Yarnmaven

Summertime

Finished on Saturday night.  I even found vintage button, but they don't match - but the colors and size were right.  It's VERY comfortable.  I am happy with it.  I have already cut out the pattern for the next one.  It's a kitchy little print from the 50's and I only had 3 yards of 36 inch wide fabric so I have to choose my pattern carefully.  More about that later. 

I am still knitting.  I finished a scarf I've been working on a while - it's the Magic Scarf from Laurie Perry's book, Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair.  I lifted the pattern stitch, basically a basketweave stitch and made it wider and probably longer than Laurie did.  I used the skein of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool in brown I got months ago.  I had very little left over - so 8 bucks worth of wool can go a ways.  It's really soft too.  AND it would work for a guy. 

So far our summer has been pretty oppressive, and it's only been a couple of days since the beginning of summer, but the last 33 days of record-breaking Spring Temperatures has been relentless and, at least where we are, rainless.  My garden has all but dried up and I am having to water every night when I get home and we are losing oak trees - big ones and I think our well has gone dry.  We only use it for irrigation, but we kind of count on it so it's been a little more inconvenient having to use water we pay for.  The cicada's are starting to bust out of their casings, and I snapped a shot of one on our porch the other morning.  I alway find the process of metamorphosis a little amazing.  I also kinda like cicadas.

Stay cool!

A Day Off and a Flickr Meme

Today is Juneteenth, so I have the day off. Slept till 7am and hiked the local state park before noon. Now we are safely home in the AC and I am planning to sew. In the park we saw this amazing family of Pileated woodpeckers tearing up a dead tree. They were large and unfazed by our presence. Bark was flying everywhere. I could not tell if one was a juvenile or not, they seemed the same size. Maybe these are the FLDS of the bird world since I don't think woodpeckers are gregarious. I don't have a good long lense on this point and shoot camera, but you can see two red heads and the profile of the third bird on the tree. Very cool birds!

I have cut out a vintage dress pattern using vintage cotton fabric. The pattern is from about the mid-40's during the war I think. Those patterns always seem to have a distinctively solemn tone in the drawings on the envelope. The pattern is unprinted - just tissue paper cut to shape and some perforations to indicate where to put gathers and zippers (or "non-separable slide fastener" as the pattern says). Other than that, the construction is pretty much the same as modern patterns. I am using silk organza for interfacing and this dress has a self or matching fabric-covered belt with buckle and eyelets and all. I bought some hat buckram for stiffening the belt so that it is more authentic. It used to be sold on a roll in fabric stores in several belt widths when fabric covered belts were more widely popular. I did not find buttons yet that I thought worked with the fabric, so I might make covered buttons, still thinking about it. If I am lucky, I will finish this before the weekend.

I created Flickr mosaic for the Flickr Meme that's been going around. If you are interested in the image sources, you can check my Flickr page. 

 

Happy Juneteenth Y'all!

I met my next door neighbor on Ravelry!

Okay, the truth is, she lives 2 doors down rather than next door, but still, how amazing is that?  I got a message on Ravelry one day and the sender said, "I've been admiring your knitting and noticed that you live in Cedar Creek, we might be neighbors."  Well, once I emailed her back where I lived, we began to narrow down exactly where we lived in relation to one another and low and behold, she is only about 200 feet away!  And we arranged to meet one day at my house and Anna is absolutely delightful, though apparently blogless (for now).  I love her sense of humor and they have cats.  She's of my generation and has lived here almost as long as we have.  She works in Austin too and also works for a government, hers is Travis County. This Saturday I am dragging her to The Knitting Nest for the morning meet-up.  It's WWKIP Day on Saturday and there are several things planned in town, the big one being at the state capitol downtown, but our weather has been pretty hatefully hot and dry lately so we don't think we will make it to that, but we'll be there in spirit.  I can't believe I had to meet my neighbor via an international online community, but I am really glad that there is a way for us to find one another. (Note to self: Ravelry Tip Jar)  Anyone else find someone in their neighborhood through Ravelry?

This weekend, the grand-boy is coming for his first sleepover at the grandparents house!  I am excited and I hope Kandis and Rob have fun on their night out.  Here is a photo of Cooper (Rob holding him) reaching for Grandma - do you know how great that feels?  Yep, now if I can just get him to call me something - I don't care what, just so he means 'me'.  Boy, grandma's sure can be selfish.

I am trying out a new commenting system here on the blog, so feel free to comment, even if you don't have much to say 'cept what a cute grand-boy I have. And if you're local, I hope to see you this Saturday.

