Random Meanderings at Middle Age

Sewing Monday.

I was out early for a training session at work and didn't get home until about 2p.  I headed straight for the craft-room-formerly-known-as-the-dining-room and began to cut fabric for two projects from one of my newer sewing books, Lotta Jansdotter's, Simple Sewing.  It is not even 5:30p and I made two place mats with holders for chopsticks and the sweetest little tote. 

(I couldn't find my stash of chopsticks so used some knitting needles instead to show how cool the pockets are!)  I plan to use these when we picnic or eat outdoors.  The book also has a cool pattern for a picnic place mat that rolls closed and has pockets for silverware.

I loved how the bag turned out and can't wait to make more!  I have some fun fabric from Superbuzzy that will be perfect!

I really enjoy sewing although I am not very talented at it.  I can sew straight lines and that's about it (although I am hoping to make some skirts for the summer) and do alright with simple patterns (although the edges are not as finished as they would be by more experienced sewers).  I do quilt and enjoy that as well, but quilting is a different skill set than making clothing or other items.

I have to head out to a meeting later this evening and am working a 10 hour day  tomorrow, but at least I got to be creative for awhile today!

Knitting Friday.

I finshed my Sunnydale High bedsocks (mostly knit while watching Season One of Buffy)!  I used the baby cable pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.  I have her new sock book ( More Sensational Knitted Socks) and was planning to start a pair from that when my new sock club yarn came from Blue Moon Fiber Arts.  This pair was knit with Sunshine Yarns hand-dyed sock yarn in the variagated Gryffindor shade.  I made the sock a bed sock with no heel and it is super comfy for padding about the house in.

The new skein from STR is a silk/merino blend in a colorway they call A Walk on the Wild Tide-I love how the silk takes the dye just a little bit lighter giving a subtly barber pole effect and this yarn is so soft.  I know I've said I'd never do a toe up sock. I know I've said I'll never make socks on circs, but rules are made to be broken and I couldn't resist casting on right away for the sock.  It's a lacy pattern called Grasshopper and I can't wait to wear them with my pink knock-off crocs.

Knitpicks had a free download of a trio of cute headbands to make in cotton for the summer.  I picked up a couple of fun skeins of yarn to make them in  and started this one using Crystal Palace's Bamboozle which is 55% bamboo, 24% cotton and 21% elastic nylon.  The colorway is called fruit salad!  I also have a ball of Classic Elite's Bamboo Print which is 100% bamboo, the colrway is 4995 and it's hot pink, orange and lime!

Well, that's my knitting update for the moment.  I have put aside poor John's icelandic (again!) in favor of these smaller projects.

Oh and a quick look at my spring garden (in front) from the bedroom window:

Spring Reverie.

I truly love my Star Magnolia.  It is the most lovely flowering bush in my garden and the blossoms are so very ephemeral.  They are stunning in the daytime, but at night, when there is just a little light from a street lamp or the moon they glow with a truly haunting beauty.

I worried about this bush because of the many false starts our winter seemed to have this year.  At one point it began budding in later October, but this, as you can see, had no effect on the perfection of it's blooms this spring.

As the pictures below attest, the warm whether (and yes the recent rain) has encourage the spring garden (and my beautiful mosses) to come forth at last (ok, that sounds somewhat twee but you get what I mean!).

I even spent a couple of happy hours Monday afternoon out in the warmth of the sun with a book, healthy snack and diet coke.   I'm so happy that winter is finally shaken off, I think I hate the mild/horrid/mild/horrid winters more than a snowy winter. Snowy winters are warm and cozy, but what we had was just dull, stark and unpleasant.

"I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation.  It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green."  ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse

Random Lovely Spring Day.

I've recently received two of the three sets of stitch markers I signed up for in the Stitch Marker Exchange swap. The lovely turquoise set is from Sulah and they are stunning and will fit beautifully on the needles I use for Icelandic sweaters.  The other set of stunning green markers are from Dana and came with a lovely set of notecards!

I've really been enjoying the past few days of warm weather.  However, typepad won't let me upload the rest of the pictures and I have to get the kids to school.  It's expected t be near 90 today!!!

No pictures Tuesday.

However, I finished the stitch markers for the Stitch Marker Exchange I joined and they are all packaged up and in the mail.  I loved how they came out so much I made an extra set for me.  In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that John helped me finish these in a timely fashion. 

The Buffy KAL sock is nearly done and that will mean another pair of handknit socks for me! 

