Coco's Mami

Textile Museum with a4A

2011-03-16T21:44:00.003-04:00

On Saturday Feb. 26th, Ann Rubin from afghans for Afghans had a meet and greet at The Textile Museum in Washington, DC. It was an informal gathering of about 20 folks. One woman had come all the way from New York, and 2 from Philadelphia. Many of the attendees drove 2 or more hours to be there. I was pleased to see my picture on the a4A's blog :)
Here's the link to the blog post.

I am working on a pullover for the current campaign, due at the end of April.

Sad Season

2010-08-26T16:23:00.005-04:00

Two stories this week in the news about my favorite group The Swell Season. My friend Kelli alerted me to the first - a concertgoer jumped to his death onto the stage at the Swell Season concert in Saratoga, California. He landed near the lead singer, Glenn Hansard. The SS has has little about it on their webpage though I read there has been chatter on other social media. They are offering grief counseling to those who were there. They cancelled their Las Vegas show but offered ticket holders the chance to use the tickets at other shows.

Then yesterday I heard the band announced a hiatis, and some assume this is the end for them. But Glenn tweeted : If anyone is going to announce the end of The Swell Season it'll be us.. Forget what anyone else says.. Were not breaking up.. .
They will be going to Brazil this weekend (I would love to be there).

I have been fortunate (blessed) to have seen them five times : twice at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, at Meyhoff Hall in Baltimore, and in Pittsburgh twice at the Byham. Glenn's band The Frames are planning a tour this fall and I am already on the lookout for tickets. I am feeling sad for the person who took his life, his family and friends, and those who were there. I am so sorry this happened at a SS concert. I just doesn't seem possible. I love the gift of their music and will continue to be one of their biggest fans forever.

The Merry Month of May: Adventures in yarn buying

2010-05-23T11:09:00.025-04:00

May has been jam-packed with activities starting the very first weekend. The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival happens the first weekend of May every year. The weather this April and May has ranged from days in the 60's to 90's. May 1st and 2nd were very hot!!-not the best for yarn shopping in huge crowds. I started out by going to the Howard County Fairgrounds on Friday night to meet up with a Ravelry friend knitredsox who had moved from Maryland to Chicago, and was coming back for a MSW weekend. The Columbia Sip n'Knit group had a bbq to prepare for their big weekend. They were hosting the podcasters' meet and greet on Saturday. We did a quick tour of the fairgrounds to figure out where vendors were because there were lots of changes this year.

Saturday I left home early (luckily I am only about 30-40 mins. away) and arrived at the fairgrounds at 8:30. This year I made a list which worked well for me. It helped me focus, and shop with a purpose. My bad because I always advise folks not to go early, but by 8:45 I was at Tilli Thomas' booth and she was open. I snagged 5 skeins of yarn at great prices. Then I hit Miss Babs and got 2 skeins of her show special merino and bamboo sock yarn.

I also picked up a yarn meter from Carolina Homespun. I then bought a couple of plants and brought my purchases to car, went to the Columbia Spin n'Knit tent to knit and wait for the podcasters scheduled at 11:00. They got caught up in traffic and arrived at 11:45. After the meet and greet, I met up with my friend Becky from Pittsburgh for more shopping. The heat was hard to take, and I found that once you sit down, it's hard to get up. By 4:30 we were baked, and she headed back home with her friend Kate. I had a ticket to the after party but decided to go home to shower. Once I got home, I realized there was no way I was going back so I jumped on Ravelry and within an hour found someone looking for a party ticket. She was thrilled and I was happy it worked out.

I have done some additional yarn buying since MSW. Last weekend I went to Pittsburgh as visited Natural Stitches where I bought Brown Sheep Nature Spun sock yarn to knit

"Ode to Socks" which incorporate several lines from a Pablo Neruda poem and are shown here .and here (must be logged into Ravelry). Then this Friday night at Stitch n'Pitch - The Washington Nationals vs. The Baltimore Orioles - I snagged some Miss Babs team color sock yarn in red and blue from Fibre Space. Just that morning I had been looking at yarn colors for some Red Sox good juju socks.

My peeps at SNP

Spit on me Dickie!: DC Irish Writers Festival

2010-03-16T22:30:00.010-04:00

Photos: books on display in Busboys & Poets; a fan with Claire Kilroy; "the lads" : Dennis, Philip O Ceallaigh, and Chris Agee in Busboys & Poets.

The first DC Irish Writers Festival sponsored by Solas Nua was five days of intellectually stimulating craic! The theme (unexplained) of the festival was "spit on me Dickie" a sort of an inside joke with Dubliners of a certain age. Opening night, Thursday March 11th featured three Northern Irish writers with a reception sponsored by the Northern Ireland Bureau. There was an open bar (good wine and Sam Adams) hot hors d'oeuvres, and a table of cheese, olives etc. and great conversation before the readings.

Glenn Patterson, a novelist from Belfast read along with Nick Laird, poet and novelist, and Chris Agee, editor of Irish Pages, moderated. Glenn had been in DC before for Solas Nua, as well as one of the instructors at the summer school I attended at Queens University. He was even funnier and more charming than I remembered. Another writer, Christine Dwyer Hickey referred to him as Glenn 'Fred Astaire' Patterson as apparently he danced backwards up a grand staircase on Thursday night.

Nick Laird read first – 2 poems from his new collection. One titled 'Light Pollution' and the other I think was titled 'Pug". He also read from his recent novel Glover’s Mistake . Glenn read from his latest book Once Upon a Hill which is non-fiction. The discussion was facilitated by Chris Agee, an American who has lived in Northern Ireland for 30 years. The topics of the discussion included identity (Nick said he is often labeled a British writer, but an Irish poet) as well as how Northern Ireland is similar to Eastern Europe (which has to do with being on the periphery of Europe).

Friday night's event at the Washington Arts Club featured Christine Dwyer Hickey. She read from her recent novel Last Train from Liguria as well as from her novel Tatty. She is a wonderful writer and a real Dub. During the weekend she talked with us about how difficult it is to be a woman writer in Ireland. There is an assumption that Irish women write chick lit. Christine said that if she hadn't been published in the mid 90's, she thinks there'd be little hope of getting published now. We also talked about the lack of decent independent bookstores in Ireland, and Christine mentioned one in Rathgar that she discovered.

Saturday Claire Kilroy read from her new book is All the Names Have Been Changed. Claire writes exquisitely, and is a graduate of Trinity College Creative Writing Program at the Oscar Wilde Center.

Sunday Chris Agee read from his 2009 book of poems Next To Nothing described here by the publisher:

Next to Nothing records the years following the death of a beloved child in 2001. Though bereft of belief in the poetic outcome compared to the apocalypse of the loss itself (one sense of the title), the fidelity of these poems to the “heartscapes” of grief constitutes, nonetheless, a work of genuine honouring – spare, delicate, and deeply moving.

His reading of the poems was very emotional, for him and for the audience. He said he would not continue reading from the book in the future. It had taken him eight years to publish the poems, that were written over several years. He also edited a collection of poetry from Northern Ireland The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland (2008) which pushes the boundaries of who is considered a Northern Irish poet.

Also Sunday was Philip O Ceallaigh (no apostrophe), a short story writer who lives in Eastern Europe, read a story from The Pleasant Light of Day. He shared that he loves Hemingway's short stories, but not his novels.

Monday, my friend Joan had a brunch for Christine Dwyer Hickey, which was great fun (Joan's scones were awesome). I missed the final reading on Monday night from Gerard Donovan, but my friend Maureen went, and later joined the author and others for dinner at a chic Washington restaurant. It was a wonderful five days. I have a pile of new books to read - now all I need is time:)

Cabin Fever!!

2010-02-14T18:53:00.012-05:00

I have gotten emails from friends in Texas, Brazil and Spain about all of the snow we got. Yesterday, suffering from serious cabin fever, I headed for the Yarn on the Farm/ Sweet Sale at Dancing Leaf Farm in rural Barnesville, Maryland. My mission was to buy a skein of green yarn for the Ravelry St. Patrick's Day Swap. There were very few cars on the road once I got off the interstate, but the roads were amazingly clear. I spent about 2 1/2 hours at DLF. There weren't a lot of people coming by - the snow surely kept them away. So Dalis and I chatted, and knit, and I took some pictures of the sheep. Of course, sheep go into the barn as soon as they know someone is trying to take a picture. I couldn't decide which green yarn to buy so I bought a skein of Sock Hop and a skein of Tango. Of course I couldn't resist 2 skeins of Salsa in the Fog colorway - a grey and white blend.

New Year, New Post

2010-01-16T11:57:00.005-05:00

Wow- I haven't posted for over a month. This promises to be short. I am excited about actually knitting through a lot of my stash thanks to my friend knitcrit's (her Ravelry name) Ravelry group LOTSAFOS10
- you have to be a member of Ravelry for the link to work. Some famous podcasters have joined! Cuteknitter, Missviolet - and I am sure there are others there. Some lists are very long - maybe folks who have lots of time, knit in their sleep, or have lots of UFO's that re less than 50% done and qualify for making the list. Actually I just counted 29 on my list. Whoa - that's more than 2 a month...
January is when I start thinking about my summer. Well, with the economic woes, I don't know what I'll be doing. Some ideas that range from possible to improbable are:

UK Knit Camp at the University of Stirling in central Scotland during the second week of August: 9th August 2010 - 13th August 2010, with The Ravelry Weekend taking place on 13th- 14th August 2010. There's a trip to Shetland following this but I have to be at work by August 16th (academic schedule isn't flexible).
rent a house on Cape Cod - Outer Cape - for a week
the Golden Gate Fiber Institute Summer Intensive

Swell Season again!

2009-12-05T13:52:00.008-05:00

I am late posting about the Swell Season/Frames concert at the 930 club in DC on november 9th. It was awesome - of course. But there are disadvantages to going to a standing (unseated) show. It's hard to see! I think there was an above average number of guys over 6 feet tall in the audience. Also, standing for over two hours gets old fast. Here's the set list from the show. Their encore included four songs! I knew they'd be doing High Horses as an encore cuz it wasn't in the show, and one of the best songs from the new album Strictly Joy. Another favorite is Low Rising - and the video seems to confirm my impression that this album is about the end of Glen and Marketa's relationship
Be sure to check out the video of Red Chord, the final song. Glen sings The Parting Glass as a moving tribute to Liam Clancy, the last of the Clancy Brothers, who passed away December 5th, 2009. Now that I have given up my subscription to the Irish Voice I miss out on this kind of news which doesn't reach mainstream media. Glen notes the pivotal role that the Clancy Brothers had in bringing Irish music to America (and he notes - of course it was here already). Irish traditional music in fact was kept alive in America when it was on the wane in Ireland. The years I lived in Boston there were a number of accomplished musicians who worked during the day as streetcar drivers, house painters, and at other blue collar jobs, and at night and on weekends played traditional music. Fiddler Larry Reynolds , brothers Paddy , Johnny, and Mick Cronin, and Joe Joyce. There were many nights when I sat in living rooms, VA halls, and other gathering spots listening to them play just for the joy of it. An era is ending.

