Okay, all the bad that happened this week - dealing with rude representatives of a particular business, the misunderstandings, the getting the final gold crown put in (and requiring a second surprise shot of Novocaine - with its attendant heart-thumping epinephrine - because I jumped when he started to clean the stump of the tooth), the busy-ness, the mild asthma symptoms that make me feel like my lungs want to crawl out of my chest - all of it is wiped away and gone, or at the very least made far far better.

Because my piano came today.



I rushed home after class to wait for the deliverers. They called almost at the very time they said they would, to ask for final directions to my house.

It was the owner of the piano-refurbishing business (and if you have a piano practically anywhere in the continental US that needs work, they can get it and work on it, and I can vouch for their work), his 20-something son and his probably-20-something-but-looked-younger daughter.

They were very quick about getting it off the truck and set up. And they know their stuff - they have a heater in the trailer (which meant that a re-tuning turned out not to be necessary), the piano was totally swaddled up to protect it. They got it in my house with no problems at all - I was prepared to take the doors off the hinges - but that was not necessary.

They are extremely nice people. I would guess that doing that kind of work - where you are restoring something to beauty and functionality, and then getting to deliver it to a delighted recipient - probably MAKES you a nice person if you weren't inclined that way already. It seems like a happy sort of career.

Some more photographs, because I can't resist and because I canNOT believe how beautiful and wonderful it looks. This was a piano that sat for years in my grandparents' oil-heated house, and if you know anything about oil heat, it is MESSY - it leaves a scummy film over everything. And I think it may be corrosive, too, remembering the state of the "guts" of the piano (the cast-iron part the strings are attached to) before the renovation:



Seriously, this is a work of art.

The daughter - her name is Savanah - did all the lettering-painting. She said it was her favorite part of the job. She is a more patient woman than I am, apparently.

I know you never saw the piano before its renovation, but trust me - this is an incredible change and improvement. The piano wasn't trashed or anything before, but I didn't realize just how worn it was until I saw its rebirth.

The nameplate:



I'm told it is a Model L from 1927, which is older than I thought (I know my grandfather got it during the Depression; it was in lieu of payment one year).

And the keyboard. And yes, I've already done part of the day's practice on it.



The music on the stand is actually one of the books my mom sent me. It's my beloved John Shaum "Orange" book, which I never actually attained in my earlier lessons (I think this one came in a box of sheet music my dad bought at an auction) but it has so many fun "noodling around" pieces in it that I remember pushing myself to try to play them. (The book is open to "Ruben and Rachel in Society," a funny little resetting of the folk tune to mimic the styles of Mozart, J. Strauss Jr., Chopin, and finally, Sousa).

The tone of the piano is far more resonant than what I am used to. Mr. Kapteyn remarked on the good acoustics of my little living room, especially the fact that I had a hardwood floor (I didn't think about it but yes, I can see how a hardwood floor would be preferable for piano-playing than a carpet would).

I had them set it up so the keyboard end is closest to the windows in that room - so when I sit at the piano I have natural light, and I can look out the window while taking a little break from playing. It seems a pretty good set up.

I am delighted to have it. And it amazes me how little time, really, it took for this particular dream to come to fruition (well, the having of the piano. Actually being able to play well enough to satisfy myself, I am still working on that and can see working on that for a long time). I first started contemplating the desire for a piano back in 2006. My father made the original offer of the piano late in March of last year, and then there was some intermediate disappointment, but finally they found the good piano people, and plans changed yet again. The piano went off to the "piano spa" back in November, and today it begins its new life with me.

It is probably - with the exception of my house - the nicest thing I have ever owned. (It is certainly nicer, and I suspect worth more, than my car is now). It may be the nicest thing I ever WILL own.

My mother once said that when she was younger, she was always a little afraid to be too happy when something really good happened - out of fear that it would be taken care of her. But that she eventually grew out of it.

I am not afraid to be too happy about this. I just hope I can keep up with the lessons, and improve my skill, and someday (not too far in the future, I hope) be able to play Bach or Chopin or Brahms or even Vince Guaraldi on it.

Tomorrow my piano arrives.

So tomorrow must, by definition, be a better day than today was.

Today wasn't all that BAD, it was just a mess of little things - misunderstandings, meetings that never came off, people whose job it was to help me being unbelievably helpless (especially considering that their company was trying to get me as a client), people "needing" stuff, people neglecting to tell me stuff, all of that. And it all just built up into a big ball so that when I got home at 5:15 pm and started making tortillas for dinner, and inadvertently burned one, I nearly cried.

Surely I am not the only one who does that: some silly little thing, that under normal circumstances you would shrug off or even laugh at, becomes a BIG GIANT SYMBOL OF HOW YOUR LIFE BELONGS ON FAILBLOG RIGHT NOW.

But I took a deep breath and now I feel some better. I think I'm going to finish the laundry, finish a little cleaning in my bedroom, and go to bed and read (and hope that Mr. Pickwick gets out of the dreadful debtor's prison somehow. I worry about him.)

Start bobbing your heads now...



(I suppose this only makes sense if you've seen those "Night at the Roxbury" sketches on Saturday Night Live or the movie which was based on them. The movie is one of those "seriously dumb" movies - there's not too much of a plot to it - and yet, like Undercover Brother or Zoolander, I find it impossible not to be charmed and amused by the movie, and if it happens to be on cable some dreary Saturday afternoon that I'm home, I'll sit down and watch it. Just because it is so silly and dumb.

Oh, and if you watch the video - watch to the very end. Like, after the credits. There's one more thing at the very end.)

I've been knitting on the (restarted) Cobblestone pullover while reading:



Wow, this takes a while. I think I have 11" (of 16" before you cast-off for where the sleeves go) done. I'm swapping out balls every row to try to break down the differences between different balls.

I also finished the first Little Child's Sock. I know others have said it (and I've said it before) but Nancy Bush is a sock genius:



You can kind of see the 2 x 2 rib with the little knit-purl (really a broken-rib) detail in the tops on that photo.

And running down the front is more of the broken rib detail:



It's hard to see it on this photo, but when you do the toe? You continue the broken-rib detail but you change a couple stitches every two rows into plain knit so it comes to a point. Genius, as I said. (Or perhaps some credit has to go to the unknown, unnamed designer for the old Weldon's magazine, as these patterns are modifications of those). It's the little details like that that make the socks so fun to make, and so satisfying when you've completed a pair.

I did have to make these longer than directed - the pattern tells you to do 54 rounds before beginning the toe and I had to do 66 to make it long enough for my foot. (My feet aren't HUGE - depending on the shoe, I take anywhere from a 7 1/2 to an 8 1/2 - but some of Nancy Bush's patterns are on the small side). I wasn't sure the sock would fit well AROUND my foot because you decrease down to fewer stitches than I typically do in the gussets, but it fits pretty perfectly.

I'm working on the second one. These socks make me happy. The pattern, the yarn (from Dream in Color), all of it.

Thank you all so very much for the kind Blogiversary comments. I'm glad you enjoy reading the blog, because I do enjoy writing it. (It's one of my rare chances at truly creative and free-form writing.)

A couple of responses, to those comments that require or inspire them:

I guess "weird" can be good or bad. I think part of the thing is that most of the people, I'm not exactly "on the inside" on their lives, so I don't see how "weird" they might actually be - I can only judge by myself and my immediate family. My parents are pretty normal. My brother is weird, though in different ways from those in which I am weird. My sister-in-law is pretty normal but with a sense of humor sufficient to enjoy my brother's Monty Python/ Top Gear/ Dr. Who obsessions.

I don't know. I refer to myself as "weird" because that's what my peers told me I was growing up. Frankly, I like the way that I am - I can entertain myself easily enough, I have a fairly rich inner life.

And I do think people whose default position is kindness and compassion are sometimes made to feel weird in this world. (My mother often laments that she taught my brother and me to be "too nice," meaning we often got ran over by the not-so-nice kids at school).

And Spike: maybe we need to go out, waving skeins of yarn or trailing fat quarters behind us, and start singing, "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." a la Billie Burke in "The Wizard of Oz"? (Or maybe not). But it does at times feel a bit like being in a closet (though I am sure not to the degree that gay people who were in the closet felt, or at least that's the sense I get from talking to the few gay people I've known over the years)

Actually, it's interesting: it's always an exciting little thing to find a compadre out there. There was a woman who belonged to my church (sadly, she has since moved across the country) who knitted. I didn't know it at first until one day she remarked on how much work must have gone into the shawl I was making. It was nice (at least for as long as she was here); I loaned her an extra set of sock needles when she lost hers (and she promptly returned them when she was done) and she had a standing offer to bring any hanked yarn over to my place because I had a swift and a ball-winder.

Maybe I'll be lucky and find another kindred spirit again.

There's a quilt group in my town but they meet at 1 pm on Wednesdays - very inconvenient for those of us in the working world. (There's another one that meets Thursday nights but it is purely aimed at making lap robes for local nursing homes, and while that's a noble thing, I have to admit I don't need yet another volunteer project).

