Young Minds and Buttons

Today was my first day of class. I have 35 students enrolled (in a room with 30 seats), but only 31 showed up. The first day was good, they laughed at my jokes and no one fell asleep - I call that a success. I almost always lecture on the first day because I hate it when professors make you come to class just so you can pick up your syllabus and then leave again. Plus, there are only 30 days of lecture in the summer so losing even one is a loss. What this means is that the there will likely be less crafting in the future, but for now, there are buttons!!!

Last night I made some buttons. Well, I didn't make them but I redecorated them. A couple days ago I finished knitting the fidget which is a cute little neck warmer which buttons, unlike a scarf which flies open in the bitter cold wind that is coming for me in just a few short months (I'm blocking it out but at the same time preparing for it by knitting). I started it sometime last fall, but put it aside because, like other scarves, it gets really repetitive, but I finished it and I love it. I didn't want to buy new buttons for it (I'm trying to use up all the craft supplies I have, not acquire new ones!) but all the buttons I have are ugly.

These boring buttons, tissue paper, and Modge Podge (my new favorite craft tool) were all things I already had:

So I used the Modge Podge to glue down and then seal the button 5 or 6 times. And here are the results:


I'm pretty excited about it. This is what the Fidget looks like on:

The fireflies blink faster here.

Does anyone else ever feel like most of their surreal experiences happen out in nature? Like we're so used to seeing the world through technology that the natural world seems artificial. Geoff and I went on a long walk after dinner tonight. It was late, about 9:30 when we took off and the last light was disappearing beyond the mountains and as my eyes strained to see the path, it seemed like the world was somehow low resolution. As we walked through a grove of evergreens, hundreds of fireflies (flashing quicker than in Kansas, evidently the speed and pattern is species-specific) were strobing in the trees like LED Christmas lights. So there you go, I'm so used to my world being analog/digital, wifi, and all the rest that I can't conceive of the world on its own terms. Goodnight my four new followers!

Welcome!

Hello everyone (or most likely no one at this point). I'm starting this blog as a way to record my day to day life, mostly mundane stuff, and to share my life with my widespread friends and family. Mostly, I expect this blog to be a record of my crafting exploits (Stitches) as well as my work life (that's the SNPs part). The idea for this blog struck me because my crafting output has increased recently thanks to the knitting circle started by my friend Johanna and I wanted to show off my recent work. I have usually tended to make gifts more than things for myself, but I am trying to make more for me recently. This is my mom using the bagsket I made for her to store all her knitting supplies. She seemed like the appropriate way to start off the blog since she taught me to knit.


She also taught me to make this sweater which she learned to make from her mom (I added the tattoo motif). The pattern on the front was inspired by this pattern for a winged heart tattoo pillow from Jujube & Lolo. This one went off to some friends of mine in the great white north to keep their little guy warm come the winter - which as I understand is late August in Canada.



Other than that, I've been working away in a nearly empty department hoping to finish my dissertation in the next 14 months. I did get to run a project for a high school girls' summer camp where I taught them to extract DNA from wheat germ using only household chemicals. It's really pretty cool and the students were really into it. Okay, that's all for now. Back soon!