The Great Ugly Knit Upcycle

Lil Blue Boo and Dharma Trading Co., are having an upcycle challenge to see how people can transform their UGLY knits into something lovely. My problem: I have two seriously ugly knits, and I just can't decide which one is the ugliest. This is where I'm counting on both of you to help me out. Here are the contenders:

Ugly knit #1 is an odd stamped looking pattern of - cuneiform? maybe? It's a little hard to tell. The colors are dark blue, navy blue, off white and white. It is really ghastly. The pros: There's a lot of this fabric, so I can make a dress in a larger size. Maybe. But maybe a little will go a long way.

Ugly knit fabric is an odd composition of brown fall... flowers. Yeah, because when I think of flowers, naturally the color BROWN comes to mind. Even I'm a better gardener that this! I'd like to know what the designer was thinking when they came up with this pattern. Seriously, brown flowers? The colors here are brown, dark brown, light brown, tan and white.

So folks these are the competing knits. Which one do you think takes the (boobie) prize as the ugliest? You can vote in the poll.

Getting my act together.

I spent the day sorting, filing, pitching and winnowing the books that fill my basement homeschool library. Partially because I CANT STAND the mess anymore, and also, to start pulling resources for our upcoming units. Mary Potter Kenyon states that "A personal home library is as important as access to a public library," and I totally agree. I love, love, love the fact that for (pretty much) any topic that strikes my kids' fancy (or mine, let's be honest here), I can jog down to the basement and pull at least one book that has something to do with the subject.

So while I'm on the subject of getting stuff ready, I'm also organizing my computer stuff as well. Our upcoming history unit is pre-history. Since most homeschool books on it are pretty sketchy on the subject, here is my growing website list. I'm making this list, in part, so that I can find these again as well.

1. Nova Evolution - Actually this might be all I need. There's loads here! There's an Evolution video series too. "Becoming Human" which our library has - score!

2. Becoming Human - This one is by the Institute of Human Origins (who knew there was such a thing??) It has lots of interactive things, plus lesson plans.

3. Human Origins - A really neat looking site by the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History. Pretty cool.

We'll also be doing a literature study of Boy of the Painted Cave. We've read this book before, and it is really a great read aloud. It gives lots of information of what life during that time before written history was like.