The next nearest guild is in McKinney, and I just can't face that long of a drive on a weeknight for a guild. (Maybe as my town grows, one will spring up. I hope.)

Aven: if you restart the blog (or start anew with another URL), please drop a comment. (It doesn't matter if the comment doesn't "fit" with the post it's on).

And to the person who felt more comfortable (I assume) e-mailing than commenting (and I won't "out" your name here in case you e-mailed for reasons of privacy): thank you. And you know? I could probably be locked in my house for 15 years and still not use up the fabric I have. I should probably claim to two fabric-related hobbies: quilting, and buying quilt fabric. Because that's a whole hobby in itself.

And Astrid: if seven years is like five centuries, then is my blog akin to the Bayeux Tapestry of blogging? (OK, that's more like 10 centuries, but it's the first comparison I can come up with).

And I think it's interesting that several people commented on the blog being an island of stability or sanity or something like that. You know, actually, for me it is too - a lot of crazy stuff can go on around me, but as long as I can keep knitting or quilting and can talk about it here, it does kind of make a "safe place" where things are fairly nice.

I'm glad people like reading about my quilting. At first, when I started this as a KNITTING blog, I was a little leery of posting about it here; I was concerned some people would think I was losing my knitter's "street cred" by talking about other crafts (or cooking, or the books I'm reading, or whatever). But they're part of the whole. (As I've said before, I'm not good at going, "If they don't like me, forget 'em" but I'm beginning to learn that there are some things about me that are non-negotiable in the name of making friends or avoiding making enemies.)

Well, this was written Tuesday night (but set to post Wednesday morning - and I LIKE that little feature of Blogger; it means you can write a post when you're inspired and set it to post at a time when you might be too busy to). Part of the reason I'm online right now (while my rice cooks for dinner) is that I keep checking to see if I get another Ice Day tomorrow. (I did today). If anything, it's going to be worse tomorrow, so I hope they call it. (If they call it before I go to bed, I won't have to set my alarm clock for 5 am).

I did do one thing today (other than read half of a book one of my Directed Reading students chose)

I "maded" some cookies. (As the LOLcats say).



Just plain old Toll House cookies (which we always called chocolate-chip cookies in my family). I baked them in bar form. My mom used to do that often (her mother used to say any drop cookie could be baked as a bar. But I suppose the trick is in knowing how large a pan to use). It's a lot faster and when my brother and I were kids, we actually preferred chocolate chip cookies this way, because they stayed gooey-er. (I cannot find a spelling of that word that looks right. Gooier? Gooeyer? Gooyer?).

For this batch I did use some Ghiardelli 60% cacao semi-sweet chips I had, plus a cup of chopped walnuts that were hanging around in my freezer. So they're a little fancier than standard Toll House cookies.

So, if it turns out all classes are cancelled tomorrow, I will finish the Directed Readings book in the morning, and (perhaps) finish the Sock Monkey quilt in the afternoon. If only morning classes are cancelled (which sometimes happens and the weather is supposed to improve around noon), I may just stay home until class time and knit. (And yes, that's the biggest suspense in my life right now. And I kind of like it that way.)

(This was written Monday afternoon. When I was hamstrung from doing what I wanted to do because of NO PRINTER CONNECTIVITY (boo). Depending on the weather and cancellation-whims of a particular group tomorrow, I will either be at home, comfy knitting, or risking my neck trying to drive safely through likely ice to go to a workshop over in Ardmore).

Anyway. More on the blogiversary.

Ironically enough, A Very Popular Blogger (Yarn Harlot), who even Has Written Several Well-Loved and Well-Received Books is having a blogiversary - as noted inwhat this post.

(I don't read the blog regularly - pop in now and then - I figure if she's said anything particularly earthshaking I will hear it on one of the blogs I do surf through regularly, or on Ravelry.* Nothing against her, it's just, I guess, I prefer to give the less-well-known blogs a little reading love with my limited reading time.)

(*I know I don't have near the commenters, or the readers, that she does. So when she refers to her Blog as a sort of collective of her writing + comments from readers, that doesn't really apply here.

I WILL say I love and cherish every comment I get, even if I'm sometimes bad about responding to them. Hint hint).

Anyway, one of the comments she makes about the blog rings true for me, even if, as I said, some days I open up my mailbox and am a bit saddened to find 40 people who will happily sell me a "fake genuine rolexxx watch" (or at least take my money for same) but nary a comment-notification.

As she says:

I am less lonely because of The Blog.
I feel welcome many places because of The Blog.
I am less of a crazy knitting person because The Blog is crazy too.

Less lonely: that is true in both an immediate and a more cosmic sense. "Immediately" speaking, I often feel lonely because I am, quite literally, the only person I know in real life who is as craft-obsessed as I am. Some of the other people I know MAY quilt once in a while, or MAY do embroidery, or knows how to knit. But I don't know ANYONE (well, outside of my mother) who ALWAYS has some project - let alone more than one - going on at a time.

But in the blogworld, that's more or less the norm. People who knit have several projects going (except for a few smug sorts who claim they ONLY buy the yarn sufficient for a single project and then ONLY work on that project until it is done). Life is messy, people are weird. But there were a lot of times that I felt like the only one that was weird in this particular way until the blog.

Lots of other people don't understand. My colleagues try to, and they comment favorably on things I've knit, but I don't think they really understand the drive to make stuff. I've had a few people (not friends, more commonly random strangers when I was knitting somewhere public) speculate on WHY someone would "bother" to do such a thing, when as we all know, you can buy socks for next to nothing at Wal-Mart.

The explanation I could give would not only take too long, but I sometimes wonder how well it would be received. So I just smile quietly and shrug and affirm to myself that I may be "wasting my time" knitting socks, but I am also sitting in the doctor's waiting room doing something other than just sitting...

But the blog also makes me feel less lonely in a larger sense. I have a few regular commenters, a few contacts, people I've come to think of as friends.

I'm not that great at making friends. I have to be honest about that. It seems that it was easier when I was younger (I seem to remember, though this is probably a false memory, that my friend K. and I became friends while standing outside the Intro Bio classroom waiting for the class previous to ours to end. We had a brief conversation and as I remember it, one of us said something along the lines of "You seem cool. Want to be friends?" and the other one said, "Cool. Yeah" and it went on from there...but as I said, it probably wasn't that simple in real life, even though that's how I seem to remember it.)

But now, it's hard. Everyone gets fossilized into their own beliefs and rituals and such once you pass out of your early 20s. Some people have families that take up all of their time. Some people seem to have more drama in their lives than seems right.

Most of the people I regard on a friendly basis are busy enough that I do not feel comfortable calling them up and going, "Hey, want to go grab lunch together tomorrow?" As easy as that was in grad school, it's different when you're out in the workforce. When you have meetings. Or when you have kids prone to getting sick. Or when you have a spouse you'd really RATHER eat with, not this crazy-haired socially-awkward bespectacled woman who just called you up and asked you to EAT with them, of all things....

But somehow having the blog, and sometimes getting feedback (hint, hint) makes it a little easier to live in a world full of those closed-door nuclear family units.

As for Feeling Welcome In Many Places...maybe not so much for me. I presume what she is saying is that the fame generated by the blog has opened doors for her. That she's been welcomes (even lionized, I dare say) in places where her presence as an "unknown" would probably be ignored, or as an author-but-not-blogger would be met by 40 rather than 400 at a book signing.

So of course that does not fit this little blog. And I don't always feel welcome in places, even places where maybe I should. And while I am (at times) socially-awkward enough not to realize that I'm being "frozen out" or that people are consciously trying to make me feel uncomfortable so I will leave, the blog has little to do with that.

Perhaps, well...I have met one other blogger. And I'd meet (and even eat lunches with) others if schedules and locations ever worked out. (Being in the literal middle of nowhere has its drawbacks). So maybe that's some form of feeling more welcome.

And then finally: being less of a Crazy Knitting Person because The Blog (in the sense of the collective of readers and commenters) is Crazy too.

I don't know as much about this. I'd never presume to opine on the Craziness (or lack thereof) of readers and commenters. Perhaps I would be more prone to say I FEEL less Crazy because every time I post some worried screed on how I think a certain way or do a certain thing, and I think that makes me Officially Crazy, some kind commenter will talk me off the ledge, so to speak, and reassure me that whatever it was, while perhaps not statistically "normal" (in the sense of "The norm is for American families to have 2.5 children" - and of course there's no such thing as .5 child), is really not that dangerously unhinged. That some of the things that I think certify me as Too Weird for the World are really actually things a lot of people feel or do or think about, but because other people are maybe better at dissembling to the world (and perhaps, to themselves), I never see The Weird that exists in other folks.

And that perhaps, in even a few cases, the traits that I condemn as Weird in myself are actually, perhaps, even a little bit endearing, and certainly traits that make me different from the mass of humanity.