I received a lovely batt from The Thrifty Knitter it has a yummy fibery surprise inside.  Check out her Etsy store she has more!

It's school vacation week so not much happening.  John and I will be going out locally for our anniversary this year.  We usually go to The Porches Inn and MassMOCA but the timing didn't work this year.  Still trying to figure out what we'll do, the kids will be at Camp Grandma though! 

My last session at the Joslin is tomorrow night.  I can't believe how fast the three months has flown.  It's a little scary because the weekly visits have been an amazing help and resource and now we'll all be flying on our own! 

That's it for now.  It's rain and cold and more rain, but the bulbs are doing their best to make flowers and I saw a couple of yellow daffodill buds so Spring is here somewhere.

John at 50.

We had a fun little party for John's 50th today (and it appears we picked the right day because the weather will be unpleasant again shortly).   It was a plain and simple cookout, with hamburgs,hot dogs, tabouleh, roasted veggies, hummus, potato salad, chips, guacamole,salsa, raita etc.  A cake from the local Italian bakery and chocolate dipped strawberries.  Lots of good friends and good wine.  And of course, a pinata.  Uncle Mike was second up for a try at whacking the pinata.  Uncle Mike is legally blind.  He wore a blindfold anyway.  I present you with two pictures. On the left, before the swing and on the right after.

                                                   Now, the head had some candy and it fell to the ground.  What my camera didn't catch was my son grabbing the fallen (and candy stuffed) body and running away with it!

Mike claims that Obi Wan Kenobi spoke to him and he surrendered himself to the Force.  I just need to remember to stay on Uncle Mike's good side!

It was a good day. I did manage to knit in the morning (and exercise!).  Now I really need to sleep.

Random Thursday (just barely)

I've been watching Season One of Buffy and am about halfway through.  I'm also halfway through the second sock in this, my first Buffy KAL project.  The colors are those of Sunnydale High so they are my Sunnydale High socks.  I grabbed the rib pattern from Schurch's Sensational Socks-it's a baby cable ribbing and there is no heel.  I thought these would be comfortable with crocs or around the house and with the way they've been flying off the needles this week I may be wearing them soon.

In health news I lost another 6lbs this week which makes the total since the program began at the end of January just over 35lbs.  My glucose numbers remain great and even with some sick days cutting into my exercise I've done well.

I treated myself to a trip to a Brookline yarn shop I've never been to, A Good Yarn and found it to be very delightful (especially the white terrier that inhabits the place.)  I picked up some needed dpn replacements and a couple of skeins of bamboo yarns to make some summer headbands with (seeing as how I seem to be growing my hair long).  One is Bam Boo Print in a bright pink/lime/orangey colorway I've not seen before.  It's a Classic Elite yarn and 100% bamboo.  Theother, from Crystal Palace, is called Bamboozle and is in a lovely variegated colorway called fruit salad, it is 55% bamboo, 24% cotton and 21% nylon which should make it perfect for headbands.

I am reading and thouroughly enjoying Anne Lamott's new essay collection Grace (eventually) and a novel by China Mieville, Un Lun Dun.

Let's join another KAL!

If you look in the sidebar you will see I joined the Buffy KAL.  It's pretty openended and I like the idea of rewatching Buffy season by season, especially since I will be reading Season 8 now that Joss has put out a new comic book series with Dark Horse. 

To get in the spirit I took a couple of Buffy quizzes and I am baffled at the outcomes.

You scored as Dawn Summers. You're a typical teenager. Though it seems people don't care about you, they really do. Heck, they'd give their lives for yours. Things change, you can't change that, but you can deal, and you will! Dawn Summers 83% Willow Rosenberg 71% Anya 67% Buffy Summers 67% Xander Harris 58% Tara Maclay 54% Rupert Giles 50% Spike 42% Which Buffy The Vampire Slayer Character Are You Most Like!? created with QuizFarm.com

Which Buffy Character Are You?

You are Spike. Insane, but extremely cute.
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

We really love butterflies.

We went to the Museum of Science in Boston with the kids this weekend and they recently created a butterfly garden which is easily our favorite spot there these days.  The Atlas Moth (one of the largest moth's in existence with a 12 inch wing span) had hatched and lived up to it's spectacular rep! virtual fish.  I've been trying to get to the tank on line (but I have a slooow laptop) to see if my guy was still alive.  It was when I left.

