Be*mused

Housekeeping

And so another holiday season draws to a close.  We had a quiet but wonderful week.  Lots of relaxing, eating and several computer videocam visits.

   
Christmas morning, Japan/Christmas Eve, Heartland

Movies, a little shopping, lots of cribbage.

K returned to NYC (graduate school) yesterday.  I hated to see him go, but after a week of holiday indulging on so many levels, we were all ready to resume our routines.  (And reclaim our computers!)  This morning I have the house to myself so I am doing some housecleaning.  Stripping the beds, cleaning out the refrigerator, breaking down holiday boxes and going through accumulated mail.  And catching up on some long overdue blogging.  I've received several wonderful packages over the last couple of weeks!

On the day I was dealing with the contractors over the roof problem, the mailman delivered a package from Carrieoke, who, it turned out, got my name in a sock swap.  They couldn't have arrived on a better day!  She made me these fabulous Lorna's Laces socks in the ever-popular Jaywalker pattern and they are a perfect fit.  I'd been thinking about joining Cara's Jaywalker knitalong but now I don't have to!  (Though these are so nice, I may have to make another pair.) 

Thanks, Carrie!  Perfect fit!

The day before Christmas, a package showed up from my Better Pal.  Before I go any further, I should say that until these two swap situations, I'd been a bit ambivalent about participating in such online swaps.  But I'm getting spoiled!  My BP not only sent some lovely Classic Elite Miracle yarn and needles, but included some rich (I've been warned), dark hot chocolate which I'm putting away for a few weeks as a reward for re-attaining my pre-holiday weight. (Hope springs eternal.)  It should be a perfect antidote for a cold, gray, when-will-winter-ever-end day.  Thanks, Better Pal! 

As if that was not enough, yesterday another package showed up in the mailbox, from Emily.  She had a fun contest this fall for Survivor viewers and I was one of the winners.  Yes, I'm admitting it...I watch Survivor.  (Come on!  I know a lot of you watch and just refuse to 'fess up!)  I got a lot of knitting done this fall *in Guatemala* and it was fun to participate in Emily's weekly contest, as well as to read Blackbird's *insightful* next-day synopsis of each episode.  And look what I won!

This lovely (hard to photograph) dark plummy Fleece Artist merino!  Thanks, Emily...the fall season was a lot of fun because of your contest!  Do you see the notecard she enclosed with the yarn?  That's a photo of one of her many wonderful quilts.  PBS recently visited her home to interview and film her for one of their quilt shows which she wrote about in this very humorous post. 

Last week while the guys were playing cribbage (or something), I ducked out to a yarn sale and came home with some Rowan Wool Cotton in this luscious periwinkle color.  I need a scarf that isn't quite so *wooly-novelty-heavy-long-variegated-whatever* as the ones I have and this weight seems perfect.  This weekend while I consider which more challenging projects I'll tackle though the winter months (mittens are on the list, Sandy, as is a sweater...), I'll be fiddling around with two scarf pattern possibilities.  Another Branching Out, and a version of one that Jane just made.

That's enough housekeeping for today!  (Though I know I'm forgetting something I wanted to say...or show.  Or someone I wanted to mention...she mumbles as she heads to the laundry room.)

Last minute

 

While the turkey was roasting this afternoon, I decided (quite last minute) that although there are only the three of us here today, it just wouldn't be Christmas without making my grandmother's ricotta pie.  I popped it in the oven while we were eating dinner and it's cooling now.  It may be my most perfect one yet!  I also realized that I had neglected to open one gift this morning, a Christmas cracker from Theresa that I've been saving for two weeks.  It popped and out fell the most lovely little enclosures. 

Lavender filled...heavenly!

Thank you, Theresa!  And thank you all who frequent *my house* here at Be*mused.  Your visits, comments and friendships have meant more to me this year than you could imagine.

Merry Christmas!