I do also think the blog (lower-case, here - I am talking about my own writing rather than the Collective Blog of the Yarn Harlot - where the comments take up more space than her individual posts) perhaps makes me less crazy because it serves as a sort of safety valve - a place where I can post about things that bug me, or things that make me wildly enthusiastic, or things that I worry about, so I'm not going around SPEWING them to colleagues or people at church or the few friends I have outside of either of those circles. And that makes me less crazy, or at least it makes me APPEAR less crazy, which is maybe enough of the same thing.

So, happy birthday little blog. Seven years is a long time in the Internet world - long enough for the Really Cool People to have abandoned blogging (apparently in favor of Twitter or perhaps some app I haven't even heard of). The fact that I've stayed at the same place and with even the same template shows either an extreme interest in content over style, or an overblown sense of loyalty, or perhaps stuck-in-the-mud-ness. Make of it what you will.

Now we begin year eight.

I know I don't talk politics much on here, in the interest of preserving some kind of peace and sanity.

But I have to make (yet another) comment on the Blagojevich mess: today, I heard on the radio that he was comparing himself to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi.

I think we need some kind of reverse form of Godwin's Law: if a person who is very likely a scoundrel* compares himself or herself to any of those individuals, he or she automatically loses.

(*Or even is not likely a scoundrel, though I think it's almost the very depths of bathos** to compare oneself to Martin Luther King, Jr. (The VERY depths would be to say, "I'm just like Jesus, man! Just like Jesus!" [and after hearing someone make such a statement, I would very rapidly step away from them, for fear of being unintended collateral damage of the thunderbolt I would expect to follow]))

(** I am not quite sure that is the right word - I am thinking of something designed to tug the emotional heartstrings but purely inappropriate, like someone who was passed over for a promotion at work because they were a slacker comparing themselves to, say, Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake)

Wow, two things deserving of the "ewwww" tag in one day...

Awesome, in a horrible sort of way:

Unicorn barfing a rainbow.

Now you know what that saying would actually look like. (And several commenters speculated on what would come out the, um, other end. I think most people voted for "roses and glitter")

What? Don't you ever experience someone who is SO upbeat and SO cheerful on a day when you're feeling not-so that you didn't feel kind of like this?

(Eglantine hastens to add that she does NOT do that. Very unladylike, not to mention messy)

Some thoughts, seven years (well, minus one day) into the blog:

A lot of things have changed in that time. There have been changes in the larger world (most recently in the news: we have our first African-American president ever). There have also been changes that have happened in my life:

1. I successfully received tenure and promotion at my first "real" job. Unless there is an extreme change-for-the-worse (which I do not anticipate), I expect to stay here a while longer. Maybe even the rest of my career, as odd and possibly-suspect as that is these days.

2. I published part of my doctoral dissertation as a paper in the Journal of the Torrey Botanical Club.

3. I've traveled - for the first time - to the "big city" (Chicago) all by myself to attend meetings. I've gotten a lot better at making necessary arrangements like trying to find a hotel room close to the convention center.

4. I've taken on more responsibility at church, even being an elder (women can serve as elders in my denomination) because

5. I lived through an extremely nasty, and still-occasionally-with-repercussions split of the congregation I belonged to. (The same fall as I was going through tenure stress. Yay.) It felt very much like being at the center of a divorce. It is not something I would recommend as an experience to anyone.

6. Perhaps partly as a result of fall 2003, I started noticing grey hairs. There are more now, of course, but they are fairly well hidden at this point. And truth be told, they are actually white rather than grey, which I kind of secretly rejoice over - one of my grandmothers had white hair and it was very pretty and nice, but I've also seen women with grey hair - that sort of steely grey - and I don't think it would look good on me. So, I'm pulling for the white hair.

7. I had my first-ever crown preparation and installation.

8. I replaced a roof, a hot water heater, and a dishwasher. (And hopefully the next thing I have to replace - most likely my stove, I'm guessing - won't be too soon)

9. I found someone who will machine quilt for a reasonable price and as a result rediscovered my love of piecing quilt tops

10. I lost far too many people who were important to me. But I suppose that's just a part of life.

There's been stuff I've learned to do. (I may add to this list later on)

1. Change out the wax seal on a toilet.

2. Knit a sock from the toe up (this one just recently)

3. Knit a sweater from the top down (the Fibonacci cardigan)

4. Identify (more or less; I'm still not an expert) lichens

5. I've learned to use a digital camera. I'm still not perfect at it and I'd honestly like a smaller, more-megapixels, better model with a good macro lens, but it still does count as something I've learned.

6. I learned a little bit of German but didn't continue with it the way I thought I might.

7. I learned how to successfully make "real" bread (as opposed to bread from the bread machine). I used to over-knead and it would get too dry.

8. (Added) I learned to use the "symbolcraft" symbols for crochet instructions (rather than the line by line instructions) and find I like them a lot better. (I also prefer charts for knitting. I guess I am primarily a visual/spatial person when it comes to things like that - I do better if I can see the "big picture" all at once)

9. I learned some yoga but have not kept up with it. Not enough hours in the day.


There are things I am still learning:

1. To play the piano

2. To be less conscious of/worried about what people think of me

3. To feel less bereft when recognition and popularity pass me by, as they have most of the time

I also find that I have (pretty well, for now at least) come to terms with the fact that I will be turning 40 - which used to be the Official Turning Point Where You Became Old - in just a month now. (Stay tuned, though, there may still be a freakout or two between now and then. I've been saying it to myself a lot, referring to myself publicly as "fortyish" to begin to accustom myself to the idea. But I still reserve the right to at least one little meltdown if I feel I need it).

In the coming week (and-a-few-days):

1. My blog's seventh (wow) blogiversary (it's the 27th, which is probably going to be a busy day. If I get inspired with any Deep Thoughts, I may type them up ahead of time and post-date the post).

2. The arrival of my piano on Friday. (If all goes as it should). I am right now (well, not RIGHT now) trying to clean a little so the house looks at least marginally presentable.

3. The Blogger's Silent Poetry Reading in honor of St. Brigid (Or Groundhog Day or, I think, Imbolc? I think that's what some people said last year. I don't really know the old Celtic pagan days).

This post is partly as a reminder to myself so I don't wind up slapping my forehead in disgust two days after...

I heard this (the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star variations, or as they are properly known, "Ah, vous dirai-je maman* variations, K. 265" by Mozart on KING-fm right now.

(*which was apparently a sort of borderline-bawdy song, about a late-teenaged girl who confided to her mother that she was very nearly - or in some versions, was in actual fact - seduced by a man)

That's it - that's the kind of thing I want to be able to play eventually. To be able to play things that are light and amusing to me. (I actually - years and years ago, when I was first taking lessons - noodled around a little bit trying to play parts of this by ear).

I wonder how hard they are to play? I wonder if they're something I could work up to fairly soon?

Oh, and for the Latin fans in my audience, I present a Latin translation (found on Wikipedia so don't fault me if it's wrong) of Twinkle Twinkle:

Mica, mica, parva stella,
Miror quaenam sis tam bella.
Super terra in caelo,
Alba gemma splendido.
Mica, mica, parva stella,
Miror quaenam sis tam bella.

Looking at my calendar, I realize now I am actually one week ahead of where I thought I was, work-wise. (I was forgetting that last week of January). So I actually do NOT have to write an exam this afternoon, or an exam review, or do some of the prep work I was thinking I would have to do.

So I'm declaring tonight (and maybe later this afternoon, depending on how long a meeting takes and how fast I can do a little bit of grading) a Work-Free Zone.

I haven't decided yet what I will do, whether it will be to try to finish the sock monkey quilt or whether to watch one of the Campion movies I have and knit on something too complex for a knit-and-read project (probably the Little Child's Sock; the Angst to Crowned Heads scarf, while a lovely thing to knit on, you can't exactly look at the screen while you're doing it, and yes, I enjoy WATCHING Peter Davison as well as listening to the dialog).

I do have another quilt (yes, yet another) I want to start sometime soon. (I do not know what this brings the total of "tops in the planning stage" to). I have slowly been accumulating "cute tiny animals" fabric - I bought a couple pieces of printed-in-Japan fabric with animals not at all unlike the Aranzi Aronzo bunnies and bears and other critters. And as I'd see a fabric in a shop that would go, I'd get it. So I have the three original fabrics, plus one with tiny cute frogs on it, plus a couple of cartoony cat fabrics and cute stylized houses. And then I found Superbuzzy, which sells Japanese fabric. And I bought some (hedgehogs, deer, and sheep) from them.

I love the fabrics because they are so cute. And, as another blogger - and again, I don't remember who, this was during a bored-weekend fugue-state of blogsurfing - said that she liked the Japanese fabrics because their color and design reminded her a bit of 1970s fabric. And you know, I think that's part of it.

I look at the "dancing hares" fabric from Superbuzzy and I can imagine my mother making a school jumper for me out of it; and the cute fawn being a full-skirted dress with a plain white yoke.

