Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
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| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
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Hi Bess, Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Sunday, July 31, 2005 The bio-hazard that was my kitchen has been detoxed, like some culinary Love Canal, after the bulldozers have been through. Things still look a little raw, the crumbling of the environment around the edges, those parts that had looked pretty good (top of refrigerator, shelves over the doorway) when compared to the scum of disaster in the middle, now have that shabby look of the neighborhood that didn’t get federal funding. But a gentle swipe with broom, dust cloth and WetOnes will put them aright and my kitchen will be ready for company. The kitchen is ready for company. P did come, in spite of the pouring rain, and, being the easy friend she is, had no trouble sitting in a chair in the doorway talking while I emptied drawers and scrubbed down shelves. She is not a fiber woman, she’s a food maven, but she was all full of a documentary she’d seen about this Alaskan village that was raising musk ox and spinning their fur and had I ever heard of it. Thanks to A I could not only tell her but show her some quiviut, which got me pulling all my pretties out, including the bag of Wall-0-Color fibers. Later I got some Actual Spinning done - but I shan’t have more than one bobbin full of the red - perhaps 50 yards. Still and all - I don’t need more than 50 yards of it. Plying goes pretty fast. Perhaps I’ll push the hour back to 3 instead of noon. Perhaps I’ll let myself pick the new color any time after the plying is done up - as in, later today. Then again, perhaps not. We’re going to my god daughter’s birthday cake celebration at 6. Well - this scheduling of spinning is a newish thing for me. Only time will tell if it turns out to be both successful and fun. Damp and cool today, here along the river shore. posted by Bess | 9:03 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Saturday, July 30, 2005 I am now driving a car with new axles, new tires, and some other expensive new thing I bought last spring. It no longer growls as I tool on down the highway and I can listen to my Modern Scholar tapes at a less deafening decibel level. If the carpet beneath the gas pedals weren’t wearing away into pock marks, I might think I had a new car. Just so long as I didn’t actually look at it. It’s a white car. There are fortylevendyhundred white cars in the world and mine looks like everybody else’s only rattier. I whined about it a week or so ago, and wise BD reminded me that driving down our lane would make anybody’s car look ratty - it’s why the hubcaps have all flown off all our vehicles’ wheels - even the truck! With an easily distracted sigh, I accepted my fate of shabby transportation and let my mind drift to other things. No more fiber news than yesterday. I have been thinking I’ll get in some spinning over the weekend, which, in fact, I may still do - but There is always that but, though, isn’t there? And the but in this GetOffYerBUTt is that my kitchen cabinets are now official toxic waste dumps. I can go long and long without seeing the crud and dirt and grunge in my surroundings. Just shut the cabinet door, wipe it down and go on to Other, Better, Things. But August looms. Family Reunion is on its way. Guests, comprised of Real Humans, with Hygiene, will run the risk of death by toxic shock while looking for a bowl or a pan or some red food coloring. P is visiting this weekend. What if she were to look in one of those fly blown cabinets? What if she were to see just how slovenly I really am? What if? Of course, she lives with D and has a Porch. Besides, she loves me, so she would only be disappointed or grossed out or experience some other, milder form of rejection. I doubt she would abandon me. She is also someone with whom I’m comfortable enough to actually let her watch me gut my cabinets. It might be fun to have someone to talk to while I did so. Sort of a sign of true friendship, right? A feminine bonding experience. Sort of an "I’ll show you mine so you won’t ever have to be uncomfortable about me seeing yours." Sort of like telling someone what you weigh. And then - if there is ever a day when it is neither 98º and/or 98% humidity, I’ll rent the Rug Doctor and clean out last winter’s memories. I would have done it in the spring only we had a puppy - why bother. And since we progressed past the scoop stage, it’s been too H&H. The rugs would never have dried, leaving my house an even spongier petri dish for moldNmildew. So. We will sacrifice to Brigid, He Xiangu and Hestia with prayers for one dry, only warm, day on which, no matter how late at night it is, I will bathe those rugs. Nevertheless - I will put in a little more time on HeyBaby and come Sunday afternoon I will ply up whatever I have managed to spin. Monday morning I’ll have the fun of picking out a New Color from the color bag. Well, durn. There was something else I wanted to write about, but I forgot what it was. Menopause Moment, huh? posted by Bess | 6:49 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Friday, July 29, 2005 Just a dash through to cheer about The Last Day Of Summer Reading Club. Not that it has been onerous, this year. It’s actually been great good fun. I’ll miss the darling volunteers I’ve had but they are already planning with me about the after school program this fall - where “couldn’t we put on some plays?” and don’t you know - we could - because the library is walking distance away from the elementary school, where we would have a captive audience of little kids AND a stage. So. Yes. We could. But - the SRC is staff intensive and my folk need some vacations and I have family stuff coming up over the next 2 weeks. Time to lighten up at work a tad. Spun about 3 feet of the red yarn yesterday. This wee there won’t be any 140 yards to show for my effort but I knew there would be weeks like this. I’ll have some yarn, and that will be just fine by me. We take the car in for new axles today. After that, it ought to run as if it were new - although I see now a big hole in the carpet. I wonder what it is like to not drive a car into shreds - but in this marriage I will never know. I was read to recycle the little white thing 2 years ago - but BD has this thing about 250K miles and I am 70K away from that. Ah well. It is just a car - a purse - on wheels - that lugs my junk around. HP is moving along a little smoother - but I was so bloomin’ tired last night I read only a few pages. Crashed asleep before 9, but only after I got last weekend’s laundry folded and put away. See, I have this thing about not being able to wash this week’s dirty clothes until last week’s laundry is put away. And here’s a big Thank You to Canada for aiming their trough of cool air our way. Whew. posted by Bess | 7:21 AM 1 Comments:We didn't get any high drama wind and thunder, or even any drops of rain but, for whatever reason, the temp dropped a bit last night. It was wonderful to just experience the rapid change. However, I think it's going back the other way again today. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, July 28, 2005 We gasped our way through the last of the solar oven days yesterday. My car got so hot in the parking lot that I was nearly home before the a/c actually cooled off the metalNglass enough for the conditioned air to actually fill up the interior. Fortunately the library is new enough that the h-vac system actually works. A good portion of the older county buildings have either window units in them or fans. All of them smell like mold, too - what else could you expect from centuries of architecture standing 8 feet above sea level between two marshes? Though I had been home only an hour or so, the air was so oppressive I couldn’t remember how to make a salad and ended up eating blueberries and bananas for dinner. But about 8 o’clock the front rolled in from the north, complete with dancing forests and lightning flashes and a weird greeny pink sunset. We dashed about the house, throwing open windows and propping doors wide with heavy objects. The air was not cold, like it is when you get a direct hit with the rain, but it was a good 15 degrees cooler than the house. Priss, our one dog who is really bothered by storms, danced in and out of the house, trying to decide where she would be safer - indoors, or wherever mama is. Eventually I decided to remove myself from the lightening strike zone and sit on the back porch, and she settled down in my lap. Been a long time since I’ve been willing to hold a dog on my lap. We stayed out on the porch for one sweet hour, just enjoying the excitement and movement and coolness. A little bit of rain