Taueret

screw this, and screw you.

not YOU!

Them.

I don't want to bog down my blog (with its several posts a year!) with a lot of personal breastbeating or robe rending, and least of all teeth gnashing.  However, I find myself at a junction in whatever this journey is I am on, and since it impacts directly on my creative direction, it's relevant to this...place.  The realisations that I really only need one of my outside-the-home (paid) jobs, and that I am far too old to settle happily into a 'career' where one is treated very, very badly for very, very little money combine to find me resigning from one part-time gig, and very grateful to still have the other.

Another realisation is that I really, really want to use the free time I am lucky enough to have to pursue my creative interests, not to accumulate more money, which I don't *need* (my husband might disagree, but I'm sure he will never read this). 

Furthermore... I could probably exchange at least some of the time I want to spend pursuing my creative pursuits (heh heh) for money- as I'm sure if I put my back into it, I could get my Etsy store up and stocked again.  So- I think for the next little while I will try to take a more productive (not production, but not as random and aimless as is my norm) approach to my making.  I'm going to start using sterling silver in my jewellry, so that it is saleable at the end, rather than just another practice piece I get to stockpile.  I know the jewellry market is very, very full, but I have a few ideas that may set me slightly apart from the general mass of sellers.  Or maybe not.  It's not like it costs a lot to find out. I'm going to just get back to my original interests, and see what happens.

Also, I'm going to get busy weaving, because I love it and miss it.  And maybe I can sell a few pieces along the way.

And I'm not going to worry about "working" (for someone else) more than I already do.

7 things (to hate about me)

Ann tagged me some time ago for what I think I recall was the '7 things' meme- you know, 7 fascinating facts about moi that you may not already know.  If I have the meme wrong, too bad, I am still doing 7 things.  I've been kind of background-pondering what I could offer you that isn't too boring or TMI, and let me tell you, it's slim pickings.

1) I will read almost everything, but I hardly ever really love anything I read.  The best description of my affliction comes from that silly kids' movie Ratatouille.  There's this infamous food critic who visits the restaurant, and he's cadaverous in appearance.  Someone quips to him "you're awfully thin for someone who likes food"  and he replies "I don't like food.  I LOVE food, and if I don't LOVE it, I don't swallow."  Pretty much sums it up, in essence (err, only, books?).

2)  Sometimes I tweet back to Mars Phoenix.  Yes, that is insane.

3)  I like to cook, but detest coming up with menus (by menus, I mean a weeks' worth of meals and the corresponding shopping list).  My family, when asked what they'd like, inevitably say the same things (husband: "quiche"  son: "chicken a la fiona*"  daughter: masagna! (sic).  If I cooked what they ask for every week, they'd be hiding it under the living room rug (I know this, because it has happened.).  This *is* a thinly veiled request for you all to barrage me with recipes.  They must not involve cans of cream of anything soup.

Ugh, I think that's enough for one day- I'm just not that interesting.  If I think of another 4 THINGS I will let you know.  Here's a snap of the current progress on the Luna Moth Shawl:

why yes, that *is* a lifeline.  Put in before catastrophe.  Even a worm learns!

*chicken a la Fiona:  this recipe is so simple and a guaranteed pleaser of anyone who will eat chicken.  It is also the only recipe I can think of that I use soup mix in- funny eh after my snobbery in item 3.

Chicken thigh fillets (you could use breast).  Cut into about thirds.  Mix tomato soup powder (yes) and plain greek style yogurt.  Coat chicken pieces in yogurt mix.  Roll in breadcrumbs.  Bake.  Fiona's original instruction was to spray it with olive oil... but I never do.  Crazy to say it, but this recipe never fails to please... anyone.  Serve with baked sweet potato pieces and green beans (also baked if you like).

Look at me being festive.

