Betula ring.

designed by Carina Spencer, knitted by me , yarn malabrigo bulky in Violetas, one skien. I had to make it a few rows shorter and did not do the stretchy bind off, so it just makes it over my head. I will get two skeins for the next one. Now I need to find the buttons to finish it....

Sky ladder

Blanket progress. The lighting is bad making the picture yellow. But progress is being made.

Breakfast with Hedy.

Things have been quiet

I realize I have not been posting much. Lots going on.
Love this photo of dad and doodle. She thinks she is a lap dog.

wotd feb 4

Word of the day is limbo

Bend low

Bend into a deeper pose

Bend more

Word of the day is red 

Indecision 

Six of one half dozen of the other 

Word of the day is endings

Long and slow

Known or not known

All is not known

In reality. Do not know if it is an end or a new beginning..

heaven or hell 

or limbo

Purgatory or punishment 

Parallel universe?

Is it dogma? Rhetoric?

illusion

Myth or faith or cynicism..

Word of the day is present

Nothing else matters. 

clubz

I have joined a yarn club -the BareNaked Knitspot which will keep me supplied in wooly goodness for the next seven months or so. Last year's club, also hosted by Knitspot's Anne Hansen was how I knitted all of my Christmas gifts. This season the focus is on undyed extremely lovely yarn and the first installment is not a disappointment. So I am off on another knitting adventure.

Isn't it funny how knitters and quilters all love project bags. This one is from Three Bags Full on Etsy and they were made for the club in beautiful neutrals to match our yarn. The wool is the softest merino -from the American West, Mountain Meadow Wool, and it will be for a baby blanket. It has already provided me with knitting delight. My only regret is that I do not want to take it onto the train and get it germified, so I am knitting it exclusively at home.

wooly merino goodness and knitting project bag from Knitspot

The Pleasures of
Beach Bathing
Long Beach Post Office Mural By John Corbino in 1939

My plan was to make toile from the image from the post office mural-a work in progress...click for full picture which I 'stitched' together on my iPhone.

Long Beach Boardwalk on a cloudy day

Reynolds Channel Crossing on a clear winter day from the Railroad

Best cat ever.

Made this in 1967?

Older than most of the people I know. First try at hand stitched button holes. Waaaay in the back of the closet.

Sheep wool!!!!

Will be knitted into a sweet sheep blankie.

   I am planning to knit THIS! I have the pattern and the yarn is being contemplated. Do I knit the wonderful shetland un dyed gorgeous colors as shown? Or do I go crazy colored all over the place. Stay tuned...
   I love to plan projects like some people plan vacations. I pore over the patterns and read them line by line. I print them and highlight and make notes in the margins. I count the long lines of stitches and write the numbers on the charts and put the pages in plastic sleeves to keep them safe. Just in case I do not have the pattern printed, I email it to myself and put it on my iPhone and my iPad. Just. to. be. sure.
   Shopping online for yarn is a great pleasure. It boggles the mind to have the resources that we have on the interwebs. I can order real shetland yarn from Jamieson and Smith in the UK or find a substitute in the US of A. Or I can go to one of many superb yarn stores in NYC- or- if I am very patient, I can wait till one of the yarn and wool festivals within traveling distance in the coming year.
   The J&S shetland supreme 2 ply for this Blanket  is also available here in the states at Yarns International  (They do not charge shipping!) They also carry the J&S dyed shetland in the event that one does want to added a colorful ram or three to above referenced sheep blanket.
   Once it arrives,  I wind the yarn into balls and find the needles and stitch markers and life line supplies if I am knitting lace, and put it all in a zippered bag to be picked up at my leisure. Don't laugh. I have some leisure. Socks and small things I can bring on my commute, but bigger more complicated patterns I leave for home knitting. This will begin at home but it looks like it is also a commutable pattern.
   Quilted projects also have their planning stages. But many times when planning a  quilt project, I let it take its own course. Maybe it is a product of having done it for much longer than I have been knitting, so I have a more relaxed approach. But many is the night when I drift off to sleep counting colors and patterns and not sheep.

