Week’s End

Hope all of you in the US had a nice Thanksgiving. Jeff and I had a nice few days at his mom’s house. I cooked a bunch (acorn squash with mushroom sauce, red cabbage & cranberries), Jeff’s mom cooked (asparagus almondine, green bean casserole), Jeff made the potatoes.  It was a collaborative Thanksgiving, and quite tasty.  Friday was a little trying, as the catalytic converter in our car went out and a part had to be ordered.  We were notified of said problem when the Check Engine light came on while we were driving.  Oh no!

Since we weren’t sure what the problem was yet and didn’t want the engine to go kerflooey, we stopped at the only thing open – a nearby Wal-Mart to check on/procure motor oil.  Unfortunately, we ran smack into an enormous, rude, overexcited crowd in a mass purchasing mood while there.  I thought it might take a couple of hours to buy a simple quart of oil.  At least that wasn’t the Wal-Mart where a store worker was trampled to death by a frenzied 5 a.m. crowd. That was a horrifying story, and makes me feel ill. I can’t believe shopping and “deals” would be so important that all other considerations and even basic humanity are discarded.

We returned from his mom’s with food and household product goodies. I was quite excited that she gave us a set of dishes – Corelle/Pyrex from the 60s/70s in the Crazy Daisy pattern (aka Spring Blossom Green, Daisy Flowers, or Daisies).  Jeff’s grandmother had (to put it mildly) a thing for dishes and cookware, and this was just one of many sets of things that have been brought to the light of day. I really love these sorts of collector patterns from that era.  I might be a little mod at heart. There are lots of pieces in great condition.  Oh! And bakeware!  I’m in heaven.

Additionally, on Saturday Jeff and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!  Pretty darn awesome.

Shell Stitch Baby Blanket

So that project I wasn’t mentioning:  I’ve been spending my time making a little blanket for a friend who is having her first baby.  I finally gave it to her today so now I can talk about it!  I had lots of fun making this, it was a neat little project, and quite pretty when it was finished.

The details:  It was made from four colors of Bernat Organic Natural Cotton Solid in muslin, hemp, cactus and mineral spring.  It is (obviously) organic cotton which is quite lovely in person.  I chose it because it’s (1) eminently washable, which is awesome for babies and (2) a fiber that gets softer with more use and washings.  Pretty awesome.  The pattern is pretty obviously named and is from Lion Brand (it was actually designed for Lion Brand’s organic cotton but I didn’t like the colors).  The blanket is the crochet shell stitch baby blanket.  I love shell stitch!  Makes a great edging.

When I was done with the blanket, I had some yarn left over and so I decided to make a couple of toys.  Not that I have patterns, I just kind of decided to make some rattles and this is what resulted.  They’re soft and bitable and washable, too.  My cat took quite a shine to them and tried to take them, so I might make a couple for her, too.

Here’s some detail – the stitch, for example.  Also, the thing about switching colors is that it produced lots and lots and lots of stray ends, as you can see. Weaving them all in was quite an interesting challenge, and made me tempted to make it a fringed blanket.  I think perhaps after this I might now be capable of doing some mighty nice and fine tapestry crochet.

So!  Quite a happy little project.

Light

Once upon a time I lived in a smallish apartment in New York (is there any other kind?).  Realistically, I was lucky.  There were two rooms and I could turn completely around in the bathroom, and I got grad student pricing (still probably higher than many peoples’ mortgages).  No closet space exactly, and the kitchen was this beautifully organized but tiny little L-shaped space in the front hall.

The worst thing about that apartment was the light.  My big pothos ivy gave up after 6 months and did the weirdest thing (I kid you not) – everything below 1.5 feet from the soil turned yellow and fell off.  Over 5 feet of ivy!  Bang!  Gone!  I took it home and left it with Jeff’s mom for a while after that to recover.  We got exactly 2 hours of midafternoon sunlight during two months of the year in spring, and in fact it wasn’t even direct sunlight, it was reflected off the building next door.  Plus, we had fluorescent lighting.  It was the pits.

It took a couple of months for it to sink in what kind of an effect bad lighting has on the psyche, but and effect it certainly has.  We got lamps with natural light bulbs and shut off the overheads for good, and that helped some.  But there was still always something about living in that little, lightless place that went to my head.  I probably shouldn’t mention my office is a small place with no windows and fluorescent lighting?  Well, let’s just say it’s all made me much more sensitive to happy light.

There’s not a single point to this story except that I like rambling, and to say that sometimes I just have to grab the camera and show the nice glowiness of a lamp on a dark wall, or the soft light through the curtains on a weekend morning.

Quilt returns when I don’t have to sit through an hour of unexpectedly horrific traffic on the way home.