Kiss My Knits!

Emily’s still heavy into space. Tuesday, she had me make a list of all the constellations I knew so she could tape it to the wall, so she’d have a reference when she was in her room dreaming of seeing constellations. Then she wrote what figure they represented next to them. Cassiopeia the queen, Cepheus the king, and so on.

She finished, then exclaimed, “There aren’t eighty eight!” Yes, she knows there are 88 constellations, so there was nothing for it but to look up every single one so I could write them down for her. There are now three sheets taped to her wall with not just the majors, like Hercules, but the really obscure ones like Antlia the Air Pump.



Lest anyone think these are just names to her, I present you with this. When she finishes her work in school, she oftentimes doodles on her worksheets. This is, as she has labeled, Pegasus. Now look at the actual constellation of Pegasus below. True, it’s upside down, but it’s clearly the same figure. Amazing.



Last night before she went to bed I suggested we go outside and look for constellations. It’s not easy here in the city, but I’d already stepped outside and verified that we could at least see Orion. Emily was super-excited.

Me: “Hm, we can’t see very many…”
Her: “Let’s get a flashlight to look for them!”

Hee! Good thinking, but no. So I explained about light and the city and such. We also printed out a star map from http://skymaps.com/ and her flashlight was helpful in looking at that while we were outside. I pointed out Sirius, and we were also able to see Mars. She was absolutely adorable, running around in her flannel pajamas and stocking feet, waving her flashlight around, a calf-length white terrycloth robe flowing behind her in the night. She looked like a happy little ghost. And so, so excited about being able to pick out actual constellations. I hope she’s still into this in the Fall, when it’ll be getting darker earlier.

On a non-Emily-related note, I’ve cast on for a new pair of socks. As I’ve said before, I love doing the Jaynes, but you can only knit the exact same thing so many times in a row before you need to do something else as a breather. So I’ll be knitting a few rows of this every few Jaynes. As a guy who inquired about Jaynes today wrote, “I assume you’re working like a 8yr old in a nike sweat shop.” Yes. Yes I am. And this will help me from going crazy so I can continue to do so.

This toe/gauge swatch will probably become Yarnissima’s Firestarter socks, a free pattern from The Loopy Ewe. I’m a loose knitter, but I managed to actually get 8 stitches to the inch on size 1 needles. The pattern has a lotta knitting through the back loop, which can be irksome, so don’t be too surprised if these wind up being plain stockinette socks. We’ll see!

Now, finishing up breakfast and getting out for some exercise. It’s a gorgeous day!