Much to my utter delight and surprise my yarn showed up the other night and I had to start knitting immediately.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

What was a real delight it is to use my often forgotten Swallowtail casein knitting needles.  I love the tortiose shell look of them and they are so nice and light compared to the heavier metal needles that I normally use but still smooth. 

You can see the pattern a bit better here.  It’s quite a bit of fun, actually! I actually finished the yoke and am starting the back, which is coming out nicely except I made a mistake a couple of times and now have to take it out, which of course is SO MUCH FUN.  I had a chance to do the knitting when I was sick earlier this week.

But more updates later. Such as: Easter Sunday (just found out, I’m cooking the main meal…) and a week of kitties!

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This man is making me talk about my blog.

And yes, he used this cute baby as the lure.

And this cute baby.

OK! You people that use your aborable spawn to get me to bend to your whims! Enough!

Actually, I’m very excited about this. Yes, I’m taking it to the streets. The dirty naughty streets of San Francisco to talk about my wee crafty blog at “My Blog Live: Online Onstage” and it’s going to be hilarious. I’ll finally be able to tell the rest of the world the crafting is hilarious! Seriously! Right, guys?….Right?

So if you are in SF, stop on by this night of fun!

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Luggage Tuesdays presents:
“My Blog Live: Online Onstage”
Live performances from Bay Area blogs Good Crafternoon!, Geek Girl Daily, Easy Rider: Strolling in SF, and Luggage Tuesdays

WHEN: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 @ 8pm

WHERE: Stage Werx 533 Sutter Street, San Francisco

TICKETS: $12 at the door

INFO: Mike Spiegelman, mike@spiegelmania.com

WEBSITE: http://www.twitter.com/mybloglive

San Francisco, Ca. – “My Blog Live” kicks off an ongoing series of live performances from the people behind the sites. This live show highlights the variety of genres and personal voices found on blogs, with performances of new pieces and previous posts from four Bay Area bloggers:

Erikka Innes, Geek Girl Daily, Geek Blog
Host of “Geek Comedy Night” at Rooster T. Feather’s, comedian Erikka Innes is no stranger to geekiness.

Melinda Bailey, Easy Rider: Strolling in SF, Mommy Blog
Professional SF guide with Foot Tours, Melinda Bailey writes about strolling with Snappy throughout the City.

“Miss Dottie”, Good Crafternoon, Crafts Blog
Leslie Van Every writes about knitting, sewing, and searching through the Alameda Flea Market.

Mike Spiegelman, Luggage Tuesdays, Humor Blog
Comedian Mike Spiegelman presents readings and sketches about family restaurant menu parodies, phone books send-ups, Superman boners, and jokes about salad.

My Blog Live runs Tuesday, March 25 @ 8pm at Stage Werx 533 Sutter Street, between Powell and Mason, San Francisco.

…………………….

Now, back to craft blogging.

Sorry for being out of it for a bit–just got busy. But I will have some great updates coming next week including:

• Knitting update–yes, I’m back to it, albeit slowly. So very very slowly…
• A total clutter karate beatdown on my closet. Oh yeah! FOUR huge trash bags of stuff out of my closet. Insane!
• A look at my almost finished embroidery week of towels. Sweet!
• And of course a note about my blog experience. Yeah!

See ya’ll Monday!

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My paternal grandmother, Evelyn was killed more than ten years ago by a drunk driver who plowed into her church bus on July 3rd 1995.  On July 4th I was on a plane flying away from grad school to my grandparents home for fifty years to attend the funeral and to help clean out the house.

Funerals are gutting–I won’t even go there, but more so is the dealing with the remains of her full life that filled every space of her little yellow house with with green shutters.  We found old sketches of my grandmother that my grandfather (we called him Poppy) had drawn. Quick snapshots of their courtship on the Atlantic City Boardwalk in the thirties. Locks of my father’s hair carefully wrapped in wax paper with Grandma’s schoolteacher-perfect penmanship noting the date of his first haircut.  Old cookbooks with notes about a family favorite in the margins. Worn paperdolls with complete wardrobes that my cousins and I used to play with.  Old mayo jars fitted with sqeaky rusty caps poked full of holes that held many insects captive for analysis.

With three children and twelve grandchildren the house was sorted through and my grandparents belongings went to live with each of us. One of my brothers got the matching bedroom set from the thirties, my other brother got the dining room set. Another cousin got the silverware and jewelry.

And I got my grandmother’s sewing machine.

Isn’t it a beaut? I’ve never even heard of Domestic sewing machines!

She taught me how to sew on it. With the old foot paddle. Perfect for a kid with too much energy.

You see, she taught me to sew first. So having it here finally–after so many years is like having her with me. I think she would be delighted to see me still embroidering. I think she’d like it a lot.

