Look what I found!

Well, I didn't exactly "find" it but I did unearth it from hiding. I've been making this quilt for probably around 15 years now, maybe longer. I can't recall exactly when I started it, but some of the fabrics in it are at least 30 years old. Every single stitch has been done by hand. All the hexagons were hand cut, sewn onto backing paper and stitched together in rosettes before being made into a complete quilt. I'd started to stitch it to a backing fabric but it wasn't working out and had been "retired to a craft bin in my closet. Anyway, after a weekend in Grundy with Susan's family a couple of weeks ago, and a meeting with Susan's Aunt Patsy who is a fabulous quilter, I've been feeling inspired to think about finishing it properly. So, I pulled it out today, ripped off the backing fabric (which was barely started) and laid it on the bed just to see exactly how much work still needs doing.


It's lying on our queen size bed and as you can see it's definitely long enough. Not wide enough though, it needs at least two (maybe three) more rows of rosettes. I've got some fabric I can use that will make this our quilt--an old cotton shirt of Susan's, a pelmet from Izzy's bedroom linens that she no longer needs, an embroidered tablecloth that is too small for us to use. If I can get the size of the quilt right then I can think about getting it backed. Patsy tells me that I could probably pay for someone to finish it for me, and whilst that is tempting (and may happen) I can't help but feel that it's bottling out a bit and that I should finish it myself. We'll see though, I'm still a long way from that.

It's raining here today, definitely another day for pyjamas and knitting. I've almost finished Hannah's scarf, just got a couple more rows and some beads to stitch on. I hope she'll like it.


Not much else to say at this point in the day. It's one of those days.

Yeah, I'm a Bad Blogger

So it seems that the last time I updated this blog was on Becs' 14th birthday last year. And today is Izzy's 11th birthday. Apparently, I can only get my blog-act together on someone's birthday.

Anyway, today is indeed Izzy's birthday and in honour of that I should post some "before" and "after" pictures. Here we go...

This is my absolute favourite photograph of Izzy. It's the one I'll humiliate her with when she brings her boyfriends/girlfriends/whatevers home. There are others, but this is the best. She was about one when this was taken, and it's the perfect representation of her personality--both then and now.

Anyway, that's her "before" shot, here's the "after"...

Actually, this picture was taken yesterday morning. She had her birthday party on Friday night (more about that later) and one of her friends bought her this ridiculous hat which is, I suspect, destined to become the family birthday hat. Izzy has plans to wear it out to lunch today as it will earn her a free piece of pie at Ramsey's, her chosen birthday lunch spot.

Her party was a huge success. We hired these guys and they brought this:


Best money ever spent on a birthday party. Seriously. Take a pile of 11 year olds, sprinkle with a couple of 14 year olds, insert into video truck and leave for two hours. Patrick, our game coach (who just happens to be the boyfriend of one of my knitting friends, Kate) was an absolute star. He told us post-party that he was pretty sure this was the first ever all-girls party they'd done and that when he realized it was all girls he was a little unsure how it would work out. Becs put that particular concern to rest when she announced that she wanted to play a zombie game. A serious zombie game. Something called "Left for Dead" (I think) was the eventual offering and by the end of the party most of the party-goers had eschewed their "Michael Jackson Experience" (I kid you not) and "Super Mario Bros" in favour of a little zombie apocalypse.





Okay, before I finish my party ramblings I have to show you the cake. It's a long-standing family tradition that I always make the girls' cakes. In fact, I don't think either of them have ever had a shop-bought cake yet. This year, Izzy is seriously into Bone, a series of graphic novels. So, a Bone cake it was. I had some unexpected issues with the fondant that really made me mad. I've been working with fondant for 14 years now and have never had a problem so I'm not sure what went wrong. Anyway, I decided to work with the mess and make it look like some kind of rock, it was sort of in keeping with the Bone theme anyway. Not my best work, but here it is.


Yes, that is a Bone character (apparently it's Fone Bone) made from modelling chocolate at the base of the cake.

Becs made cupcakes all by herself. I made suggestions about the decorations but the work was all hers. She is, apparently, her mother's daughter.



Snakes on logs and sheep. She worked hard.

So, what else? Well, I'm working at the Writing Center over the summer which is great because we need the money. Susan is working really hard to keep us in the manner to which we're not-quite accustomed. In fact, as I fritter away my day with blogging and knitting she's downstairs in the study working on her classes. Did I mention she's wonderful?

