February 4 2010

Thursday, February 4, 2010

February 4 2010

Teaching Link of the Day:
Body Letters
I found an ad in an old Reader's Digest and instantly tore it out as an assignment for my children to do together in some of their self-guided school time. Their instructions were A-Z, a-z, 1-9 "exercises". They not only wore themselves out giggling, occupied an hour of their time, and used their creativity and teamwork, they stretched their muscles, fought gravity, and showed off their youthful limberness.

Granny Square of the Day:

OK! So here's the stripe experiment. It looks kind of sloppy. I have some ideas to make it better. The one on the left is the "right" side and the one on the right is the "wrong" side. I crochetted the wrong side like I knit stockinette, so that both strings were on my side of the piece when I was working on the "wrong" side rounds, and were on the other side of the piece when I was working on the "right" side rounds.

Things to note:
A--these clusters are the first clusters of each round and have no center stripe because I evaluated the distance the blue string would have to travel to get there and double back. It should be just fine to do, I just didn't do it.
B--these loops occurred every round, but the successive round engulfed them.
C--Corners are tricky. I was constantly adjusting the tension as I switched between yarns and ended up pulling the blue too tightly in these spots. It's easy to forget to wrap around it if it's not right there, and wrapping around it while it's tight pulls so that the corners are uneven.




So as for making it better, I think I can go ahead and crochet like knitting garter stitch so that every round has the yarn in back. Instead of the second stitch of the first two double stitches for each cluster being the same color as the first stitch, it will be the same color as the next stitch, so the first stripe of the cluster is pink, so the yarn on the hook is pink, the loop is pink, the catch is pink, the first stitch is pink, but the second stitch is blue. Then the second stripe is blue, so the yarn on the hook is blue (the result of the second stitch of the previous double stitch) the wrap is blue, the catch is blue, the first stitch is blue, the second is pink. Because the third stripe is the same color as the chain between clusters and the first stripe of the next cluster, all the stitches of the third stripe will be pink. I think this will straighten the colors out in each cluster so the stripe effect is less muddled.

Readings of the Day:

Below are some alliterate poems for reluctant readers. It's like the condensed Fox in Sox.

Song of the Pop-Bottlers
by Morris Bishop

Rhinoceros Stew
Mildred Luton

Potato Chips
Anthony E. Gallagher

The Man in the Onion Bed
John Ciardi

Waiters
Mary Ann Hoberman