So, sigh, I suppose it's partly nostalgia that makes me love these fabrics.

The quilt top? It's going to be very simple - just a bunch of rectangles, maybe a finished size of 6" by 3", all sewn together like tiles. I'm going to do a small enough quilt - a lap or "napping" quilt so that 4 yards of backing will be sufficient, because I have a very cute Alexander Henry farm print in my stash that will then work for the backing - it was one of those fabrics bought super-cheap at the Sewing Studio's January sale and I liked it but never knew quite what to do with it.

And though I've spoken of more Project Linus quilts, this quilt is going to be for ME. I am already thinking of calling it my "Yes, I AM 40, why do you ask?" quilt. Because of all the cute and the little dancing animals. Some of which wear clothes.

Still more stuff I made over the long break. (One finished item remains after this).

I finally got around to knitting the Unicorn from "Dream Toys" (A book Minnie sent me a couple years ago on the new "send a friend a book week" holiday*)



I used a variety of different yarns...one of the nice things about making toys is that you can use yarns you'd never use in a garment, either because they are too flash or because they are too expensive.

The main body is knit of Sirdar Snuggly** - just a plain, basic, baby yarn (100% acrylic). It's white with tiny dots of color on it. The hooves are an Ella Rae silk blend. The horn is Berroco Monet, which, if it's still in production when I get around to knitting that purse in SnB that was made of Noro Gemstones (which has since been discontinued), I think Monet would be the right replacement for it.

Monet is a pretty yarn but is a bit of a pain to knit with because it's "lumpy." And I'd never wear a sweater made out of it; it's a little too 80s-flashback for me.

The mane - which I hadn't bought yarn for before (I think I was half-thinking of using the leftover Ella Rae) is that Classic Elite La Gran. The mane actually necessitated a trip out to the yarn shop because when I got the unicorn done I decided that nothing that was on-hand (this was up at my folks' house) worked.

I'm glad I spent the money for the La Gran - it makes a spectacular mane and tail, very tactile and nice.

The unicorn is much larger than I imagined from the photo in the book - it is almost the size of a cat, which makes it big enough to sit comfortably on your lap:



(You can't really tell but the unicorn is sitting on my lap like a cat or a small dog. What can I say? I have allergies and can't have "real" pets).

I originally named the unicorn Sparkle, which even I admit is a dumb name (even for a unicorn). This morning I decided to go more Shakespearean and I've renamed the unicorn Eglantine (which is a type of rose that Shakespeare mentioned in at least one of his sonnets).

Yes, what toys are named DOES matter.

(*As much as I hate overhyped by stores/made up to spur on commerce holidays like Valentine's Day (in the first category) and stuff like Sweetheart Day (which I consider being in the second category), I can pretty solidly get behind "Buy a Friend a Book Week" because (a) it involves books and (b) it involves FRIENDS and not SIGNIFICANT OTHERS, and most normal people have at least one friend. So it's a lot less exclusive than the other holidays mentioned).

(**the pattern - and this is one of my pet peeves, patterns that specify yarn MASS rather than YARDAGE - called for "4,50 g balls" of some Rowan dk weight cashmere blend yarn. Which obviously has far less yardage (cashmere/wool blend weighing more than acrylic) than the Snuggly had. So I dutifully bought four balls of the Snuggly, to be sure I'd have enough - I have 2 and 2/3 or so balls left. Yeah, I know, it could be knit into a baby gift - but my cousins, who are the prime baby producers, I don't want to get into the "I'm knitting something for Baby 1" because I know when another set of cousins started on a baby, I'd be expected to knit for them...and I don't want to go down that path.

In fact, Baby 1 - Sophia, the daughter of my oldest girl-cousin and her husband - got a CD of nice lullabies. Because I'd hate to find that three sets of cousins were all expecting in the same window and I'd have to make time to knit little sweaters or whatnot. And YES, they WOULD care if one set got a knit sweater and another set got a "bought" gift.

So I'm reserving handknit baby gifts for my brother and sister in law, if they ever decide to go that route.)

The tiny little town where I grew up makes the NYTimes, sort of:

Dante Lavelli's obituary.

I had heard that he died, thought, "that name is very familiar" and then my mind flashed to "Dante Lavelli Field" being on the football field at Hudson High*. (He played for the Browns, but well before my time.)

Huh. If Hudson in the 1920s and 30s was like it was when I was growing up, I bet he got a certain amount of harassment for his status as the kid of recent immigrants (though his football prowess probably silenced some of the people).

I wonder if the town was as snobby back then as it was when I was a kid...

(*I didn't go there for high school, though. I was a prep school kid. Or, as it was derogatorily known to the local high school kids, the Q-Farm. And I am embarrassed to admit I didn't realize what they were referring to with that "Q" until I was in college. Or maybe I should be glad. Sigh. Kids are pretty brutal. "Q" or not, I will say more of the guys I knew at prep school were what I would class as "gentlemen" than the guys I knew in college.)

Something I was a little afraid of is happening.

I'm knitting less. I'm working on less stuff.

There are a couple reasons for this. The most immediate one being the need to practice piano every day, and the finding of an hour (usually at the end of the day, when I would just go home and sit down and knit) in which to do that.

But. I'm also busy for other reasons. I agreed to an overload this semester that includes a new, seminar-style class. I am not the only one responsible for it, but I'm working hard to find readings and to prep and all that. (And I have a student's thesis to read before next week). And I'm the point-person for Directed Readings again, which means that there are three (and possibly more, other folks haven't come in to speak to me yet) books I need to read between now and the middle of the semester.

I look at the various projects piled up at times, and I despair a little - will I ever finish anything again? Is taking the time to knit or quilt taking time away from doing what I "should" be doing, like concentrating on reading? I can knit stockinette and read at the same time, but I notice that I do both more slowly.

I don't know. I'm not sure I like being this busy.

I'm trying to lighten up on blog reading but I find that surfing is a "stress response" - when I feel overwhelmed, I want to read about what other people are doing.

I'm also just really tired right now. Part of it is readjusting to a busier schedule but also the mountain cedar has started flowering. Our allergy season starts devilishly early.

TChem writes about how she keeps getting bogged down in "facts" at the expense of "truth" and how the details and the big picture are now mixed in her life, and that makes it hard.

I find I feel a similar bogged-down-ness at times - I tend to phrase it more as "the urgent is pushing out the important" (which is a line from some theologian; I don't remember which one). I can tell my creativity suffers when I feel so pressed to Just Complete Stuff and when I have less time to think. I can very easily get overwhelmed if I "zoom out" from the one inch picture frame (that concept is from Anne Lamott; I remember that) and think about what I must do in the next week, or the next two weeks, or the rest of the semester, instead of forcing myself to close down the iris so the only thing in view is the paper I must be evaluating now, or the prep work I must do for class....and trust that the other things will take care of themselves until such a time comes up that I can take care of them.

I'm really bad at surrendering control. Or trusting that things will get done somehow. And that's one of the things that frays me and wears me thin.

one of the most interesting (to me) things I've seen on Craftblog in a while.

If I had an end table in need of refurbishment, I'd do that. Even cooler would be to use mah jongg tiles, but I bet they're more expensive than dominoes are.

A few years back, I saw somewhere (it might have been the Flax arts catalog - I have no idea if Flax is still in business, haven't received a catalog from them in a long time and it seems their online presence is still stuck in last December) a purse that was totally covered with mah jongg tiles. It was very cool and I wanted one. But it was also $89 and I couldn't see paying that for a purse that was essentially a novelty.

The Hunger Site's store sells a bracelet made of mah jongg tiles, but it's not quite the same thing.

Sometimes, Barnum statements seem frighteningly accurate (The "hard" statements, especially the one about defensiveness, are embarrassingly true):

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Grace!

You are a Grace -- "I need to understand the world."

Graces have a need for knowledge and are introverted, curious, analytical, and insightful.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Be independent, not clingy


• * Speak in a straightforward and brief manner


• * I need time alone to process my feelings and thoughts


• * Remember that If I seem aloof, distant, or arrogant, it may be that I am feeling uncomfortable


• * Make me feel welcome, but not too intensely, or I might doubt your sincerity


• * If I become irritated when I have to repeat things, it may be because it was such an effort to get my thoughts out in the first place


• * don't come on like a bulldozer


• * Help me to avoid my pet peeves: big parties, other people's loud music, overdone emotions, and intrusions on my privacy

What I Like About Being a Grace
* standing back and viewing life objectively
* coming to a thorough understanding; perceiving causes and effects
* my sense of integrity: doing what I think is right and not being influenced by social pressure
* not being caught up in material possessions and status
* being calm in a crisis

What's Hard About Being a Grace

• * being slow to put my knowledge and insights out in the world


• * feeling bad when I act defensive or like a know-it-all


• * being pressured to be with people when I don't want to be


• * watching others with better social skills, but less intelligence or technical skill, do better professionally

Graces as Children Often

• * spend a lot of time alone reading, making collections, and so on


• * have a few special friends rather than many


• * are very bright and curious and do well in school


• * have independent minds and often question their parents and teachers


• * watch events from a detached point of view, gathering information


• * assume a poker face in order not to look afraid


• * are sensitive; avoid interpersonal conflict


• * feel intruded upon and controlled and/or ignored and neglected

Graces as Parents

• * are often kind, perceptive, and devoted


• * are sometimes authoritarian and demanding


• * may expect more intellectual achievement than is developmentally appropriate


• * may be intolerant of their children expressing strong emotions

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

(Spotted here

I'm still reading on Pickwick Papers. It has been a very amusing book, and - dare I say it - one that would go on that short list of Books I Would Take To a Desert Island.

