Monthly Archives: February 2012

Only Five

btt button
A while ago, I interviewed my readers for a change, and my final question was, “What question have I NOT asked at BTT that you’d love me to ask?” I got some great responses and will be picking out some of the questions from time to time to ask the rest of you. Like now.

shelovestoread asks:

If you had to pick only 5 books to read ever again, what would they be and why?’

(Such a cruel question!)

Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves!


Moosie

Growing up, I always thought of my grandparents -- my father's parents -- as being REALLY old.  And, well, they were...if they were still alive, they'd be turning 99 and 104 this year.  And they were much older than my other set of grandparents.  So it was a surprise when I realized, about a month ago, that my grandma Moosie, the youngest of all my grandparents, was, suddenly, my oldest grandparent -- she'd outlived all of the others and was older than even my dad's father had ever been.  

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Moosie and me, 1978

Today would have been Moosie's 88th birthday.  But she missed it by two weeks -- after declining steadily over the last six months or so, she died on January 22.  She'd gone to the hospital just a week before she died -- she was having trouble breathing -- and it was pretty clear that she was at the end.  She came home on Saturday afternoon and died just about 25 hours later, quietly, just like she lived.  It was peaceful, in the end.  My mom and my uncles, my sisters and my cousin and I were all with her.

It sounds so trite to say, but truly, there is no one quite like a grandma.  It's so difficult to put into words everything that she meant to me, and I find myself simply lapsing into snippets, anecdotes, about her life and about our time together.   There are so many things I will always remember: Going on walks with her.  Her oatmeal cookies and her homemade chow mein.  The letters she wrote me while I was away at college.  The summer during college that I lived with her, when she insisted on packing my lunch every day before I left for my job as a day camp counselor (and would sometimes even send me in with a batch of cookies to share with the kids at camp).  The many nights at her house playing cribbage and Scrabble -- sometimes just the two of us, sometimes a whole lot of us.  How she took me out driving, when I turned 16 the winter after my dad died, because my mom was too scared to do it herself.  Her delight in her great-grandchildren.  How she took me shopping, the week before my wedding, to help me find a pretty barrette to put in my hair because I wasn't planning on wearing a veil.    

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Moosie and me, 2000.

I could go on and on.  There are a million memories, and yet they aren't enough.  They could never be enough.  When you love someone, it doesn't matter how much time you spend with them -- you always wish it could be longer.

Moosie lived a life that sounded like something out of a storybook.  She was orphaned twice as a young child, and eventually was taken in by an elderly aunt and uncle.  She met my grandfather during World War II when her cousin suggested that she write to a nice young man from Louisiana that he'd come to know -- they wrote throughout the war, he came to Connecticut after he was discharged, and the rest is history.  She ran our town's post office out of the back room of her house from the late 1960s until the mid 1980s.  

I always loved to listen to Moosie's stories about growing up, particularly because I, too, grew up in the same town.  It always seemed vaguely preposterous that we'd grown up separated only by fifty-four years, because her childhood seemed SO different from mine.  She told stories about doing things like sledding down the road in front of her house.  Even then it was the main road in town -- but then it was a quiet country lane, and now it's a state highway with a 50mph speed limit.  She went to a one-room schoolhouse and then attended high school in an adjacent town, since our town didn't have its own high school until the 1960s.

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Ian, in the one-room schoolhouse where his great-grandmother went to school (!!)