I got a full-width warp onto the floor loom, with the idea that I'd have fun doing some Saori-inspired freeform stuff.  But I didn't, and I don't much care for what I did instead:

So I guess I cut it off and call it a sample.  Somehow the freeform mixed weft etc only looks right to me in plain weave.  This is threaded 1234321 so I don't know what to do next! (Someone said they wanted to hear about my failures? well... ).

Anyway.  I also had a delusion that I'd make each of the girls and my nephew a quick quilt for Xmas.  None of the little ones have quilts, I kind of stopped making them when middle girl was born.  I cut out the 95 million squares (they're going to be more or less i-spy quilts) and now I have to sit down and piece them.  Maybe tomorrow.

 Lately I have been thinking that I want to make THE HOLIDAY SEASON fun for my kids- rather than just have a stressful countdown to one morning of greed followed by anticlimax.  Lo and behold, this blog is all about that very idea.  We're going to do Sister Diane's salt dough ornaments one day soon.  Today we baked Pfefferneusen and made the dough for ...I forget --ukrainain honey cookies (see photo below for reactions to the baking experience)? 

Christmas in Australia is weird (seems weird to me, having spent my childhood in the snowy northern hemisphere).  It's hot.  All the foods I associate with holidays are inappropriate here, in December.  We still eat them, as do many birthright Aussies, but it always seems crazy to be roasting beef (in our case) when it's 40 degrees C out.  Here in exile, especially with my mum gone, and my dad and his wife mostly having chosen to spend Xmas as far away from the kids and grandkids as they could get, it's become a time of year that just isn't that joyous for me. 

But since I have these kids, I am TRYING to make my own way now, make some traditions that they may one day find they have fond memories of, although they are in no way derived from any holiday traditions in my family, which were mostly based around extended family.  It's hard work but I'm hoping that some of these practices may gain momentum and start to take on a life of their own.  Already my 5 year old is saying that she wants things to be "the same as last Christmas" which I guess is nice.  So, we are having the same things, but adding a few new ones too to see if any stick.

10,000 hours

I've been listening to an unabridged audiobook version of Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book "Outliers".  Super, super interesting, and he has a way of explaining things that even I can follow.  If you have Audible credits to spend, I highly recommend it.  One major point he makes early in the book (in a nutshell) is that to become good at something- really good, virtuoso good, you "only" have to spend 10,000 hours practicing it.  Talent or IQ matters little, above a certain modest threshold.  What counts is the amount of time spent in pursuit.  Whether it's music (he uses the Beatles and Mozart as examples and explains each), sport, technology- whatever- it's that 10,000 hours that matters.  That boils down to 3-4 hours a day for about 10 years.  So you know- as that applies to weaving... huh!  Interesting eh.  What do you virtuoso weavers think of the 10,000 hour thing?  Does your experience bear it out?  I feel a bit better since I imagine I am still at the 50-100 hour mark, so shouldn't expect too much.  There is loads of other fascinating, eye opening stuff in this book and I really recommend it, the 10,000 hour thing is just one nugget.

(You may be aware that some ISPs in the USA are talking about introducing bandwidth caps for your home broadband.  You’d be cut off or “shaped” (slowed down) after you hit the cap.  The caps I have heard bandied about are like 250 G.  Here, in Australia, we are all capped.  We pay for “unlimited bandwidth” but guess how much that means?  A Massive 25 G.  Yes 25.   This month we have exceeded our cap and we are choked currently down to slower-than-dialup speed.  3G on my iphone is faster!  So the photo content in this post may be small).

Anywhoo, I did get a warp onto my floor loom that didn't go *horribly* awry.  It's not super fine weaving yarn and it's only as long as my project but hey.

 

I spun this yarn last year (?) and really love it.  I started to knit with it and was unsure if I’d have enough for a wrap, which is what I want, so I decided to weave instead using it as weft.  I am loving this- I know it wouldn't be to everyone’s taste but it is to mine and it makes me happy.  I’m using a simple 4 shaft waffle weave (same as for the towels I made a while back on the table loom).  I think the texture will barely show in the highly textured yarn but I thought it might give the wrap a kind of cushyness.  We’ll see! 

