Nelly Face

It's a Ruff life.

2009-04-06T23:12:00.009-04:00

It's Over.

2009-04-05T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today Wonder of the World closed. I was the assistant stage manager and wardrobe mistress, and let me just tell you, I am so happy it's done! Phew! Not that there weren't fun parts, because there were, but I just do not want to be an assistant stage manager EVER AGAIN. Forget about it. Anyway, gaze upon the clown.

Big Sewing.

2009-04-04T15:35:00.003-04:00

The Hubbard Street Dance Company hired me to make a backdrop. It was so huge that we laid it out in one of the dance studios.
Thats Carol stading behind it, she's a crazy person.
Here's some poor sewing machine drowning in fire proof fabric.

Chicago.

2009-04-01T23:06:00.005-04:00

So this is where I live now.
On the back lot of MGM! Haha, no. I lived with Lucy and John for awhile, and we adopted a beautiful kitty.
But then I moved out! This is my little sewing area in my new place.

Its messy in this picture because I was making some bellhop vests. More about that later!

In which I am perhaps a little sarcastic about serious things. Like religion.

2009-03-31T00:02:00.003-04:00

Time passes so quickly, doesn't it? It's been a couple of months, I've traveled to the Holy Land, completely lost my religion, came home and moved to a new city. Phew!

So I suppose I will start with Israel. I could write a book, or perhaps a stand up routine about my birthright trip, but who has the time? Obviously not me or I would have been more diligent on this here blog.

Ah! The arid lands of my forefathers! This particular vista reminded me rather of Chalton Heston. You know that scene, in "The Ten Commandments"? Where he's cursing god and wandering in the desert? You know, and then he gets high and watches a bush burn for way too long? Good times.

So that tower up there? Thats the tower where Jesus will come down at the end of the world. And all those little white things on the hill top, those are graves. The people burried there will be the first resurrected by Jesus and will thus serve as his zombie army and slay all non believers. Then they will all pass through the Damascus gate (where I was standing when I took this picture) and have some wine. That's exactly what it says in the scripture.

This is one of the soldiers who traveled with our group. She's a very religious orthodox jew. She thought I was a hoot. In this picture she's praying she won't end up like Charlton Heston. At Masada. Which was another excellent movie featuring men wearing really short skirts.

Here are some jews. In Jerusalem. Yup.

There was some beauty.

And there was also some love. But there really is no place like home. Thank you, America. This is my country.

Israel

2009-01-04T20:14:00.005-05:00

Baruch atah Hashem Elokenu melech haolam, shelo asani goy, shelo asani aved, shelo asani isha.

This is an old jewish prayer that says "Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who did not make me a Gentile, who did not make me a slave, who did not make me a woman." As I am about to travel to Israel, I feel the obvious need to make up a new prayer.

Thank you, God, for my peaceful life and loving family, and please keep my mind and heart open and help everyone in this world find peace.

Hanukkah

2008-12-24T17:56:00.004-05:00

I'm really feeling the hanukkah spirit this year! Holidays seem much more fun when there's a depression. Not so much pressure to find the perfect item, which is a great relief, for I'm a terrible shopper. Also, making gifts is much more accetable during times of economic strife! I made cut paper cards for my family. Here's the one I made for my mom.
And this is the one I made for my sister!
I made one for my dad too, but he's already squirrled it away in some secret place. He thinks I am conspiring to keep art from him. You will have to imagine it- it had mountains on it. He likes mountains. I was stumped on a present to get for my mother, because, as I have previously stated I'm a terrible shopper and Mom is the woman who has everything. And if she doesn't have it, she probably wants to pick it out herself. So I had nothing, and no ideas, and then, all of a sudden, I had a moment of inspiration. I made her a case for her knitting needles! We suffer from knitting needle black hole proliferation at our house.
I used all my favourite fabrics. My sister brought us the most fabulous textile from Mexico.

Is'nt it beautiful?
For Nora, I made a pillow based on the quilt code she and I made up last year.

It means that she is a gold star lesbian who wants a nice trannie or perhaps a drag king to take her out for dinner. And possibly oral sex. Dirty quilting!

The back is the most beautiful rainbow step ladder! With vintage buttons I found in Santa Fe.

The Shortest Day of the Year

2008-12-20T17:22:00.005-05:00

Is also the darkest.

Quilt!

2008-12-03T17:13:00.003-05:00

I finished my quilt! It is most satisfying to finish a quilt and then sleep under it. Because my room is embarrassingly nerdy (could I have any more Lord of the Rings posters?) I took pictures of it outside.