Moosie also did a ton of crafts, as did most women of her generation.  She sewed a lot, and could knit and crochet (though she didn't enjoy either and I don't recall her ever doing either, although she must have at some point because a few years ago she gave me a bunch of crochet hooks and knitting needles), but mostly, at least in the years I knew her, she did rug braiding, shuttle tatting, and chair caning...three things that fall into the category of "things no one can do anymore."  I'm tremendously sad to say, though, that I didn't learn any of these things from her.  She tried to teach me to tat several times, but I just literally could not wrap my fingers around it (I think that now that I'm a good knitter, it would probably make more sense to me -- I must find someone to teach me!).  Chair caning was something I wanted to learn -- but by the time I had the time and the inclination to learn, her eyesight had deteriorated enough that she couldn't really do it anymore.  The same with rug braiding -- I don't know when exactly she gave it up, but she already had by the time I was ready to learn.  Still, though, despite the fact that I didn't pick up those three particular things (though I intend to learn someday!), I learned so much from her.  She taught me how to sew and mend, and the values of having a button collection and various notions handy at all times, and she always loved to try out new things -- something I definitely picked up from her!  In her later years, even after she had to stop doing handwork herself, she always loved to see what I was working on and talk shop with me.  For many years, she demonstrated chair caning at our town's historical fair, and I like to think that now, as I demonstrate spinning there, I'm following in her footsteps.

One thing my family is lucky to have is a LOT of pictures, going back into Moosie's childhood and even earlier.  We've all been going through them over the last few weeks.  I scanned a lot of them for a display at her memorial service, and have continued going through and scanning others so that we can have a digital repository and share them amongst our family members.  I leave you with one of my favorite images we found -- Moosie, from sometime in the early 1940s.  I love how beautiful and ethereal, somehow, she looks in it, and I love that it's not a typical posed photo.  It's so like her -- always doing something with her hands.  

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Happy birthday, Moosie.  I love you and I miss you.  

Joseph Arrives

Wow, we've waited and waited for this beautiful boy to get here, and let me tell you, it was worth it. 


The Welcoming Committee was on hand to greet the newcomer.  This is a big deal when a new alpaca joins the family.


Mr. Ramsey's rig pulled up Church Lane with several alpacas on board - our Joseph and a couple of lovely ladies.


Joseph gets his first look at his new home.


The hospitality suite is a stall with a couple of buddies to get acquainted at a gentle pace.  Levi is the perfect sweet boy to make Joseph begin to feel at home.


The suris wanted to visit with him, but they kept worrying him around and around the stall, so they had to wait outside.




I finally got a good look at his gorgeous fiber.  Charcoal down deep, and rusty red on the tips, with some funny spots tossed in for character.  So, so beautiful.


It's so dense that very little grass or hay gets down into the fiber.  It's going to be pretty easy to clean up for the processor.  Six more weeks (give or take) and that fleece is in the bag.


He has a kind and serious air about him.


In a day or so, he'll have the run of the place, just like all the other boys, and we'll be able to get better photos of him.  He is a real cutie-patootie.  Please come visit him when you can!

Three Special Skeins

Susan recently did a trunk show at A Good Yarn in Sarasota, and brought me back some beautiful yarn as a present. I can’t wait to use them!

The coolest thing is, though, that these yarns are in colorways exclusive to A Good Yarn. I didn’t know that was possible! They are, from top to bottom:

Once I get back in the sock-knitting mood, these will be the first I turn to. Thank you, Susan!

 


The Entertainer

It's been a rough few weeks here (more on that later) but through it all, the one constant has been that Ian continues to make us laugh.  If laughter is the best medicine, then he's the best doctor there is.  (Not a bad feat for a 21-month-old!)  I swear, if it weren't for him, I would have spent a large part of the last three weeks in a heap on the floor.  

A couple of amusing anecdotes from recent days...

Practicing for the Elementary School Cafeteria

This past weekend, I took Ian to get his hair cut.  The Snip-Its that we go to is in the same plaza as Panera, and it's become our tradition to go there afterwards.  This time around, it was a little early for lunch, so we had a little snack -- milk and an oatmeal raisin cookie for Ian; chai a and toffee nut cookie for me.  Ian's still a bit too small to really converse with at length, but we sat by the window and pointed out trucks going by, and beeped each other's noses, and made faces at each other, and I tried to get Ian to say some of the things he says especially cutely.  It was a lovely date.

