the inventor of this spectacular new pom-pom maker i bought at article pract just before i went to portland. it is soooooooo neat! i forgot to take a picture of the box, but it is made by clover and the instructions are in japanese. instead of having to cut sections of yarn and thread them through a pom-pom donut template (which can take a very long time if you want a big pom-pom), there are two half-circles that you can wrap with yarn very quickly (and you never have to cut the yarn until you're done winding) and then snap together. here is what it looks like:



clockwise, from top left:
the 4 different sized pom-pom makers that came in the box
yellow acrylic yarn wrapped around both halves of the biggest size (took about 5 minutes)
the two halves snap together, then you cut around the outside and tie the middle
and the main body of the chick is the pom-pom! the chick's head is made from the green circle.

so i discovered the joys of pom-pom making with this amazing device on wednesday while waiting for the dryer repair man to show up and fix our recently replaced dryer so i wouldn't have to go to Launder Land again. he was supposed to be there at 10:30, but he didn't get there until 1:30. had i known i would have 3 hours, i would have done something substantial like clean our tornado aftermath of a bedroom. but instead i made a pom-pom, then another, then made them both into a cute little chick, and then spent about an hour and a half taking pictures of the chick with the cats. i am way too easily amused.



and here's a trivia question for today: what is this?



if you guessed a decomposing watermelon that's been in our fridge for 6 weeks, you win!