Winter Wonderland, Day Two

It did finally stop snowing last night, and we've probably got around two feet on the ground here. It's deeper in some spots than others, but here's an idea of how deep it was in our backyard. Here's what the front of the house looked like this morning. Here's a look across our back yard and out over the neighboring pasture. And this is from the top of our driveway, looking up the road, which wasn't plowed until just before noon today. Here are a few more random shots I took around here today.


Once the road got plowed, the sons got to work trying to create a monster mountain of snow in which they could excavate tunnels and more. And once the mound of snow was done, what better to do than jump off it?


The sons are hoping that the top and sides of the mound will be frozen over enough tomorrow that they can start tunneling in. They did this more than a few years ago, when they were in elementary school, and have been waiting for a chance to do it again. In that respect, this snow couldn't have come at a better time.

With the road's having been plowed, we should be able to get out and about a bit tomorrow. The dog has an appointment with the vet, and younger son has to drop a writing portfolio off at the university. The gym is supposed to open late tomorrow, so we're hoping to be able to make it to one last kendo class before Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, we could be having more of the white stuff falling then. If that happens, I just hope it's fluffy white stuff as this was and not the wet, slippery white stuff this might have been.

Winter Wanders In

Winter doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but if you've watched the national news today, you've seen that it's already made an entrance here. In fact, CNN was using footage from here, Charlottesville, VA, to accompany one of their stories this morning. I'll spare you the long story of our trip home last night except to say that I had the very good sense to (1) marry a Canadian and (2) have a midlife crisis that involved purchasing a four-wheel drive vehicle (a Honda Element) rather than a sports car. I also had the good sense to heed the forecasts and do my normal Saturday grocery shopping Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. The last semi-official measurement here at my house (using one of my long quilting rulers) was 22 inches; other places in the area have reported over 30 inches. The measurement here was taken about five hours ago and ... drum roll ... it's still snowing. The winter storm warning doesn't end until tomorrow morning. While we made it back last night, late last night, it's not clear when we'll make it out again. The husband tried to get out today to respond to a call for four-wheel-drive vehicles to help get medical personnel to and from the hospitals, but the snow on the subdivision road was too deep. He said the front of the Element just piled it up until he could no longer plow through it. Four-wheel drive or not, it looks as though we're not going anywhere until someone plows the subdivision, which won't happen until the snow stops falling at the earliest.

Here's some shots, most of which I will admit to having taken through windows. I did take a couple shots outside but didn't want the camera to get too wet. Here's a series looking out our back door to the deck. I took the first one last night, around midnight, and the others at various points throughout today. Since I took them through the window on the door, there's a reflection of the living room in the background, especially in the first one.

Some other random shots. See the large rectangular pile of snow here? That's my mom's Saturn station wagon after the snow creeping down along the side met the snow piling up from the driveway. Here's the heat pump masquerading as a conehead, though the costume didn't last for long.
That's older son doing the honors. He also helped keep the front porch stocked with firewood. Older son also saw to it that the resident canine, a German shepherd-corgi-chow mix, got a walk even if it meant blazing a trail for him through the snow. There's a good chance that at least some of the snow will still be around for Christmas. And the long-range forecast has the possibility of more snow coming Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. That would be a major thrill because, needless to say, we don't get many white Christmases here in Central Virginia. Fingers crossed, and I'll try to let you know if we get one.

A Few Creative Bits and Pieces

Time to tie up a couple of loose ends on the creative front. I mentioned a while back making a muff for a friend out of yarn she had spun and dyed using natural dyes. I finished the muff and had so much yarn left that I decided to make a matching hat ... and not just any hat, but an absurdly long hat. I actually still have enough yarn left to do something else but draw the line at knitting mittens or gloves. If there were enough yarn left for leg warmers, I'd probably do those, but I don't think there's quite enough. Here's the muff and hat; the back of the recliner should give a reference for the length of the hat. I can't recall if I mentioned making purses out of bras here; I know I mentioned it in a quilting e-mail group to which I belong. I've made two of these and have the makings for more thanks to a stop at the local SPCA's rummage store. Here are a couple of photos of the first one I made.
I try to use as much of the bra as I can. On this one, the handle is made out of the bra straps. The only things that didn't come from the bra are the flower embellishments and the snaps that hold the top shut. On the other one I made, out of a pink bra, I actually used the hooks and eyes from the back of the bra to hold the top shut. I made that one for the woman I partnered with at the black belt test, finishing it the day before the test, and forgetting to photograph it before I wrapped it.