Just before we started getting ready to leave, a woman tried to sit at the table next to us and dropped her tray.  Her bowl shattered and soup was EVERYWHERE.  I think all of us sitting nearby would have just ignored it (she was fine and nothing was hurt) in order to lessen the woman's embarrassment, but Ian whipped around, sized up the situation, and yelled "UH OH!" at the top of his little lungs, causing our entire quadrant of the restaurant to bust out laughing.  Oops.  All I could think of was how, in elementary school, if someone dropped a tray or accidentally popped a plastic bag or something, the entire cafeteria would bust out in a chorus of "oooooOOOOOHHHHH....!"  Sorry, soup lady.  I swear he wasn't mocking you.

Funny, They Don't Look Like Hugh Laurie

My mother-in-law lives just about a mile from us, and as such we visit her frequently.  When we get there, I always say "we're at Grandma's house!".  The last time we went to see her, Ian yelled "HOUSE!" as we pulled into the driveway.  Which made total sense, since I always announce where we are.  So we go inside and go through our afternoon.  Eventually Ian pulled down the family picture from the table in MIL's living room -- he likes to point at everyone in the picture and identify them.  He started, as always, with "daddy," and then "mommy," and then "baby," and then...."House!"  Yes, he's apparently internalized the wrong half of "Grandma's house" -- and Grandma is now House.  Throughout the rest of the day he kept pointing at her -- "House!" -- and when we left, she got a very solemn wave and "buh-bye....House."

The very next day, my mom came to our house for dinner, and Ian called HER House, too.  (He doesn't see my mom nearly as much, since she lives in New Hampshire, so she was just excited that he clearly understands that she's Grandma, too!)

I'm not sure either of them will ever live this down.  Wonder how long it'll stick?  Maybe we should invest in some canes and VIcodin for them, so they can play the part.  They're on their own for the grumpy behavior, though.

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A Bunch o’ Stuff

So I guess I have hit an official blogging slump. I have been doing things, at least I think I have, but most of them are not things I take pictures of. And the creative stuff has been mostly long-term projects -- not the kind of things I want to keep posting updates on as it would probably bore everybody to tears.

But I have a few little things to share. First off, some yarn dyeing, Or overdyeing if you want to be accurate.

all of them - just out of the pots

One of many wonderful Ravelry friends had some leftover Juniper Moon Farm yarns that she was willing to swap to me so I could put them toward my Log Cabin Blanket.

They were all lovely, but not quite bold enough next to my other colors, so I decided to dye them a little darker.

The green was a very pale mint green to start,

green before

green after - wet

and became sort of a brown and green mossy color when it was done.

green after - side of cake

The red was very pink-y/magenta-y,

red before

red after - wet

so I oranged it up a bit.

red after - side of cake

The blue was so pale that it was not even as blue in person as it appears in this photo.

blue before

blue after - wet

I am pretty proud of this one. :)

blue after - side of cakes

So that's that for yarn dyeing adventures for the time being. I'd love to do more, but I absolutely cannot take on another hobby at this point in time.

A cool thing was this suitcase that the boys and I found by the side of the road when we were out walking the other day.

fun decal

have to try to preserve this sticker

I gave it a good shake to make sure it wasn't filled with anything (believe me, my mind was going over all the terrible possibilities of what might be hiding inside a locked suitcase on the side of the road). When it felt empty, I decided to go for it and we carried it home.

good sturdy handle

The locks were easy to pick, thank goodness.

classy

And the verdict is: a million dollars in unmarked bills!

Sorry, no, that's my fantasy version. In real life, it was empty as can be, but in excellent condition!

clean and really nice inside!

No smells or anything, so we are good to go. Now to decide what to use it for!

Other recent acquisitions include some very special baby clothes.

This dress (actually a toddler size, rather than a baby size) was made for my mother, for a wedding she was in when she was about four years old.

a dress my mother wore around the age of 4

dress detail

Needs a cleaning and has a small stain, but it will make a little girl very happy someday I am sure.

