Yarns, and other tales.

I decided that I needed to get on with using the lovely pale green cashmere yarn I unraveled from a thrift store sweater, and for reasons unknown to me, chose a lace scarf pattern to test it on. Well, I did warn my resident observers that knitters have a large and colorful vocabulary, most of it unprintable in this civilized blog, and I certainly justified that claim.

However, it's started, finally, after six different unsuccessful runs at it...starting with reading line one of the pattern instead of line three, and line five instead of line one, etc., even after I'd made my own little chart, check here if you've finished this line....the problem with lace knitting is that you really have to look back and forth between the stitches on the needles and the written pattern, and lemme tell you, with progressive lenses this is not so easy.

You tend to get the ssks and yos and k2togs kind of out of order as you glance back and forth. Then you tend to find you knitted one half of line one of the pattern and followed it up with a second half of line three because a kitty pushed the pattern aside to get on your lap in midknit.

Then you get desperate and get a big bulldog clip and clip the whole shebang open at the actual line you're supposed to be on. And remember to put in lifelines (those black threads are lifelines). You thread them through at intervals so if something awful happens you only rip back to the line, not to the beginning yet again.

Anyway, the scarf is now officially launched and I'm really liking it. Cashmere is lovely to work with, just slips gently through your fingers without taking off like a maniac or dragging back. Of course my observers are lying down quietly with a cool cloth on their foreheads.

Then there are the results of other recently harvested sweaters, one a cotton sort of wheaty blend color, which will be something for summer, the other a seagreen 100 per cent wool.




The arms of the seagreen sweater are now legwarmers for HP, perfectly warm and cosy in our recently ghastly weather, and the body part you see awaiting brilliant ideas, probably not involving lace.

The other two sweaters are going to be a mixture of legwarmers and hats and mittens and warm stuff for HS as well as HP.



They're MANLY colors, don't look like candy...and one is a lovely cashmere/merino mix, the other lambswool.



Which all raises the question, why, why, do all this? answer comes there right away: have you priced cashmere or good lambswool in the retail yarn stores lately? also these are sweaters that don't fit any of us or that nobody likes the style, or something very picky gang around here. But the materials are lovely.

And there's the thrill of the hunt...tantivy!

Speaking of which, I'm reading a massive biography of Queen Eliz. the Queen Mum, who lived to 102, hence the size of the book, I guess. I wonder if the bio writer knew what he would be in for when he agreed to it years and years ago...anyway, it's pretty good as a history of the UK during her lifetime as well as hers. And the PBS tv movie about her and King G. VI was pretty accurate, it turns out, many quotes directly from the research shown in this book, well done, too.

I'm the least monarchy loving of people, think it really never should have been and should be gone, and yet I'm still a fan of royal stuff! the Queen looking at horses, the Queen with herds of corgis biting her footmen, Princess Anne falling off her horse (actually she was on the Olympic jumping team, she's very good but everyone falls off sometimes), etc. etc. And the hats!!!! OMG the hats...anyway, it's a guilty pleasure.

And now I have to have a nice cup of afternoon tea with HP, Lapsang Souchong for him, fruit teas for me. Very civilized, very little profanity to be heard.

Chinese New Year soon, art celebration

At the library I use there's an exciting exhibit, small but lovely, of Chinese calligraphy and images, carved into wood and inked. It's a stunning notion, and apparently not a new one in Chinese art, to carve calligraphy into wood as well as onto paper, and this local artist is sharing a terrific output.

The largest piece, the horizontal one which does not show up well in the picture, because the incision is not inked, just left natural, took two years to carve -- it's a classic Chinese poem, written in political exile, about the simple beauty of everyday life and sights.

My favorites are the plum blossom/bamboo piece



and the small really flying exciting calligraphy. It hardly matters if you can translate, since the work itself is so visually exciting to see.






I've taken a picture of the explanatory text meant to tell us nonChinese readers about the tradition and meaning of the pieces.



Remember you can usually click on pix to enlarge them. Enjoy.

Candlemas. And Ground Hog.

Candlemas Day today, officially the day you can stop using the candles in the evening because the nights are getting lighter. Or something.

I believe it also replaced some earlier celebration, which no doubt knowledgeable blogistas will comment on to tell us, with a Christian version of it! and it's the Catholic Feast of the Purification, has to do with Mary recovering from the birth, you know the one, on December 25.

Six weeks on, and there is a Catholic ceremony for new mothers called Churching, where she goes to the church and trails about after the priest holding onto the end of his stole (long purple scarfy thing) praying together. Officially a ceremony of thanksgiving for a safe birth, unofficially a cleansing ceremony, sexist anyone....but I digress.

Getting out into the countryside, Groundhog Day and our local groundhog, Punxsatawney Phil gets to tell us whether there will be six more weeks of winter. Well, I suspect there will be, no matter what Phil has to say or squeak on the subject.

And Marigold the Burmese kitty, celebrated by abandoning her new favorite afghan, the one you saw in rough draft, now an FO (finished object, you have to be on knitting site Ravelry to get these terms).



So anyway, it left the afghan free to show you without a cat covering half of the design up.



It's a magic afghan, all lambswool and other fluffy stuff, guaranteed nap within minutes of getting under it.

Keep warm, everyone!

The Hounds of Spring on Winter's Traces

WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.

Swinburne.

I doubt if he would have applied this to today's hound sightings, but he's not in a position to complain, so please meet this morning's catch, our local Hounds of Spring:



Ziggy, four month old black lab/Shepherd mix with his proud teenage owner out in bitter weather running together and chasing sticks and generally acting like a happy puppy, posing very obligingly for me, actually planning to lick the camera.



