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 soonI'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!
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....
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.
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 video 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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
