Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Zen of the Scantron

This morning I had a novel test-taking experience. For one thing, all the stuff I studied for was on the exam. No we-downplayed-this-in-class-because-we-planned-on-devoting-an-entire-test-section-to-it questions. All the answers were on the paper, to be matched, chosen, or true-falsed. The answers did not have to be hand-written; we bubbled our answers in on a scantron.

I think the scantron was what really made the test. I haven't had one for ages--always those too-involved questions followed by too-small blanks--so there was the novelty factor. But even more, there was something reassuring about the tangibility of the little darkened oval. The answer is here, and it fits inside this one little bubble. A, B, C, D, or E, not some abstruse concept with a dozen possible interpretations. No shades of gray, unless you brought the wrong hardness of pencil.

Following in the vein of the unexpected is my mystery picture from last week's non-post.



Inside that box are all the umpteen squares I have been knitting for what seems like eons (roughly three years). I had a square-knitting frenzy right before Mum's birthday, and am now four squares short of a lap blanket (interpret that statement as you will). In short, I am ready to begin the finishing process. Normally, I avoid that part of a project like the plague, but after knitting away so long on a seemingly endless portion of my stash, I am quite thrilled. I did a program last summer where participants knitted (hypothetically) 6-inch squares out of horrible scratchy machine washable Red Heart and its ilk for a twin-bed sized blanket, and after sewing that behemoth together, this will be a piece of cake.

My modus operandi:
Mattress-stitch squares together using embroidery floss (the yarn is too softly spun to sew with)
Knit remaining squares as needed
Put some sort of border on (I was thinking i-cord in black because muted goldish-green is possibly the world's most difficult color to match)
Present it to Mum and keep a good distance from patchwork for a few years

I'd say that sounds like a good plan, wouldn't you?

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