 

I am looking forward to receiving the present that I suspect may be coming my way- look what was in the post the other day! 

So my back to front warping woes may soon be at an end.  After I spend that crucial 10,000 hours practicing of course.

exhale.

Well, I'm going through one of my 'why blog' phases. Seems like everything I touch creatively turns to poo- and finding time to perform even that  noxious alchemy is nigh impossible.  My warps- my fine warps anyway, have just been horrible.  I need to go back to basics.  I need a video that shows warping back to front (suggestions?).  I need to just put a fat warp on SOME loom, even my rigid heddle and just weave something that I think is beautiful.

Instead, I've been lurching through the end-of the-school-year shuffle.  My 5 year old, my baby was the main character in her school play.  A cast of nearly 600 kids and they had to pick my tiny little kid to be up there, talking and singing and being cute.  It sounds nice but it wasn't, it was horrible.  She was awesome- but I swear it took 10 years off my life.  Rehersals for this "spectacular" (and it really was) have taken up so much of her year- and I have worried about it every minute.  It just seems like a LOT of responsibility for someone who can't tie her shoes to have on her shoulders.  That all sounds so negative.  Sorry.  She was awesome and the play (all 4 showings to over 1000 people, apparently) was a huge success- but man!  Stressful.  When we get the dvd (the school is having a dvd produced, we weren't allowed to video) I might put  some clips on youtube for your amusement.

Her teacher is leaving the school to ascend to a deputy principal post in Sydney.  Great for her career, and she deserves it, but sad for our school.  A mum in T's class asked me, when we were lining up for the play, actually, if I had any ideas for a goodbye present.  I foolishly said "how about a quilt".  Lickety split, can you guess what I've been working on since?  

Pretty funny- I haven't made a quilt in about 6 or 7 years but I am really enjoying the process.  We sneakily got the handprints of all 20 kids in the class (in green silkscreen paint) on squares of muslin/calico/homespun (depsnding on what you call it).  I'm embroidering the kids' first names across the palms of each hand, and then assembling it all into a lap quilt with some strip-pieced sashing in stacks of greens, oranges and yellows.  I guess I'll get everyone to hand stitch some of the quilting (or maybe sew on buttons as an embellishment?).  So many willing helpers, none of whom can sew!  It's all good, it's keeping me busy and maybe I'll be ready to try another linen warp when I'm done.

Manifest Obama!

Take a moment to picture it! Time to stop imagining the scary, scary things that keep a lot of us awake at night. Manifest Obama.

a good hat these days is hard to find.

So you know how you want to FIX things when people are sick?  I love all the beautiful shawls and wraps fibre people create for their ailing loved ones (or for strangers!) but I know I'd never manage one- I'd buy the yarn, and cast on, and my stitch count would be off on row three and I'd put it down in disgust never to return.  Maybe at some point I will weave a wrap, maybe not.  I feel like maybe I wove Red Riding Hood for this occasion.  Not sure yet.  Anyway, my friend's news hasn't been good, the beast is in her lymph nodes (which they took out) so she'll have to have the works- in addition to the radical mastectomy, she'll also need chemo and radiation and hormone therapy.  Too much to take in.  I saw her yesterday and she was upbeat and we laughed a lot and cried a little- I can't imagine how she's faring today.  Because I was hoping to ward off the need for chemo, I started knitting hats a couple days ago. Knitting a hat that doesn't *look* like a chemo beanie or make the wearer look deranged is not easy:

MROWR! ok, i *am* deranged, and the offical kittyville hat (from 'Stitch and Bitch' by Deb Stoller) is super cute, and I can imagine it on my friend. 