Stitches on The Bridge (to the isle of Skye)

2009-10-26T20:15:00.010-04:00

This summer I finished knitting a panel for the Stitches on The Bridge project for Highland Homecoming Scotland. I made my panel with 2 skeins of Kiparoo Farm Skye yarn (very appropriate) in a beautiful colorway of heathery purples, and greens. There are 2 shots of it on the top.
Here's a description of the project from their Ravelry page:

An invitation from Luib na Lùban (In Amongst the Stitches), a new textile art group in Skye and Lochalsh, to Scots, ex-pats, Scotophiles and anyone else to take part in an ambitious project to cover the Skye Bridge in knitting!The Skye Bridge links the Isle of Skye with the mainland in the West Highlands of Scotland.Our aim is to link this (rather large!) piece of guerrilla knitting with Highland Homecoming 2009, which celebrates Scotland’s great contribution to the world, in October 2009.

The panels were hung on the Skye bridge this past weekend of Oct. 24th-25th.
There are several links to videos on YouTube.
The best are: BBC and my favorite in Gaelic on BBC An La.

Sheep in New York : Rhinebeck!

2009-10-25T12:02:00.011-04:00

I attended Rhinebeck for the first time last weekend with my friend Martha. The weather was challenging on the drive up (rain) and Sunday (light rain), but it was worth it! Rhinebeck is very awesome (can you say very awesome because awesome is a superlative already). I loved the opportunity to see vendors I'd never seen before at either Stitches East or Maryland Sheep and Wool, including: Black Rose Fibers, Hope Spinnery, Buckwheat Bridge Angoras, Decadent Fibers, Foxfire Fibers and familiar favorites from MSW Brooks Farm, Green Mountain Spinnery , Carolina Homespun and Spirit Trail. My new favorite yarns are cormo (expensive!) and yarns from small farmers - especially naturally dyed (plant dyes rather than acid dyes) and natural colors (brown sheep). I just took pictures of the yarn I got and put it on Ravelry this week. I bought yarn from Hope Spinnery (6 skeins), Decadent Fibers (1 handpainted skein of bulky), Carolina Homespun (Elemental Affects), Green Mountain Spinnery (Wonderfully Wooly), some alpaca, and another natural colored skein of something soft and wooly- have to find the name which I wrote down somewhere. My sister Christine drove over from NW Connecticut (under 2 hours) and I ran into my friend Rose from Texas, Mary Alice from MA (both friends from Golden Gate Fiber camp), Heather and Kate from (Red) Sox Knitters who came down in June for a Red Sox game, someone I know from work (totally random), and 2 friends from Maryland Cheryl and Monica (who was somewhere on the grounds but we didn't run into her). It's amazing to see so many people you know at such a big festival.

Book swap IRISH

2009-10-04T10:39:00.006-04:00

In the summer of 2008, I met someone at a professional conference in Lake Como, Italy who turned me on to Paperback Book Swap. Recently I have focused on requesting books by Irish authors, or on Irish topics. Out of the 93 books I have received in the past 14 months, 36 are Irish-related. Check out the hyperlinks for more info on each title. The books I have gotten include literature, fiction, memoirs, poetry, mysteries, history, women's studies, and more.

Mysteries
1. Divorcing Jack Author: Colin Bateman
2. Stone of the Heart: An Inspector Matt Minogue Mystery Author: John Brady
3. Walking On Water Author: Gemma O'Connor
4. Whispers of the Dead (Sister Fidelma, Bk 15) Author: Peter Tremayne
5. The Marching Season Author: Daniel Silva

Non-Fiction
6. Border Crossings: Irish Women Writers and National Identities
7. There You Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History Author: Thomas Flanagan
8. Those Are Real Bullets: Bloody Sunday, Derry, 1972
Author: Peter Pringle, Philip Jacobson
9. Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland
Author: John P. Harrington (Editor),
10. Wild Irish Women Author: Marian Broderick

Memoirs
11. Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan
Author: Christopher Nolan
12. The Star Factory Author: Ciaran Carson
13. The Bend for Home Author: Dermot Healy

Literature
14. The Portable James Joyce
15. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation Author: Seamus Heaney

Poetry and Drama
16. The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry Ed: Edna Longley
17. Selected Poems 1966-1987 Author: Seamus Heaney
18. The Spirit Level : Poems Author: Seamus Heaney
19. Selected Poems of Louis Macneice
20. New selected poems Author: Les A Murray (not Irish, but an influence on the poet Sinéad Morrissey)
21. Modern Irish Drama (Norton Critical Editions) Author: John P. Harrington
22. Selected Poems (Cape Poetry) Author: Michael Longley
23. The New Poetry Author: Michael Hulse, David Kennedy, David Morley

Fiction
24. Nocturnes Author: John Connolly
25. The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne Author: Brian Moore
26. A Son Called Gabriel Author: Damian McNicholl
27. The Thief of Time Author: John Boyne
28. Grania: She-King of the Irish Seas Author: Morgan Llywelyn
29. Titanic Town Author: Mary Costello
30. The South Author: Colm Toibin
31. For the Love of Ireland: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers
32. The Christmas Tree Author: Jennifer Johnston
33. Dislocation: Stories from a New Ireland
34. A Green and Mortal Sound Author: Louise DeSalvo
35. The Tea House on Mulberry Street Author: Sharon Owens
36. An Irish Country Doctor Author: Patrick Taylor

Emergency [room] knitting

2009-09-27T15:17:00.005-04:00

Last Wednesday at 6 a.m. my son had to go to the Emergency Room. As he wasn't bleeding or in severe distress I did take time to grab my knitting before going out the door. It turned out he had a collapsed lung - which is not unheard of in young men (and for no reason). We were in the ER 9 and 1/2 hours before he was admitted. I have been doing plenty of knitting the past 5 days in the hospital including knitting this Turn a Square hat (Jared Flood's free pattern) from the Berroco Pure Merino and Berroco Pure Merino Chine I bought last Sunday at The Fiber Space in Alexandria VA with my friend Martha. I knit this up Friday night watching my Red Sox playing the team who shall not be named (there is another name they are commonly known by among Sox fans but I want to keep this clean) in New York.
I took these pics with my Blackberry so they aren't the best quality.

"The Troubles" for Tourists

2009-08-30T09:59:00.016-04:00

Belfast is booming economically - reflected in the graffiti commentary on the wall above. Not only has it shed its gritty past as a grey, industrial city, but has been peacful for the past ten years since the Northern Ireland Peace Process culminated in the Good Friday Agreements . It is significant that the Northern Irish peace agreement occurred on Good Friday, as it is a day that many Christian churches - both Catholic and Protestant - throughout the world stage peace walks.

I made several visits to Belfast during the troubles in the mid-1970's and early 1980's, and was witness to the devastation of the Troubles. That is why I have mixed feelings about "Troubles" tourism. I didn't have an opportunity to take a Black taxi tour in Belfast, and some appear to focus on the famous murals.There has been a great deal of "disneyficaiton" of historical sites in the Republic of Ireland, and I worry that this is spreading to the North.

I also visited Derry a city I had only passed through in the 1970's. On that day, I only got a glance of the famous mural YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE DERRY, and quickly left town. The hostility to strangers was palpable (understandably so).
There are recently created murals in the Bogside, the Catholic area where the Bloody Sunday killings occurred, and the site of many battles between the British Army and locals. Catholics established Free Derry a self-declared autonomous Irish nationalist area from 1969 and 1972.
The Bogside Artists , three artists, have created 12 murals in the neighborhood illustrating history of the troubles, and paying homage to peacemakers. While this is a tourist attraction, The Bogside Artists efforts do not come off as a commercial enterprise. I visited their gallery, and because it was a hour wait for a tour, and starting to rain, walked through the area on my own.

.

Book Paradise : Ireland

2009-08-29T15:14:00.008-04:00

Ireland - Northern Ireland and the Republic - is a bookbuyer's paradise. Additionally, books one can find in the North may not be available in the south. Some writers easily cross the border such as Ciaran Carson, the Belfast poet. Other writers like Glenn Patterson, a Belfast novelist, are harder to find in the south. Could it be that Carson, fluent in Irish, a Catholic, and Irish nationalist is thought of as Irish in a way that Patterson, a Protestant is not? There are probably academic writings on the topic, and I will try to avoid simplistic conclusions here about such complicated issues. It is simply an observation, and I may well be totally wrong.

I spent more on books than I did on food in my 11 days in Ireland. Coming home, my bag of books was heavier than my suitcase of clothes etc. Now I need to take a year off to read them all.

Upstairs Books, Dublin
• Ulysses and Me : Declan Kibard (Literary criticism)
• Language and Politics (QUB journal)

Queens University Bookshop, Belfast
• Shelmalier - Medbh McGuckian [poetry]
• Had I a Thousand Lives by Medbh McGuckian [poetry]
• The State of the Prisons - (2005) by Sinead Morrissey [poetry]
• There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996) by Sinead Morrissey [poetry]
• My Twentieth Century Night Life: A Padraic Fiacc Miscellany [poetry]
• Pirate Queen the Life of Grace O'Malley by Judith Cook (2004)
• Last Before America: Irish and American Writing by Fran Brearton and Eamonn Hughes (2001) (fiction)

Waterstones Belfast

Red Earth by Padraic Fiacc [poetry]
Semper Vacare - Padraic Fiacc [poetry]
20th Century Irish Poems - Michael Longley ( 2002) [poetry]
A Fine Statement: An Irish Poetry Anthology - John McDonagh (2008) [poetry]
The Internationalist-Glenn Patterson (fiction)
Molly Fox’s Birthday – Deirdre Madden (fiction)

Derry

Asking for Trouble: The Story of an Escapade with Disproportionate Consequences - Patricia Craig (2007) [Easons] [Memoir]
Amra Choluim Chille- Dallann’s Elegy for Columba [poetry]
Book of contemporary Irish short stories – [Foyles Books]

Hodges Figis Dublin

Ulyssess by James Joyce– Gabler Edition
My Mother-City – Gerald Dawes
Collected Poems – Ciaran Carson [poetry]

Belfast, devout and profane and hard

2009-08-05T21:36:00.016-04:00

[Queens University/Botanic Gardens/Belfast at dusk]

The title of this posting is, very appropriately, taken from a poem by Louis MacNeice, a major influence on poets of Northern Ireland. From Sunday July 19th to Saturday July 25th I was in Belfast to attend the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry's 2009 Summer School.
During the week we had lectures and workshops from poets and writers including Ciaran Carson, Sinéad Morrissey, Medbh Mc Guickian, and Gerald Dawe among others. The experience was everything I had hoped for, though new experiences are full of surprises. A characteristic of Ireland - North and South - that I love is that there is no cult of celebrity like we see here in the US. Famous people, whether poets, musicians, actors, etc. still mingle with the public, and are not elevated way above the "common people". In turn, they are given their space, and folks interact with them normally. About 5 years ago a friend of mine saw Bono, The Edge, and their families eating at an outdoor cafe in a seaside town near Dublin. While the restaurant staff was attentive, they were able to enjoy their meal like anyone else. The poets and writers at the summer school were humble, and interacted with us extensively through the week. One of my classmates, Stephanie, and I even ran into Medbh Mc Guickian one day on the street. She recognized us, before we realized it was her. Americans are still a little sparse on the ground, so we stood out:).