I'm waiting for Sallie Mae to put the final approval on my student loan so that I can register for classes next semester. This is causing me no small amount of stress. They've had all the paperwork for over a week now and according to the website, their process is still in exactly the same place. I think a phone call will be in order on Monday morning.

I've been knitting up a storm over the summer, although that will probably slow down now that I'm working again. Currently working on a pair of ridiculous socks inspired by Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. I hate colourwork. I'm not very good at it. And these socks have a short row heel which, while incredibly easy and mindless to knit, is not very good for someone like me with fat feet and ankles. Izzy will probably be the recipient of these because she's probably the only one they'll fit!



I've been working on tons of other stuff too--just cast on a scarf for Hannah's birthday (I know, it's not until December but I'm trying to get organized) and I'll post a picture of that next time I blog or when I can be bothered to find the camera cable and upload the pictures, whichever comes sooner. There's no point me even attempting to upload pictures of the other things I've knitted this summer, I'm knitting at a rate of 2 finished items a week so you'd be looking through pictures forever. If you're really interested, check out my Ravelry projects page.

And on that note, it's time for breakfast.

Thanks, mum, for the 23 chromosomes and the food!

It's Rebecca's birthday today--she's 14. How on earth did that happen? How did that tiny baby (well, not so tiny, she was 8lb 4oz) get to be such a lovely, grown-up young woman? I know, everyone says that when they see their children growing up. It's still scary.


Anyway, Susan bought red velvet cake yesterday (in lieu of doughnuts because the Kroger she went to is the only one in the area that doesn't sell fresh doughnuts) for her birthday breakfast. Lookin' good, Becs, with that birthday bed-head going on!


I love that Sonny Landham has made it into her birthday breakfast photo--see him peeping out from her t-shirt? Wonderful. What I love more is that I got a card from Becs today--part of a tradition that Susan has with her mother. Inside, she wrote "thanks for the 23 chromosomes and all the stuff". Perfect. I am loved.

In other news, I haven't blogged for simply ages but today, because I'm procrastinating horribly (I have a 20 page Gender & Women's Studies research paper due in a week...) I thought I'd blog because it probably wouldn't do to get my knitting out at work. I'm tempted though, especially as I have to get mum's socks finished and in the post so they'll get to her by Christmas. My needles are going as fast as they possibly can--when I'm not at work. So, today, in the spirit of procrastination, I've pootled around on facebook and Ravelry (a lot), shuffled papers on my desk (quite a bit) and felt guilty about the work I'm not doing. That work would be Latin and the aforementioned GWS paper. And I typed up a piece of nonfiction that I started working on yesterday--something that I have absolutely no need to work on--about my dad and his ears. It's called "I Get My Ear Problems From My Dad". It's only a short picce, about 1,000 words, and isn't quite finished yet but I quite like it thus far. But it's not the required GWS paper. I have a feeling that this decision is going to bite me thoroughly on the backside in the next week.

Oh, and I'm a Ravelry star. Well, not quite. I logged in to my account this morning to find a message from "the powers that be" (or at least someone acting on their behalf) asking if they could use a photograph of one of my finished items on the Ravelry page for that pattern. I feel famous, and like someone important said "I like your knitting, Missy, please do more". The pattern in question is Garden Rows by Susan Robicheau and it's my "Salem's Lot" version of these dishcloths that have made it to the pattern page. I'm inordinately happy about this. Simple things, right?


On that note, I should probably at least try to get something productive done with my day *sigh* At least the semester is almost over, I'm totally ready for a break now.

I should be reading Nancy Chodorow

I'm a nerd of the super-organized variety. Every week, I print off a copy of the week's Google calendar and note on it what homework I have to do on each day. This semester, I'm taking five classes in total--two of them are very study-intensive classes (Latin and sentential logic), one of them (feminist history) has a heavy reading load. Because of this, I try to set aside time every day to work on these three classes--for Latin, I usually have a translation (today's was two pages long and took forever), for logic I try to work through a couple of proofs, and for feminist theory I always have a reading to respond to. My feminist theory professor (who is quite famous in the world of feminism) gives us about 6 or 7 readings a week, some longer than others. On Thursday, I got to read 100+ pages of Germaine Greer. Yesterday was Sherryy Ortner. Today, I should be reading Nancy Chodorow.