And his new best friend, met this morning, three year old beagle/coonhound mix, running at a good 30 mph and cornering on two paws, as you see.



The two owners, a young teenage boy and a very old lady, also new best friends, but I couldn't get her into the same frame as her fast moving dog!

Celebrating January

Yesterday the almost full moon was up in a clear sky before the sun had set, and seeing it caught among the branches of a tree hurled me into a Japanese woodblock print. Favorite motif in Japanese printmaking, painting, haiku, is the moon caught in the tree.





It's one of those places in life where art informs what you see forever after. I can't see a field of corn stubble without flashing on Anselm Kiefer, either. Or an interior with a window without seeing Matisse.

And the other January pleasure is the shrubs that flower then.



Witchhazel is in full bloom, smelling wonderful, and definitely of interest to passing cats....Duncan pushed in on the picture taking session when I was trying to show you the twigs I swiped recently which have opened up. They're very tiny starlike flowers, beautiful seen through a magnifying glass. Like mosses, they're minute treasures which we hardly notice unless they're brought to our attention.

The snowdrop noses have appeared, and will soon flower, and daffodils are already above ground, but that will be quite a while. Meanwhile, I'm happy with the witchhazel blooming away out there, despite freezing winds and snow and sleet.

Moss on the north side, and other nesting ideas

Some simple knitting here, afghan squares knitted diagonally in garter stitch, here arranged in rough draft for deciding how to assemble them. The complete thing will be 16 squares in all, very symmetrical arrangement, all made in lambswool and angora, harvested from three thrift store sweaters, and destined for Handsome Partner's use when the weather is a little bit less bitterly cold. This picture was taken despite Marigold's best efforts to rearrange the pieces into a nice kitty bed for her. She will no doubt show up on future efforts, having already settled down for a nap on a square I was still knitting.

I'll single crochet the sections together, then do a nice edging around the whole shebang to give it some unity and shape. This is the kind of easy stuff you can do while you watch the news and argue bitterly with your partner about it.

And since it's the time of year when Spring ought to be getting here a lot faster than it is, I made a little moss terrarium (put onto this idea by Eepy and MaryAnn, blame them) today.



Just picked up some moss in the woods, around the beech trees, mostly predug by squirrels frantically looking for their nut deposits, I had it here before, I know I did, maybe it was that other beech tree, though, no, wait, Walt said absolutely the best return on investment was the black walnut area...and I set it up as is under a glass loaf pan, which was the nearest thing the house yielded, on short notice, to a Wardian case, set it on the shelf in the kitchen near the window, and am awaiting further developments.



Also on the woods walk, under a pile of leaves I found a personmade nesting house thing, made of cornstraw and other stuff, with a pointed roof. Anyway, it's now hanging from the wild cherry out back, and maybe we'll get a pair of Carolina wrens nesting in there this year. It occurs to me that I could just post a picture rather than blather on about what it looks like. This belated realization is the fruit of many years of writing for print publications during my misspent youth, all words, no pix. I keep having to remember I can do pix now.



I love Carolina wrens, because for a tiny bird they have the most amazing set of pipes, what a racket! and they repeat themselves endlessly, which I tend to, so I feel for them....they nest around here a lot, good school system and all that, usually in the most awkward place, like on the hinge of an open garage door so you have to decide whether or not to use that door for months on end. Or in the clothespin bag.

I've had them take a shot at nesting in hanging plants, then changing their minds, probably because the mourning doves whose specialty this is, had a quiet word with them..and mourning doves are model neighbors, quiet, nice kids, very tidy tenants.

Updates and foot power

I just had to show you this latest Freecycle find. It's a handmade fabric covered box containing footcare stuff, and the packaging is a wild grass. All made in Indonesia, why are you not surprised that such care and expertise and terrific sense of humor, is found here. As usual, the picture enlarges so you can probably read the contents, which are lovely, all natural good stuff.

The great thing is that it's a fair trade product, meaning that the original maker was paid a proper rate for the product, rather than the sweatshop levels you will be taking part in if you shop at various chain stores with very low prices.

But, if you Freecycle, it's the lowest price of all! someone paid a proper rate, gave it as a gift and the receiver passed it on to a happier recipient, me.

Other updates: the tapestry series is now under pressure, affixed to a backing, the glue is drying, and need only a couple more stages before becoming an actual finished artwork.

I have had many iterations of ideas about these guys since finishing the parts. They just didn't add up as well hung separately in a vertical formation as I'd hoped, but look a whole lot better when they're very close together, more bang. So that's the next stage.

I have some nice canvas (actually a dropcloth found at the dumpster and washed soft, lovely soft natural color) which I think will be the back of the whole series, in a solid vertical column. But that may change too. Can't show you pix yet, since they are reposing under glass sheets on glass sheets, with various thing like a miniature press and a shredder weighting down the glass, just happen to be a good size and heft for the job.

Did you know that "on the job" is a brit slang expression for having sex? I bet you didn't, and now know why you raise eyebrows and chuckles among brits when you say you called home to make sure the contractors you arranged for were on the job.....

Last update: the Round Robin Journal, according to my tracking number at the trusty PO, is now in the hands of Diane W., and I hope she's having a good time, and able to set aside a little bit of time, too, to play with it before it moves on in a couple of weeks' time. And might even take a pic of what you do, huh, Diane, that would be great?

Not too late to help Haiti

I haven't mentioned Haiti in here, for various reasons, one of them being that we all know and care already, and people who want to donate know how to, and my words won't add help to the situation.

But I usually don't give money immediately to this sort of huge crisis, since the fact is that they can't absorb a ton of help right away. They need it going along, and now is a good time to do something if you haven't already. Any amount (and I admit ours will be definition be small, given our financial situation) is good.