Detail!
And here's the back, with the basting still in.

Mrs. Grace Coolidge exhibits her pet raccoon (Rebecca) to children gathered in the White House grounds for Easter egg rolling.

2008-11-29T20:55:00.003-05:00

First Presidential Raccoon.

This one is for you, Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge

2008-11-20T06:23:00.002-05:00

Sometimes at night I lie awake and worry about our nation's less successful presidents. How must it feel to attain the highest office in the land and then be remembered as being rather dull, if you are remembered at all. The presidential libraries of Chester Arthur, Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, and James Garfield are all probably having trouble raising funds. If they even have libraries. Calvin Coolidge was keeping me awake the other night. He was veep when Harding popped his clogs (which was the most interesting thing Harding ever did) and then won the presidency for real in 1924. But I couldn't think of one thing Coolidge did in office! I still can't, actually. But, thanks to the White House dot gov's handy biographies of first ladies, I now know that Coolidge may have been a stiff, but his wife, Grace, was a delight. In addition to being a most popular first lady, she was also a psychic knitter. That's right, her knitting predicted the future. Consider this tidbit:

Some one noticed that a bedspread, knitted nearly a year ago by Mrs. Coolidge and intended to be left in the White House, bore a prophecy. On one side was knitted "Lincoln 1861-1865." On the other side; "Calvin Coolidge—1923-1929." Long before President Coolidge announced his "choice," Mrs. Coolidge said, to a friend who exclaimed at her bedspread, "I know what I'm doing."

(It seems the newspapers of the early 1920s were just as obsessed with their President-elect as we are now, and followed his every move) Yes, Mrs. Grace Coolidge was a righteous prophetic knitting babe.
I think she could not only see the future, but used yarn to gather useful information and possibly even influence policy. (I mean, look into those eyes. Those are cunning eyes.)

When Grace Coolidge died, a whole pile of knitted blankets were left to the Coolidge estate. Several of them, including one reading "President Barack Hussein Obama 2008- 2016", were considered to be evidence of Grace's descent into madness in her elder years, and were thrown away.

Monsters are attacking my head!

2008-11-19T22:15:00.003-05:00

And my hands!

Googly eyes are really great.

Anxiety Projects

2008-11-07T13:01:00.012-05:00

I'm still reeling from the election. Being anxious about it for so long, it's hard to realize its over. Though I am thoroughly relieved, I still have moments of complete panic. Not that I don't have things to freak out about now. How can you deal with a world in upheaval, trying to find a job, and breaking up with your girlfriend? Well, damned if I know. But making stuff has always helped me. I finally finished the cardigan I've been working on since Santa Fe. Turns out, Careful Knitting Nelly is kind of slow! I admit, I got very angry that it wasn't going faster during the second sleeve. I haven't blocked it yet and its kind of covered in cat hair, but it came out very nicely.I also finally finished a scrap hat for Nora. Only took me a year to weave the ends in! Worst part of knitting, as far as I'm concerned.
Between Mom and I there is a lot of ugly scrap fabric in the family home, and really nothing to be done with it. I mean, neon fish with overbites might have been a good idea in some designers head- it appealed to 7-year old Nelly- but what to do with stuff like that now? In a fit of the crazies, I bleached and dyed all of it. (On the left is my post college dye kitchen.) Then I tore everything into strips and made a quilt top.

And when you have anxiety, its always good to have something to hide under.

Slogans Through the Ages

2008-11-05T11:36:00.005-05:00

I still can't really believe it. I keep checking the news, expecting some one to demand a recount in Ohio, or complain about biting ballots in Florida. The highest office in the land is one of my favorite things, and only partially because of the endlessly amusing trivia that it provides. I'm excited about our new President. Obama is so smart and collected and balanced, it seems as if I can be proud of the government again. And even if he is unable to live up to my expectations (which are high) at least there will be glamorous photo shoots of the Obama family with their new dog to look forward too.

This campaign has crippled me with worry. What a crazy race, what a peculiar American tradition. The New Yorker had a really good article about the birth of the American Presidential campaign. George Washington seems to have run on the platform of "Oh, I seem to be the only one, don't I?" And until Andrew Jackson, campaigning as we know it was non existent. "Keeping with the tradition of the first five American Presidents, Adams (running against Jackson) considered currying favor with voters to be beneath the dignity of the office, and believed that any man who craved the Presidency ought not to have it." We all know how that worked out. So, in the interest of capitalist democracy, I decided to compile a list of all the Campaign slogans.