Finally, I can't recall if I've mentioned my making earrings out of rabies tags here, but I designed a special pair for Christmas--two green bells and one red heart for each ear. They were quite the hit at my office's Christmas party, though no one noticed them at all at the husband's office party. Or perhaps the physicists at the husband's party were just two stunned to ask about them. Here they are, in situ and in a close-up.
The current creative endeavors include a shawl that I'm making out of a yarn I ordered from New Zealand. It's 60 percent wool and 40 percent New Zealand possum. I also hit the Christmas open house at my friendly neighborhood sheep farm last weekend and was drawn to some incredibly bright orange wool. I've started knitting that into a raglan-sleeved sweater that I hope to finish in time to wear this winter. And speaking of winter, the post I'm planning to do tonight will show its rather dramatic entrance just a couple of days ahead of its official Solstice start.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Not to mention, the days! Here it is the middle of December, and my last post was on Halloween. Bad blogger, Jean! Bad!

I at least have good excuses for several of the periods of silence. This time of year, I normally work gainfully for only a few hours each week; however, with the departure of another staff member at my university office, I took on responsibility for responses to surveys from all the various and sundry college guides. As a result, I've worked a bit more than halftime for the last several weeks. The increased paychecks are certainly nice this time of year: Besides Christmas, spring tuition, room, and board are due for younger son in early January, not to mention the annual car insurance premium due at the middle of the month.

In terms of my silence in November, I offer this photo as defense exhibit 1. That's me on the left with the blurred hand. I have a black and white version of this photo but am using the color one so that there's no confusion over the color of the belts these folks are wearing. Yes, they're black. The annual Myo Sim black belt rank exam was on November 21, and I was one of the four people testing for first-degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo. In practical terms, this meant that I spent the fall being in the dojo practicing either kendo or karate for two to three hours every weeknight as well as every Sunday morning for three to four hours. Saturday was my "day off," on which I only did a half hour or so of cardio. This level of training was not a mandated one, but one I chose in order to be as prepared as possible for the test. If you zoom in on the photo and look at the faces, you'll probably notice some wrinkles in my face that aren't there in the faces of the other three people. Their combined ages totaled only about seven years over my own, singular age. I figured that what I lacked in age, I could make up for in preparation. I think it worked.

I have to admit that getting my black belt probably was a bigger accomplishment to me than even getting my PhD; I at least had much more of a rush after the black belt exam than I did after my doctoral orals. I didn't cry tears of sheer happiness then, but I did after I went through the line of master instructors and got my certificate and belt. When I started grad school and throughout it, earning the PhD was something I almost took for granted. I'd always done well at academic work; why wouldn't I finish it? When I started studying kendo almost four years ago, I wasn't even thinking about a black belt someday. Only after I got my brown belt did it really start seeming like a possibility. I did not, however, expect to be invited to test this year after being gone for two months on the Grand Adventure to Hue and back. I came back from the trip thinking that I would not be considered for the black belt exam but that if I was told I would be considered then I would do everything I could to be at the needed level. From the point at which I was told that I was under consideration for the exam, I worked my butt off. I ended up being invited to test, and although all four of us made various mistakes on the exam, I don't think I was by any means the weak link among the four who tested.

I should also note that, at the same black belt rank exam, older son tested for and earned his third-degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo. He's not big on being praised for such things, though, so I won't say too much more here. I will say, though, that I felt much more comfortable with his being "on stage" along with me at the exam. Having been through several black belt exams, he was able to give me the insight scoop on what to expect, which really helped me feel ready when the exam rolled around.

Finally, to catch up on a loose end from my earlier posts, the cabin quilt, Sibling Revelry, made it to Norway via the husband's early November trip to Sweden. I put a note on the outside of the box that held the quilt asking them not to open the box until they were together at the cabin. They did, and sent this photo along with their thank you. They're standing on the porch of the sauna house. In the image I made for the quilt, the white diagonal on the left side of the cabin is actually one side of the roof of the sauna house. The man to the left behind the quilt is one of the brothers for whom the quilt was made. Needless to say, they really loved it and said that they will give it a place of honor in the cabin. It makes me very happy to see my quilt babies go out into the world into good homes, hands, and hearts.