fell, but not much more than would wet down the walk. The change in temperatures, the furious wind and surrounding storm sounds left me disinclined to go watch a movie with BD so we chose instead, to read to each other. We’ve been working our way through the 15 minute version of the Harvard Classics, and sadly, not finding much that we’re inclined to go back to. I had now idea how pompous Robert Browning was! - but yesterday’s offering, Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea, turned out to be a rare treat. Yes it’s grammar structure is a little archaic. This translation, pre 20th century, is strong corroborative evidence that something in the water of 19th century England produced a generation of Tolkein-esque grammarians. And they all must have learned German - because really that’s what this sounds like - continental sentence structure written with English words. Nevertheless, we are enjoying the beautiful word paintings. I am also trying to read Harry Potter VI. I thoroughly enjoyed books 1-4, which I swooped through in a single, 3 day marathon, vacation read. I eagerly looked forward to book V last summer, but it was such a disappointment to me that I only skimmed a few chapters, and actually read only the first and last. I was never a whiny teen and I certainly didn’t raise a sulky brat boy either. Harry at 15 was such a bore. Nor do I find the “I don’t want to talk about it” stoics particularly sympathetic nor interesting. Just a little quirk in my personality. But it seems to me that if you can’t accept something then you ought to speak up about it, for, how can anybody stop irritating you if you don’t tell them exactly where the irritation is? At the end of the book, when Dumbledore gave HP the weepy speech about how he just wanted Harry to be a normal little boy with a normal little childhood - well, I mean - get real. That’s the same thing that turned my stomach with the John Grisham book The Client. Make me vomit, please, with some pathetic plea for the chiiiiiiiiildrun. Rather turned me off Grisham mysteries altogether. Dumbledore, more than anybody else, ought to have known that a normal childhood for HP wasn’t possible. He would have done better just schooling his little prodigy the way little gymnasts or violinists or ice skaters are trained. That whole book just had too much pop psychology weaving through it, and not enough artistic editing done to it. The bratty pose doesn’t have to be on every page - I get the picture - got it in the first chapter. Art isn’t supposed to copy life - detail, by boring detail - it’s supposed to imply reality, sketch it, give us just the outline and let our minds fill in the rest. Do you really want to read hours of transcripts of the last fight you had with your teenager? Or your mom? I mean - you can just go home if you want that sort of entertainment. Alas - having only the gist of the plot of Book V - and not remembering some of the important, but new characters - I find Book VI goes a little slowly. HP is a more bearable character now, so I am going to plow ahead. Besides, I’ve already read the ending so I know where he’s headed. I will do my all to find out how he goes about it. I spun only the littlest bit of the red wool last night. I’m spinning a soft twist yarn similar to last week’s yarn. Goodness - I haven’t even measured to see how many wraps per inch it is. Hmmm. As I contemplate my spinning and the eventual garment, it all takes on more of a “Project” aspect to it - and I am considering making up a whole notebook about my efforts - both the successes and the failures. Besides - there is something so delicious about buying a new notebook. Of course, I must keep reminding myself, shopping for a notebook does not a swing coat make. La - I do hope this is a project I actually finish. Perhaps I ought to make a project out of finishing all the unfinished ones littering my house. Call it the Come to Completion Project. Ah well. But not today. Today I spin red wool, visit the gym, return videos and try try try to get a full night’s sleep. posted by Bess | 5:45 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Wednesday, July 27, 2005 One more day - just one more - and earth will once again be an oxygen rich environment. At 7:15 a.m. it is cool enough to just walk around the house naked but by 10 I suspect even skin will be a burden. Of course, today is Wednesday, which means air conditioned story hour for me, and BD insists he doesn’t mind the heat, so long as he doesn’t have to move. Each of the dogs finds her own cool spot - Socks is under the yurt, Priss is beneath the arborvitae by the front door, Capt. J is down in the marsh - unless he’s in the bathtub. He doesn’t like the shower, though he’ll get in briefly, but he’s happy to sit in the tub if the water’s not running. A dog in my bathtub is a new level of spoildom for this pet owner - but then, Jack is the dog of our mature years. Like a grandchild, he is ours to indulge. The puppet show went off like a darling laugh-fest. The 12 year old volunteers got into a giggle fit - but since they were performing for 8 year olds, it was utterly appropriate - the entire room fell into a giggle fit. I brought up the idea of an after school program during the school year and they were all enthusiastic. Time to get out the old planner for this project.  In weather such as this, it’s hard to be enthusiastic about fiber but I did ply up the last of the singles on the lazy kate and pulled out a new colorway. A nice warm medium red. Not too many flecks and bits garnetted into the fiber; very few noils either, so it spins up a little more smoothly. It seems to have a bit more mohair in the blend than the green, so I may spin it tight and fine and make a loopy boucle with it. It’s just so easy to pull out mohair thin thin thin. But it is such a pretty yarn when spun loosely - well - I have enough to spin up two batches so I can actually do both. La - It’s just too hot to keep thinking - much less writing. Stay cool. Drink water. September always does come. posted by Bess | 7:15 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Tuesday, July 26, 2005 The lovely post I wrote yesterday morning was vaporized in the blink of an electron so I can’t create for you the glorious day of cool breezes and crisp visibility that was Sunday - for the mug of a Bermuda High has crashed down upon us again and we’re gasping for the few molecules of air sandwiched between H2O misting up off the fields. Now, the best any of us can hope for is to suck in enough oxygen to survive till Thursday, when, we are promised by the weather dot com guys, that the heat will crack open and leave us, spent, panting, beat up, but living still, and ready to face a weekend in the 80’s. For me, the weekend will carry the added bonus of completion - the summer reading club will be over and we shan’t have to keep that prize box full any more. No more reading logs, no more middle school helpers (cute, but sometimes twice the work) and no more Tuesday afternoon programs. Just nice quiet busywork, audit preparations and annual reports - coupled with vacations, family retreats, and all the other things that are August down on TheRivah. Yesterday’s post also was a real fiber post with News about Projects. In sterling prose I rolled out the plans for the Wall-0-Color Swing Coat in all it’s gleaming splendor. But the mundane version is: I filled 2 bobbins of the Bonfires in Forest Green colorway and plied up one bobbin full. It’s a very soft spin.  It has to be. It’s carded, garneted wool & mohair with lots of colorful flecks. I’m spinning right off the bats, so a full bobbin came to only 80 yards of not very thick yarn.  I could give you twist and grist only I’d have to get out of this chair and go measure - so just believe me - it’s not very thick but it’s very soft. It also does NOT look good plied with beads. I was so disappointed, since I know that this fiber cries out for beads - but after looking at a sample I realized that not all of the colorways want beads. Only the ones with very few variations. There is a peach and a pale green that will glisten if they’re plied with beads. There are probably some others too - I should think the very purple colorway would look good with purple seed beads twined about the plies. But the colorways with lots of variations are very busy. All these flecks of yellow and red and even tiny bits of turquoise, in among the mossy greens and bonfire orange punctuate the yarn to perfection. Adding the beads is overkill - worse than that - they barely have any impact at all and when glittery beads have no impact - well. Plying beads into your yarn is a LOT of work. Heck! Just stringing the beads onto the thread is a picky, poky job. No point in working that hard to no effect.  