1840
William Henry Harrison VS. Martin Van Buren
William "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" " Harrison seems to have coined the first campaign slogan. Van Buren, already having been president for 4 years after Jackson with no such rhyming craziness, seems to have been shocked into defeat.

1844
James K. Polk VS. Henry Clay
"Reannexation of Texas and Reoccupation of Oregon" Vs "Who is James K. Polk?"
Polk's technique of putting "Re" in front of things that were otherwise really boring beat out Clay's weird rhetorical question. (He's the guy debating you, you moron!)

1848
Zachary Taylor VS Lewis Cass
Taylor's "For President of the people" beat Lewis Cass handily. On the other hand, Lewis Cass wasn't very good at his job.

1852
Franklin Pierce VS. Winifield Scott
"We Polked them in ’44, We’ll Pierce them in ’52" VS "Old Fuss and Feathers"
My all time favorite slogan, a pun that involves violence, way won out over having a weird nickname that makes voters think of angry geese.

1856
James Buchannan VS. John C. Fremont VS. Millard Fillmore
In this election, the third party candidate may have only won about .08 electoral votes, but he won best slogan by a mile:
"Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men, and Fremont." Buchanan and Fillmore were so awed that "Fremont" had "Free" in it, they couldn't even think of a slogan. ("Fill more mills with Millard Fillmore?"... No...)

1860
Abraham Lincoln VS. A Bunch of Crazies
"Vote Yourself a Farm" VS. incoherent screams
Isn't that funny? I don't remember Abe's presidency having much to do with farms.

1864
Abraham Lincoln Vs. George B. McClellan
Lincoln's "Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream" was met with a "what can I say, I think he's right" from Mr. McClellan. That and McClellan was kind of a bad general.

After Abe was shot and the Andrew Johnson messed up really badly, there was a short break in campaign slogans. Ulysses S. Grant's could've been "I won the civil war, DUH" but he wasted the opportunity. Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield were similarly uninspired, probably realizing they were the presidents every one was most likely to forget about.

1884
Grover Cleveland VS. James Blaine
Well, after a dry spell Cleveland and Blaine brought it back, with absurd limerick raps that bring delight to history students to this day. "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine!" cried Cleveland. "Oh yeah?" said Blaine, "well, your Ma, Ma, Where’s my Pa, Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha." In short, it was the most awesome presidential race ever. Candidates should all be forced to debate in rhyming couplets.

1888
Benjamin Harrison VS. Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison beat Cleveland with "Rejuvenated Republicanism," probably because everyone fell asleep just thinking about the phase "Rejuvenated Republicanism". Then everyone forgot about Harrison because he was boring and re-elected Cleveland in 1892, because even if he sucked at making slogans, at least his first name was "Grover."

1896
William McKinley VS. William Jennings Bryan
McKinley's "Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity" handily beat William Jennings Bryan's "In a couple of years I'm going to try and disprove Darwin's theory of evolution in a really weird, crazy and public way!"

1900
William McKinley VS. William Jennings Bryan
McKinley was obviously feeling confident, because his slogan, "A Full Dinner Pail" is complete nonsense.

Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and first term Woodrow Wilson seem to have still been pondering "A Full Dinner Pail" (a dinner pail? what is that? isn't it supposed to be lunch pail? full of what? full of whiskey? So many questions, so few answers) So they didn't think up anything new.

1916
Woodrow Wilson VS Theodore Roosevelt VS William Howard Taft VS. Eugene V. Debs
Woodrow Wilson's slogan, "He kept us out of war" turned out great, especially because as soon as he was re-elected, we went to war!

1920
Warren G Harding VS. James M. Cox
Harding played hard defense here, coming up with both "Return to normalcy" and "Cox and Cocktails." I never want things to be normal, and I love cocktails, so these slogans should have worked against Harding. Cox could have turned it around- "That's right! Vote for Cox and get a cocktail!" Of course, this was in the middle of Prohibition, so that probably wouldn't have worked out.

1924
Calvin Coolidge VS John W. Davis
"Keep it Cool with Coolidge!" Yeah, that is pretty cool! It didn't make him any more memorable as a president, though.

1928
Herbert Hoover VS Al Smith
"A chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage" and a cushion on every chair and a lover in every bed and whiskey in every bottle! But then the great depression happened, so there was a hobo on every street.