ETA: The comment experiment was a dysmal failure.  But I still like and encourage comments.  Let's see if I set it back in order properly.

Sweet Caroline

My late friend, Caroline, arrived yesterday.  I knew she was coming.  I got a call from a friend of hers that I met the last time I saw her.  Caroline died on December 7th last year in Colorado. Her memorial service was May 17th, the day we left for Vermont for my Father-in-law's memorial - he died on New Year's Eve.  I had planned to make Caroline's send-off in Ouray until the plans were made for Tom's Dad.  I hated to miss hers.  But yesterday the package arrived; a program from her Memorial Celebration, a collection of her poems, a DVD she made about planning her own funeral while she was fighting cancer with every cell of her body, and a small double-bagged ziplock bag, wrapped in bubble wrap containing a gray-white powder, a small bit of the cremated remains of my childhood friend, entrusted to me to scatter or hold however I thought appropriate.  What a gift.  I think it says something about my friend that she so literally shared of herself.  She was a gift.  She absolutely lit up a room with her enthusiasm. 

For now, I will find a nice box to keep her in.  I don't know where to take her, our childhood camp is not really an option anymore.  I could take her to the Bamberger Ranch in Blanco County, which is the last place I saw her alive.  It was a wonderful day.  We hiked Enchanted Rock, as far as she could go, lunched in Fredericksburg and dropped in on the Bamberger's for an impromptu tour and spent the rest of the day.  It was beautiful and such fun.  She was on mega doses of steroids and had tons of energy, but she had pain from a radiation burn that affected her ability to get around.  She was positively manic and we had a blast.  She didn't sleep much on the steroids, there was too much she wanted to do - too many people she wanted to reconnect with.  I can't believe I let 30 years of my life go by without Caroline in it and I am so grateful that she found me again before she left the world.  It was Caroline who took me to my first concert, John Prine and Steve Goodman at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas.  I was 14, she was 16 so she could drive.  To this day I am a die-hard John Prine fan.  Caroline was in the car when I got my first ticket for speeding, 90 in a 70 on our way to camp the first weekend in May, I was 16.  I was so scared - it ruined the entire weekend for me because I dreaded facing my parents with the news.  I still remember it like yesterday.  I have yet to watch her dvd.  One day.

The summer is upon us in a big way, the temps are way too high for the season - we still have a month before the start of summer and we are closing in on triple digits.  The garden is rebelling.  I may get nothing until fall.  I am aching to buy an above ground pool so I can teach Abby to swim this year, but really can't afford it yet.  Abby's last day of school is today and we are making plans for her to have a fun summer.  There have been promises of a brief trip to the coast sometime.  Oh, and I made a pair of socks.  For my friend Frank who I have teased with my praise of the handknit sock. 

Perseverence Pays Off

Just So You Know...

that I am not doing nothing (and Yes, that does appear to be a double negative), I finished another Clapotis.  Just like the last one only a different colorway.  I love the Clap, but they KILL me to make.  They take forever and well, quite honestly, I get bored.  Abby loves it, but it's not for her.  My mom expressed an interest, we'll see if she was sincere, 'cause, ya know, she loves everything I make - isn't that great?  I have been very busy with some work stuff and some PTA stuff and some graduation stuff and some trip-out-of-town planning stuff and well, I suppose blogging has taken a back seat and it does bother me, just not enough to drop everything and let y'all know (both of you) what boring and geekish thing I am up to now, but I do miss y'all.  I haven't even kept up with my blog reading.  I have discovered Twitter, though and I have to say that if you aren't on Twitter, well, you just aren't geeky enough.  Actually, some people, like my oldest, Kandis, they are actually better at twittering than blogging.  I don't mean to say she isn't a good blogger, but Twitter, with it's 140 character post limitation and the randomness of it in general is really better for some blogger styles.  Kandis is great at Twittering because she has these great moments where she can blurt out her witty, caustic tweets to the Twittersphere and it just seems appropriate - and timely.  And no formatting and the only thing you need to remember is "say it in 140 characters".  Oh, and use tinyurl for links, cuz the url counts for characters.  Me, I end up reading a lot of tweets and responding to some, I don't have that instant genius thing going for me.  But I still read Twitter obsessively. 

Anyway, that's what I've been doing.  How 'bout y'all?

A Dress?