It's 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve.  The pork pie is baking and we're waiting for Molly to wake up...it's Christmas morning in Japan!  We'll have the Christmas tunes playing and turn on the computer video cameras and will probably open presents, as if she's home.  Certainly not the same, but thank goodness for technology.  I hope you are all enjoying a happy & healthy holiday with family and friends.  And I hope Santa brings you what you asked for!

It's already the 22nd?

I should have seen it coming....that frantic, last minute crush of holiday preparations.  I still think it would've been manageable, even pleasant, in that holiday hustle-and-bustle kind of way, if it hadn't been for the sounds I heard in the computer room ceiling the other day.  I know what you're thinking...I was, too...but actually, I'd like to thank that little critter who was trying to break in last month.  Because if he hadn't sharpened my attention to every subsequent ping and tap, well...shudder.  What I heard were drips, condensation streaming down the roof rafters and dripping onto the ceiling, a result of inadequate ventilation installed during our new roof job in October.  So instead of baking, wrapping and knitting by the tree, I've been emptying closets to access attic spaces, hosting flashlight tours of the frosted, inner roof and arranging for the solution.  The roofers just left, after adding more ventilation, so even though I'm hearing intermittent drips as I type (and my stomach still churns), we've been assured that this should stop within a day or two.  Uh-huh. 

So now I'm playing catch up with the baking and relaxing, but K made it home last night from NYC (transit strike notwithstanding), so I'm happy.  Let the holiday begin!  Saturday, M & I headed out to get a tree, our latest quest ever, and I think I experienced the closest I have ever gotten to a panic attack.  The first two stops had only remnant trees that made Charlie Brown's look ready for Rockefeller Center.  Luckily the third time's the charm, and we found a wonderful frasier fir at a garden center that I had up and decorated by Sunday afternoon.  There are so many memories in our boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations though, it seems to take me longer each year to finish because of the reminiscing.

This is my Christmas stocking, handmade by my aunt when I was just a toddler.  It's made from that wonderful, thick, red felt and highly embellished with beads and sequins.  I love the tinseled, 1950's yarn that forms the top edging.  Can you see how the red has bled into it a bit?  That happened before it reached me.  It was on a train from Texas, heading to New England with several more for cousins when a fire broke out.  Only two of them made it to their destinations.  Lucky me!

We were gifted with a lovely manger set early in our marriage, but it hasn't been displayed since I received my childhood set.  Siblings might say 'got my hands on', but I'm vague on the details.  Heh-heh.  I'm pretty sure it was a case of it coming up in a conversation once and my mother saying, 'That old set?  It's still around here somewhere if you want it.'   A number of the chalkware pieces are original, though the wise men are paint-chipped and plastic.  Clearly added from a selection at Woolworth's in the 1960s, each is marked 15 cents on the bottom (in purple ink...15 inside a circle, from the days before everything had an applied sticker price.)   The plastic rooftop angels look to have arrived from Scandinavia, so I'm sure they were a later addition, as well.  I love the quirky touch they add to the set.  I know this will strike a chord with Blackbird today.  She may not believe it, but I had photographed it for the blog before the drips diverted my attention.  Really!!

The chilled gingerbread batter awaits.

Early resolution

One casualty of my renewed interest in knitting has been my handwork, especially applique and quilting.  Now when I sit down in the evening, I tend to go to the yarn and needles, so easy to pick up and put down.  I have lots of uncompleted applique projects.  So time consuming, they're easy to drift away from when a new project beckons.  The intention is usually just to take a little break, but then...the inevitable.  The project gets moved from the active pile to the sidelines and eventually, to a UFO box.  This week while buzzing around the house, cleaning and decorating, the blank wall along our staircase in the front entryway has been screaming to me for a holiday quilt.  I don't have one completed that would fit the space, but I remembered this in-progress piece that I still really love.  (Why did I move this one to the sidelines, anyway?)  Suffering this week from some sort of holiday ADD (apparently a chronic version), I wandered off from the middle of whatever it was I was doing and proceeded to weed through closets and boxes to find it. 

