Note of the Living Deb

Today I finished knitting my third rectangle for the blanket some folks at my office are making:



As you can see, they are all exactly the same size as that piece of cardboard.

Just because I'm done knitting doesn't mean I'm done. I still need to weave those yarn tails into the knitting and I need to block the pieces (that's knitting terminology for making them do my bidding). We'll see how well that works out. I've never blocked anything before.

The two pieces on the right look the same on the front and back and naturally lie pretty flat. The one with the squares is actually pretty easy to do without having to pay much attention. The other one is a lot like the one with the squares, only each square is divided into two triangles. This resulted in a 3-D texture or fluffiness I didn't expect and think I like. It requires a bit more concentration.

The one on the left is a chevron pattern and naturally lies curly. It doesn't look as good on the back. It requires me to think thoughts such as "purl, one, two, three" and "knit, purl, knit, one, two, three, four, five," which I find repetitive and boring. It is hard to think these thoughts while watching movies. Thus, not only did I make plenty of mistakes, but I made so many that some of them survived to the finished product. Oh, well. It's still kind of cool, especially from far away.

Today I saw a poster for Swap-O-Rama. Part of it is this: You bring clothes you don't want and can take home other people's clothes they don't want. Another part is that you can go to workshops on refashioning--how to take clothes that don't work for you and turn them into clothes that do. There is a fashion show where people show off re-fashioned items. And there's more. This sounds very interesting and I want to go. And some of you guys do, too. Empirical Question? Raaga123?

Searching for more information online, I found Swap-O-Rama which has more details and shows that there will be one in Austin October 21-22 at the Travis County Fairgrounds (which I've never heard of before, but which is apparently pretty close to my house and on one of the bus routes I often use).

Searching more, I found that this is part of Maker Faire, "a newfangled fair that brings together science, art, craft and engineering plus music in a fun, energized, and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become makers." This actually looks intimidating and overwhelming to me, and thus less fun than I had originally thought. Isn't that weird? But now even more of you want to go. Chikuru? Grieve?

That page has a random picture on it, and the first one I saw was of a project I've seen before: the, um, tube with holes along one side out of which come flames that dance to music. So that gives you an idea of the range of what is going on. Here's a list of makers they have so far.

The bad news is that Maker Faire costs $20 to $25 to get in, per day, unless you volunteer for at least eight hours or have something you can demonstrate, in which case there is barely still time to send in an entry. Also, you can't bring food in, so it will cost you even more (or you'll have to run back to your car whenever you want to eat.

I think I'm going to blow some big bucks and check it out.