I am not, however, presently reading Nancy Chodorow. Somewhere between Germaine Greer's comment about a woman not wanting to be told she has a "twat like a horse-collar" (yes, she did say that and goodness knows what kind of people I'll attract to my blog with a quote like that) and Sherry Ortner's dissection of culture and nature, I lost the will to read. When I discovered the 30+ pages of Chodorow, my will was further displaced. This is bad news for a variety of reasons. I still have to do the reading--at some point. I can't do it tomorrow (and likely won't get any homework done tomorrow) because it's Susan's birthday and we're having the clan round for dinner. Before that, there are groceries to be bought. She wants a peach cream pie for her birthday so that has to be made. And because her mum is coming over I have to at least make the house look presentable. Well, I don't have to, but I want to. I'm odd like that. Anyway, this means that I'm going to have a lot to do on Monday, which is going to make me grumpy. Right now, I don't care. I'd rather knit and watch television.

Aside from avoiding homework (that's not strictly true, I did do some Latin and logic) we've had a lovely day. Saturday morning means Starbucks and the Farmers' Market and it was simply a lovely day to be wandering around, even if we didn't buy much. One honeycrisp apple (seriously, those are the best apples ever), two green peppers, and some aged goats cheese was the sum total of our haul. I did take a couple of photos of a rather cool chap who plays his rather cool guitar there every week. I'd been meaning to take the camera down for a while, and finally remembered today.



I can't play the guitar but even I have guitar envy for this piece of musical goodness.


In other news, Izzy went tailgating for the first time today, complete with UK tattoo on her cheek. She got back a short while ago, stuffed with pork, corn, macaroni cheese, and brownies. It's going to take us days to get her back on schedule but at least she had a good time.

And I took Susan shopping for a pasta maker. She's been wanting one for ages and we had some gift vouchers to use up so I dragged her off to that Bed, Bath and Beyond place (I love that place, it's so full of unnecessary nonsense) and bought her one. Now I'm looking forward to the results. Why do you ask if I had an ulterior motive...? Jeoffrey had fun with the box, though. I left it on the table so he tried it for size and found it a little lacking...


Not to be beaten, ten minutes later we discovered this...


Jeoffrey has a poorly eye today--no idea what he's done to it but it's a bit swollen and red. We've been bathing it and he seems otherwise to be fine so we'll wait and see what happens.

Anyway, I'm still avoiding Nancy Chodorow and someone just put "Addams Family Values" on the DVD player so I'm away to knit...I have this to finish...

Edwards and Other Things

I had my hair cut today. It's been a long time--almost ten months, in fact. I can get away with that only because I have such long hair that you can rarely tell whether it's been cut or not, but the fringe (I think you American types call it "bangs") was getting unruly and Susan's mum had been kind enough to get me a $150 gift certificate to a local salon for my birthday. So, this morning, I got my hair cut. There's not much else to say about that other than that Susan ran across to a local olive oil shop (can you believe that there's even such a thing as a local olive oil shop) to get me a cup of the absolute BEST coffee in the world. She's such a sweetheart. Really. As for the coffee, though--it's Cuban, and amazing. As a rule, I don't like coffee. I love the smell, I love the idea of it, but can't bear to drink it. Yet this Cuban stuff I could drink eternally. Although if I did I'd probably never sleep again...

Lunch today, with Susan's mum, at PF Changs. Gluten free menu ahoy! Much delight! We've eaten there once before and despite my general disinterest in Chinese food I really enjoyed it. The fact that they have a dedicated gluten free menu makes it even more appealing. Lettuce wraps and Dali chicken were on the menu today and I left full as a frog and extremely content.

Now, for Edward. Now that Heather's socks are completely finished (did I not mention that?) I decided to knit up a small project that I'd seen for Jessie-Mai. It was a super-quick and simple knit, even if some of the smaller parts were a bit fiddly at times. Becs named him Edward. He's going in Jessie Mai's Christmas parcel, along with a Scandinavian jacket that has yet to be started.

Here's Edward:


Yes, that is a compact copy of the complete Oxford English Dictionary. Yes, we are that nerdy a family. Even our knitted toys are literate. And now I'm thinking about literature, I'm thinking he should be called Lycidas rather than Edward. Milton lovers will appreciate the pun.

I'm knitting a palate-cleansing project right now. I like to break up the more complicated knitting (not that socks are complicated, but they require at least a little thought) with something simple and relatively mindless. So I've started on a set of Halloween dishcloths in orange, black, and purple colourwork. Not entirely mindless, but close enough. I'll post pictures next time, my camera batteries are recharging right now.

And so, with that, time for bed.

