Halcyon Days

Relocated

2011-12-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

I'm over here now.

Yarn & Such

2011-06-03T18:55:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday H. and I trekked out to the Mass Sheep & Wool Festival out in western MA (Cummington, to be precise). As per usual, the day was capped off with dinner in Northampton, a little college town I love more with every visit. This year’s festival seemed much smaller than last years, both in terms of attendance and vendors. In some respects this was good, as we had more opportunity to chat with some of the vendors (most of whom are fiber artists in their own right). I actually escaped with only three skeins of yarn, though admittedly some of this had to do with H. rummaging through my yarn basket before we left. It turned out everything she unearthed was bought LAST year at this festival and was still unused. I think that’s a good policy from here on out: before buying new yarn, first reacquaint yourself with your stash. It's a lot cheaper that way.

Anyway, I brought home some cheery bright yellow sock yarn from here, and some lovely periwinkle blue cashmere/merino from here to make a scarf. But the find of the day for me was sock yarn from into the whirled. Now, I haven’t knit this yet so I can’t say anything about how it knits up, but the colors were tremendous. I had a hard time choosing just one, and I'm excited to start knitting with it but I realized I already have three socks knit from three different yarns, all of which need mates. Ooops. So I'm forcing myself to finish one pair before taking this yarn out for a spin.

One thing I noticed was the plethora of superwash sock yarn. I have to tell you, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like superwash yarn, at least not for socks. I don’t like knitting with it – I find it splitty and uncooperative, simultaneously sticky and slippery. I also don’t like how it feels on my feet. Since I have no problem hand washing my wool socks, I’m steering clear of it from now on. But it definitely was a bit of a challenge to find regular (non-superwash) sock yarn. I hope this isn’t a trend.

In other news, it's all quilt blocks all the time, preferably while watching Chopped on The Food Network. I don't really cook much, but for some reason I love this show. There's always one cocky contestant who makes you hate him (and it's usually a man), and the judges are so persnickety (dude, THEY HAVE TWENTY MINUTES AND YOU ARE PISSED ABOUT A CARROT PEEL???), and then Ted Allen stands there scowling trying to reign them all in. Who knew that would be a winning combination? But really: I think they should keep it a bit more real. I'd like them to have to use ingredients that *I* have on hand, with no spiffy pantry items to choose from. The true test would be, what can you do with tuna fish, an apple, some chocolate, and a liter of Diet Pepsi?

Random Wednesday Catch Up

2011-05-25T16:04:00.002-04:00

Now that the apocalypse has been postponed (and I finally got over my terrible cold) I can get back to blogging.

1) First, a few reading recommendations: I accidentally read Ree Drummond’s (aka The Pioneer Woman) new memoir cover-to-cover yesterday. It is really excellent, a combination of an old western romance and Bridget Jones (if Bridget were a red-headed American from Oklahoma). Yeah, there are some kind of unbelievable parts, and my inner feminist twinged a little, but it's still a good read. Although fair warning: it will leave you craving cinnamon rolls. In fact, I’d probably make some before settling in to read it, preferably on a lazy, rainy afternoon with nothing else to do.

2) On the quilting front: Material Obsession 2 is a great new find. While it is primarily a pattern book, I’ve been lugging it around with me as train reading. I’m realizing I have a much too coordinated approach to color in my quilts, and this book is providing a lot of inspiration for a new project or three.

3) Colin Woodard’s blog. This is a must for any Mainer, or any Maine-lover, or anyone interested in astute socio-political observations salted with just the right amount of history. His book The Lobster Coast remains one of my favorites.

In other news, I have discovered yet a new way of slicing my fingers that does not involve a rotary cutter, heavy gauge guitar strings, or sharp bread knives. It’s called Hand Washing Your Blender, or HWYB for short. In hindsight this is probably fairly obvious to most adults with an IQ above 70, but nonetheless I nicked myself. It actually wasn’t that deep a cut, but one of those that bleed profusely and remind you all-too-well why you never considered a career in medicine.

Incidentally, I had actually forgotten I owned a blender - but I was glad to accidentally find it minutes before I set off to go to Target to purchase a new one. I needed one because my sister’s been doing this Shakeology thing and finally convinced me to try some samples. The first day I had no reaction whatsoever, which confounded my sister given my predilection for Diet Coke and chocolate and all sorts of other junk. However, after three days my intestines are threatening a walk out. I’m not sure if this is proof of just how slow my metabolism is, or just how many toxins had built up in my system. There’s no good answer, I’m sure of it.

This weekend: sheep and wool and yarn, oh my!

The Great Cough Across Ireland

2011-05-11T20:07:00.000-04:00

My favorite picture from the trip - taken from a golf course in Killarney

Well, I’m back from Ireland – a great trip despite being sick THE ENTIRE TIME and despite my conflicted feelings about doing a bus tour. My friend D. probably deserves sainthood for sharing a hotel room with me. I tell you what, it was INFURIATING to have not been sick in over a year and wind up getting a terrible cold right before my first major vacation in a decade. And as much as I tried to put on a smiley face and enjoy the trip anyway, there's just only so much you can do when you are tanked up on Sudafed. *sigh*

First things first: the Brattleboro hats I made came in quite handy, particularly at the Cliffs of Moher where the wind was whipping quite fiercely. My friend also wore the hand warmers I made her, and I wished I had made some for myself.

I had grand plans to visit a yarn shop in Dublin but it turned out the day we were there was a bank holiday and the shop was closed (as were many others in the city). After getting lost on the Trinity College campus we were forced to eat croissants with real butter and drink tea at a café (this one, as it happens). Hardly a tragedy, I assure you. In fact, one of the best things about Ireland was that there was always real butter (I didn’t see one pat of margarine the entire trip) and the default beverage was tea. This was a good thing as the Diet Coke tasted really weird over there. Not nearly as carbonated, for one thing, and for another it was labeled “contains vegetable extracts”, as if it were V-8. It makes me wonder what on earth is in my American Diet Coke – I probably don’t want to know. Also on the plus side: I am normally not a beer drinker but I found it to be much better when consumed on Irish soil…especially when served by cute bartenders with sparkly blue eyes (even if he did refuse to sing along with the rest of my tour group…which, really, one can hardly blame him for, especially after one guy loudly proclaimed that the US should annex Ireland as the 51^st state).

But I digress. As we traversed the country to the western coast, we did make a few stops at touristy gift shops, a few of which had a tiny bit of Aran yarn for sale. Aran yarn – at least, the stuff I saw – is pretty hardy stuff; frankly, I can’t imagine hand-knitting much with it. It’s very dense and heavy, and not exactly soft. There were thousands of beautiful sweaters for sale across the country knit with the stuff, but alas I didn’t buy one. The exchange rate was pretty bad, and I had my heart set on buying a wool blanket, so I passed up the sweaters. We did find one yarn shop in Killarney, which was nice but filled to the brim with Noro and Debbie Bliss – all stuff I can easily buy at home. I felt like I had to buy SOMETHING, though, and found some Louisa Harding merino/silk blend yarn that was very reasonably priced. But I had been really hoping to find some in-country spun sock yarn. Next time, I guess.

Adjusting to the time change going over was fairly easy, though there was much coffee/tea ingested to keep us going. However, re-entry to my “real” life was hard, mainly due to the time difference and a very needy cat that was not impressed with my absence (my sister looked after her, but it was clearly not enough company for the cat). But now I’m all adjusted and oddly content. I was perfectly happy to trot off to work yesterday, and thankfully there were no dire emergencies to contend with once I got there. The train was late, as per usual, but there’s nothing I can do about that. And alas, my apartment is still a wreck, but it’s nice to have my fabric, yarn, and the cat once again keeping me company. Apparently, home is where your stash is.

A Good Car (Taking Inventory)

2011-04-26T21:24:00.003-04:00

Today's story is about the end of one of the best relationships I've ever had. The fact that this relationship involved an inanimate object that doesn't speak is probably telling, but still: it was a good relationship for me nonetheless.

At any rate, my trusty nine-year old Saturn has been retired, the poor thing. And I am quite sad about this turn of events. True, I don't want to think about the stupid car payment I'm about to commit to, which will seriously wreak havoc on my yarn buying. Or buying much of anything else, for that matter. But the Saturn was a great car, and I would have bought another one had they not stopped making them. I did not treat her particularly well, but she was pretty great to me up until the last year, when it became clear she needed more attention than simple oil changes (not to mention getting sideswiped on the streets of Providence). Attention that I really could not afford to pay for, plus when you spend $500 on repairs and triple the value of the car....well. Decisions must be made.

I bought this car the last year I lived in Memphis, and other than my graduate school degree it is the last vestige of my time there. I also used the car to drive all over the state of Maine - four years of community development work from Sanford to Van Buren, Norway to Eastport. We were a team, that Saturn and me; she carted my crap around in her trunk and she listened to me sing very loudly to the Dixie Chicks all the way from Tennessee to Maine. She was there all those weekends I drove to NYC, and put up with my attempts to parallel park her on those narrow side streets in Queens. And she never complained when I (yet again) spilled Diet Pepsi on her carpet.

Tonight I had to empty the car of everything. You'd be surprised - probably shocked - at the stuff that was in there. I was shocked, and it's my freaking car. It was especially shocking because a few years ago my dad, in a fit of embarrassment over the state of his daughter's car, cleaned the whole thing out while it was parked in his driveway those months I lived in NYC. However, apparently in my subsequent moves Things Accumulated.

In some ways, I kind of wish I had filmed the clean out because it has the makings of a genius performance art piece: nine years of my life to sift through. It reminds me of that Adrienne Rich poem when she talks about "diving into the wreck" -- the wreck that is the car, or the wreck that was my life, take your pick. It was a tinge morbid, too, because it occurred to me that our stuff is what is left of us, and someday someone (my sister?) will have to sort through all my worldly possessions, in all likelihood throwing most of them out. It simultaneously makes me want to pare down everything and start hoarding everything. I HAVE STUFF THEREFORE I AM.

So as I stared into nine years of my past, this is a sampling of what surfaced:

*one trash bag full of...well, trash

*three sets of fingernail clippers, which I guarantee were hastily bought on the way to a guitar lesson

*A copy of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" and the first Twilight book (the combination of which led me think about the Tea Partiers as vampires, which wasn't that much of a stretch)

*One round springform cake pan, three wine glasses, and one porcelain teacup

*A black jacket I forgot I owned

*A green blanket, queen sized, that I had thought was in my blanket chest

*A pair of black shoes that, three weeks ago, I tore apart two closets looking for

*An entire box of knitting and quilting patterns and books

*One bamboo double-pointed needle, size 3

*My original Tennessee registration from 2002

*My temporary Maine license from 2003

*30+ cds (including my "Spanish for Dummies" CDs that I bought before I moved to NYC)

*Various Sharpie pens in various stages of drying out

*Two big wall calendars from 2007 and 2008

There was more, but it was swept into boxes and bags and will have to be sorted through at some point. Ugh.

After all this, there was a mix-up at the new car dealership and I threw a hissy fit and came home car-less. I am choosing to believe it was an honest mistake because frankly, these boys just don't seem bright enough to be running a scheme of that sort of complexity. But at the moment my old friend is parked in their lot, devoid of my stuff and her plates, and I'll be walking to the train tomorrow without thumping her trunk as I walk by. And now, she is destined for an auction and I cannot bear to think about it. On the plus side? Now I don't have to listen to my dad lecture me about buying a new car, and I will actually have a vehicle that my sister will let her kids ride in. #winning

The Patchwork Brigade

2011-04-17T10:20:00.005-04:00

I have so many unfinished projects around here it's ridiculous. Knitting projects are one thing - they can easily be stuffed into a basket somewhere. My quilt projects, though, are threatening to overtake my tiny living room. I love to sew patchwork, but since I don't machine quilt there can be a big backlog on unfinished tops. Alas, I may have to change my tune lest I lose the cat in the rubble.

I had grand plans of taking myself hiking yesterday afternoon to a local state park, but it was too cold out. So I holed up and did laundry and sewed charm squares - these from Moda's "Summer Breeze by Sentimental Studios". It needs borders, but will make a nice and simple baby quilt. Although really: I wish I had a beach house with a front porch with a white wicker sofa that overlooked the ocean, because this would be the exact sort of quilt to have on that sofa. The colors scream "summer in Maine" to me.

I also finally sewed my blocks together for this:

I may have blogged about this last summer when I started piecing the blocks. I used the Jubilee pattern by Marlous Designs (available all sorts of places including here) and a Bali Pop package in the "Cotton Candy" color way. I'm not entirely thrilled about how this turned out, in large part because I found it very challenging to sew up. It wasn't a technical issue (it's straight strip piecing) but a color issue. Even though the look is random, it wasn't random at all - I had to be really careful about putting too much of one color into each block. For example, look at the second row from the top, the first two blocks on the left. See how they almost read as one single printed fabric in the photo? I also had a very difficult time squaring up the blocks. This may wind up with my youngest niece when all is said and done (whenever that may be). It needs borders too, but I honestly don't have a clue what will work the best.

Also lined up are:

1) my friendship blocks from my quilt guild; I have until June to sew the blocks my mystery friend gave me up with some I've made into a top. I didn't really think this through: I asked for log cabin blocks because I love them, but hate sewing them. And now I have to sew at least 2, but probably more like 6 to turn the blocks into a usable-sized quilt.

2) every month our guild does a block-of-the-month, which are raffled off. The good news is I actually won this month. The bad news is, only 5 other people participated with me. But with a few more blocks I think I can wind up with a small baby quilt, possibly even a gender-neutral one this time.

3) Two summers ago I took a quilt class and have a fairly good sized quilt that needs to be quilted. I'd like to have it professionally machine quilted but aside from the cost involved, I kind of screwed up the borders a bit and I'm not sure it can be machine quilted without me fixing it. And fixing it might require buying fabric that may or may not exist anymore. *sigh*

4) I really want to make something modern out of all solid colors. I saw a book called City Quilts at the quilt store recently, and while I didn't buy it I definitely have my eye on it.

I Did Not Forget How To Knit

2011-04-17T10:04:00.005-04:00

When I saw the Brattleboro hat in New England Knits I knew I would make one. Or several. I thought this would be a great hat to have in Ireland, since it will be May and may be chilly. And I'll take any excuse I can to knit something in Malabrigo (this little guy is in the Mint colorway). It took me a little over a week of mostly train knitting, mostly because I knit right-handed and throw, so anything in moss or seed stitch takes me FOREVER. The little button tab gave me a bit of a challenge - mine doesn't look exactly like the photo in the book, but it does look exactly like the sample I saw at the yarn store, so I stopped fussing with it. It is in need of a good blocking, but I need to find the right-sized bowl. Also - this used up about half a skein or so, and all indications are that I will be able to eek out a pair of hand warmers with the rest of the skein. #winning!

Halfway through knitting this, though, I remembered: I can't wear green. It makes me look green - not in an interesting, Elphaba sort of way, but in a sickly, quick-find-her-a-trash-can sort of way. So the hat's going to D., my friend and traveling companion, and sometime this week I'll march back for some more Malabrigo for me. (I think I love the buttons the most.)

Two Lovely & Positive Things

2011-04-05T21:13:00.009-04:00

I'm having one of those spells where the news is just too depressing to watch - the government is about to shut down, radioactive water is being released into the sea, women in Haiti and Libya and Lord knows where else are being systematically raped...it's appalling, and I can only take so much of it before shutting down altogether. So I've been on the look out for a few more inspiring, even magical if you will, things to reinforce my belief in the human race.

1. The Reverb10 folks sent out a new prompt today, and with it a link to this beautiful blog post by Jen Lemen. I love the line "at the end of your unraveling", but I think I love this part most of all:

Go ahead, be disappointed.
Nothing turned out how you hoped.
Sit under a tree and tell me the whole of it
and I won’t say a word.
I won’t say a single word.

There are oodles of other lovely and insightful and inspiring things on her blog as well - I spent the entire train ride home reading her posts on my phone.

2. This video (photo montage?) by Liz Song, which you can view here.

It is far richer to live our lives by the risk to follow our hearts, wherever it leads.

That line made me feel oodles better about a number of things, including my ill-fated move to NYC a few years ago. Wherever it leads, indeed.

Catching Up

2011-04-03T20:53:00.006-04:00

It's been rather busy here these past few weeks as I try to balance work and family (and cat and guitar wrangling) with getting ready for the Ireland trip. My favorite book thus far on my crash-course in Irish literature is a collection of short stories by Anne Enright entitled "Yesterday's Weather", which I am enjoying even more than her novel "The Gathering", which was pretty fabulous. This is saying a lot, as I am normally not a big fan of the short story genre. And I've had The Frames' album "For the Birds" on the ipod, which I adore, as well as "The Cake Sale", a compilation album done by various Irish artists to benefit OxFam. My new favorite song is "Some Surprise", sung by Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Lisa Hannigan - the video is here; it's kinda cheeky but it gets stuck in your head. Or, at least, my head.

One of the many pre-Ireland errands was to buy a new camera. I had been saving up for months, thinking I would invest in an SLR camera, but when I realized what those cameras actually entailed I opted for a higher-end digital camera (a Canon Powershot SX30IS). I haven't had much time to play with it yet, though today I took a nice long walk through the downtown and tried to get a few shots (Meg Hutchinson's album The Living Side was my soundtrack...she's not Irish, but it's lovely music just the same). I'm not really thrilled with the indoor photos - but the outdoor pictures are coming out well. I still have some more fiddling & learning to do before the trip - but hopefully I'll be taking most of the Ireland photos outside anyway!

In the crafting department...I'm still knitting away on an Elizabeth Zimmerman February baby sweater, simply because I wanted to knit one. Eventually someone I know will have a baby girl. Mostly, though, I've been working on a quilt top for my guild, which is a nonprofit organization and makes quilts for the local cancer center. We all make blocks throughout the year, and then a few times a year we get together to sew the blocks into tops, and then the machine quilters in the group finish them up. This was one of the main reasons I decided to join the group, but it was a lot more difficult than I imagined to find blocks that were reasonably coordinated and reasonably the same size. I wound up finding 8 to work with and brought them home, adding 4 more and two borders. I built the quilt around this one appliqued butterfly block that was really sweet and I just loved - I have no idea who made it, it was just in a big pile of blocks on the table:

I was happy and relieved with the outcome (alas, this is one of the first pictures I took with the new camera and it didn't turn out so well...and it wasn't hung very well on the wall...) but trust me, it's way cuter than I could have initially hoped for:

It made me feel really good to take the work of other women, strangers to me, and add my own efforts to make something that will (hopefully) cheer the heart and soul of another stranger down the line who will be struggling with a life-threatening illness. Oh, some of the blocks aren't exactly square, and some of the corners don't meet perfectly, but it's the sort of thing no one but another quilter will notice. I also loved that as I was working inside on this the crocuses were beginning to bloom outside, purple and yellow and white with their green stems. I couldn't help but carry the notion of spring and rebirth in my mind as I sewed, and I hope whoever gets the finished quilt finds a new beginning as well.

The Ireland Project

2011-03-24T20:21:00.002-04:00

As I get ready for my trip to Ireland in early May, I've decided to embark upon a crash course in contemporary Irish literature. (Because that's just what I need, another reason to buy books. And clearly, my idea of fun is just whacked.)

You have to love the internet, though, because within the span of about 5 minutes I had turned up several syllabi from different college courses and had a good list of authors. I trotted over to the bookstore and found two to start with. One is "The Gathering" by Anne Enright, and the other is a collection of short stories called "Cheating At Canasta" by William Trevor (which includes an essay of his published in the New Yorker a few years ago, which you can read here if you are so inclined).

I haven't been reading a whole lot of fiction in the past few years, so I'm interested to see how I like these works. It's not that I don't enjoy fiction, I just have a bad habit of getting so engrossed that I wind up reading until 4 am, or forgetting to get off the train, or deciding to take a ten-minute break at my desk and discover an hour has passed. Avoiding fiction for me is a kind of self-preservation...so we'll see how this goes. I know that a purist would delve into Joyce, but I decided I needed to work my way up to him...plus, I'm more interested in current literature anyway.

The other thing I'm working on is downloading music for the trip. I have plenty of Snow Patrol, Glen Hansard, and Damien Rice, and a little bit of Van Morrison and U2, but I need some girl music in there. Lisa Hannigan is on my list for sure, but I need to do some more digging.

I'm also stocking up on rain gear, because I figure that the best way to ensure that we see the sun is for me to buy a new coat, hat, umbrella, and boots. And I've bought a map of downtown Dublin, and have marked out the route from our hotel to a yarn store. I know that most Irish yarn is produced with imported wool, but I'll be happy with a skein or two that was spun in country!

The Fifteen (Not Entirely) Impossible Things

2011-03-22T21:46:00.004-04:00

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

(Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll)

***

This morning I woke up thinking, for some inexplicable reason, that what I REALLY needed to do was go get a PhD in feminist theory. Then I walked out into the living room and saw the cat rolling around on the floor in the remnants of my latest quilt project, the couch covered in yarn, drafts of a few writing projects strewn across the table, and my guitar sitting there reminding me there is a song to learn before Saturday’s lesson. Meanwhile, the cat has been busy removing books from the bookcase again, the recycling is piled up, and my bedroom looks like a bomb of clothes went off everywhere. I haven’t been to the gym in a month, and have been subsisting mostly on Luna bars, Cadbury eggs and diet Coke. (After 20 years, diet Pepsi has finally started tasting weird to me. Go figure.)

Sometimes, I think there is a fine line between creativity and mental illness.

But it actually gets worse, because I sat down at lunch today and made a list of the things I daydream about, thinking I will accomplish in the next 30 years or so (in no particular order):

1) Getting a PhD in feminist theory. (Some days it’s public policy.)

2) Getting an MFA in creative nonfiction. (Because apparently one master’s degree is not enough for me.)

3) Writing a book. (Some days it’s fiction, some days it’s essays about growing up in rural Maine. Other days it’s a coffee table book of photos of downtowns in Maine, an idea that was roundly trounced by three publishers when I tried to do it as a fundraiser several years ago.)
4) Starting my own business making quilts. (Partly because the idea of spending all day in pajamas sewing patchwork really resonates with me.)

5) Moving to Ireland for a year. (A place I’ve YET TO ACTUALLY STEP FOOT IN, though that will change soon enough.)

6) Going on some sort of meditation retreat. (Despite the fact that every time I meditate I fall asleep.)

7) Learning yoga. (Despite the fact that every time I try, I fall over and hurt myself.)

8) Becoming a vegetarian. (The most laughable one of all, since I hate vegetables and require one cheeseburger per week to function properly.)

9) Falling madly in love. (In my head he’s smart, funny, kind and creative. He doesn’t get angry when he finds pins in the carpet or knitting needles buried in the sofa cushions. And he will let my cat sleep on the pillow next to his head. Did I mention he adores me?)

10) Being able to play a guitar and sing at the same time, in the same key. (My neighbors would like this too.)

11) Having a house in the woods with a porch and a small garden and a sunny room with lots of windows that I can use for a studio, with quilts on the beds for when my nieces come to visit. There are lilac trees and a cat or two and maybe a dog and maybe even some chickens. (Oh, and raspberry bushes.)