But I admit part I read the other night made me sad, and made me have to put it down after reading that.

(tiny spoiler alert.


spoiler in









3










2








1......)

Pickwick is sent to debtor's prison (though not for the reason you might suspect, had you not read the book). He sees a number of men basically carousing during their time.

But then - and this is the part that startled me and made me sad - there is the description of an entire family that's been locked up:

In a third [cell], a man, with his wife and a whole crowd of children, might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, or upon a few chairs, for the younger ones to pass the night in...

And while I suppose the children would fare better on the "inside" with their parents (if there was no one else to care for them), still...

As much as I rail against people behaving irresponsibly and spending themselves into debt, I'm glad we don't have debtor's prisons today.

Later on, Sam Weller (who is often actually the voice of wisdom in the book) comments that imprisonment may not be so bad for some of the "idle fellows" who are housed there, who now have all the time they could want to drink and play cards, but for the workingmen - the people who tried to keep up what dignity they could, who worked when they could and paid their bills as much as possible - the imprisonment meant not only did they get further behind in their lives, but it was also a sort of soul-breaking thing.

But there is something about that image of the man trying to make beds up for his small children on the floor, or on chairs (and what hard and unpleasant beds they must be) kind of gets to me.

Why do I always forget, when I cook chicken, to take the trash with the stuff the chicken came in out to the trash can that very night? Ugh. I've got a couple of "Clean Cotton" scented candles burning and they seem to be taking care of it. Or maybe I just have a more sensitive nose than many people.

****

I think the hardest part of learning to play the piano is going to be psychological. I admit, I was disappointed when she didn't move me up to a new piece in the "performance" book - still stuck on the "bowdlerized*" Mozart. I was getting off tempo and wasn't paying enough attention to the crescendos and other markings like that.

(*Not really "bowdlerized" but that's how I think of it - a simplified version. Though given Mozart's reputed sense of humor, perhaps some of his work has been ACTUALLY bowdlerized, at least in instances where it's going to be used with children)

I am having to remind myself that I have been at this one week - less, actually, as my first lesson was on Thursday. And she seemed surprised at how proficient I had become with the scales and the finger exercises.

I once had a colleague comment that I was probably the kind of person that too many things came too easy to, because I got frustrated with myself fast when something didn't come easy. He is right.

I am not tremendously good at being patient with myself.

I will be happy when my actual piano gets here; I'm going to experiment with practicing in shorter chunks but more frequently during the day to see if that works better. I also may be able to practice earlier in the day when I'm less tired. At least some days. It probably isn't the greatest having to wait until 4 pm to practice (I don't feel comfortable doing it when there are lots of other people in the church, and it's kind of creepy going down there early early in the morning while it's still dark out.)

(I am frantically trying to stuff down the little demon in my head that is saying, "See? See? You DON'T actually have any musical talent. You can play the notes but you can't play the MUSIC. That beautiful piano will be totally wasted on you." Yes, I know it's totally irrational but I still do it to myself.)

*****

I pulled out a LONG stalled project and restarted it. Being able to "read" your knitting is a good thing. This was the (formerly) Clandestine Knitting Project. It's a pattern designed by TChem, called Suppliers of Angst to Crowned Heads for More than Four Centuries (Ravelry link where you can buy the pattern. But I test-knit so I got mine free, neener neener)

(Can I also say: I know she's busy but I wish she'd update more?)

I miss lace when I'm not working on it. This is a fairly logical pattern so it's easy to keep track of. (And to find where I was even though I had mislaid the particular row-counter I was using).

The only drawback is the the yarn I'm using is just slightly thicker than sewing thread so it takes a long time to make much headway on it. I think I just finished the fifth of nine repeats (for the first half alone, then I have a second half to make).

But patience, patience. On both this and the piano.

*****

Sometimes I wonder if Leonard Kleinrock (and others) ever fathomed that their lifetime of research would culminate in pages of cat macros?


more animals

*****

I just found out what MAY have happened a couple years back when I got the mystery package containing some stuff I didn't order.

My mom sent a package of piano practice books to me today and the person at the post office said if it was JUST books, they could be sent cheaply as "bound printed matter." But - she warned - the PO periodically will open a box to verify.

So that is very likely what happened - my Folio box and someone else's box were both being inspected at the same time, and got jumbled up. I'm just glad I got all the books I had ordered, but I suppose Folio would have made it right if one was missing.

My big effort for the day was to reconfigure my living room in order to make room for the piano (Piano countdown: t-12 days). The biggest part of the job was unloading two bookcases, moving the bookcases into the guest room, and reloading them. I kind of hated to do it because the guest room is more "out of sight, out of mind" as far as books go, but I really don't have anywhere else I can put the shelves at the moment. I will say I "found" a few books I had forgot I bought, and kind of put them aside into a "to be read soon" pile.

Then, I moved the sofa table, the sofa, the big overstuffed chair, the coffee table.

Then moved the sofa table again because it wasn't working directly behind the sofa. And I tried moving the big chair back more to where it used to be, because I wasn't sure I liked it in its new spot.

I finally hit on a combination that works.



The big empty spot to the right is where I plan to put the piano.

Granted, it looks cluttered. I think ANY shot of a "normal" person's room, that they actually live and work in, will look cluttered compared to a magazine shot. Ever notice how rarely there are bookcases in magazine photographs of rooms? And almost never needlecraft projects, unless it's a small basket of artfully wound balls of wool? I've read about how people have to essentially move out of their houses for a week while the "stagers" come in - and how said "stagers" remove some objects, transport in others, and generally make the room a "fantasy" rather than a reality.

Hrm. Not unlike the Photoshopped models many women's magazines have started using on their covers...where a few pixels are whittled off the waist, or the neck is digitally lengthened, or the skin "smoothed" using an algorithm.

Anyway. My cluttered living room, but I like it that way. I have my quilt to work on and a stack of CDs close at hand, and some books and my fun comfy pillows on the sofa.

I did finally decide that the place I planned to put the overstuffed chair was okay:



It's actually not that bad there after all. (It will also be better once the piano is home so I'm not staring at an expanse of blank wall when I sit in the chair). I'm glad I did find a place for it, and things weren't too hopelessly crowded. It would have been a shame to have to get rid of it - it is very comfortable to sit in, and it is probably the best spot to sit and knit or sit and read.

I will have to be careful if I ever do light the candles in the fireplace again. I may eventually invest in some kind of smaller candleholder that actually fits all the way into the fireplace - I've seen some in catalogs that look like simulated logs, with little cups in them to hold tealights.

Ellen: no, no lying in front of doors. Then again, I don't have a drawing room or a tureen to worry about ;) (I do keep most of my amigurumi; right now they are decorating my bedroom. Yes, I realize that most people would view that as kind of childish; I really do not care.)

It was a nice, peaceful weekend. (The best kind, I'm convinced.)

(Piano update is at the very end in case anyone is bored by it and wants to skip that section).

I worked a bit more on the Sock Monkey quilt - all the pieces are cut, the simpler blocks are sewn, and the first of the more-complex blocks (two "pinwheels" set with solid squares) has been made. (No pictures yet; I think I'm going to wait until I lay out the quilt).

I also read a bunch for a fire-ecology class I'm helping teach (and yes, the students have already begun doing the Beavis and Butthead impressions. I think that's kind of required in a fire ecology class).

And I finished my first-ever pair of toe-up socks:

They even fit.

As I said, I'm going to use some Regia that I had deep in the stash (I think I got it on sale somewhere, and when it arrived I was kind of like, yuck, why did I buy this color? so it will be good experimentation yarn) to try out a modification of the pattern with a deeper heel flap. This is an attempt at "perfecting" the fit because I do find I have a couple stitch patterns I want to plug into socks, but that would only really work starting at the toe.

I also started a new scarf:



Diann, remember this? The yarn you said you bought because you liked it and then realized the color was wrong for you? I'm making just a simple feather-and-fan scarf out of it. (I really had planned to for a couple years, but just never got around to starting it).