Highlights of the week included writing haiku with Cieran Carson, and Sineed Morrissey's talk which explored her favorite poets including someone new to me, the Australian poet Les Murray. I loved Medbh Mc Guickian's exploration of Seamus Heaney's poems, which made his poetry so accessible. Probably my favorite session was Gerald Dawe's discussion of his book My Mother-City in which he describes life in Belfast in the 1960's before "The Troubles". I was thrilled because he discussed Van Morrison's album Astral Weeks (which I have mentioned in past posts is my favorite album of all time). He analyzed the song Madame George - the best on the album in his opinion - in depth, and then played it. An insight I gained this week was that poetry, song, and music are not separate - at least for these poets. Astral Weeks is sheer poetry, and captures Belfast in so many of the references " on the train from Dublin to Sandy Row", "throwing pennies at the bridges down below" and places like Cyprus Avenue.

Some things to know about Belfast - it is peaceful, and thriving. There is plenty of shopping (I bought shoes - Echos on sale, went mad at the Lush store, and lots of books). It isn't easy to find food after 7 pm when pubs stop serving food. A pint of Guinness is only 3 pounds 10p (under $5 for 20 ounces) while a pint costs 6 euros or more in Dublin ( almost $8). People make a point of being post-sectarian though we had a 70 plus year old cabbie who acknowledged being a proud Prod, and to being a poet (he had a book of poetry in his glovebox). Cabs are plentiful and pretty cheap and won't turn their noses up at short runs. Often it is cheaper to catch a cab if there's 2 of you, than to take the bus (which costs a minimum of 1 pound 60 p). Our digs were a mile or so from campus and the walk home was uphill. The morning walk was no problem, but at the end of the day it seemed much longer.

It was great to spend a week in Belfast, and I came home with a load of new poetry-loving friends :)

.

[Kelli and Ritchie, Ciaran Carson at evening concert, some of the group out for dinner, party after the concert, Peter, Margaret and Stephanie; Peter, Colm and Em]

An Annual Tradition - Sox in Balmer

2009-08-03T09:24:00.004-04:00

This past Saturday, friends Kate and Lee and their sons Daniel and Ryan drove down from Massachusetts (Arlington) to Maryland for their second annual Sox in Balmer outing with me and my son, Camilo. From left to right : Daniel (wearing no Sox gear), Camilo (with his subtle Sox knit cap), and Ryan (fully decked out in Ellsbury shirt and regulation Sox hat).

Of course on my trip to Ireland, I took my Sox cap. At the student dining hall at Queen's University Belfast, I saw a young guy with a Sox cap every morning. Finally on Thursday I asked him "Are you a Sox fan or a poser?". He answered in a genunie Massachusetts accent, "I'm not a poser" - of course pronounced 'posah' and we proceeded to chat about Sox news of the week (hard to get in Belfast especially when you are not online).

On the flight from Dublin to NY, there were 4 or 5 Sox hats and the flight attendant even gave me extra special attention because I was wearing mine:)

Ireland: Part I Dublin

2009-08-02T20:36:00.010-04:00

I arrived in Dublin on Friday July 17th. Thanks to No Jetlag, a homeopathic product from New Zealand, I arrived tired but not disoriented. I was staying at Jurys Inn Christchurch which is adjacent to Dublin Castle (good) and Temple Bar (not so good-more later), and a great central location. After leaving my luggage at 9 am, I had to fill the hours until 1 pm check-in. So I wandered over to The Chorus Cafe for a light breakfast, so-named because it is adjacent to the site where Handel's Messiah was first performed. I then crossed over to Dublin Castle which I had never seen despite many extended visits to Dublin. I skipped the tour, and opted instead to visit the Chester Beatty Library behind the castle, home to many rare manuscripts, particularly religious books, and free admission.
Then I found my way to Powerscourt Center and This Is Knit, the well-known Dublin yarn store. The women working there were delightful. They now have two spaces in this shopping center that are across from one another. They moved into the new space recently, and closed their original store in Blackrock (a suburb south of Dublin). I bought one skein of lovely yarn from a hand-dyer in Wales. Independent dyers and yarn makers are very rare in Ireland (one is Dublin Dye Company), though the number is growing in the UK. The shop also carries British brands such as Rowan and Debbie Bliss, as well as the Irish Kilcara Tweed. But the prices weren't much less than U.S. prices.

Saturday I visited the James Joyce Centre with a small exhibit, and tiny bookshop, it is modest when considering the glory that Joyce brought to Irish literature, and the city of Dublin. Perhaps it is a reflection of the ambivalence of many Dubliners, and Irish towards Joyce. I met one of my former students for brunch at Odessa, a very nice restaurant with choices averaging 10 Euros - a bargain in Dublin. Later in the afternoon, I visited a friend I have known for over 35 years, who is now 80, and full of stories, and interesting political insights. She is well known in Dublin, and lives in a wonderful Georgian house she inherited from her aunt in the 1970's. Below is a picture of her door.
.

Sox Week!

2009-06-27T22:51:00.009-04:00

This week the Red Sox came to DC to play the Nats in 3 interleague games. The first game was Tuesday night and 2 Sox Knitters Ravelry members (and one of their 14 year olds) came down for a DC Meetup. At noon I met them at Union Station along with another Sox Knitter who took us to a great burger place on Capitol Hill. After lunch I went back to work and we all met at the park at 5:30 for game of Sox shirt bingo (see the card below). It was fun looking for obscure shirts of former players (e.g. Yaz, Ramirez 24, etc.).
It was a really good game with the final score Boston 11 DC 3. Papi (Ortiz) didn't play Tuesday night but I went again Thursday night with another group of gals from Boston and got to see him. The Nats beat us Thursday, and I was so glad that we won on Tuesday because it would have been a bummer for the Sox Knitters to come all the way to DC for a game to see our beloved Sox lose to the Nats (the worst team in all of baseball this year - which makes me sad cuz I'd love to see them do better - just as long as my Sox win.

Spinning on WKIP Day

2009-06-14T20:16:00.009-04:00

June 13th was World Knit in Public Day but in East Berlin, Pennsylvania it was the Annual Spin-In at the Mannings. It is hard to resist the chance to spend a day in the country, when the weather is beautiful, and fiber is involved.

With chairs set up in the shade in view of a small river and groups of 4Hers spinning, My friend Martha and I knit for several hours, broken up by a couple of trips into the Mannings' shop. What could be a nicer way to spend a summer day - sheep, spinning, wheels, knitting, and even some looms were set up under the trees and along side the river. There was a couple processing and spinning flax, a carding station to design your own batt, even sheep shearing.

.

Catching up

2009-06-07T17:39:00.011-04:00

-Peruvian spinner -- Cice and Chelette relaxing at the end of the day at MSW

May was a busy month and I haven't written any posts. So, I decided to post mostly pictures of what I have been doing. May 2nd and 3rd was the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I didn't do much shopping (only 5 skeins of yarn -around $50 worth). But I took two classes with Nancy Bush - Estonian Traveling Stitches, and Nordic Color.

On May 21st the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano read at Politics and Prose. Recently, his name became more well known after the president of Venezuela gave President Barack Obama a copy of Galeano's book Open Veins of Latin America. Galeano was passionate,eloquent and very funny. His work is rooted in the history of the American continent(s), yet he is above all very literary. There were about 300 people there to hear him - old (and young) leftists, many Latinos, P&P regulars, and the curious. I was so glad I didn't miss this!
May 23rd was Stitch and Pitch here in DC. The Nationals played the Baltimore Orioles which made it lots of fun! No goody bags this year, but there was plenty of good company. I worked on my Ravelry Sox's group traveling scarf, and finished my section.

Spring at last!

2009-04-18T21:02:00.008-04:00

It's Countryside Artisans Tour weekend. My friend Martha and I visited Dancing Leaf Farm and Kiparoo Farm.
There are over 180 new baby lambs at Kiparoo, and the sheep were recently shorn. I took some video so you could hear the lambs bleeting
(hopefully they stop at night).

I'm going away to Ireland (soon)!

2009-04-05T14:46:00.004-04:00

I've done it! I bought my plane ticket to Ireland (Dublin) where I will attend the Seamus Heaney Poetry Center Summer School at Queen's University Belfast.
Because money is tighter these days, I'm only spending 12 days over there. But I have 3 days before the course and 3 days after. I will spend the next couple of months deciding what to do and where to go. A couple of days in Dublin? Rent a car and see more of Northern Ireland before I fly home? Prices are better in the North and I have been reading that southerners are driving North for major purchases because the savings are significant.
One of my favorite groups in the late 70's early 80's was The Roches - three sisters -Maggie, Terre, and Suzy. Their harmonies were wonderful, and very tight as only siblings singing together can create (other Irish examples are Tríona and Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill or Rita and Sarah Keane). The Roches' song The Troubles which reflects the Ireland of the time, keeps running through my head. My version goes like this..

I'm going away to Ireland soon (based on 'The Troubles' by the Roches)

I'm going away to Ireland Ireland
Ireland soon
Ireland soon
I'll try not to get in the way of the poets
as I always do
try not to get in the way of the poets
soon

I'm flying across the ocean soon
I'm flying across the ocean ocean
ocean soon
I hope they have health food in Belfast
and strawberry apricot yogurt
if they don't have those things in Belfast
I'll eat baps and drink lots of tea

I'm going away to Ireland soon!

Astral Weeks, streets of Belfast, and green yarn

2009-02-28T19:31:00.010-05:00

The album Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, released in 1968 has been my favorite album of all time for 40 years. I had no idea it was revered in rock history, thinking I was one of a select few who loved its brilliance, poetry, and sheer genius. To me, it evoked the streets of Belfast, pre-Troubles (before I ever visited), and a long-gone innocence. The album is in the news as Morrison is about to perform it in its entirety in NY this week . But I don't have the $$$ ($99-$400 for tickets), nor could I go to NYC in the middle of a work week even if I did. So I won't be going to New York, but I will buy the new CD.

NPR did a awesome interview with Van last week, including some brillant observations from my current favorite musican Glen Hansard of the Frames (and the movie, Once) who began his career covering Van Morrison songs. Here's a link to Glen singing Into the Mystic and I saw him sing Astral Weeks in Baltimore last May, and there are lots of YouTube videos including Glen performing the song in Belfast.

I am thinking about going to Belfast this summer to the Queen's University 2009 Summer School at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Northern Ireland has some of the most remarkable poets currently writing in the English language. I haven't been to Belfast since the early 1980's, when the Troubles were still part of everyday life, and the British army was on the streets. I love this part of Ireland, and after a near miss in Omagh in 1998 (I think I blogged about that in an earlier post), I vowed to go back.

Green yarn will have to be another post....

Can't ignore the spinning goddesses

2009-01-24T09:31:00.012-05:00

I am stubbornly continuing to insist that I will contain my spinning efforts to spindles only. Why? Well, I don't have the time, money, and space for a full out spinning hobby. I have several tubs of yarn waiting to be knit up, and many queued projects in Ravelry. If I spin yarn, then I have to do something with it, though for me, the fun part is the spinning. If I get a wheel, I need space for it, and that's a challenge. Then I'd start buying batts, and (God forbid!) fleeces - OMG a whole new obsession:) and consort with other spindlers on Ravelry.