Based on a design from an antique quilt, I'd long finished the 9 blocks but stalled out when it came time to draft the border designs.  And although part of me wishes it was finished, I have a different, looser design in mind for the borders now which I'll start working on after the holidays with the hope intention of hanging it next December.  For now, the blocks are freshly pressed and lending a festive touch to my sewing room.  And to Be*mused, which has suffered long enough with *Image being restored this weekend*.

FaLaLaLaLa

Knitting just one of these socks as an exercise was a great decision.  I learned so much on this project and although I posted an in-progress shot just a few days ago, I wanted to share some info and urge anyone who's interested in two-color knitting to try something similar.  As you can see in my last photo of it, the body of the stocking grew a bit contorted in the knitting process and definitely needed some blocking.  I wondered if the colors would bleed, but because I was determined to treat this as a practice piece, I charged ahead.  I laid it out dry on a thick towel, smoothed it as well as I could and then covered it with a well-soaked handtowel.  After it had absorbed a bit of the moisture, I smoothed it out more and recovered it.  Several hours later, I flipped it over, repeating the process on the other side.  I couldn't be happier with the results...a good lesson for me to lighten up a little on my projects.  Margene is right...*It's the process!*

One last note.  The toe shaping on this sock is perfect for a Christmas stocking...sort of a pinwheel decrease which was very easy and gives a plump, full look to the toe section.  I'd recommend it even if you're using a different stocking pattern. 

Look who's arrived for the holidays

It's Grandma!  When I saw her on Mimi K's blog last week, I was immediately smitten.  (Always weak in the face of polka dots.)  And she's even more winsome in person.  Thanks, Mimi.  I love her!

So where did a week go?  Probably the same place yours went.  Holiday functions. Wrapping presents. Preparing packages to be sent (which always seems to take at least 3 times longer than I expect). Shopping.  Why do those last few things on the list take so long to find?  Maybe that's why they're the last few things on the list, huh?  I had a spooky, Tippi Hedren moment on Sunday.  We have a large bay window in our kitchen and while standing at the table wrapping gifts, I sensed a commotion outside.

A small suggestion of the frenzy.

Our little tree was being besieged by birds, edging each other out for the berries that remained on its branches after the snow.  I ran to get the camera, but needn't have.  The flurry continued for over an hour, with more and more birds arriving, all zooming off at brief intervals to higher trees, and then divebombing back down for another helping.  Here's the strange thing.  They were mostly big, fat robins, like this guy.  Shouldn't they have flown south by now?   And have you ever seen a flock of robins?

How will we know when spring's arrived if you hang around all winter?

Do you bloggers find it harder to sit down and write a post after it's been a few days?  I accumulate post-it notes on the desk and mental notes (harder to put my hands on sometimes) of things I want to mention and as days pass, it seems to get more difficult to put together a cohesive post.  I have a little stack here, though, so plenty to write about this week.  Today I'm off to the Post Office and then home to finally start decorating.  (The freshly painted dining room was well worth the delay, however.)  The past few weeks I've been relying on this eclectic mix of favorites to put me in the holiday mood.  What are you listening to?

It's beginning to look a lot like...

...a mess around here, actually.  Not much in the way of holiday doin's yet.  M granted me my Christmas wish of a repainted dining room, but it's still in progress (those yellow walls first needed a good coat of primer) which means all of that furniture is currently in the living room.  We never put our tree up until closer to Christmas, but I do usually start decorating a bit a by now so today I put the holiday collar on my possum. *grin*  I'm actually relieved that I hadn't decorated yet because this morning while sipping my coffee & catching up on the blogs, a crashing cacophony alerted me to a sad situation by the fireplace.  A temporarily mounted quilt (brick wall) seemingly did a backflip off the mantle, taking with it a large face jug from my collection.  Smashed to smithereens.  I took a photo, but it's too painful to post, so you get a Christmas possum and a patterned stocking, which is going to be partially ripped back tonight.  I should've thought to lengthen the leg a bit (wanting to use it as a holiday decoration) but at this point, shortening the foot should work as well.