Yes, a dress. Vogue pattern V8383 in a linen/cotton with embroidered polka dots.  Abby calls this my chocolate chip cookie dress because the fabric reminds her, well, of chocloate chip cookies.  I have been collectiong and buying vintage patterns and fabric for a while, but this is a modern pattern.  It's taken me weeks to finish it - mostly because of the limited time I can devote to anything much lately.  I really have been knitting, but they are interminable projects that simply will not end.  If I ever finish them, I'll post photos.  But now that it's spring, I want to sew some of the vintage stuff I've been piling up.  I was very lucky and won some free shoes and a bag from  Zappos.com via Twitter.  The shoes in the photo are the ones I picked - they're Born's, my favorite shoes. 

My grandson had his first birthday and Tom is graduating from Texas State University on May 9th.  It's a busy time of year for us.  The summer fast approaches and I just now got the beans, squash and leek seeds planted today.  Oh, and it's San Jacinto Day, so I had the day off which is how I could get all the gardening and mowing done. Whew!  Is anyone else feeling as distracted as I am?

*note: I appear to be leaning in the photo, the camera was on an unlevel surface, but I was losing light so I took it.  I also managed to miss a button on the bodice, such was my hurry.

All God's Children Need Blankies

I don't even care if you don't believe in God, the fact is; 416 children have had their world turned upside down and who understands the comfort of a blankie better than knitters, crocheters and quilters?  Rete has proposed a plan and will act as a coordinator (she works for the CPS) to provide a hand-made blankie for every kid there.  This is one real way you can help these kids face whatever life and the state of Texas has in store for them.  I would like them to see that the outside world is not out to hurt them.  Warmth for all!

Update: Rete informs me that they may not go just to the FLSD kids, I still think I could crank one or two out pretty quickly.

The problem is…

 If you move to a state (even a big state with a lot of wide open spaces like, say, Texas) and buy a lot of property with the intent to build a large community for the “followers” of your religion (don’t really care which one),  because you had a falling out with the Head Church about certain doctrines (those that tend to be illegal, even in Texas), and you put up a fence and you have armed guards patrol the perimeter to prevent anyone from gaining access (or freedom), you should be aware that people in town, hell, people everywhere are going to regard you and your folks with a certain amount of suspicion.  Not because you make your women wear funny dresses.  Not because you are building a GINORMOUS white temple that sticks out like the Christ of the Ozarks on the flat Texas landscape.  Not because people don’t respect your religious views.  Not because you are exempt from paying any taxes because of your claim to status as a religious order.  Not even because your founder is cooling his heels in an Arizona prison on rape charges.  No, people are going to be suspicious of you because they have no way of verifying that everyone INSIDE your compound really wants to be there.  AND that if you weren’t doing something illegal, you would not need to hide over 500 women and children inside your gates.

 

Yes, I do have a problem with any religion in THIS country that systematically keeps half its population ignorant and subservient and which exists to subvert the laws of the very nation that allowed its emergence, in order to preserve the patriarchal power to control the lives and reproduction of its members.  It is nothing less than a prison, and there is nothing holy about it. 

 

Texas may have its hands full dealing with this many victims, but it had to happen.  Thank goodness that so far, it has been without violence.  May the real world not be too scary for the kids and mothers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/08/AR2008040801742.html?hpid=topnews

More on the scary people:
http://www.bankingonheaven.com/

Polygamy Files Blog:
http://blogs.sltrib.com/plurallife/

Yeah, I'm back and I'm pissed.

Resuming Life as We Know It

SXSW is over.  Even the folks that came for the music have left.  They say the airport was busier than at Christmas time with everybody trying to leave at once.  Every year about the end of February I start hating my job and then SXSWi happens and I completely fall in love with my career all over again.  It never fails.   It is such an infusion of energy and expectation coupled with all the buzz of what is hot in technology and all the friendships made, renewed and deepend that I hit an overload point usually sometime before the last day.   I finished a pair of socks while sitting through all the panels.  I finished a sweater in the two days I took off to recover from SXSWi. 

Pattern: Hooded Pullover, Vogue Knitting, Fall 2005
Yarn: Marr Haven Mule Spun Worsted Wool, 6 skeins

  Stephen and I had a great time at the Knitting Nest last Monday night.  It was a small crowd, but it was relaxing.  He signed the Wall of Fame, and posed for some photos.  I'm looking forward to next year and I hope to be able to organize another knitters gathering and/or a craft panel at the conference that will beat the lame one they offered this year.

Abby and Tom have Spring Break this week, so the train wreck getting out of the house in the morning is considerably smaller in scale.  I haven't done a thing about Easter yet.  I have fallen behind badly in reading blogs and need to get caught back up with everybody.  I really wish I was on Spring Break, but not while everyone else is.  I get a lot more done when I'm on my own, if you know what I mean.