So to make things worse, and push me more towards temptation I went to a carding workshop at A Tangled Skein my LYS in Hyattsville, MD last night. It was their 4th Friday Sit and Spin group. Anne O'Connor, spinning teacher extraordinaire, helped newbies learn wool carding using both hand carders and drum carders. Two spinners brought their drum carders so there were 3 drum carders and several sets of hand carders and of course these spinners were already experts. The result of my efforts are shown in the picture on top. After carding, I spun some of it on my Golding spindle. I blended some purple and green fiber, trying both the hand carders and the drum carder. The results from the drum carder are prettier, and easier to achieve. But the hand carders cost around $55 and the drum carders about ten times as much.

When I came home I had a response on the Carolina Homespun forum which let me know that the webpage info for the Summer 2009 Golden Gate Fiber Institute had been updated. I get to take two classes - 6 mornings and 6 afternoons for 18 hours of class for each topic. One of the choices (there are 6) is Spindle Spinning - prerequisite is the ability to make a continuous thread on a hand spindle. I guess I have to practice :). There is talk of adding to our collection of spindles (I only have 2 right now) and bringing " both your favorite and your most troublesome spindles, your plying tools, and your niddy-noddy. If you have them, bring hand cards and combs. " Hmm - I don't have a niddy-noddy, and am not sure what plying tools are (I learned to ply yarn using toilet paper tubes and a cardboard box).
I think that a week long spindle spinning class is a sign. The spinning goddesses are letting me know that I can stick to spindle spinning and be happy. I can even spend a week in beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area at Point Bonita, and do it. I can't ignore the goddesses so I will focus on spindle spinning while waiting for the summer.

Celebrating the Wren Boys or no Boxing Day for me!

2008-12-27T12:06:00.022-05:00

While many Americans have heard of Boxing Day (a holiday in Canada, the UK and other British Commonwealths, etc.), St. Stephen's Day and the Wren Boys are less familiar. An Irish custom, that is still celebrated in some rural areas is raucous, and joyful, while Boxing Day, traditionally a day for charity, now is the big post-Christmas shopping day. Watch this wonderful vi deo from 1979 I found on YouTube.

I love having my house decked out for the holidays. I collect nativity scenes - most are from Latin America- and now have around 40. I am running out of places to put them all. Many have a story such as the Venezuelan one I have of 3 carved figures. When I went to Venezuela in 1998, I arrived on New Year's Eve at the airport in Caracus. My friends weren't there to meet me because they thought the date I said I would be leaving was the date I was arriving. And they couldn't get a car to come and pick me up. I ran into a young British woman who had no Venezuelan money and needed to buy a phone card to call her brother. I lent her my phone card, and she made her call. I went looking for a taxi and the taxi driver asked me for something like 50,ooo Bolivars which I quickly calculated was $150. I told him that my son and I would sleep on the sidewalk at the airport before I paid him and that $150 was what I had paid to get all the way from Washington DC and stormed off (luckily I am fluent in cursing and insulting in Spanish). I ran into the British woman who said her brother was coming in a taxi and I could ride with them into Caracus. The taxi arrived and was a falling apart 1960 something Chevy station wagon and the driver looked about 80 years old. I didn't think we'd make it as the car chugged over the mountains into Caracus while out the window we could see fires burning on the hillsides in the shanty towns above us as we drove through the night. The kind driver found a decent, but inexpensive hotel for my son and I and I paid only about $30 for the ride.

The next day we flew to Merida, a city in the Venezuelan Andes. I loved being there during the Christmas season. My friend, who is a geologist and artist, had nativity scenes all over the house, and it inspired me to create a similar atmosphere every year since then. I already had a few nativity scenes, but for the past 10 years have gone a little nuts. I visited several workshops with my friend when I found the Mary and Joseph. The artist hadn't finished the Baby Jesus, but promised to have it done in a couple of days. My friend's husband drove back to his workshop and got it for me as promised. My favorite one is a Brazilian nativity from Northeast Brazil - the first two pictures show it. The Venezuelan one is shown in the picture at the end of the second row with Joseph in lilac robes, and Mary in blue.

I knit almost all the gifts I gave this Christmas, except I did buy stuff for my son. I knit for him too - A Turn a Square hat, the Jason Flood pattern. But got a lot less done than I wanted. Next year I should start my holiday knitting earlier, or continue working on some projects like this Picks Up Sticks Poinsettia Wreath I bought in 2007. Still have a big stash to slog through, and would like to make a New Year's resolution to buy no yarn until Maryland Sheep and Wool
festival.

Homebody

2008-11-29T23:46:00.012-05:00

This month of November I took three trips out of town in three weeks - Milwaukee, Boston, and Chile. I got back from Chile on Tuesday after an overnight 9 1/2 hour flight to Atlanta, then another 6 hours til I was home. Thankfully (really) some good friends invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner sooooo I didn't have to cook. Tuesday I slept most the day, Wednesday bought rutabagas and a pumpkin pie and supervised bringing down Christmas decorations from the attic, and went to the movies. Thursday was the holiday of course; Friday I got up early to go to the auto mechanic, then stayed home and avoided Black Friday til I left for Sit and Spin at A Tangled Skein. While at ATS I bought Nancy Bush's new book Knitted Lace of Estonia. Today, Saturday, I started unloading some of the Christmas boxes. I collect nativity scenes, mostly Latin American, and started putting them out. This afternoon I had a crochet class at ATS, and on the way home stopped at Vertigo Books, bought a pile of books, all for me, to support a local retailer.

I am editing this post to include some pictures from Chile. My students raised $400 and I brought a suitcase full of children's books (in Spanish of course) to the school for the deaf in Santiago, where my friend Lucia is Director. I had one day of sightseeing and we went to Valparaiso, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses Sebastiana (he has 3). Neruda, a Nobel Prize Winner, is one of my favorite poets, and his Memoirs (or in Spanish, Confieso Que He Vivido) and ate seafood in a crowded local (not tourist) restaurant.
.

Stitches - The Good, the Bad and the....

2008-11-09T22:21:00.010-05:00

During the summer I signed up for 2 classes at Stitches East, but this weekend I only went to one (more on that later). I had a good time in the Marketplace. Shopping was fun with friendly vendors and I bought: - 3 skeins of Habu silk mohair (40% silk; 60% mohair) in a dusty purple (last 3 skeins); 186 yards for $8.65 - 2 skeins of Lisa Souza : 1 skein Sock! Merino (superwash 4 ounces 560 yards, $18) in Lapland, and a skein of Baby Alpace Lace in Petraglyph (6 0z., 1500 yds, $34) - a cute Christmas sock yarn set with a skein of red, white, pink, green sock yarn with a mini skein of red yarn for toes and heels ($21) and a Thrum Mittens kit from Fleece Artist ($28.95) from a Worcester, MA based business Yarn4Socks - 3 patterns - 2 cards of sheep buttons from Black Water Abbey total damage : around $175. When I have time, I'll take pictures and add them to my Ravelry stash.

My class experience was ok. The instructor was excellent, well organized, the right amount of teaching. but there were 30 people in the class. It was very hard to see with us sitting in rows at tables. At the stash wall, I met an instructor who said she had come all the way from the west coast to teach. She said teaching a couple of classes, covers her costs of coming to Stitches. All teachers get the same travel stipend which doesn't cover their actual cost. Makes me wonder - hmmm - 30 students x $75 - and only a small part of that goes to the instructor. I know putting on this kind of production is costly, but... I wouldn't have signed up for classes if I had stopped to think how big they might be, and the implications class size had on learning new techniques.
So today was a beautiful sunny day. I was supposed to go back to Stitches to an afternoon workshop. I drove to Baltimore to drop off my friend Becky who came from Pittsburgh to go Stitches. I decided not to go to my afternoon class and instead went to Hampden and Lovely Yarns. I bought 6 skeins of red and green yarn (Cascade, and Berroco Ultra Alpaca) and with my Stitches badge was given a gift which was a big yarn tote basket! I was awed - and happy I had make the trip. Then I had blueberry pancakes for lunch at Cafe Hon.
A final note - I used some of the yarn I dyed indigo at the Golden Gate Fiber Camp to knit a scarf/shawl for a project sending scarves to girls in Pakistan. Here is the posting about the successful scarf drive and a photo taken of mine - it's the indigo colored one on the left.

Buying local

2008-11-01T21:23:00.009-04:00

Local bookstores have had difficulty competing with big box stores for years, and more recently, online businesses such as Amazon. Just this month Olsson's, a local chain, closed its doors. The local list of casualties for the past year also includes

A Likely Story Bookstore, a beloved children’s bookshop
Chapters Literary Bookstore suspended business, but hopes to make a comeback
Karibu Books, offering books by and for people of African descent
Candida’s World of Books

Vertigo Books , in College Park, is in trouble. I go there a few times a year as College Park is off the beaten path for me.
I read in the Washington Post this week that public libraries are busier than ever, as people go to the library instead of buying books. Now that tax revenues are down, libraries will have to cut back. I have made a conscious effort to get books at the library and cut back on my book buying for the last couple of years. I read a lot of mysteries and now that a mass market paperback averages $6.99 and up, I buy fewer of those. These days, I tend to save my book buying money for books I am likely to hold on to.

Like LYS's I can't imagine not having bookstores to browse in.
Look at these - most interesting bookstores in the world.

Blame Lime & Violet

2008-10-29T19:52:00.006-04:00

Lime & Violet's Daily Chum features different Etsy shops everyday in a feature they call ESotD (and I have no idea why it's called that). So last week I succumbed and bought lace weight yarn from Blarney Y arns. I loved the name, and even more I loved the idea of 800 yards of lace weight for $16 - so I bought two! One purple and One Sea Grass green
They came neatly wrapped with a lovely handwritten note and a small sample skein of pink dahlia!

Casting on

2008-10-26T19:07:00.007-04:00

Since my unsuccessful attempt to learn provisional cast ons, I had wished someone would teach a class in various kinds of cast ons. Well when I saw that one of my LYS's Woolwinders in Rockville was offering just such a class, I told myself, I couldn't pass it up.
Today, October 26th, Cathy Cea taught the class. We learned severn cast ons (that are many more), and I learned the provisional cast on. Yay! Another cast on technique I will be adding to my sock knitting repertoire is the Twisted German cast on. It's stretchy making it perfect for socks and other cast on edges that we want to be stretchy. There are some good videos on You Tube and other sites, to see these techniques. But there is nothing better than direct instruction.
The Knit Witch demonstrates the twisted German cast on on YouTube.

Staying afloat in hard times

2008-10-18T18:17:00.013-04:00

Just this week, I was chatting with my friend Martha via email (she's been on the road ) about the closing of ArtFibers in San Francisco. On their blog, ArtFibers summarize the reasons their store on Sutter St. is closing (lease is up, gas prices, etc.), and commented on the state of the yarn business in general (lots of options, hard to stand out). This statement particularly hit me:
Yarn is a durable treasure, easily stashed, abundant. New web tools allow people to engage in 'stash sharing', extending the usefulness of what is on hand. If no yarn sold in the next year nobody would be without a project.