So. I will save the 700 beads still on the thread for a different colorway and ply up the rest of the Fiery Greens stuff. And no I will not be setting actual weekly yardage goals. I will just, after today, ply up whatever I’ve done during the week on Sunday afternoons and begin with a new color on Monday mornings. I figure this way the color change will keep me interested while I spin my way to 3K yards of yarn. As for the project schedule - at the rate I spin I hope to be pretty much done by the beginning of November. Of course, I can begin doing other parts of this project before then: schematic drawing, math, even some knitting. But I’m going to need some of my colors spun into yarn before I can do much beyond the schematic drawing. Every time you do something to fiber you change it. Carding or combing, dyeing, spinning, washing: each of these alters the look so much, it takes a far more experienced fiber worker than I am, to envision the final garment before these steps have been taken. Oh - I have this idea - this flitting image in my mind - mostly of swaths of softly knit color wrapped around my fashion model body (Do you see the flaw in this vision?) - but I don’t trust any of that yet. There is just an urge, a prompting and desire to see if I can create a garment that really does make me feel the way the image makes me feel. If I can, hooray - and if not - well, there. I will have had a lot of fun along the way. BH and I ended up in Richmond, yesterday, instead of Williamsburg. Mostly we wanted to just hang out together and I wanted to take her by a shop I knew she’d love. We had a fabulous lunch with a mega-chocolate desert, waddled out into the heat and took the quick way west out to a mall. I gave her the Spring Fling bag I knit last April&May. I think it’s a darling bag but I am not a bag person. It needed buttons and we tried to find some at Michael’s - but failed. What we did find was Lion Brand’s Moonlight Mohair blend - which looks a lot like Trendsetter’s Dune, though the colors are perhaps a little less exciting. It costs only $9 instead of $13 - which is saying something. By the time we got there (our very last stop) we didn’t really feel like browsing - so I don’t know if they have the cashmere blend - besides, even thinking about cashmere blend in the heat of a Bermuda High July makes me nauseous. I will just have to go back sometime in the cool of autumn and see what they’re offering. After that we were ready for home and since she knew a back way out of the city it was a sweet drive. BD was content with salad for supper so we didn’t have to turn on any heat producing appliances. I plan to do the same tonight and tomorrow - either that or I’ll bring home someone else’s cooking. It’s off to finish up the script for the puppet show now. I'm ready now, for the gentle down hill slope through the rest of the summer. posted by Bess | 6:39 AM 1 Comments:Ooh, do I see The Trellis in your near future? Have a great time tomorrow. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Sunday, July 24, 2005 Blessed coolness wafts through the window on fairy feet, changing the world from something to endure into something in which to revel. Sweet, soft gentle coolness. It’s just a brief pause in the relentless heat that is expected to crash back down upon us come Monday, but we can worry about that tomorrow - at Tara, where I am sure it is even hotter - being hundreds of miles further south than my little spot on The Rivah. After all, I will be a little south, since tomorrow I am going with BH to Williamsburg to celebrate her birthday. Unless we decide to go somewhere else. Whatever we do it shall be done together. She has been extraordinarily busy the past few months, while I have been extraordinarily moody, internal and gloomy. That combination has left us with only quick phone calls and even quicker hugs, just to make sure that the other is still breathing. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a girly girl day. And yesterday wasn’t so bad either - I got the essential chores done (hair, shopping, and most of the family reunion invitations mailed), missed out on the exercise (got to stop doing that - why can’t I make gym stops an essential!!?) and got in some great spinning, both on wheel and spindle. I’m determined to have a knitted project, no matter how small, from spindle spun wool. I have about 3 oz of very pretty color blended merino top, just enough to spin fine and make a little lacy thing - maybe lace cuffs for some socks or mittens. (Hmmm. I really like the idea of lacy sock cuffs....) and I am spinning it on the Golding. In the past I have not been very good at filling a spindle, though. It gets just so full, then I decide I want to start spinning a little something else and I wind off the yarn, sometimes wisely storing it, sometimes tangling it into a disaster that has to be thrown away, sometimes storing it but then losing it - EEEK! That’s what sort of housekeeper I am. Distractible. I do have some yarn spun on the little Bosworth spindle that I plan to knit into interesting socks. I just don't have enough of it yet. I have lots of plans, of course; a whole brain-drawer full of them. I make a great idea generator - just so long as I don’t have to be a completion finalizer. Nevertheless, I do like to finish things and when I really want something to get finished, done, made, completed... I have to put together a schedule. It’s the tool I taught teen aged LD so he could manage long projects at school. When he had an assignment that covered more than one week I showed him how to take a calendar and write down what he was going to do each day between then and the due date, to be sure he finished the project. Even if he was going to do nothing on a particular day, he was to decide to do nothing, not just drift into doing nothing. It taught him to estimate time, to get a grasp of how much work was going to be required, and to be aware of what needed to be started early in order to be able to take intermediate actions. Of course, he was a better student than I, but then, nobody ever taught me how to do that. He learned early, and then, he’s a Taurus and an ENTJ so clear paths to solutions are his idea of heaven. He was an eager pupil. Alas - I am far less able to actually fulfill my structured, planned schedules, but I can at least see what needs to be done in order to reach my goal and from time to time I actually do get there; sometimes with a little slipping and sliding towards the end, but an arrival occurs. Today I want to map out the Wall-0-Color project. I’m about to start plying my two bobbins of the first colorway. This is an autumnal green stirred with bonfire reds and oranges. At the moment I’m thinking I will spin a different color every week. I’m not sure if I want to set a goal of two bobbins worth plied, or if I will ply whatever I have spun at the end of the week. The latter might be both easier to actually accomplish, as well as more fun and stimulating to do. It will focus my efforts on process, which is more soothing to me (inveterate sampler that I am) than product. Since this garment is going to be a multicolored piece, small lengths of yarn won’t be irritating - I’d be breaking the yarns off anyway each time I came to a color change. I haven’t decided if I want a crazy quilt effect, a random effect or stripes. I know I want a swing coat with loose sleeves, but fitted shoulders. This means a triangular shape. I had a sewing pattern from the mid-80’s that might work for this garment, but I am not sure if I didn’t pitch it in a fit of organizational frenzy one year. I’ll check today. It was a stunning garment, sewn up in a loose boucle weave that hung like a knit fabric. Anyway - today I’ll map out a schedule and see what I could accomplish between now and next spring. Deep in my little heart is the desire to enter this into the MS&W show - quite admittedly inspired by the very first MS&W show I attended, when someone had spun and knit a fabulous coat in multiple fibers/yarns/patches. It was blue, of course, which is always going to be the winning color, and as I recall, the patches were squares - which don’t excite me. I am too round a woman to wear square shapes - at least, to wear lots of square shapes. And I am not ever going to make a big project like this for someone besides me, or at the very furthest, GD or or some future GRandDaughter. So the project shan’t be squares and it shan’t be blue. But it will still be magnificent. Oh the hubris of typing that! I can already hear Athena smirking and saying “we’ll see about that, miss smarty pants." I better go sacrifice to the goddess. Hmmm. Maybe if I give her all the credit ... what do you think? posted by Bess | 8:27 AM 2 Comments:I just finished your infomercial for MAFA. What a blast that must have been. Thanks for filling us in. Sorry I've been so quiet of late. It's just too hot to think or write in whole sentences, let alone do anything email worthy. It was great to see your smiling face. I loved you tale of your trip to Leesburg. You have triggered so many memories! I lived and worked in Warrenton from 1975 until 1983- pre by-pass time and the NORVA people were just coming in.. Now they want to commute all the way from Charlottesville--That is truly craziness!! in 1983 I moved to Va Beach!! Left there in 1996 and moved to the country-Southwest Virginia is getting filled up too!!Spinning retreats and seminars are the best! Good food, fiber and friends- Man can live on the 3 F's alone!!! I am now so looking forward to my next spinning reteat. Thanks for the memories and the anticipated future... Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Saturday, July 23, 2005 Saturday at last. It feels much longer than a week ago that I was sitting down to All-the-donuts-you-can-eat breakfast, stoking up the reserves to get me through a day of spinning against the effects of Jungian ADD. I am sure that combination of Virgoan guilt and ENFP distractibility is why I do so well making swatches. Swatches are Good. They are proof that you are DoingYourHomework. They are FinishedObjects in and of themselves. They are Learning Tools. They MakeYouBetterrrrrr. They mean it’s okay if you are a “look a bird” type because even you can finish a swatch before the ---- hey! Look! another bird. What is sweet about this Saturday is that I have a day and a half in which nothing is planned. Like money in the bank, unplanned time is a rich treasure. I have about half a day of stuff I want to/must do - and I suddenly saw a way to do it all in my prime time, those few brief hours during which I can multi-task without tripping, and which is any time before noon. I have what I tell BD is a BYOOOOTEEE appointment (which means do not ask me about it) at 11:30, wherein youth will be restored, and the week’s grocery shopping to do, which can be done before the above mentioned half hour of deception, and I’d like to get in a visit to the gym. I am still carrying around MAFA calories. With careful planning I ought to be able to be home by 12:30, buff and byoooteeefied, with nothing on the agenda. But before any of that can be done I must go have sticker fun with the family reunion invitations - now 2 weeks late - how did I get this job? Little Helper Bee Me, I guess. Of course, they are probably now too late - since Mercury has gone into retrograde already. But Mr.Horoscope assures me that business does get done during this backwards time so I will smugly shrug my shoulders if any letters go astray. It is not my fault. Talk to Mercury if you have a complaint. Isn’t it nice that envelopes, labels and stamps are all manufactured as stickers now? (hey what? is this a knitting blog or what? - so knit 6 more rounds on the sock foot last night but no spinning) posted by Bess | 7:30 AM 2 Comments:i just read your weekend events and now need to take a trip to Carls!!! Loved it since high school when we went there and to Hardees as Culpeper had no fast food and we had to go there for a treat! Thanks for the memories! Jane Oh - you are sooo welcome! Isn't it funny how important fast food was, lo those many years ago? Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Friday, July 22, 2005   Here's a little photo that has been lingering on the camera for ever. Dear, dear auction hound SD bought this for me one Sunday for $25!!! Check out those wooden gears. And don't miss the MAFA POST immediately following these pictures. posted by Bess | 1:32 PM 2 Comments:Well, I'm going to let the great reviews that you and Jen have done speak for me, too! It was great to spend time with you both, and I really enjoyed the classes too, my felting one as well.
Darling Bess, I do hope it was BD doing the nibbling! ;-j
By Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] MAFA Report at last!Begun on Monday the 18th but not finished till Friday. I’m back from MAFA, totally refreshed, relaxed and recharged. The perfect - absolutely, completely utterly perfect - antidote to the blues, blahs and bugbears that have been chasing me for the past month. It was just far enough away to be a get-away but close enough to home to get back in 3 hours. It lasted just long enough to fill up all my brain cells but not so long I got dopey. I did remember how to spin, I mastered new techniques, I met my video-mentor and found her infinitely more fun and warm and knowledgeable and generous than I had hoped. I wallowed in the affection of old friends and glowed in the warmth of new acquaintances. Yep. Perfect. This is the first fiber conference I’ve gone to where I had no responsibilities and it was really fun. There’s a bit of the helper bee in my personality, it’s always going to clamor for an outlet, but in this case, I got to be the helpee-bee instead and it was fun. The drive up to Leesburg, which used to be a 100% pleasant drive through the country, is now only a 50% pleasant drive and the rest of it is a slog through NOVA traffic and vinyl villages. This is too bad - but I can’t see any way to stop it. Dreadful $500K town houses crowd the narrow lanes of Rt. 15, with one lane traffic past the new construction and 4 lane turns where the bulldozers and concrete trucks have done their damage. Who are these people and why do they want to live here and spend 3 to 4 hours a day in their cars? It’s a mystery to me. But at least it wasn’t I95 so I ought not to complain. And from my house to the center, just outside of Leesburg, you just take 17, 15, 7, and make a left. So I barely needed a map. The National Conference Center is a concrete Chinese Imperial Palace. Parking is in huge lots around the perimeter and there are shuttles to take you back to the center. There are several buildings with graduated tiers of floors but a system of underground tunnels will take you from one building to another. Since J, S and I were not staying at the center we had to learn only the North and the West buildings. Food and classes were in N, registration, shows and vendors were in W. J&S met me at the front and guarded my possessions after I’d unloaded, then hopped back in my car, parked it and returned. Then they dashed off for a hurried lunch while I signed in. Finding my way around that warren of grey tunnels was frustrating, though eventually I learned how to read the secret iconographic signs. A little more assistance up front would have been welcome, but the truth is, I did learn my way around well enough eventually. The first class was at 1:30, taught by Patsy Zawistoski; Spinning Downy Fibers. Angora, Camel, Possum - short, crimpless fibers that often slip right out of your hands. She had lots of good handouts - including a card stock sheet for you to hook your samples onto. Once again I was reminded that you get what you pay for. I have bought camel down at bargain basement prices - and it turned out to be bargain quality - 1 inch long or less. I pretty much decided I didn’t want to bother with camel. Patsy had great samples for us to work with - and the camel was not only longer, by about half an inch, but also in a roving preparation. She also gave us little dowel sticks to sand smooth and use to make punis. Ooooo I am in love with making punis. They are tiny rolags good for managing short fibers - and on Sunday, when I was working with Priss Fur I was glad I had learned how to make them. All in all we worked with angora, dyed angora blend roving, cashmere, camel and NZ possum blended with wool.   Here are happy spinners learning new skills and practicing old ones. J, S & I hustled off to check into our motel room between the end of Friday classes and the end of dinner. We had to go perhaps 5 miles, but alas, it was over NOVA roads on a Friday night in the summer at 5 o’clock. It took us about an hour and a half to get there and back. Where are all these people coming from!?!? I believe I would shoot myself if I had to live up there in that congested morass of auto exhaust and asphalt. The food at the convention center was good institutional food, lavishly offered, with way way way too many desert options. Though I had thought I might eat like a normal person and put all my energy into fiber arts, alas, I succumbed to the herisy that this would be my last chance ever, for the rest of my life, to ingest sugar and made sure I stocked up on a lifetime supply. I ate desert at every meal! I will skip Weight Watchers today - there is no point in rubbing my nose in the obvious. The fashion show, moderated by Daryl Lancaster, contained lots of beautiful garments. There was a linen ensemble of pants, jacket and shell that was so beautiful my mouth still waters remembering it. And I saw the one and only poncho I have ever admired - would ever consider making for myself. It was two rectangles sewn together, short sides to long, so that the borders on the long edges formed interesting stripes. The corners of the garment were worn over the wrists, giving the garment a sweater look, but not a sweater shape. Mostly I hate ponchos and can’t imagine wanting to wear something so confining and unflattering, but this was anything but that. We were in bed early and back at the convention center in good time for breakfast. The cost of the convention included meals and we could have stayed there too, but at the time we registered, I didn’t have the $ for a motel room and J still lived within a reasonable commute. In the intervening months I earned some $ and J sold her house, so we chose to take a room in town. Saturday was 6 hours of spinning long luxury fibers - Llama, alpaca, both Huacaya and Suri, Kid mohair locks, and two novelty yarns, one using a crimpy wool and one using woolly nylon thread. In addition to experimenting around with the different fibers, we worked with some novelty techniques like intentionally pulling threads out of the drafting triangle and tangling it onto the yarn. Patsy called this a hairy spin and it’s fascinating and pretty plied with itself or against a thin smooth yarn.  