12) Running for political office. (Usually this fantasy is me being Governor of Maine; given the current guy in office, this obsession has recently become infinitely less outlandish. And the fact that I no longer live in Maine is apparently no deterrent whatsoever to my imagination.)

13) Winning Powerball and moving back home to Maine where I would buy the old Opera House and rehab it into a community arts space. (I rarely buy lottery tickets, and usually when I do it’s because I’m at the gas station and need to break a $20 and I’m trying to cut down on the M&Ms in my life.) And then setting up a foundation where I give money away to artists and women’s organizations.

14) Going to law school, not because I want to practice law but because I loved constitutional law as an undergrad and still have this odd obsession with Supreme Court decisions. Or divinity school, not because I want to be a minister (or even go to church for that matter) but because I have an odd obsession with religion.

15) Becoming fluent in another language (despite six years of French, I can barely muster Je m’appelle Lori).

[And this doesn’t even include stuff like learning how to dye fabric, crochet, make those nuno felted scarves, or explore mixed-media collage. Thank God I have utterly no interest in learning how to spin yarn.]

All of these things are possible. Highly unlikely, in some cases, but possible, to one extent or another. Somehow, though, that just makes it worse. I can totally understand people who have a passion for something and pursue it…but what happens when you want to do a bunch of conflicting things all at once? While simultaneously holding down a day job – one which I actually really like – and spending 2+ hours a day commuting? And making sure you are the best aunt possible to three amazing kids? And, y’know, not made of money?

It kind of makes my head spin just thinking about it. I think I need to go lie down and knit.

Where I Revisit the Patchwork Basket

2011-03-13T15:42:00.008-04:00

My quilt guild is a nonprofit organization, and this week was our annual auction fundraiser. Everyone contributes something handmade, and things are auctioned off to the other members with the proceeds going back to the guild. When I first heard about this, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach: these ladies are quite talented, and I was concerned that whatever I made might not be quite up to their standards. And it would be a tough crowd anyway, since pretty much anything I made, these women could make themselves. (Probably faster and better.)

Ultimately I figured, well, if you can’t compete on technique, kill them with cuteness. And so I did. A quilted fabric basket, with three pairs of booties and a little striped hat, in muted shades of sage green, tan and pale yellow, size newborn. (Basket pattern from here*.) And no, the cat was not part of the deal; she just likes to help.

It turned out to be a pretty good calculation on my part – many of the women in the guild are retired and have grandbabies, or are about to have grandbabies, so there was actually some bidding going on. HUGE relief.

**Just in case you were questioning my judgment here, the creator of the basket pattern gives explicit consent on her blog that her patterns can be used for charitable purposes – see here.

Knitting Book Recommendations

2011-03-06T00:04:00.004-05:00

I have to admit, I was a little surprised when Borders declared bankruptcy, given my penchant for buying books. In fact, my bookcase bears a strong resemblance to their knitting and quilting section; they keep sending those 40% off coupons, and I keep buying craft books. Today, in fact, I bought New England Knits, mainly because there is a pattern in it for a really neat hat that my LYS has as a sample that I covet (they were out of the book themselves, and yes, the irony of me posting an Amazon link in a post that begins with Borders declaring bankruptcy is not lost on me).

Generally for me to buy a knitting book there has to be at least three projects that I like and think I will actually knit in this lifetime. Despite this criteria, I've noticed that certain books get used much more than others; in fact, some have been life savers and some have been complete wastes of money. So, I thought that in the event anyone out there is trying to build up a knitting library, it might be helpful to know what I've found worth the purchase price. I'd say I'm an advanced beginner to intermediate knitter, and most of these books fall in that range, though a few might be worthwhile for the experts.

1. Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. While I was already a fairly practiced knitter when I first purchased this book, I think it's probably the best one out there for a beginner knitter. It's a great combination of love and enthusiasm for the craft mixed with very practical advice and technical knowledge. Many of my socks have been knit using the instructions in this book, and I frequently consult it when I get stuck when using other patterns.

2. Simple Knits for Cherished Babies by Erika Knight. I love knitting for babies - partly for the cuteness factor and partly because the projects get done before I get bored with them. This book has just lovely, simple patterns that are fairly straightforward to knit. She uses some high-end yarns in the book (eg, cashmere), but I've used bamboo, cotton, and merino wool with excellent results.

3. One Skein Wonders by Judith Durant. This is the first in the "One Skein" series. To be totally honest, I own some of the other books and have never knit anything from them; I flip through them from time to time but as of yet nothing has grabbed hold of me. But this first one has some pretty easy patterns that I've knit a number of times, including several scarves. However - fair warning: I have always found I needed one and a half to two skeins of yarn for the scarf patterns because I'm on the taller side (5'7") and I prefer longer scarves that I can wrap around my neck. This book also has a couple of patterns that can be used for American Girl dolls, should you have nieces or other little girls in your life who think their dolls need sparkly purple knitted things.

4. 60 Quick Knits (Cascade 220). I've knit a bunch of hats and mittens from this book, and not one of them with Cascade 220 yarn (for no other reason than I just never seem to find it on the shelves at the yarn stores I go to; one doesn't carry it and one sells out of it very quickly). There is a wide range of patterns for different skill ranges, and while it's mostly for adult women there are a few really cute patterns for kids too. I think anyone living in a state where it gets cold and snows a lot, and has a tendency (like someone else I know...) to lose their winter stuff on commuter trains, would find this book quite useful.

5. Favorite Socks (Interweave). There had to be ONE sock book on my list! I will say this is probably not a beginner book; in fact, I've only knit a couple of the patterns (but I've knit those patterns a number of times each). My brain learned how to knit socks top down on dpns, and simply cannot wrap itself around the idea of doing it any other way (like toe-up or with two circulars)- but if you are a flexible sock knitter you will love this book.

Those are definitely the books that get the most use around here. There are also a couple ofother books worth mentioning that I have and will never part with, despite the fact that I have not and may never actually knit anything from them. Mostly these contain either pretty advanced projects or a lot of sweaters, something that I haven't really tackled yet (or rather, I have yet to finish the one sweater I started 3 years ago...). I think you'd have to be a seriously swift and experienced knitter to tackle these, or at least have a goodly amount of time and patience on your hands...but the projects are quite fun to dream about knitting:

1. Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan. This book is so beautiful that it's kind of like a knitter's coffee table book; it's something I pull out every once and awhile to ooh and aah over. And, because despite being terrible at math I kind of like it conceptually, it is interesting to read about and ponder these designs that are recurring in nature that have geometric properties. Alas, most of the patterns are beyond my knitting skill right now, and I've read that the patterns in the book are riddled with errors and one should do some Googling before knitting anything from the book. But it really is stunning, and great for inspiration.

2. A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd. Also a beautiful book, with gorgeous patterns - many with Celtic-inspired motifs. There are a lot of sweaters in here, but a few socks and scarves as well. It features handspun yarns, and while I'm not a spinner I found the introductury text really interesting as it discusses handspinning and describes some of the different types of sheep and wool. Some commenters on Amazon were unhappy with the photos in the book, but I actually love them (perhaps it's because I haven't tried to knit anything from the book yet?).

What knitting books have you found helpful? What criteria do you use in choosing to buy them? Or do you stick with project patterns from Ravelry or your LYS?

A New Obsession

2011-03-03T21:16:00.002-05:00

Oh, dear me.

I've spent the past two weeks knitting (mostly while catching up on The Daily Show. God I love Jon Stewart). Mostly I was knitting baby booties, because my cousins keep reproducing and I’m the sort of person who finds it unthinkable for babies to not have something handmade, even if they are destined to puke all over it. However, as I was knitting I was also scheming about a free-form log-cabin type of blanket. You see, I recently learned about the blog Cauchy (in fact, I was up Very Late one night recently watching her Flickr stream on slideshow, my jealous rage increasing by the nanosecond). I love, love, love this woman’s work, so much so that my Inner Critic kicks in and starts whining something fierce. *I* want to make stuff like that, dammit!!! Honestly, it was all I could do not to raid my savings account and go blow it on yarn and fabric, but I refrained. (Instead, I stomped off to the grocery store where I was confronted with EASTER CANDY of the CADBURY KIND, despite the fact that Easter is two whole months away. *sigh*)

The other contributing factor to my blanket scheme was that I finally got my hands on the first Mason-Dixon knitting book (now in paperback!), which has some basic instructions about how to get going on a log cabin type blanket. It ain’t, as they say, rocket science, but the book provided excellent inspiration.

I finally got to the point where I couldn’t face one more bootie so I fished out some yarn and started a log cabin square and honestly, it’s the sort of knitting that is about as addicting as that Cadbury stuff. I don’t even *like* garter stitch, but this is satisfying knitting. For one thing, it’s quick. And the resulting fabric feels like a good wool blanket should feel – it has a little weight to it, but not so heavy as to be stifling. And there’s no measuring; you basically knit with one color until you are sick of it or you run out of yarn. It doesn’t have to be precise (though it could be, if that’s how you roll). It’s perfect tv/dvd/conversation knitting, because you don’t really have to pay much attention. And I’m telling you, it’s also weirdly meditative: this sort of knitting seems to soothe some particular part of my brain (though not, alas, the part that craves Cadbury).

But here's the problem:

I have a yarn stash. It’s basically one large basket that sits next to my couch, which not only holds yarn but a number of unfinished projects in various stages of completion. It’s big enough so that any non-knitters (ie, my mother) see it and say incredulously, “Whoa, you have a lot of yarn in there!” – but it’s small enough so that most knitters look at it and say, equally incredulously, “Wait, that’s all the yarn you have???” Regardless of the viewpoint, the bulk of the stash is sock yarn or some hand-dyed treasure that will eventually be turned into…well, I don’t know. Something. It’s not that I couldn’t make a blanket with that sort of yarn, it’s just not what that yarn wants to be. And also? For whatever reason, my yarn stash is a lot like my fabric stash: almost completely devoid of any solid colors, which I need if I want to channel something like this.

What I'm saying is, the idea of using up yarn I already have isn’t going to work for this project. So I was FORCED, I tell you, FORCED to amble on over to Windsor Button (my LYS while I'm at work), where after much pacing of the floor and squishing of the yarn I settled on a small skein of Rowan Purelife wool in a lovely (undyed) shade of brown. It was only $7.50, so if it works great; if not, well, it’s not the end of the world. It won’t be enough to finish the blanket, not by a long stretch, but it will keep me going a bit. But now after seeing all that yarn, there are so many possibilities in my head…particularly a vision of a blanket full of blue and white blocks. And a pink and purple one for my niece. And then a riot of color one like I initially had in mind.

And just like that, I’m officially obsessed.

*photos to follow if and when I ever locate my camera cord*

Lessons in Living

2011-02-26T02:33:00.001-05:00

Here We Go Again

2011-02-24T20:12:00.007-05:00

I came home tonight and went straight to the checkbook and wrote one out to the Maine Women's Lobby, because the Governor has once again demonstrated his vast contempt for the women of Maine. It made me feel a little better, but not much.

First, let me say thank you to my dad and my grandfather and all the other veterans out there for their military service. It's because of them that we have the freedom to rant and rave and call elected officials mysoginistic morons and other choice words that I will not use in public. (Thank God the cat isn't a parrot.) It's probably not what they had in mind while they were traipsing through the jungles of Vietnam or riding a tank through WW-II Europe, but still. I appreciate it. Freedom of speech is an amazing thing, and I don't take it for granted.

So yeah, the Governor. First, he decided he doesn't buy the scientific evidence that the chemical BPH is harmful and was widely quoted in the news as saying, "worst case is some women have little beards". Oh yes, he did. Makin' us all SO very proud, y'know. I'm so thrilled to know that yet another man in a powerful position has utterly no regard for the health and safety of the women he represents. Or, y'know, his own daughter. (That's heavy sarcasm, in case it isn't clear.)

His next task? He FIRED Dr. Dora Mills, who is an extremely well-regarded public health official who served under two previous governors - one an Independent and one a Democrat. Personally I don't care what his spokesperson says, it's impossible to believe it wasn't a result of her past support of banning BPH. I also can't help but look at her resume and think, well, someone was seriously outclassed -- and it wasn't Dr. Mills.

Oh, but the fun continues. In case you haven't noticed, I have two hot buttons -- women's issues and small businesses. I am a fervent believer in supporting small, independent businesses, not the least of which is because they create about 75% of new jobs in this country (a good list of other reasons can be found here and there's plenty of additional research over here). But I also suppport small businesses because I grew up in rural Western Maine at a time before the big box stores took over. We bought shoes at Swett's and clothes at the Block Store and Margo's and sometimes I'd tag along with Dad went he went to Longley's to buy nails or to Pike's to buy work pants. Longley's is still there, but almost every other store is gone now. Why? Honestly, it was a multitude of causes (including the closure of a dowel mill) but one huge factor was that WalMart came to town -- well, the next town over -- and slowly but surely the area's small downtown businesses were decimated and went out of business. [Incidentally, it's been a 10-year effort to rebuild the downtown and there have been some successes along the way, but it's been a tough haul with many really great people losing a lot of sleep, blood, sweat and tears. Visit here to see the fruits of their labor.]

I admit there's some element of nostalgia there for me, but it's also the simple fact that all over the state of Maine, big box stores have put small, often family owned businesses OUT of business. Even up in The County (Aroostook, Northern Maine for you non-Mainers), Canadians still flock across the border to shop -- but at the WalMart in Presque Isle, not the downtowns they drive through to get there. These small business owners are REAL, honest-to-God Maine people we're talking about - good, hardworking business men and women who pay taxes and coach little league and vote and put on church suppers for the families worse off than them. And we put them out of business so we can buy really cheap toothbrushes at big box stores and call it economic development.

The other thing? Have you been to Rockland lately? Rockland's a beautiful town on the coast of Maine, with one of the loveliest downtown districts in the state and a pristine harbor. If you are out in the harbor on a lovely summer day on a sailboat, do you know what you will see? A huge bright orange Home Depot sign, because they built a Home Depot up on the side of a hill that overlooks the harbor. Yep, that's just the way life should be.

So a few years ago a coalition of organizations got together and helped pass the Informed Growth Act, which among other things states that towns must take the economic impact of big box stores into consideration before permitting the project. Well, guess what. The Governor wants to repeal that too, because it's "biased against big box stores".

Well, yeah, that was sort of the point. And why, exactly, is that a bad thing? Why are we worried about protecting out-of-state, multi-billion dollar international companies instead of protecting local businesses???

I know, I know. Marden's, the company the Governor used to work for, is a Maine-owned big box store. That is true. And that did give me pause for a moment, particularly since the Marden's Lady from their ads is from the area I grew up in. (I'm more of a Reny's gal myself, in large part because there are several Reny's stores that anchor downtown districts and do just fine.) There's no doubt in my mind LePage's wish to repeal this law is directly related to his past employer (no special interests, my ass). Regardless, I still believe it's important for towns to assess the impact of any big box store coming to town - whether it's owned by a Maine company or not. In addition to economic impact, the Informed Growth Act allows towns to consider things like traffic implications, air and water quality, and those are important issues for small towns. And, truthfully, if it helps protect Maine's small business owners against the Wal-Marts of the world, I'm ultimately okay with making life a little bit difficult for Marden's. I can live with that trade-off.

I am well aware that it's all too easy for me to sit here in another state and spout off about this stuff from the safety of my little apartment in a renovated textile mill, with a bustling and quaint downtown just a ten minute walk away, and a job I happily potter off to (though I loathe and despise the commute into Boston every day). It's so weird to me that I had to leave Maine to find what I wanted - it was kind of like breaking up with a really great guy that you really love but just isn't working out...and every once and awhile you hear a song or see someone on the street that reminds you of him and you get a little sad, even though you know you did what you had to do. (Or, y'know, you pitch a raging hissy fit because you find out on Facebook that he got married and didn't tell you, not long after giving you a key to his house.) It's a weird analogy, I know, but it's the best one I have. The point is, I'm sad that I'm not in Maine now, that I'm not fighting this from within, because I love it and it's incredibly important to me...but I also know I'm here for awhile, and these rants on my blog are about all I can offer up in solidarity.

Also? It might be time to make some whoopie pies.

Popcorn, Piggy Parts, and Penicillin

2011-02-23T21:49:00.011-05:00

I don't know why, but I've been thinking about food lately, and the memories certain foods evoke for me. We have some odd food habits in our family tree, some that were one-time deals and others that have stayed with me well into my adulthood. In many cases, I have utterly no idea why. Here's a random smattering:

1.One of my earliest memories is standing in my great-grandmother's pantry, on a little step stool, watching her make me popcorn. She was my dad's Nana, but my mother also had a Nana, so I christened Dad's Nana "The Popcorn Nana" to keep things straight in my 3-year old head. (Further complicating things is that they were both Nana Allen's, because in some weird twist of fate there are Allen's on both sides of my family tree; though why nobody thought to have me call them Nana Ruth and Nana Hazel is beyond me.) Later on in life, someone (probably my father) introduced me to the notion of eating popcorn like cereal. You take a glass of milk, throw in a handful of popcorn, and eat it with a spoon. Then repeat. This, more than any other Weird Food Thing, has consistently grossed out my friends and roommates and boyfriends over the years. Given that popcorn is, well, CORN, and given that most breakfast cereal is made of CORN, I don't know why this freaks people out. But it totally does.

2. More weirdness (although much less weird than popcorn cereal): taking crackers (usually saltines, but tonight it was Wasa sourdough), putting American cheese on top, sprinkling it with paprika, then either microwaving or toaster-ovening them until the cheese melts. It's the paprika that makes this odd to me, mostly because I have never, EVER used paprika in anything else. My family is mostly of Scotch-Irish descent, why this Hungarian spice? on American cheese??? But indeed, I own an entire bottle of paprika just to make these.

3. Then there's maple syrup on chocolate ice cream. Most objections to this one are just simply that people find it too sweet. Actually, our family has found that there's not much that maple syrup can't improve. Nana Hazel used to make corn fritters, which are kind of like a plain donut with corn mixed up in it, and they were spectacular with maple syrup. (Up until that time she had us all over for dinner and and there were ants swimming in the gravy boat of maple syrup...but that's another story).

4. My dad cooks hot dogs in a frying pan with butter. The only time I will eat hot dogs is when I am back in Maine with Dad and he cooks them this way, usually when it's just us and my mother isn't around to calculate the calories involved. Dad prefers the red hot dogs, the ones I think you can only buy in Maine these days, the ones in a bright red casing that snap when you bite into them. I like the all-beef Hebrew Nationals, because I don't like to think about random piggy parts, but sometimes they are hard to get in rural Maine so I just eat the regular brown ones. I smother them in relish and listen really hard to whatever Dad is talking about so my mind doesn't wander to thoughts about those random piggy parts.

5. Dad also makes really great hot cocoa from scratch - the kind with milk and unsweetened cocoa (brown Hershey box) and sugar, made in a saucepan on the stove. One year, I think 8th grade, I got a terrible case of strep throat that would not go away. I was a total wuss and incapable of swallowing pills, and for whatever reason there was no liquid penicillin to be had (rural Maine, not many pharmacies, who knows), so every morning before he went to work Dad would make me hot cocoa and dissolve my penicillin in it. It was disgusting, no doubt about it; I can still remember how awful it tasted, like moldy chocolate-flavored pond scum. And I'm sure it diluted the effectiveness of the medicine - but I eventually got over it, so it must have retained some of its mojo. Still, I can clearly remember sitting at the table, wearing a flannel nightie and wrapped up in an old quilt, miserable as miserable gets, watching Dad make me my cocoa-penicillin concoction. And though it's not something I would recommend trying, it's actually kind of a sweet memory for me, not the least of which because I could tell Dad was pretty worried about how sick I was.

And, truthfully? I have yet to find another man who wouldn't have just said "Swallow the damned pill already".

Kitty Love

2011-02-15T20:00:00.003-05:00

If you've been reading this blog for a bit, you know that this summer I adopted an 8-year old cat from my local humane society. I went in anticipating I would adopt a particular 3-year old cat, but Ms. Calypso made sure I didn't leave without her. I had some reservations about adopting an older cat, though...and I will admit the vet bills have not been pretty these past few months as there were a few health issues that we had to sort out. But I'm SO glad she came home with me, so much so that it's a darned good thing that I have a one cat per person rule around here, because otherwise I might have gone back for another kitty or two. (Plus, I have a small apartment and also, most importantly, Calypso has let it be known she hates other cats).

It's still difficult for me to understand how her previous owners could have given her away after 8 years. As much as I hate the idea of Cal being in the shelter, I'm glad the shelter was there and able to take her in, and they took very good care of her. She definitely hated it there, though; she was only 7 pounds when I adopted her because she barely ate during her month-long stay at the shelter. When I agreed to bring her home it was clear the entire staff at the shelter was relieved; partly because Callie is such a sweet cat, and partly because they knew how difficult it can be to adopt out older cats (in fact, the shelter's price for adopting older cats is significantly reduced, in order to encourage their adoption).

Even though I'm perfectly happy with Cal and our one-to-one cat to person ratio, I find myself occasionally back on the shelter's website to look at the available cats for adoption. And it is so, so, SO sad to see how many cats are there because their owners lost their jobs and their homes...just awful. Many of these cats are older, which makes it even more sad to think about - losing their homes and their families in one fell swoop. I know they are cats, but change is traumatic for them, especially when (even in the best of shelters) they spend good chunks of time in cages. My apartment is small, but at least Cal has plenty of soft and warm places to sleep, windows to watch the birds from, and open access to food, water and a clean litter box.

So if you are considering adding a feline to your family, PLEASE consider adopting from your local shelter, and PLEASE consider bringing home an older cat. For one thing, they are already litter trained. While there can be an adjustment period, most will transition with few if any accidents. For another thing, the shelter most likely has an idea of what sort of personality they have - whether or not they are child friendly, or whether they can cope with other pets. With kittens, it's trial and error guesswork as to how they will adjust. And, particularly with indoor cats, the lifespan of a healthy cat can be upwards of 16+ years, so they will still be part of your family for a number of years to come. And, if Callie is any indication, they will be all-too-grateful to be welcomed into your home.

It is true that Callie came with a tapeworm and a heart murmur; in the first 6 months I've spent at least $500 on vet bills, medicine, food, and kitty litter. Oh, and let's not forget the toys and the cat perch...yikes! Happily, the tapeworm went away and the heart murmur has been deemed benign. But kittens can have exactly the same issues, so there's no guarantee of perfect health with them either.

And if for some reason your personal situation doesn't allow you to adopt a cat - allergies, what have you - please consider making a donation (even a small one) to your local no-kill shelter. Many have been inundated as a result of the mortgage crisis, as people have had to give up their homes and their animals. Many shelters are also in need of bedding, food, and litter donations as well. The kitties (and the shelter volunteers!) will thank you very much.