And take a look at dear Olive in the terrific Mason Dixon knitting blog, for inspiration! http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ that's probably not a hotlink, but cut and paste and you'll get there.

Rough drafts and finished objects

Out at the preserve the other day before the ice and rain moved in, I found many Canada geese and other species crowded into an open area of water on the icy lake -- the deepest part probably doesn't freeze, where they are -- making a terrific racket. They are noisy neighbors, and alas are protected in this state where they thrive and multiply amazingly.

And I got a nice shot of the stone bench that has been put up at the end of the peninsula which you can walk to by getting halfway round the lake then up the strip of land, and where before there was nowhere to rest your elbows while you held your binoculars, or sit high enough up to see. And now there is.




I talked about seating years ago with the preserve ranger, when there was nothing other than the trails, and he said, well, I have some good ideas about that, using natural materials and local labor, and he put several benches around where you often want to sit and wait for birds, made from fallen trees on the preserve (probably assisted by an active beaver colony forever felling trees) plus this lovely stone thing, like a dolmen except it's a bench, which doesn't ruin the point of the land at all.

Back indoors driven by rain and sleet, I wandered around and remembered my little tablescape upstairs, miniature animals sitting on a cigar box, all handmade, as were the cigars that used to be in the box, Cuban finest.





The animals are: wood jaguars, maybe, carved and painted in Indonesia, then one bread dough cat with saucer, created by HS at the age of 7, the little cat carefully modeled to crouch on her own, not resting on the saucer, which you slip under her chin! and the little clay turtle, was created as a model for kids to refer to, by the writer of this blog, as part of a series I taught in the local summer program a few years ago, on the Indians that used to be native to this area, the Lenni Lenape, and we did various art and craft projects using natural local materials. The animals are explaining their handmade origin in the picture, as you see if you crick your neck.

Tablescapes are fun to do, but in a house with cats, you have to choose your location with care, otherwise they will become tablekittytoys in no time at all.

And the studio as always is full of rough drafts in all kinds of media, usually all going at once, one feeding another, so I thought you'd like a glimpse.





While I make art, I like to have something going in my ears to occupy the left brain a bit and let the right brain get on with its work, so this usually means discussion shows on public radio, sometimes on the subject of food and cooking, and I have a small quibble here. Well, it's a huge quibble, but we're in miniature mode at the moment....which is:

I left kindergarten years and years ago, and I DON'T say my food is "crispy" or "toasty" or "piping" hot or "yummy." There. End of quibble.

Which reminds me of nibble...time for a little something.

Philip Levine and me

So we were watching a public tv news program the other night, and on came a poetry segment, Jeffrey Brown talking with Philip Levine, a poet I'd only very vaguely heard of and knew nothing about.

Now I realize that to some of our blogistas, this is about the same as my rushing in here and saying, listen, I discovered this terrific sonnet writer, and I think he's written plays, too, what's his name again, yes, William Shakestaff, no, I think I mean Wagspear. No, silly me, it's William Wagstaff, and he's really good...

Anyway in my own defense to those who have read and loved Levine for years, I have not always been au fait with modern poets, partly because I've been put off by poet nazi friends, the kind who insist in loud voices that you HAVE to LOVE poetry, and I admit I was even put off Mary Oliver by one of these pns who, when I casually mentioned that I wasn't much into reading poetry, ran and got a copy of a Mary Oliver and literally shoved it in my face. Had to duck to avoid being hit by it.

Which definitely cooled my ardor for the friend and the poet...then years later when I discovered Oliver for myself, I loved her, but had to come to her in my own time not because someone bullied me into it.

Likewise the poetry festivals which are surrounded by a lot of hoohah and posturing and stuff that has as much to do with poetry as sanding floors, but I digress....

Anyway, after we had listened to Levine talking naturally, winningly, and coming across as a wise and nice person, about his earlier life on the auto production line, later as a college professor, I got a couple of his books out, one for HP and one for me, from the library, just to get a taste.

And you know how once in a long while a writer will say something that you think, ohmygarsh this person said what's in my own mind, just did it for me. It's a magical connection, and rare and lovely. I had thought what I would do was read a poem, then knit a bit (currently knitting an afghan in squares, lambswool harvested in shades of pink, tan and white, important info) while thinking about the poem, so that the knitting would provide a backdrop to enable the thinking.

Then I realized after I had knitted about ten stitches, that Levine is one of those writers who sends you off in a mad rush of excitement to write about them, and in the process get all kinds of apparently unrelated art and writing ideas of your own going. It's that supercharged creative energy that comes flying at you from some art, some music, some writing. And it's right here in Levine. What a huge bonus. Can't tell you more yet, since telling tends to take the place of doing, but sooner or later, you'll see.


The collection I'm reading is News of the World, the poem that sent me off in a creative barndance is Our Valley. Literally it's about the Fresno area, a place I've never been only know they produce raisins or something there, but metaphorically it's about a place we all inhabit even if we haven't realized it yet. You can see it and smell it and live it by reading this little page.

Funny to think that I was sad and at loose ends after I mailed off the journal to Diane, on the first leg of her journey the other day, because my part in it was done for the moment, and I had that post-childbirth feeling of accomplishment and relief and pleasure and loss all at once. Once your art leaves you, even a small work like the journal, it's like when your child leaves your body -- he is his own person now. It's lonely and it's right, all at once.

So I was definitely ready for a new adventure, I think, and Philip Levine may very well have flung open a new door for me. I think he'd laugh quietly if he knew. Well, that's okay, I laugh at myself all the time.

Now I'm going to read Unholy Saturday and knit a bit....