Tiny houses from scrap:) I kind of edged into this side ways telling myself that if I finished my other stuff first I would allow myself a few little houses. I have a thing for houses. This is my third house project. My first was a huge denim monster from the days of Georgia Bonesteel and it is truly a monster but I adore it and the second was a wall hanging from the same era, all in blue calicos.
But these! these are just bitable. I have not found my perfect method yet. I have tried paper piecing and strip piecing and just plain old eyeballing..of course this ensures that they will not be uniform: that they will, in fact, be wonky, and I accept this. I have not yet hand pieced any and I am dead certain that this will be the most precise and perfect method-but I am more inclined to allow for imperfection, so as to actually get some done. Jeanekke has all of her pieces lined up in a partitioned box which is very alluring, making me want to go out and find the perfect box and spend hours arranging my sections but then you see I would not have time to sew any together. So I resist, telling myself that if the perfect box exists for me, the universe will present it, in the fullness of time.
I find that I can use very small scraps for these ( the window square is less than an inch) and they will be scrappy and I will not need to buy anything for them and that is the perfect recipe for tiny houses. Be sure to visit Jeanekke's blog for lots of info as this is her project and there are about 800 people worldwide who are doing the "a tiny house a day" project.
It has always been a dream of mine to build an actual tiny house  but this may have to do for now.

Cleaning the sewing room

As usual, not much cleaning got done, but I found a bag of 2.5 inch squares that I was saving.
*updated to add**This pattern was down loaded ten years ago for a website called Aroundoz and it is called Ann's scrappy quilt. Although the website looks the same I did not see the link to this pattern. But I wanted to make sure to give credit where credit is due. Thanks Chrissy! **

Oh my yes

Bluemoonefiberarts-Hotlips!

christmas bird

Do you see what I see???

everything but the kitchen sink soup

Alas it befalls me to tell the tale of lunch. It is one of those days wherein lunch must be made. Mike is, again, sleeping. I should point out here that Mike is not lazy. Rather, he works while the rest of us sleep and so must sleep when we are up and about in the day time. Anyway, It was the middle of the day. I am still recuperating from a violent bout of asthmatic bronchitis or as I like to call it, pneumonia. And yet I am hungry. I think that some of the meds make me more so.
The fridge is a fright. There- it is out. There are things in that crisper that should never be named. I beheld the spectacle with woe (and hunger) and no small amount of fear. And then, armed with the ever present fat free half and half, and left over chicken broth, I resolved to make the soon to be famous, 'everything but the kitchen sink soup.'
There was asparagus and garlic and broccoli. there was a pepper and some grapes. No silly, I did not use the grapes. One does not add grapes to the soup unless one comes from the west coast. There were a few desultory apples. There was a longish portion of baguette left from the once and former accidental potato soup, which might make rather nice croutons if coated with some olive oil, mustard powder, onion, dried basil and dusted with parmesan.
And the carrots were still crisp enough to be lightly steamed and served just so.
And behold: there was lunch.
While I was about lunch, I found some prehistoric filo dough in the freezer and resolved to make use of those three slightly shriveled apples to concoct what can loosely be called dessert. I am no master of filo dough and my hat is off to the chefs who make it look easy to roll up some chopped apples and hazelnuts with nary a shred in the fine leafs and make it look wonderful. But I will say it was not actually on the plates long enough for us to bemoan its lack of gustatorial beauty.
And so you have the tale of lunch. And the fridge is clean.

accidental soup

Recipe for roasted burnt garlic and potato soup

I was hungry. I was sickly, trying to get over a tenacious debilitating upper respiratory infection. Mike was sleeping. We were down to a few old potatoes ( the ugly ones that no one wants to bother with, too puny, too gnarly). I may have been running a fever. 

Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

So I peeled the potatoes and began the boil. Found half an onion in the fridge, some garlic in the garlic keeper on the counter and tossed it all in the pot. After the potato softened I drained the pot, leaving a little of the original water in it and added the chicken broth left over from who knows when 

and then! the coup de gras ...fat free half and half. 

I put it on a low flame and went back to the couch and forgot about it. 

Until Mike woke up and asked  what I was burning. 

I leapt from my nest and ran to the kitchen-about four feet, and found my soup in a near burned condition, thick and browning at the edges and just barely salvageable. and it was the. best. soup. ever. 