Here's a shot of the star and the groupie. She also gave a good demonstration of both long draw and modified long draw. The 2 points of twist long draw had, so far, eluded me but watching up close and personal, while a real pro did it, gave me confidence to try it again. What do you know - I can do it! Not well, mind you, but that will come with practice. Working with so many different fibers gave me a chance to get to know HeyBaby again. I had put her aside last November when I started on TheWeddingDress and hadn’t really picked her back up again. The longer I stayed away from her, the more clumsy I was on those rare moments when I sat down to give her a whirl. That made me begin to wonder if I had any skill/talent/interest in spinning at all. A good solid 12 hours with a good dozen fibers in several preparations reaquainted me with her many fine qualities - and I’ve been spinning at home every day since. (working on the Wall-0-Color project) Saturday night was shopping night. I have mixed feelings about the shopping experience at fiber conferences. I’ve been in the vendor’s area both as seller and shopper and in both cases I’ve felt a serious problem is being - not ignored - but deiberately unadmitted. The problem is this: Attendees go first of all to take classes - as many classes as can be stuffed into the time frame as possible. It costs the same to take 12 hours of classes as it does to take 9 or 6 or 3. Vendors set up at the beginning of the conference, and then wait till meal time for any customers to wander in. If they want to eat, they too must hustle into the lunch area during its brief open hours or else bring food from home. It’s expensive for a vendor to travel, pay for booth space, hire help, set up, but its part of the cost of doing business. But to sit doing nothing while potential customers are in class, then linger long after class, to chat with their fabulous teachers is rough. It is certainly a terrible expense. Last year when I was at Creative Strands as a booth babe, I watched the vendors drift from booth to booth taking each other’s pulses - and in some sad cases, shopping from each other. The experienced vendor knows that she’s at a show to make money, not spend it - but hours spent undistracted by eager customers, while looking into that booth across the isle, with those baskets, or those spindles, or that roving is enough to weaken the resolve of the steeliest. One would think a captive customer base, charged up by their teachers and their new skills, ought to be a guaranteed money maker. But those customers have to have some time to actually get into the booths and make their purchases. The best retreats I've seen have a scheduled shopping time and for my part, the best shopping time is not from 8-10 at night - which was the shop till you drop slot at MAFA. But that is only because I am not a night person. I have to give the MAFA folk points for making sure there was a designated shopping time. I did not, of course, shop till I dropped, but I did drop some $ for a gorgeous 2 oz of dyed silk roving, another delicious 4 oz of alpaca & silk blend in a color called pumpkin that glistened with autumnal highlights. I would have stopped there, but a soon-to-be-open shop in Warrenton, VA had alpaca blends to die for - in all those chocolate QueenColors and 8 oz of it came home with me. Imagine a really great add for a really really great chocolate company - with all the flavors from mocha to dove dark - now imagine it in alpaca - now imagine it in my bag coming home with me. Ahhhh. Pure bliss. Sunday's class was spinning pet fur - Fuzz, Fluff and Fur - taught by Andrea Mielke, who had simply fabulous garments spun and knit out of mostly dog fur. She walked us through the steps using angora which she provided, but the 4 students in the class were all intent on working with our own pet fur. I had a bag of PrissFur I'd carefully brushed and washed (and washed and washed) and experimented with several different preps; spun very fine by itself, with corriedale spun fairly fine, with finn cut to 1" bits. I rolled all the fur preps into little punis and spun from them. The silkiest of all was the Priss Alone fur. The prettiest was a thicker looser Priss/Finn blend. What I have in mind is to work up a little dog shape and then spin and knit a little Priss. If it works out - I have a special friend who needs a little dog spun and knit from his beloved pet's fur. There was time for one more lunch avec desert(S) before loading up the car and heading home. There was a room where you could store your luggage between checking out and driving off - with ample time to eat lunch and even make a final stroll through the vendor area. It was hot and sticky, but you could see a stormy sky threatening the horizon. Just outside of Warrenton the skies opened up and I actually missed the bypass and got shunted into downtown Warrenton because the visibility was so bad. Thirty minutes later the worst had passed and the drive from Opal to Champlain is an easy trip. I took 3 through Falmouth, where the tiny church is, and crossed the Rappahannock on the new bridge. I didn't even stop at Carl's for frozen custard - though I did pick up some corn and fruit at Sneed's, a favorite vegetable stand on Highway 17. And then I was home again, hugged, pawed, and nibbled by my darlings. It was a pluperfect weekend that has left its glow all week. I have a bobbin full of Wall-0-Color singles, a second one started, and beautiful merino spun over the fold on my Golding spindle. The jump-start sock is coming down the instep towards a toe and it is already destined to become a Christmas Present! Life is good. Thank you MAFA for picking Virginia for your conference. So.....just what is on the schedule at John C. Campbell......????? posted by Bess | 7:03 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] I will post about MAFA. I will. I will. I will.Just - later. posted by Bess | 6:58 AM 0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, July 21, 2005 What? Again no MAFA post? What is wrong with this blog? Well, nothing but my week is crashed and crammed with stuff and I just can't seem to wrap my brain around my report. All my literary efforts are aimed at a puppet script of The Frog Prince which is to be performed on Tuesday. Lots of work for 10 minutes of literature. Of course this would be the Budget Board Meeting week and since everyone was on vacation last week, including yrs. trly., we also had to have a budget committee meeting and of course Monday I had to spend reentering reality after the weekend in fiberdise. Now today I am driving down with BD to Virginia Beach - not to splash in the sand&sun but to loll around some medical establishment while he has more tests. Not necessarily serious but then - not not so either. When you have a physical every 27 years a whole lotta issues get revealed - things that would otherwise trickle out over the decades all get presented in one fell swoop. I took photos of my yarn samples with a disposable camera but alas, tried to take close ups and the focus is so bad I won't post them. I do have some pix but I didn't get a chance to put them up yesterday so with a sigh and with fingers crossed I hint that I might get it up tomorrow afternoon - post with pix. I'm grateful for this weekend - which is supposed to be abysmally hot - but I have one bobbin of Wall-0-Color singles, one thread full of golden seed beads and maybe - just maybe - I will have a fancy schmancy yarn to show for myself come Monday. posted by Bess | 5:46 AM 2 Comments:
I know just how he feels!
