Whiz's Wit

I did a special Christmas storytime at the pajama party the foster fam had last night for all of the small folk from church.

As I was leaving, I was slowly putting on my gloves, scarf, hat, coat, etc. and talking to Whiz. (Who had been wearing the Whiz Bang Beanie, by the way...) The conversation went like this:

Whiz: Did you make your hat?

Me: No. I probably could have, but this one was on sale at Target.

Whiz: Do people ask you that a lot? If you made everything you own?

Me: Yep. All the time.

Whiz: It would be pretty cool if you could make, like, everything you ever needed.

Me: Well, I do make a lot of it.

Whiz: Well, but not stuff like food or money.

Me: It would be pretty cool if I could just knit up some money.

Whiz: Yeah...but...you know that's illegal, right?

Me:...

I love that kid. So concerned that I might try and counterfeit cash with yarn from the stash...wanted to make sure I was aware of the government's current stand on currency production!

Speaking of Knicks...or Knickers

(A conversation typical of my life)

Cast: Super Knitter, Matador, Broseph

Setting: Preach and Psych's Living room. Super Knitter is sitting on the floor, knitting the acrylic rainbow bookmark for the kids' knitting program at the library. Matador is also on the floor leaning against the couch. Broseph is reclining on the couch.

Matador: What are you knitting?

Super Knitter: A bookmark for the kids' program I am doing at the library.

Matador: That's gnarly yarn. (pause) Hey, can you knit me a coat of many colors out of that?

Super Knitter: Yes, I can. But can and will are two very different things.

Matador: Why not?

Super Knitter: Because you are over 6 feet tall and it would take forever, for one thing.

Broseph: Can you knit me some boxers?

Super Knitter: Um...no.

(Seriously...eew. I would totally knit Matador a 3 piece suit of many colors before I ever knit a pair of boxers for anyone!)

Rock Your Socks Off Storytime

I did a pajama time family story hour last night at one of the other library branches. I got to pick any theme I wanted, so I chose...SOCKS!!!

It was a LOT of fun. The program included:

New Socks by Bob Shea

Smitten by David Gordon

Where's My Sock by Joyce Dunbar

"Black Socks" (One of my favorite Girl Scout songs.)

An insanely long time dancing around like crazy people to "At the Hop"

And a flannel board that I did for a poem about socks that I found online.

I wore my crazy Sesame Street Socks and let all of the kids take their shoes off.

We even played a game where they had to put things in order from sheep to sock:

A stuffed sheep

Wool Roving

A Skein of Yarn

A partially knitted sock still on the needles

A finished sock

Some moms nearly had apoplectic fits as their children messed with the needles of the sock-in-progress. I quickly reassured them that it had been knit for demo only, and was not an actual project I was working on. (How crazy are they to think that I would actually let 3 year olds unravel an actual sock sock? Silly non-knitters!)

Visual Aids

I just might have too much time on my hands...

For my graduate storytelling class, I decided to do a retelling of Jan Brett's story called The Mitten. The story basically consists of a little boy dropping one of his mittens, which is found by a variety of woodland animals, who all crawl inside it to warm up. When the boy finds the mitten again, it has been all stretched out since everything from a mole to a bear warmed up inside it. The joke at the end is the size diference between the boy's two mittens. I needed a visual aid, and so decided to be creative and cut the animals out of felt. Then I needed a mitten to put them in.

A normal human would have gone to the store and purchased a mitten. I am not normal. I am a knitter. I knit both mittens. I found a simple and straightforward pattern online, and made two mittens. I didn't worry about the gauge at all. I used white Lamb's Pride Bulky and size 9 needles for the big one, then Blue Sky Alpaca Silk in white on size 2 needles for the little one. The pattern was lovely, and very clear. I will have to try it sometime with real mitten yarn.

Anyway, it was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Also, now I have a really nice visual aid should I ever actually become a children's librarian...or I could be nice and give it to my elementary school teaching sister who had The Mitten as a child.

We'll see.