3..2..1..Liftoff! ruffles and flourishes

The racket you've been hearing this morning is the ruffles, flourishes and general blasting of trumpets as Treasure Everywhere, our joint art journal, achieves liftoff...as of this morning, it's on its way to you Diane!

Everyone, enjoy this adventure! I've had a great time creating the journal, which has a lot of blank pages just waiting for you to plunge in, as well as a few ideas here and there inside just because I couldn't resist.

And to antiquarians worried about the segment of the Japanese woodblock print on the cover, don't worry, yes it's a genuine 19th century print, but it was already damaged and not leading a useful life at all, so this is a way of giving it a new lease on life. I didn't do anything vandalic to it! the others in my collection which are undamaged are happily framed on walls that don't get direct sunlight, and doing just fine.

Remember to sign your own section of the journal as it comes and don't hesitate to add pages or whatever pleases you, as long as it doesn't get so bulky that the later users will need a hand truck to get it to the post office.

I'd suggest you take your own pictures of your own work, so that you have a record and can share it with us as we go, and when it finally comes home to me having circumnavigated the globe, I will take pix of the whole thing, page by page.

And finally......










WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

You lookin' at me? My patch, beat it!

I was walking briskly in freezing temps around the park today, nodding at people so muffled that I'm not sure if I know them or not, and the squirrels were doing their mad January chasing and dancing and general mating games.

One stopped long enough to hiss and chatter at me when I had the nerve to stand by his personal tree and take his picture, which I preserved here.

Which reminds me that this time of year, getting into February, is when a lot of animals mate, including raccoons, squirrels and possums, and they completely lose their minds in the heat, pun intended, of the chase.

So the normally nocturnal ones are seen all over the place in daytime, scrambling about, totally ignoring the human race. I used to get calls when I had the petcare biz from people who figured I probably knew something about wildlife and it was easier to get through to me than to the wildlife officials for the state.

They would be panic stricken wondering if seeing raccies in the daytime on their deck meant they were rabid. These fears are not too farfetched around here, since we do get reports of small rabid animals now and then.

So I would explain, no they're probably not rabid, they're mating under your deck! look out for little families of them in a few weeks, and if you set out a couple of Havahart traps, you can get the local animal control officer to pick them up and transfer them. It being illegal for the likes of us not sworn officers, to move wildlife anywhere.

January also brings us a shrub that blooms in the dead of winter -- witch hazel. For years I used to make a January pilgrimage to the local community college where they have great specimen trees and shrubs relating to their hort. programs, I suppose, and larcenously swipe a couple of little twigs from the witch hazel, which are wonderful miniature flowers which open up when you put the twigs in water to force them, and smell good, too. Scratch a gardener and you'll find a burglar in shabby clothes...

Then last year I discovered, duh, that on the side of the park I walk in daily there are several witch hazel shrubs, slightly different species, but fine for swiping and much easier to get to. They're right by the bus stop for reasons that escape me.

So a tiny little twig is now sitting in a glass of water and if it opens enough to be recognizable as other than a little dead stick, I will take a picture.

Still Life with Green Bananas

As you know, the concept of the still life is all about decay and the fleeting quality of life. So it amused me hugely at this point in my earthly sojourn, to take a nice still life pic of fruit including -- green bananas! it's a sign of hopefulness when you are still buying green bananas....

Speaking of bananas, I have just had a wonderfully comic interchange of emails with a nice lady who is apparently doing genealogical research into the Boud family. Somehow or other she found me somewhere and was eagerly asking me if I knew anything about Elizabeth Boud, from the 16th century....I explained that Boud is in fact only a screen name, in honor of my late lovely kitty Boud, short for Boudicca, the updated version of Boadicea, a grey, part-Siamese six pound vital force, small but deadly.

Which suggested her name, actually, since Boudicca, the early British warrior queen, damn nearly turned back the entire Roman military force intent on taking over Britain, at Colchester, which was called something Latin back then, so small but deadly was definitely how she struck them, I'm guessing. Veni, vidi, thumpi!

Anyway, this nice geneo lady simply refused to believe me, and insisted that Boud was my surname (it SAYS so, on the website about the Boud family of NJ, she tells me)
and says how weird that I selected (!) a surname related to Princess Diana. Well, it would be if I had.

At this point I still thought she was talking about my cat, and I said, heck, it would be weird if Diana were related to Boudicca.... it just got funnier and funnier, until I said, well it's been nice sharing, but you are clearly on a dead end here, since Boud is not my family name, never had been, and I can't help you further. I think she thinks I'm meanly holding out on her, heh. Comic relief.

The round robin journal is coming along a treat, and we have at least six people interested in taking part, room for more if any show up, and thank you all for being interested. I'm valiantly holding off on filling up the lovely blank pages, before I ship it off to whoever comes first on the list which I have yet to organize.

I'll be putting together an email with info for everyone. I've known either in person or via internet, everyone, for multiples of years, and I have good feelings about everyone's willingness to keep the email for the purpose intended and to just use it to send on the journal, and to faithfully keep it moving! and add to it your own personal stamp (!) and create a wonderful joint artwork.

Don't hesitate (as if you would!) to ask me via email if anything suddenly stumps you about it, okay? and just to make sure: no, Boud is not my family name.



Does anyone else sing Bananaz!!! to the tune of Bonanza, or is it just me?

Treasure Everywhere: The Great Field and Fen 2010 Fun Project, read on...

Would you like to take part in a journal project, open to all, to happen over the course of this year? Here's what I have in mind:

I am in the process of creating artist books, blank inside, with interestingly folded pages, a couple of pix here to show you what I'm talking about. I am suggesting that if you are interested, we can use one of them as a Round Robin Journal, to go around to anyone who wants to sign up and take part. The theme is: A Day in the Life!

