The Mario Scarf Blog

Last night Jason and I went shopping for some gingerbread ingredients after I saw this AMAZING post about gingerbread houses that sit on mugs from notmartha.org, and while we were at the Farmer’s Market, Jason realized that last night would be really our only night together until December 29. I have so many babysitting arrangements coming up that we just won’t be able to have any Christmas fun. So while we were at Target, we ran back to look at their trees, found one for under $30 in clearance, and came home to decorate.

I started by making some puff pastry cookies. I wanted to make pie crust cookies, but all I found at the tiny Kroger in Decatur was some ready-made puff pastry sheets. Not a bad thing, though!

They turned out so crispy, puffy, yummy-delicious! I sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and was seriously debating pouring milk over them for breakfast.

I used some bite-sized cookie cutters which made them easy to pop on each trip past their resting spot on the stove. Jason almost had to duct tape their container closed.

I also made gingerbread dough for the little gingerbread houses. We used blackstrap molasses, which, along with all the other spices made the dough taste really, really, REALLY strong. The dark molasses also gave the dough a dark brown color that, as I piled up the dough on plastic wrap to rest in the fridge, looked like poo!

We also decorated the tree, but by the time we finished it was 2:00 AM, so there aren’t any pics of the finished tree yet. I did get a lot of pictures of the cats checking it out, though.

Nugget and Fat Stinky are celebrating their first Christmas.

What a fun night!

First off, many thanks to San (www.san-smith.com) who gave me her pass to the Neil Gaiman reading at Agnes Scott. I totally fudged myself by not bringing either of my two Neil Gaiman books to be signed, but I really enjoyed the reading. And I got to see an Internet pal Jessi (www.casual-dread.blogspot.com) and thanks to Jessi for letting me sit with her and getting a great view of Neil Gaiman! We had to wait a good long while to meet Neil (he signed books for every person in the chapel- maybe 400 people!), but when we did get up to him, I said I was an English teacher (ok, little white lie, but I am in school to be one!) and that I was impressed by how his books get reluctant readers to pick up a book (which is quite true!). He hadn’t looked up to speak to nearly anyone before us, but he looked up and responded along the lines that he’d heard that a lot and was glad to encourage young readers.

So yay! That was very exciting and I’m sad that San couldn’t go, but feeling very fortunate that I got to meet him and get a picture with him. I have pictures of Jessi and her friends on Flickr, and she has a picture of us with Neil. Weird camera acrobatics last night.

Anyway. The other thing I wanted to post about today was Lion Brand patterns. I was flipping through some blogs and someone posted a few photos of the wonderful crochet patterns Lion Brand has for FREE on their website. I’m still very biased towards knitting, but the winds may be a-changing now that I’ve seen the fantastic patterns on their site.

I LOVE this granny square scarf. It’s featured with a soft mohair yarn which makes it look cute and modern. Granny squares have a tendency to come off kinda clunky and old-fashioned (or maybe I just always picture the afghans my Nana made in the 70s), but I really like how bright and fun this scarf looks. The picture links to the pattern, but you need to be signed into the Lion Brand site in order to view it.

I also really liked this scalloped, lacy scarf.

Last summer I made a cute knitted dress for a girl I’d babysat with a light linen yarn. This pattern is similar to the dress I made, but I’m really digging the new handpainted yarn from Lion Brand that looks like a Noro colorway.

What a cute little outfit for the winter? I want to make this as a Christmas gift for the little one I’m sitting for now. She could wear a long-sleeve onesie and leggings or tights under it. With a soft wool it would be perfect for winter wear.

I’m hoping to add a few more items to my Etsy shop this afternoon before I go out to babysit for the evening. I’m thinking it may be a much later update, but debating between adding handspun yarn and knitting up some of my handspun. I think there are so many established and popular handspun yarn sellers on Etsy that I may be wasting my time listing just plain yarn. I’ve had a raspberry colored yarn with over 250 yards (!) sitting in my shop since March. I’ve always wondered if I shouldn’t just knit up and see how that goes. I don’t know. Are there more knitters on Etsy or people who want already-knitted items?

One of the yarns I will probably list is a beauty I’ve been holding onto for a long time thinking I would ply it. But I really like it as a single.

It’s a little over-wound in a few spots, but I plan on soaking it and giving it a good WHACK and stretch before listing it. I spun this in January and didn’t intend at all for this to be listed so close to Christmas. It reminds me more of roses and leaves than Christmas. But oh well. Now’s the time.

I better get on with my real life chores today. Have a lovely day!

Finals are OVER and I’m happy to report that I received another 4.0 this semester. I am making up big time for my undergraduate GPA. Also, my professor wants me to submit one of my final exam essays to a peer-reviewed education journal. Cool!

And I gotta tell ya, there is nothing better than coming home on a freezing cold, rainy day to a package. Especially when inside the package you find:

A hand-crocheted Jayne hat! OMG WHEEE! Thank you so much, Julia! This totally made my day.