I have friends who earn their living through crafts. They live in Maine; Hillary is a weaver and Mark is a potter. They do a select number of crafts fairs each year. This is not an easy way to make a living, and the cost of gas has had an impact on the artisans expenses, and attendance. The public pays $8 to $10 to get in to spend money. This August I went up to the League of NH Crafts Fair in Lake Sunapee to see them. Word was that business was OK, but down.

This has led me to think a lot about the current economy, the need to cut back on spending, while at the same time trying to keep local artisans and my LYS's in business. After reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle this summer, I have expanded my awareness of buying local, and noticed what choices I have to do so. If I ask myself would I be happy buying all my yarn, fiber goodies, and books online, or in large chain stores, the answer is a clear no. If I ask myself if I have enough yarn to keep me knitting for a couple of years, again the answer is yes.
The approach perhaps I should focus on would be to try to shop more locally knowing it is important for keeping my LYS's open, and when I can, support local artisans, who enrich our community so much. This holiday season, I will be more aware of reducing my purchases, get by without lots of holiday consumables, and making purchases that contribute to others' well being.

Tiaras, books, and anarchists

2008-10-12T18:23:00.014-04:00

In 2006, one sunny Sunday in October, my friend Linda, who lives in Silver Spring, and I were at a local fall festival. There was ethnic food, ethnic crafts, diverse musicans and vendors, but we noticed that there was little diversity amongst the attendees. In a way, it felt as though exotic foods, the people selling them, and exotic crafts were on display - kind of like a museum. We decided to cut out and drive to Baltimore's Book Festival. The event was full of diverse folks enjoying themselves, not just on display, in contrast to the one we'd left.
We have returned for the past two years, each time enjoying ourselves even more! Last year, we joined a tour of Mt. V ernon Writers' homes. This year,we went on Sunday, Sept. 27th. There was a Radical Book Fair tent! Most of the vendors were young, tattooed, anarchist types :), and I bought several birthday presents for my son.We drank pink champagne and got plastic tiaras from the Sweet Potato Queen, and to top off the day, we went to Greek Town for fried calimari (Linda) and moussaka (me).

Rescuing handmade objects

2008-10-12T18:16:00.003-04:00

My friend Amy O'Neill Houck is a rescuer of handmade knitted and crocheted objects that end up in thrift stores. She had blogged about it (sorry can't find the entry), and recently moved from Takoma Park, MD to Cordova, Alaska. I wonder if there are thrift stores in Cordova?
So a week or so ago, when a friend of my son's came over wearing a crocheted poncho she bought in a local thrift store, I had to take a picture!

knitting as soul soothing

2008-10-05T20:48:00.003-04:00

Today my son Camilo is 24 years old. Today we went to a wake to say goodbye to his friend, Josh, who was killed in a shooting in the U Street neighborhood of Washington DC last Sunday. Josh was a tall, 22 year old, handsome, goofy, loyal friend, and Camilo had known him since they were in second grade. For the past few years, he had been living with his father in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where he will be buried. But he came back often to see his mother and sister, and of course, his friends.
After an hour overwrought with emotion, I went to the car to wait for my son, so he could be with his friends. I had my knitting with me, and once again discovered the comfort that knitting brings.
Josh, que descanses en paz.

Swell Season in Pittsburgh

2008-10-04T22:39:00.007-04:00

The weekend of September 20-22nd I headed up to Pittsburgh. I had tickets to see Swell Season with my college buddy (and knitting buddy too!) Becky. They were playing at Pittburgh's Byham Theater, a beautiful restored 1904 theater in Pittsburgh's Cultural District (which didn't exist in our college days at Carnegie Mellon).

I will quote some of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review by Scott Mervis:

"Hansard has Bono-sized talent and charisma but with a straight-from-the-heart intimacy and playful sense of humor you don't get from his compatriot in U2.

The set was a dynamic mix of musicians coming and going, starting with Hansard and Irglova setting the tone with a sublime duet of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" and then going right into Oscar winner "Falling Slowly," their harmonies as delicate and beautiful and as a male and female voice can be. He has the warmth and rasp of Cat Stevens, while she's like a shyer, gentler Sinead O'Connor.

With The Frames on stage for songs like "The Moon" and "When Your Mind's Made Up," the sound took on the epic quality of Radiohead.

Hansard was just as powerful stripped down to his acoustic guitar with the hole in it. For "Say It to Me Now," he stepped to the tip of the stage and belted out the emotionally charged song as he'd do it on the street, with no amplification. Before doing "Back Broke" and "Leave," the talkative Hansard joked of the songs being about "feeling like you're in a place where you can't get any worse -- which is kind of what we do." He balanced those angry breakup songs with "Happiness" -- more of a resigned breakup song, offering his lover his blessing."

My third time seeing SS, and I'll go again!!

While in Pittsburgh, Becky and I went to a new yarn store Natural Stitches. This is a great store with so much yarn! And they have an entire wall of Cascade yarn - which you can see in the top picture on their website.

Fight against Alzheimer's Disease

2008-09-07T21:36:00.004-04:00

A dear friend of mine who lives in Boston, Maritza, is very involved in the fight against Alzheimer's Disease. She is the busy mother of three young boys, but finds time to work to further education and research on this disease.
Many of us know individuals with this disease. Some of us have family members we are caring for. These days there are many demands on our compassion and pocketbooks, but I find it easiest to choose to help when a friend is involved.
Here is a link to her donation page.

Spinning

2008-09-07T21:17:00.005-04:00

I have signed up for a 2 session drop spindle class at my LYS A Tangled Skein. I have come to understand my fiber arts learning style which is : I don't get it right away (and may even seem to really make a mess of things), but after persevering, I get it. I was having difficulty with my twist that kept moving up before it should. Then I figured it out. But I haven't done my practice this weekend.

Some of my friends, as well as my classmates, have warned me that I won't be able to stop at drop spindles, and will have to get a wheel. I don't have the space (and $$$) for a spinning wheel, and because there are so many lucious fibers out there as well as a neverending supply of beautiful batts in creative colors, I don't want to go there:)
Here's an example from Lime & Violet's Daily Chum called Macabre batts. See what I mean??? A whole new realm of fibery things to buy!

Estonian Lace Knitting at GGFI

2008-08-16T10:46:00.013-04:00

My afternoons at the GGFi were devoted to learning the art of Estonian lace knitting with Nancy Bush. Nancy is passionate about Estonian lace, but equally passionate about the people, and the country. Sometimes, outsiders adopt the techniques of an art form of a country, without any deep or abiding feeling about the people, culture, or country that produced the art.
I have met many foreigners in Ireland eager to show off their mastery of Irish music on various instruments, who seem to lack passion for the country, its people, and the culture. They seem more interested in showing that they can play the music with more technical perfection than the natives. But in my mind, they fall flat, because they lack passion, and humanity. The Irish are often unimpressed by technical prowess, when the performer fails to also demonstrate a passion for the music.
The antithesis of this kind of cultural tourist, are people who recognize that it is not possible to appreciate the art form without being passionate as well about the people, culture and country that produced them. Nancy Bush is driven to document the history of Estonian lace knitting, and to teach the form to others. She is deeply committed not only to the artform, but to the women who produce it.
During the six days, we worked on three projects, and learned various techniques including : a traditional Haapsalu Sall (shawl) with a “knitting on” lace edge border, an Estonian Lilly of the Valley lace sampler with a sewn-on border, and a small Estonian triangular shawl. The techniques we learned were making nupps (a kind of bobble that can include from 2 to 7 or more stitches), a special triple stitch for K3tog, sewn on borders, a stretchy knitted cast on, and a special Estonian cast off.
Nancy brought many examples of shawls from Estonia. She also brought shawls she had knit for her upcoming book Knitted Lace of Estonia. I won’t include any pictures of these as the book hasn’t come out yet. It is due in October.

It took me time to master the techniques, so day one of any project, I made many mistakes. But by day two on the project, I was beginning to master the knitting, and feeling good. Some of my classmates were frustrated, but they also persevered and managed to finally produce. I haven’t blocked my projects yet, but should do it soon, and take pictures.

I bought 2 skeins of Darlene’s new Nature’s Palette lace weight silk and merino yarn in white. It is 660 yards, and 30% silk and 70% merino to make the Estonian Triangular Summer Shawl in the current (summer 08) issue of Piecework.

Golden Gate Fiber Institute, Part II

2008-08-14T22:56:00.018-04:00

Want to know more about the woman behind the Golden Gate Fiber Institute (GGFI), Morgaine Wilding? The current issue (Summer, 2008) of Wild Fibers magazine has a great interview with Morgaine, who is the owner of San Francisco-based Carolina Homespun. Morgaine explains her thinking behind a week-long institute. She wanted to give participants a long enough learning experience so we could learn the skill not only in our heads, but in our hands. Often these kinds of workshops range in length from 3 hours to 2 days. At the GGFI, each class provided 18 hours plus of instruction over the course of 6 days from July 28th to August 3rd (2008). Morgaine is also committed to seeing that traditional fiber arts continue into the future.
We arrived on Monday night, August 25th at the YMCA Marin County Outdoor Education Center, which is in the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, part of the Marin Headlands at Bonita Point. This natural area overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, as it crosses San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. We were also very near the Bonita Point Lighthouse, and hiking trails in the highlands.
Every morning I had a natural dyeing class with Darlene Hayes, who is the person behind Nature’s Palette’s Yarns and Hand Jive. Some of you may be familiar with her popular pattern Breakfast at the Café du Monde gloves (yes I bought some Nature's Palette to make them). Darlene lives in northern California, where she works in her home studio. She collects some of the dyestuffs from local sources, and other materials she buys (such as blocks of indigo). The new book The Yarn lover’s Guide to Hand Dyeing by Linda La Belle, Potter’s Craft Books, has a six page spread on her, including how to dye with fresh eucalyptus, and a pattern for ruffled baby socks. Another hand-dyeing business featured in the book is Capistrano Fiber Arts. The owner, Lori Lawson, was one of my classmates in the natural dyeing class.

The class met from 9am-noon on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Though we were scheduled to meet for three hours, but Darlene asked us to get there before 9 if we could and we usually stayed up to a half hour after class cleaning up so Darlene would be ready to teach again in the afternoon. Day one, Tuesday, we each mordanted, and Day Two and Three we prepared pots of cochineal (made from the bodies of insects which are found on cacti in Mexico) , madder, logwood, dillweed, black walnut, and osage. Day four was indigo. Indigo is a great dye to use on its own, or to deal with unwanted results – just throw it in an indigo bath. Days five and six, we decided as a group what dyepots to cook up, and what to do with yarn we had brought (up to a kilo). I was glad we met in the morning, as it gave us Sunday morning to finish dyeing, with time left to hang skeins up to drip dry.

I brought home a total of twenty three – 50 gram skeins, in a range of colors and a deep appreciation for natural dyeing. As you can see in this picture of the yarn drying, natural dyes
are not just browns and yellows, but reds, blues, as well as warm yellows, oranges, and browns.