I will decorate the front and back covers and leave the rest a lovely snowy blank for everyone to decorate at will. You can use a page or a double open page, your choice.

You don't have to be an artist to do this, by the way, since your page is your page -- you can glue in a comic strip you love that is appropriate for the day you're doing it, or you can write a journal entry in poetry or prose, to share a day in your life with us (if either Diane does this, the rest of us will feel quite tired after reading it....but full of admiration) or you can draw, paint, print, stamp, attach fabric or knitting or photograph, or whatever fits on your page.

I'm using Arches Hot Press watercolor paper, the best in the world, they've been making this stuff since the 15th century, they know how to do it so it will take whatever you can dish out! and if you want to do this but are worried about "ruining" a page, make a painting, drawing, print, etc. and simply glue it in, then you know you like it. Or if you do work directly on the page and don't like it, then make another sheet you do like and glue that over the one you didn't. Feel free to cut, punch holes in, etc. your page. In other words it isn't possible to make a "mistake" on this project! your mark is your mark and it's a treasure.

Actually the only mistake would be to not take part and then later wish you had!

What I plan to do is keep the book within reasonable size so it can easily be mailed in a manila envelope. I will NOT put your addresses in this blog, but will ask you to email me at lxxadams@yahoo.com with your mailing address, and I'll email the whole list around everyone so you know where you come on the list, and who to ship to after you've made your entry, and it will finally come back to me and I'll take pix of the whole thing and show you in here.

The mechanics: I send to the first person on the list, he/she makes an entry, ships to the next person on the list who makes an entry, etc. etc. until everyone's received and played with the journal, last person on the list sends back to me.

Some people are abroad, and I will undertake to send it first to the furthest away person, so that nobody else has to pay that postage, and then they send it to the next on the list, etc. I'd like to send to the first person before the end of January. Well, you know me, it will be WELL before the end of January...

This is just fun, not to be other than a nice toy and sharing. If you decide a bit late to get involved, I'll just add you to the list and notify the person before you who to send to. We can make this work.

In the words of the immortal Calvin and Hobbes: there's treasure everywhere!

Happy New Year, however you say it

Are you going to say twenty ten, or two thousand ten? I don't think we ever came to a consensus as to what to call the last few years that were the "oughts" or "noughts" or whatever they were.

Today is in the 40s, wet, mild, no ice, no snow, this is Good Weather! we didn't quite see in the New Year, being a bit past it, and by 10.30 our day wound to a close. Lovely evening watching My Fair Lady, great fun, with a roaring log fire.

And the laundry was done, the garbage out, the bills paid, the current piece of knitting finished, all in honor of the new year. Of course this morning, owing to a catheter separation during the night, there's a whole new lot of laundry going, but never mind, that's what washing machines were invented for.

The picture is of happy ducks swimming in a brand new lake created by the torrential rainstorms where it used to be plain old grass, including a species of duck that we only see in the winter, and as soon as I find my bird book I'll identify it.



It's the little brown guy with the white shirtfront. A migratory bird, I think, since we're on the Eastern flyway and get a lot of species at different seasons on their way to someplace else..we're their flyover country! any knowledgeable reader is welcome to post what this one is.




And there was some wonderful accidental art on a neighbor's car where snow melted and folded over on itself like a sable wrap, around a numberplate which celebrated battleship New Jersey, a wonderful comment by Nature on the folly of man.

So that's us from here, and Happy New Year to all of us!

Looking forward to 2010

For us sticklers, 2010 does not start a new decade -- that starts at the end of 2010. Nonetheless, we can still look forward to it, and enjoy the last year of the old decade first.

And here's this year's path ahead picture.





Note the total absence of snow in the picture, taken yesterday after endless torrential rain washed away all the masses of snow, and left us with walking paths and sunshine and generally welcome weather to those of us who don't much go for snow after the first nice fall.

And there's a little study of rocks. I do this all the time, did this on yesterday's walk, as a visual exercise or playtime, and thought I'd share one with you.



It may or may not find its way into a future drawing or monotype or tapestry, who knows. It made me wonder what you do along these lines: poets among you, do you try over phrases or note them from time to time? novelists, do you play around with character aspects, musicians, do you noodle at musical phrases or gestures, knitters, do you think about stitch patterns and how to combine them in new ways? cooks, do you have sudden inspirations about what to combine to make a new dish? post here to share if you'd like to. I'd love to hear.

And finally one of my neighbors has a plate holder I just had to show you, since I think it about sums up a nice approach to life, and one I plan to adopt next year.





To those of us who had a tough 2009, let's hope for a much better 2010, and for those of us who had a nice 2009, let's hope for another nice year. I'm a bit early, but that's me!

Books and food and cosy stuff

This entry starts with a portrait of one of our favorite recipes, thanks to Diane, a crustless spinach quiche. Well, you could use practically anything in it, I guess, but spinach is very very good, and the fact that there's no need to foofle around with pastry, one of my less keen interests, is a big deal. Diane posted this ages ago, I think because it is okay for Passover? and it promptly took a premium place in the not very long list of Stuff I Like to Cook. And it never occurred to me before that of course you can make it without a crust, there's no law about this!

And on the subject of food, endless entertainment for HP and me on Sunday afternoons when there's a procession of cooking shows on tv, a new interest for me, watching people cook, though I've picked up a lot of tips, but an old interest for him, in his single days he used to cook on Sundays for the week, and listen to various cooking things on the radio! Nowadays it's Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, Lidia Bastianich, variously wandering about Italy and each others' kitchens, and other people too on farms and various homey sort of settings.

