How to become a hermit

For three days I have been restlessly waiting for enough time to pass before I could blog again.  I have been so bored.  Busy, yet bored.

I have baked banana bread, brownies, and more banana bread; I have cleaned; I have played piano; I have played violin; I have played basketball; I have knit; I have knit a lot more; I have read a few books suggested by my mother; I have checked (one million times) all of the websites I keep track of.  And, of course, I have done ALL of this ABSOLUTELY alone.

This has been very boring.  I have gotten up at 8:30am and have gone to bed at 12:00pm.  The highlight of my week was the long Mother's Day concert that was at a basilica last night. Sigh.

But next week I start work and an online class, so I suppose I should "appreciate the time I've had off."  Yet, coming from one of my busiest semesters, it's hard not to do anything.

Now, if you excuse that rant, I do have a few pictures to show.  Though, let me first explain a little about the first.

This beautiful screenshot is of a program I have written.  It is my computer science final project, actually!  It took days of stressful, hair-pulling Google searches and phone conversations with my dad.  I daresay working with the JTable was a good experience, but it definitely made my project much more complicated that I believed it would be.

In the end, I got an A in the course, so I suppose it was worth it.

AND, besides the A, the program is extremely useful to myself.  On that picture, I developed a random lace pattern.  I have no idea what it actually looks like, so please don't ask.  The only reason I was showing this one is because I wanted to prove that symbols as well as colors are able to be displayed on the graph.  I didn't show a fairisle pattern because I think you can guess what the graph might look like with different colored cells.  I hope.

Confession:  my latest project was done in order to use my program.  Second confession:  I really wanted to use my bobbins too.  I haven't truly been able to use them yet, and I got them at Christmas!  They're so cute on their little rack :)

See what I mean?  Cute.

Oh look, did someone take the time to hand paint flowers on the rack?  Darling ;)

Ahem.  Anyway, here's the partially done fairisle that I developed.

Here is the inside of the hat, still not quite done.  (I am showing this because the wrong side of fairisle is so mesmerizing to look at.  At least, I think so.)

Here is the outside of the hat.  Not entirely completed at this point.

That, I must say, is the most beautiful buttons I have ever seen.  It is an engraved metal button; no plastic anywhere.  I found it once in my grandma's button box.  (There are a lot of hokey buttons in that box, some WWII buttons from when she served in 1945, and a few delightful little finds, like this one.)

If ever someone wants to donate another button box full of buttons like this one, I will not object.  I probably would sort through them all day.

And this was the final product.  Yes, I have done MORE ropes!  They are so darling, though, and they work so much better than the knitted cords.  These lay so much better.

Another thing:  if someone wants me to make ropes for them, I would probably not mind doing that either.  It's one of those strange things that fascinate me.

My mom said that the hat looked cute.  Certainly, I won't refute that statement, so I can only hope you won't as well!

Enjoy your weekend, folks.  I'll be living on the edge tomorrow in the overflow seating at my sister's graduation.  Wish me luck ;)