Hauntingly

I just realized that my most recent post was on 1 October, and here we are at Halloween. Time flies, I guess, when one is busy. There was much I could have blogged about in terms of my quilt-making to build on the previous Creative Process posts. If I had, though, the quilt in question, "Sibling Revelry," might not now be in a suitcase on board a plane and bound, eventually, for Lund, Sweden. Younger son pointed out to me about the time of my last post here that it would be far cheaper for the quilt to be mailed from Sweden when the husband was at a meeting there than mailed from here. I don't know how much it will cost to mail if from Sweden, but I imagine it will be cheaper than the $53.80 that a flat rate international box from here would cost. Getting it done was a bit of a challenge, but I did, with time to spare and without cutting too many corners. I might have done more elaborate quilting had I had more time, but I am not at all displeased with the quilting I did have time for. While the husband is gone, I will try to post the finishing steps of the process along with photos.

In the meantime, remember the Amazing Thing I was going to felt? It shrank from something that ran the length of my foyer to something that fits nicely on my couch. It actually ended up being too heavy to use to make a bag for my swords. Also, after napping under it, both the husband and older son urged me to leave it as it is. So I am.

And do you remember the very large jacket I planned to felt? It's shown in this post, though I still despair at how old I look in the photo. And here it is, felted, with buttons added, ready to wear. For those of you who might be wondering about the background, that's older son's wall to wall to ceiling bookcase. Here's a closer-up shot of the jacket. I managed to felt it just enough to fit me nicely. It did shrink a bit more on the length dimension than I expected, so if I make it again I will likely knit the body a few inches longer. I've worn it several times and gotten several compliments on it. It also goes quite nicely with a scarf I knitted as a possible Christmas present, so nicely that the scarf became a present to myself.

Now that the quilt is done, I'm moving on to other creative endeavors. I've pulled from the shelf a quilt sandwich (that's the top, batting, and backing together before the quilting is done) that I think I'm finally ready to quilt. I believe I pieced the top maybe eight years ago but didn't feel ready to quilt it then. Unlike almost every other quilt I've made, I made this one for me. The fabric was hand-dyed by a friend to my requested colors and shades. My brother-in-law has hinted strongly that he wants this one, so I guess I'll add a line to the letter that accompanies our will in regard to select personal belongings. That's right; he'll get it over my dead body. I've got a bag about knitted that will be felted into something about the size of a brown paper grocery bag. It's purple and light blue, in a wool-mohair blend. It will fuzz nicely, I think, when it's felted. I made a hat and muff as Christmas presents; I still need to sew the seam on the hat to finish it. Finally, I'm making a bra purse, which is what it sounds like, a purse made out of a bra. Yes, pictures will be forthcoming when I finish the first one, along with pictures of the other things I just mentioned. More immediately, though, I'm going to go fetch the laundry from the basement and curl up on the couch, perhaps even under the Amazing Thing, and nurse the cold that's claimed my voice and been otherwise vexing me for a couple of days.

National Book Festival 2009

The National Book Festival was last September 26, and the conscientious bloggers (I won't name names) who were there put their posts up the next day. In the "better late than never" vein, here's my post. Last year was my first National Book Festival trip thanks to older son who wanted to hear and have a book signed by Neil Gaiman. This year's trip was with a friend who lives in Northern Virginia, the delightful young lady who walked across the stage at high school graduation immediately in front of older son. There were a number of authors there this year that sounded interesting: David Baldacci, Judy Blume, Ken Burns, Annette Gordon-Reed, John Grisham, Gwen Ifill, John Irving, Steven Kellogg, Sue Monk Kidd, Mark Kurlansky, Lois Lowry, George Pelecanos, Jon Scieszka, and Daniel Silva. As it turns out, I heard only one of the people listed above speak, but discovered several other authors whose books are winging their way to me even as I type or from whose presentation I garnered an idea worth remembering.