I like the opal-like quality of the colors and I think it works well with the feather and fan pattern. (Really, sometimes, I think the simple old stitch patterns are the best - this is probably the most basic lace pattern out there)

And here's the January mantel. I like the "icy" effect I've done the past couple years (with candles in all kinds of clear glass holders) that I did it again. Here are all the candles, lit:



(Forgive the shakiness; it was taken with the "extreme night" long exposure time and the "tripod" I jury-rigged out of books wasn't as stable as I thought it was)

Also, one of my favorite things, which always finds a place on my mantel, regardless of how I have it decorated:



These are little copper tealight holders. You can see they have words punched out of them so the candle light shines out through the words. My dad got these for me for Christmas several years ago. They make me very happy.

I did other things - put in a couple more hours of practice on the piano (and discovered that the piano in the Fellowship Hall has a much better tone and doesn't have an annoying "click" in the G above middle C. My church has a great abundance of spinet pianos but most of them haven't been kept up well and they're either badly out of tune or have sustained some damage somewhere).

And you know, I've learned two things already:

1. An hour is the absolute limit I can sit at the piano in one "chunk" and work productively. As I close in on the hour, that's when I begin to make mistakes.

2. My piano teacher was absolutely right when she said that consistent practice is better than a big chunk one day and nothing other days. I didn't disbelieve her on that, after all, she has years of experience and it makes sense - but I really saw it in action this weekend. I think it's like learning anything - if you sleep after learning, somehow it gets "set in" better. I could play the little Mozart piece MUCH BETTER today than I could either yesterday or Friday. I'm even beginning to notice and do things like, "Ease up on the left-hand chords; they are sounding too dominant" and being able to put in legato where there's legato and staccato where there's staccato.

And one of my big worries - and I think this goes back to some bad advice I got from a music teacher years ago (I don't like to speak ill of the dead - and he did pass fairly recently - so I'll just describe it as bad advice). It kind of doomed me to thinking that I could only learn to play "technically proficiently," that I would always play like a machine and not be able to put FEELING into it. But I'm beginning to hear the hints of feeling in my practicing. So maybe there's hope yet.

I am tempted to go a bit "rogue" and see if I can find some copies of the Well-Tempered Clavier books and buy them to have when I feel like messing about on my own. There's one piece extracted from Book 1 at the very end of my performance book. I tried it out today and while I am far, far from perfect on it - it brought me so much joy to be able to do it. To play it, and to hear it, and to recognize it as a piece I've heard before. It's all based on arpeggios so it's not that hard (It's also "arranged," and therefore made less hard. But still).

I may also ask my folks to dig around in the music chest they have at home and see if they can find the old exercise books I had years ago - I think maybe I had one of Clementi's books (did he write for piano? Or did I have that book for clarinet? I don't remember).

I will say I will be so glad when my piano arrives (less than 2 weeks, now.) My plans for my day off tomorrow are to move the necessary furniture and clean so there is a space for it. I envision being able to practice for ten or fifteen minutes in the morning before heading out the door to work, and being able to sit down and "decompress" at the end of the day by practicing. (Right now, I usually switch on the tv to one of the all-news channels. It is probably spiritually healthier for me to sit down at the piano instead. And there's at least a half-hour there most days that's "empty" time otherwise). I know I will be able to make time to practice, especially once the piano is here. (One of the men in my Sunday School class has often commented that "people find time for the things they value" as a response when he hears about someone claiming they "don't have time" for this or that. While that may not be strictly true 100% of the time, I do think there's some truth to it - thinking of all the quilters and knitters out there with far busier lives than I lead, or the people who sing in choirs, or who read far more books than I do.)

So far have accumulated 1 hr. 30 min. of piano practice time. I'm doing OK, I guess, progress-wise, but I'm going to have to work very hard to fight down the demon of perfectionism that makes me go, "I can't play this piece perfectly even after working on it for a while. I guess I am not worthy of owning a piano."

I'm hoping I will get more than one week on some of the pieces. I really do not remember how fast one was expected to advance from my earlier days of piano lessons. I feel like I'm not advancing fast enough. We'll see what the teacher says on Tuesday.

I also need to work harder on the left-hand stuff, even though the right hand is generally the one that gets the interesting bits. My left hand is weak and I tend to get my first three fingers tangled up when doing scales.

I will say, though, that I do relax considerably sitting down at the piano. I guess it is because I know that I have to concentrate on THIS and ONLY THIS and that no one can interrupt me (working alone in an empty church parlor helps; I may take to unplugging the phone at home when I start practicing there).


One of my big problems at work, I've come to realize, is that I anticipate interruption. And thus, I can never concentrate on things to the extent I'd like - going in on weekends works a lot better because a lot of the time I'm alone, I feel like I can keep my office door closed, and the phone usually does not ring.

I need to learn to be more protective of my time.

Also about the piano - I like that the teacher gave me a couple of "ice cream" pieces (or I think of them as such - I save them for when I'm done with the scales and other exercises). One is a very simplified Mozart piece. They call it "German Dance." I recognize it as a theme from (I think) one of his symphonies, but I don't remember the exact source. It's the one that goes BA-dum, BA-dum, ba-dum-dum-dum-dum dum-dum and then there's a run of eighth notes....I can sing it in my head and I recognize it but it bugs me a little that I can't remember the exact source.

But hey, I'm playing Mozart. Even if in highly-arranged form. And that's enough of a carrot to keep me driving over to the church and sitting in the chilly parlor and running through endless renditions of "Running for the Taxi" and "Passing a French Bakery" and "At the Art Museum" and "The Eiffel Tower" (And yes, those are the names of all four of the little finger-exercise pieces I have for this week. When I get bored I try playing them off tempo a bit - syncopated, or trying to force the thing into waltz time. Or making up chording for it instead of playing the left-hand stuff as written. I'm a little afraid of doing it too much and learning them "wrong," though).

The two hardest things to over come for me right now are that there are specific fingering patterns - there's a particular finger that is supposed to play a particular key, it's not just holding your hands any old way and hoping you hit the notes right, and also just the fact that it's an unfamiliar thing to be doing with my hands and I still make a lot of mistakes. And I have to fight twin impulses when I make mistakes: the impulse to give up, and conversely, the impulse to force myself to keep doing it until I get it PERFECT. Because there's a point at which tiredness creeps in and you can't get it PERFECT, I think.

Ayup, it's cold.

At least by Oklahoma standards. It was 19* (F) when I left the house. Fortunately there was no wind.

Ironically enough, it is 19* (C) in my office right now.

Which shouldn't feel cold, but does, by virtue of the fact that the vent over my head is once again blowing cold air on me. That kind of annoys me.

****

I have been knitting. I'm almost done with the toe-up socks: I'm reading E. C. Pielou's "After the Ice Age" in the evenings and knitting on them. A few more rows and I can do the picot top of the second sock.

(I have to remind myself that when there's crap on TV, reading-for-work is a viable option.)

And although I said when I was working on these earlier that I wasn't sure I'd ever do another pair, I pulled some less-loved Regia out of the stash to experiment on - I'm going to try doing the socks again but (a) make more gusset stitches and (b) do the "return row" of the heel flap as purl only instead of the p1, slip 1 the pattern suggests to see if that makes a less-tight heel region and a deeper flap.

Because yeah, I can see the benefit to doing toe-up sometimes - and I remembered a stitch pattern I saw in a book, loved the thought of for socks, and then realized that it was a unidirectional pattern and that I couldn't figure out how to make it work so you could knit from the top down. So I may actually be "designing" (such as it is: plugging an existing stitch pattern into a slightly-modified existing sock pattern) a pair of toe-up socks.

****

I'm also still working on the Little Child's Sock from Vintage Socks. Another blogger - maybe it was Grumperina? I don't know, I spent one sort-of not-wanting-to-work afternoon surfing lots of knit blogs - commented how "right" the vintage patterns feel to her and wondered if maybe she was an "old soul."

I feel the same rightness about the vintage patterns; I suppose it's that they're more complex than the just-plain socks I knit while reading, but not so complex you have to follow line by line. That they have a logic to them.

****

I also started a new project. I decided I needed something just fun to knit on. It's not far enough for much of a picture yet but I will note that Diann will probably be happy to see it when she does.

My piano (well, really, my grandfather's piano, that is how I will always think of it) is DONE! I got the e-mail today. It is still set to be delivered on the 30th.

I will be so happy to get it. I can't wait to start practicing on it.

I had my first lesson today (normally they are on Tuesdays but because of faculty meetings this week I couldn't go Tuesday). The teacher told me I still remembered the proper "form" (how you are supposed to hold your hands) and I remembered more about reading music than I thought I would. So she bumped me up a book (to a more advanced level). I'm already going to start playing "real" stuff - I have a simplified version of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" to work on, and a (probably simplified, but I haven't looked that closely at it) piece by Mozart.

It's great. I feel like parts of my brain that have been mostly dormant for 25 years are starting to stretch and wake up.

Now I just need to manage to make some time each day to get down to church and practice. (It will be much easier once the actual piano arrives; then I can use the odd little 15 minute stretches I sometimes have first thing in the morning or in the evening or even if I go home for lunch some days. I love the thought of being able to run home, eat lunch, and de-stress a little by playing scales or exercises.