Artists & Revolutions

2011-02-12T12:07:00.004-05:00

As a prelude to this, I should explain that several years ago I was involved with the state of Maine’s creative economy initiative, which was an effort to acknowledge and encourage the link between Maine’s stellar arts community and its economic development goals. I spent a lot of time thinking about and trying to find resources to support the initiative, in part so that we (like many other states) could support our downtown revitalization strategies with artists and art-related endeavors. As a “wanna-be” writer and fiber artist, who is also enamored with photography and mixed-media work, I liked the idea of helping working artists succeed. And I truly believed their work was helping support the state’s economy (still do).

As a result of that work, and because I have artist friends, and because I’m now a full-time grant writer, I’ve watched with dismay over the past few years as the recession has decimated funding for arts projects across the country. Further complicating matters is that very few grants are available that provide funds directly to artists - and they are so competitive that there's virtually no return on investment for the time the artist puts in to preparing proposals. Most grant funds are given to nonprofit arts organizations, who apply for them and set the budgets and pay the artists. Strangely (to me, anyway), the artists are often the last to get paid, and their fees are often small “stipends” that are so inadequate that I feel like there should be an artist tip jar at every performance. Meanwhile, the nonprofit managers collect salaries and health insurance and paid sick/vacation days.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying arts managers are unimportant; I’m actually not even saying they are (necessarily) overpaid. In my own brief stint in an arts-related organization, I saw what a thankless job arts management can be, and contrary to what the media would like you to believe, most administrators are not inappropriately compensated (particularly if you calculate an hourly rate, since most easily work 60-80 hours/week). What I AM in a knot about is that somehow the costs for managing and producing the art are valued so much more than the actual creation of the art itself. Take a new musical theater production, for example. 200 hours of nonprofit management staff time might go directly to a new project…but the artists spent the better part of two YEARS creating the work, writing the script and music. On top of this, the artists have to market the work, chase down potential investors, and otherwise try to make a living. While there are exceptions, of course, the average artist doesn’t stand a chance at recouping her costs. (I actually drafted a make-believe grant budget to illustrate this, which I can post if anyone is really that interested.)

But this doesn’t just apply to theater. Kevin Smith, the film director/screen writer/potty mouth extraordinaire, figured out that the marketing and distribution costs for his movies were as much if not more than the production costs, and he recently ticked a bunch of people off by essentially self-releasing his latest flick. Many book authors find themselves self-financing their own book tours, and their residuals get eaten up by management and production costs, such that out of every $15 book we buy, something like $1 actually winds up in the author’s pocket. It’s why so many writers don’t (can’t) quit their day jobs. And this article about Ray LaMontagne suggests he too came to realize how much the traditional music business machine was putting the screws to him, both artistically and financially.

Recently an alternative strategy has developed to help the public directly fund artists who have projects in development. Several websites have cropped up that allow artists to post their projects online and solicit funding from friends and family members, including Kickstarter, United States Artists and Pledge Music. It’s kind of like Etsy, except they’re selling ideas instead of necklaces, and your "purchase" (contribution) helps those ideas come to fruition. Like Etsy, these sites do take a small transaction fee, but it appears that the majority of your contribution does land with the artist.

These sites intrigue me. On the one hand, it’s a fairly simple way for artists to circumvent the traditional, institutional-based grant path and gain a bit more control of the project development process. And, y’know, potentially get paid for the work they do. On the other hand, realistically how many times can an artist tap his friends and extended family? Even more challenging is the issue of getting the public to these sites. Nonprofit arts organizations function kind of like our representative democracy does – the public “elects” nonprofits (by donating money) because we want to support certain causes, and we let them sort out the details that we don’t have the time or inclination or knowledge to deal with ourselves. I mean, if I don’t know the artist personally, how am I even going to know projects exist? Plus, unless I am *really* passionate about something, I’m not going to take the time to sort through pages and pages of project profiles, and I think that’s true for most people. (And, in case you are curious, there were two quilt projects listed on Kickstarter, neither of which was successful in its fundraising efforts. Knitting projects have fared slightly better.)

Lo and behold, and because the universe likes to keep reminding me the world is a really small place: as I was drafting this post, someone on Facebook sent out a message about a friend of hers who is using Kickstarter to fundraise for a musical theater project (go on, pledge a few bucks, I'll be here when you are done - the artist is legit and a nice person to boot).

Frankly, although I use social media on a daily basis, I never really saw how it could have a whole lot of positive impact; mostly I just like to complain about my commute and share pictures of my cat. But (late to the party, I suppose), now I'm thinking that social media has the potential to instigate more revolutions than the one we saw in Egypt this week; that it could turn all sorts of taken-for-granted institutions on their heads, including the traditional models of philanthropy. Just to further underscore my point, I read this morning about Andy Carvin, a strategist at NPR who gained worldwide attention through his tweets about the Egypt uprising. He was using his personal Twitter feed, rather than an official NPR one, but NPR was smart enough to not shut him down - and in return, Carvin suggested his followers donate to NPR. While it's hard to say how much this will actually generate for NPR and its affiliate stations, this article here suggests it could be substantial. Great lessons there, not just for the nonprofit sector but for all of those institutions who seek above all to "control the message".

Sockpocalypse 2011

2011-02-06T10:40:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I stopped by one of my local fabric stores, which also sells yarn, because I needed some thread and a couple of fat quarters for my quilt guild meeting this week. I reminded myself that I was on a budget and needed nothing else, particularly any more yarn since I have barely put a dent in the yarn I bought last summer, and especially since I'd bought some Noro just two weeks earlier to make myself some mittens. (Which, by the way, are currently sitting in my sink in some ridiculously hot water in an attempt to shrink them. Apparently I cannot be trusted to measure my own hand.)

This particular store has two entrances; I usually use the front because I generally walk there, since it is not far from my apartment. Yesterday I was running errands and this was my last stop, so I had my car, and I had to park at the back of the lot, which was totally iced over and necessitated using the back entrance. This meant that I had to walk past the yarn section. I tried not to look, but you know how these things go, right? I had to pet a few skeins of Noro, cursing their twiggy-ness while coveting the colors. And I had to gaze lovingly at all the fabulous Auracania they had in stock, right? I mean, it's only natural.

I was fine until I saw the sock yarn display. Because this has been the winter of Snowpocalypse, I've been wearing my handknit wool socks almost every day. My sister even broke out the pair I made her a few years ago, and my nephew and oldest niece keep stealing them from her when they go play in the snow, because the socks are warm and cozy. (And just like that, I'm no longer crazy for dropping $20-$25 on a skein of yarn.)

The store had some new sock yarn stock in, and I quickly became enamored with a skein of hand dyed sock yarn from Pagewood Farms, a company I'd never heard of (according to their blog, they were recently on the Martha Stewart Show). It was lovely; really, really lovely; there were several shades I liked but the Prism colorway struck my fancy best. And, well. You know what happened next.

As I was knitting along last night, watching NCIS reruns during a winter THUNDERSTORM with lightening so bright I thought a police car with flashing blue lights was outside my window, I suddenly remembered I had another sock project floating around. I unearthed it from the heap that is my yarn basket, only to discover that one sock was completely finished except for the kitchener stitching of the toe.

This yarn is from Silver Moon farm, which I bought last May at the Massachusetts sheep and wool festival (I wrote about it here.) I loved the yarn on the skein, but I never would have expected to wind up with camouflage socks from it:

Also in my basket? A half-knit sock using Noro sock yarn, and a half-knit sock using (*gulp*) my precious skein of Madelinetosh. I stopped looking after that. I don't think I want to know what else might be down in there.

(*Both socks are knit using the pattern/instructions found in Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I find that with hand painted yarn, a plain old sock shows of the colors best.)

Cat Lady Chronicles

2011-02-06T10:26:00.004-05:00

I keep my fabric in a cubby-hole sort of thing, and I have some cloth "drawers" that I picked up at Target in a couple of the cubbies. One of the bottom drawers was empty, and the cat somehow figured out how to pull the drawer out just enough so she can hop in and sleep. This picture is a bit blurry, but I love it because I caught her mid-yawn before she settled in for a nap, and it looks like she's laughing:

My Winter Song To You

2011-02-04T23:25:00.003-05:00

I’ve written before about my inexplicable hatred of fall…but I’m not sure I’ve ever written about my inexplicable love of winter. Yes, I’m a knitter so I love to wear my hand knits, and yes I’m a quilter so I love curling up under my quilts. And I definitely love, love, love that it is now February and it's after 5 pm before it gets truly dark out. But there’s more to it than this. I'm not sure I can really articulate it, but I'm going to try.

One of my favorite books is “Winter’s Tale” by Mark Helprin (despite the author’s political leanings…). Coincidentally, I just read today that the book is being adapted for a film, which ought to be interesting; it’s a strange and complicated story and I cannot imagine how they will manage certain scenes. At any rate, in the book is a character named Beverly who is dying of consumption and has such a raging fever that she spends most of her time up on the roof in the dead of winter. I don’t know why, but I could see myself doing such a thing, had I the time and money (or access to my roof). Yes it’s cold and I hate being stuck inside during storms and I hate trudging around in boots and I loathe what this particular winter has done to my commuting (see my Twitter feed for the painful details). But there’s something invigorating about all that fresh air, the way it opens your eyes and clears out your lungs and flushes your cheeks. I love it. It kills me that I am so completely uncoordinated, because I think I would have otherwise really enjoyed skiing and the other winter sports. I’ve put my order in already; if there is such a thing as reincarnation, next time I want better hand-eye coordination along with stronger knees and ankles.

But mostly I love winter because there are mornings like the one I had today, when the sky is blazing blue and the trees are covered in ice, branches glistening in their little cocoons of frozen water, and the snow sparkling diamonds through the forest. It’s about as magical as things can get, at least around here. And when you are stuck on a painfully slow and clunky commuter rail train for the umpteenth day in a row, eating your Luna Bar for breakfast, it’s easy for even an almost 40-year old woman to imagine herself a more pleasant version of Narnia’s White Queen. Even when dressed completely in black.

Anyway. I’m loving winter at the moment, the oodles of snow and pain-in-the-arse commute notwithstanding. And in a deliberate attempt to be more positive, because something else in my life decided to fall apart this past week, here are a few more things I’m loving:

1. Ingrid Michaelson’s new album, Everybody. Also, the Ingrid Michaelson/Sara Bareilles song "Winter Song", which makes me happy every time I hear it.
2. Skinny caramel macchiato’s from Starbucks. My sister says that even when they are made with skim milk they are still loaded with sugar and caffeine, but they have become my Friday afternoon treat.
3. Apples. My appetite finally showed up again, which I had some mixed feelings about, and it kicked into gear with apples. Growing up my mother rarely allowed junk food, and if I had a dollar for every time I whined about being hungry in between meals and she told me “Have an apple!”, I would never want for cashmere yarn again. Alas, she was right; it's a perfect and portable snack. My favorites are honey crisps at the moment, but braeburns work just fine in a pinch.
4. My work. I’m currently working on 2 grant proposals that I’m really excited about. Neither is for a ton of money, but they are both unique and are forcing me to really think creatively and strategically about how to write them. It’s the sort of mental challenge I enjoy.
5. I finally applied for my passport! I kept putting it off because of the state of my hair, which is just about the most ridiculous thing I could ever say but it's the complete and utter truth of the matter. The downside is, no drastic haircut until after I get back from Ireland, lest they not let me out of the country.
6. My old journals. I had to haul them out this past weekend, as I was on a fact-finding mission to prove a certain someone wrong about something. *ahem* Now that the dust has settled it's fascinating to read what was going on inside my head back in 2006/2007, leading up to my move to NYC. You know how every once and awhile you think to yourself, "What was I thinking?" Well, thanks to these journals I can actually answer that question. And I wasn't half as crazy as I had begun to think, which is frankly quite comforting to know.

I know there's no knitting in this post, nor any sewing. I finally downloaded the last batch of photos I took of my various projects, and not one of them was usable. I must begin again. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas as to how to hand felt a pair of Noro mittens that came out a little on the big side, please drop me a line!

Return to Reality

2011-01-27T17:29:00.003-05:00

2011 started out really, really great - I was happy and full of positive energy and all sorts of plans for sewing and knitting and writing and work and life in general. And then - well. Life got back to normal.

1) You may have heard, but it's snowed a lot this month. Today was my third work-from-home snow day in as many weeks. And this week's super cold weather has meant that the commuter trains have been a disaster; on Monday it was 11 am before I got to work, and it wasn't much better yesterday. I enjoy working from home occasionally during slow times, but this is not a slow time. And as an introvert, I need the occasional visit from a coworker or a run to Starbucks every once and awhile to get me out of my own head. It's also difficult to write with the cat around -- at this very moment, she is standing on my stomach as I type, purring away and nuzzling my neck. Cute, but after the seventy-eleventh time I've plopped her on the floor it gets a little old.

2) One morning I got up and my car made horrible noises when I tried to move it. $550 down the drain to fix it. Now, honestly - in the grand scheme of things it's not a ton of money, but my car is a 2002 Saturn so I basically tripled the value of the thing. And it happened just a few days before...

3) I had to drop $300 on another vet visit for the cat. It turned out to be money well spent, because we learned that her heart murmur is benign and I can stop worrying about it. And I loved the cardiologist's report the vet sent me, labeled Calypso Allen, as if she were my child. But it was another painful check to write.

4) I have totally and completely lost my appetite. In the normal course of things, this should elate me. But I have had the same Cadbury chocolate bars in my cupboard for three weeks now, and this just isn't normal for me. To amuse myself, I've been all over the internet looking at health websites and, hypochondriac that I am, have self-diagnosed myself with all sorts of terrible diseases. Fun times. What did people do before the internet? (I suspect it's stress related, but if it continues I'll have to march myself off to the doctor.)

5) The elderly woman who lived downstairs from me moved out. Noisy people moved in. Enough said.

6) The governor (see previous post) continues to annoy the bejeezus out of me. One day he's rolling back Maine's environmental laws, the next he's nominating someone who admits to having no community development experience to lead the state's Department of Economic and Community Development, and now according to this thinks he can use state workers as election fodder. (Dude, there are LAWS about that, y'know.) I have to tell you, I own exactly one thing from Marden's (a desk) and I'm seriously contemplating having a big ol' bonfire with it.

Despite all this, there has been a fair amount of knitting - in part necessitated by the fact that I lost my handknit mittens. I went to 3 different stores to buy some gloves, but there were none to be had. Plenty of bathing suits, but no gloves. I really don't understand retail. More on that soon.

Tangent: Where She Rants About The Governor

2011-01-14T18:33:00.005-05:00

I was born and raised in Maine, though I left for college and, with the exception of the years 2003-2007, have lived outside the state ever since. However, despite my "Mainer-in-Exile" status, I have found that while you can take the woman out of Maine, you can't take the Maine out of the woman. I still read the Maine newspapers every day (online), and pay much more attention to what is going on up there than I do in my own locale. I still dream of Vaughn Woods in Hallowell, and still jabber with anyone who will listen about the state's downtowns. If one's home is where one's heart is, then Maine will always be my home. Or my home-away-from-home, if I must be realistic.

During those 4 years I was back in Maine, I spent some time as a board member of RealizeMaine, an initiative designed to retain and recruit people under age 40 to the state. (Just to be clear, I am no longer on the board, and the comments to follow represent my own personal viewpoint.) Maine is not only the whitest state in the nation, but it also has an aging population, and for a number of reasons young adults tend to leave (the lack of jobs being pretty high up on the list). This is not good for the state's economy for a whole host of reasons. Research demonstrated that one of the most critical factors in attracting young workers, particularly young professional workers, to the state was diversity; ie, we were more likely to attract them if we increased the state's diversity. And we're talking about diversity on a broad scale: race, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, etc. The state's lack of diversity makes many people LEAVE, and many who wish to start new businesses look elsewhere because they know their business will best thrive in a truly diverse community, something most places in Maine cannot offer them.

So you can imagine my dismay this week when I learned that (at least as of Monday) the new Governor of Maine had not appointed one single woman to his cabinet (see the Maine Women's Policy Center's press release here.) And today, he told the NAACP to "kiss his butt", calling them a "special interest".

I'll put aside the ridiculous notion of human and civil rights being "special interests", because frankly it's so absurd I can't even wrap my head around it (not to mention the fact that the Governor's adopted (black) child is equal in front of the law as a result of Martin Luther King and the NAACP's work). And I'll put aside the fact that a governor telling any group to "kiss his butt" is simply unprofessional and unbecoming of such an elected official, because it is. I'll also put aside the ridiculous notion that in a state that produced Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins that he can't find any smart and qualified Republican women to hire (maybe women are just too smart to work for him?).

But that a Republican so focused on making Maine a "business friendly" place could not see how his actions and comments will affect the business climate in Maine is horrifying to me. Because, statistically speaking, if you are going to increase small business creation, you'd best be talking to the women and the minorities:

10.1 million firms are owned by women (50% or more), employing more than 13 million people, and generating $1.9 trillion in sales as of 2008.
Three quarters of all women-owned businesses are majority owned by women (51% or more), for a total of 7.2 million firms, employing 7.3 million people, and generating $1.1 trillion in sales.
Women-owned firms (50% or more) account for 40% of all privately held firms.
1.9 million firms are majority-owned (51% or more) by women of color in the U.S.
These firms employ 1.2 million people and generate $165 billion in revenues annually.

(taken from the Center for Women's Business Research)

Small businesses are the back-bone of the United States (and Maine's) economy, and generate over 60% of all new jobs in the United States (see the SBA website here). Women and minorities, those "special interests", represent the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurs. And yet the Governor of Maine is both literally and figuratively telling them to kiss off, while simutaneously telling everyone he's going to make the state a great place to do business. Realistically he can cut all the red tape he wants, but generally speaking people don't go where they aren't welcome. If you want to improve your state's economy, why on earth would you insult the people most likely to start new busineses and create new jobs in your state? At best his words and actions are irrational, and at worst they are patently offensive and childish and wrong. Mostly, though, it's just backwards, and I think we'd all agree that backwards is the one direction in which Maine can least afford to move.

A Few of My (Current) Favorite Things

2011-01-06T19:27:00.002-05:00

1. Ingrid Michaelson's album Boys and Girls.
2. Brene Brown and her books.
3. Goat cheese.
4. Castle. (No one but Nathan Fillion could make this show work.)
5. It's no longer completely pitch dark at 4:30 in the afternoon! (ok, so it's pitch dark at 4:35...still, we're moving in the right direction!)
6. Counting the days until we leave for Ireland.
7. Scrambled eggs and toast with strawberry jam and butter. For dinner.
8. Not having to do Christmas shopping during lunch break, hurrah!
9. Finding quarters that my niece needs to complete her state quarter collection, which she is really excited about (today I found both American Samoa and Yellowstone in my purse).
10. Spirituality and Health magazine. I don't know why, but reading it always makes me happy.

What's making YOU happy these days?

Tangents and Distractions, Part II

2010-12-30T10:50:00.007-05:00

During the blizzard, I actually did get a few things accomplished. First, I finished quilting and binding a small experiment. I used two Anna Maria Horner fabrics (the cream and the brown) with a solid pink for an Irish-chain style baby quilt. The brown fabric gets lost here, though, and those yellow circles simultaneously remind me of jelly fish and alien spaceships. This is a classic case of great fabric, wrong pattern. Or, rather, the scale of the brown print needed bigger blocks to really shine. My niece Grace loves it, though, so it might just be me. It's pretty small, since I didn't put a border on it, but would be a good stroller blanket or a preemie quilt.

I also finished piecing another small baby quilt, similar to this one. Although I'm usually not a fan of this particular shade of green, the happy spring colors were lovely to work with whilst a blizzard raged outside. And it's all simple 5" block piecing and strips for the borders. Easy-peasy.

And then finally, I hauled out a project from at least two years ago. (Yet another) Irish chain project, using a couple of funky Indian batiks. It's an intercultural quilt, tee hee! It's not a great photo, but the yellow is a bit mottled, and the turquoise blue is not a solid, it actually has little gold/orange flowers scattered on it. I started this one for me, and I apparently meant to make a very large quilt as I keep sewing and sewing and the fabric pile does not get discernibly smaller.

I am not 100% sold on the yellow, truth be told. But the blocks are half sewn, so I guess I'm committed to seeing it through. The other thing is, when I pulled this out of my unfinished pile, I realized how much it reminds me of my niece Julia, whose favorite color is blue and who recently painted her room a bright sunshiny yellow (just like her). And I'm thinking this may wind up on her bed, not mine. We'll see, though; she made some comments at Christmas that made me think she was just about ready to help sew her own quilt :-)

And, y'know, *phew*. I was feeling like I hadn't accomplished a thing this week, and after writing these past two posts I feel a little redeemed!

Tangents and Distractions

2010-12-30T10:05:00.007-05:00

This is an off week for me, as my employer closes the week between Christmas and New Years. I had all sorts of giddy plans for this week, which in retrospect were just ridiculous: clean the apartment, donate all extraneous clothing, books, etc., get up at 7 am, eat healthy food and not the Christmas sugar leftovers, exercise, meditate, write out my 2011 plan, visit with a friend or two, finish an essay, write every day, a guitar to practice. A nice, quiet, restful but productive week.

Well, none of that got done. There was a blizzard, for one thing, which required hours of staring out into the snow and bad TV and internet surfing. And then it later required serious digging to find my car; well, the back half, to be precise, since the snow drifted so much. This was a tad problematic, as my shovel was in the trunk of my car. Yesterday, I had to take the cat to the vet, and now know way more about feline anal glands than I ever wanted to. I was happy to know hers were just a bit clogged up and there was nothing serious, but phew. The smell was just indescribable, and certainly not fit for public consumption. And for the past few days, construction crews have been in the downstairs apartment tearing out the floor and playing loud Latin rap music, which has sent me into PTSD mode from flashbacks to my NYC apartment, where I endured months of the walls vibrating from the exact same music. (So much for quiet meditation and writing.)

But mostly nothing got done because I got a little....er....fixated on a sewing project. I mentioned that I recently joined my local quilt guild, and I'm participating in a friendship block exchange. The way they do it is, you write your name and what you want (a color, a block style, a theme), and then you pick someone else's name. Each month for three months you make and give them two blocks; the last month all is revealed, and you give them the pattern instructions and any leftover fabric so they can make 2 more blocks, and then sew up the quilt top in any manner they see fit (a lap quilt, a table runner, a wall hanging). There's no rule about block size or anything, and is pretty much up to one's interpretation of the indicated theme. (I was boring. I indicated "scrappy log cabin", because I've always wanted one and figured even the most beginner quilter can sew one, and a more advanced quilter would find some way to spice it up.)

The person I picked indicated she preferred "Asian". I assumed she meant the Asian-inspired quilt fabric that I see a lot of, which was a bit troublesome because it's just not my thing at all. I spent several hours raiding my fabric stash to find anything remotely Asian in theme, and came up totally empty handed. That necessitated spending Tuesday afternoon browsing at both of my local fabric stores, trying to buy fabric that I didn't really care that much for, for a total stranger to boot. But I found some fat quarters, and some background fabric, and figured something would turn out.