A lot of what they cook I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, it being high in meat, which we rarely do, and generally more work than it's worth. Except that I make Tibetan flatbread routinely now, having seen Jacques Pepin doing it.

But watching people like the bigs cutting and chopping and displaying wonderful expertise with a couple of knives, is fun in itself. Not to mention the number of things I've learned and applied to our own food. I love to see them taste and really appreciate color and flavor and texture and all that, with a minimum of measuring, just years of experience.

One thing I don't believe much in (with the shining exception of Ploom Croomble) is cooking ripe fruit. Heck, if peaches are ripe and juicy and scented and lovely, just EAT THEM! likewise practically every other fruit that ripens.

I have to thank internet friends such as Diane for the spinach quiche, and other people who explained how to do potstickers right, and the people who tried to help me find ways to use a wok I acquired, none of which was something I couldn't do with pans and steamers I already had, so I freecycled it to some other eager soul, who is probably right now wondering what new things to do with it. Now that I've acquired some interest in food -- I always cooked pretty well, but in a detached kind of way before -- it's good to share. Lunch is our main meal now, and HP really enjoys it, high point of his low key day, so that's a big part of it.

Today is Christmas leftovers: cold cuts of the ham and turkey, with cherry sauce and cranberry sauce, and homemade picalilli (I have to thank Rhonda for putting me onto that, by asking what the heck it was and one thing led to another, and les Adams ended up with quite a bit of it), and stuffing, and the remains of the corn and sweet potato and mixed vegs.

Cup of homemade chicken noodle soup to start, just for another hot element, since it's lashing down rain and not freezing but definitely soup weather today. And slices of fruitcake, I was given one by HS as a present, as one of the few people in the world who loves it, and didn't have any this year. I notice people eat it promptly if you put it on their plate, though...and leftover apple pie from yesterday and ginger ale, which I only have on holidays.

And then there's the question of books.

This year I have as usual read a huge amount, being a very fast reader, finishing a lot of interesting ones, and also made valiant attempt at books that I failed to finish, largely because they were so large.

The wonderful Wolf Hall, by Hilary someone whose name will come as soon as I stop trying to think of it, Mantel, that's it, and the Children's Book thing by AS Byatt, both well written, but just waaaaaaay too long for the content. You kept on thinking, well, listen this must be nearly finished, mustn't it, and the writer launches into another five hundred pages of plot....I just wish there were more editors in the world.

But I have arrived at the sage wisdom that there is no law that I have to finish a book just because I started it, a corollary of the law that you can make a quiche without pastry if you want to. This for a hellbent finisher such as I is a massive epiphany, I want you to know. This is a Sagittarian speaking, an Earth Tiger, too. So refraining from finishing up the prey I brought down is no small thing...

One book I loved and did finish, and reread bits of and recommended to other tea lovers is a wonderful one about tea and teatime and china and traycloths and all kinds of lovely afternoon fantasies and recipes none of which I will cook, but which I did enjoy reading about and if I can remember the title, or if Rhonda or another reader from the tea lovers topic in Ravelry can post it here, I will pass it on, because it's a lovely book to dip into now and then while you drink your afternoon cup of tea.



And there's Socks from the Toe Up, which I equally won't knit, but love the presentation, just lovely stuff, by Wendy Bennett. If you are looking for trouble in the New Year, let me unleash weaving and bookmaking on you...hehheh...witchy cackle here.

Kathy Blake's Handmade Books, a paperback of great beauty and simplicity is my favorite of all bookmaking books, and close behind is Cover to Cover by Shereen LaPlantz. This reminds me that there's an artist's book in the studio in the beginning stages which will eventually make its way to you, Gaby, in the not too distant future. It got a bit sidelined by the extreme cold up there recently, but will happen.

And Weaving Without a Loom, wonderful teaching, partly for kids, I suppose, but excellent for simple souls like me, how to create looms from cardboard and making great stuff with them, by Veronica Burningham. Anyway, these are physically lovely books, I even bought them, which will tell you something, to browse in even if you never cook from them.

All three of these books have triggered massive projects in my studio, and endless fun doing them and learning new skills right and left.

So that's my wish for the New Year: the BEST kind of trouble to all of us!

Horsies in the Snow, Ho, Ho!

It will definitely give you some insight into the wildly stuffed ragbag that is my mind when I tell you that as I drove past the horse boarding stable, this morning (the Big Snow, we had nearly two feet flat and more in drifts, being now plowed) anyway, where was I, oh yes, driving past the horse place, I saw various horsies out in the field poking about in the snow, wearing warm red and blue coats and looking very contented.

And I immediately thought, oh yes, pigeons on the grass, alas! And immediately booted G. Stein out of my conscious mind and replaced it with, oh, I mean, horsies in the snow, ho, ho....

Owing to a New York driver (the license plate told me) tailgating me all the way past the farm, I was unable to pull over and get pix, since the road is even narrower now with big icebergs and snow berms on each side, no safe way to stop unless the driver behind has a NJ plate and knows not to drive so close, so that if you start to stop, they know to get around you with plenty of time to spare.

Now, in fairness, I must say that around here a NY plate usually means someone who drives in the city, Manhattan, that city, and there it's considered enormously polite and kind and in the spirit of the season to allow a whole ten feet between you and the car in front, maybe even foolhardy, if you don't want another car to insert itself right in there, too.

However, this is not the city, and around here it's considered downright dangerous to be that close on a deserted country road, where the driver ahead can't turn off, no shoulders, no turns, it's considered rude and not in the spirit of the season at all and very likely to end in a rear-end collision. But as I say, mores vary. Anyway, I hope to see the horses again in their cheery coats before the snow goes, and maybe even get portraits to share.