Funny how when you're a kid, you resist it and it GIVES you stress, but as an adult, the thought of practicing piano is something that sounds relaxing...)

I'm still not done posting on the different items made over my long break.

Here is the third, final, and I think, most spectacular project from the "Taupe Mist" Vanna's Choice:



It is a crocheted version of Edward Gorey's "The Doubtful Guest" (an odd, penguin-like creature that invades a large Victorian household and does things like deposit pocketwatches in the pond for "safekeeping," tear the pages out of books, and collapse in fits of melancholy (unfortunately just outside the drawing-room door)).

(This WAS a free pattern I found via Ravelry but it seems to have since disappeared from there. (But a bit of hunting in my archives turns it up: it's apparently still in existence here))

I used the Vanna's Choice because (a) I had it close at hand and (b) I thought the sort of marled color might capture the sort of woodcut-like quality of some of Gorey's drawings.

I will say this is one of the complexities of 2-D being rendered into 3-D: I think the "nose" (or "beak" or what have you) should by rights be longer and droopier, but that's kind of hard to recreate in crochet, I guess.

The shoes sounded wildly complex but I found that by just trusting and following the pattern, they came out right. (The scarf is my own design, a bit different from what the original pattern author did. I did the narrower stripes because I hate weaving in millions of ends, and I was able to just carry the unused color this way. As it turned out, I like the way the scarf looks better than the original. And it seems like it drapes better.)

Here's a better photo with the scarf:



I think I've mentioned before that I read parts of Amphigorey as a child (yes, I was a strange child). For some reason, I loved the character of the Doubtful Guest - I didn't really see his more sinister sides; he was more like an odd pet that showed up and did funny things. (Of course, I'd be annoyed if I had a real-life one; I'd have to lock up all my books).

I remember making a small toy form of this creature as a child, using an old dark-grey glove: I cut it up and used the fingers for the head and arms and made the body out of the palm section.

(Another person's remembrance of The Doubtful Guest, with a small photo of the cover of the stand-alone book extracting the story from Amphigorey)

I am not sure why the creature is funny and appealing; I suppose it had something to do with the illogicality of its actions and the fact that it got away with them. As a child, I frequently wished I could "get away with" more than I did, but having "proven" myself capable of logic on a number of occasions when it benefitted me to, my parents wouldn't let me get away with some of the illogical kid things I might have otherwise. I think maybe the slightly anarchic quality of the Guest appealed to me, the fact that he did what he darn well pleased and no one could really do much about it (either he did not understand human speech, did not speak the language of the householders, or, perhaps, like snakes are, was deaf)

Another odd but appealing thing was the fact that the creature wore a scarf (at least until he had adjusted to life indoors) and plimsolls (not unlike Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars, but I think "plimsoll" is a more fitting term here).

Everything about the creature was odd and didn't quite fit. And I think that's why I liked him. (I don't know whether it says anything psychologically about the fact that I usually felt like I "didn't quite fit" among my peer-group, at least until I got to high school)

I suspect also I imagined it as having a certain kinship with the Tove Jansson creatures - the Moomins and such - which I was madly fond of as a child.

(And it's funny that I usually refer to it as a "he;" everywhere in Gorey's story it's just "it" and as the commenter I linked to points out, it's apparently the only one of its species, so gender would not be an issue...)

The 'Guest is ironically enough quite cuddly and nice. It (he?) turned out larger than I expected, nearly a foot tall, and required the purchase of a second skein of the yarn (thank goodness one of the shops in my parents' town had it; I had bought it down here, used some for the manatee and some for the planarian, and when I started making this creature I thought I'd have enough - I very nearly unraveled the planarian just to have enough to finish this).

Funny old world....

Have you seen this news story? (I hadn't until my mom mentioned it).

That's my parents' town, y'all. I think I've driven by that very Taco Bell.

On the one hand, I think it's cool that they had a $200 wedding. On the other (this is not reported in the story), you'd think they could have at least had an "open taco bar" (apparently guests had to order off the menu at their own expense).

Oh, I'm not snarking, though Taco Bell would most definitely not be my choice for a non-traditional wedding like that. (I have said that if I ever got married, instead of having the Scary Reception with a dj an dancing and a prom-like decorating theme, I am going to have a big barbecue for all my friends, and have badminton and volleyball and games like that. I don't care if that sounds "redneck" to some people; the mere thought of choosing a DJ makes me come out in hives a little bit).

Huh. The first grad student I ever had is retiring this fall. That makes me sound a lot older than I actually am.


(Backstory: she is about 15 years older than I am, came back to college after the various life-stuff (marriage, kids, divorce, career, marriage to the guy she probably should have originally married...) happened. She earned her Master's working on a project with me (probably technically not-legally by school standards; I was not yet tenured at the time I chaired her committee but they let it slide). We then hired her on as a FTE instructor and she's served us well for several years. But now she's a grandma, her husband is (finally) retiring for-real, and I guess she has decided it's time to call the career quits. It's a LITTLE sad because I regarded her as a friend and this is her last semester here, but it's a lot better for someone to retire because they WANT to than because they HAVE to - I know a person who had to quit teaching after developing a horrible medical problem that rendered teaching too difficult).

I will say I was concerned at first (she was cleaning out her office today and gave me a bunch of plant identification books I didn't already own) because I thought something had happened and she was leaving THIS semester (either a health thing or a "whoops, we have no money for the FTE people" thing). But it turned out that she was doing some initial cleaning when she had time. (Unlike what I'd do - wait until the last week of employment, freak out that my office had to be empty, pack the stuff I really wanted and then ask students to scavengerize whatever they wanted out of what was left)

I've long considered crows a bit of a "totem animal" (my surname supposedly shares a root with the Latin name for "crow" or "raven," and supposedly the "family crest*" has ravens on it).

They're also supposedly very smart - this video shows one bending a wire into a hook (tool making!) in order to obtain some kind of food item trapped within a tube.

And one of the comments** claims that a crow will turn around and memorize the face of someone who throws a rock at it. No idea at all if that's true but it seems delightfully creepy to me. (I imagine, late one night, a scratchy knock on the person's front door. They open it, to find a huge murder*** of crows, one of which is holding up a sign written in a wavery hand: "You threw rock at Grawk. Now you pay.")

I have also heard of crows (or maybe it was rooks) sliding down a snowy hill on their backs, apparently purely for the fun of it.

(*If you believe such a thing. I kind of doubt my family was actually grand enough to have such a thing, and the one presented as the family "crest" was probably made up in the 1920s or something by an enterprising unemployed artist who thought he could sell to folks with a pretension to aristocracy)

(** I generally do not read the YouTube comments; they seem to be one of the many refuges of scoundrels on the Internet these days. And the comments are one reason of why I would never, ever post video of myself doing anything - even playing a piece with great accomplishment and skill on the piano - on there; there will invariably be someone who uses the word "suck" or who comments on the imagined pulchritude or lack thereof of the female in the video, or who makes fat jokes. It troubles me to see how uncivilized people can be sometimes.)

(*** I take a certain pedantic pride in knowing that that is the correct collective noun).

Two sets of socks for today.

The first pair is just a simple top-down pair with a deep ribbed cuff, a French heel, and a round toe:



The yarn is from deep in the stash; it is some old Regia Multi-Effekt. The color is called "Kastanie" which I think translates to "Chestnut."

I didn't plan to make the colors match - I had started the first sock at a place that wasn't easy to figure out on the second sock (like at the very start of a stripe) but they did kind of wind up "entraining" after the cuffs starting out a little bit offset. It always makes me happy when I can get a pair of socks out of the self-striping yarns to give the same pattern at the same place.

I particularly like how I got the "blocks" of darker color on each heel.

These socks are less orderly:



But they are the first-ever pair of toe-up socks I have knit. They use the pattern from "The Eclectic Sole" that is called "Biological Clocks" but I left off the little cable detail (which is a DNA cable...BIOLOGICAL clocks, get it?).

They are less orderly because for the first sock, I used up nearly every inch of the yarn, so I had to start the second sock "wherever" in the stripe pattern so I'd have enough - and then after the first inch of knitting, realized that the second ball was wound in reverse to the first. So the first sock goes, dark pink, light pink, brown, grey and the second sock goes grey, brown, light pink, dark pink. (I have cleverly minimized its appearance in the photo by putting the socks top-to-toe so the stripes look like they are going in the same direction).

As I said, my two "issues" with this toe up pattern are the tight, tight cast on, the heel flap (as written, both the knit and purl rows contain slipped stitches, which make the flap very short at tight. I might try a second pair sometime but have the purl row JUST purl, which I think will make the flap deeper AND make it far less tight to knit. I also think I might make more "gusset" stitches than the 12 the pattern suggests...I suppose I could consider my typical cuff-down socks and figure out how many gusset stitches THOSE have.), and the bind off.