I'm still moving and settling things into new places in my workspaces but can see that this is going to be a huge improvement.  It's exciting!  In my old house, I had a wall of favorite things over my desk area...photos, trip mementos, flea market treasures, beads.  I'd love to wander in & plop myself down, even on days when I was between projects or stuck at some crossroads.  Because just being around all of my favorite *stuff* put me in a good mood and eventually got me moving in a new direction.  Since the move, most of it's still been in boxes.  To be honest, I'm enjoying this more than Christmas decorating.  Yesterday I came across a folder that Molly brought me from Japan last summer.  I love the phrases on the cover.

Can you make out the very last line? 

You cannot do much about the length of your life, but you can do a lot about its depth and width.

 

Another cautionary tale

When we brought our suitcases up to our room at my sister's home at Thanksgiving, the bed was blanketed by the quilt I made for her wedding gift, in 1982.  Well loved and faded now, it's been retired to *guest appearances*, when it can be enjoyed and reminisced over, but preserved somewhat from further deterioration.  I only had a small snapshot of it, taken on the wedding weekend, so I took a few photos of it with the intention of using them as an example here.  If you look closely, you can spot fabric splits (tears) at the bases of several baskets.  See them?  (As usual, you can click for closeups.)

Please ignore the quilted hearts.  It was the 1980s, ok?

If you're a quilter and are using this thread (cotton wrapped polyester) to assemble your tops, stop now!  Because this is what happens as the quilt ages.  The cotton wrap eventually wears away and the polyester core saws at the cotton fabric and perforates it along the seamlines.  This isn't really reparable, because unlike a seam that gives way and can be restitched together, this seamline is now an actual tear...there's nothing to restitch together, barring an overcast stitch.  I doubt there was even much of a selection of all-cotton thread to sew with at the time, but now there's lots available and I'd strongly suggest using it in all of your patchwork projects to protect them from this fate.  I've been converted.

The quilters among you must think I've abandoned my fabric for yarn.  Never!  It's just been easier lately to pick up my knitting because I still haven't fine-tuned my sewing workspace.  I'm lucky to have lots of room, but it came with *challenges*  (lack of good light, slanted ceiling on long wall, etc.) yet to be fully resolved.  Just whined about.  It hasn't helped that I like to have lots of projects going at once...quilts in various stages of progress, piles of fabric in the pipeline for the latest bright ideas, bookmarked periodicals...so lately when I've headed upstairs to sew, after moving stacks of this and heaps of that, I end up losing my enthusiasm for whatever I went up for.  (If I can even remember what that was by then!)  I finally decided that since I'm here alone about 90% of the time, I might as well move some of my *stuff* down the hall to the guest room (squatter's rights).  What took me so long to think of this?  I've set up bookcases and a work table and now have a place to muse, design & plan, away from the sewing machine and fabric.  The proof will be in the pudding...or on the blog.  And maybe soon.  I'm heading up there now.

All-request weekend

Moon girls  (click for closeup)

A mola from my collection, because Kelly likes to see them once in a while.  And the muffin recipe that several of you asked for last week. 

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Apricot Almond Muffins

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup diced dried apricots (I prefer Sun-Maid California sun-dried apricots. I use the full bag.)
• 1/3 cup sliced natural almonds

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

2.  Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.  Stir until well blended.  Add diced apricots, stir, set aside.

3.  In separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, melted butter, egg and vanilla.  Add the liquid ingredients all at once and fold until evenly moistened.  Don't overmix! (The key to perfect muffins!)

4.  Divide the batter evenly among a dozen prepared muffin cups. (Butter or line with paper muffin liners.)  Sprinkle the almonds evenly on the tops.  Bake until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean.  (20-22 minutes.)

5.  Cool on a wire rack before removing from pan.   Yield: 12 muffins.