Books 'n Hooks...

Despite a Sheep's best efforts (a disturbingly vigorous snow dance, the wearing of the pajamas inside-out and her most intense wintry thoughts), Friday's weather event turned out to be mostly rain. Thus, there was no snow-day for a weary teacher. Which was too bad since the low pressure system had the cats quite tweaked for most of the night and there was very little sleep to be had what with all the hissing, pouncing and Mommy nudging. We'll just chalk this up as one less day to make up in June.

Meanwhile, it seems I've been tagged. Bobbi, a bibliophile of the highest order, is interested in the reading habits of the average Sheep. Here's what I need to do:


Find the nearest book
Open to page 123
Type lines 6-8 of said book
Tag three others

Think you can figure out what The Sheep is perusing these days? You need to think fast since I read at least a book a week and this one is a, "re-read!"

The Cossack brothers' big-screen adventures appeared to last for three years, then they shifted gears and began making noises about bringing a football team to the Coliseum. Resurrecting one of their father's unfulfilled dreams. Assembling a "consortium" of financial types, the brothers submitted a proposal to the city council that ended up being denounced by the more populist members as a scheme to lock in taxpayer financing of their for-profit plan.

The sports venture fizzled as had the movie game, and for a couple years, the Cossacks were out of print. Then Garvey Cossack resurfaced with plans for a federally funded community redevelopment project in the San Fernando Valley, and Bobo garnered attention for attempting to demolish a Hollywood bowling alley that the locals wanted preserved as a landmark in order to put up a giant strip mall.

Their mother's obituary was dated three years ago. Ilse Cossack had died "...after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease...private services, in lieu of flowers, donations to..."

Any guesses? I can tell you that it is not the textbook for my class. I cracked the binding on that a few days ago and was so underwhelmed that I have not opened it since. This one's more for the fun of it all. Meanwhile, I'm tagging mrichme, Lorraine, and missemilysmom. Let's see what they are reading up on these days, shall we?

Even with all the reading and performing strange, mystical rituals to influence the weather in order that I might avoid working, I have actually complete a little sumpthin'-sumpthin' of a yarnie nature! No, it is not the second sock. I realize that my sock knitting speed has increased somewhat these days, but I'm not quite that quick with the needles at this point! No, this is something a little different. A while back, I commented on Cathy's blog and admired her incredible ability to design crochet items. I've been toying with the idea of resurrecting the old hooks just to see if I could still make knots and loops that reflected some sort of pattern. Cathy was most encouraging and I decided to give it a go. I happened to have some Lorna's Laces sportweight in the stash that I acquired through a trade with Sheila and it seemed to really want to hit the hooks.

And thus, a scarf is born!

I am considering a bit of light blocking as it is a tad on the smushy side, but I'm pretty happy with it, overall. The pattern is self-invented and, while I'm not entirely convinced that what I was doing at the end is what I was doing at the beginning, it looks fairly consistent. There was one stitch that seemed to get lost along the way and I never really found its exact location. Perhaps someday it will send me a postcard and let me know that it is alive and well. But the rest of the scarf seems to be happy without it so it will just have to accept the fact that its decision to leave the fold was not the attention-getter that it intended. Sometimes you just have to let go. If the stitch comes back then it was meant to be. If not, then you gotta cut the ties and accept that it is gone for good. Tough love for the crochet.

I'm a knitter at heart and probably won't be casting off the needles for the hooks, but this was a fun and quick little project. It was also a nice break from the sock knitting. My hand certainly appreciated the change-up in the repetitive motion action, that's for sure!

And, you know, I seem to recall buying a pattern book for crocheted socks a while back...hmmm.

SA