This is why this blog starts out instead with seasonal amaryllis in the living room, busting out in red, much to HP's pleasure, he loves red.

And, news from the studio: I will show you pictures of art, my completed set of three tapestries, to be exact. Rubs toe in dirt, aw shucks, twere nuthin, I got em finished is all...and this makes a lovely symmetrical art experience in that in the one calendar year I learned to warp a loom, create tapestries, process fleece from farmy stuff, via carding, and combing and spinning, all new skills, all the way to using the yarn in my tapestry, and completing the set of three just in time before the month ends.








Started in the spring before it was warm enough to work on the patio, learning to spin and curse until I got it down to just spinning, no cursing, then spent the last cool days indoors washing and drying fleece, then the summer carding and combing and cleaning and spinning and dyeing, oh, I forgot to brag that I learned to dye, too, and then the fall designing and making the tapestries including a lot of fibers, but a goodly amount of my own spun yarn, and finished up the last panel last night while we watched A Christmas Carol, the George C. Scott one, pretty well done for such an old chestnut. So it came to a seasonal end, the art, that is. For the moment, that is.

That's the blog version of those awful Year in the News things that the newspapers and radio programs and tv does, saving no end of production money by hauling out stuff they used before and relabeling it High Points of the Year....so I kept it short, wanting you to click in here again sometime, after all.

And on a more sober note, HP's year went from as bad as it could possibly be, to stable, no further gains expected, and fairly happy,and looking forward to the New Year. Which says a lot more for his character than for the events he endured, I must say! and it says something very good about our friends, including all of you blogerati, who gave us unlimited encouragement and support and some fun, even.

So, okay, we're ready for Santa!

This one's for you, Minimiss!

And for people who would like a white Christmas and are unlikely to get one, maybe Gaby, MAJ, Hazel, Eepy, Diane in Singapore (not Diane in NC, I think you're buried already!), maybe Bernadette, too.

We had the promised snow, over a foot of it, I think, and the good news is that it's so deep it stopped up the draft, house is quite cosy, and the bad news is there's a lot of it, and the plows are hardly started.



The car out front with the wipers sticking up so they don't freeze to the windshield is mine, and the newspapers are next to it, in a snowdrift.



Out back the patio is full of snow, all the planters and furniture wearing white hats.





The more good news is that it fell on a weekend so there was not the snarl of traffic that would have happened in the week.

The bad news is that it happened on the weekend, fouling up all sorts of Christmas plans from Piffaro's concert, and other people's travel -- friends stuck in Europe because the US airports on the east coast are closed tight -- to MC's massive holiday dinner for relatives, which I'm guessing didn't go forward...and probably kids hate that they won't get a snow day!

The wonderful news for HP and me is that, being retired from the petcare world, we don't have to mush out in this to get to hungry little animals waiting to see us in their houses, and having to trudge through feet of unplowed snow up driveways, very few people thinking to arrange for plowing on their vacation.

Vivid memories of being pulled over by police wanting to know what I was doing out in this dangerous weather and having to explain, and being reluctantly allowed to proceed. And of following the snowplow some days, very slowly but at least moving. And of happy little pets jumping with glee because Food was On Its Way!

I never minded working Christmas Day when I had the petcare biz, used to declare Christmas on another day and celebrate it with HS on a day of our choosing. It was fun to go from house to house being greeted ecstatically maybe 20 times in a morning! and then doing it all again in the evening.

Clients would give a little extra then, too, often regifted items, I suspected, but they were nice anyway -- fine wool shawls, massive boxes of Godiva chocoloates, Limoges porcelain animal figures, waaaaay too many cat themed scarves and figurines, but the intent was lovely...I used to wonder what fool put it around that business owners would be insulted by a money tip. This one would have been perfectly happy with it!! you work very hard for very little if you work with live animals. But for 12 years it was the day job that enabled me to continue as a studio artist, and I was happy for that.

I was watching a little video from ZooBorns the other day, of wild puppies which had been nursed by a pet dog after their wild mother was killed, and they are now at an age where they grab your pant leg and tug, or chew up your shoelaces when you think they're just snuggling up.

It reminded me of all the gloves I had to replace after the fingers were bitten out by eager pets, and all the jackets with pockets torn off in search of treats, and the shoelaces chewed to ribbons...it was an unexpected business expense, replacing these things routinely.

The found art photo I took the other day before the snow buried it got some interesting responses, from

The Pope before a nose job
An animal looking right, head and shoulders
Two pictures at once, two animals
Maybe a cat
Maybe a pig
No idea what it might be
Whistler's Mother, created from found objects
Miss Piggy in her best evening shawl

The last two were my takes! heh.

Keep warm, everyone! and remember if you envy us the snow, that snow is repurposed water, very very very heavy to dig and throw...

Snow preparations a la Field and Fenista

We are being warned and watched and generally asked to be worried about a big snowstorm on its way here. This triggers massive expeditions to stores to buy essentials such as toilet paper, milk, bread, etc, because who knows the roads may be closed as long as eek.. six hours....anyway.

Tomorrow is Saturday, the day I have a lovely afternoon off to slope around without any pressure, doing this and that, mostly that, and often this entails moseying around a supermarket actually looking as well as shopping, time to breathe. However, if we have up to a large amount of snow tomorrow, this will be impractical, since the plows will be heavy competition on the roads.

So I thought I'd rush out madly to the nearest, Asian, store, not to leave HP for more than a short time alone, to pick up vital produce anyway, for soup purposes, etc., and I'd also been reading recipes for piccalilli, and one thing led to another.