Checking in

2008-08-04T17:21:00.005-04:00

I have just returned from the Golden Gate Fiber Institute in California on the red-eye flight that arrived at 6 am this morning. I have loads to write about that experience and pictures to upload.
I'll just say now that the Fiber Institute exceeded all of my expectations : the organizers were fabulous, the instruction was incredible, the output of participants soooo creative, the place - far more beautiful than I had even been able to imagine, the food and resident staff awesome; the whole site was a certified green business.

I came home with almost 2 dozen skeins of yarn I hand-dyed with natural dyes (cochineal, mullein, logwood, walnut hulls, indigo, dillweed, and more), and three small Estonian Lace projects knit with Nancy Bush.
And there will be another Fiber Institute Jan. 5th-11th, as well as probably next summer.

One of the teachers, Myra Wood will be leading a trip to Peru - Weaving and Freeform Fiberarts Trip June 1-10th. Will it be Sea Socks 2009 or Peru? They are the same dates.

Countryside excursion

2008-07-13T11:08:00.011-04:00

The last time I blogged, it was the day after spending the day in rural Frederick county at ChickKnit . But I was busy writing about my trip to Italy, and put off posting about ChickKnit, til now! Dalis Davidson of Dancing Leaf Farm and Annie Kelley of Kiparoo Farm do an annual Hen Party, a workshop for knitters and crocheters. I like the Scottish meaning for hen, which is a term of endearment.
Dalis taught us needle felting, and though I had done this before, this time we made felt balls. This takes patience!
There were about 15 women and we enjoyed the country setting, and our facilities, the Bishop Claggett Retreat Center in Adamstown.
They have a beautiful new meeting building, including a dining room overlooking the nearby mountains. In addition to learning needle felting, wet felting, crochet trims, we bought yarn (of course!) and had a great lunch provided by the center's kitchen of vegetarian lasagna, salad, tortellini, and ice cream.

Lake Como, Italy

2008-06-29T09:45:00.008-04:00

On June 17th, I left for a conference in Italy. The conference was only two and a half days, and I only had 4 days in Italy. I wasn't sure that it would be worth it to go to Europe for such a short time, but with the weak dollar, it's hard to afford more. I got a grant, and some departmental funds to pay for the trip. The catch was I am also teaching summer school, so it had to be a short trip. But who could resist the chance to visit Lake Como and the Italian lakes.
The conference was worthwhile as I made some great international contacts related to work I am doing. The picures on top on the left is the conference center, that was intentionally designed to look like a greenhouse on the grounds of Villa Erba (photo on the right). Even though it was an international conference, there were very few people there from outside of Europe, a reflection I think of the current economic conditions. However, there was a large group of Brazilians (their economy is booming), and meeting them was helpful to my current project. I am going to Chile in November, and am thinking about a stop in Brazil on the way back.
On Saturday, I took a tour that the ferry company offered : sail up Lake Como to Menaggio, get off and take a bus to Porlezza on Lake Lugano, which is partly in Italy, and partly in Switzerland. In Porlezza, take a boat down Lake Lugano into Switzerland to the city of Lugano. In Lugano, you take the funicular up to the train station, and take a train to Chiasso, Switzerland. There you get off to take a bus back to Como, but I took the train. The trip took 7 hours. I could have stayed in Lugano and shopped but had no Swiss francs, and had to be up very early the next morning to go home (and still had to pack).
On the boat, there was a group of Italian women who sang wonderfully. As they were leaving the boat in Bellagio, I realized that my new camera also takes video, and so here it is!
I worked on the socks I am knitting in Rock Creek Yarn's sock yarn, in the colorway Kilaeua.
I have my photos uploaded on Flikr though I have to figure out how to add friends so they can be seen.

Manny's 500th! at Fenway South

2008-06-01T18:22:00.010-04:00

This post will have absolutely nothing to do with knitting :) and only a passing reference to butt watch 2008 :) :).
I was there!!!! I had no idea when I got tickets back in February that I might see Manny's 500th. Friends and their kids drove down from Arlington MA which took them all day yesterday. We drove into Baltimore at 5 PM from my place (a half hour south of Balmer), to snag parking and that worked well (we were across the street from Camden Yard for $20). My friends who'd never been to Balmer (which I just learned is called Fenway South) were totally amazed to see the streets of Balmer absolutely jammed with Sox fans - and this was 2 hours before game time. There were thousands - and for blocks around Camden Yard they filled the sidewalks. We had been worried all week about the weather forecast as thunderstorms were predicted initially for Sat. night. As we got closer to Sat. they moved the prediction for the storms to the afternoon. They were over by mid afternoon.
Anyway, Manny started out seeming to lack focus. You could feel that he seemed wound up. But after Ortiz's sacrifice fly sent Ellsbury home, the Orioles huddled, then swapped out pitchers. Manny had a couple of minutes to collect himself while the Orioles stood around strategizing. I was watching Manny through my binoculars (which I had brought to the game to engage in some butt watching). He looked very calm, and I told myself he was going to hit the first ball, and it'll be a homerun. It happened! The stadium went nuts. We were all hugging one another. After hugging everyone I knew, I turned to the women behind me- who I didn't know-, and said - this feels like church when you greet everyone around you, and shake hands - which we did enthusiastically. It was so worth it for my friends and their kids to drive all the way down from Massachusetts and back in a weekend. I was soooo happy to be there cuz I love Manny!
Here's the video at MLB.com

I've been tagged - what is this?

2008-05-29T22:58:00.005-04:00

Okay Cici and Chelette you got me. I haven't done this before, but I'll give it a try...

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?

In summer 1998, I took a 2 and half week long trip to Ireland with my son. I had long wanted to go to the remote sacred site - Skellig Michael - a remote rock with stone beehive huts which served as monks' dwellings a thousand years ago.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?

It's 11 pm so I'll write about tommorrow:
Wait for delivery (which may or may not come); have a student coming to do some household repairs, phone conference 10 am-?; clean for visitors coming Sat., run errands...

3) Snacks I enjoy:
those little square wafer cookies they sell in Trader Joes and Whole Food- lemon are my favorite; ice cream, sorbet; carbs...

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Buy my brother a house; help my son out,but don't give him a lot of money; quit my job and work to improve special education in Latin America and set up a foundation; rather than buy or build a big house - buy a few small houses or apartments in places I'd like to spend time every year (an island in Ireland or Scotland, someplace in Latin America; Boston; the coast of Maine); buy a bookstore in a seaside location...

5) Places I have lived:

Germany, Kentucky, California, Japan, Georgia, Iowa, Connecticut, Boston, Maryland, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Spain.

6) Jobs I have had:

Public school teacher in Boston (17 years) then college professor in DC.

I'm going to tag:
Martha
Rebecca
Hillary
Hannah
Lola

Emergency Knitting Part 2

2008-05-25T11:21:00.003-04:00

It didn't take long for a resourceful knitter to come up with an Emergency Knitting bag in response to the Yarn Harlot's latest thoughts on the importance of knitting.
I found this info on the bag on Lime and Violet's blog Daily Chum. The brilliant designer Illiane describes it this way:

We've been there. Caught unawares, empty handed, with time a-wasting. Whether it's at the doctor's, waiting for the mechanic to finish, or finding ourselves unexpectedly bored at a tailgating party, it would be just so much better if we had some knitting to tide us over!

Never fear, you shall never be caught unprepared again. Behold, the Emergency Knitting Bag!

She's run out right now, but expects more around June 10th. $14.95 - what a deal!

Red,White, and Blue yarn and Butt Watch 08

2008-05-24T13:11:00.010-04:00

I need to preface this posting. It started as a posting about red, white, and blue yarn, and became a posting about looking at athlete's behinds. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes.
I know it's Memorial Day weekend, a patriotic holiday, but that wasn't on my mind when I went to A Tangled Skein looking for red, white, and blue cotton yarn. I had the Boston Red Sox on the brain and went looking for yarn to start playing with a scarf pattern. Why cotton? I thought for a year-round scarf, Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece might be a fine choice. As I was trying to describe the kind of blue I needed (navy blue) to Rivka (Ravelry name) who works at ATS, I realized I was looking for the red, white, and blue colors of the American flag. The connection makes sense - the American Revolution started in Massachusetts, shot heard round the world and all that, and the Red Sox are in the American League, etc.
But Brown Sheep does not have the right shade of blue. They have something called Wolverine Blue, and forget the red. Rivka thinks some company should consider making yarns in team colors - lots of folks come to ATS looking for Redskins colors. I think that yarn companies should realize that red, white, and blue are a traditional palette, especially in the summer (and therefore call for cotton yarns). What will it take - Polo or Ralph Lauren getting into the yarn business (no thank you!)?
After looking at lots of nice cottons, I found that Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky came in the perfect shades, but it was bulky wool. I finally settled on some Encore in exactly the right shades. I am not a fan of acrylic, but this yarn is to play around with trying to work up the perfect Red Sox design. I was inspired by Honeybadgers scarf which I found through the Ravelry Group Sox Knitters. She made it in Caron Simply Soft, an acrylic yarn, with over 9,000 projects on Ravely.
The most popular thread on Sox Knitters today is Butt Watch with almost 500 posts! Apologies, and/or thanks to members of the Sox Knitters from whom I stole/borrowed the "butt" images. But this girl has been known to go to Sox games with binoculars just to keep an eye on Manny's behind :). Who knew there were so many of us out there, who also knit!

The Swell/Frames Show

2008-05-18T10:05:00.009-04:00

This is my third posting about my favorite current musical favorite - Glen Hansard/The Swell Season/ Frames. Last night, May 17th, I made my way to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore with my friend Deirdre to the sold-out Swell Season concert. For those of you who don't pay much attention to popular culture, live on a remote mountaintop, or...., this is the couple from the Irish indie film Once, which was a big hit here in the U.S. last summer. Their song Falling Slowly won an Oscar for best song. I saw them last summer at the 9:30 Club in DC - my 20-something son went with me. I missed them in November at the Lincoln Theater on U St. DC because I was in England.
The first thing I did when getting online this morning was to see if anyone had blogged about the show, and could fill in some details I might forget. The first I found was a great recounting of the concert. My thanks to an enthusiastic 28 year old blogger, mnomFRIES, who got the whole 2 hour long set list written down:) and other details. The show opened with Glen coming out singing accompanying himself on the same beat-up guitar with a hole in it that he played in the film Once, without a microphone, Say It To Me Now. He echoed in the great acoutics of the hall. It struck me that he was appearing as he did as the street musician/busker in the film Once.
I was ecstatic when Glen sang a solo only accompanied by his guitar playing,the Van Morrison song Astral Weeks. The album Astral Weeks is my absolutely all-time favorite rock album of all time. I have owned at least 2 copies of the LP, the cassette tape (remember those?), and the CD. This first solo album of Van Morrison's captures the poetry, and grittiness of working class Belfast of the late 1960's. The Troubles started in 1968, and Morrison, who grew up in a working class Protestant neighborhoods of Belfast, was just 23 years old at the time. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks combines a vision of working class Belfast, before the Troubles, with the kind of poetic expression that is not uncommon in the North. I was in Belfast twice in the early 1970's (my wild youth) spending time in the working class Catholic neighborhoods, at the height of this violent time. Having mentioned the poetry of Van Morrison's work, I have to add that Northern Ireland is full of poets, including the winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, Seamus Heaney. Other Northern poets include Belfast poets Ciaran Carson, who grew up in an Irish-speaking household in Belfast (which about as common as growing up in Great Falls, Montana speaking Hebrew), and Medbh McGuckian, who still lives in Belfast.
Like mnomFRIES, I too loved it when they played 2 of my favorite Frames songs for their encore - Fitzcarraldo- caught here in a YouTube video - which Glen wrote after seeing the Werner Herzog film about an Irish man who wants to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle, part of which involves moving a ship across the jungle to get to a tributary of the Amazon River. The final song was Star, Star, a lovely lullaby-like song (as Glen described it), and the perfect ending to usher us our after a two hour set. It struck me at the end of the two hours of music what a generous performer Glen is. He gives and gives. I attribute this to a sensibility I often have encountered amongst working class Irish, which is a belief in the need to give back, and a sense of humility in the face of fame. This is an endearing quality I found in the Dublin of the days before prosperity (a Dublin I really, really miss). Fame is considered a gift, and something that could taken from you at any time. Being full of yerself (big-headed) is not a quality that you can live with in Dublin, as your friends, and neighbors, will berate you, jokingly, but cutting, at the same time.
Again thanks to mnomFRIES, I have borrowed the title - The Swell/Frames. The Swell Season consists of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Several members of The Frames joined them for a total of six musicians.The Frames are an "independent band from Dublin, that Glen Hansard is in, and has been around since 1990. Their music is awesome too:)!Finally, sorry for all the hyperlinks, I am a divergent, non-linear thinker, and assume some people will want more info when I go off on tangents.

