**Crickets Chirping**

Everything I’m making right now is a gift for someone and is not bloggable for awhile (is that even a word?).  Also trying to motivate myself to start packing for a big move in May, while increasingly becoming obsessed with Bollywood movies.  (The India fixation continues, apparently.)  I will undoubtedly have a good deal more to say about that in the near future, but in the meantime I heartily suggest you take a few minutes and watch my former guitar teacher’s new video:

The Happy List

There’s no knitting (don’t ask…sleeves are harder than you’d think), and as we bid winter adieu with the crankiness-inducing daylight savings time here in the northeast, here’s a list of what is making me happy right now.  I know, I know, inner happiness and all, but FEBRUARY JUST LEFT.  These things take time, people.  

1.   Sixty degree weather, and the return of the birds to the tree outside the living room window.  There’s been a lot of this:

2.   Molly Wizenberg‘s chocolate chip banana bread, from her book A Homemade Life.  Personally, I leave out the ginger and throw a whole bag of chocolate chips in.  (This should surprise absolutely no one.)  Also?  I’ve used low-fat and Greek yogurt, because whole-milk yogurt is hard to find around here, and it comes out okay.  You sacrifice a bit of texture, but it’s still good.  

3.   The Wailin’ Jennys.  Seriously, the universe was totally holding out on me.  The best explanation I can come up with is they’re the Canadian answer to the Dixie Chicks, except they are three brunettes and the vocal harmonies are a bit more textured/complex.  (Actually, truth be told, they are a lot like Courtyard Hounds, which is the Dixie Chicks minus Natalie Maines.)  I’ve had their album 40 Days on repeat all weekend.  

4.  My iPhone.  A few weeks ago my Blackberry stopped holding a charge for more than an hour or so, and I caved to the Apple Gods.  I only got the 4, because it’s what they had in stock and I really couldn’t wait for them to order me a 4S…plus, having inspected both models I wasn’t sure I really needed a 4S.  Truthfully, as a phone – the thing is like talking into a tin can, and if I spent more time actually talking on the phone I would not be happy.  But in terms of wasting away productive hours?  Well.  I suddenly cannot live without the 7 Little Words game and the NPR Music app, along with several others.  Also?  the cat freaks out when I play bird videos from YouTube on it.    

5.   Anne Lamott on Twitter.  Snippets of pure genius that make me happy at least three times a day.  Here’s hoping the newness doesn’t wear off on her.  

6.  Speaking of baths, these things here from Lush.  My niece picked me out a bunch of stuff from there as a thank you for taking care of their cat while they were on vacation.  It’s a block of what seems to be hardened styrofoam, that you break chunks off and throw in the water.  The water turns pinky-purple, there are bubbles, and it’s all good.  

What’s making you happy right now?

Caledonia

I can, *ahem*, be a tad obsessive about things.  In the months leading up to our Ireland trip last spring I was eating Anne Enright novels for breakfast and had The Frames constantly looping on my iPod.  I also spent several train trips gazing at my laminated fold-out map of Dublin, and spent many long baths poring over the tourist booklets I received from the tour company.  When that plane took off, I felt prepared. 

But I really wasn’t prepared at all.  I realized that despite my historical family ties to Ireland, I really didn’t know much about the country’s history.  There was the great famine, of course, which is why my great-great-great grandparents left County Kerry for Canada, and I knew a little bit about the Northern Ireland Troubles, but I really had no idea about much else.  I guess one could say that learning things is one of the points of traveling, and I did learn some things during our trip, but I found myself really wishing I had spent more time learning about Ireland’s history.  I think I would have appreciated certain aspects of the trip more, but also would have had some context and would not have necessarily had to take a guide’s word as the truth. 

Next spring I’m going to Scotland.  I had hoped to go this fall, but for a whole series of reasons it’s going to have to be next year.  Plus, the more I read the more I think I’d rather go in the spring (the best time is the summer, but the prices double/triple).  This means that instead of having six months to obsess, I have 15 months!  This trip is also fueled by family lineage, though tracing my roots has been difficult.  When your mom’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather have the Scottish equivalent of John Smith as their name, it’s almost impossible to figure out whether or not you have the right one. And then there’s the coin toss of a different branch on my family tree; they may have been Irish or Scottish – but every generation seems to have invented a new way of spelling it and, again, good luck figuring it all out.  At any rate, while I may be forever cut off from the specifics, there’s still metric tons of Scottish history and culture to learn about, and I’m determined to cram into my brain as much as I can between now and departure time.  I’m trying to balance modern culture with the historical stuff, so there’s a smattering of everything right now:  

1.                  Monarch of the Glen (tv series, several seasons available via Netflix on-demand)

2.                  Dougie Maclean (musician)

3.                  The Thistle & Shamrock (traditional Scottish and Irish music, often with a twist)

4.                  Scotland:  The Story of A Nation by Magnus Magnusson

5.                  The Outlander series (fiction)

6.                  The Stone of Destiny (movie, also available via Netflix)

7.                  BBC’s Learn Scottish Gaelic lessons

8.                  BBC Scotland news 

One of the things I’ve been learning about, other than that Caledonia was what the Romans called Scotland, is Scotland’s upcoming referendum in 2014 on establishing its independence from Great Britain.  I’ve seen a couple of pieces here and there on both the BBC Scotland site and in the NY Times, but today’s NY Times opinion section has a great op-ed piece about it that includes some history. 

