Look! Another FO!

OK, so it's only a pair of socks, and a pair I started way back in August at that:


These were my "waiting room" socks - the ones I knit in waiting rooms and in carpool lines. Plain stockinette, toe-up, short row heel. The yarn is Rainy Days and Wooly Dogs' Gothsocks, in the Candy Mountain colorway. This yarn is great for plain stockinette mindless socks because it's self-striping. I've already cast on for my next pair of waiting room socks in OhMyGoth! Socks (same as regular Gothsocks, but with cashmere, yum). The colorway is Business Time, black and grey. I will cast on for those when I finish this post.

My other projects are in about the same place they were when I last wrote, since I haven't had too much knitting time.

Yesterday was the big Ellis Island Demonstration day at Sr. Jr.'s school. The kids developed identities, wore costumes, brought props, and acted their roles as they made their way through the immigrant experience, from getting on the boat:


to going through all the different stations at Ellis Island. They had "medical" exams, were evaluated for intelligence and job aptitude, etc. Some kids had to get innoculations. Some girls were pregnant or carrying their babies. Some kids had to face an appeals board and some were even deported!


The kids were great. They really got into character, talking in accents, telling their stories, etc. Sr. Jr. was Klaus Mullerstup, a young man from Germany whose mother died in childbirth. He had little schooling because he was "drafted" into the army when he was about 9 years old. He had to go through the appeals process because officials worried that he wasn't educated enough.




I worked in the "Welcome to America" section, so I missed most of the fun stuff, but I enjoyed seeing the kids and how much work they put into this project.

On the reading front, I recently finished The Girl Who Played With Fire, the follow-up book to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I read last year. Both were very good (gory, violent, but good), but the second one was even better than the first, in my opinion. They're not deep literature, but they are several steps above your standard mystery books. The author died shortly after the first book was published, but had the second and a third already completed at the time.

After a Terry Pratchett palate cleanser (Unseen Academicals - as always, enjoyable on many levels), I've started Audrey Niffenegger's new book, Her Fearful Symmetry. I'm not very far into it at this point, but I'm already reminded of how much I love her writing.

And now, since today is an early release day for Sr. Jr. (home at noon), I'm going to go cast on for those new socks.