Zhinka dinka doo

Family activity: enjoy the stars

The night sky is beautiful and alluring, even without a telescope or binoculars. Standing in the middle of a dark desert in the middle of the night, gazing up at the billions of stars above our heads, we can feel a connection back through many generations of ancestors who may have enjoyed the same sights.

Our world today is very different from 100 or 1000 years ago. Electric lights are everywhere and while they are obviously useful and have transformed our lives, unfortunately they can also obscure our views of the night sky. I remember the first time I really saw the night sky. I was in Wyoming, there was no moon out. There were so many stars, I got lost. I couldn't locate the constellations I knew from the skies outside Boston. I couldn't believe the beauty of that night.

The Earth at night, showing major cities and light pollution around them. Photo courtesy of NASA, see story here.

There's an effort on this week and next, to make a measurement of light pollution around the world. It's called Globe at Night and asks: "Can you see the stars?"

From an email I received: "Join thousands of other students, families and citizen-scientists hunting for stars during February 25 through March 8, 2008. Take part in this international event called GLOBE at Night to observe the nighttime sky and learn more about light pollution around the world.

"GLOBE at Night is an easy observation and reporting activity that takes approximately 15-30 minutes to complete. Citizen-scientists record the brightness of the night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with 1 of 7 stellar maps of different limiting magnitude. They then submit measurements on-line at www.globe.gov/globeatnight/. Resulting maps of all observations are created and placed back on-line by the GLOBE at Night staff within the few weeks that follow."

There are directions at the GLOBE website. It's a pretty easy activity, one that I plan to do with my son. Just pick a clear night, go outside about an hour or two after sunset, find the constellation Orion, and match the number of stars you see to one of the pictures on the GLOBE website. This tells the organizers the faintest stellar magnitude (a measure of brightness) that you can see from your house, and from this they can estimate how much light pollution there is in your area.

More information about light pollution is here.

Click click click

My knitting needles have been clicking away happily, working on this pair of wood sprite hats for a custom order. Now I'm working on an elfin hat, and then back to S's sweater.

Speaking of sweaters, did you know that March 20 is Sweater Day in honor of Mr. Rogers, on what would have been his 80th birthday? (You can watch Mr. McFeely pitch it here.) If you're on Ravelry, there's also a group planning to knit mini sweaters to celebrate the day. So I guess I'll be knitting the mini sweater before S's. It should be quick, I don't think he'll mind.

And last, one gratuitous photo of Gertie, my little (big) sweetheart.

Let's go for a walk

Here's another felt creation by Max. It's a walking doll, another pattern from this book. He did most of the stitching, and he drew on the face. Then he played with the doll non-stop until we had to leave. Notice that he's playing on the treehouse, the toy I've been hoping he'd play with for several years now. I guess he just needed a doll he made before he'd use it, and so we'll have to make another one for him!

You can see here a bit better how this doll walks. The pants are open at the top, you stick your fingers in to be the legs and start walking. The pattern called for the dress to be sewed closed and the legs to be attached to the back. I usually follow the pattern the first time I make something, as we did this time. But next time I would do the dress/pants differently, because I think having the legs stuck on the back looks a bit weird. I might make the dress more like this baby kimono, but with the cross-over opening in the back. Then the pants could be inside, but you could still put your fingers in to make legs. And when you weren't walking it around, it would look more like a doll.

Hearts and craft therapy

The heart from yesterday's post was made with the Clover heart-shaped yo yo maker, which I got at JoAnn's. These were Max's Valentine's cards for school, he tucked one of these into an envelope along with a card stamped with "Happy Valentine's Day". The yo yo maker was really easy for him to use, as it has little holes where you're supposed to sew; you just follow the holes around, pop it out, and gather.

I've been dealing with some things which I don't want to go into here. But the point I want to make is how wonderful crafting is for therapy. We had a parent meeting at Max's school earlier this week, to which I went disguised as a ball of stress. We learned about a very secret craft project that we, the parents, will be doing and my heart lightened, my body relaxed, I could see colors again, the world was good. Isn't that wonderful? I shall answer my own question: Yes, it is. Very much so.

Two snow pants

Can anyone tell me how this happens? Yesterday Max came home from kinder wearing two pairs of snow pants. One over the other. Questioning of the suspect child was met with a blank stare and an "I don't know." How does one get two pairs on and not notice it? Do they have the kids take a nap and then put snow pants on them when they're asleep? I just don't understand.

Given that it was snowing yesterday and we figured (correctly) that there would be no school today, I thought someone would need them to play in the snow this weekend. So I called around and found out that they were his friend Jacob's. The who part of the mystery is solved, but not how or why. We'll probably never know.

The 8-10 inches of snow predicted for overnight never materialized. Yet school was canceled anyway today. Today we're supposed to get another ~6 inches. I think I saw a flake or two on my drive in to work...

May every day be a day of love and friendship

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Dearest motorist

Dearest motorist,

It is my presumption that you were in a hurry this morning. You may wonder why I guess this and I shall tell you: as I jumped into the middle of the road to get out of the path of your white SUV which had crossed from the travel lane, across the bike lane, and into the parking lane where I was walking, I noticed that you were busily scraping frost off the inside of your windshield while trying to negotiate the icy hill. I must commend you, you did a pretty good job of driving while scraping, I'm sure I would have ended up off the road had I tried to do that. There was just that small point of the pedestrian, me, but I was not hurt so all is well.

However, if you will, please permit me to offer a small piece of advice. Perhaps you could scrape your windshield before getting onto the road? I only say this because I know how much of an inconvenience it would be, and how much time it would have taken, had I not seen you and had you run over me. It takes a long time to stop and offer assistance and call the paramedics. Some less scrupulous people might not stop at all, but even for them, it takes a while to dislodge a body from beneath a vehicle.

In the interest of getting you to your destination in the quickest manner possible, please consider my suggestion. It might take a bit longer on most days, but if one day you were to hit me or another pedestrian, you will be much later than had you just taken the two minutes to do it before getting on the road.

Thank you. I'll be looking for you!

--Amanda

Squirrel kimono

A good friend's baby shower was today, this is the little kimono I made for her baby (unknown gender). It's cotton flannel and reversible, with orange squirrels, acorns, and leaves on one side, and a solid forest green on the other side. The ties are a brown velvet ribbon.

I used the pattern in For your little one, baby goods making. I liked the lines of this pattern best, but there are others available online, like this one at Martha Stewart (found via MeggieCat, but the link to her blog that google popped up doesn't work anymore.)

Here's the close up of the print and hand stitching. I used my favorite thick linen thread, bought from Kumi's shop. I'm guessing that the animals cavorting on the fabric are squirrels, because they seem to have an obsession with acorns. But they sure look like foxes to me. Foxes who love acorns.

I had a topological problem with the pattern, when I sewed everything together according to the pattern (at least as I understood it, as I can't read Japanese), the sleeves came out in this long tube rather than normal-looking sleeves with the lining on the inside. Since I'm a procrastinator, of course this happened 2 hours before the baby shower was starting. I asked my mathematician husband if there were some way to make it right that didn't involve a seam ripper, and he didn't think so. It really seemed like it should work, but I guess not. So I seam-ripped, did more hand sewing, and finished with 30 minutes to spare.

Max asked me where I was going, so I told him I was going to a party for his friend's new baby brother or sister. He asked if the baby was going to come out of the mama's tummy at the party? Now that would be quite the baby party, wouldn't it?