Have I re-invented the twice baked potato soup of some once and former time? It is delicious. The burned garlic makes it so. The onions are indistinguishable and the consistency is of mashed potatoes and extra gravy. 

The first time, since I burned it, I did not need a roux. I was tempted to add butter but declined. Mike added pepper. I could imagine left over ham, or capers and anchovies or indeed even a de chickenifed vegetarian version. I suppose you could pre roast the garlic, make biscuits from scratch and add sherry, if you are so inclined, but I am satisfied with the simplicity of my accidental soup.

It is the hit of the season! A humble soup. A gratifying fare, and as I bake the pillsbury grands rolls from a tube to go with it, and consider an extra dab of butter, I thought I would share this story of my new re invention. 

Welcome to our winter table.

on lists and to do's

For me a list serves as a kind of placeholder. Once i write it is like a mental bookmark. I am more likely to remember it! Like Marilyn, I often loose them. Like Theresa, my list making has changed over the years.

I keep journals and sometimes make a list in them and I use computers, spreadsheets and iphone reminders and pencils and pens. Like I said, it is soothing to me and gives me some sense of order-I can put something on a list and let it rest there for a while. It is safe. I will not forget it. Sometimes I even make a painting out of it.

You might even say I love list making. It is an extension of my writing and it centers me. So much for the lofty side of list making. I poke fun at myself. My lists are optimistic. They are a look at what I would like to accomplish but I do not use them to beat myself up. 

It is interesting to see all of the different approaches and methods and opinions of lists. I like it when the conversation is lively. Being sick has given me a chance to participate a bit more.As I get back to work I will not have this much to say. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas , Kwanzaa, Hanukah, Solstice, New Year and all that your wishes are fulfilled:)

Here is a copy of a list I made in a spreadsheet in 2009. Some things have been done and others are still in progress...and some other things were accomplished and never made the list!

I will be making a New Years list. Will you?

this time

I made a list of twelve things I would like to finish. 
I decided to split them between quilted and knitted things, six of each. 
I know I have more things buried in my stash but this is a good place for me to begin. Some are already mostly done. 
One quilt needs a binding. 
Two are ready to be sent to the quilter. I have two shawls that are nearly done and just need a border. 
Then I allowed myself a couple of new items-more later. 
and I added an entry for 'guest finish'. I crack myself up.

I am feeling better. Still out of work for the week due to this bronchial infestation but today I have not coughed at all and that is a relief after three weeks of constant hacking. Thankful to modern medicine. 

This year I have put up no tree, done no baking-yet, done zero shopping. Just made neckwarmers. As always I feel like it is not enough. But my kids are adults. And we are all able bodied working folk, so none of need to be showered with extraneous stuff. Each year I think I do not need to over do ( And mind you with four kids and various spousi there are a lot of stockings to fill)
and I plan to scale back and always I feel like I am not doing enough. This may be the year I do not reneg on my promise to myself and let go of the mania. Just this once.
m

December poem

I have used the nine or so lives of this house. 

they are neatly crossed utensils lain just so on an encrusted plate,

In a glance I recall exactly what was there

and what was used to create it

and who made the art and what it is made of and

I know where the light switches are

on which side of the wall when you enter the room

and what the wall feels like 

and the smell of the paint as it dried lingering for days until it became cool and powdery to the touch 

and the first flaw and the layers that compounded

and the when it began to look like it needed a new coat and the time it became apparent that there would not be one.

how many steps to the stairs and which way to turn to go up and the table by the door that must be avoided so as not to leave a nasty bruise on the thigh.

I have used this small house and it has been a theatre for the dramas of my company

each actor performing simultaneously in their own private act.

Sometimes the effect was cacophony and poly rhythmic

and other times a quiet as the ticking of the clock on the wall-the one that stopped at ten past two and was not restarted for years.

and when it finally resumed its tick tocking,

the cat was alarmed and strove to get to the closest point on top of the adjacent wardrobe to investigate. She nearly fell off. I took a picture. the things you will see if you watch: all happening right in front of you and all around you and inside of you. 

all combined until you think you are one with it and then it vanishes

and all you have are your own thoughts tick tocking 

and it is enough