I also spent several hours poring through old quilt books and magazines, trying to find a pattern to use. I wanted a bigger block, as it would be easier to actually make something useful with only 8 blocks; I wanted something that would complement the Asian fabric I had bought; and I wanted something fairly easy to piece, in case I was handing the project off to a beginner; and I wanted something that would instill a hint of surprise after the first exchange. I found this "T" block pattern from an old Quilter's Newsletter Magazine from November 2001 (why yes, I am a packrat, why do you ask?). It's called "Kimonos and Cranes" by Jan Fecteau, and what I really liked about this was that the T's sort of look like little kimonos when sewed with the Asian fabrics. I also liked that they were 12" blocks, and while the original pattern was more scrappy with the fabric choices, I could use one fabric for each block and still have a little surprise. In fact, with the way some of the fabric is printed, there were some fat quarters where I could make 2 completely different-looking blocks with the same fabric.

The pattern was marked "easy", which was another plus...until I realized that lately (as in, the past freaking 2 years) I've been mostly strip piecing, or sewing simple 5" blocks. And for me, any time triangle points are involved, things immediately become Not Easy. No matter how carefully I cut, or how carefully I sew (and I have a 1/4" sewing foot on my machine), my crisp triangle points are often missing. And I know all the tricks, too - using a pin to match up opposing points, sewing just shy of the point's intersecting seams, etc....but still, my seam ripper and I are spending lots of quality time together. I also have the darndest time squaring blocks up when there is a lot of piecing in them. You can see on the first block below, the lower left side is a tad off...but regardless: I actually really like it.

It's sister blocks are now littering my living room, despite not being due until MARCH, because I am now fixated on sewing these. In fact, I am contemplating hoofing it back to the fabric store for a few more fat quarters.

Oh, and also? I hope the recipient of my blocks is not allergic to cats...

Half the Sky Project Update

2010-12-17T16:47:00.006-05:00

Awhile back I mentioned that I read the book “Half the Sky” and it really had an impact on me. I wanted to start a little personal side project related to women’s empowerment issues, and for lack of anything else I’m referring to it as my “Half the Sky Project”. I don’t think the authors will mind, since they want to start a movement, but just so I don’t get sued let me be clear: this project was inspired by the book Half the Sky, but is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or Mercy Corps.

It’s charitable donation time again! As part of my project, I decided I would contribute to one charity per month that supports women's empowerment. Admittedly, these are small donations ($25 or so), but I’ve worked in the nonprofit sector long enough to know that every little bit helps, particularly when the big checks are few and far between.

I donated to Kiva in October, and in November I contributed to my (nonprofit) employer’s staff campaign (which may seem a little self-serving to some people, but I didn’t *have* to contribute, and our mission is to support women’s economic empowerment, so it counts). December’s little check was mailed today to the Maine Women’s Fund. In addition to leadership programs, MWF provides grants for a number of nonprofits in Maine that build economic security for women and girls. I was in one of the early New Girls Network classes, and one year I got to sit on the grant review committee (which was a truly fabulous experience for me, both personally and professionally). It’s one of the many things I miss about Maine.

One thing that I am trying to do is balance giving to international organizations with giving to US-based organizations. I find that having a small budget makes the international organizations far more tempting – $25 in Africa goes a lot further than it does in Boston, MA. “Feed a girl for a year” is so much more compelling than “buy some new staplers”….until you are the staff person cursing up a storm because you have to snail-mail 10 hard copies of a grant proposal to the one foundation still living in the dark ages, and all the staplers are broken, and the office manager looks at you like you are crazy and says, “I thought they all had online applications now”. I have been that staff person, and let me just tell you: it’s infuriating when stupid stuff trips you up from doing your job, which is directly related to the organization’s ability to achieve its mission. Don’t discount the importance of those staplers, is all I’m saying.

As we get closer to the end of 2010, don't forget to support your own favorite charity! If you are looking for some inspiration, check this guy out - he's giving $5 a day, every day, to charities. A really interesting social experiment!

UPDATE: Nicholas Kristof, one of the authors of Half the Sky and a NYTimes columnist, has a great list of organizations worthy of support this season - you can find it here.

REVERB10 #2: Writing

2010-12-16T22:39:00.002-05:00

This week I officially joined my local quilt guild. While I clearly won’t be finding a husband there, so far it seems like a riotously fun group of mostly retired women who have no compunctions about speaking their minds. It’s probably the closest thing to a crystal ball that I will ever have. However: my first order of duty is to sew friendship blocks that are Asian inspired, for someone I don’t know. I’m a little worried about this. Fortunately, I know that one of my local fabric stores carries quite a bit of Asian-inspired fabric, but I'm stumped as to what sort of pattern to use. Cross your fingers for me that delving into my stack of 10+ year old quilting magazines will unearth an idea or two!

But onward. The second Reverb10 prompt was about writing: December 2 –What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

Pertaining to my own writing (as opposed to the grant writing I do at my job), I feel like I thought more about writing this year than I actually wrote. I will exceed my goal of 52 posts here on this blog (one per week), so that’s something. I did send three or four essays out, all of which were rejected. I’m actually not so fussed about those rejections, mainly because the pieces I sent out had been workshopped and I know they were well-written enough such that I am not embarrassed about them. I did, however, recently contract with a writing instructor to review one of the pieces; she gave me great feedback, and I will be reworking that over my Christmas vacation. I kept a fairly good personal journal until I changed jobs, but that kind of petered out. Last month I started using 750words, although I have rarely managed more than 3 days in a row. But it’s something. Also, I have about 70 pages of something drafted. I’m not sure what this “something” is, whether it is a collection of essays or the beginnings of a little book. I’m not sure yet what it wants to be. I suspect 2/3 of it is garbage, but there’s enough there to make me want to keep going.

There are a million things that keep me from writing as much as I want to, but the biggest problem is that there is always something else to do. Knit, sew, read, watch a movie, surf the internet, watch TV, play with the cat, call my sister, read in the bathtub, etc. For all that I do to avoid writing, one would assume I hated it. But I don’t – I actually really love it. So, then, why is it difficult to carve out time for something I love? It’s not like I have kids or a husband to take care of. (Although, conversely, this means everything gets done by me or it doesn’t get done – full time job, paying bills, oil changes, trash duty, laundry, dishes, errands, making dinner, cat wrangling, it’s ALL on me.)

Despite all this, though, I actually do a pretty good job most week days of writing something, even if it is dashing off a page or two at lunch. But I need a good chunk of uninterrupted time to really work - to revise, rewrite, mash things up, etc. And the one day of the week I have such time? Sunday. The day I always *say* I'm going to go to church/yoga class/brunch with friends but inevitably wind up sleeping until noon and spending the rest of the day in my pajamas on the couch watching chick flicks and sewing. And I really love having that one whole day with no commitments (Saturdays are guitar lessons and errands and family things. And why, yes, there IS a nagging little voice in my head that is clearing his throat, suggesting that the guitar lessons make an early exit, but I'm committed until June. And I'm determined to be a decent guitar player.) In my fantasy life I work part-time for just this reason, but right now that isn't feasible.

So I don't quite know yet how to solve this dilemma. It's a privileged dilemma, I know, but thorny nonetheless. If I could just function without sleep...

Reverb10: The Backlog

2010-12-15T15:44:00.002-05:00

I hate it when there’s a good idea floating in the nethers of the ‘net and I find out about it too late. In this case, not TOO late, but later than I would have liked to have known about it, because now there is Catching Up to be done. And right now, “catching up” is just about the story of my life.

“It” is REVERB10, which is a series of daily prompts to encourage people to reflect on the past year and plan for the next. It's sort of ingenious, really, and complements so much of my blog reading this year, including The Happiness Project and The Art of Non-Conformity (specifically, the author's encouragement to create yearly plans). Plus, I'm a big fan of navel-gazing, particularly my own. I may not post a response to every prompt here, but rest assured I am following along. (Incidentally: one new writing tool I discovered recently is 750words, which is a place where you can write privately about things, based on the Morning Pages concept from The Artist's Way. It's free - right now, anyway- and provides a simple way of making sure I get at least some writing done every day, even if it is stream-of-conscious whining.)

But I digress! On to prompt #1: Find a word to describe 2010, and identify one for 2011.

I love this idea as I like succinct, even if the concept rarely applies to me. And I had actually been thinking about this anyway, as I wanted to spend 2011 focusing on one concept and thought that it might be helpful to find a word to sum up 2010. After much thought, I came up with the startling realization that 2010 was all about “Better”. Things got better in 2010. And, hallelujah…because for awhile there I thought I was truly doomed.

There are a host of reasons for this. 2009 was a really horrible year, for reasons I won't get into, and there really wasn't any way to go but up. My job change in August was a key factor in making 2010 "better", as was getting my cat. Having my family back from California also really helped. My guitar playing got better. My stress levels plummeted. While you wouldn’t know it to look at me, my health got better too, including my tension headaches (while they haven’t completely gone away, they became much less frequent after I changed jobs). And, save for a few icky weeks in October, I did not endure a raging case of seasonal affectedness disorder or a major depressive episode.

There are still a million things that need improvement, but for once: things got better. And there is much gratitude for that in my little heart.

As for 2011...I’m turning 40. Forty!!! My life is officially more-or-less half over, and I have so little to show for it that it is embarrassing. I’ve wasted so much TIME that I get anxious thinking about it. And a couple of recent conversations have left me rattled – one with my friend S. about the notion of ambition, and another with my guitar teacher about having a passion for something (in his case, guitar). At the moment I seem to be lacking in both the ambition and passion departments, and I’d like to end 2011 having one or both figured out. On a less ethereal plain, I need to lose weight, exercise, and start saving money like crazy so I can buy a house or a condo in the next few years so I can retire without a mortgage.

So despite the obviousness that I loathe, 2011 is the year of Forty. I don’t know exactly how this will manifest itself – lose 40 pounds, write 40 blog posts, write 40,000 words, read 40 books, sew a 40-block quilt…at the moment there seems to be enough possibilities to justify the theme. And let’s face it: it’s what I’m going to be thinking about anyway, so I may as well get something productive out of it.

Is this insomnia?

2010-12-11T01:29:00.003-05:00

Well, so much for bedtime.

I don't know what's happened to me lately, but for the past couple of weeks I have been completely unable to sleep before 2 am. I find myself in bed watching stuff on Hulu -- like old Mary Tyler Moore episodes, and most recently this cancelled ABC Family show based on the movie "10 Things I Hate About You", which wasn't quite "My So-Called Life" but actually pretty good. I was a lot like Kat in high school...and my sister was a lot like Bianca. In some ways, it's kind of scary how close to home it can hit...for example, in one episode an elderly woman chastises Kat and tells her, "I know a lot of girls like you who wound up being old cat ladies", a fate I am beginning to wholeheartedly embrace. (Except that tonight the cat managed to drag my sort of heavy wool coat off the chair and onto her wet cat food, which she likes to cover up despite my regular reassurances that I have no interest in eating it.)

But back to the not sleeping thing. It's not stress. I'm not depressed. It might be caffeine but I don't think so. The last time this happened I had a week of really bad dreams about an ex-boyfriend of mine who was being exceedingly mean, and it got to the point where I didn't want to sleep because I didn't want to dream about him being mean anymore. But there are no bad dreams this time. Mostly it feels like...procrastination. Possibly my worst habit; in fact, sometimes I worry I will procrastinate my entire life away, with a college friend's words echoing in my ears: "I could have wasted my time in much better ways". And it's weird because I have a list a mile long of things I want to do (or need to do...), but I cannot get any of it done to save my life. It's not just finishing knitting projects or cleaning out the fridge, either; it's stuff that is really important to me, like my writing projects. I'm avoiding them big-time. I don't know why.

The other thing is, my hair has been giving me fits. It's too long now, to the point where about all I can do is put it in a ponytail. I fantasize about taking my pinking scissors to my ponytail, just to see what would happen. While I'm not a big drinker anyway, I am currently avoiding all alcohol just so that I don't act on the scissor impulse. It's a pretty strong compulsion, actually; even just writing about it is making me think about those scissors, which I happen to know are on the dining room table. The problem is that every time I cut my hair short I hate it and instantaneously regret it. But...wow. Just...chop. So tempting...

Photo Update

2010-12-05T21:51:00.007-05:00

1) First, a kitty update. Callie has settled in, and recently I sprung for one of those cat tree thingamajigs because she seemed like she was a little bored. She's one of those cats that is immune to catnip, which I discovered after buying a slew of new toys for her. She just looks at the toys, then looks at me as if to say, "What on earth am I supposed to do with this?". Same with balls. So I thought one of these would give her a place to play. Instead, after it took her three days to figure out she could get inside it, it became her favorite place to nap. Just don't get too close -- she's keeping an eye on you:

And speaking of trouble...she's not happy about the whole wrapping presents concept:

I suspect this is my fault, as in my quest to entertain/exercise her, we started playing a game that has come to be called "Smackdown". The one toy she likes is a fishing-pole style toy -- a long plastic stick with a string, and a fuzzy toy at the end of the string. Callie doesn't care about the fuzzy toy or the string...she likes the stick. The stupid plastic stick. And she likes it best when I hide the stick under paper or a sheet, so she can attack it. She smacks it repeatedly with her paws, and then when she really gets going she starts racing around and pouncing. Now, before you call the ASPCA, I am exceedingly careful with this, and I don't let her play this without me, as it is all too obvious she could really hurt herself (poke herself in the eye, etc.). I don't let her chew on the stick, and don't let her grab onto it. She just bats it around with her paws.

2) Thanksgiving was really low-key this year. We were up at my parents' in Maine, and the day after Thanksgiving it snowed. Not a lot, but enough for one very determined 8-year old to build a "snow deer" with her father. Note the leftover dinner rolls used as ears and nose:

3) Knitting. There has been an inordinate amount of knitting mittens around here. Alas, the knitting has been accompanied by a ridiculous amount of un-knitting. I knit this mitten for my 10-year old niece J. (from the new Cascade 220 book), using yarn she had picked out. Stupidly, I thought that knitting the mittens just as the pattern instructed would result in mittens that would fit J. I was, alas, hugely mistaken. Thankfully, I only knit one of them, and this one fits her mother (my sister). So not all was lost. But it's taken me several tries to rework the pattern in order to get something that fits J., and that's where the ripping out has come in. I *will* figure this out though!

Meanwhile, I had my own mittens to knit. For the past two years I have knit myself mittens, with matching hats. And for the past two years, I have lost what I have knit. Come spring, these things just disappear. I assume I've left them on the train, but they never turn up in the lost-and-found.

This year, I had a picture of exactly what I wanted in my head, but couldn't find a written pattern so....well....I winged it. And all was good until I got to the increasing part. You'd think I would have anticipated this, it's not like I haven't knit mittens before, but no. Totally didn't occur to me that my two black/one red scheme would get thrown out of whack when more stitches were added. So, there was a lot of "improvising" (also known as, "screw it, its yarn, what's the worst that could happen?"). Ultimately these were a pretty quick knit, but I was honestly *this close* to ripping them out because I didn't like the way they tapered off. In the midst of my indecision, it got cold out, and that was the end of the deliberating. Plus, since it's stranded knitting, they are really warm!

My New Hero: The Gentleman from Vermont

2010-12-03T20:28:00.000-05:00

Catching Up, Part 1

2010-11-30T22:16:00.004-05:00

Oh, my poor little blog, neglected these past few weeks in the flurry of holiday preparations, in addition to the usual obligations – work, family, guitar lessons, cat cuddling. There has been sewing and knitting and even a couple of finished projects, which I need to get posted soon. These include a wonky but warm pair of mittens and a scarf that had long malingered in the UFO pile. But I’m determined to catch up here this week, even if it means a smattering of rapid-fire posts.

Normally, November is a terrible month for me; however, this year I seem to be sailing along quite nicely. I’m not sure why, but I’ve been feeling quite content lately. Uncharacteristically content, to be frank, to the point where my inner hypochondriac is starting to wonder what on earth is wrong with me. I'm feeling more "me" than I have in years, and I must say that I'm quite happy about it. That's not to say everything is going well (for example, my car got sideswiped in Providence a few weeks ago), it's just that I don't constantly feel like the Peanuts character PigPen, surrounded by a cloud of dust and doom.

A lot of this change has to do with the fact that I started the year following The Happiness Project, and while it didn’t turn out the way I had thought it would, I definitely feel like I’m in a much better place than I was 11 months ago. Here are my top 5 reasons why:

1) New job. I've written before about how the focus for The Happiness Project in March was work, and how it catapulted me into finding a new job. And truly, I’m so happy to be back in a small nonprofit organization again, working with people I genuinely like and who are committed to our mission and are not motivated by their own egos. And, the lack of bureaucracy has enabled me to submit 26 grants in 4 months PLUS write and mail an end-of-year fundraising appeal (not usually my bailiwick), so I’m feeling ridiculously productive. While the commute still stinks, my stress levels have plummeted and I *so* needed that.

2) New kitty. Adopting Calypso, or Callie as she has come to be called around here, has been such a great thing for me (in spite of the tapeworm incident). It's odd because she is the complete antithesis of Wilbert, my niece’s cat that I cat-sit for two years: he loves catnip, she is immune; he loves having people around, she hides whenever someone comes to visit; he hates being held, she cuddles up and purrs any time she can. It’s the latter quality that I love so much, particularly when I get home after a long train ride. She jumps up and snuggles right into the left side of my neck, nuzzling my face and purring loudly, and it’s a great thing to come home to. Plus, she will actually drink out of a bowl, rather than insisting the bathtub faucet be permanently set to drip.

3) Guitar. While it is still a struggle, and I still have a very long way to go, I am finally getting to the point where I can play music now. And it makes me inordinately happy to be able to sit down and strum chords. It has been shockingly difficult to learn a new instrument as an adult, but I’m glad I did. And I'm glad I didn't quit this summer when I really, really wanted to!

4) Nieces and nephew. This is the first time I’ve lived close by to them (roughly a 20 minute drive), and it’s been so great. I get to see them almost every weekend, and I love being able to spend time with them, and be a part of their lives (even if it did mean sitting through several cold and rainy middle-school football games this year!). And it's been great to have my sister back here, too.

5) Speaking of rain, I’m going to Ireland for my birthday next year! After a series of awful birthdays, I was determined that this next one be really good – particularly since I’m turning *gulp* 40. My best friend from college, who turns 40 a week after I do, is coming with me, which is a HUGE thing since she is married and has a child. Because of that, we’re not going for very long (we leave on a Sunday and come back on a Friday), and we're doing a tour because neither of us dared try driving on the other side of the road, but still: we’re going!

So that's the best of the good stuff. I'll be back over the next few days to catch up on craft projects and update on some of the "still needs work" parts of my Happiness Project!

Rant

2010-11-17T17:01:00.004-05:00

This whole air travel flack has me really wound up. Truth be told, I haven’t flown in several years – I think the last time was in 2006 – but I used to fly fairly regularly, first because I was living in Memphis and then because of work. Frankly, I’ve always felt like the post 9/11 security was nothing more than an inconvenient joke. For one thing, a few months after 9/11 I flew home for Thanksgiving with a huge pair of sewing shears in my carry-on luggage – I didn’t know they were there, and they were never found by security. But they could have done some damage in the wrong hands. And yet: the last time I flew I had a set of size-1 bamboo double-pointed needles (basically a couple of long tooth picks!) taken away from me on my return trip, despite the fact that I was allowed to fly with them just a few days prior, and despite the fact that if you tried to poke someone with them they would most likely have snapped in two.

I’ve also had some less-than-positive interactions with TSA agents. Once at Logan, changing planes to fly to Portland, I was confused about why I had to go through another security screening; I was genuinely unsure if I was in the right place, but the agent threatened to arrest me when I asked him why I had to be rescreened (he didn’t like my “tone”, whatever that meant). Another agent once dumped my prescription medication (in its original bottle, with my name and prescription info on it) out on a dirty table to make sure there weren’t any “illicit” drugs in there, spilling some onto the floor. I can understand maybe opening the bottle, but at least have some reasonably clean place if you are going to dump it out! (She picked them all up and put them back in the bottle “because she had to”; I threw them out and got a replacement from the pharmacy, which incidentally was a pain and required authorization from my doctor in order for the insurance to pay for it again. And I'm aware that I was lucky to have insurance!)

But mainly I’m wound up because I’ve had exactly two parking tickets in my lifetime and that is the extent of my “criminal” activity, but I’m supposed to feel safe because they are making ME take my shoes off?

The truth is, we’re spending millions if not billions of dollars to screen thousands of innocent people on a daily basis. And we are (apparently) not even marginally safer than we were pre -9/11. And now, we’re putting innocent people through machines that may or may not be safe, and we’re letting the TSA literally stick their hands down the pants of innocent people in front of their children (I’m not making this up; my nieces and nephew watched as a TSA agent did this to their father on a recent trip). We’re forcing the pilots who fly the planes through the same idiotic procedures, despite the fact that if a pilot wanted to destroy an aircraft, all he/she would have to do is, y’know, crash the plane (these people need to watch The Event!).

This is supposedly all legitimate because when you buy your airline ticket you are presumed to give up certain rights. First, I just bought a plane ticket for travel and at no time was I ever told, “by purchasing this ticket you give up your right to unreasonable search and seizure”. Second of all, really??? To me, the most reasonable comparison is to road blocks set up for drunk drivers. Drunk driving is a serious threat to the public good; I can tell you right now that infinitely more people die from drunk drivers each year than are affected by terrorists blowing up airplanes. So fine, we accept that it is legal for the police to conduct random checkpoints. You go through the checkpoint, you give the cop your license, and unless s/he has reason to believe you have been drinking, you get waived through. But each driver is NOT routinely taken out of their vehicle and frisked, or forced to take a breathalyzer, or strip searched. Can you imagine???

But we let the TSA railroad us into believing we’re safer because every day they frisk and/or radiate thousands of innocent people, who in any other circumstance a police officer would have absolutely NO just cause to search? Honestly, these shenanigans make me feel even LESS safe, because it tells me they honestly have no clue how to stop the real terrorists. And THAT is what really terrifies me.

What if it was my family that got blown up? I think about that question a lot, and let me be clear: I'm not at all advocating for ditching passenger screening entirely. The problem is, from what I can tell these new procedures may still enable a real terrorist to make it through. I heard on a news program last night that during a training exercise, TSA agents confiscated a bottle of water, but missed a bomb right beneath it. That hardly gives me faith in the system. But bigger (philosophical) picture here: one of the fundamental tenants of American jurisprudence is that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to persecute an innocent man. But that’s kind of what these regulations do. And why is that ok?

Smarty Girl

2010-10-31T15:16:00.004-04:00

This weekend's project brought to you amongst the sounds of the neighbor's pain-in-the-arse dog barking incessantly and me trying to drown it out with the music of Antje Duvekot, whose song "Long Way" is the current focus of my guitar lessons. I love this song, even though it is rather long and I can't remember many of the lyrics.

The project: a little bag for my youngest niece. A few weeks ago, I made my niece J. a bag, and her sister G. was not to be left out. (I was reminded of this not-so-very-subtly last weekend.) At my local fabric store I found this cute Heather Bailey pattern - "Smarty Girl Book Bag". I used fabric leftover from a baby quilt experiment (mostly from the Anna Maria Horner Good Folks line). G.'s favorite color is hot pink, so this worked out nicely for her.