Is that a shana punim (i.e. cute face!) or what?! Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Wednesday, July 20, 2005  Sleepy baby puppy posted by Bess | 3:24 PM 2 Comments:
We promise, we promise!
Oh yes, I would love to have been w/you all as the gingerbread houses were made. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Blogger looks weird on my machine today and of course I'm not finished writing the MAFA report - after all - the woman who can write 3 pages of drivel about a Saturday spent in a car driving around Tidewater Virginia can spend days writing about a long weekend with real spinners and their teachers.I promise it will be up as soon as I finish it - but then you must promise to read it. Poor BD is as red as a beet from standing on the river shore for hours, waiting for the planes to fly over or the boats to get on down stream or the waves to stop lapping the shore. Some of our neighbors came down to watch the activitiy, further enhancing his reputation as SomeoneSpecialToBeProudOf - even if the boy is a bit different. Today is Wednesday, which is not only story hour day but Library Board Meeting Day - and I will be rushed as a rabbit. But there are only 10 more days of summer reading club and we will sink back into our August sloth.  And don't you wish you had been with me yesterday when 20 little 6-10 year olds made 20 little gingerbread houses?  
posted by Bess |
7:19 AM
3 Comments:
Sweets,
NG?! Wow! My DH subscribes...let me know what issue Mr. J. is s'posed to be in, and I'll keep a watch for the article. NG indeed - and he's already been quoted in the June 2005 issue - on the history page about Capt. John Smith. This is TEE VEE. They'll air the show in about 6 months and then it'll be available on video and dvd. He called an hour or so ago and told me they insisted on filming right on the river bank and kept covering his face with powder. We get complimentary copies - can't wait! Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Tuesday, July 19, 2005 Back at the job - reluctantly so, since as I was leaving a film crew from National Geographic drove up; 2 vans and 4 people who look like the rough-it, intrepid type, to interview Mr. Jamestown. BD had told me on the phone Saturday night that they were coming and I had shrieked out that I’d never get the house clean enough. Innocent that he is, he didn’t understand what that had to do with anything but I was up at 5 with the vacuum going this morning. It is suitably rustic looking, now, though still not as nice it would be outside the mold&mildew season. But hey – they’re National Geographic. If they can’t take rustic, who can? I’ll snap up the last of the pictures on the disposable camera I took to MAFA and get them to the one hour folk late today. Try to get my post about the weekend up late tomorrow. But for a report now – with photos - check out J’s blog. posted by Bess | 10:24 AM 1 Comments:
Welcome home, love. I was with you in spirit (read: I'M SO JEALOUS!!!)
By Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Monday, July 18, 2005 I'm back - it was fabulous and I'll give a full report as soon as I have a few photos ready - probably Wednesday. But the quick and dirty list of goodies achieved includes: Reuniting with beloved friends Meeting new ones Reassuring myself that I do have some skills Recharging inspirational batteries Learning new techniques Being bold enough to try things I'd been too chicken to do before Buying a hand painted silk that makes my mouth water Finding out about a new store that is going to teach a weaving technique I want to learn - badly. Getting back home again Yep Yep sounds like a perfect weekend to me. Wise one that I am, I have today off - it will make the rest of the week a bit rushed and hurried but it will be worth it to be able to linger over the gifts of the weekend a few more hours. Summer has glommed onto us with wicked vengeance. It’s hot, sticky, stormy and gritty down at the end of the dirt lane. Too hot to knit - but not to hot to practice that long draw technique. Capt. Jack grew 3 inches! Photos this week. I promise. I mean it. posted by Bess | 7:50 AM 1 Comments:
Sigh - Y'all'll be so close...and yet so far... sniff.
By Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Friday, July 15, 2005 I got almost all of it done and what I didn’t accomplish, I managed to rationalize/reason into being of less importance. The big unfinished project was getting the notices out about the family reunion in August. I’ve always tried to get them out 4-6 weeks ahead of the event. But fer cryin’ out loud - this will be the 152nd year of this reunion and it has been on the 2nd Saturday in August since what? 1943? Yeah. I can finish labeling those envelopes next week. I also wanted to get a book order in before I left but that too can wait. Everything else can be done the first 2 hours of Tuesday and I left a little list on my desk reminding me to do them first thing. So now it’s off to the bucolic splendors of Leesburg, VA - a very pretty, very expensive little Virginia Horse Country town. It’s the sort of place I always tell myself I’m going to come back to - walk around - meander through the shops. I never seem to do it though. It’s just far enough away to forget about, till I hear it mentioned again. Besides, Hunt Country Yarns is between here and there and Middleburg is another very pretty, very expensive little Virginia Horse Country town. And Mr. Horoscope says (as I am about to go to a fiber conference with vendors) I still have to “appease the great god of Money”, but that my efforts will be rewarded. So - does that mean don’t buy anything at the market? rats. Well. I am taking only a little cash, but also the credit card. And I have looked over my stash(es) to remind myself of that concept “restraint”. Now it is off to pack. A report on Monday. posted by Bess | 7:39 AM 2 Comments:Oh Bess, do redecorate! I am priming up to convert my never-used living room into my "studio" when my son moves his stuff out in September and I can give some things to him/shift others around. I am so excited! Why don't you join me? We can do long-distance home deco planning together -- two sweet Virgos with great ideas! ;-)
She-who-remains-blogless has the combs and an extra gift for you. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, July 14, 2005 No spinning yet. Nope. Nada. None. Ahh well. Often my best laid plans are mere puffs of smoke. The good news is that I have half of the VeryImportantThingsWhichMustBeDone ticked off the list. I have this one day today to finish it all up. I reeeeeealy want to go to the gym at lunch and I’ve invited the YD’s for dinner tonight, so I shall have to clip along steadily today if I want to HaveItAll. I am no longer so worried about my rusty spinning technique. It will de-rust as I move through the weekend and besides, I am already enthused again by my huge bag of colors and my Joseph’s Coat plans. The scales will all flake away soon enough. Even Mr. Horoscope is promising that I am almost at the summit and need only keep trudging steadily upwards before everything opens out into broad vistas and smooth easy strides - or nice long draws, to use more of a spinning metaphor. It’s as muggy and wet as it’s possible to be without actual rain falling from the sky. We’d had a bit of a dry weather in late June so the wet is welcome, but in my house it tends to help the mold grow. Every day I ask BD to clorox the back porch - an annual spring chore. Every day he says “sure, honey” and of course, every day he doesn’t. So we haven’t used the porch all summer. It is now mid-July. Something is wrong with this picture. Both of us are starting to talk about being in the mood to think about doing some things to the house. I think that’s sort of cute, really, since we are also both the type to get house things in place and leave them there ForEverLikePawpawDidIt. At least, BD wants everything to be like his ancestors did it and I am too lazy to move things. Honestly. The furniture in my house has been in the same position since 1981. We both of us tend to think ship’s cabins rather than houses. So in the future perhaps you will be treated to verbose descriptions of Home Redecorating. Or maybe you’ll just get to hear about the meanderings of idle minds thinking about getting into the mood to contemplate...... posted by Bess | 6:59 AM 2 Comments:Would it be of help to borrow my drum carder or combs? I'll see She-who-remains-blogless tomorrow, and can pass on tools through her, to be returned during visits later this summer....