Then there's the "floppy brimmed hat" for which I lost the pattern and winged it and made something more like what the baddies used to wear in Batman comic books when I was a kid:

ha!  Do you now understand why I force my teenaged son to model my wraps etc in my Etsy store?  LOL.

I rejected this slouchy beret today (Hot Cross Slouch Beret, interweave crochet winter 2007)

because 1) I can't actually crochet (I can do the stitches but that isn't the same thing) 2) the BEAUTIFUL hand dyed sock yarn I was going to use somehow becomes the ultimate in baglady chic when crocheted up.  I guess it will have to become a pair of Jaywalkers like I always planned.

So, if you have a hat pattern or know of one, free or for pay, that you think would make an awesome chemo hat for a youngish woman, please suggest it- I'm working in cotton because it's getting hot here now.  I am searching Ravelry of course but I always like suggestions from friends best.

I also visited my dad (who has been in the hospital since March, complications following a double knee replacement) who is so much better- which is great.  He is still so frail (which he wasn't before his surgery, but I won't get into that) but he has his old sense of humour more or less back.  Thank goodness.

oh- housekeeping- Typepad used to aways email me when I got a comment, so I would usually reply in email.  These days that's hardly ever happening, so that's why I am hardly ever repying in email any more.  I am replying in the comments thread, though!  Just wanted to mention that in case anyone had noticed the change in habit and wondered why. 

thank you notes (very little fibre content- be warned)

This post isn't a thank you note.  Sometimes though, life's  little formalities (like thank you notes) can keep you moving in the right direction, when you just want to sit down, wherever you are, like a little kid who's had a big day, and cry.  Keep moving, keep breathing, write the thank you note, or the blog post.  Act normal and then maybe things will be normal again.  Here's a normal looking picture.

Recently, doesn't it just seem like the bottom has fallen out of things?  Don't be scared- this isn't meant to be cryptically dire.  I am okay!  But do you feel that way? As teenager during the Cold War, I used to lay awake at night and worry- I'm doing it again.  I guess what I'm experiencing is anxiety, but it seems to me that it would be more abnormal *not* to be anxious, right now.  When I was 17 I used to get up at night sometimes and turn on the TV- just having it come on and have normal programming reassured me enough that I could go back to bed.  These days I wake at 2, 3, 4 in the morning and I grab my iPhone and to to my iGoogle page with all my news feeds- ok, the world is still there.  Of course then I stll can't sleep, because even if annihilation is not immanent, the global political and environmental slow cooker is still stewing away, and I now know that Pakistan has fired on US helicopters, and that once Georgia is part of NATO, we're (we?  Is Australia part of NATO?  I guess not, but you can bet your bippy that we would buy into any conflict involving our 'great and powerful friend') committed to her defence- I don't even *get* to fret about global warming most nights, it's so far down the list, in the "we should be so lucky" category.

I made a very bad mistake recently of reading "the Road" by Cormac McArthy.  Holy. Crap.  An amazing book, but I so wish I could travel back in time and NOT READ IT!   Already being perpetually worried, I did not need to provide myself with an illustration of exactly how bad things could get.  It really is a book that could save the world, but only if the people who aren't already scared read it.  I did not need to.

Additionally (this should really be first- in terms of importance, but chronologically it comes last, as a giant suffocating featherbed atop the haystack of my fears) a dear friend (well, technically my sister's friend, but you know how it is?- a woman I have known for decades, and who I have always taken for granted as a part of my family) was diagnosed with second stage breast cancer at the age of what, 38? She is a single mum of a young son, and I cant even imagine how terrified she must be right now.  My frisson of empathic terror is more than I can deal with- what must she be feeling?  I wish I could, as Elizabeth Zimmerman advises, "knit on" through all this- but I can't seem to calm the wild panicking herd of buffalo who have gone on a stampede through my system long enough to produce a wonderful knitted gift for my friend.  I suck! At least my house is clean, that's all I can seem to focus on- flitting around, vacuuming stuff.