The pattern is pretty easy-peasy for someone with a modicum of sewing experience. However, it took me three times to figure out that the ruffles get sewn to the LINING, not the outside of the bag. I was insistent that the pattern was wrong, but couldn't find any pattern errata online, so I finally had to conclude it must be me....and indeed it was. *sigh* Still, even with that hiccup, it didn't take much more than two hours to cut & sew.

For the top "flap" I used part of a leftover patchwork block, cut to the size of the flap, so if you are familiar with the pattern that's why it is pieced rather than a solid fabric. Also, I used one fabric for the top ruffles, rather than two different ones, just because I was using up scraps.

The one thing I would do differently on this project is use interfacing. It is optional in the pattern instructions, but I think it would give the bag a little bit more structure. G. is 8 and I guarantee she'll use it three times before it disappears in her closet, so I'm not too fussed about this one, but were I to make it again I'd definitely add the interfacing. I might also try to see if there's a way to sew the straps between the lining and outside, rather than tacking them on, just so there's no visible sewing line on the side of the bag.

Now, I've got to go pick up before the trick-or-treaters show up and see my completely fabric-strewn living room...Happy Halloween!

The Girl Effect - The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking

2010-10-24T00:07:00.001-04:00

Whoa. Watch these...so powerful....

http://www.girleffect.org/share/the-big-picture/the-girl-effect

and

The Girl Effect - The Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking

The Yet Unnamed Project Update

2010-10-20T22:46:00.005-04:00

Following up on my post from last week about "Half the Sky" and global women's issues:

1) There was a great article in the New York Times today written by Nicholas Kristof, one of the authors of "Half the Sky", which has some great examples of women helping women. You can read it here. I get chills up my spine just thinking about it.

2) I hemmed and hawed, and hemmed and hawed, and then tonight I was rummaging around the TED website and discovered a talk by one of the founders of Kiva, a nonprofit that provides micro-loans across the globe (including the United States). By the time I was done watching, I was convinced it was worth at least trying out - and lets face it, $25 is the cost of a skein of sock yarn, which I have plenty of. So I donated (my lender page is here), and I chose to lend to a woman in Cambodia who SEWS for a living (technically, she's using the money to help her daughter's clothing business, but close enough).

3) I also signed up for action alerts at Equality Now, because I'd like to do something in addition to donating money.

4) I really need to find a catchy phrase for this project...suggestions?

Getting Ready for Winter

2010-10-20T20:58:00.003-04:00

I finally bought a new winter coat. Ever since I moved back to the Northeast in 2003, I’ve spent the winter months schlepping around in a series of cheap, ill-fitting, not-very -warm black wool coats. All of these coats attracted cat hair, thread, and yarn as if there were magnetic forces involved. Essentially, I was a walking lint brush for six months out of the year.

This spring, in a rare fit of closet cleaning, I threw the last two coats out – they were completely wrecked, with Wilbert the Cat’s hair imbedded so deeply that the lady at the dry-cleaner just shook her head and said in broken English, “We do best.” And both had holes and torn linings, so donating them wasn’t feasible. I knew this would force me into buying a new coat this fall, when the prices are the highest, and so I’ve spent the past few weeks bracing myself. Every day this month has been just a little bit shorter and a little bit colder than the day before, and I kept telling myself, “just one more day, one more day”.

Yesterday, though, I folded. I had on a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a handknit scarf, and my lightweight jacket – and I was freezing. So I left work, made a detour into Macy’s, and twenty minutes later walked out with a new, bright red winter coat that was seriously on sale (I suspect it was a left-over from last year, but who cares). I will grant you that this was easy because they had very few coats in sizes above a Medium (what’s up with that?!), but I’ve always wanted a red coat, and it makes me really happy to wear it. The only problem? All my winter hand knits are purple, and I’m not quite ready to walk around looking like a Red Hat Society member. I rooted through the yarn stash last night and came up totally empty handed, so sometime in the next week or so I’m going to have to do some yarn shopping. (It’s a real tragedy, I tell you what.)

Part of me would like to knit a new striped Noro scarf, but those are so time-consuming; I knit right-handed so switching back and forth between knitting and purling every other stitch is a nightmare for me. And, I’m constantly stopping to check out how the color patterns are evolving, which is of course half the fun of using Noro but it seriously lengthens my knitting time. (Plus, the scarf alone takes 4 skeins of yarn; at $12/skein it becomes a pricey project.)

The other part of me is obsessed with the new Cascade 220 book, which is chock full of great hat, mitten and scarf patterns. I’m currently muddling my way through the Spotted Fair Isle Mittens pattern, which when finished will go to my niece Julia. She originally picked out the octopus mittens, but she’s 10 and really tall (with long hands/fingers), and it became readily apparent I would need to do some way-beyond-my-skill-set pattern tweaking to make them big enough for her. Julia chose navy blue and lime green yarn, which I initially grimaced at but as it turns out, actually go rather nicely together. (Also, don’t tell the Cascade folks but I’m actually using a different yarn, because the yarn store Julia and I went to didn’t have any; I'm using yarn from Ella Rae.)

I’ve never done any stranded knitting before, so this took some getting used to. I’m almost finished with the first mitten and I’m still not completely sure I’m doing it right. Initially I was twisting the yarns to carry them, but I read in one of my Elizabeth Zimmerman books that she believed you could safely let the yarn “float” for 5 stitches. After that I stopped twisting (because this pattern most of the floats are 5 or less stitches), which made the knitting easier. The floats almost create a second layer, and I suspect these mittens will be supremely warm. But it is tricky to get the tension right – it’s very easy to knit too tightly or too loosely. There are definitely some wonky places that I am hoping will block out (is this serious denial on my part?). The other tricky thing, which I haven’t gotten to yet, is the thumb. Usually when I knit mittens the thumb stitches stay live and get put on a stitch holder. In this pattern, you use waste yarn to hold the thumb placement, and then when you are ready you are supposed to remove the waste yarn to reveal the live stitches. I am terrified of doing this and dropping stitches! Photos to follow soon...

What I'm Reading

2010-10-14T19:40:00.003-04:00

As a result of my new job, I’ve become immersed in women’s economic issues. I’ve been spending a lot of time reading reports over at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women and the UN Development Fund for Women, as well as reading about the UN’s Millenium Goal #3, Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. The one thing that has stuck with me the most, and what I often find myself waking up at 3 am to think about, is this little gem:

Women perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property.

Yikes.

Sometimes I get so self-absorbed in my own little dramas (usually self-induced) that I forget to stop and think about how privileged I am in the grand scheme of things: I’m a white, well-educated American with a full-time job in a heated/air conditioned office, whose idea of being oppressed is not being able to afford to go back to school and get a second master’s degree. (And I probably *could* afford it if I gave up discretionary things like guitar lessons, cable TV, yarn, and fabric.)

Further fueling my fire: I stumbled across the book “Half The Sky”, written by two (married) Pulitzer-prize winning journalists. It’s all about how women across the globe are being oppressed (though truly, “oppressed” seems too sanitized a word for what is going on out there). I’m telling you: if you are a woman, or if you have a mother or a daughter or an aunt or a sister or a niece, you have to read this book. It is at once heartrendingly depressing and oddly hopeful, impossible to read and impossible to put down. By page three of the introduction I was in tears (and truthfully, there were a few sections that were too difficult for me to read and I skipped over them; I can be unreasonably squeamish). [Also, let me just say I completely disagree with the Amazon commenters who claim the book is anti-conservative; I personally found it quite balanced. Yes, the authors criticize abstinence-only programs but also give props to a school in India heavily supported by the Catholic Church. Continuing to frame these issues in a western political context is part of the problem, which the authors address early on in the book.]

I’ll warn you, though, that I think it would be hard for anyone with half a conscious to read this book and NOT want to take some sort of action. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do myself. On the plus side, I work for a nonprofit that helps low-income women start their own businesses, so in theory every day I go to work is a contribution. And there are plenty of other organizations I can contribute to financially (and there is an extensive list here). But there’s an itching to do something more, and I’m not sure what that it is. I can tell something is percolating, though, as evidenced by the 3 am wake ups. Plus, a good part of this year was focused on my Happiness Project, and while that’s been a valuable experience I’m thinking that the next thing is to focus on something external. (As Gretchen Rubin points out, making others happy makes you happy.) Stay tuned…

Also, on a completely different note: for you fellow cat people out there, make sure you read this.

This Is What Productivity Looks Like

2010-10-11T21:23:00.008-04:00

Finally, a long, quiet and uneventful weekend to finish up a few things. The first order of business was a baby quilt that had been malingering in the workbasket, something I started after sewing up a batch of charm squares (back in May, in fact). As per usual, when I pulled the quilt out I realized I really didn't have a lot more to quilt, just a few squares and the border, and then do the binding. It would have been a fairly fast job...except Callie the Wonder Cat decided the quilt was her property. You know how cats have this uncanny ability to know exactly where you don't want them to be, and then be there? This was exactly that, times ten. When she wasn't jostling for position on my lap, she was sitting next to me, giving me The Look:

I manged to finish it last night, and then spent an inordinate amount of time getting the cat hair off from it. It's not my usual "thing", so to speak; some of these fabrics I would never use. But it's an interesting mix of pastels and brights, modern and old-timey prints. (This was a Westminster "Free Spirit" charm pack, which had a lot of Heather Bailey prints). And I think that after being washed a few times and loved a little bit, it will be a nice soft blankie for a little girl to lug around:

And, this evening, I whipped up a little basket to kinda-sorta match (pattern from here), and stuck the booties I knit inside.

The other thing I did this weekend? I got my baking mojo back! I made some excellent bread, with some new yeast -- I think the problem I had last weekend was a dud batch of yeast. I also made some chocolate cake, which was excellent with peanut butter frosting. My nieces and nephew came over this afternoon and helped me finish it off.

I love weekends like this -- but they make it really, really hard to shift focus back to work!

The Fall Sports Schedule (Lori's Version)

2010-10-03T11:27:00.004-04:00

It's been a weird fall here in the northeast. The leaves started turning much earlier than usual, but up until this weekend it's been mostly unseasonably warm. This weekend, finally, the weather decided to turn cooler; so cool, in fact, that I woke up this morning shivering. While it's not time to turn the heat on yet, it's finally time to stop sleeping with the windows open.

I've admitted before that fall is my least-favorite season. Living in New England, this is about as treasonous as routing for the Yankees would be, but it's the truth: I hate it. I can't explain this coherently, but it has to do with the light - it changes in the fall, and the shadows get longer, and it makes me want to hibernate. Over the years I've learned ways of dealing with it; in fact, I find the less I try to fight it the better I am at getting through it. I let myself sleep more, take longer and hotter baths, and re-read children's books I've loved in the past (the Wrinkle in Time series and Harry Potter are in frequent rotation at the moment). And, while I'm still taking guitar lessons, I just don't beat myself up if I go a few days without practicing. It sounds awfully self-indulgent as I write it, but I've learned the hard way that forcing myself to be more energetic and social during these months just makes me miserable and lands me on antidepressants.

And then there's the sock knitting. Like many sock knitters, I don't really like wearing mass-produced socks anymore, preferring to wear my comfy and soft hand knits instead. But a casual survey of the sock drawer this morning was a little guilt-inducing: to wit, there's been an awful lot of sock yarn purchased in the past six months but very little in the way of sock knitting done. And so, despite the oodles of unfinished projects littering the apartment, despite the fact that every single room in the apartment needs a good cleaning, and despite the state of my laundry, I curled up on the couch and commenced knitting a pair of socks. At this point, I have memorized the basic sock recipe from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's book Knitting Rules, which means that these make excellent travel knitting projects as I don't have to pay a whole lot of attention, just knit.

Fall is also the start of baking season. This year is not off to a particularly great start - last weekend I made bread that was an unmitigated disaster (hockey puck on the outside, raw on the inside). On Friday, armed with a 40% off coupon and the remnants of a gift card, I went to Borders and bought the Baked Explorations book, then came home and tried making the Maple Cupcakes. I was up until 11:30 frosting the suckers - and...well. Let me just say that when a recipe calls for 2 cups of maple syrup, and you only have one cup, and you are too stubborn to either a) leave the house to get more maple syrup or b) admit defeat, you should not count on spectacular results. They weren't terrible or anything - just a little bland, and the cream cheese frosting sort of turned them into cream cheese cupcakes. It's a little telling when you bring cupcakes over to your sister's house and her three kids ignore them. Later this afternoon I may break out the bread recipe again, or perhaps I'll try the red velvet whoopie pie recipe?

(This book, by the way, has reasonable facsimiles of both the chocolate whoopie pie and no-bake cookie recipes that I've written about here before. It is also so beautifully put together that I felt a little guilty bringing it into my kitchen, where it was unceremoniously christened by an exploding box of powdered sugar.)

And now, I must gather all the gumption I have to go watch my sixth-grade nephew play football...

On the Needles

2010-09-26T09:54:00.006-04:00

My latest "finish something from the workbasket" project is a little baby sweater I started well before a certain baby cousin of mine was born...and she is now well past the one-year old mark. Honestly, from what I hear this is not really that bad in the grand scheme of unfinished knitting projects. Frankly, I'm sure if I kept digging I'd find some even older projects down deep at the bottom. It still grates on me, though, to have so many of these projects littering my apartment. And I'm saving for a 40th birthday trip next year, so I'm really trying not to buy any more yarn (which would be ridiculous even without the trip, as after a couple of yarn binges this summer I am more tham amply stocked).

Incidentally, I love that word, "workbasket". It sounds so....productive, doesn't it? Slightly old-fashioned, of course, and conjures up Ma Ingalls sitting in her rocking chair by the fire on a chilly fall evening. While I would lose my mind without electricity and indoor plumbing, I can appreciate the sort of calm one must have felt back then, a quiet respite after a hard day of working in the fields. I imagine it was kind of like the little snippets of calm I find on weekend mornings curled up on my sofa, next to the window...although I have my tea and croissant and Nutella, a book and my knitting, Antje Duvekot on itunes, and the cat purring somewhere nearby. (Not to mention the indoor plumbing.) My life would be a lot better if I could manage this morning routine on weekdays too, but that would entail getting up at some ungodly-to-me hour (like 6 am). After two months at my job, I'm still fighting getting up at 7 am, and inevitably find myself making a mad dash for the train, praying I've put matching shoes on my feet. And, while I actually really like my job, there's no workbasket filled with yarn, just inboxes (electronic and paper) that never, ever seem to be empty. I have no problems, however, deluding myself into thinking that my knitting workbasket at least has the possibility of being cleared out, some day, if I just stop adding to it.

But on to the baby sweater. It's Sirdar Pattern #1752, a cute little cardigan (they call it a coat) with a knitted flower on the chest. It's knit in their bamboo yarn, which I've never knit with before. I haven't made my mind up about it, either. Mostly it's nice to knit with -it's not as impossible or stretchy as knitting with cotton, but the fabric just isn't turning out (for me) as well as my wool knitting. It's a little....drapey? flimsy? Definitely not the body that wool has. I've also found the yarn a little splitty in places, and (sort of weirdly) I've had the yarn break in sections. It's the strangest feeling to be knitting along and then all of a sudden realize you have about three inches of yarn left in your right hand, even though the ball is still full. Whenever this happens it takes a minute for it to sink in, my eyes dart from the knitting to the yarn and back again, trying to absorb why the rhythm has stopped working. To me, this is proof that knitting is meditative, or at least has the ability to turn off certain areas of my brain for short periods of time.

The pattern is a fairly easy knit, but has been slow going because I actually have to refer to the pattern while knitting, something that is a little tricky whilst being bounced around on a rickety old commuter rail train. The back and left front are done, and the right front only has another hour or so of knitting (if that) before I can start on the sleeves. The end really is in sight!

The Cookies

2010-09-21T20:14:00.006-04:00

My weekend was a blur, from guitar lesson to eye doctor appointment and other errands, then on to making oodles of cookies for an anniversary party. Sunday was a long drive up to Maine for the party, then a quick dinner with my parents before turning around and heading back to Massachusetts. I'm really not sure who the genius was who decided it was a great idea to do night paving on 495 right after a NASCAR race in NH, but I'd like a word...I got home pretty late, and haven't managed to quite catch up on my sleep yet.

I'm also not sure what happened to a childhood friend's house. The anniversary party was nearby, and I was shocked to see that the house is now gone. There's now just a vacant, empty lot - and this was a nice house! My friend's family hasn't lived there in a long time, and honestly he hasn't been my friend in like 25 years, but it was always his house, y'know? And now it feels like one more relic from my childhood is gone forever. It's a pretty strange feeling.

So it probably goes without saying that there was no sewing or knitting, and I have nothing to share in the crafting department. But let me tell you about the cookies I made. I don't think they are a Maine thing per se, but I've never seen them sold anywhere else; back home, almost every mom & pop general store sells these, and they are a staple at bake sales. These are one of the first things I learned to cook, mostly because my mom was something of a health nut, and my sister and I inherited my dad's sweet tooth. We usually had the ingredients on hand to make these, though. (And fifty bazillion cans of fruit coctail.) Mom hates these; she's very proper and ladylike, but refers to these as "cat shit cookies" because they look like...well. No need to explain further. The rest of us love them and call them "no bake cookies", though I will tell you don't eat too many; they have the tendency to sit in your stomach like lead.

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 heaping tablespoons of cocoa
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
3-4 cups oatmeal (quick oats)

Put peanut butter and vanilla in a bowl. Melt butter, sugar, milk, and the cocoa in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil for 1 minute, stirring frequently. Pour over peanut butter and vanilla. Once the peanut butter is melted in, stir in the oatmeal.

There's a fine line betwen too much and not enough oatmeal. The more oatmeal you add, the faster the mixture will begin to set. Once it's all mixed in, quickly spoon the mixture by dropfuls onto wax paper and let them sit for about 15-20 minutes.

Excellent with cold milk. And, the sugar aside, they are full of oatmeal and peanut butter and have been known to be used as a substitute for a granola bar in certain households that shall remain nameless.

Six Hours

2010-09-12T11:05:00.004-04:00

I know, right?! I am a painfully slow knitter. This time even more so, as I knit right-handed, and therefore seed stitch is time consuming, because I'm constantly having to move the yarn back and forth to go from a knit stitch to a purl and back again. It's also a bit of a beast to sew up. But I love seed stitch, though - I love how it looks, and I love the texture. I used a pattern from the Debbie Bliss book Baby Knits for Beginners, and I used her baby cashmerino yarn. I followed the pattern for 3-6 months, blissfully (no pun intended) ignoring gauge as I always do for baby stuff. Alas, these would most likely fit an 18-month old. Ooops. I clearly used the wrong type of yarn.

Truth be told, though, I wasn't knitting for six hours straight. There were breaks to switch over the laundry, several episodes of House, and a few playtime breaks with Miss Sweet Pea, who has been tearing around the living room this morning as if she were possessed. She finally conked out in the middle of the living room floor a few minutes ago, but here she is taking a break midway through her romp:

The Power of a Good Bootie

2010-09-05T09:04:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure I even need to write about this. So ridiculously cute.

I've always eschewed knitting baby booties. I don't really know why, either - I never knit them for any of my sisters children, nor any of the other family/friend babies that came later. But I currently have a pregnant coworker, and I thought I'd give it a whirl. The white pair (which are knit to resemble Mary Jane shoes) is the "Side Strap" pattern from the book "Easy Baby Knits" by Claire Montgomerie, using Debbie Bliss cashmerino that has been lingering in the depths of my knitting basket. The green pair, also Debbie Bliss cashmerino dug up from the depths (I'd love to know what I actually bought this yarn for....) is a pattern I found here. Both are easy patterns, though the green ones were REALLY quick to knit up, maybe an hour total? Although, I did have a bit of a "fraternal" issue with both of these. I actually had to knit three of the white ones for a more-or-less matching pair, which is weird given I was using the same needles, yarn and pattern. The green ones were less so, although I found them difficult to sew up.

Incidentally, the green ones were just happenstance. I brought my yarn and needles to my sister's house yesterday, but forgot my knitting book. I briefly considered just trying to wing it and make up my own pattern. Instead, I sat by the pool, one eye on my niece and one eye on my Blackberry, and this was one of the few free patterns I found that was not in PDF format. Gotta love 3G!

Project Flouncy Bag

2010-08-22T11:35:00.006-04:00

Yesterday my niece J. came over and after an outing of mini-golf and ice cream, we came home and played with the cat for a little while. J. decided she wanted to do a craft, which somehow turned into a quick trip to the fabric store...which resulted in me staying up until midnight last night sewing her a new bag for school. Funny how these "we" projects turn into "Aunt Lori" projects...though to be fair, J. would have been happy to stay and help me finish but there were other family plans afoot. (And, I should really get my sewing machine serviced before trying to teach her how to use it...it is becoming rather obstinate in its old age.)

J. is apparently an Amy Butler fan too, as she picked out one of her new prints (called "Love"). I'm not a fan of this particular print, it seems kind of old-ladyish to me, but J. loved it. We found a Kaffe Fassett purple and green polka-dot print for the lining. I bought one yard of each, thinking that would be plenty for whatever pattern we decided on. We came home and pored through a number of the books on my shelves, and she decided on the "Flouncy Bag" designed by Nina Perkins, which is published in the One Yard Wonders book. $20 and 2 hours resulted in:

And I had about a half-yard of the lining leftover, so technically one could make this for less. I had to make a few modifications, mostly because the pattern called for some hardware (D rings), piping, and some ribbon that I did not have on hand (and it was 10 pm when I decided to start sewing, a by-product of watching Project Runway, so running out wasn't an option). Also, the pattern calls for the entire bag (outside and inside lining) to be made out of one yard, and I used a contrast fabric instead. The instructions are fairly simple, although the bottom of the bag calls for oval pieces that are not provided; you basically have to cut rectangles and make it into an oval yourself which I found a bit tricky.

To make up for not having any piping, I cut a 2" strip of the lining fabric, ironed it in half, and then sewed it in as if it were the piping (see below). Were I to do this again, I'd cut a smaller strip. And then I just inserted the strap ends when I sewed the lining to the outside to attach the strap to the bag. If you make this bag with just one yard, follow the cutting layout carefully; I would not have had enough fabric for the lining because of the way I cut out the pieces. Also, a careful eye might notice my fabric is running sideways, rather than top-bottom, another casualty of my cutting. Luckily all the gathering makes it not so noticeable.

J. hasn't seen it yet, so I don't know whether or not it will pass muster. I have my suspicions, though, that I will be churning out another one for her sister in the not-so-distant future...most likely in pink.

The Grossest Thing EVER

2010-08-10T18:00:00.004-04:00

Every night when I get home I pick up the cat and cuddle a bit – it is a great de-stresser for me, and she seems to like the attention after being home by herself all day. I may have mentioned she does this weird thing when you hold her – instead of staying vertical, she twists her body so she lays horizontally across your chest, and snuggles up as close as she can to your neck. And then we sit down on the couch and she walks back and forth, rubbing her head and then her back up against me.