After arriving at the festival, we looked in at several tents. John Grisham was standing room only at the Fiction & Fantasy tent. We didn't stop to hear him. Besides the crowd, he lives here in Charlottesville, so it didn't seem all that much of a novelty to hear him speak. We ended up in the Teens & Children tent, listening to Liz Kessler, the author of the middle-grades Emily Windsnap series. Emily is a girl while she is on land but, in the water, turns into a mermaid. The fourth Emily Windsnap book has already come out in Britain (Kessler is English) and will be out here in the States in March. I thought it nice that all the people who asked Kessler questions after her talk were young girls who had read her books. One asked whether Kessler had patterned the Emily character at all after herself. Kessler answered by saying not intentionally but went on to say that Margaret Atwood once noted that "there's always a drop of blood in the cooking." What an interesting way to express that we, without intending to, reflect something of ourselves in everything we write.

We checked out the Borders booktent (if a bookstore is a store that sells book, then a booktent is a tent that does the same), but the line to pay for the book(s) selected was overwhelmingly long. Last year, the booktent was the only place to buy an advance copy of The Graveyard Book (which has now been on the New York Times bestseller list for 52 weeks, which means pie!) The books we would have purchased were already on the market. It honestly looked as though we could have used my friend's iPhone to locate a nearby bookstore, walk there, any buy the books before we could have made it through the line at the booktent. In my case, Borders's loss was Amazon.com's gain.

As you might imagine, the Festival catered to all ages. Here are a couple of examples. This was one of the many activities inside or around one of the children's tents, though it wasn't just children who were contributing to this mural. There were various costumed characters circulating. I would have gotten my photo taken with Curious George if the line had been shorter. There was a free-range penguin, though.
After a quick lunch from the vegetarian food booth, we found ourselves in the Fiction & Fantasy tent listening to Jeanette Walls, another author with whom I was totally unfamiliar. She spoke about her difficulty in writing pure fiction but her ease in writing memoirs that read like novels. I've ordered Walls's The Glass Castle, her memoir of her painful childhood. During the question period, a librarian related the story of how a teacher at his school had, for three years, read The Glass Castle out loud to her classes over the course of the year, commenting how it had touched the lives of the students, most of whom came from disadvantaged backgrounds similar to that of Walls. Walls was teary as she thanked the man for relating the story. We had actually come to hear Walls only because of the speaker who followed in Fiction & Fantasy, but I was very glad that we heard her.

The speaker we had come to Fiction & Fantasy to hear was Sabiha Al Khemir, a Tunisian-born author. According to the Festival program, "her second novel, The Blue Manuscript (2008), focuses on the interaction of Western and Islamic cultures." My friend is a dual US-Saudi citizen but had never heard of this author. In fact, the book we both put back on the table after seeing the line in the booktent was The Blue Manuscript; I've now got it on order from Amazon.com. Al Khemir talked about how her work as an Islamic art historian had influenced her writing. She also touched on the difficulties inherent in translating fiction into another language while retaining the subtleties of the original work. My friend is looking forward to reading The Blue Manuscript in both languages; I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say about it.

There was no one we really wanted to hear immediately after Al Khemir, and it was raining, so we went across the street to the National Museum of American History for coffee and a bit of indoor sightseeing. In an exhibit case right outside the coffee shop was this interesting item. It's a Torah ark decoration from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Of course, my friend and I, both being a bit geeky, immediately turned to one another, flashed the Vulcan hand sign, and said, "Live long and prosper." Older son did a bit of research after I called him with the news and reported that Leonard Nimoy created the Vulcan hand salute based on a Orthodox Jewish blessing he had seen as a child. You learn something new every day!

We returned to the Festival wanting to hear Ken Burns speak in the History & Biography tent. We arrived in time for the speakers right before Burns, Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, thinking that we might grab seats in between the speakers. Unfortunately, all the people there to hear Balz and Johnson also wanted to hear Burns and his co-author Dayton Duncan. It didn't matter, though, because even though we could barely see Burns and Duncan, we could hear them just fine. They spoke on their new PBS series on the National Parks. The sound bite I took away from their talk to throw out at cocktail parties or as the need arises concerns their use of music in their documentaries. Burns noted that most films are "locked" or visually finished before any music is recorded for them. For their documentaries, though, Burns and Duncan have all sorts of potentially relevant music recorded ahead of time and often in multiple versions. Later, as they are putting together the visual record, they actively work with the music. If there is a musical piece that merits longer play, then they tailor the visuals around the longer play. Definitely high on the list of neat things to know.