The Signal and the Noise

"And we are quietly resistant to the threat of non-existence And we can think without assistance from the top. You can keep your popes and presidents and your suicidal mal-contents. What they gonna give us when the world stops? A bang. A whimper. A drop"

Juliet Turner, "The Signal and the Noise"

I'm in a strange, mal-contented mood today. I have no reason to be so mal-content--Susan spoiled me with breakfast--a bacon and veggie omelette and a piece of banana bread, I got tons of work done and am finally getting to grips with proofs (damn logic...), and I got an unexpected and lovely package in the post from one of my best friends back in England (more about that later). So why the discontented mood? I have no idea. Well, I suppose I do have ideas but I don't want to harp on about them here. Let's just say that a situation that had been supportive and beneficial to me has ceased to be so and I'm upset about it. And I have a residual worry about something that I can't shake off and rationalize. I'd usually use the aforementioned supportive situation for the latter residual worry but...well...you get the picture. I'll figure it out eventually.

In the meantime, though, I've been listening to Juliet Turner, a singer that I was introduced to by an ex-girlfriend (and was lucky enough to see live) and whom I've loved ever since. The lyrics above are hers, from a song called "The Signal and the Noise" which is one of my favourites and clearly inspired by TS Eliot. I tried to find a youtube video but none was forthcoming. Nevertheless, I highly recommend giving her a listen if you can track some of her stuff down.

ETA: You can listen to a snippet of her music on Amazon. Click here, if thus inclined.

So let's think about good stuff for a while. We have good music, I've had good food, now for the package. Clare is such a sweet friend and I miss her so much. Funny, I dreamt about her and her family last night--I'm really missing the support she gave me over the years I've known her, and just that practical day-to-day friendship, the frequent text messages, endless cups of tea drunk in our kitchens while putting the world to rights, lengthy drives to dance competitions with our girls, just the minutiae of a friend that you've known for ever. Anyway, this is what was in my package:


Monsoon and Next were two of my absolute favourite shops in England. I've not yet found anywhere here that comes close to replacing them, although I keep trying!


Plus: chocolate! English chocolate! Cadbury's Flake! I may just have died and gone to heaven when I saw the packaging. And Custard Creams, as Clare remembers (she's such a darling) were one of my favourite biscuits. Alas, my gluten intolerance means I can't have the biscuits anymore but the gesture is massively appreciated and the girls will enjoy tucking into them. Although it may just be worth getting glutened for a Custard Cream dunked in a mug of tea...

Aside from the lovely package, I've been having fun with chocolate today. Yesterday, whilst out on our regular Saturday potter, Susan and I bought some Halloween chocolate moulds--witch lollipops and pumpkins. We're going to a Gender Bending Halloween party in a couple of weeks--my Gender & Women's Studies professor is holding it at her house (she's all kinds of fabulous) and from what I can tell all of my class will be there. I thought I'd take a hand-carved pumpkin as a hostess gift (although I haven't yet decided what would be an appropriate design) but thought that we should also take some small foodie things too. Hence the chocolate moulds. I've got a few more of these to make before the party but these are the ones I made today:


They're still in the mould and there's some chocolate where it shouldn't be around the edges, but they look fun to me.


Then there are these little chocolate rounds--I coloured some white chocolate with icing dye, I think it came out okay, although there are a few air bubbles in the chocolate. I'm sure no-one will care though.

In other news, sock progress is going well. One down, one to go. I've got most of my school work done for today so when I get back from tonight's meeting I'm going to knuckle down and see how much I can get done. I need to get them in the post, and soon!


There's not much else to add today. Might just go and treat myself to a Flake...

"My mum will make that for you..."

Earlier this week, Izzy was invited to a birthday party. That's usually good news because, aside from the running around it involves, it then means a couple of hours Izzy-free. I love Izzy, adore her, even, but a couple of hours without her full-on Izzy-ness is always a good thing. A chance to recharge the batteries needed to cope with her, as it were. So, I was looking forward to 1.30pm this afternoon when I could drop her off and perhaps pop to Starbucks and study for a couple of hours. That plan went pear-shaped on Thursday.

On Thursday, Izzy came home from school telling me that her friend, M (the up-coming birthday girl) was going to be home alone all night because her mum had to work, and could we let her stay over with us. A quick call to M's mum revealed that M would not, in fact, be home alone because she was going to stay with her aunt but aunt lives on the other side of town which would cause problems for the morning school run. I mentioned that we were more than happy for M to stay with us, that way she and Izzy could walk to school together the next morning. M's mum happily agreed. Then, though, came the crunch...

