Back to crocheting

I’m back at the crafting this week. Headed on over to the local craft store tonight to buy some more black yarn for the Share a Square afghan to give all the squares a border. Remembered why I don’t like that particular store.

Most of the squares I was sent are already the same size (I was lucky), although a couple will have to have extra border to make them ready for stitching together.

My mother-in-law is already almost done with her share a square afghan. I was supposed to show her the technique for stitching squares together. Way too late! I managed to find a tutorial for her, but was supposed to do a video chat. Fail. She taught me this stuff, so I’m not entirely sure what I was teaching her …

I’ve been too preoccupied in general. I need to call my dad, my brother, respond to emails … instead here I am blogging, crocheting and watching bad TV. I turned the TV off though. This woman was buying a house (House Hunters) and her sister kept telling her she needed a man - to mow her yard, or I guess just to have one. Whatever. I love my husband, and I’m glad he’s around, but thanks, being single is quite fine as well.

Also back working on my flower afghan (those are most of the colors in the picture). Another square completed!  I think I need to do some small projects next in order to have some more immediate senses of completion!

Indie Love

By now, most people who know me know I like handmade items a lot, but nonetheless I was so pleased that some took the time and spent the energy to get me gifts this year from craft fairs and Etsy. I know it’s almost two months since the holidays, but I don’t see some of my friends as often as I’d like, so some of these I’ve had for just over a week.

One thing I got from Jeff was spices, the Pepper and Lime seasoning to the left is one of my favorites, from a company called Cherchie’s from PA. I found Cherchie’s at a craft fair long ago. Although the business has grown, they’re still small enough to write a note on the packing slip! I think food is the best part of craft fairs. I like all of it, but I really like people’s cooking and spices. Like the hot sauce festival I went to. I guess I just like meeting people who are  into their food. I love food.

… Right! I was getting hungry there. Two good friends also gave me handmade things: the pretty coffee cozy is from the bright and cheerful Etsy shop Dizzlepop, and is a simultaneous nod to my obsessions with coffee, daisies and indie. The Murano-esque earrings are from one of Austin’s oldest street-fair-craft-places down on the “Drag” across from the University of Texas. The fair’s been there forever, from way before DIY became cool and the founders of Etsy were born.

The next item was from husband again, who is lovely, and finds that buying me presents is ridiculously easy when I excitedly point out pretty things on the web to him. I also loved the packaging. The woman behind Shy Siren knows something about business - her products, presentation and marketing were all quite impressive.

These next items aren’t gifts (do gifts to self count?), but I purchased them at a shop called Parts and Labour that only sells local artists’ wares. I wanted to buy half the store, and my friend Melissa wanted the other half.  Independent artists have long been popular here in Austin (we did/still do have a lot of hippies here, after all), and now is no different.  Indeed, it’s been helped by the resurgence in interest in such things nationally.

D’you know, sometimes I meet people who believe that crafting as a business is a new modern thing (perhaps the ones who believe leg warmers are a new thing?). Hardly! We’re simply re-fashioning it in our own political and social image, as all cultures do. This shop is a good example of that sort of recent re-imagining.

Handcrafting as a business has long been a staple of western culture, even if the media has tried to convince us it’s not true and big companies have tried to marginalize the independent worker. Even the industrial revolution began and existed for some time as a mobilization of woman-centric home crafting industries. Handcrafting is also (as some craft-loving but not historically-minded people don’t realize) long been an important part of feminism, as the method by which many women granted themselves financial independence or provided for their families. Women’s handcrafting has saved several civilizations’ bacon by doing everything from lacemaking to brewing to scribing. The idea that women aren’t intelligent workers and valued breadwinners is a purely ridiculous and modern idea unsubstantiated by historical record.Hey, where did that come from? I just can’t quite help that I was a feminist social historian, it leaks out. Seriously, after all that social history I have the utmost respect for women and their crafts and the enormous historical impact they’ve had. Some young women seem to feel embarrassed by their knitting and I say Knit On, Sew On, your skills have had more of an impact than many philosophers could dream of.

