Catie: Here you go, Mom!

First of all, yesterday was not a good day for a photo-op.  I'd been cooking Chuseok dinner and even though it wasn't hot outside, the kitchen was hot, so I look kind of awesome.

And by, "awesome", I mean, "not awesome".

Anyway, these are the things I've been knitting over the past few months because my Mom keeps asking me to post them.


It's been a sort of knitting frenzy around here.

Multnomah, pattern by Kate Flagg

This is my Multnomah Shawl, made from some sort of sock yarn I got off The Yarn and Fiber Company's website.  It looked completely different in person than online (not entirely in a good way) and I wanted something that would keep the colors from pooling into giant patches of pink and blue.  


It still looks a little like a fraternal twin baby shower exploded... but I like the Multnomah pattern.

The crazy sock yarn also bled like CRAZY when I washed it the first time.  When I laid it out to block on our bed, it stained the sheets (I shouldn't have put it there, though).  Don't know what that was all about, but I won't be buying it again.

This is another Multnomah that I made for Natalie, but I did a lot fewer lace repeats and added stripes.  Made from Brown Sheep Fingering (from my Mom!), 100% wool.

Brown Sheep Fingering is pretty fine, I think.  Even for a fingering weight yarn.  It made a very airy fabric when I knit it on size 4 needles.  I like the result.

And I have a real huge thing going for feather and fan lace right now.

This is my Daybreak shawl.  I knit it for me.  It's bigger than the other two because the Daybreak has a pretty long "wingspan".  I added a feather and fan border because I love it so much, instead of the Daybreak border.  I may make another Daybreak and do it properly this time, but I love this one and I wear it out and around the house a lot.

It's starting to get cooler outside and perfect for a light shawl -- finally!

Daybreak shawl, pattern by Stephen West

I knit it out of Misti Alpaca Hand Paint sock yarn (the oranges and yellows) and Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, I think.  They bled together in a real weird way because I didn't notice that the Misti Alpaca had the same color as the Ultra Alpaca... blah, blah, blah... anyway, I'm okay with it now.


I also used a bit of Korean "sock" yarn at the bottom (the grey stripes).  I just wanted to see if I would like it better than the bleeding Misti Alpaca...  This shawl is kind of a disaster, really.  It's a wonder I love it so much.

The feather and fan border, all blocked out.

Bella Mittens, pattern by Marielle Henault and
Star Crossed Slouchy Beret, pattern by Natalie Larson

This is not a super good picture of the knitted things, but these are my Bella Mittens and Star Crossed hat.  I don't do Twilight.. things, but I liked these mittens because the cables make them warmer and they're really long so they'll stay under my coat.  And I am holding an apple, because.. apparently, it's a thing you do with Twilight.  It felt appropriate.  That's the Daybreak again, too.  I love it.

I knit both the hat and mittens out of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride, which is soft and yummy (and hairy!  Don't wear black while knitting with Lamb's Pride).  Mom sent me two skeins of it and I forgot to check the dye lots until it was too late and the mittens were finished.  I doubt anyone else will notice that much, but there is a line across the wrist of the right hand mitten.

Endpaper Mitts, pattern by Eunny Jang

A blurry picture of my Endpaper Mitts.  Knit with Ultra Alpaca Fine (the off-white) and more of the Lamb's Pride fingering in olive green from Natalie's Multnomah.  They're a little tight (one of my first stranded/colorwork projects), so I really need to find someone with small hands, I think.  I like them a lot, though.

Sorry the picture is blurry, my photographer was getting fed up with my shenanigans.


I know.  Me?  Shenanigans?

Cabled Cowl, inspired by Olga Buraya-Kefelian's Cabled Cowl

Another blurry picture.  This one is my Cabled Cowl.  I didn't use the pattern (we couldn't afford it, haha), but I took a good, long look and figured it out.  So. much. cabling.  It took me months to finish the scarf itself (mostly because I kept getting burnt out on cabling) and only this last week did I do the finishing, like knitting button loops and sewing on the buttons.


It grew a lot when I washed and blocked it.  In the future, I will wait until my things are washed and blocked to sew on buttons, but it worked out okay this time.  I think it's pretty and it can go two ways!

It's not covered in buttons, though.. like it looks here.

Another blurry picture!  And dark, too.  There was a lot going on yesterday.  This is my Noro Silk Garden Infinity Scarf.  I pretty much made it up.  It's just 41 sts in 1x1 ribbing with two full skeins of Silk Garden, kitchenered together.  I like it okay, but it's more for function.

This is Ben's infinity scarf that I made him for our anniversary.  It's gold and purple (incidentally, his college's colors... oops) and I didn't have a pattern for it either.  I cast on the same amount of stitches as I did for mine (above), and did seed stitch in real wide stripes.  I like it.  I think he does, too, maybe.

That is all for now!  I'm currently knitting a Hemlock Ring shawl in vintage Munro Spun wool.  It's a little moth eaten, so the back of it is a bit of a nightmare, but I'm no Master Knitter, so I'm okay with it.

Anyway, there you go, Mom.  All the things I've been knitting.

 Or at least most of them.

Catie: Lily

There is a little girl in my 102 Writing class named Lily.  She is very small, and only 11 years old (10 in Western years).  The 102 class is getting very close to fluent and her English may be the best.  Everyone else in her level is more between 12-15, which makes her look even smaller.

She says and writes a lot of very cute and thoughtful things.  Like the other day when she took my hand and looked up at me.  "Will you walk me to the elevator?"  Her voice is very young and she has a heavy lisp.  If I could take her home, I would.  Lately, she's been teaching me how to use my mobile phone.  She gave me her phone number yesterday so I could, "call her if I think to do it."  Today, she set my phone background to a picture of Rilakkuma, a very popular Japanese bear.

