What Day Is This?

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

What if "they" decided to revamp the calendar? (By "they", I mean people who could do such a thing, tell us they did such a thing, and make it so we had to adopt it.)

I may not be around much today. It's my birthday, so I might be busy. 😄

For Pretty: A Water Bottle Cover Pattern

Back in January, I previewed the water bottle cover I'd made.

What I didn't mention was that I had submitted the pattern to a publication in hopes they would publish. Alas, they passed. But, they gave me an interesting note. They said that the pattern would have been better if it had been more of a formula so that anyone could cover any size bottle.

Well, that's something I can work with.

I sat with the idea for a while. How could I come up with such a formula? I knew what I had done to figure out how to make my knitting fit my water bottle. How could I put that in pattern form?

This is why I'm only putting this pattern out now, in July, when it was initially completed before January.

The solution I came up with was to create a worksheet-style addition. And by self-publishing a PDF, I could make the pattern as long as needed. (Publications have space considerations.)

The pattern is now in three parts. Part one contains the basics of construction. Part two has the instructions on how to complete the math to figure out how many stitches are needed. And part three is a fill-in-the-blank worksheet where the math can be done. Oh, and then there's the stitch pattern and such.

Whichever parts someone needs can be printed out, and the unneeded sections can be ignored.

I think it's a rather elegant solution. But time will tell if I'm alone in that opinion.

I created a Pinterest-type photo to make pinning the link easier...

Here are the links on where the pattern can be purchased:

• For Pretty on Etsy
• For Pretty on Ravelry
• For Pretty on LoveKnitting

Finishing It Up

U.S. history, second semester. It was the last block (two hours) of the day. I had a class of fourteen. They had bookwork, and they spent the time in near silence.

Mostly they appeared to be working. Well, except for two boys who had their heads down on their desks.

It seemed to be one of those days that don't make the blog. Until...

End of the day. They packed up and left. I had taken the turned in work and stacked it neatly in one pile and left it on a desk at the front.

I was finishing packing up my stuff when I noticed I still had one straggler. He was one of the boys who had been asleep. For a moment, it looked like he was going to slide his paper into the stack, so I went about my business. (I don't consider the work late if they turn it in as they leave. If he had handed it to me right then, I would have put it in exactly the same spot.)

But, instead of sliding his paper in, he pulled another paper out. And then he was busily writing something...

Um, no.

I shooed him away. He had only managed to copy one answer, leaving two full answers on his paper. (He had done one on his own earlier.) He sought about for a good lie, but he couldn't come up with one.

Student logic. He had slept for much of the two hours, and he figured he could make up in the work in what? Five minutes after class? Seriously?

Of course, this didn't take into account the other three assignments for that day. (He was copying the worksheet, but they were also assigned four questions from the book and an outline of the chapter.)

Perhaps I should have let him copy. The page he had pulled? It belonged to the other student who had been sleeping.

A Fortuitous Mistake

As I stood in front of the classroom door waiting for security to arrive to let me in (they don't give keys to subs during summer school), the teacher arrived. He was going to be out the next day.

Upon conferring with the summer school principal, he figured out that he had written the wrong day on the request. ("I'm bad with numbers. That's why I teach history.")

Several thoughts went through my head. What was I going to do with my day now? I got up and dressed this early for nothing? But before I could contemplate driving home, the summer school principal had turned her and my attention to a different teacher.

"She can cover your class."

After a bit of confusion, what was happening became clear. The other teacher, Ms. M, had just been discussing with the summer school principal getting a sub so she could leave that day. Her husband was in the hospital. And while she was just hoping to leave early, since I was already there, she could leave immediately.

Perfect timing. And a mistake that turned out to put me right where a sub was needed.

This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened. (Luckily I was on hand on a day when a teacher learned her brother had just died in an automobile accident.) I just didn't expect it to happen in summer school.

Their Usual Work Ethic

Two hour class. Four students.

It was special ed. science. Their assignment was what you'd expect in a summer school class--lots of writing, answering questions from the textbook.

I caught a boy on his phone.

"I'm taking a break..."

Um, yeah, that's the sort of behavior that got you stuck in summer school in the first place.

Half an hour left, another boy started to pack up. Nope. He could do something still.

"I'm done."

I informed him he could start on the next chapter.

I know two hours can be long, but that's the only class they had, and they weren't using the time well.

Well, naturally. I suspect that's what necessitated them having to take summer school in the first place.

Don't Look Behind the Curtain

At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements. 😉

What if this is all a big, fat distraction?

No, I'm not going to specify from what. Or which. I had no idea what to ask today. This is the best I could do. I'm going to let your imaginations run wild.

Blame It On the Heat

The jellyfish are coming along...

I don't have a complete jellyfish at the moment. But these pieces will go into the four that are in process.

I could be totally done with them except: (1) It's been warm, so I haven't been doing as much yarny stuff as I would do when it's cold, (2) I've been working many days (which is such a shock as I don't usually get so many summer school days, but I'm so very, very grateful for the work), and (3) It turns out that the heat is making me stupid.

How is the heat making me stupid? The other night I thought it'd be fun to do some different color combinations of the flip-flop keychains. I needed a bit of a break from the jellyfish. And while one came out really nice...

...I managed to make stupid mistakes on the other two. This one in orange and purple...

...is for me, so I'm making myself live with the mistake. Can you see it?

As for the other...

...I was going to put it up for sale, but I can't sell this. Can you see the mistake? How about here?

Yeah, so I'm going to have to remake this. Ah well.

I did manage to list a couple more lip balm cozy colors. (If you click on the pictures, it'll take you to the listings on Etsy.)

As I was doing some research, I saw lip balm cozies with mermaid tails on them. What do you think? Should I attempt such a thing?