Mother's Day emergency knitting

2008-05-11T18:22:00.004-04:00

My second post today:)
A few weeks back Stephanie Pearl-McPhee AKA The Yarn Harlot appeared at the Borders in Annapolis, MD. It was one of her few appearances on a book tour for her latest Things I Learned from Knitting...whether I wanted to or not. One of the many comments she made that brought the house down in laughter was about emergency knitting. This summary comes from the blog Purls of Wisdom

...she mentioned a study that talked about how people when they are doing something repetitive are able to process disturbing things more easily – and how the study mentioned knitting in particular to help reduce stressful situations / enable people to hear / process painful information, but that same study said that it “wasn’t practical” to carry around emergency knitting – I thought that people would fall off their chairs laughing. I know I myself have a knitting bag that is always in the car for those situations when I realize that I am stuck waiting somewhere (when I hadn’t anticipated it) and I know that I am not the only one with an “emergency project”.

Today I went out for some Mother's Day shopping and a meal with my son. We didn't want to go the "big deal" route with reservations etc. I want to replace my digital camera (need a better one for Ravelry and blogging). As soon as we pulled out of my parking place, I knew something was wrong. But silly me, I continued to drive up to a big intersection when it became obvious something was wrong. My son got out and announced I had a flat tire. I waited over an hour for AAA but I had my emergency knitting!!!! I was calm, and happy to wait. I out of the rain in my car, and also discovered I had left my wallet at home. That would have put a damper on shopping and eating. My son ran the half mile home in the rain, and drove back in his car with the wallet. He sat in the car til AAA called and said they were around the corner. We talked, and I knit. When I got home, I ordered Chinese food - no more outings today.

Lessons learned :
learn to read all those dashboard symbols so you know when you have a car problem
make sure you have some kind of emergency road service;
AND always bring emergency knitting.

Happy Mother's Day.

Emergency Knit Kit from Dancing Leaf Farm

Sheep and Wool 2008

2008-05-11T14:34:00.007-04:00

Sheep and Wool was last weekend. I finally have a few minutes (it's Mother's Day, an excuse to do nothing) to take some pictures.
This year I went on a pink binge. This goes back to my yearning for Cherry Blossom shades, and a plan to make the beautiful Hanami stole. First back in March, I ordered 2 skeins of Rock Creek yarns' Cherry Blossom.It came in a beautiful sheer bag.

Then I went to the Takoma Park Homespun Yarn Party on March 30th. I bought a handmade knitting project bag and circular needle roll from Blue Kitty Designs. I didn't get any yarn, but talked to Jennifer of Spirit Trail Fiberworks about the possibility of dying some merino lace in a cherry blossom colorway.
I arrived at MSW around 1 PM. My friend Martha and I decided to avoid the insane, suffocating crowds that show up in the morning, and were glad we did. I went to the Spirit Trail booth Saturday afternoon and there were 3 skeins of the special pink colorway left. Someone told me - this is a special colorway - and I answered - yes, I know , it's for me because I asked for it back in March!
At Kiparoon Farm I got a skein of Silk Road - 50/50 wool and silk in a colorway combining shades of green and pink. Cloverhill Yarn Shop, which always has a big booth immediately inside the big barn at MSW was selling yarns and patterns from local designers. I got 2 skeins of Spritely Goods fine fingering weight superwash merino in a lovely colorway of pinks, greens, and more.
Are we seeing a theme yet?
The biggest break from the pink theme was my purchase at The Fibre Co. I bought 7 or 8 skeins of Savannah Bulky which is a blend of merino, organic cotton, linen. and soya fiber.

After a delicious dinner of Indian food, Martha and I went to the Ravelry party. I grabbed a table inside as there were no seats outside, and after shopping for hours, I was ready to park myself and knit. Well as the whole world now knows, it started to rain, and everyone came streaming inside. Our table was right in front of the stage and all the goings-on. In the middle of everything, my pattern caught on fire - there were candles on the tables. Amy O H's mom, Cookie noticed it was burning and put out the fire. Mary Heather took our picture, and there are a couple pics floating around (I think Martha took them).

Slightly off the yarn diet

2008-04-20T19:57:00.005-04:00

Many knitters go on a yarn diet before Maryland Sheep and Wool.
However April is always the time for the spring Countryside Artisans Studio Tour which happened last weekend on April 11th,12th, and 13th. I went on Saturday which was a good choice. At Kiparoo Farm, Annie said Friday had been very busy, and as a result there was only one skein of her wonderful silk and wool, which I scarfed right up. I also got more Sparkle, and a wooden Norwegian yarn winder, made by Kip. The yarn winder works great (Kip showed me how to use it). I don't own a swift (though one is on my list... a friend who no longer knits has promised to lend me hers, so I have not bought one) nor ball winder. I am one of those knitters who loves hand winding yarn (except for laceweight).
Annie was nearing the end of lambing - 80 lambs had already been born, and 10 ewes were left to lamb. Ewes, except for virgin ewes (first time mothers) usually have twins. There was at least one set of triplets, and they might have been the 3 black lambs I spotted. When I was up there in the fall, there had been an emu on the loose (not a resident of Kiparoo), and it makes quite a funny story, which we chuckled over - but it's a hard story to write as it is better in the telling.
At Dancing Leaf Farm I walked out with two skeins of organic cotton and 3 skeins of Dalis's natural colors. These natural colors are very limited, and come from Dalis's own sheep. Here is her own description:
I shear in April and October so I have 6 months to accomplish that. I cheated this last time and had my fall shearing sent to Prince Edward Island in Canada to be spun into yarn. I'll be offering natural colors in cream (Sparkleberry's Wool), grey (Mocha's) and a blend of both (Bramble's). The yarn has an organic quality to it and has plenty of lanolin left in. Mmmmm.
I said to Dalis that no one would think I'd been to DLF, as the palate of yarns I brought home were whites, greys, and beiges. She's doing lots of handpainted roving in gorgeous colors too.
Both Kiparoo and Dancing Leaf Farm are at Maryland Sheep and Wool. In fact, Annie Kelley is one of the founders of MSW.
So today, being rainy, and we, I organized my stash. I have a good idea of what's in it, and what I might want to let go of. I am working on a couple of projects, and my stash will shrink accordingly. Because it was so dark today, I couldn't take any pictures to update Ravelry - I'll have to do that next week.

Not-so local yarn shops

2008-04-06T17:46:00.006-04:00

Wow, I haven't posted for 3 weeks. I have been traveling for work and super busy. I was in Fort Worth TX but didn't have time nor a car to go exploring. Searching online, it seems there are several places to buy yarn in FW, but nothing sounded like a must shop. But I did read several horrible reviews of a shop somewhere else in Texas (it's a big state ) called Yarn Heaven, and renamed Yarn Hell by several customers - all moms, whose children were treated abysmally.
I just came back from a short business trip to Boston, and visited Newbury Yarns. I left empty-handed, and I felt the shop broke 3 basic rules. First, no one acknowledged me at all for the 15 minutes I was in the shop, which only had one other customer, and is tiny. Second, there were no prices on anything!!! This is especially strange because unless Massachusetts law has changed (and it may have) everything, even every can in the supermarket must have a price sticker. Third, and maybe the worst, especially for an asthmatic, there was a distinct smell of cigarette smoke. It could have been coming from somewhere else in the building, but.... if I were shopping there, I'd be concerned if it is a constant as the yarn could end up smelling. She does carry the Canadian yarn Briggs & Little which you only tend to find in LYS's closer to Canada. But it was way above my head on the upper level shelves, and although I am tall, I couldn't get to it.
There are many LYS's in the Boston area. My two favorite are not accessible without a car if you are visiting (the reason I didn't visit them on my recent short business trip to Boston) - Circles Yarn Salon and The Woolpack. Circles is now located in the owner's home in Roslindale, and I haven't been there yet (hope to get there this summer). I like Circles for its innovations - a yarn coop. Woolpack, a couple of miles outside of RT. 495 in Littleton, MA, apple country, is spacious, with lots and lots of yarn, organized by weight, and brand, in a way that makes sense to me. The owner, Janet, has always been super friendly, and helpful when I've been there.
There are so many LYS's in Massachusetts and New England, and I am always trying to check them out. Last summer, while on Cape Cod, I stopped in at Adventures in Knitting, in the picturesque seaside town of Harwichport. This shop, pictured above, is one of the few retail outlets for Black Water Abbey Yarn and also carries Sheep Shop Yarn. I bought a BWA Fair Isle Tote kit and some Sheep Shop yarn and a pattern. The tote is a WIP and pictured here.

Ravelry shrinks the world

2008-03-13T09:19:00.004-04:00

This morning I received invites to join a Portuguese language Ravelry group (muito legal) and promptly sent an invite to my friend Ceci, who also speaks Portuguese. The moderator, Acucena, has a gorgeous blog, and lives in Portugal, in Sintra (I have two silkscreens of Sintra castle hanging in my dining room). And I was also invited to be friends with Guaria, who I think is Monica, but she disguises herself in her blog :) anyway Guaria mentions trying to blog in both English and Spanish, but she got lazy. Wow, I understand cuz it all comes down to time to knit, crochet, etc.
That's Sintra castle on the left. I am also on an Irish group. I love it. We have come a long way from penpals (I had an Irish one when I was in high school).

Read or knit???

2008-03-04T21:32:00.008-05:00

Tonight at SSK, I brought up the topic of books. You see, I am an avid reader, movie buff, and knitter. I read at stop lights (I used to knit at red lights, when I lived in Boston, but here it doesn't work for me). So recently, I have come across, and sought out books - novels- that have knitting in them.