That's all- I am "fine", please don't worry.  This post is by way of assuming a normal attitude, which I do not have right now, hoping that  will grow into one.
 

Why blog?

I'm editing my own post, before I release it into the wild to add a couple of things.  I have the flu (bye, person who hates any mention of illness whatsoever in a blog).  I've been more or less flat on my back all week with it, and even my husband, who normally only takes like 3 days off -when I have a freaking BABY- has been staying home to look after me.  So I'm all un-intelligent and kind of scrambled in an unappealling way.  My sore throat is keeping me awake at night, and hwen I fall asleep I have annoyingly terrifying nightmares about a pulp horror video called "WaRpEd"- the story of a haunted loom.  The video in my dream has Nicole Kidman screaming on the cover.  My husband cracked that a possessed loom would take about 3 days to get ready to kill you.  Such a comedian.  Here is the post I have been trying to write in between sessions of shivering on the sofa with a cuddly toddler on one hand and a hot water bottle on the other:

Meg, asks "why do *you* blog?"

I think about this a lot, as I go through regular cycles of enjoying blogging, followed by periods of finding it embarrassing that I even have a blog,  wanting to delete it and disappear never to be heard from again. 

I've been blogging for a long time. I had an online journal on a website about my veggie garden (I actually took photos and had them developed, and then scanned them, just for my blog.  Seems crazy now.).  That blog was to find a sink for my enthusiasm, rather than chewing the ears of my family off.  I only had one kid in those days, and while I did work full time, I seem to have had time on my hands because I journalled that garden almost as obsessively as I worked in it! That was about 10 years ago now I guess.

After that I used LiveJournal to diarise my way through three pregnancies-again, I tend to become obsessed, and no one wanted to talk about birth and every related subject as much as I did- so I took it online.  I was also quite involved with the online homebirth/natural birth/unassisted birth communities during that time and made some friends who I hope will remain keepers.

So when I suddenly renewed my interest in fibre crafts- it was the most natural thing in the world to start a blog on the subject!  It had gotten so much easier, digital photography was here, and once more, it spared my husband having to listen to me rant obsessively about the many fascinating properties of (insert fibre here).  My fibre blog is a message in a bottle.  The fact that so many other  people have blogs now makes it so much more fun, and such a fantastic "talk to me!" sign to hang around my own neck, without having to go the extra step of actually risking face to face interaction- which never goes as well as I'd like, somehow. 

Even though I don't *seem* shy, in person especially, I really am- and I am terribly shy about sharing any creative endeavor with others.  I grew up with a mother who would offer what she called "constructive criticism" of anything I showed her- my 5 year old scribbled stick figures included.   When I asked her to teach me how to paint, she told me I couldn't play with paints until I could draw.  When I tried drawing,  got lectured on perspective, and told that my subject matter was unoriginal!  I filled spiral notebooks with these sort of geometrical designs that I liked to doodle, and she told me that "abstract" art was only permissible in the case of artists like Picasso who were superb draftsmen, first.  I think my blog is a bit like those notebooks. I fill it up with the stuff I like to make, and leave it lying around, hoping someone will open it and say "hey these are cool!"!  The awesome thing about blogging is that so far, if people have something nice (or genuinely constuctive) to say, they can say it.  If they don't like what I'm doing, they can just move right along, without feeling obliged to say anything at all.  I like that!  I'm sure that bloggers do get negative comments, but I think that's mostly higher profile celeb bloggers, and I am in no danger of ever becoming one-a-dose!

So, blogging is my message in a bottle- it's also my "guild" if you like.  I am kind of a solitary bee, and while I have tried a few times to become part of meatspace groups, it has never really gelled for me.  I dislike the expectation of being in attendance regularly, and with small kids and an irregular work schedule, it just becomes too much arranging, for too little return.  Maybe another time I'll try again with the local guild and so on, but for now, I like my online acquaintances just fine, thanks.  It reminds me a little of being in school- in primary school you are forced to be friends with kids because they merely live in your neighbourhood, and school throws you together.  Highschool, a similar if slightly broader pool.  University, you finally get to choose friends based on merit and not convenience.  Well, the interwebs- dude! even better!  So there you go, that's why I blog.