After Burns and Duncan, the Festival was over, so we returned to the car for a rather eventful drive back to the Fairfax area in which my friend lives. By this time, it was raining fairly heavily, making it just the right time for the passenger-side windshield wiper to break free from the arm and dangle, useless, against the windshield. We stopped three times so I could hop out and reset it, after which it held for just a while before it popped loose again. We did make it to Moby Dick's House of Kabob safely, where we had a wonderful chicken dish. (Older son was, I think, a bit disappointed to hear that there was no Call Me Fish Meal at Moby's.) After dinner, and a cup of tea at my friend's apartment, I made the drive home in the dark and rain. It was worth it, though, because it was another wonderful day at the National Book Festival. And now to wait for next year's!

The Creative Process, IX

The top of the cabin quilt is done. If that's not enough, the quilt has named itself. I usually find that the name of a quilt comes to me without much conscious thought, and that was the case with this one. I just have to hope that the English language skills of the Norwegian brothers to whom the quilt is going are such that they get the humor. What better name for a quilt destined for a mountain cabin owned by brothers than "Sibling Revelry." That said, I still need to pin the layers of the quilt together, which is not an easy task and, then, quilt it and do the binding. It's not done yet, and it won't be for a while. But here's the top, a bit less than six feet by six feet. If I were making this quilt again, I would make the cabin image smaller and more subtle. I'm not about to change it now, though. Somehow, I find it difficult to imagine that the recipients will look at this and say, "Gee, it would have looked a lot better if the cabin image were smaller."

The creative work isn't over yet, because I still have to quilt this. I'm thinking of doing some black lines on the porch to acentuate the diagonal direction of the boards. The original photo had space between the boards, which I did not show here, and the black lines might serve as a reasonable replacement. I may quilt some detail into the grass at the base of the cabin of the trees to each side. We shall see. When it's done, I'll try to post some close-up shots that show what I did. In the meantime, I need to piece the backing and then do the layering and pinning. I've already cut the binding strips though I have yet to sew them together and press them.

Since it also comes under the creative heading, I have finished working in all the loose yarn ends on what I called "the amazing thing" in an earlier post. Here is it, finished and laid out in my foyer. For reference, it is approximately 9.5 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. Next up is felting/fulling it. If you're not familiar with the process, I'll put it in the washer, with detergent, on a hot temperature but low volume setting, with a couple pairs of old blue jeans and let the heat, soap, and agitation shrink it. I'll stop and restart the process until it has shrunk to an acceptable degree, after which I'll let the wash cycle finish. Then, if it's shrunk to appropriate dimensions, I'll see if I can craft a sword bag out of it. If it's too large, I'll see if I can shrink it some more. If it's too small (which I doubt it will be), I'll use it as a rug or throw. Hey, there's always a use for things like that around here.

My newest project is a muff. Remember muffs? They look like a tube. Your hands go inside and stay warm. My friend the artist and art teacher gave me a rather large bag of yarn she spun and dyed years ago but never used. Because I think the yarn should go back to her, I wanted to make her something that showed off all the different kinds of yarn. Here's the pattern I'm using. It's not going to use up all the yarn, so I may try to make three, one for my friend the artist and art teacher and one for each of her lovely daughters. The muffs are knitted on circular needles, and the first one is knitting up fairly quickly.

Finally, coming up in two weeks is the Fall Fiber Festival at Montpelier, home of James Madison. I'll be working there on Saturday, at the booth of Mangham Manor, my friendly neighborhood sheep farm. I'm not a bad salesperson when it comes to a product I believe in, such as Girl Scout cookies or Mangham Manor yarn. I will take various bags, shawls, and a sweater that I have knitted with their yarn, which reminds me that I really need to felt the jacket I mentioned in the last post, since that's also made from their yarn. The best part? I work for fiber, which means that I may well leave with all the yarn I can handle for the next year if I hadn't just discovered New Zealand possum yarn, which I absolutely must have just for the heck of it. I'm going to order some of that right now, as soon as I proofread this post and publish it.