It’s not in the best of shape. I don’t think it’s even been dusted since she last touched it. A tad rusty in some parts. I don’t know if it even works yet.  It’s lived in my brother’s basement for so very long. But I’m so glad they kept it for me. Probably not worth more than $50.

Isn’t it amazing the very little things–not the expensive jewelry or the large pieces of family owned furniture that we want to take with us. It’s the small things, isn’t it? I remember my friend Jody talking about the rubber band chicken that she wanted to take from her grandmother’s house when she passes away.  Not some fancy thing, but something that meant so much more.  Just the type of thing that a little girl with big watchful brown eyes sitting in the kitchen of her grandmother’s house would think was the most amazing thing.

I can’t wait to teach my children to sew on it and talk to them about my paternal grandmother. Hopefully soon.

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After 20 years of living at least 2,000 miles away from my immediate family, my brother and his brood are moving 15 minutes away from where I live. I’m so excited. I can actually see my sweet nieces and nephews more than twice a year and really truly get to know them.

I always used to say that I would move “Back East”. I moved around A LOT as a kid. L.A., Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado–all before leaving for college. And those are big moves. And I would always miss what was. And then I took a job in the Bay Area and thought that I would be here for a year or so before moving to places that had a change of seasons.

But here I am in the Bay Area going on my twelfth year, which still amazes me. And looking into buying a house out here and having a child out here and gasp–raising said kid out here too. Still kinda blows me away.

Anyway, I decided to focus on what I remember from my childhood that made me want to always raise my kiddies “Back East”.

1.) Snow Days

2.) Fireflies

3.) That absolute greeness that comes from that glorious denseness of deciduous trees

4.) Cider donuts

5.) Warm summer nights where you can sit outside drinking an icy cold beer

6.) Fall–and the need for cozy sweaters

7.) Cape Cod

8.) New York City museums

9.) Ice skating on a pond

10.) Three bedroom/two bath houses for under $500,000.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not moving back, and I know that I can always visit, but still, there is always that pull…

Are there any ex-pat Back Easters out there that know of a few to add to the list?

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As noted in a recent craft-focused entry, I’m ready to try embroidery.

Like several other sassy crafty blogging lady, yes, I did do some embroidery when I was a little girl.  My grandmother was kind enough to sacrifice a few old pillow cases when I was around eight to my embroidery shenannigans. She taught me the basics one summer evening at her house and I think the rest of my stay was spent on her stoop with an old embroidery hoop.

And my embroidery love affair continued probably into my teens in the form of embroidering pillow cases with my initials after reading in some book about women preparing their trousseaus by embroidering their maiden monograms onto linens. I did mine in pink and green. What a little Prep I was!

And then knitting came into my life in college and I never looked back.

But in an effort to give my arms a break from knitting and still do something crafty, and seeing all of the wonderful examples of embroidery on the Web, I felt a desire to get out the old embroidery hoop again.

So, last Saturday I stopped by this store I’ve passed by almost every day in Alameda called A Needle In a Haystack. It was an embroiderer’s dreamland filled with three different types of embroidery floss, oodles of patterns, different things to embroider and best of all–an incredibly friendly and very helpful staff. Who knew that I was living less than a five minute walk from a craft mecca?  I mean, of course there needs to be yarn stores, but embroidery stores? Pure genius.  And I was determined to leave the store with all of the proper items to start doing those embroidery towels that night. Period.

I planned to just pop into the store for 15 minutes–grab some supplies and go. But instead I left two and a half hours later and $200 poorer. Eek!  I know–appalling, but what’s a gal to do? I was determined to live up to my embroidery goals and have a set of weekly towels ready to roll. And I learned so much too. Did you know that most towels started with more neutral tones on Monday to a full rainbow of colors by Sunday? I didn’t!

Sounds like a great plan, eh? Well, yes. But I was afraid to start my dear flour towels, so instead I started on just doing some misc. cute patterns from that hipster embroidery bible–Sublime Stitching. Fortunately, I remembered all of the stitches from my childhood embroidery with Grandma and started with a scotty dog.

Hmm…. Not bad for the first try. A bit bumbly and heavy handed…

OK, second try–a cat.

Hmmm… Getting better….Trying a few new stitches…

Third try–another kitty… feeling a groove…

I must say this is a lot of fun! And much easier on the old arms… Ahhh!!!  Dare we have another competitor to my knitting true love? I think my heart is big enough to embrace all sorts of crafts. If nothing than to help round me out, if you will. And the potential for incorporating both will be tried! 

So, I’m feeling ready to try my hand at some uber weekday flower sacks.  With cute little bindings made from the darling fabric I showed in that other post with Minnow.

Wish me luck and check out later posts on that…

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