This sweater and matching bonnet were made for me when I was a 6-9 month sized person and will be perfect for Liddy's first winter!

another one of my baby sweaters

yoke detail

And THIS sweater.

a sweater I wore as a newborn

Newborn sized, lightweight, covered in these little gathers that remind me of little daisies,

gather detail

perfect for a May baby! I think if I can make a matching hat, Lydia might wear it home from the hospital.

Now a super quick update on the ever growing Log Cabin:

progress and next colors planned

I am OBSESSED I tell you. Love this project so much.

can't stop staring

A sort of recent project that is not especially pretty but is inherently useful is this set of cast iron skillet handle covers I made.

I sandwiched layers of plain and printed vintage feedsack over some vintage wool batting I took out of a dry rotted lap quilt, and put pieces of an unwanted pot holder in the middles for added protection.

short handle snap-on cover

The feminine hygiene product looking ones are for the short handles. As you can see, they wrap around

wrapped around

and snap securely in place.

snapped

For the long handles, I layered some some longer rectangles the same way, but sewed them together into tubes then so they can just slip on and off.

long handle sleeves

They work SO WELL! I snap them on before I start cooking and they stay cool to the touch and do not burst into flames the whole time the meal is being made!

now safe and easy to handle

They even work on a skillet that has been baking in the oven (but obviously I do not keep them on the handles during the baking...)

Anyway. Finishing up a very lengthy post with some love.

Love item #1: I joined Pinterest.

HOLY COW I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Seriously, it is what I always dreamed of in a site for categorizing and sharing my favorite things. Love, love, love.

Look me up over there, if you are so inclined. (Link above) I will be busy filling up my boards and spamming the crap out of my followers with pictures captioned with such descriptive gems as, "WANT!" and "COLORS!" and "GARDEN LOVE!"

Love item #2: The other morning, Ethan magneted a message on our refrigerator to remind us to "go out and love people."

Ethan's reminder to go out and love people

A few hours later, I came across Love item #3: a tiny flour heart on the bottom of my hotdog bun at lunch.

random heart on a hot dog bun

(And yeah, I checked first to make sure it was flour and not mold. Either way, it was still a tiny heart.)

I think that's all for now. I am exploding with ideas but finding myself with little motivation to actually do much other than knit and sit in front of the computer. But I have a few things lined up for when I have those bursts of productivity...

Four New Knitters

The Little Red Barn was a happy place today.  When people come together to work with yarn and enjoy each others' company, the world is a little sweeter place to be.

Today friends Lisa, Robin and Dawn, and new friend Cyleena started learning to knit.  And every single one of them left with some wonderful stitches on her needles.  Cyleena is a precious young home schooled teen, who had no trouble keeping up with the ladies, and endured lots of "mom talk" while she diligently stitched along.  What a good sport!


It's a stretch to call this "work" for me - we had such a great time.  I can't wait to spend another five weeks with this group, passing on the simple skills that will empower them to create their own masterpieces.


We are going to make excellent progress.  We're working up to a fun sampler scarf project - it moves from block to block, adding a new competency with each one.  You can find it here on Ravelry, if you'd like to give it a go.






Would you like to learn to knit or spin?  Gather up some friends and check our calendar.  Tuesday mornings will be free again on March 27, and Wednesday evenings are currently free to book a class.  Free animal scritches included at no extra charge.

SuperBowl Sunday and other assorted crap!

Somewhere along the road after joining pinterest, I became domestic.  I still don't know how it happened and I wonder if it'll disappear as quickly as it came on.  Being newly domesticated, though, Superbowl was prime time for testing out some new pinterest recipes.

First up was the recipe for Cauliflower Poppers.
Now by the description, they're supposed to taste like french fries and be yummy delicious enough for Husband to even enjoy them... and Husband thinks cauliflower is one of the most foul foods on the planet.  I, however, think cauliflower is delicious all raw and crunchy, so I wasn't sure I'd be thrilled with it all cooked and french fry-ish.