I will be adding a few new items to my Etsy shop this week. I lowered my prices to make holiday shopping a touch more affordable, and I’m willing to (reasonably) negotiate on what’s still in there. I’ll be adding at least two other scarves and some handspun yarn. http://cassinator.etsy.com

Have a lovely weekend!

I bought bananas from Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market thinking they might quickly brown with the intention of baking something with them. They were about an hour away from black death this evening so I ran by a local chain grocery to grab some pecans, and found some peanut butter swirl chocolate chips at a major discount so I was like, “OH YEAH” and made some “Elvis” cookies! (I took pics with my iPhone, so apologies for the graininess.)

I based my cookies on this recipe from Simply Recipes: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_cookies/

I wanted to share a bunch of things over the past week, but finals are eating my brain. No wonder I had dreams about a zombie attack last night. The zombies detested the color orange… what does that symbolize? Hopefully it’s not bad news about this blanket I started for a friend’s baby.

Ah, Crochet. I misjudged you. It still feels incredibly awkward in my hands, but I’m not giving up on this blanket. I’ve frogged it about 6 times already, but here we are. My fear was that all crochet patterns looked like stuff my Nana used to make- weird Christmas doilies and toilet roll covers. But I realized that crochet comes in handy for a lot of things like grocery fruit bags and flowers and zig zag blankets. This one’s supposed to be in Auburn colors- baby’s mama went to Auburn, as pretty much everyone in her clan did as well. I’ll get back to you on whether I make crocheting a habit, although I’m willing to experiment as I try to learn how to read crochet patterns.

This is the first year I haven’t handmade all my Christmas presents in awhile. I have a feeling most of my gifts will be from Etsy. The only person who’s asked me to make them anything is a friend who sent me this picture from SoHo in NYC:

I told her I’d make her a scaled-down version with chunky yarn. I don’t think I could make a scarf of Tom Baker proportions in 24 days!

Anywho, back to the coffee and finishing this project. I procrastinated all the way to the bitter end on this one and I’m really gonna pay for it, but I’m not a quitter!

All I have to say today is:

I’ve been reading this voraciously over the past few days between two days of presentations, studying for a major quiz, babysitting, and generally trying to stay sane before Thanksgiving. I’m almost finished, but I’m reluctant to get to the end, because I don’t want it to be over! I’m not sure if I’m exactly the intended audience for any of Cory Doctorow’s other works, but this Young Adult novel is BRILLIANT. Pleeeeeease, Cory! MORE MORE MORE. I cannot wait to put this in my class library when I start teaching. I hope I’ll have a few students who read it and want to talk to me about it. I want everyone to read this book! Seriously, I will let you borrow my copy if you ask nicely. Just, please, go find a copy and read it already!

Lots of pictures and links tonight!

On Sunday I saw the matinee performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at my friend’s high school. Her kids did a great job and I was happy to see everything come together. I visited the school earlier in the week to attend their final dress rehearsal and take pictures. When the student who the Gigantor Pink Sweater was made for came out, I nearly lost it laughing because he pulled the hat down too far and came out like this:

I gave him a few pointers on wearing the hat a tad more “jaunty” and I was glad to see he figured it out for the actual performance! That right there is my very first sweater, ladies and gents!

This week is all business, though. I have a presentation in each of my classes this week. One is a book presentation on Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl. I’m sort of winging that one. I taught myself how to play “Happy Birthday” on my new ukulele to play as I enter the classroom in character, just like Stargirl sings to people in the cafeteria. I also stitched up a little “Cinnamon” rat out of an old t-shirt.

I plan on getting a classmate to tape my book presentation tomorrow night so that I can save it for posterity’s sake. Actually, I live to embarrass myself on the Internet (see above). Really, I’m kinda excited about walking, playing the ukulele, and singing at the same time, and if I can pull it off, I’ll be damn proud of myself!

My other project is for my Content Area Literacy course on how to activate students’ prior knowledge on a particular subject, and ways to get them excited and motivated about the upcoming lesson or unit. My group covered four subjects of high school, and I made a website with iWeb to share our information. I got to cover English-Language Arts and am particularly proud of my motivation ideas. You can check out our website at: http://web.me.com/cassiecsmith/Interest_Ignition/Home.html.

After Thanksgiving, I’m turning in my completed list of twenty-four young adult books that I’ve read this semester. I just started Little Brother by Cory Doctorow this evening, and am extremely fascinated by its premise. The l337 speak and hax0r language in the novel makes me have to read certain passages a few times to make sure I completely understand what’s just been said, but so far (20 pages in) I’m enjoying the novel. And bonus that it’s an ex-library book from Cleveland!

Also due after Thanksgiving is another project for my young adult lit class involving the creation of learning centers. Like centers in kindergarten only for high school students and way cooler. My learning centers are all about comics and graphic novels. Again, I’m using iWeb to create a website to showcase my learning centers and w00t- iWeb has a comic book theme! So I borrowed one of Jason’s many superhero shirts and totally geeked out.

Tee-hee. Anyone know why I have those two super hero ladies next to me on the page? I’ll give you a clue- look in the blue box to the left.