"The rest was slurs cast at everyone else who sat upon his legs through the afternoon cobbling his shoes and sewing his shirts." Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Wednesday, July 13, 2005 Sining my song, Erica. I remember now why I never read more Thoreau than was required. I can’t stand him! What a puritanical nagging scold. In 10 pages of Walking he said nothing about walking except that he walked to the southwest. The rest was slurs cast at everyone else who sat upon his legs through the afternoon cobbling his shoes and sewing his shirts. I make no claims to being an ecologist - though I try to be a good steward to my land - but for my part, a better nature writer is Ewell Gibbons, who not only delighted in his own forays but couldn’t wait to share his bounty when he returned. I appreciate a simple life and have incorporated many aspects of it into my own. I love to write about the particular attributes of my slower, low maintenance life - about the gifts I’ve received. But I don’t try to compare them to lesser, more unfavorable lifestyles - at least, not when I write. Perhaps it’s hypocritical of me, since I think unfavorably of many of them and smugly pat myself on the back for the choices I’ve made. But I know that is just my own indulgence in arrogance. I don’t deny myself that guilty pleasure, but I don’t inflict it on others. So. It is nice to know I don’t have to read any more Thoreau. Today it is the Greeks - and taxes! Last night was the TKN group - very small but happy. I took my colored fibers bought at MSW because I’d spun up a sample and some of the women hadn’t seen the Bag-0-Color yet. As I dumped the beauteous heaps onto the table I suddenly knew exactly what I would knit with the yarns I’d spin from this - I could see it all roll out in front of me - even the type of pleasure I was going to have spinning the different colors. It was just a flash - a visceral reaction - a knowing. But it was such a relaxing experience - that confident sensation that the spark of artistic life was not only still there but had been doing it’s thing all along, buried beneath the emotional swampland of TheQueen’s Angst. In addition, I am getting really excited about the weekend. Even though my spinning skills are rusty, I believe they’ll be good enough for the classes. I re-read the supply list and, short of a drum carder or combs, I have everything else, including the fragrance free Priss fur. Thanks to Cindy we will have wet and sticky for another 3 days, just in time for wet and sticky from a different weather source. Evidently the eastern half of the hurricane is sucking WeatherFL up the coast and wrapping it around us. My house smells like wet dog. I am still a little behind on getting those ThingsWhichMustBeDone done - but there is time - and hope. Perhaps by tonight I will feel more of confidence and less of hope. I hope so. posted by Bess | 7:20 AM 1 Comments:
I hate to admit to this, being an ecologist and all (and therefore, supposedly someone most susceptible to his charms), but I found Thoreau somewhat tiresome. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Only 3 days till I leave for MAFA and there’s such a lot to be done between now and then. I have to have all the family reunion letters printed, stuffed stamped and in the mail. I have to have the board budget completed for the budget meeting on the 19th, and the board minutes and my own report typed and mailed out for the full meeting the 20th. Some trifling paperwork for the state has to be in this week as well. Oh and yes - we need some sort of script for the puppet show on the 26th. But the really important thing I must do between now and Friday is to practice my spinning and gather all the stuff I’m supposed to take with me. Extra bobbins (sheesh! Better empty some). Extra drive bands. Lazy Kate. Cards. I don’t have combs, though I do have a good dog comb that can straighten out tangles. The bag of Priss fur and the bag of that other dog fur I got so long ago I forgot I had it. Hmmm. I best go over the paperwork MAFA sent and see if I need anything else. I had some of the green mohair/wool blend I bought at MSW on the wheel and I plied it up last night. I have the glimmer of an idea for this bag-o-wool - a sort of Joseph’s coat in freeform knitting of yarns spun in several techniques. After looking at the yarn this fiber became, though, I believe I’ll need to spin some yarn in smoother fibers to knit into this project. No matter what technique I use on this fiber, there will be lots of fuzzy texture to it. It’s in carded bats and there’s enough garnetting of small bits of different colors in it to guarantee texture in the resulting yarns. I am sure I’ll want some smoother stuff to frame the different colors. In fact - I think either mohair top or silk would be a good choice. And I swear - this stuff simply begs for beads. Well. Musings, yes. Glimmery thoughts. Yesterday’s reading from the Harvard Classics was from the American astronomer Simon Newcomb’s piece The Extent of the Universe. Mathematicians’ prose is often difficult to follow and his is no exception. In addition, astronomical writing that is 100 years old, and in particular, the most recent 100 years, is riddled with factual errors. But his explanation of parallax was very good - certainly clear enough for this lazy mind to see through. Today’s selection is Thoreau, Thoreau, America’s Rousseau - and as such - someone I’ve always avoided. Odd, you might say, that the Little Girl In the Little House in the Big Woods would avoid the most famous of our nature lovers - but there you have it. I am sure I read something of his in school because we were made to - but I can’t remember a word of it. In the past, I was too jealous of my own ideas, feelings, and thoughts, to have them colored by The Original Simple Lifer. It may be that, at last, I am old enough to appreciate him. The YD’s were by last night, full of happy talk about their weekend camping trip. There is a Family Event coming up this weekend too - one I will miss, without regret - but it’s been decided that BD will drive me to Leesburg on Friday so he can have the car for the weekend. It means he also has to drive up on Sunday to get me, but hey - that’s a gorgeous drive. Of course, he could always take the truck to Baltimore. It’s hard to decide if 3 long trips in a compact car would burn up more or less gas than one trip in the car and one in the truck, but the car is more comfortable and I am always glad to find someone who will drive me. I am still grumbling in my heart about the debacle of yesterday’s post. On my computer, with a poky dial-up connection, when I am in blogger the cursor jerks and jumps around so badly I have difficulty controlling the things I highlight. Evidently I clicked and deleted the first half of that post - the really good part - the part that got away. Yesterday I was particularly rushed by the time I got ready to post - a not uncommon problem. The time issue is why there are often grammar or spelling or typo errors. It’s also why I haven’t cleaned up all the stuff on the sidebars. I don’t see any solution to this either. Fortunately, none of this is all that sad because - it is just a blog, fer cryin’ out loud. I will always have something else to say tomorrow - even if I’m not at Tara. So - off to start Tuesday - in the muggy humid south. posted by Bess | 6:49 AM 2 Comments:The rest of my family thinks I'm crazy that I can get all worked up over the waterfalls and buffalo in the Disney movie. We haven't been to Jamestown since youngest was in the 3rd grade, I think a visit is in our future. Jane