Last night she was doing the walking back-and-forth thing when I thought I saw something weird under her tail. I thought it was a piece of white embroidery floss. And then it moved.

Let me just say: you have not lived until you’ve chased a cat around a small one-bedroom apartment with a tissue trying to grab some possibly wriggly thing off its hindquarters.

And then there were more wriggly things later peeking out of her bum.

And then I panicked.

The cat has worms. Most likely, a tapeworm.

After scaring myself by Googling, I called the vet’s emergency line and was told it really wasn’t an emergency and to call back in the morning to schedule an appointment. But, of course, the only time the vet could see us this week was right smack of a staff meeting I was supposed to be at IN ANOTHER STATE. And, while I love this cat, as this is my 7^th day on the job bailing on the monthly staff meeting seemed just a tad risky! Part of being a responsible pet owner is being able to pay for vet visits (at least, that’s how I dealt with the guilt.) So, I called the vet used by the shelter she was at, and they can see us at 8 am tomorrow morning. They confirmed she’d be fine, that it wasn’t a life or death situation, and that waiting 24 hours was not going to hurt her. And she seems perfectly fine otherwise, although a bit cranky because I am now reluctant to pick her up, lest I get those wriggly things on me.

Thankfully, I am sick with some ridiculous cold and there was Nyquil in my medicine cabinet; otherwise, I would never have slept, envisioning those wormy things burrowing into my pillows and blankets.

To top it all off? no hot water this morning. Arrrrrgh!

Patchwork: Jubilee

2010-08-08T11:04:00.008-04:00

Another not-achieved goal for vacation was sewing patchwork. Months ago I had bought a Bali Pop pack in Cotton Candy and wanted to make something with it really badly, but couldn't find the right pattern. One morning while running errands, I did make it into my local quilt store and saw a really great sample hanging up, so I bought the pattern - it's Jubilee by Marlous Designs. It is advertised as easy - and technically it is, just straight seams and straight cuts, but I struggled a bit with understanding just how the strips were sewn together in a braid, then cut into pieces. I'm still not 100% I've got it right...but the pattern seems to lend itself to imprecision; ie, once the thing is pieced together, no one will really notice the mistakes.

Here's one of the finished blocks:

I really have to curb my matchy-matchy tendencies on this one...my instinct is to make each piece match the next one (see the top two blocks above), but the result is a little washed out. When you really go for random, there is much more contrast in the blocks and they are much more visually interesting (see the bottom two blocks below):

And here's Callie (Calypso), my new helper/model, who has settled in quite nicely...such a sweet, sweet girl!

A Brief Detour: Whoopie Pies

2010-08-08T10:43:00.003-04:00

One of the things I meant to do on vacation, but did not, was make whoopie pies. The recipe in my family is the pretty standard Mainer recipe, which I find more akin to devil dogs than what is now available on the commercial market for whoopie pies - which tend to be ginormous and not a little sticky. (The best ones, IMHO, are the Isamax ones made in Gardiner, Maine).

But in joint celebration of a) completing a week at my new job and b) my niece's 8th birthday party, I came home Friday night and whipped up a batch while watching Eureka and Haven (the latter of which is set in a fictitious Maine town but filmed in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, a place I have never been but for some reason occasionally dream about). I'm not entirely sure how many of these my dad ate at the party, but the bag was empty when I left last night.

The Recipe:

Preheat Oven to 425 degrees

The Cookie part:

1/2 cup shortening (Crisco...but I use regular butter and it works just fine)

1 cup sugar

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 cup baking cocoa

1/s tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and the milk; stir until mixed. Drop onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 7 minutes. (I like to make these small and use about 2 tablespoons of batter per cookie, but you can make these as large or small as you would like. If you make them smaller, watch the oven carefully because these will burn quickly.) Cool completely.

The Filling:

3/4 cup shortening

3/4 confectioners sugar

1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

Combine in a bowl and mix with an electric handmixer. (*Note: because the idea of eating uncooked shortening has recently started giving me the heebie-jeebies, I have been experimenting with using butter instead of shortening, decreasing to about 1/2 a cup, and increasing the marshmallow fluff to a whole cup. I think it tastes better, but it does mean that you need to refrigerate the whoopie pies, lest the filling turn rancid on you. But I grew up eating these made with shortening and definitely lived to tell about it.)

Take a cookie, spread filling on the bottom, then find a reasonably-same sized matching cookie to top it off. I like to wrap them individually in plastic wrap, then store them in a plastic container...but you can skip the plastic wrap if you like.

Depending on the size of the cookie you make, this will make 1-2 dozen. I have no idea if these freeze well, because they never last long enough to find out, but I would assume they would be ok for a little while in there if properly wrapped up.

Update: Random Thursday Edition

2010-08-05T20:17:00.004-04:00

1) I started my new job on Monday. So far, so good. I now have to catch the 7:50 train, instead of the 9:08 train, so you can sort of imagine what has happened to my sleep schedule. But it's all good. The most shocking part of the transition was realizing just how loud my last office was, and just how much that noise wreaked havoc on my nerves. That makes me sound like some old Victorian lady, but alas it is still the truth.

2) Last week I was on vacation, and got utterly nothing done that I had planned to do. Instead, I hung out with my nieces. I am not complaining one bit.

3) There was a small bit of crafting...a sock started here, a baby quilt started there...and a pink satin dress. My youngest niece (who turned 8 today!) has been asking me for over a year to make her a long pink shiny dress (think bridesmaid dress). $60 in patterns and fabric and thread and zippers later...it is sitting in a heap on my dining room table. I have a fairly good idea of how this is going to end (not well), and I am weighing which would be more disappointing: me not finishing the dress, or turning out something awful. I am seriously considering sneaking off to David's Bridal or similar, buying a dress, and cutting the tags out.

4) I also did a bit of shopping. One highlight was a necklace from here, made by a former downtown-revitalization cohort of mine. Modern and a little funky (in a good way). Go buy one. Or twelve.

5) I love the cat. She has adjusted quite well, and (this will make me sound like a crazy cat lady but I guess I should probably just get over that): I love how every night I get home and she just wants to cuddle and purr. The only trouble is, she does this weird thing where she likes to sort of lay horizontally against my throat, which means that she often uses her back paws for leverage. The result is, I now have a couple of huge scars right down the middle of my sternum...it looks like I had some sort of awful surgery.

6) Every summer I get into this rut where it's too hot to do anything except lie around re-reading Harry Potter books. And that's exactly what's on tap for this evening. Can't imagine why I'm single.

Us Mainers Stick Together

2010-07-18T20:14:00.004-04:00

Yesterday morning, my nieces accompanied me to a nearby animal shelter to find a new kitty. I've been missing Wilbert terribly these past few weeks...although the feelings are apparently not mutual. I've visited him several times at my sister's and the pattern is always the same: he walks into the room, looks at me as if to say "What the hell are you doing here?", and stalks off. Excellent. Glad to see he's adjusted well to his new/old surroundings and all, but geesh! This is what I get after two years of being woken up at 5:30 in the morning?!?! *sigh*

During the weeks since Wilbert left, I spent quite a bit of time online looking at various shelters - there are several in the area that have websites with photos and sometimes little bios of their available cats. Sort of like Match.com for pets :-). I knew I didn't want a kitten, but didn't want an old cat either; one shelter had a beautiful, part Maine coon cat up for adoption, but she was 8 years old and I just had serious reservations about bringing home a "senior" cat. Before we went in on Saturday, I had pretty much decided on a cute 2-year old black and white cat named Nelly. When we met with the adoption counselor I explained that my one criteria was that I needed a cat that would be okay being the only pet, and she agreed Nelly would be a great fit. However, when we were let into the cat room at the shelter Nelly made it quite clear she had no intentions of going anywhere with us.

Enter Calypso.

The adoption counselor suggested we spend some time with another cat while waiting for Nelly to come out from deep underneath the cages where she was hiding. She opened a cage door and out jumped Calypso -- the 8 year old part Maine coon. I spent the next HOUR holding her while she clung to me and purred, rubbing her head on my neck, while my nieces entertained the kittens. She was so sweet and cuddly, and let the girls pat her while I held her. During this hour I had many thoughts to myself, YOU SUCKER being the most prevalent one, but as the minutes ticked along it became more and more of a done deal. (Not the least of which because Nelly never budged from her hiding spot.) The clincher, as they say, was this: there was another couple in the cat room, and the husband said to me, "You know, they say that the person doesn't choose the cat, the cat chooses you"...and that's how I wound up the proud (if a wee bit reluctant) parent of Calypso:

On the way home, we talked about whether we should change her name. The girls insisted she get to keep her name, and I agreed even though it means I'm going to be spending lord only knows how many years singing John Denver's "Calypso" song ("Aye Calypso I sing to your spirit, the men who have served you so long and so well"). It is a bit of a mouthful, though, and I've found myself calling her Caly ("callie"). She doesn't seem to mind what she's called as long as you keep scratching her chin.

It's been just one day, but she seems to have adjusted quite well to her new surroundings. She has an incredibly sweet and affectionate disposition, clearly well trained, and a little bit playful. She's using the litter box and is eating, though I'm a little worried she's not eating enough - the shelter said she'd lost weight during the month she was there, but that that was not unusual. She was only at the shelter a month, and they seem to have done a fairly thorough exam and found nothing wrong with her, but tomorrow I'll call and make a vet appointment to get her checked out just in case. She's a small cat, much smaller than Wilbert, so it may simply be she just doesn't eat a whole lot compared to him. Her file said that her previous owners gave her up because she didn't get along with their other pets; it sounds more like they got a couple of new cats and a dog and she couldn't cope. After having Wilbert for two years and knowing how hard it was to give him back to his family, I can't IMAGINE having a cat for 8 years and giving her up to a shelter...it's hard not to be judgemental, even though it appears they did the right thing. She seems pretty content - when she's not sleeping in her bed or under my bed, she's purring and cuddly. There's no one to steal her toys or block her from the food dish or the litter box, and I am perfectly happy to have her cuddle up and purr in my ear.

I do worry about the vet bills with an older cat...I am crossing my fingers she is as healthy as she seems. I also must confess that I worry too about getting attached to something that might not be around for a long time, although she's so sweet there's no way I couldn't get attached to her. As an indoor-only cat she could very well live to be 18 or 20, which means we could have a decade or more together, and the very real truth is nothing's sticking around forever, and better a few short years with a wonderful kitty than no kitty at all.

So thank you, Universe, for sending me what appears to be a great match for a job, and a great match for a kitty. Can I maybe just say, though, that things kind of like to happen in three's, and I don't like to seem greedy, but...well, if you happened to have any great guys you could send my way, it would be deeply appreciated?

Navel Gazing

2010-07-13T17:03:00.003-04:00

I’ve spent the past few days revisiting my 2010 plans - partly because it’s now JULY and officially the second half of the year, and partly because it’s been so hot that contemplating one’s navel is about all there is to do around here without risking heat stroke.

My biggest plan for 2010 was that after reading The Happiness Project book, I had intended to follow it religiously throughout the year, focusing on a particularly area of my life each month. And then March came in like the proverbial lion and blew the whole thing out of the water.

As you may recall, the Happiness Project focus for March was work. And, what do you know, I found that the more attention I paid to work the more I was forced to confront the fact that I really wasn’t very happy at my job. To tell you the truth, it was never a great fit, and by all rights I should have quit after about 3 months...but it was the fall of 2008 and the economy was in full-on tank mode, and if there’s anything that will keep you in a job it’s a big ol’ recession on the doorstep. And it wasn’t a bad job – it was just sort of like wearing a pair of expensive shoes that juuuuust didn’t quite fit right, and rubbed your heel the wrong way, and you wound up with this annoying blister/callous thing that just bugged you until you had to finally admit you needed a new pair of shoes. I comforted myself with reminders that it is a great organization (it is) doing great things (it does), and I had a few coworkers I would truly miss if I left. Believe me, I know that for lot of people I’ve just described their dream job – but that ill-fitting shoe kept rubbing me the wrong way.

The more I thought about work the more I found myself wallowing, which mostly manifested itself in me sitting in the dark watching a lot of Dr. Who and Torchwood, and bemoaning the fact that “time traveler” and “alien wrangler” were not legitimate employment options. I also spent a lot of time looking at internet job posting sites, which pushed me into a minor depression. I could see that there were an increasing number of jobs out there, but most of the positions that interested me would have required a significant cut in pay for me (and I had stupidly taken a significant cut when I took my job in 2008). I did ultimately interview for a few positions, most of which I walked out of thinking “same crap/different people” and declined further interviews. One job I really, really wanted – until I found out what the job actually was, and it became painfully clear I was overqualified for the job. By May, I was already burned out on my job search – I’m honestly not sure how people cope with long stretches of job seeking, because after six weeks I was ready to throw in the towel; looking for a job even in the best of circumstances is EXHAUSTING and SOUL SUCKING and DISCOURAGING. As a last ditch effort, I did some research and made a list of several organizations I thought might be good places for me to work…and of course none of them were hiring.

A few weeks later, though, I stumbled upon a job posting for one of those organizations on my list that seemed like a perfect fit. Quite frankly, it felt too good to be true, but I sent in a resume anyway, with one of the longest and most personal cover letters I’ve ever written; I figured I had nothing to lose, and should just put it all out there. Fast forward through a couple of interviews…and I start the first week in August! It still feels a little too good to be true, even though I kicked the proverbial tires pretty hard, but I’m really looking forward to it. I am looking forward to it even though it will require me to take the early train to work, even though I will have to upgrade from “horrifyingly casual” to “business casual” dress, and even though I am going from a 35-hour work week to a 40-hour work week. All this means that I have to resurrect the Happiness Project in full-force, as I will need to take much better care of myself in order to have the requisite amount of energy to do this work I so very much want to do.

There Has, In Fact, Been Knitting

2010-07-11T11:07:00.008-04:00

Granted, 99% of my knitting these days has been happening on the commuter rail, but lately it's all I can sneak in (more on that later). But I find that my fingers get twitchy if I go too long without knitting, and even a few rows on the train will take the edge off.

So, first up: socks. This is Fannie's Fingering Weight Yarn in Purple Rainbow, from Farmhouse Yarns. I got this back in May when I visited Purl in NYC - S. was with me, and he was kind enough to climb the ladder to reach it. I've never seen this yarn in any stores in MA, and I really like knitting with it. And it holds up really well - I knit another pair of socks with this yarn over 2 years ago, have worn them a lot during the fall/winter/spring, and they are still in great condition. This yarn can be machine washed and dried, but I still opt to hand wash and air dry as with my other handknit socks. Given the ugly heat, these won't be worn for quite some time, but they are DONE. (Pattern, by the way, is the Yarn Harlot's "sock recipe" from this book.) Also, Farmhouse Yarns does make sock yarn, but I find this weight works quite well.

Next up: still on the needles, but about 3/4 done is a scarf using the beautiful Malabrigo Silky Merino in Caribeno. I bought this yarn last fall at Windsor Button, which is my work LYS (my home LYS is the Franklin Mill Store, which also serves as my home fabric store). Now. I love knitting with Malabrigo merino so much that once upon a time I started knitting a boyfriend an afghan out of the stuff, and kept on knitting it even after he dumped me. However, I find that it pills something awful and had vowed to avoid it, but this yarn was so incredibly beautiful that I caved. Happily, it's been great to work with, and it has a lovely sheen to it. I don't yet know about the pillage factor, but the project has been living in my purse for the past few weeks and seems to be coping just fine.

This scarf pattern is the Pink Aura scarf from One-Skein Wonders, although I needed two skeins of this yarn to have the adequate yardage (and I prefer my scarves long anyway). I've knit this pattern before, and I highly recommend it - first, it is very easy to memorize so you don't have to lug the book around, and second because it seems to work with pretty much any yarn at any gauge. In other words, it's pretty difficult to screw up, and depending on your choices you can wind up with two very different-looking scarves. I am admittedly on the fence about how this yarn is patterning - in some places it's pretty stripy (see photo below), and in other places the dark blue is almost turning into big polka dots. I'm pretty sure it will all be fine once wrapped around my neck, though. I did intend this to be a scarf for spring, but it seems very warm and so I'm thinking it may see some use later this fall and winter. Assuming, of course, that I finish it by then...

Pig and a Poke Cake

2010-07-06T17:36:00.004-04:00

It was an odd bit of a holiday weekend, which included:
1. Snip, Snap, Snorem
2. Huge Cadbury chocolate bars my brother-in-law brought back from London
3. Cow Racing
4. Poke Cake
5. Visiting my grandfather’s grave, which later resulted in my niece G. suggesting we leave some poke cake there since it was his favorite
6. Late-season strawberry picking
7. ATV rides through the woods, courtesy of my dad (wearing a helmet a la Snoopy’s Red Baron
8. Much talk about pigs – to wit:

G. (almost 8) has always liked pigs. Ever since she was little she has slept with a pink stuffed pig (named Piggy, of course), and a few years ago she acquired a smaller pink stuffed pig (named Piglet, but it’s not the Winnie-the-Pooh sort of Piglet) that gets lugged around a lot. Recently, G. decided that what she really wants most in this world is a REAL baby pig to keep in her bedroom. She plans on winning this pig at the local fair’s upcoming pig scramble. (To the uninitiated, a pig scramble is where they take a bunch of baby pigs, grease them up, let them loose in a big muddy pen, then let many more children than there are pigs loose with burlap sacks. You catch a pig, you keep it.) G. witnessed this event last year and has apparently spent a lot of time strategizing, much to the chagrin of my sister who has vowed that no real piggies will ever darken her doorstep (or her yard, for that matter). And, while I will happily cat-sit, there are no piggies in my future either.

This whole thing has disappointment all over it – her name might not get chosen to compete, she might get to compete and not get a pig, and even if she does get one it’s simply not going to be allowed to take up residence in the corner of her bedroom. She is undeterred by any of it. My own suggestion that the potential winning pig be allowed to live out its days with our cousin, who owns a farm and has taken in several other pig scramble pigs won by relatives over the years, was met with the utmost disdain that can be marshaled by an indignant almost-8 year old: “My PIG is NOT going to a PIG FARMER.” (stamps foot)

Well, okay then.

But it gets better. Or worse, depending on one's viewpoint. Like many kids, there are about five things G. will eat, and her parents have been trying to walk that fine line between cultivating good nutritional habits and trying not to make a big deal of what is probably a phase she will in all likelihood outgrow. Getting her to try new things has been a challenge, but for some reason this weekend she conceded to try my mother’s pork ribs. By this time there had been so much talk of pigs that the last thing I wanted to do was eat one, and I was pretty surprised to see G. dig in….at least until she brandished a rib she had picked clean and said, “Wow, this is tiny, it must have come from a really small cow!”

And then we passed around the poke cake.

There's No Place Like Home

2010-06-27T09:50:00.009-04:00

As some of you know, or have pieced together from reading this blog, for the past two years my sister and her family have been living in California as a result of a job transfer for my brother-in-law. They couldn't take Wilbert, their cat, so he wound up living with me - first at their house, and then this past year at my apartment. This week they moved back, and my nieces were adamant about getting their kitty back (my nephew seemed ambivilent)...so yesterday morning I packed up all his toys, his scratching pad, and his food to return him. My local Target store will miss me and my purchases, is all I'm saying about that.

Afterwards, I had to pack Wilbert himself up, putting him in the cat carrier that he so desperately loathes. After a number of ridiculous attempts, one particularly ill-fated one involving some tuna, I wrested him backwards and stuck him in. Intellectually, I know that it is for his own good - without the carrier, there's no way he'd make it from my apartment to the parking lot without bolting, plus it's safer to drive with him in the carrier (trust me, I know - he once got out while I was driving down I-95 going 80 mph and decided to sit on my lap). Despite this, it still always feels terribly cruel to stuff him in there, he hates it so much, and he struggles so much to be put in there that I'm always afraid he'll get hurt. (Not to mention me.) The only time he goes willingly into that carrier is after the vet has poked and prodded him so thoroughly that he is grateful to slink back in there and hide.

I had been anticipating this day for quite some time, and wasn't sure how I'd feel about it. I was worried the cat would not remember his house, and would think I had abandoned him to live with a bunch of strangers. (This despite the fact that he seemed to barely notice that all of them left him with me - as the vet said, I was "just somebody else doling out the cat food".) True to form, once we got to my sister's house the cat bailed out of the carrier, bee-lined it to the kitchen to see if his food was still in the same spot, and then spent a good hour exploring upstairs, where he used to while away the days sleeping. He then hid under a bed for a few hours, but he generally does that in the afternoon. Finally last night he decided to come down and explore the first floor of the house, slinking around here and there, then returning to sit next to me on the couch for a few minutes. Clearly, he will be fine.

I'm not so sure about me, though. It's weird how empty the apartment feels without him here -- it's a small apartment and when I was home he was almost always underfoot in some way. Sometimes he was just pleasant company - sleeping on the couch next to me, or lying at the foot of the bed, or sitting in the window surveying his kingdom (and the tree full of birds just out of his reach). Mostly, though, he was a big pain -- his 5:30 wake up calls via either yowling in my face or banging the cabinet doors; his uncanny knack of sitting on top of whatever I was about to reach for and biting me if I tried moving him; walking over the computer keyboards and somehow managing to hit the exact combination of keys that changed something requiring hours of web searching to undo; the cat hair that will NEVER disappate, no matter how much I vacuum; the cat litter that he would inevitably strew all over the bathroom floor; the furniture and cabinets and door frames that were used as scratching posts (goodbye rental deposit...). Oh, and let's not forget having to let the bathtub fauced drip at juuuuuust the right speed because someone cannot stoop to drink water out of a dumb dish, including the $40 dish I bought that has a little fountain spout on it which basically mimics the bathtub faucet. Or running the A/C all day during the summer so his little brain didn't fry (I live in on the top floor of a converted old woolen mill that traps heat like you would just not believe). And let's not forget that occasionally I'd do something (I have yet to decipher what) that he seemed to think required a swipe of a paw or a bite, and once or twice I stepped on his tail by accident which caused him to run after me yowling what I imagined to be the cat equivilent of swear words, and then he'd attack my ankles in retribution. Also, he would find a way to make it clear that I was sitting on what he at that moment in time had deemed HIS side of the couch, and would not be content until I moved.

But he was company, and in a lot of ways the best sort: I talked to him, and he never once talked back, and he was excellent at killing bugs. And he was fastidious about using the litterbox and never, not once, puked on the rug. Could I ever ask anything more of a male?

***

I've promised to see how Wilbert impacts both my nephew's allergies and my sister's new furniture, and take him back if necessary. I mostly hope it's not necessary, because he has a lot more room to run around at their house, and he will have plenty of company. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what to do. Part of me wants to run out to the nearest shelter and get another cat immediately, and part of me is thinking that really, my life will be a lot easier without a pet to worry about. I'm also a little worried about the precedent we've set here: yesterday my niece Grace told me that she wants a hamster for her birthday, and she thought that maybe the hamster could live with me so Wilbert wouldn't eat it. When she started rattling off a possible visitation schedule, I knew I was in trouble.