Also after Thanksgiving, I may do a tiny neighborhood craft show. Key word is may. I’m not sure if I’ll have enough stuff to show, but really I wouldn’t be going to make a lot of money. It’d definitely be more for the fun of being around other crafters.

As for Thanksgiving itself, I will most likely be traveling to Carbondale, Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) to visit my mom’s entire family. My grandmother had a massive stroke this past Friday and is still in the hospital, but fortunately she’s been able to speak when she’s conscious and can recognize people around her. All of my mom’s siblings are up there with her, and my brother and I will probably be up there, too. My poor dad has to work next week so he’ll be home alone with the pets. I may stop off in my new favorite city of Nashville if my friends are in town, but don’t expect too much excitement. I haven’t been to Carbondale in over ten years so maybe there’ll be something new to see. I finished some pretty blue socks for my grandmother and it’ll be nice to give her those while she’s recovering.

I didn’t want to end this post on a downer. So here’s a cute picture of me and the little girl I babysit riding the kiddie train at Zoo Atlanta. Happy Thanksgiving!

I finally finished the Gigantor Pink Sweater and matching Pink Tam tonight. I cannot stop giggling over the fact that I got my boyfriend to put both on, but sadly he would not allow pictures. I, on the other hand, am a glutton for punishment. Here’s the [video] I made after I finished the tam. I’m whispering because Jason was in the adjacent room and I didn’t want him to laugh at me. Yeah.

And here’s the (almost) whole shebang:

It is intentionally supposed to look crap because the character who will wear it in a high school musical this weekend knitted it. “Mr. Biggley” from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying has the pleasure of some handmade knitwear! I’ll take pictures at tomorrow night’s dress rehearsal, which I am attending because apparently the numbers I choreographed are the best of the show so far! It’s been a nice trip down musical theater memory lane the past few weeks. And getting the chance to knit my first sweater vest was the cherry on top… even if it does look crap.

What’s the Eddie Izzard line about looking cool and looking like a dickhead?

Just thought I’d stare off this post and SCARE YOU! That was me on Halloween- super duper green! We celebrated with a big group of friends at the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta and danced until 2, I mean, 1, no I mean 2 (damn you, Daylight Savings!). Anyway, it was late and COLD and I was green.

Now on to the fun stuff.

I’m knitting a pink sweater vest for a costume for a high school play. And I’m reading a lot (per the usual) and trying to knit for fun in between all that. My bedside table looks like this:

It’ll be fun to show off the vest when I finish because it’ll be my first big garment.

And for all of you who knit, I came across an easy knitting charitable cause today. The Shepherd Center is an AMAZING hospital and rehabilitation center in Atlanta for spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries. They are trying to collect 60 handknit men’s scarves by December 1st and I wanted to put out the call to any readers who knit. I’m going through my stash and plan on making some nice, but simple scarves in order to get a few done. For more information, you can email Tracy Walling at Tracy_Walling@shepherd.org. I think 60 scarves can be easily accomplished over the rest of the month so I highly encourage you to spread the word!

I don’t have much to update about in my life. I seem to have fallen into a rut that includes constant reading and ignoring housework. But at least everything’s going alright- nothing negative to report. Except for the fact the comedic episode yesterday when I bought Jason an iPod, thinking I was surprising him with a fancy schmancy new 5th Gen, 8G do-dad and workout arm-band until he gets his iPhone for Christmas, when his Dad actually gave Jason an old iPod to see him through the end of the year. The girl at the Apple store gave Jason some crap when we returned the iPod and I was grateful. Oh well, there’s $200 back in my wallet to be used for yarn…

But Halloween is coming! I haven’t dressed up for Halloween in two years. My last costume was awesome- at least I thought so! Here I am with my former roommates:

I am both sushi nigiri (the tuna on my head) and and sushi maki (what’s wrapped around my body). I love that costume, but most people couldn’t figure out what I was.

This year I’m attempting my own version of Elphaba from Wicked. Yes, I will actually paint myself green. Jason’s going as Luke Skywalker when he’s training on Dagoba. (I hope I got that right!)

And now for something completely different…

A $15,000 hand-built spaceship on Etsy:

DUDE. Maybe it’s this whole “Balloon Boy” (or “Crawlspace Boy,” as aptly noted by Mo Rocca on Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me) controversy with fake spaceships and what-not, but this thing is INSANITY. It fits 4 adults inside! The seller says it took him 8 months to build and that’s why the price tag is so high. I didn’t know what was missing from my life until I saw this thing. And this guy’s in Georgia- I really could get it! Put some wheels on that baby and you’re cruisin’. This was just too good not to share.

And now I take off for Covington, Georgia to visit my dear friend’s drama class to help with their production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and pretend like I know what I’m doing. It’s 45 minutes from Atlanta, but worth the drive because I get to SING and DANCE and TEACH some high schoolers… for fun, haha. My friend and I were best buds in high school and did theater together for a few years and now she’s a lead drama teacher- very exciting!

Coffee? Check. Sanity? Questionable.