But I might use the pattern again, especially if I can modify the heel flap. It is kind of interesting to knit a sock "backwards."

I am one step closer to my dream of playing the piano. The Music Academy here in town called me up today - they had several openings available for students wanting lessons.

So starting next week, 3 pm Tuesdays, I will be learning to play the piano.

I am SUPER excited about this. The teacher is pretty highly recommended and when I spoke with her earlier, she mentioned two things that are definitely a win in my book: first, she wants people to learn to play the kind of music THEY like - so I will probably be working on mainly "little" classical pieces, with perhaps some jazz or gospel thrown in for variety (The truth is, I like MOST music, with the exception of some of the 20th century atonal stuff, and most current pop/country pop/alternapop/"urban" pop). Second, she is very into teaching music theory along with technique - and one thing you know about me, if you have read the blog for a while, is that I am fascinated by the "how things work" or the "why are they this way" as well as the "how do I do it?"

For the first few weeks, I will need to "borrow" a piano (either down at church or maybe someone in the Music department on campus will let me sign up for a practice time there) until mine arrives. But that's good - I like the idea of having my feet a little wet by the time the real piano arrives, so I can sit down and transfer the little bit of knowledge I've already gained to it.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I gave myself the promised "treat" for making it through the tooth-stuff and went to McKinney.

McKinney is an interesting place - at least the downtown square is. It seems to always be changing. Stores open up, seem to prosper, then close down and are replaced by something else. (One of the shopkeepers told me - and I can't remember all the details so I might have it kind of wrong - but apparently few of the shopkeepers own their buildings; either the city does or a developer does, and there have been cases of otherwise-prosperous and bill-paying businesses being told to close or move because the building owner wants the space for something else. I suppose that happens everywhere - after all, that's why Ewe Knit had to move, up in Normal - but it seems unfair to me somehow.)

I was somewhat disappointed to find that my favorite antique store of all time, The Antique Collection is gone - apparently to be replaced by yet another restaurant. (There have been three or four new restaurants - most of them very upscalely and expensive looking - come in in the past year or so. I hope that the square isn't converting to "Restaurant Square," because then I will no longer have a good reason to go there. I can only eat one meal per trip...)

Also, a few of the funky stores that had been there have been replaced by very fancy, very expensive-looking "high grade antiques" or home stores. (I say "-looking" because a glance in the window of the places told me (a) that they had nothing I'd be all that interested in and (b) it was probably out of my price range anyway and (c) I probably do not look glamorous or rich enough to be welcomed in the store as a customer).

I will say one new store I was very happy to see - a Texas/Southwestern specialty-food store called Loco Cowpoke. (I hope they can avoid the "O HAI WE UPGRADED UR BUILDING. NOW LEAVE" trend). I bought a bunch of stuff for birthday presents for various people (who do not live in or near Texas) because they are things that are unlikely to be found elsewhere. And I found a pickled baby corn that is almost (but not quite) a replacement for the Paisley Farms brand that I used to love but can no longer find for sale.

The guy running the place was very nice and very friendly. He said he had (I think) twin four year old sons, and he hoped they'd be taking over the business someday. He also had samples of most everything out - so if you wanted to know if you'd like something that you'd never tried, you could. (He even opened a bottle of the pickled corn for me to try one, because he didn't have any of that out). He also hopes soon to have online ordering from a website, which would be nice, especially if you wanted to send a gift to someone.

I also found a very amusing item - in one of the gift/antique shops, they had these little flashlights shaped like black cats. They are the dynamo-powered kind, where you squeeze a lever on the side to charge them up. And then, the eyes of the cat are two LED bulbs - so when you turn it on, its eyes glow. I know I am easily amused, but it made me laugh. I got one for my sister-in-law, as part of her birthday present, because I think she'll find it funny. And a person can always use an extra flashlight, especially one where there are no batteries to corrode and leak when the thing isn't used for a long time (or be snagged by someone who needs that size for a radio or remote control or something).

Ambrosia was still there (frou frou stuff - candles and soap and things like that). As was Morningstar Treasures, which I guess is now my favorite antique shop. (I hope I have not cursed them now by saying that. Except I think - though I am not sure - the owners of the shop actually own the building). And several of the other long-term antique stores were still there, and The Little Red Hen (where I bought a black jumper-dress made of a clingy knit, perhaps against my better judgment - it fits well everywhere but it looks a bit poochy around the gut. Though maybe the right slip - or, failing that, a few months of sit-ups - will correct that. Or maybe I'm being too self-critical. I liked the dress because it was kind of arty looking but also was fairly comfortable). And the Pantry, where I ate lunch. (I don't feel comfortable going alone to the really fancy places that have opened up there, and besides, I enjoy a $5 sandwich and $3 piece of pie at The Pantry as much as I would enjoy a $20+ full-course lunch).

And Happiness is Quilting is still there, happily. As is Quilt Asylum (which is actually in a strip mall on University, rather than in the downtown).

One thing I noticed - very few of the stores were at all busy. I don't know if it was because it's still so soon after Christmas that most people are paying off their holiday bills, or if it was because it was somewhat chilly that day, or if it really IS the bad economy, but the only places that were hopping were the two quilt shops. (Which makes me happy. I always like to see a quilt shop busy selling fabric and books).

I don't know if it's a function of "Fabric will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no fabric" (to misquote The Whole Earth Catalog) or whether quilters are less buffeted by the winds of changing finance, or if there are more "small" splurges you can do at a quilt place than at a frou-frou shop or an antiques store. (A fat quarter of fabric can be had for $2.50 or even as little as $1.50 if it's an "orphan" - a piece left after the rest of the fabric on the bolt has sold out)

At any rate - yes, I have a new quilt's worth of fabric (all washed and folded and piled up for now). It's from the new "Ooh La La" line (I got the more pink-and-teal colors, rather than the yellow-and-gray-and-brick colors.) And I selected some coordinating fat quarters to fill in, and a big piece of a solid blue-green fabric that is the same as the blue-green in the print - I'm going to do another one of those "County Line" quilts like the one I did with the Poppy fabric.

Most of the coordinating prints I chose were kind of "abstracty;" the feeling I am going for is an (imagined) Paris of the 1950s where people went to see art and to be sort of what was thought of as cool or hip in that era. (It sounds dumb when I write it out but I think the quilt will look nice. I guess what I'm shooting for is to sort of recall the drawings of stylized, stereotypical Parisian "street scenes" with fashionable women wearing Dior's New Look and walking dogs, and starving-artist painters with their easels, and the little flower sellers on the quais.). One of the prints I am using looks a bit like a Mondrian painting; another is large stylized flowers, and still another is an abstract pattern of black and dark grey on a blue-green background.

That's kind of how I plan quilts, a lot of the time - I start with a fabric or a group of fabrics and think about what I want the quilt to "feel" like when you look at it, or what I want it to make me think of. And then I try to find fabrics to go with the original fabrics that keep that mood and color scheme going, and I figure out a pattern that will work. (I think County Lines will work well because of the strong rectilinear design, recalling the squares and rectangles on the Mondrian-ish print).

I also have a packet of fabrics that I finally "finalized" out of my stash today - I had been working on this for a while but I think it will be the next quilt after I finish the one I'm currently piecing - I wanted a "sea glass" quilt - one in very soft, greyed colors, mainly that greyish bluish green, and I wanted to do it using the "Yellow Brick Road" pattern (The same pattern I used nearly four years ago now). I had a bunch of Kaffe Fasset prints (and other Westminster) prints that I had originally got for something else when I decided on the sea glass look - but several of the prints I had in the stack didn't work with that, so I took the stack apart and searched around and found a couple other fabrics that WILL work, ones I had bought because I liked them but with no set destination in mind. And I even have the exact amount of a border fabric I need - a big piece of that Dimples fabric that I had bought with the thought of it being borders on something some day in mind.

I have to talk about Dimples - of all the fabric lines I've used, is is my favorite. It is the one I keep going back to when I need a "fill in" of a particular color. It comes in all kinds of lovely colors (there are 10 "pages" of it on the site I linked above), it's simple enough that it doesn't detract from other fabrics, and you can almost always find a matching color to whatever prints you are using. If I had unlimited money and storage, I think I'd order a bolt of at least my favorite colors and the ones I use the most.

(In particular, there are a lot of wonderful greens in the line. And I use green a lot in my quilting).

Oh, the current quilt? I'm finally cutting and sewing the Sock Monkey fabric. It's a very simple quilt pattern - some just-big (12 1/2") squares, with some smaller squares with 'frames' around them, and a few Pinwheel blocks. I'm not 100% sure I'll keep this quilt, either, after it's finished - it's maybe a bit bright for me. (But being sock monkeys, if I decide I don't want it, it would be perfect to give to a kid). But then again, I might decide I like it and want to keep it once I get more of it put together. I'm trying to keep the orange (my least favorite color) to a minimum, but it may be hard to avoid.