The results:
The upside for Husband was that they really did not taste like cauliflower once they were cooked.  The downside is that somehow each piece ended up with way way too much salt and I felt like I was chewing on a salt lick.  I blame my lack of natural cooking skills for this issue and I'm not yet ready to give up the good fight if it means I can finally get Husband to eat it.  My other issue is that it's possible I left them in a few minutes too long... some of them were scary crispy.

Second was the recipe for Baked Jalapeno Poppers.
Being baked, they're supposed to be a bit better for you and since we were already cramming enough crap into our stomachs, every saved calorie was a good thing.

The results:
Seriously fantastic.  I improvised a slight bit on the recipe mainly because I didn't want to shell out the coin for all the random ingredients, but I don't think I missed anything by leaving stuff out.  Instead of ricotta and monterey jack cheese, I used fat free cream cheese and about a half cup of Mexican blend shredded cheese (yay for getting stuff out of my fridge!).  And instead of making my own bread crumbs, I took the lazy way out and used the container of bread crumbs I had in my pantry.  I was also pleasantly surprised that the batch was not too spicy... I was afraid the Boy Child would take one bite and run screaming out of the room.  Instead, he ran screaming out of the room because he ignored my warning that they just came out of the oven and were nuclear grade temperature.  All in all, though, A+ on this one.

Third was the recipe for Chili Party Dip.
I got this recipe from a friend who is on WW and thought it sounded easy enough to make.

The results:
Delicious.  Seriously delicious.  We did, however, have to improvise a slight bit on this one because no matter what store we went into, canned turkey chili with no beans was missing.  Instead we just used regular chili without beans, which I'm sure probably added about 900 points to the final total.  I also used fresh jalapenos since I had purchased them for the Baked Poppers and didn't want to screw around with both jarred AND fresh ones.  One round of jalapeno juice is quite enough, thank you.  Because the jalapenos were fresh, the dip wasn't as spicy as I think it could have been... but honestly, burning my mouth off wasn't part of my Superbowl plans anyway.  We served it with tortilla chips that probably then added another 900 points to the chili total, but you only live once, right?  Or at least that's what I keep telling my arteries.


 

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Welcome to the funny farm!

Or as the case may be, my little blog thing.  I've actually had it for years... wrote in it for a bit... and then let it slide when I got annoyed with myself. 

So now I'm restarting her... but this time, it's going to be a general catch all for things that I've crafted, done, seen... especially things I've found in the pinterest realm.  If nothing else, it'll give me a good place to keep notes on things I've tried and whether it's worth my effort to try it again.  God knows if I don't write it down, I probably won't remember it next week.

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Child’s Eared Hoodie

When you start work in the yarn & fiber business, one of the rudest awakenings (and, later, most irritating assumptions) is that one does not, in fact, spend one’s day knitting, spinning, and hazily swanning around the pastoral scene. Like everybody else, I mainly write emails, answer the phone, help customers, and solve all the problems I’m able to.

How nice, then, to be asked– no, assigned– to spend the day knitting!

We’ve had a few customers who had had trouble making the Child’s Eared Hoodie. So, my job last Thursday was to knit the pattern and, in so doing, come up with the Errata (they’re here). I made the smallest size, and it took about half of the day.

In yet another happy coincidence, one of my friends had recently asked me to knit a baby something– a cousin, I think– and so I’ll be sending this off to him.

I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. I didn’t add the ears– children suffer enough indignities without having a pair of animal ears slapped on their heads– and, of course, I fixed the mistakes and unclear portions of the pattern, but, otherwise, it’s exactly as written. I especially love the smart little i-cord ties at the front!

This is, incidentally, the first thing I’ve actually finished in 2012. So there’s got to be some good magic in there somewhere.