FO!

Look what I made!

ha!  Gotcha.  I did make it (him, actually)... only it was 15 years ago, exactly.  I remember when they brought him to me (yes, hospital birth, you live and you learn, sorry kiddo) I was prepared for a red wrinkly ugly critter- and he seemed SO BEAUTIFUL.  I remember saying "is that MINE?" (if not, why was my (X)H carrying him?  I blame morphine).

Of course a 15 year old is by no means a FO.  However, it *is* a person who, having finished 14 trips around the sun, has completed certain milestones.  I remember another blogger talking about this once, and I agreed with her thoughts.  My 15 year old will never be a 14 year old school dropout.  He will not be a man who has *never* had a girlfriend.  Or a 14 year old father.  That kind of thing.  Certain boxes are tickable, and I intend to tick them.  Its the only reward we get as parents, many days!

So, after coming to me in the dark, wrapped in a flannel blanket and already bathed (sorry, kiddo) and wide eyed, he grew and he grew.

Isn't it funny that in the days BEFORE digital cameras, I took hundreds of photos of my first baby, and somehow had them ALL developed eventually, even though we were so poor in those days that finding a $2 coin on the footpath was like a lottery win. My third baby, in a thoroughly digital home, has probably 1/3 the photos of her babyhood. Sorry kiddo. I've always loved the pic above, in my dad's arms- R. has always been R.- and you can see that in his face in this picture. "get me out of this useless baby body! I have stuff to do! It's an outrage!".

He kept growing, and went through his dinosaur stage (and his black eye stage, apparently). The rubber gloves transformed him into a velociraptor. (see in the background how I had plastic outdoor chairs at my dining table?  See above statement about finding $2 coin- things hadn't changed much)

He kept growing.

 

I got tired of scanning photos, so I skipped forward to what must be 2002, because that is a baby sister he is holding, and I had a digital camera!.  Obviously things change. 

 

R was 10 in this picture.  This was about the age where he asked me to PLEASE let him sign up for some kind of team ball sport, because he couldn't catch and got picked last in games.  SORRY KIDDO.  Of course, I did.  Out of all the cool things about this kid, the thing I admire the most is that while he is
gifted with his own share of smarts and ability- he has not been a prodigy at... well anything- not in the sense that he picked it up and was instantly good at it.  Whether it was piano, karate (sorry, done with scanning), basketball (too dark in the stadium to have many good pics) or AFL, he started off fairly- ordinary?  And stuck. with, it.  And now he is very good at all those things.  Well,not karate, he kind of lost interest in that after 3 years or so.  But you see my point.  I really, really admire that in him.

So, he just kept growing.  Made the cut for selective primary school in year 4 and 5.  Subsequently made the cut for selective high school.  I was so proud!  Can you tell? :-).









Oh look, I found one basketball one- he would have been 12? here.. 2004, no, 11.  Under 12's I guess.
















Look at this one- what a sweet brother.  What is blowing my mind a little as I type this is how young he looks, and yet how grown up I know he was at the time this photo was taken.
















The 2005 AFL grand final (ok, under 12s AFL grand final ;-) ).





















At dinner after our wedding in 2006 (mine and his step-dad's that is!). 
















Holding baby sis #2 in Sept 2006.

















2007 om nom nom nom.
















2008! proudly showing the first money he ever earned (not from me), umpiring AFL:





















As I always tell people, I have had so little to do with this kid becoming what he is becoming- "he was like that when he got here" I say.  I am so honoured to have been invited on the journey though.  Happy Birthday, Buh*!


*when you have baby sisters, you get nicknames like "buh".