Nana Gets The Last Word

2010-06-20T19:52:00.010-04:00

About an hour after finishing that baby basket I last posted here, I found out that yet another cousin of mine is pregnant with a baby girl. According to Wikipedia, she's actually a second cousin...although I would have considered her a third cousin until I consulted that chart, or at least a second cousin once removed. She's a lot younger than me, and I haven't seen her since she was like 4, so the idea of her having a baby is nothing short of ridiculous to me. Such is the way of the world, I suppose... I mean, I still have a hard time believing I am old enough to have kids if I so desired, and I'm on the brink of being too old to have them.

But you know as well as I do what happened next: I dove into the fabric stash and whipped up a little baby quilt to go with the basket (into which went some baby lotion stuff and some baby washcloths). I didn't have quiiite enough fabric to make what I wanted, so I cut up 5" squares of what I did have and "made do" (something that very much appeals to my Yankee roots). I faced a big time crunch, though, as my parents were down this weekend and I wanted to send the gift back home to Maine with them (thereby saving if not an arm then several fingers in shipping costs). Normally, I either hand-quilt or I tie knots using embroidery floss, but since this was such a small quilt and I found some very low-loft batting, I figured, well, it's now or never, and I machine quilted it.

(Apologies for the worse-than-usual photos, but I took these with my Blackberry.)

I will say this: machine quilting has speed on its side. However, I can see it would take oodles and oodles of time and practice to really get it down right. I had to contend with some puckering - one major mess that required a lengthy session with a seam ripper, and two or three small puckers that I left in, mostly because I was on the verge of losing all patience whatsoever and setting the thing on fire in my bathtub. Also, the upper left corner came out quite weirdly, but I think that had less to do with the quilting and more to do with some wonky border piecing. I also totally dorked up the binding, but that was just me being stupid. I was really on the fence about whether this was even gift material; after hand-stitching the binding, I turned to my mother and said, "Please tell me this is Good Enough". She gave it the thumbs up, which given my mother's complete and utter lack of any crafting skills means that I probably should have junked the thing, but I did not. And here's why:

As I was sewing this together, I thought a lot about my great-grandmother, who would have been this baby's great-great grandmother. I thought about how there's a little bit of Nana in all of us running through our veins, down through all these generations of strong and bold Irish women. And I thought about all those times all of us kids would descend on her little house with wild abandon and the shenanigans we would get up to, and she never once got cross. And this was after raising seven kids of her own, and after burying two others that died very young, plus putting up with shenanigans from my mother and her cousins who used to do things like put kittens at the bottom of Nana's bedcovers so she would think there was a mouse in the bed. You'd think that by the time us great-grandkids came around she'd have completely lost her sense of humour, but that was not the case. A few times she gathered us up and gently lectured us about the after-life*, but mostly she'd just throw up her hands and laugh along with us.

*She converted from the Episcopal church to the Jehovah's Witnesses back in the 1960s, so you can just imagine what these talks were like.

So when I surveyed the finished - if wonky- quilt I made, it occurred to me that were Nana still alive, she would have taken one look at this quilt through her cataract-ridden eyes, run her gnarled hands over the top, and proclaimed it "Just Grand". And I decided, who was I to argue? I rolled it up, tied it with ribbon and tissue paper, and it's off to Maine in the morning.

See?

2010-06-15T20:13:00.002-04:00

Reminder: pattern from here

Basket Case

2010-06-13T18:51:00.004-04:00

Another cranky weekend - I have no idea what's up with that, and I'm really annoying myself. Hopefully it's weather-related (two rainy weekends in a row!), although it's suddenly become crazy-busy at work and I am also in the process of seriously cleaning my apartment in anticipation of visits from my nieces & nephew, who will be returning from California in a few short weeks. Work + Cleaning = Cranky Lori.

At any rate, the highlight of my week was discovering the crafting blog Be*mused, written by another Mainer-in-exile who uses the same whoopie pie recipe my family does. I'm not sure if her quilts are more beautiful than her knitting, or vice versa, but I spent several hours reading through the archives, completely enthralled with her work. In those back entries I found a link to another blog, Pink Penguin, where there was a really cute pattern for patchwork baskets that I immediately thought would be a great project. My first one...well. While it's not a complicated pattern, there are a few little tricks, including the necessity of cutting the basket lining to the correct size (!). Oh, well.

It had a few glitches, and I realized that using a heavier material than cotton for the bottom was a good idea. I made a quick visit to the fabric store yesterday morning and found some linen, which the pattern calls for -- but a coarse, heavy linen, which on my second attempt proved a much better choice:

I still have a few kinks to iron out (both literally and figuratively), but I think this would be a really great baby shower gift (made in the right fabric, of course). The basket is small, but large enough that you could put in some baby lotions, shampoos, etc. and a onesie or bibs. I don't know about you, but I often find myself in the position of giving baby gifts to co-workers, extremely distant cousins, or others that I don't know that well personally, and don't necessarily have the time or inclination to make a baby quilt. This project can be whipped up in an hour or so using scrap fabric and batting, but still provides a hand-made touch. And it can be used to store things later on. Win! I see many more of these in my future.

Funky Town and Back Again

2010-06-06T22:16:00.009-04:00

I found myself in a grand funk this weekend. Not the good, George Clinton/Parliament sort of funk, but the ugly bad mood sort of funk. Usually I'm pretty good at shaking myself out of a mood like this, and usually a little time with some fabric or yarn does the trick. This time nothing was working, not even my attempts at dredging out an old piece of writing I've been pecking at for a couple of years. This afternoon I finally stomped off in a rage to AC Moore and aimlessly wandered the aisles, glaring at anyone who happened to cross my path. Oh, it was a dark, dark mood...not unlike the rash of thundershowers that blew through this afternoon. As I wandered, the only thing I seemed to want was canvasses, which was odd because let me tell you: I am not a painter. But I've learned not to ignore these sorts of compulsions; they generally come from a place that needs to be listened to, and it's a voice that generally won't shut up until it's been assuaged. So I found a package of 2 for $10 and figured, well, I've thrown money away on worse things.

On the way home, though, I remembered that when my sister and I were little and would visit Grammie, our dad's mother, she would set us up at the kitchen table and we would make collages. She gave us pieces of butcher block or sometimes even wax paper, and she would cut pictures out of magazines for us to paste onto the paper. It was really simple, but we loved it and we'd spend hours ripping up the magazines, looking for anything that we thought was cool or pretty or interesting. Anything was ok unless it was reptilian in nature: Grammie hated snakes, even photographic representations of them.

So when I got home, I hauled out the Modge Podge, bits of old scrapbook paper, a bit of ribbon, some beads, old magazines, and some really old Cray-Pas (oil sticks). And I made collages. I trashed my living room floor and am still peeling glue off from myself in strange places, but it worked: my mood vastly improved. Fine art? Hardly. But I don't even care. I even cut up a few lines of the story I'd been working on and stuck them on there.

Here's the really funny part: ever since Grammie died, one of my aunt's has found that whenever something important happens or something reminds her of Grammie, she sees a butterfly. For example, when my aunt's daughter had a baby last year, I made a baby quilt and quilted butterflies on it - not knowing anything at all about the Grammie-butterfly connection, until my aunt saw the quilt and got this really funny look on her face. Just now, as I inserted the photo into this blog entry, I realized there are butterflies in my collage. Fabulous.

Sheep and Wool and Yarn - Oh My!

2010-05-31T09:23:00.009-04:00

This is Hope, a really lovely shetland sheep that, along with her very polite and poised young 4-H owner, I had the pleasure of meeting this weekend at the Massachusetts Sheep and Wool Festival. And, let me just say, if you had told me ten years ago I would ever attend such an event, let alone find myself fawning over a SHEEP, I would have been appalled at the very idea. I would have thought it was a terribly old-lady sort of thing to do.

As I've discovered though, middle age has this way of sneaking up on you, so on Saturday I donned my hot pink Keds and piled into my friend Heather's car for a trek across the state to see some sheep and buy some yarn. And a grand time was had, although let me just say: those venturing to the western part of the state should really visit your local ATM first, because they are few and far between out there. I learned a little about sheep, including the fact that there are many different breeds, and that some of them can be the size of a pony. I also learned that trying to not step in sheep poo at a sheep festival is just a lost cause; I was glad I left the flip-flops at home. And I was beyond impressed with the 4-H kids, all of whom seemed to be so smart and responsible and took such wonderful care of their animals. Mostly, though, I was overwhelmed with all that these animals give us. I don't mean to get maudlin, but really: between their milk and their hair, not to mention their general cuteness, these animals give us so much that it's hard to believe there isn't some grand plan in place.

But you are here for the yarn, and let me just say: there was a lot of it! My favorite thing about this festival was the number of small yarn producers, many of whom use locally-produced wool and natural dyes and turn out impossibly wonderful products. Here's what came home with me:

1. Sock yarn from Sliver Moon Farm. Normally I'm not a big fan of green yarn, but for some strange reason this colorway grabbed my attention right off the bat. It's called "It's For Me", and as I was paying the lady exclaimed, "That's Lori's yarn! She dyed that!" I laughed and said, "My name is Lori", and she replied, "Well, I guess that yarn really is for you then!" Like I said, there's some grand plan afoot.

2. Sylvan Spirit yarn from Green Mountain Spinnery in Vermont. What's not to love about this company!? They are a worker-owned cooperative, use locally sourced materials, and they were also incredibly nice. This particular yarn is a blend of wool and Tencel, which is a cellulose fiber made from wool pulp. It's similar to bamboo, but gives the yarn a silk-like pearly sheen, plus as the guy at the booth pointed out, in Vermont wood pulp is a more sustainable commodity than bamboo. I was glad I grabbed these when I did; as I was paying several women swooped in and started oooh'ing and ahh'ing over it:

3. Finally, a merino/silk blend from the Biltmore Wool Barn in Brewster, MA (I'm not finding a website for them). I had a really hard time choosing a colorway - there were so many fabulous ones! This photo doesn't do the deep teals and blues much justice - but trust me, it's really, really beautiful.

Besides the sheep and yarn, there were so many beautiful artisans selling things like felted wool scarves, sweaters, rugs, and soaps (Sleepy Moon soaps were my favorite of the day). An impressive 12-year old showed me how she spins, and another older woman gave us a tutorial on making wool rugs. The most startling thing for me though was that, as someone who tends to the solitary and, when pressed, tends to spend time with people who don't understand why anyone would spend good money on string, it was beyond weird (in a good way!) to be surrounded by so many other people who "got it". I had just said to Heather, "God, I just want to go home and MAKE stuff now!" when a few minutes later a stranger turned to us and said exactly the same thing. Ah, kindred spirits.

Ice cream and a brief walk around the fabulous Northampton downtown at dusk was a great ending to the day. Plans for Rhinebeck in the fall are afoot...

Experiments

2010-05-25T17:00:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time, one of my (now ex) boyfriends wondered why on earth I was cutting up perfectly good fabric, just to sew it up again. Completely bewildered that someone would question the concept of patchwork, I spluttered out a treatise on whole-cloth quilts, resulting in a completely blank stare from the boyfriend. In retrospect, that exchange should have been a huge tip-off that relationship was going nowhere.

I have many hobbies, but I must say that sewing patchwork has to be my favorite pastime. I love that moment when, after finally deciding on what to do with a lovely stack of fabric, I turn on music and sit down to start cutting. Next, I head to the sewing machine and chain piece for a bit, and then there’s a quick stop at the iron. Sometimes there’s a trim with the rotary cutter and ruler before I’m back at the machine, sometimes not. Soon, things start to take shape! While the gratification isn’t immediate, it’s a lot faster than when I knit: I can spend two hours sewing and finish off a bunch of squares. I can spend the same amount of time knitting and have two inches to show for my work. But more than that, when I’m sewing I get into this…well, zone, if you will. Totally absorbed, so much so that I often forget to eat (which for me is saying something). Alone with my music and fabric for an afternoon, I am completely blissed out. Even the occasional curse-like-a-sailor moment when the sewing machine stops cooperating doesn’t seem to darken my mood.

So after finishing the hand quilting on the yellow monster, I rewarded myself with a couple of patchwork sessions. First, I whipped up a small crib quilt top using a 40-square charm pack I bought at one of my local fabric stores (this particular one is from a Westminster Fabrics collection). I am here to tell all the marketing people at fabric companies: keep those charm packs coming, because I am indeed a sucker for them. For one thing, charm packs are a cheap and quick way to try out a fabric line, and I wind up using fabrics that I would never choose on my own. They are also good to mix in with leftover patchwork from my own stash, or even to use up stash for borders and backing. In this case, however, after piecingthe squares I marched right back to the fabric store and found one of the charm prints for the border, along with a bit of some fairly shocking solid pink. It’s an experiment, for sure, but I think it works. I added a white folded border that, with the surrounding pastels, kind of tones it down a bit.

Next, I started a new baby quilt. I am a huge fan of Anna Maria Horner’s blog (I am a sucker for pretty people with pretty children who make pretty things) and have been eyeing her fabrics for a very long time. I was REALLY excited to make this quilt, but about halfway through I realized that I had chosen the wrong pattern for the fabric. On the one hand, using a larger scale print for small squares is interesting, because each square becomes unique as only a part of the design is captured. However, in this case, the brown print didn’t give me quite enough of the graphic contrast I thought it would.

I finished the top anyway, and while it’s not entirely my cup of tea it turned out better than I thought it would…a little Victorian, maybe? I want to make another one using a 9-patch square instead of a 20-patch; I think that would do better justice to the fabric.

And, of course, my faithful companion Wilbert was right there with me:

Wilbert and I are heading into our last month together; my sister and her family return home at the end of June and he gets to go back to live in a big house filled with children. I’m glad for him because I really think he gets lonely while I’m gone all day at work. I’m also glad for me because it means I will no longer be woken up at 5 am to watch him eat, or have to clean cat hair out of the tub every time I want to take a bath, or remember to not sit on the couch while wearing black pants. Mostly, though, I’m kind of sad, as it’s nice to come home to something that is happy to see me – if only because he can’t feed himself or dole out his own catnip. Plus, I’ve had him for 2 years now so even though he’s not technically my cat, he sort of feels like my cat -- I’m sure those of you with pets will understand! But assuming all goes well - he adjusts to his old surroundings and my nephew's allergies don't flare up - I'll head over to the animal shelter and find a new kitty. Possibly one without hair.

A Brief Detour: Louis and Serena

2010-05-20T17:13:00.006-04:00

Every day my commuter train passes by a small pond that, for at least the past two springs, has been home to two swans that come to nest in the reeds. Their first appearance took me by surprise; I honestly didn’t know there were wild swans in New England, and I am used to seeing only captive swans in zoos and parks. Apparently, though, these swans (in all likelihood mute swans) were granted federal protection several years ago and have begun breeding inland. They are considered an invasive species by some, as they are non-native, and they are also apparently quite territorial and can not only displace other (native) birds, but destroy vegetation in the ecosystem.

Learning this made me sad, because it’s hard to imagine how anything so lovely could actually be a pest. I have to confess that, like many people, I feel a certain amount of romanticism about swans, not the least of which because they often mate for life and are doting parents. Anyone who ever read “Trumpet of the Swan” by E.B. White can probably relate; the story of Louis’s father stealing the trumpet, and then Louis trying to win over Serena undoes me every time I read it. This was one of my favorite books as a child, loved even more than Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little. In tribute to E.B., I mentally christened the pond swans Louis and Serena the Second. (What can I say, it’s a really long train ride.)

A few months ago Louis and Serena returned from their winter vacation. For about a month now, on both my morning and evening commutes, I’ve caught glimpses of one of them sitting on the nest while the other was out on the water; for quite some time I wondered if the swan tending the eggs had moved at all overnight (apparently swans share incubating duty, so I can’t assume it was Serena). Sitting on those eggs all that time seemed like such a pure act of faith to me, not to mention dogged determination --especially on those days that it was raining so hard it hurt. I know any biologist would tell me it is simply propagation of the species, but it’s still kind of inspiring nonetheless.

This week the birds disappeared; I couldn’t see them anywhere, the nest was empty and there was no sight of them on the pond. I was worried something had happened and they had left, or worse, become something’s dinner. Finally, this morning, I saw both on the water with what looked like three fluffy gray cygnets gliding along between them. Woo-hoo! Triumph! I wanted to cheer, but settled for a quiet chuckle to myself.

This post deserves photos, but the train travels too fast to be able to take a decent picture, and I cannot figure out how to get to the pond from the road. Plus, let me tell you: these birds are BIG and I’m not sure getting too close is such a great idea. However, Google Images to the rescue: I cribbed this one posted here, because it’s pretty much what I saw this morning.

Photo Credit: Emily Eaton, Shrewsbury MA / Bird Watchers Digest

Scenes from a Sunday Morning

2010-05-16T13:54:00.006-04:00

Three years, three states, and five homes later, I was gunning for the finish line this morning, complete with my faithful companion/hair shedder by my side:

And finally, after much french vanilla coffee, a croissant dabbed with Nutella, and many, many repeats of Courtyard Hounds (excellent!), voila:

Return of the String

2010-05-12T17:06:00.003-04:00

Alas, despite the best of intentions I got nothing done last week. I am *almost* finished with my yellow quilt, though, so that’s something. As I suspected, it needed a heavily-quilted border and it took a bit of strategizing before I was able to find a quilt stencil design that would work. I’m hoping to wrap it up this weekend.

In the meantime, I started a new knitting project. I took a day trip to NYC last Thursday via Amtrak (my new favorite mode of transportation!). I knew that I would want/need a portable knitting project to pass the time, so I grabbed some Noro sock yarn from my stash, a set of dpn’s, and the book “Favorite Socks” from Interweave. I decided to try the “Waving Lace Socks” pattern featured on the cover, despite the fact that I had different yarn than what was recommended as well as different size needles. As it turned out, it was a happy accident – given the occasionally chunky nature of the Noro, a smaller needle would have resulted in a very tight sock. I’m still on the fence about the stripy nature of the yarn vs. the pattern – perhaps not the best combination, but I’m proceeding anyway. Also, I did sort of screw up the first pattern repeat, but I’m being lazy and not fixing it. I am not one to let perfection get in the way of a new pair of socks!

A word (well, several words) about this yarn: In the past, Noro has not been my friend. I suffered through knitting my striped Noro scarf and a set of mittens, grumpily picking out twigs and leaves from the yarn as I went along. I also discovered half-way through the skeins that the yarn had been joined and knotted, interrupting the color scheme flow and annoying me to no end. However, I am happy to report that I’m finding the sock yarn much better – thus far no vegetable matter and no weird color interruptions. It still feels a bit like knitting with hay, but I know that after a wash the yarn will bloom and be much softer. And I really do love the colors – it looked like just a skein of purple and green, but I’m finding lovely blues, grays, and a bit of black buried in the middle. I also love how the yarn is chunkier in spots, giving the fabric a bit of texture here and there. I'm very interested to see how the sock yarn wears over time; my Noro scarf has held up quite well, but the mittens I made just barely made it through the winter!

In The Home Stretch

2010-05-03T10:24:00.003-04:00

A much-needed week off from work, in which I have grand plans to Finish Something, and then later this week a trek to visit the new Purl. First on the finish list is this quilt, which I started piecing three years ago while I was still living up in Maine. I've blogged about this before - I decided to hand quilt each triangle, and while I love the results, it took FOREVER. So, I am very eager to finish this - I just have the outer border to do and then I can bind it. It's destined to hang on my living room wall until I finish quilting another project (in other words, the next three years). I'm not sure about how to quilt the outside border, though. I'm tempted to keep it simple so I can finish it, but the rest of the quilt is so heavily quilted I'm afraid that it will look weird if I don't finish the border with a bang.

A note about hand quilting: Anna Maria Horner has a great explanation/tutorial of hand quilting here, and it's essentially how I roll, except I use a hard plastic embroidery hoop and definitely strive for tiny, even stitches (as opposed to larger, more folk-y stitching). Personally, I need a pretty tight surface to work on, and this hoop does the trick. I think if you look carefully at the photo below you can see some of the quilt stitching. I generally use 100% cotton quilting thread, but frankly I care more about the color, and have been know to use any thread that I have that matches.

I use a thimble given to me by my grandmother, who was an avid quilter, except she believed in tying quilts rather than quilting. In fact, she gave me the thimble because she never used it, and I've used it exclusively since I started quilting ~15 years ago. Frankly, it's nothing short of a miracle I haven't lost it, given all of my moving (Maine, Massachusetts, Memphis, Maine, NYC, Massachusetts). I've tied a few quilts myself, most recently with the purple quilts I made my nieces, and it certainly is quicker, but I much prefer heavy quilting. I would really love to learn how to machine quilt, but despite having a decent sewing machine with all the necessary accoutrements, I cannot get the hang of it.

Finally, I give you reason #1 I don't buy flowers very often:

If it's not obvious, he's eating the iris leaves. Stinker. (I know, many plants are toxic to cats, but I've been keeping an eye on him and he seems just fine.) The flowers are now high on a bathroom shelf, and the cat is sitting on the floor contemplating how to jump straight up 5 feet. Luckily it's a narrow bathroom and he can't back up quiiiite enough to make it. Believe me, he's tried.

Where She Actually Finishes Something

2010-04-25T17:24:00.004-04:00

Many, many, many episodes of Torchwood and Doctor Who later...

When I started this quilt it was just because I really liked the fabric. Then my cousin and his wife were expecting, so this became a quilt for their baby boy who was born last week...three weeks early. Oh well, I tried. Tomorrow it's being shipped off to, I so dearly hope, be crawled on, spit up on, and loved for many years until it's in shreds.

After adding a cute label, my last task was to de-cat hair the thing. A trip through the dryer didn't help much, so one entire lint roller later...

...I can see I missed one.

Where I Confess My Inner Sci Fi Geek

2010-04-12T19:17:00.003-04:00

Yes, I must ‘fess up: for the past few weekends I have been holed up quilting and watching…um….well, British science fiction (Torchwood and Dr. Who). I did make it to my guitar lessons, and did manage to visit friends, but in between I was developing a peculiar obsession for the impossibly dashing and handsome Captain Jack Harkness (aka John Barrowman; yes I know and I don’t care). In fact, Facebook is now asking me if I want to switch my language preference to UK English, which I find amusing as I am now thinking with a British accent and obnoxiously dotting my conversation with words like “brilliant” and “tosser”. (I keep telling myself it’s just a phase and I’ll get over it, while wondering just how Facebook seems to know so much about my Netflix habit). I also love how my favorite BBC actors turn up in different shows, like Ruth Jones from “Gavin and Stacey” and Peter Capaldi from “Skins” guest-starring in Torchwood episodes. (The most head spinning was discovering Billie Piper from “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” was one of Dr. Who’s companions. I’m still kind of reeling from that.)

