Friday, March 11, 2011

Festival and Spring in BC

I keep seeing the lovely California spring pictures you are all posting, Aunt Patricia with her blooming plum trees, Shannon posted pretty pictures of the lush greenness while she was doing some yard work a while ago, and quick peek at Mom's blog showed me blooming Almond trees.

I thought I would show you what last Sunday mornings spring rain looked like around here.



A look down the street:



And our house. It was a good snow, you can see how wet it is by looking at the shovelled driveway. It was 1C at the time, so just above freezing. Big fat wet snowman building snow flakes.



Every year there is a Festival of fine arts here in town. Kids prepare pieces and perform in front of adjudicators who give them feed back. Kids of all ages perform anything from memorized poems, pieces of plays, all sorts of dance and musical instruments.

It so happens that my kids have a wonderful teacher, who has a huge fear of public speaking. She feels it is an important skill to learn and insists that the children in her class take part in the poetry portion of the festival. She has a speech trainer come into her classroom as part of a class project and has the entire class perform a group piece together.

In her classroom it is mandatory that all her 2nd and 3rd graders perform at least one solo poetry piece. It is optional for the 1st graders but many choose to do it. SeaBass is no longer in this class room any more, but he chose to do two poems and spent a lot of after school time with the speech coach memorizing a preparing his speech.

I broke the rules and recorded the kids during their performances. Here is Q with his first poem. I will post the others soon.



Monday, March 07, 2011

That was so cool

I thought I would try it again.




There should be sound, Paul was not able to get the sound on his computer, can you?

Testing 1...2...Testing

Just a quick test to see if I can upload some video.

I have Mac and I am not sure if all the software will work and if the video will work for you guys so let me know in the comments please.







Tuesday, March 01, 2011

New Books

When mom blogged about the high-lighting tape I went online to see if I could find some. The best price I found was amazon.ca. If you have ever ordered off amazon you know if spend enough you get free shipping. (They really know how to suck me in)

Of course the tape was not enough to earn me free shipping but I since I have been doing a bit of crochet I had noticed the distinct lack of any crochet books in my library. I was not really looking for a pattern book, but just a good crochet book that would give me some good stitch patterns with clear directions and good pictures. I came across this one and I am already so glad I picked it up. The pictures are great and the directions are good, the stitch patterns are labeled from easy to experienced. The book is good for even a beginner like myself.



I have been sucked into the blocks so I picked this one up as well. I am looking forward to trying some different blocks.



I am seem to have been bit by the same bug that mom has been bit by. I am having a bit of startitis. I finished my hockey knitting (plain sock) and need another one on the go for the remainder of the hockey season. I was feeling a bit bored with plain socks but Q picked this yarn out the stash and asked if I would knit him a pair of socks out of it.

I am going for plain vanilla socks but I am trying a different technique. I am knitting the sock in the round on one itty bitty circular needle. I think the needle is a new one out by Addi for just this purpose.



I am not sure how I am liking it yet. It was an easy start, you don't have to worry about moving the stitches to other needles and there was no trouble with twisting the stitches or anything. I found the ribbing a bit fussy, but I find socks are always easier when you get about inch on the needles anyway.

I think it is faster that using the five needles, but I it may be hard on my hands. I have fairly big hands and the yarn seems very slippery on the needles so I am having to pay a bit more attention to a plain sock than I usually need too. I figure now that I am starting the leg it will get more comfortable and I wont have to pay as much attention to my work.

I am wondering what happens when I get to the heel flap and picking up the gusset stitches, but I am going to just enjoy a slightly different technique and cross that bridge when I get to it.



I just realized looking at these pictures that mom and I are now knitting socks pretty near the same colour yarn. Q picked this yarn because he wanted 'Army Socks' and this colour fit the bill for him. It is Socks That Rock yarn, but I am not remember the colour way off the top of my head. I will check the label later. It is from last years sock club.