"Oh, by the way, I'm so glad you called", she enthused, "I wanted to thank you for offering to make M's birthday cake for her! I hadn't sorted anything out and this is really generous of you."

What? To the best of my knowledge, I hadn't offered anything of the kind but as she continued with her effusive gratitude, a brief and vague conversation with Izzy filtered into my recollection. A conversation where Izzy had sort of asked if I could make a cake for M and I had pretty definitely said no. Somehow, between M and Izzy, my refusal to make the birthday cake (which was based purely upon the fact that I'm super-busy right now) had mutated into agreement. And now M's mum was involved and I could do nothing other than a stuttered confirmation that the cake was all in hand and no problem at all. Bugger.

So, on Friday, instead of pottering around the funky indie shops downtown (which would inevitably have involved a trip to the local indie yarn shop), Susan and I went to Michaels to buy fondant icing and food dye, and Kroger to buy cake ingredients. I sacrificed Malabrigo for eggs and sugar. This was not a happy moment in my life. Friday night saw me baking the cake instead of knitting--although I will confess that I compensated by baking a loaf of gluten free pumpkin bread (using this recipe) and at least the house smelled good.

This morning, after a brief breakfast of the aforementioned pumpkin bread (which was flippin' delicious, by the way, and definitely better for the addition of dark chocolate chips...), Susan and I set off on our regular Saturday morning trip to the Farmers' Market. One quick stop at Starbucks and an hour later we still hadn't reached our destination. Most of downtown Lexington appeared to be cordoned off for the race for life and we were stuck in the resulting traffic. A quick change of plan was required and so we instead spent the morning thoroughly redeeming our thwarted intentions by having a lovely time pottering around shops that we don't normally get chance to potter around. In part, we were searching for dried porcini mushrooms--Susan tracked down an amazing recipe for mushroom stroganoff a couple of weeks ago, which she made with the pitiful selection of dried mushrooms available in our local grocery. She wants to make it again with porcini mushrooms, a plan that I don't have any issue with whatsoever.

Our first stop didn't have the dried porcinis we needed but they did have some suggestions where we might find them. Two shops and a tub of olives later, we were still without dried porcinis. It seems that they just don't exist in our little city. Every other type of dried mushroom seems to be readily available (and in some cases ludicrously expensive) but not a single dried porcini was to be found. Anywhere. But we did have a delightful wander around, found a new deli/cafe that we hadn't known existed previously, and in the process stumbled into across a shoe shop that we've always known was there but had never been into before. These were in the window:



Yes, they're rain boots. I'd call them Wellies, but they're really not. And honestly, I have NEVER seen anything like them before. They're fabulous. We browsed the shoe shop for quite a while, actually, and I found myself ooh-ing and ah-ing over multiple pairs of shoes all, alarmingly, sensible. It seems I have hit that age in my life where sensible shoes are appealing to me. Most of them were well over the $100 mark but honestly, if I have to buy one pair of shoes a year that I can see myself wearing pretty constantly as I hike around campus, then I've now found the place to do it. These boots are going on my Christmas list, without a doubt. I wound up searching Amazon when I got home as I still have a $40 gift voucher left over from my birthday. They have these boots, but only in a size five. I am NOT a size five. But I did end up with these...


My justification (aside from the $40 gift voucher) was the fact that I wear a lot of brown. My justification for keeping the other pair on my Christmas list is that I also wear a lot of black and a lot of bright colours. Is two pairs of rain boots too many, do you think?

Back to the cake. The party was at 1.30pm today. At 12.00pm I was lounging on the couch ordering rain boots. Swift action was required. Rebecca's help was enlisted with the boring, messy bit--dying the fondant yellow--and between us we constructed something that I believe goes by the name Pichu and is apparently a Pokemon. This makes no sense to me whatsoever but apparently M is "into" Pokemon and this was her desired cake. By 1.30pm, Pichu was complete and Rebecca and I were in the car on the way to deliver said cake to said birthday girl. I admit to feeling rather righteously smug about the cake, even though I grumped about it all day yesterday and most of this morning. Ah well, I did get a loaf of pumpkin bread out of the deal and the knowledge that I'm now not just "Izzy's mom" but "Izzy's cool mom". There's something to be said for that when you're the kind of woman that shops for sensible shoes and plans to own two pairs of rain boots.

In closing, here's the damn cake. As for me? I'm going to spend the evening with with a head full of henna and my knitting. High living? I have it.