Well. The entire first half of that post, including my Ode to a Sock, dissappeared - and I am sure it's that )&^#$%!^$ blogger's fault, combined with my rickety dial-up internet and antiquated computer. This is a bitter blow since I didn't save that post even though I wrote it in word. Rats. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Monday, July 11, 2005 Openchancanough and hauled across Upper Tidewater VA. It’s an affecting story - with some deeply, powerfully sad moments, and some fascinating and thrilling twists and turns. Poor Smith has been thought more braggart than memoirist for so long. It wasn’t till the very end of the 19th century that the contemporary Zuniga map turned up in the Spanish court library, disclosing the capture route and lending verisimilitude to his tale. Of course, Disney gave us Smith as Beach Boy with Hair and some mountains and a water fall or two and cemented his fame forever in the hearts of 6-10 year old girls. All the more reason to give the curious, or those tourists with daughters visiting VA in 2007, (400 years of speaking English in America) something to really see. BD is working with members of the MPNN tourist bureau to map out a drive on which one can visit the sites of the villages where these things took place. There’s been such a flurry of archaeology the past 5 years, making the quality of the history offered much more accurate. So - come to Virginia y’all. There’s lots to see and you can still get fried pork rinds here, too. But the sock - ahh that is knit in Trekking (XXL) in a self stripe yarn of dull browns and purples with bands of dull gold and a pink and white speckle. It’s colorful but not vivid and I stupidly cast on 48 stitches and continued to knit wishing I’d cast on 52. But, like driving off the farm, when after the rubber hits pavement, one does NOT turn back, so after knitting the ribbing band of a sock that can fit over the heel, even if it is a bit of a stretch, one does not rip out. This means all the while I’m knitting this sock I am thinking - what would it feel like to knit the second sock at 52 stitches. Would it drive me crazy to have one loose sock and one tight one or would I grow used to it? But the anal virgo in me will never let me do so cavalier a thing as to knit a pair of socks of two different sizes for a pair of feet that are not also two different sizes. I intended to knit my next pair of socks using the short row heel but I didn’t have the directions with me when I finished the ankle so I went ahead and knit a flap. Since I’ve stopped there and am off to work today (where several books with short row heel directions stand on shelves in the 746.43 section) I may be so bold as to rip out the flap. None of it matters anyway. What is important is that I actually knit real stitches at last. The other important event of the weekend was that I cleaned the house. Really cleaned it as in unscrewing the fan (essential summertime equipment) and sucking/washing out all the dust accumulated over the past two years. Talk about a gross disgusting job - but when I was done, my bedroom sparkled. There were other equally repulsive places that received the attention of soap, water, dust cloth and vacuum. I have company scheduled to begin visiting the end of the month and I don’t want them to know just how slovenly I am willing to be. The pristine bedroom ended up being the perfect place for BD and me to begin our next literary venture - the 15 minutes a day of reading the Harvard Classics. A patron donated their 1950’s edition and BD snapped it up from the sale table before it actually got onto the sale table - at the standard $5 a volume, of course. He spent yesterday building a shelf for it while I prepared its chapel. Yesterday’s reading was a selection from the Icelandic odes about Thorvald’s discovery of Vineland. We couldn’t resist reading the selections for July 9 and 8 as well - Bacon’s essays on truth - through parenting and Shelly’s creepy gothic horror play The Cenci. And there is just enough time now to go read the selection for July 11 - so I am off! posted by Bess | 7:47 AM 2 Comments:
Hello Precious. I've been out of touch and apologize. Sending a belated hug. I know well whereof you speak re: the SofD. I find Julia Cameron and Oriah Mountain Dreamer do wonders for the spirit...in addition to the Psalms! Yeah - I am glad you are on the upward swing again. Have a great time at MAFA! I know you will. Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Saturday, July 09, 2005 Summer Reading Club is half over and it feels sooooo good. This is the gear up feel tense get through it the best you can time of year. It's our busiest month, both item wise and people wise. It's also quarterly board meeting time with budget due. (I have a board meeting 2 days after I get back from MAFA). It's the month that makes us proud - but exhausted. Half done feels mighty fine, yes, mighty fine. The road out of the Slough of Despond continues it's upward trend. Did some serious good work on the InnerSelf last night, had 2 important insights, fell promptly to sleep and ZZZZZ'd till the morning. Today, BD and I plan to attend to each other some - we're starting a reading project - and I hope I can convince him to go shopping for new clothes. He looks like a beggar in his baggy old stuff. It is possible I will blitz the house with mop and broom - it is possible I shan't. But the byword for this day is Generosity. Of spirit, especially. posted by Bess | 7:38 AM 2 Comments:I just nearly burned my oatmeal reading your post. But it is worth it. I'm go happy to hear you're getting your spirit back. Maybe prayer works afterall. Have a grand time.
Dear heart, Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Friday, July 08, 2005 Sometimes, we forget how strong we are. We let our fears get the better of us, even when we have nothing to be afraid of. We remember old problems and forget that we have long-since learned how to handle them. We see ourselves as little children, even when we are powerful adults. We feel the need to protect ourselves when, actually, we are in a fine position to protect others. Don't look at what you feel you need, this weekend. Look at your ability to give and then be generous. Oh. Well. Hmmmm. I see. If ever in my life I needed a slap up side the head, it is now and it is the above. You would not believe how deep in the hole TheQueen has been for such a loooooong time. This guy has so nailed me I am a little embarassed. And believe you me - I have been wallowing badly - gobbling up whole boxes of CheezIts, albeit the lo-fat version, and telling myself I’ll write it down tomorrow - at Tara. Well. My plans for the weekend had been for a major clean. The Magnificent Sheryl will be away for an entire month and this is cobweb season. Every bug on the east coast makes a stop by ChezRegina and leaves a calling card of some sort. I intend, still, to be Suzie Homemaker but I promise - nay - vow - to respond generously to whatever pops up to the s urface this weekend. I ought to do it all the time. It’s true. I am an adult and I do know that a box of CheezIt’s will solve no problems. The other very important thing I plan to do is to tap into my spiritual help. I do have the techniques to find great peace and good answers. I know them - I just haven’t used them. I believe it is that quirk of human nature that makes people not do the very things that feel the best - eat right, exercise, stay in touch with the inner self. Yep. If there is a Satan - he is the imp who scatters Chicken Little Acorns on our heads and then whispers "The sky is falling" into our ears. A most special thanks goes to A, whose excellent post about knowing she ought to feel glad that she isn’t going to die from cancer but still feeling both blue because of the cost of recovery and bad about the inability to See The Bright Side. Oh how she is singing my song right now. When death is the other option, loosing important things, even temporarily, or even just the adaptations we have to make adjusting to the new regime, is such a better option that we (at least, we Virgos) feel guilty for being depressed, feeling oppressed, being blue, being frustrated, tired, sad or anything other than happy that we didn’t have to take the tougher choice. I’ve been so blue for at least a month and a whole lot of it had to do with the heart attack and I’ve felt like SUCH a whiner - as if anybody who knew what I felt would look at me and say "What is the problem? he lived. he is even getting well?" What they don’t know is that 33 years of listening to Mister Crabby bitch about every grain of sand in his path, every wisp of breeze ruffle his hair - and just laughing, shrugging my shoulders and letting him make his own mistakes - is over. My armor against his brattiness was to ignore it - but now it’s not so easy to do that. If he stomps around saying "Nobody can keep track of all these (*^&%^ pills!!" it’s not so easy to ignore. I’m having to actually explain why he ought to take my advise instead of letting him crash and burn. So A, dear, how wonderful the company of misery feels. Thank you sweetie - we’ll get through it - we’ll get C to post for us. She is so good at calling spades spades. One week to MAFA - and a sweet 4 day weekend, most of it spent with J and S and the SpinningGuru. I’m suddenly a little excited at the thought of being around a real celebrity. So. Maybe, after being generous to one and all, I will be generous to myself this weekend and get a little spinning practice in. posted by Bess | 8:07 AM 1 Comments:I'm so in awe of that wonderful lesson!!! Come teach kindergarten with me. We'd have lots of fun and could knit during our breaks! Have a good weekend. Jane Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Thursday, July 07, 2005 |
