Okay, bad joke of the day...
While warming up during ballet class last night, my instructor was discussing a rather contemporary piece of choreography with another adult student. My instructor looked around at the class compliment that evening which had an uncharacteristically large amount of twelve-year olds. Looking pointedly at the younger members of the class my instructor says to my friend, “Sorry, but I don’t think we can do the weird stuff tonight.”
Halloween has come and gone. We set the clocks back and it’s time now to shovel the remains of shattered pumpkins into garbage cans and clean up spider webs, bake some pumpkin bread and hide the candy from the kid. But before I start in on all that, I thought I’d give you a recap on our holiday.
I wasn’t going to go nuts this year, I said. Just a couple carving pumpkins, I said. Maybe a few sugar pies. And a jarrahdale, you know, for bread. Nothing over the top. Uh huh. Sure...
Four trips to three pumpkin patches later...
It’s getting to be that time of year again, so I’m back at the sewing machine. This year I’m going for sort of a wood sprite kind of thing, with the main piece being a corset/cincher made in tunisian crochet. The pattern calls for rigilene boning, which always sends a quiver down my spine, and I decided I was overdue for a rant on why people should never ever use that stuff to make a corset.
An online crafting zine that I’m fond of always provides suggested entertainment to go along with its projects. These take the form of songs or movies or books that will get you into the right mind frame for your crafting experience.
Last Thursday was delivery day. The Crow’s quarterly edition came back from the printers and I spent the day running back and forth to post office and dashing in and out of bookstores with armloads of our humble little magazine. One of the problems with Delivery Day taking me in and out of most the independent bookstores in the county is that I invariably leave with more books than I went in with, at least in weight and expense.
Good morning, world. Is it raining where you are? It’s been raining here, and every ant in the tri-county area is taking refuge in my house, little six-legged bastards. And while they’re here, they’re helping themselves to anything they want in the kitchen. They launched a stunning siege last night for the remains left on one plate in the sink and I countered. They returned three hours later for the batter drippings on the underside on a mixing bowl left from the baking of Luke’s birthday cupcakes. We beat them back.
So a porpoise and a wallaby walk into a bar...
Just kidding. They actually walk into a ball of yarn. Or thirty.
Allow me to introduce the concept of a knit-along. A group of people come together over a particular pattern (or a yarn or a concept) and make sacred vows in the bonds of skeinly sisterhood to see it through together. Your comrade knitters can help you along with tricky bits of the pattern and spur your industrious knitting habits to keep your WIP (work in progress) from becoming the only UFO (unfinished object) in the group.
I just returned from Lambtown USA, a festival in nearby Dixon, CA celebrating sheep and sheep-related business. It’s a small fair – it costs all of a dollar to get in – and I went solo, which means I went with my iPhone and took pictures.
I like these little festivals. This is a small deal. A couple of buildings, a handful of food booths, a smattering of other miscellaneous vendors spread out on the grass, a lot of kids walking around sporting their 4H greens. This is a neighborhood thing.
I think I've expressed that I'm enamored with pumpkins. I love carving them, I love eating them, I love watching them spread out over a summer garden and attempt to take over the world. I have opinions on varieties and I've gathered a fair amount of recipes. I'm now going to impart this knowledge to you so current and future generations have this little bit of amassed wisdom, such as it is, at their fingertips.
Pumpkin Patches