The other thing I have learned?  The cat hates the sound of bagpipes.

Elvis Is Everywhere

Remember that Mojo Nixon song?  

So I finally finished a quilt.  It’s a small wall hanging-ish sort of quilt, I suppose, maybe big enough for a baby quilt (but I’m not giving this one away, so wall quilt it is).  This was my “friendship quilt” project last year with my quilt guild.  I said I wanted “scrappy log cabin blocks”, and the lady who drew my name made me six log cabin blocks – two blue/yellow, two blue/pink, and two blue/purple.  It was simultaneously nothing that I ever would have thought of and just what I wanted.  I hand quilted circles all over it and, as they say,  voila:

I love the yellow, and I love how the pink sets off the blue.  And I love that from far away it looks wonderfully artsy, but up close there are all sorts of little bits of odd fabrics.  Cats, dogs, clouds, princesses, flowers….

…and the very King himself.

Diversions

1.  Malabrigo sock yarn.

2.  The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

3.  Quilt from guild’s charity pile, quilted and bound.  (I didn’t sew the top.)

4.  Not pictured:  finding a new apartment for May.

Friendship Squares 2012

Right before Christmas my sewing machine made a horrific clunking sound and then quit on me.  Now, I like to knit but I need to sew; there’s something about my psyche that needs a regular visit with my fabric.  I live in my head, and cutting and sewing patchwork is one of the few things that gets me out of my thinking mode, which is something I really need.  I learned this during the time I was living in NYC without my sewing machine, and I vowed to never be without it again.  Having it crash and burn was kind of traumatic, truth be told, especially during vacation time that I had hoped to spend finishing up some projects.

Happily the machine was fixable, and finally this weekend I had time to get reacquainted.  I’ve had this machine for at least 10 years and never had it cleaned, and the lightbulb had been burned out for so long that I’d forgotten there was one on the machine.  Surprise!  It was none too soon for sewing, either — not only do I have numerous projects in various states of completion, I needed to start another one.  My quilt guild runs a program called “Friendship Squares”, where each participant writes their name and the type of block they want on a piece of paper.  They can specify an actual block (I requested log cabin blocks last year), a color, or a theme.  You draw names, and you make six blocks (two per month for three months) for your friend.  In turn, someone makes six blocks for you.  At the end, you’re supposed to make at least two additional blocks and sew the top up.

Last year, I wound up with someone who wanted Asian-inspired blocks.  I don’t normally buy this type of quilt fabric, so I marched off to the quilt store and bought several fat quarters of fabrics.  I sewed up “T” block squares which, with the Asian fabric, looked like little kimonos.  The recipient made a really lovely quilt and I considered the whole experience a success.   (I continue to kick myself for not getting a picture of the finished quilt, especially since the woman is no longer in the guild.)

This year, I drew “1930s” – yet another aisle of the quilt store I never visit.  These are prints that are based on fabric designs from the 1930s, many with cutesy animals on them.  Not my thing, really, so Saturday morning I took advantage of the ridiculously unseasonable warm weather and walked into town to the quilt store to find some fabric.  It was really hard to choose a plan for these blocks; the store had a lot of really great red fabrics that I liked but what if the person I am making them for hates red?  I decided I really should go for a variety, and came home with this:

The next challenge was to find a block.  Years ago I got smart about managing my growing stash of quilt magazines, all of which had one pattern I wanted to try someday.  I ripped the one pattern I wanted out of each magazine and stuck it in a red three ring binder, recycling the rest of the magazine.  Hardly a genius move, but I’m telling you this simple thing has become my own personal quilting bible.  After much browsing, I found this block – which unfortunately I can’t credit because I have no idea which magazine it came from (I’m guessing from the style it was probably Quilter’s Newsletter).  It’s not terribly difficult, but it does require some precise piecing of the triangles.  I made two blocks today, the red one below and a blue one.  I worry that maybe the style isn’t quite right for the fabrics, and maybe there’s too much white.  I have to decide whether to scrap this altogether, continue on, or use these two blocks but find other patterns for the remaining fabrics.  Thoughts?

 

 

The Sweater: Week 3

It may not look like much, but it’s the body of my sweater (Middlefield Pullover from New England Knits).  Sleeves are next  and my fingers are crossed!