Ready for break

One more day of teaching and then I get mid-fall break.

I am going to do a LITTLE work....I have a bunch of the in-class biostats exams to grade, and I probably SHOULD go over the clip, join, and buffer commands for GIS again (and make a worksheet for the students; I thought I had one already but I do not).

But Friday I am going to Longview, for yarn and books and lunch out with a friend. And to get out of town. Getting out of town is a big part of it.

I don't really have any *immediate* projects in mind to get yarn for. I have half a thought of trying to find some kind of nice dk weight for that "Scarab" shawl I was talking about....and I might take some time before hitting the road to skim a few more of the recent magazines to see if I spot anything else I want to make.

I also need to remember to try to find a pom pom maker. The slippers I am knitting really need a pom pom on the front, and usually the pom poms I make using cardboard frames come out kind of sad and scraggly. Also, I'm thinking of making a couple more pairs of slippers for gifts...

I do plan to pick up (probably at Michael's) a couple skeins of plain pink acrylic; I'm going to be making a (generic) pony for a Ravelry friend in return for sockyarn. It's for her daughter, and she thought pink would be good. So I'm thinking, pink body, darker pink mane. She's not going to mimic any actual MLP pony, but I do think I'm going to do a heart-shaped cutie mark.

Speaking of ponies, I finished the knitting on the body of the Dalahast last night, and sewed it all up and stuffed it. I didn't have the energy to do any of the embellishments (and I still have to knit the ears, but they're fast). Even though the traditional Dala horse has very simple, single-brushstroke eyes, I'm going to give this pony the big, anime-style current-generation-MLP eyes. I think, for the irises, I'm going to use a bluish green that will mimic the green highlights that there will be in her mane (the dala horse - the real one - that I have is red with sort of bluish green and cream accents).

 (I know the stereotype is for Swedes to have blue eyes, but surely there are green-eyed Swedes? And I think green will look better). Also, the eyes are important....as I think I said before, one of the really appealing things to me about the character design in the current generation of the My Little Ponies are the big, luminous eyes, which I interpret as being "innocent" and "trusting." So my dala horse interpretation has to have eyes like that.

And I note that on that site, the "giant sized" dala horse has what looks like a cutie mark (Ugh. I have to admit that even for me, saying "cutie mark" seems a little twee. I know Lauren Faust has occasionally referred to them as "butt symbols," which is cruder but a little less cloying). It's a stylized flower (maybe a stylized rose? Or maybe a squash flower...there's some talk about "kurbit painting" - which references the squash plant that legend says grew up around Jonah - on the wooden horses), but I still think I'm going to do the Swedish flag as I originally intended.