Five things …

Jenna has done a blog post about things that cheese her off. I do try to be positive, but am a person of definite opinions, so how could I pass up such a vague and uninvited opportunity to describe a couple things that irritate me? I shall restrict myself to five.

1. Bad grammar. I don’t think anyone has an excuse. Most people in the US had plenty of opportunity in their many years of required, government-subsidized primary education to grasp the rudiments of appropriate punctuation and sentence structure. Choosing to ignore that education does nothing for you but convince people you hope to impress that you are not really the capable person you hope they believe you are. Like on resumes and college papers for which you will be graded. It’s not cool to sound inept.
2. Cell phones at dinner. If I am eating with you and you answer your cell phone at the table, it is a mark of my great appreciation for you in other areas if I do not just get up and leave. But you’ve pissed me off. Cell phones are now so common that people no longer think that they can be overused or that there are times when their use is inappropriate and rude. If you’re conversing with someone else, let your voicemail get it. Theater, dinner, while driving, just leave it be.
3. Carpeting. Once I moved away from Texas I discovered that people in other parts of the country like things like wood and tile floors. Here there’s this obsession with wall-to-wall carpeting that’s baffling. I like some carpet, but all over? Ew. You know you can’t really get that clean, right?
4. People who cut me off on the road or tailgate. Something about the size and safety features of cars these days seems to make people believe that a large metal object traveling at high speeds will not really hurt you, or that it couldn’t happen to you. Basic physics says it will. Is the big hurry you’re in really worth risking the lives of the people around you?
5. People who spell medieval “midevil” or imply that the time period was full of uncouth, unwashed savages of no learning or culture whatsoever. Not so! Yeah, that’s not a complaint most people have, I know. I struggled enough with translating their Latin that I have a fine appreciation of their erudition.

Somehow Microsoft didn’t make it onto this list. Odd.  They’re often #1.  You know what?  Here’s five things I really like, just to even it out.

1. Flowers are the best thing ever.  This spring you will no doubt see some of the extent of my obsession with wildflowers in particular and flowers in general.  The Texas Hill Country is nothing if not known for Lady Bird’s wildflowers.  There’s just nothing better than a flower.  My favorites are all versions of daisies, but I won’t say no to any of them, even the prickliest of them.  Hope, new life and beauty.
2. I love pillows.  There’s nothing better than a new pillow on your bed or a huge squishy pillow for the floor.  My first sewing project was a pillow.   They’re my favorite type of craft project - short, sweet, decorative. Oh! Even pincushions are a type of pillow.
3. Cats.  I love my dog, and never tell her this, I’ll deny it but … I think I’m a cat person at heart.  Independent, aloof, silent, prickly, inscrutable, demanding cats.  They’ll never promise to be anyone’s friend and they’ll always mistrust your motives.  I visit zoos just to visit the big ones.  Who really can resist a white tiger?
4. Coffee is easily my favorite beverage.  My favorite is fresh-ground, strong-brewed, percolated Ethiopian Harrar, but as long as it’s not some icky cheap unfresh kind, I’ll probably like it.  Black coffee?  Just a little milk, please.  Cafe du Monde chicory?  Wonderful, and I’ll take the cafe, too and a beignet.  Espresso?  What a great idea, I’ll take it straight, triple please.  Turkish coffee?  Sure, where’s my sugar cube and funky perforated spoon?
5. Tax refunds.  Having just done my taxes, I am pleased to report that I did not do anything stupid to cost myself money this last year.  The fact that I’m getting money back is so completely icing on the cake.  This last year was the last one we were able to deduct tuition expenses, so that’s going to hit hard next year.  What to do, what to do?  Shall I be responsible and pay bills or go to San Francisco?

Probably I’ll go to San Francisco in the spring and drink coffee and look at flowers.  Just a guess.