It’s been so busy and stressful at work these past few weeks that mentally checking out for awhile was really necessary. However, that much television (even if it is watched on a computer via Netflix) is just too mind-numbing, and these binges have reminded me why I started limiting my TV consumption to one hour a day. In addition to it just not being that good for me to sit around for hours at a time, and in addition to not getting anything productive done, watching a lot of TV makes my brain sluggish; all it wants to do is watch MORE. It simultaneously drains me and makes me twitchy.

Truthfully, I’ve always been conflicted about television. I’ve gone through phases where I didn’t even own a TV, eschewing it completely, and while I lived in Maine I had only the most basic cable package that only included the 4 major networks (along with a slew of home shopping programs and a couple of Canadian channels broadcast in French). I’ve also gone through phases where I’ve wasted inordinate amounts of time channel surfing, watching old sit com episodes I’ve seen at least five times. I don’t think TV is inherently evil– I’m not against people being entertained, and some of the most popular shows (like LOST) are thought-provoking and compelling. And I’ve learned about things I never would have otherwise, whether it was the PBS series on Mormons or how to install bathroom tile on a DIY show. But I guess it’s sort of like nutritional guidelines – there’s good TV and bad TV, and everything in moderation.

After my weekend binge, I was curious to find out how much TV people really do watch. According to this, the average TV viewing time in the US is 28 hours a week, or roughly 4 hours per day. I usually get home around 7:30, so if I watched 4 hours of TV a night I would literally usurp all of my free time each evening. There would be no time for reading, writing, talking on the phone with friends, or soaking in the tub (which is where most of my reading gets done). When I watch TV I am usually multitasking – knitting or sewing, or even surfing the web – but there’s no question that TV slows me down; often I realize that I’m only knitting or stitching during the commercials. In other words, it really is a gigantic waste of productive time and energy for me.

Totally by coincidence, I also discovered that National Turnoff TV week is next week – April 19-25. I’m telling you right now I won’t do it completely – I’m too hooked on LOST- but I am vowing to turn it off the rest of the week, if nothing else to catch up on my reading list. Or the gazillion unfinished projects I have littering my workbaskets, my writing folders, or rattling around inside my head. Also? Recently I discovered this piece by Russell Davies about "how to be interesting", and, go figure, "watch a lot of TV" did not make the list.

Defending Jamie Oliver

2010-03-31T23:16:00.002-04:00

I happened to catch the debut episodes of Jamie Oliver’s new show “Food Revolution” purely by accident, and (ironically enough) while eating a mint Oreo Blast from Dairy Queen (I excel at contradiction). I confess that I watched his “Naked Chef” program a handful of times and never really cottoned to it, and when I heard that he had been awarded a TED prize I thought it must have been a spoof from The Onion. I was exceedingly skeptical about this new program, particularly when I saw Ryan Seacrest’s name attached to it.

But after watching it, I found myself smack in the middle of the pro-Jamie camp. I was shocked to see how much resistance he was met with, both in the actual community as well as the vitriol spewed online after the program aired. I really can’t understand how anyone in their right mind could be opposed to anyone trying to improve people’s health. It baffles the mind that anyone could legitimately think that eating pizza for two or three meals per day is perfectly fine and normal behavior for anyone, let alone a bunch of six-year olds. I mean, there have been occasions where I have eaten Ben and Jerry’s for breakfast – but come on, even I know that’s not a good decision. Certainly not an every day thing!

It’s so contradictory. Something like 2/3 of our population is overweight (myself included). Type II diabetes rates are skyrocketing for children, a population that historically did not develop it (as opposed to Type I diabetes). Culturally, we vilify overweight people, even when they aren’t technically overweight (I’m thinking of those size-10 women who are considered “plus sized” -- give me a break). We say that people are fat because they are lazy and make bad choices. We demand that they pay for two seats on an airplane. Most of us think that it is ok for overweight people to pay more for health insurance.

But, damn, don’t take our pizza away!

If Jamie Oliver teaching kids the difference between a tomato and an onion, or that French fries are actually made from potatoes, is such a radical act – I mean, what does that SAY about us??? I don’t know about you, but it sort of terrifies me.

Let There Be Sheep

2010-03-28T15:38:00.005-04:00

My friend and her 4-year old daughter (almost 5!) came to visit this weekend. The 4-year old has recently developed an enormous enthusiasm for sheep --a girl after my own heart! (Although, when I explained to her that yarn comes from sheep she gave me a very blank look that said either "who cares" or "what on earth is she going on about".) We heard a lot about sheep over the course of dinner, and afterwards I had a brain spasm and remembered seeing this really cute pattern at Purlbee for stuffed lamb pillows. The minute the 4-year old saw them she wanted one, so we set to work. We improvised the materials a wee bit, using gray felt and some left-over cotton quilt batting. I love this sort of project, where you use up where you have and still wind up with something pretty darn cute! And, it only took about an hour from printing out the pattern to sewing on the ears. The bow was the 4-year old's idea (she was quite insistent on having one, and don't you know it's MAGENTA, not PINK. This girl is big on magenta!).

Then today, we visited Drumlin Farms and saw REAL baby sheep!

Some were just a few days old, and almost the cutest thing you ever saw. The absolute cutest thing was a little girl, I'm guessing not much older than one, who ran up to the fence, pointed at the baby lamb, and happily shouted "COW", looking totally and completely pleased with herself. "COW". What a riot. And the more we laughed, the more she giggled and pointed and said "COW". Maybe ignorance is bliss, but the next time I discover I'm totally wrong about something, I plan on laughing and saying "COW" as loudly as I can. Enjoy the fail.

Mid-Week Update (The Random Sort)

2010-03-24T23:32:00.005-04:00

1. Admittedly, I have not watched much American Idol this season, but it seems to me that they should just put us all out of our misery and declare this Kristal Bowersox woman the winner by default. Although: I must confess, I want desperately to take a pair of scissors to her hair. My middle-agedness is catching up with me.

2. I slog on with my Tomten knitting. I have crowned this project with my Most Stupid Decision Ever award (crafting category). I used the wrong yarn and my gauge went whacky and now I have a baby sweater that I am hoping will fit my friend’s 4-year old daughter. Every night I knit a couple of rows, sigh deeply, and give up; why I have continued on is, frankly, beyond me, although it does resemble my dating history. You know - find something completely unworkable that makes you utterly miserable, and then hang on for dear life, hoping beyond hope that This Situation Can Be Saved. When really, you’d rather never set eyes on it ever again…but the idea of starting something new is just too overwhelming to consider.

3. Last week my ipod went missing. It was a silver Shuffle that I bought before moving to NYC and might as well have been implanted in me, as I used it daily. It was pretty inconceivable that I had anything that small for three years and never lost it, and it was pretty beat up anyway, so when it went missing I was sad but not surprised. Off to Target I went, where I used a chunk of my tax refund to buy a new Nano, which I justified by calculating that if I use it every day for the next two years (which is exceedingly likely), my cost is something like 20 cents a day. The peace of mind that comes from being able to block out noisy kids on the commuter train? Priceless.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I went to work on Monday and found the old ipod on my desk. *sigh* I was tempted to see if Target would take the new one back, but as I’d already loaded it and fooled around with the settings, I figured it was pretty doubtful, and not exactly ethical (I mean, it’s not Target’s fault I’m disorganized). I am consoling myself with the fact that the old one is on its last legs anyway, but it does make me feel a little wasteful.

4. Peanut Butter Cookie Lara bars! So here’s how I justify these, because they are admittedly expensive: first, I actually eat them, unlike the fruit I buy that inevitably goes bad in the fridge before I get around to eating it; two, they have fiber and protein that fill me up enough so that I am not compelled to buy a chocolate croissant on my way to the office; three, they are portable and I can eat them on the train with no mess; four, I both know and can pronounce every one of the ingredients (dates, peanuts, salt); five, they actually taste like peanut butter cookies, which is a huge plus since I grew up with a dad who saw nothing inherently wrong with eating actual cookies for breakfast (at least when my mom wasn’t looking). In a pinch, the chocolate coconut ones aren't too shabby either.

5. On Sunday, Ovation ran a Slings and Arrows marathon from which I could not tear myself away, despite having Netflixed the series twice. "I AM Darren Nichols. Deal with THAT." Ah, those Canadians...

The Library

2010-03-17T21:07:00.007-04:00

One of my favorite magazines is Spirituality and Health, and one of my favorite columns is written by Thomas Moore. In the current issue, he writes about building a spiritual library, and remarks about how libraries are changing as a result of technology. He writes:

"[Today] libraries are busy making the transition from the quiet house of revered ideas to the more mundane information center. The library is undergoing a process of secularization that entails a loss of soul."

Personally, I am struggling with these changes. I went to church as a kid, but the library always seemed like a much more holy place. I often thought that if I were God, I’d much prefer hanging out in a building filled with many different books about the vast world I’d created, rather than a building that only had just multiple copies of one book all about me (two if you counted the hymnal). Moore says this more eloquently, writing:

"[The] connections between the book and the sacred suggest that a library, too, is a holy place. It is a place where you go to reflect, learn, meditate, and incubate your thoughts."

The truth is, our church was very family friendly, and despite everyone’s best efforts there was a fair amount of rowdiness: kids climbing over pews, Matchbox cars being sent down the center aisle, an occasional foray behind the pulpit by a child looking for an errant ball or crayon that had escaped from his grasp. In the library, though, people behaved themselves: it was a quiet and respectful place, the silence only marred by the thunk of a thick hardcover on the mahogany circulation desk. It was a place where I TIPTOED. The librarians terrified me, partly because I was a quick and voracious reader at a fairly young age, and I always suspected they hated me for checking out so many books and returning them 3 days later. I really did read them, but you can understand their suspicions. (Years later, in an odd bout of kismet, I would find myself far upstate trapped in a speeding car with one of those librarians. At the wheel was a good-hearted but lead-footed elderly woman, who was hell-bent on giving me and the librarian a tour of her town. It was a harrowing experience.)

The library I grew up in set a high standard, and no matter where I have lived over the years, it is what comes to mind when I think “library”. It was actually really small, but it had high ceilings and it felt very grand to me. I loved walking up the path, and I loved the big leafy trees outside. I loved walking through the heavy front door, and I always felt like I had arrived somewhere important when the door closed behind me. I loved reading all the community notices on the bulletin boards that lined the tiny front hall. I loved the tiny little “study rooms” off the big main area, and I loved the small, twin curved staircases that led to a small mezzanine. The stairs were roped off with red velvet ropes, and it vexed me to no end that I was not allowed up there. I spent hours of my life imagining what treasures that space might hold. I also loved the card catalog, which was big and made of oak, with long and heavy drawers that had a solid brass pull tab that you grasped to pull them open. Those drawers made their own quieter thunk when shut. And the smell…indescribable, really, but even after a major renovation the place still smells the way it did when I was eight.

I’ve frequented many other libraries in my life. My college library was where I first learned how to type a paper on what had to be one of the first Mac computers ever manufactured, a small putty-colored box that was smaller than a television set. Later, there was the old library in midtown Memphis that was filled with sleeping homeless men (who quite frankly stank, but were quiet except for an occasional snore), and then the new shiny modern one with misspelled words on the sculpture out front (I think they were eventually sandblasted off and corrected). For awhile the Maine State library was my library, as it was within walking distance of both my apartment and office. It shared a building with the Maine State Museum, which was often filled with rowdy kids on field trips, but the library itself was always fairly quiet, perhaps because its patrons were usually grown-ups doing research.

My current public library is cited by several sources as being the first public library in the US, which I find fascinating. But here’s my complaint: the library isn’t a quiet place any more. I can handle the clacking of computer keys and the whirr of a printer here and there. But hardly anyone seems to abide by the no cell phone rule, and I haven’t seen anyone try to enforce it. Everyone talks in a regular voice, not a whispered hush. Kids chase each other around the stacks. Teenagers gossip with their friends. It's just like church now! The other thing I've noticed is that most of the traffic seems to be in the DVD movie section. I realized last weekend that more than anything else, the library has become a Blockbuster store, just with better architecture. They even have video games.

After a particularly loud and rowdy visit, I grumbled about it on Facebook. A friend of mine chastised me for wanting relative quiet in a public place. “Everybody shut up, it’s a public pool! It’s a public tennis court!” he chided me. I suppose maybe it's old fashioned to want quiet these days, and perhaps it is simply a sign that I am really headed into middle age and am soon going to start all my sentences with, "When I was a girl...". But, like Moore, I can't help but feel that libraries - while clearly public spaces - are less a community recreational center than a sacred community space, something to be not just used, but...valued in a certain special way. "Don't let progress remove all traces of the sacred in our libraries, only to enshrine the quantitative life and the preference for information over wisdom", Moore writes. For me, I suppose can't fault libraries for changing with the times, and I can't fault people for checking out DVD's instead of literature, but I too worry we are losing a certain sacredness. We're certainly losing the silence.

Happiness Project: Aim Higher

2010-03-05T17:28:00.003-05:00

I'm following along on Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project challenge. This is my eighth installment:

It's March now, and I have hopped back on the Happiness Project Bandwagon. This month's topic is work, which is something I very purposefully don't write about here except for the most basic of things. (I have a job. It is in Boston. I take the commuter train to get there.) I do this because for starters, the point of this blog is to NOT be about work. The point is to be about all the other things I love to do with my life. I also refrain from writing about work to retain some modicum of privacy and because I would never want to risk getting into trouble at work for writing something here. It's the trade-off I make for using my real name.

But as it happens, I've been thinking a lot about work lately, and I've decided to delve in just a bit here. Specifically, I've been wondering why it is perfectly acceptable to spend forty or so years of one's life working in an office, sitting behind a desk and computer? Who decided that was a good idea?

On the one hand: I've raised a lot of money sitting behind a desk, writing grant proposals to fund a myriad of really great and meaningful projects. In the grand scheme of things it's a pretty cushy job in that I make enough to support myself, I have health insurance and vacation days and paid sick time. I get to work where there is (usually) heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. I'm not working in a factory or a retail store and I don't have to stand on my feet all day. Plus, I can at least delude myself into thinking those projects would not have been done without my involvement in them. I really have no right to complain.

But on the other hand? If I'm totally honest? The idea of spending the next thirty years doing the same thing feels so soul-sucking that I cannot even contemplate it for more than ten seconds. The minute the idea flashes across the inside of my brain I immediately push it right back out. The truth is, when I look back at all the jobs I've had over the years, I can easily pinpoint the days I was happiest and I can tell you I was NOT sitting at a desk. I was wandering around downtowns taking pictures with my office's ridiculously great high-end digital camera. Complete and total bliss, so much so that at my current job, whenever I see one of my coworkers getting to take pictures I am overcome with jealousy and it's all I can do not to physically tackle them and wrest the camera out of their hands.

Does this mean I should have been a photographer? I'm not sure. The truth is, I never really considered any sort of creative work to be WORK. I grew up in very working class rural Maine where pretty much anyone who was an artist was considered to be a crazy ex-hippy "flatlander" (which is Maine-speak that means "not born here"). Work was any honest trade (usually involving manual labor) that you could do to survive, to keep a roof over your head and food on the table and shoes on your kids' feet. The notion of "being happy" or "loving what you do" wasn't really ever discussed. When one of my English professors in college tried to convince me to switch my major to English, I dismissed him out of hand because I was in college so I could get a good job...not to pursue writing essays or, God forbid, poetry. English was easy for me and I liked it, so therefore it couldn't ever be WORK. Instead, I studied political science where I struggled but still got good grades...mostly because of how well I wrote. (Go figure.)

I bring all this up because Gretchen Rubin says in her video this week that "you can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you LIKE to do". Amen, sister, and I plan to ponder that a lot this weekend (while hopefully finishing the Green Monster that is my Tomten jacket). Another bit of advice from her is to find new ways of challenging yourself at work, and as it turned out I had a perfect opportunity to volunteer this week to take on some additional work in a different area. I'm also seriously pondering starting a new blog that focuses on one particular area of my field that I am really interested in and passionate about. (More on that later, if I decide it's worth pursuing.) And then finally...while not exactly work related, my "big project" and my "learn something new" project this year was learning to play guitar, which I have not touched since my lesson last week and must delve into immediately. Apparently I am not that motivated by "Hey Jude".

Weekend Activities

2010-02-28T20:27:00.005-05:00

1) Guitar lesson. Supposed to be learning "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. Cannot play an F chord to save my life.

2) Library. Got a migraine & came home & slept until 6 pm.

3) Watched "Coupling" DVD (season 3). Laughed so hard my sides hurt.

4) 3-hour phone call with S. Sometimes I wonder how two people who have known each other for 20 years can possibly have that much to say to each other. Or maybe it's precisely because we've known each other so long that we have that much to talk about? Also: it seems impossible that I've known anyone not related to me that long.

5) Trip to mall. I hate malls. Did not find a new winter coat, which I desperately need. Bought pants instead. Still trying to figure out why the Talbot's sales ladies kept pointing me to the petite section, as I am 5' 7" and believe me, not a thing about me qualifies as petite with the exception of my feet. Pants are black. What a surprise.

6) Had a large caramel mocha around 2 pm. That plus my migraine-induced nap from yesterday pretty much guarantees I will not be sleeping tonight.

7)Cleaned up the apartment just enough to locate my my W-2 form. (Which reminds me, I left a pair of hand-knit socks soaking in the sink...)

8) Did my federal taxes. Loving that "Making Work Pay" business and hoping the state of MA doesn't gobble it up.

9) I did NOT finish my Knitting Olympics project. This is embarrassing, particularly since I chose to make a GARTER STITCH BABY SWEATER. I MEAN REALLY. But remember how I mentioned that I am rather un-fond of knitting with cotton yarn? When I started out, I had a gauge of 5 stitches per inch, which would have made this a baby-sized sweater. But cotton GROWS, and now I have something that will probably fit my friend's 4-year old, assuming I don't run out of yarn. I should have frogged it.

10)TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAKES ME THINK OF THE BOOK "HARRIET THE SPY". HOW I LOVED THAT BOOK.

Now? Seriously thinking about casting on another pair of socks. Those, I can handle.

Wednesday Miscellany

2010-02-24T20:50:00.002-05:00

1) My Knitting Olympics project is a big FAIL. More on that at some point.

2) I've been in a bit of a funk lately...not exactly sick but feeling run down. A coworker said that I have a case of February, which is entirely plausible, except that it has been a peculiarly warm and rainy month here.

3) I seem to be incapable of playing an F chord on the guitar. Starting to suspect my guitar teacher might fire me if I wasn't paying him.

4) I'm writing again - not here, obviously - but what's weird is that what is coming out appears to be fiction. I don't write fiction, so this is a bit odd. And it's all sort of disjointed and disconnected and I don't know what to do with it. But that is what my brain seems to be churning out at the moment.

5) LOST, people!!!! And why is no one writing about the Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass reference in last night's show? Is it because there was an episode a few seasons ago entitled The Looking Glass?

6) Also TV related (honestly - one hour a day!!!), I really can't wait for GLEE to crank up again. Seriously, if I could break out in song and dance every once and awhile, I'd be an entirely different person. (I might also be committed. But it might be worth the risk.)

7) Finally, I've been on a bit of a housekeeping tear. I am not at all a neat person, but lately my apartment has been teetering on the edge of getting me shipped off to some reality show, like "Clean House" or, god forbid, "Hoarders". On the plus side, it's nice to know that even I have a limit when it comes to messiness.

8) Finally for real this time: I have not abandoned the

Happiness Project. I'm just on a bit of hiatus in terms of writing about it.

9) I leave you with a gratuitous kitty photo. He looks like I feel:

Knitting Olympics - Day 3

2010-02-14T16:07:00.005-05:00

I decided to participate in the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics this year. Inspired by Amanda Blake Soule, I decided to knit a Tomten from the Elizabeth Zimmermann book Knitting Without Tears. But since the intended recipient is a yet-to-be-born baby who will be growing up in a southern state, I chose a cotton/wool blend yarn (Four Seasons by Classic Elite) in a nice shade of spring green. I am not fond of knitting with cotton, as it is not as forgiving as wool (or even bamboo), and I am a bit anxious about whether this yarn will work with this pattern. So that's one part of the challenge. The second part of the challenge for me is that despite this being an easy garter stitch pattern, I am not 100% sure I understand the instructions. I have never knit a Zimmermann pattern before, and it strikes me as being quite similar to playing guitar - her "instructions" are more a guide, just as guitar music provides the chords but not the strumming patterns. There's some interpretation involved, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I dutifully cast on Friday night during the opening ceremonies, which I enjoyed tremendously, despite the fact that the Olympics always give me an existential crisis, of the "what have I done with MY life lately?!?!" variety. But I really couldn't put my whole heart into a new knitting project until those darned socks were finished. Finally, this afternoon, voila:

And why yes, indeed, I do have ridiculously small feet.

I Will Finish These Socks If It Kills Me

2010-02-09T18:39:00.006-05:00

Talk about second sock syndrome. Last JUNE I started these, using a perfectly lovely and wonderfully squishy skein of Madelinetosh (is it one word or two???) sock yarn in Clematis. Using the “sock recipe” from the Knitting Rules book by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, I cast on fully expecting that in a week or two I’d have a new pair of socks.

Not quite.

I’ve been carrying these around with me for months, knitting one round here and one round there, but no matter what I did that second sock seemed stuck at 4 inches. Infuriating. But after a big push on Sunday night while catching up on Fringe (football? what’s that, exactly???), I made it to the heel. This, my friends, is progress. And none too soon, as one of my first hand-knit pairs recently bit the dust. (As an aside, I’d love to know what people do with the remnants of hand knit socks, when the hole is way too big to fix but there’s still enough sock left that you feel like you should be able to make something out of it. Coasters come to mind.)

In other news, the baby quilt now has sides, and is being hand quilted (when my hands are not busy sock knitting or cat appeasing). Another should-have-been-obvious observation? Hand quilting black fabric is pretty difficult.

Happiness Project: Proofs of Love

2010-02-05T21:33:00.005-05:00

I'm following along on Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project challenge. This is my seventh installment:

February’s Happiness Project topic is LOVE. Truthfully, it’s hard to write about romantic relationships when you are not in one. It’s particularly difficult to write about CHOOSING to not be in a relationship at the ripe old age of 38 ½ , without it sounding like sour grapes or some pathetic attempt at justifying one’s inability to find a mate.

Believe me, I tried.

So, without going into the boring and painful details, suffice it to say that for a variety of reasons, I needed a break – a time out, if you will, from the quest for a romantic relationship. It’s not that I don’t want one, or would turn one down if it happened, it’s just that it became clear that I really needed to work on myself for awhile. I needed to establish for myself that I could be happy “all by myselps”, as my nephew liked to say when he was little….hence the Happiness Project.

(I strongly suspect my father wishes I would embark on a “Find a Nice Boy and Settle Down” project. Maybe next year.)

Alas, the challenge this week is “proofs of love” – finding small ways of making sure the people in your life know you love them. Honestly? As some of you know, when my sister and her family relocated to California for a couple of years I got possession of their cat, Wilbert. And I feel like I prove my love for my nieces and nephew each and every morning at 4:30 am, when Wilbert starts howling at me to get up and watch him eat. Because only for those children would I put up with such nonsense.

Trust me, he just looks all cute and innocent.