over other things, but this is a sign the world is ending. When not only am I prompt, but even the instructor was a few minutes late– it’s the apocalypse, clearly an omen of the impending destruction of the planet.

There I am in the virtual classroom, with only the instructor, and he asks me “Do you have any questions?” Of course. I always have questions, but they aren’t always relevant; these questions happened to be relevant and I’m actually really glad I had the time to ask and get the answers (since without those answers it would have made it hard for me to finish my first assignment.)

All in all it was pretty good. About 20 minutes into class a few other students showed up (which probably kept the instructor from going insane with my questions.) He keeps calling us (the class) “TEAM” with capital letters, it’s an acronym, I know that; still doesn’t stop me from wanting to call him “Coach” in return.

I actually knit something, as kind of a practice run. The Sun-Ray Doyly (sic) from Mary Thomas’s Knitting Patterns. This is from a cheap crochet cotton that I normally use to tie up skeins of yarn with before washing them. I’m glad I had it on hand though, because I really did want to see how this pattern knit up. I did not bother with the final seam or blocking, I am bad. (I’m also sorry for the horrible picture, I will retake it when I have fresh batteries for the camera.)

I think when I use my hand spun, I’ll use a provisional cast-on and graft the first and last rows together to minimize the seam, I understand it won’t be completely seamless but I think it would work better. (Yes, I know it’s recommended in the book to do it that way, but I didn’t read that part until after I’d finished knitting the doily.) There’s a couple other vintage patterns I’d like to try before deciding though.