This is her essay from today.  I'm in love with Korean English (Kongrish).  It just makes so much more logical sense than proper English.

Should dangerous sports be banned?

I think dangerous sports be banned with these reasons; because of it is dangerous and traveling is dangerous.

The first reason is very dangerous.  It's harm to players and harm to family of players.  As well as if we hurted.  There will have very much money for hospital bills!

The second reason is that travling is dangerous.  Swiming from country to country yo could be die.  Another going and hiking fall is dangerous country.  And some times other countries have bad healthi care.

In summary, if there had dangerous sports, I should banned it because of it is dangerous and traveling is dangerous.

I think I will adopt her.

Ben: Notes From The Weekly Meeting

Things that Nicole says in our weekly meetings are often baffling and hilarious. For example:

We have to assure the thought, the thing.

We must have big concern of the certain student. (But which student?!)

All is well that ends up.

This is the work for kinda service.

If you have some asking or concern for yourself, just let me know.

You must make classes tight. Very tight!

Receive them with your warm hands.

Ben: Pin is the Bloon!

We were learning about machines in class last week, so I had my kids design and draw their own "Mouse Trap" style machines. Kevin drew this, and it is by far the best one. His prize (that he doesn't know about) is that it gets to go on our blog! It reads:

Tom is eat milk. Pin is the bloon. The switch is on and boat is move. Have a fire. Have a fire. Tom is die.

Since he drew it Catie and I have been running around saying "Pin is the bloon, have a fire have a fire!" at random. We think it's pretty hilarious.

Ben: What I've been reading

Catie has finally convinced me that I need to buy myself books at least once a month so that don't drive myself (and her) crazy with my lack of reading material restlessness. Last month for my birthday I bought:

The City and the City by China Mieville

http://www.amazon.com/City-China-Mieville/dp/0345497511

China Mieville is, in my humble opinion, by far the most talent science fiction author currently writing. His books are always some combinations of postmodernist steam/cyberpunk with a strong dose of weirdness through in. He is able to paint incredibly vivid and very different worlds, without the usual wooden expositions that sink so many promising science fiction books into "It was a blue alien world with four moons and .4 Earth gravity." His narratives, like his worlds, are a complicated mess that somehow come across as intrigues and addictive, not headache inducing nonsense that requires a flowchart to follow.

Empire of the Ants by Bernard Werber

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Ants-Bernard-Werber/dp/0553573527

The book is split between the perspective of an ant colony (actually three ants within the colony) and a human family. Strangely the author does a better job humanizing the ants than making the actual human relatable characters. The end was fairly disappointing, but it was worth reading for all the neat descriptions of his imagined ant society.

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

http://www.amazon.com/Years-Rice-Salt-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553109200

This book pretends that instead of merely killing 1 out of every 3 people, in this book the plague kills 99 percent of Western Europe, leading to a very different history. I thought it was an interesting read, especially considering how much the real plague change the world. One out of every three people died over the less than 20 years, which would be the equivalent of 100 million people dieing in modern America. I'm always amazed that there was any society left in Europe after the plague swept through. The writing is less than exciting, but the alternative history is fun to read.

This month I'm going in a more non-fiction direction with my purchases, since I'm about science fiction-ed out for now. My parents are also sending me the backlog of New Yorkers, Economists, and Atlantics that have been piling up in their living room (thank you Mom and Dad!), so July will be a much more educational month than June was.

Ben: Making things is fun

I've run completely out of Kroy sock yarn (and other sock yarn too, I just like Kroy the best). I stole some of Catie with the promise that she could have the resulting socks so long as I could knit them. Here's what I made:

Catie's pair are on the right, and my last pair (from our current yarn stash) are on the left. I haven't weaved the ends into mine yet, but they are otherwise finished. While I was working on my second sock I was waiting for the bus to take me to work. When I got on the bus the lady behind me starting yelling at me and pointing out the door. I looked and saw that my yarn was trailing out the door. I jumped off the bus and ran down the street, gathering up my yarn for a full block until I found my ball of yarn sitting in the gutter (which was, thankfully, the only clean and dry gutter in Korea). I then ran back to the bus, where the bemused bus driver was waiting for me. The mess I made with my yarn took me the rest of the day at work to untangle. My Korean co-teacher, Landon, kept encouraging me to just cut the tangle since it was taking so long, but I successfully resisted and save all my yarn.

Since I'm all out of sock yarn, I've started working on my first sweeter. This picture is terrible (on account of me being a lousy photographer). I'm just about ready to join the pieces together. I'm pretty excited since this is my very first sweeter ever. I've been working on it nonstop for two and a half weeks, but now the complicated joining and decreasing begins. Hopefully by the time I've finished with it my previously blogged books and magazines will have arrived, because I've taken about all the yarn Catie will let me steal from her!

Here's a much better picture of what the sweater should look like when it's finished:

Ben: Monsters of Ewha

Han's monster pictures. Notice how they all eat different parts of my body? What sweet kid! Also, I think the middle monster looks like Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Here are Harry's monsters. I like that I have a gun and fangs in my picture.

This a pretty good picture of the front cover of the listening book that we were using in class.

All the classrooms have CCTV (creepy, but everywhere in Korea is watched by CCTV, so you get used to it and now it doesn't even seem that weird). If only it stopped them from doing any bad behavior.

I like how you "must learn military arts of the worlds" to attack me!

Iris drew this one and I look like I'm on meth or something in it. The kids didn't have to draw me as an Ewha monster, but for some reason they all did.

This is "Albert's World," where you must "kill, throw bomb, war, and zombie" and you mustn't "die, eat, or walk." Not sure how walk got in there, I guess Albert really hates walking. Also, it would seem that not being able to eat would make it hard to stay alive.