A couple of us - Martha, and Amy - threw out names of books we'd recently read that had some relationship with knitting.

We all panned The Friday Night Knitting Club - it's soooo smaltzy, and unreal (could anyone actually survive in NYC as the main character did as a single mom, with a great apartment, etc.). I picked it up in England in November. I couldn't see recommending it to anyone, so I sold it on Amazon.

Martha and I liked The Knitting Circle (at least I think she said she'd read it), but didn't recommend it to Amy as the story centers around the death of a child. I found it hard to put down, although it was a little contrived. Still it was so much better than The Friday Night Knitting Circle.

Coincidentally, Martha and I have both recently read A Three Dog Life. Martha said that she was surprised there was so much knitting in it. One of the reasons I bought the book is because the back cover mentioned knitting, and it looked like a good read. I whipped through it in a couple of days.

There are two more knitting/sheep related books that I bought on Alibris.
The first is titled Three Bags Full. It's in my "to read" pile.
A witty philosophical murder mystery with a charming twist: the crack detectives are sheep determined to discover who killed their beloved shepherd, in this internationally bestselling tale.

The other is Trafficking in Sheep: A Memoir: From Off-Broadway, New York, to Blue Island, Nova Scotia. It is described as " A poignant story of one woman's determination to start a life anew in idyllic Nova Scotia, far away from her jetsetting-New Yorker roots.
A working actress and divorced mother of two young boys takes off for the summer to the coast of Nova Scotia. She falls in love with the place; buys a house; ultimately buys an island because it is the view from her house and because she wants to save it from development. "

The Oscars and Glen Hansard/Marketa Iglova

2008-02-25T18:07:00.007-05:00

They won!!

Making a name for themselves
This article is from the Washington Post on Feb. 21st.

Obama and the sock

2008-02-15T19:19:00.010-05:00

There is no end to Knitters for Obama making wild links between their favorite activity (knitting) and their favorite candidate (Senator Barack Obama).

Here we have an "insane" knitter who got a photo of Obama with her sock-in-progress. What a good sport!

http://stringativity.blogspot.com/2007/12/yarn-harlot-ness.html

The other great find via the Knitters for Obama group is this great t-shirt.

And this beautiful yarn called Audacity from Black Bunny who designed it especially for Knitters for Obama (she is currently out of stock!).

Knitters for Obama

2008-02-09T12:04:00.000-05:00

I found a Knitters for Obama on Ravelry.
There is a fundraiser with raffle of knitting related things - skeins of yarn etc.
You make a donation, and be sure to follow these instructions:
How it Works

Knitters from all over the world have joined forces to host to the Got Hope, Ravelry? online raffle, offering an array of delectable prizes. For every US $5, the donor receives a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of their choice. The drawing for all prizes will take place April 1, 2008. To win, all you need is $5 and a little luck. Absolutely 100% of the proceeds go to the Obama presidential campaign. ...

How to donate: “buy” tickets by making a donation in the size of your choice to:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/maingroup/RavelryKnittersforObama

(Click on the little thermometer to donate!)
Then send your confirmation email/receipt to:
obamaknitters@gmail.com

For each $5, you get one raffle ticket. You can choose different prizes- e.g. 2 tickets towards one prize, and 3 tickets towards another.

If anyone does NOT write in the notes line, their donation will automatically buy tickets to the drawing for the Grand Prize Afghan.

Note: you MUST send the email to obamaknitters@gmail.com and you MUST send an email noting which prizes you want. I forwarded my donation receipt email and included the desired prizes in that mail.

See the prizes at the Ravelry Knitters for Barack Obama/discussion board /RAFFLE FOR BARACK - PRIZES UPDATED!
I am trying to link to this awesome YouTube video....see if it works.

Yes We Can!!!

Latest music obsession

2008-02-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

I do like knitting blogs to stick to fiber topics. But sometimes bloggers need to go off on slight tangents. I feel though that I should be forgiven for this because on Ravelry we have many forums that bring together knitters who have other interests in common. I am on 4 book/reading related forums, (Red) Sox Knitters, and Popular Culture.
I tend to get on music jags - wanting to hear the same CD again, and again. My latest music jag is The Swell Season/ The Frames / Soundtrack from Once

During the summer I saw the film in the theaters three times, and declared after the third time, "I could watch this movie everyday !

Last July, I saw The Swell Season at the 9:30 club in DC. My 20-something son came with me. It was only my second trip to the 9:30 Club, a venue that most people my age don't go to. I missed them when they came to the Lincoln theater in DC on Nov. 18th because I was in England.
In the meantime, I have bought 5 Frames albums, as well as the soundtrack of Once, the enhanced soundtrack (with new tracks, and DVD) and the DVD of the film Once.

I share much of my son's musical taste - Alternative. My love of things Irish is a big part of why I got into this music, but I never got into the Cranberries (too pop), nor Sinead O'Connor (can't sing, and too pop).

England Part III and more

2008-01-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

Google map of Yarn Stores in UK. UK Knitting Stores map by littlelixie - this map was last updated 01/20.2008.

This interactive map allows you to search for LYS in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It is very cool.
One place I have been is Shilasdair on the Isle of Skye. In December, now extended through January), Shilasdair was doing a residency at Stash in London demonstrating dying etc. If you have seen any of the British knitting magazines, Stash ads mention the Shilasdair residency.
In 2002, I visited Shilasdair while spending a few days on Skye. I bought several skeins of their Aran weight in one of the Braes colors - a green. I knit the Aran Pocket Shawl from Folk Shawls.

The same 'mapster' has created a map of NY knitting stores.
So many yarn stores, so little time (and money),

England Part II

2008-01-20T14:45:00.000-05:00

I still have more to write about yarn shopping in England.
I liked this blog posting from Big Pink Cookie about the London yarn shopping experience which inspired me before I left on my trip to try to find these shops in London (it turned out I didn't have time).

Last spring, Dalis Davidson of Dancing Leaf Farm spent several months in Cambridge England. When I came back from my trip, I had a conversation with her about British wool (during the Countryside Artisans Tour). She described much of the British wool as not high quality, when compared to American wools. I think many people would find this surprising (I'm not an expert in sheep raising, fleeces, etc.). There is a British Wool Marketing Board which oversees the quality of the product. I noticed when seeking information, including reading British knitting magazines, that most of the wool producers are in the north of England, though there are a fair number of alpaca farms throughout the country (while I like alpaca, and even buy locally produced alpaca yarns, I tend prefer sheep wool, or alpaca from South America).

I am fascinated with the idea of rare breeds and yarns made from their fleece. I have noticed these yarns tend to seem scratchy, but perhaps soften up. Flying fibers, who have a booth at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, sell organic rare breed wool from England.

Before I went to England, I got Beth Brown Reinsel's book

Knitting Ganseys

I found an online source for 5-ply guernsey yarn Frangipani.
Unfortunately her very reasonable prices just went up as of Jan. 2008 because of increased costs.

Yarn shopping in England, Part I

2008-01-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

I went to England in November for 9 days. I spent most of the time in Oxford, which doesn't have a LYS, though apparently there is a place that sells yarn (but I didn't find it). The closest LYS was in a nearby town, but I had no car most of the time.
It seems that there are LYS's along the southern coast in a few seaside towns, several in London (which is HUGE), and a cluster in the north of the country where knitting is a long tradition, and sheep are a way of life.
One recommendation I got was to go to Liberty in London, which specializes in Rowan yarns. With the very weak dollar, I found that the Rowan yarns were the same price, or even a little more expensive there. I wanted to go to Stash Yarns in London, as it was mentioned in several blogs as a favorite. But the trip into London from Oxford via bus (the affordable option, though not cheap) took 2 and a half hours each way the day we went (normally 1.5 hours), and because my son had already experienced rush hour on the Tube, I promised we wouldn't be on the tube after 4 PM. Soooo, I didn't get there. Like many US LYS's, yarn shops in England tend to be in out of the way places, that aren't easy to get to.
I am adding some links below.

Stash Yarns London
Stitch n'Bitch UK
London Yarn Shops

There is an awesome UK Google map of yarn stores. To have to track it down and will add it later.
I did find some good magazines in England in the Borders in Oxford.
Simply Knitting
Knitting
The British magazines come in a plastic bag and always include cute give-aways. I got stitch markers, 2008 diaries, patterns for a Shaun the Sheep mobile, etc.
The Simply Knitting Issue 35- December, 2007, has a wonderful Seaweed Scarf .
To get a better idea of what it looks like - click on the picture to make it bigger. Also, for some reason, the blogs I found with knitters working on it showed it in colors different from the color called for - which is Rowan Scottish Tweed 4-ply in Apple (00015).
It calls for 6 balls which I ordered from Webs
I also got a cute book Knitted Icons.

Should I go to Stitches West?

2008-01-06T23:38:00.001-05:00

I’ll be in Monterey for a conference Thurs.-Sun Feb. 21-24, and was thinking about playing hooky to go to Stitches. I was happy to see the map with list of vendors in a Ravelry Forum, because if you look at the website for Stitches West, there are only four yarn vendors listed! It might seem ridiculous that I could actually believe that there’d be only four, but I heard from friends who went to Stitches East this year that there were many fewer vendors than last year. Apparently, on Sat. and Sun. there were problems in Baltimore. Sat. roads were closed for a marathon and Sunday because of a football game, I heard parking cost $39!!!! I talked to a local small business who exhibited this year, and said that business was down on Sat. and Sun., and she probably won’t do it again next year. Though having Stitches East in Baltimore is great for us in the DC area, apparently, it was better when it was in King of Prussia PA. After hearing the negative reviews of Stitches East 2007, I wasn’t sure about going to Stitches West.

Two postings in one day!

2008-01-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

I just bought a new laptop this week (MacBook) and now have wireless. Soooo, I can lie on my bed or on the couch and work on my blog and Ravelry. What I really need to do is work on taking pictures of projects, organizing projects, and organizing my stash. BUT all of these tasks take time away from knitting. I am watching the Dem's debat in NH and it is actually pretty interesting....

Sheep grazing near standing stones

2008-01-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

Avebury England is not far from Stonehenge, with an estimated 100 stones. I was there near sunset in Nov. 2007 (sunset at this time of year in England is around 4:15 PM). I shot several pictures of sheep grazing around the standing stones. They are (probably) oblivious to the historical nature of these stones. You get an idea of the size of them from the sheep.

I have just set up a Flickr account and a link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdegar/

New Year's Knitting resolutions 2008

2008-01-01T23:54:00.001-05:00

My resolutions are simple (let's see if I can stick to them).
I will rotate between knitting something for myself, knitting something for a friend or finish an unfinished project, and knitting for charity (my favorite is Afghans for Afghans). I will try to do one project, then move onto another, so I am rotating between the three.
I must add :
I will take pictures of what I knit or at least I will keep a log of sorts.
I will keep track of how much yarn I buy and what I spend.
I will shrink my stash.

I usually have a project in mind when I buy yarn, but later forget. After big yarn buying jags like MD Sheep & Wool, or Countryside Artisans tours, I try to write down what project I have in mind for the yarn. It's easy to forget.