Noah was wearing a Hawaiian shirt today so he had a few large Owl butterflies try to land on him as well.  On this visit (it's such a joy being a member because you can spend an hour or even less and not feel guilty-although we were there 4 hours today), we also took in an IMAX presentation, Galapagos, which was fascinating but left Em and I a little dizzy.  The animation exhibit was loads of fun.  We enjoyed creating goofy stop-motion movies and messing around with other creative stuff.  And of course we created and released our

As you can see it's an adorable little fishie and I must add very wily.  I like them to be afraid enough to hide, but interested in shiny things enough to be visible now and again. 

Finally, even in the Museum of Science, knitting has a place of honor.  I bring you the knitted brain!

Quilt idea.

Just playing around this morning with an idea swimming in my head for a small quilt in the series I started a few months ago.

Random Reading.

I'm a compulsive reader and one of my proudest accomplishments (I should say "our" because John is also a reader) is instilling this horrid trait in my children.  Many evenings will find us in our beds, or even all in this bed reading our respective books, magazines, etc.  We all have the habit of reading passages to each other .  We read whie we eat.  Also while walking.  Or knitting.  Or ,well you get the idea.

Currently, I am reading a lovely mystery by Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death.  This novel takes place in 12th century England (primarily) and is one of the more realistic portrayals of that period I've read.  The novel accurately depicts the precarious role of Jews in the society as well, which is of additional interest to me. 

I'm nearly finished with Amy Stewart's, Flower Confidential:The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful in the Business of Flowers.  I have been somewhat riveted by the amount of science that has gone into the creation of the world of cut flowers as we know it.   I am pretty obsessed with flowers and with having them in my home.  When I lived in Cambridge I had fresh arrangements weekly and while I no longer induldge myself to quite that level I still maintain a close relationship with my favorite local florist.  By the way, for Pesach he planted about 15 small terracotta pots with parsley for me, a few larger pots with scented geraniums and one larger still pot with pansies and parsley.  The tables were lovely and this was actually surprisingly inexpensive.  I am a gardener as well and learning some of what I did has made me want to try some "backyard genetics" this spring.

I am a fan of the literary journal McSweeney's and am about 5 issues behind in my reading.  I tend to do a lot of this type of reading in the warmer days of spring and in the summer.  I can sit on the beach knitting and reading for hours while the kids skimboard, build castles fly kites etc.  When we head to the Cape for the summer I fully expect that there will be one large tote filled with the summer's planned reading.  This will not include the stuff we pick up at our favorite used and new bookstores while actually on the Cape.

I want to mention Cormac Mcarthy's The Road, one of the most beautiful, harrowing and haunting books I have read in the past 12  months. This book is a powerful testimony to the love of a father for his son.  This is a post apocolyptic story and the devastation of the landscape is echoed in the devastation in the heart and soul of the narrator, but there is always a small flutter of hope  and while I initially felt a lot of sadness reading this I came away with a sublime feeling of grace that's hard to explain.  It was, for me anyway, a book that once started I did not put down until it was finished.  There is not one extra word, one wrong step in this novel and that in itself is a rare thing in the craft of writing.

Neglectful Blogger of Randomness.

I haven't been updating because not a whole lot has been happening. Not much knitting or spinning.  The ankle cut into getting extra stuff done for a few days there and then the holiday was upon us.

Pesach was a lot of fun and while seders filled with children are a little loud and chaotic (the more so when you provide frogs), they are also wonderful for that reason.   And while we rarely make it through the whole seder we do get the point across, the questions asked and the wine poured. 

However.  I haven't uploaded the few pictures I took and the lovely and dainty pansies and johnny-jump-ups I had scattered about the walkway in various pots are now covered in snow and slush.  The water garden may or may not be pumping the fountain, I haven't had the courage to check.  We have kept the feeders filed though and the birds continue to be grateful and as annoying as an April snow is, gazing at a mass of bright yellow goldfinches sitting in the snow covered trees is breathtakingly beautiful.

ADDENDUM:PICTURES FINALLY!

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.  ~Mark Twain

Surprise!

My nephew had his third birthday party today and I was surprised to see his former nanny, Akiko, there!  She had flown in all the way from Japan just to celebrate and sadly has to head back on Monday.  I tried to convince her to change her flights and stay for Pesach but her husband would miss her and she has to get back to work!  I was so delighted and surprised when she gave me a bag with three Japanese craft magazines!!  I love these magazines and was planning to order the new issues from Superbuzzy but now I don't need to!!!  What a fun and unexpected gift!  And yes, these magazines are all in Japanese but the graphs, patterns and diagrams are so well done you don't really need to know any.