It's not everyone whose idea of vital stores ahead of a snowstorm includes the making of six pounds of pickles, but well, like I said, one thing led to another, I was there in the good produce department and there were cauliflowers and other good things and they even had nice cucumbers of the right size, and I ended up later in the afternoon chopping and simmering and fooling about with mustard seeds and ginger and mustard and turmeric and all sorts of veggies, using all the big pans in the house, and finding that I didn't have enough malt vinegar and substituting with various other vinegars for the vital malt stuff.

Which brings me to the interesting observation that to me malt vinegar is common, cheap, and easy to buy. In principle.

In fact it turns out to be highly valuable stuff, hard to find in the store, which has a ton of wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, which everyone knows is only good for rinsing your hair, and balsamic vinegar which I have tried and wondered wildly why people eat it when clearly it is destined for use on the hinges of the garage door....anyway, I found some malt vinegar labeled: Fish and Chip Vinegar! priced at a queen's ransom, complete with tiara and the Order of the Garter. So I sighed and bought a bottle of it, the only size they had, small.

But the other ingredients made up in price for it, and I continue to wonder why people buy expensive tiny jars of pickled items when they're fun to make, not too expensive at all, and you get a whole lot out of one recipe and if you don't mind having the house smell like a fish and chip shop invaded by mustard plants, it's fine.

So, bring on the snow, we are READY!



And take a look at this accidental artwork I found at the Preserve the other day. It used to be a galvanized metal tub, and got squashed probably by a tractor, and now looks irresistibly like -- no, I won't make your guess for you. You tell us what you think it reminds you of. This is not a Rorschach test, folks, just a fun thing. I know what I think it looks like, but if I say that you won't be able to see what you think, so take a shot at it. What do you think?

Last day of my misspent youth!

My friends, I come to you on birthday Eve, the last day of my youth....tomorrow I'll be.....um, 71, definitely starting to be ancient, heh.

In fact inside I feel very young indeed, full of ideas and verve and loopiness, and it's quite a surprise to see this clean, respectable old lady looking at me in the mirror! I have a ton of blessings to count, so that will keep me busy for a while.

Meanwhile, back at the loom...weaving on the last panel of the three part tapestry, and now I'm finally learning a thing or two about weaving tapestry. I am very happy that I spun and dyed and am now weaving quite a bit of yarn for this project, and mixing it with other stuff that's lying around and works in with the color family.



I am still using the picture frame, hand organized loom, just warped with stout string (they won't let you put it on parcels any more so you have to find SOME use for it), with no nails or tension adjustments or any fancy stuff like that.

With any luck, this three part piece will grace the opening exhibit of our posh new gallery in the posh new library, which is still being built, and I will credit my co-conspirators in this venture: Carol Q,, who gave me the spindle on which the spinning was done, plus lovely roving to learn on, and Paula L. who donated the fleece which taught me a ton of stuff in the process of washing and combing and carding and dyeing and spinning it.

One reason I am anxious to get this done in good time to exhibit is that one of the principles of the new gallery, agreed to heartily by Jinny B, the director and co-conspirator of hundreds of projects with me, too many to keep count and blame her for, anyway, where was I, oh yes, one of the principles of this gallery is that we plan to break down the artificial boundaries between Art and Craft, by honoring it all as art, no matter what the materials used, and my tapestry is my first shot in this effort.

The Dick Blick catalog just came, the big fat annual one, of art supplies you never heard of and suddenly NEED, and there's a new section on weaving, including a couple of tempting little tapestry looms. But after admiring the pictures for a while, I once again conclude that I'm doing just fine with my own version,and have all kinds of big plans for the big stretchers S. gave me recently, anyway. I may knock a few nails into them, since they're a bit big for free warping with no supports, but other than that I think I'm technically up to speed.

Speaking of which I finally mastered the art of cropping with my digi, took a while, it just didn't work with my old slow laptop, so I think it was a memory issue, but with this little fast netbook, it does. I am a purist in taking pix, believing you crop with your eye before you snap the shutter, so what you have seen in this blog up to now is exactly what I've taken, no artificial aids, other than sharpening up the light a bit to compensate for low winter natural light.

However, when it comes to trying to show you details of artwork, I think that cropping is okay. Now this may be a function of my finally having learned how to do it, but we'll pass quickly over that thought and I can show you the current state of the tapestry, panel three, blue family.



What I've put up is about a quarter of the length of what will be the finished work, but I've closed in on the actually completed part, to see how it looks. Once again stuff is happening that I never realized while I was working on it.

I often think that art is a picture of the inside of the artist's mind, whether she knows it or not. It certainly is an illustration for any artist, of coming face to face with yourself.

And, on a more frivolous note, Saturday's dessert, my first try at a crumble, is here for your viewing pleasure.



Plum crumble, please pronounce this Yorkshire style: Ploom Croomble, made with a bunch of Italian plums I froze in August, because they were so good this year. This went over just fine as the conclusion of a meal of homemade soup and garlic bread, for HS and HP and me last Saturday.

Since HS puts in hours with us each Saturday, including personal care for HP, I figured he ought to start out with a decent lunch before I vanish out to play for the afternoon.

Okay, folks, see you when I get old, um that will be after midnight or soon thereafter...exit trailing filmy robes with heavenly music in the background...litle clink of champagne glasses off stage...

Hippo Birdies, Sagittarians!

To all good Sagittarians, arrow carriers all, we wish a gracious Hippo Birdies, Hippo Birdies, Hippo Birdies two ewes this week.

From Diane to MaryAnn to Anthony to Jane Austen to Beethoven to the Great Me, even if we sags don't believe in astrology, anyway, these are great days to have birthdays.

So Hippo Birdies
Hippo Birdies
Hippo Birdies
To all of us
Dancin in the streets
Let joy be unconfin'd

I'm just sayin'...