FDR seems to have eschewed slogans, but he had some witty sayings, like the New Deal. Okay, that's not that witty. But FDR is still pretty cool. He don't need no slogans. Harry S. Truman was also sloganless, but I think this would be a good one- "Tough times need a Tru-Man!" Hehe!

1952
Dwight Eisenhower Vs Adalai Stevenson
"I like Ike" I didn't think "Ike" was a nickname for "Dwight." Do you think its a nickname for his last name? Do people usually have nicknames for their last names? More mysteries. Even though this slogan rhymes, its kind of inane.

1956
Dwight Eisenhower VS Adlai Stevenson
"Peace and prosperity"-- more boring slogans from Ike, and this one doesn't even rhyme. Adlai must have been pissed that he kept losing.

1960
John F. Kennedy Vs Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon's was "For the Future." JFK's was "I'm really hot, and so is my wife!" Okay, I made that up.

1964
Lyndon B. Johnson VS Barry Goldwater
"The stakes are too high for you to stay at home" said LBJ. "In your heart you know he's right," said Barry Goldwater. Its obvious why LBJ won, because, who even was Goldwater talking about? You know who's right? LBJ? Aren't you running against him?

1968
Richard Nixon Vs. Hubert Humphrey
"Nixon's the One" Yes, yes, Nixon is the one who would bring ruin on the white house. Hubert Humphrey is the one with an awesome alliterative name.

1972
Richard Nixon VS George McGovern
There were no slogans in this race, instead, the candidates mud wrestled! Okay, I made that up too.

1976
Jimmy Carter VS Gerald Ford
"Not Just Peanuts!" said Jimmy Carter. "You mean we get cashews too?" said the American public. "Awesome!" "He's Making Us Proud Again," said Gerald Ford. "He's making who proud?" the American Public asked.

1980
Ronald Reagan VS Jimmy Carter
"Are you Better Off than you were Four Years Ago?" asked Ronald Reagan. People scratched their heads and thought really hard about that one. They were thinking so hard, they forgot to vote. Jimmy Carter, busy fighting off an army of swamp rabbits, declined to comment.

1984
Ronald Reagan VS Walter Mondale
"It's Morning Again in America!" Nobody wanted to tell him the sun also came up during Carter's presidency.

1988
George H. W. Bush VS. Michael Dukakis
George H. W. Bush wanted a "Kinder, Gentler Nation." You know, I might make fun of this, (a kinder, gentler nation full of xenophobic nut jobs??!!) but just having spent the last 8 years with his son, I can say it was, indeed, a kinder, gentler nation back then.

1992
Bill Clinton VS George H.W. Bush VS Ross Perot
Bill Clinton courted the votes of Fleetwood Mac fans everywhere, with his sing songy slogan. "Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow." Ross Perot inspired general awe for his craziness, summed up best by his slogan: "Ross for Boss".

1996
Bill Clinton VS Bob Dole
"Building a Bridge to the 21st Century" VS "The Better Man for a Better America"
That bridge was a bridge to no where! I said it. I tried not to, but I had to.

2000
George W. Bush VS Al Gore
"Compassionate Conservatism" won, because people didn't know what it meant. Scary republicans were going to go to war with random countries, over turn Roe V. Wade and beat people in the streets. And yet they called in compassionate? Did they apologize after throwing rocks through your windows? Gore's "Prosperity and Progress" was much less intriguing.

2004
George W. Bush VS John Kerry
"Yes, America Can!" said George W. Bush. "Yes, America can actually elect an overzealous, incompetent, inarticulate war mongering freak to for a second term!" "Hey now!" said Kerry, "Let America be America Again!" "No!" said Bush. And it was not to be so.

2008
Barak Obama VS John McCain
Well, personally, I am very glad that "The Change we Need" won out over "Drill, Baby, Drill." I would much rather have health care than an infant with a power tool. I'm just saying.

Get ready!

2008-10-13T22:28:00.001-04:00

If you were overwhelmed by the New Englandy-ness of my last post, you better look away, because my mom and I just went on a wool arts tour of New Hampshire. The Blimp, which has followed me from Holland, smiled upon the fibersy-ness of our trip.
My mom and I have a great deal of free floating anxiety about the upcoming election and we talked about it non stop on the trip up. Our fears were immediately vanquished at the first stop on the wool tour. The Wool Room at Meadow Brook was built in the seventeen-dipity doos, and was just scenic beyond belief.

I think my favorite stop was at the Chauncey Farm. Ellen Dumas told us all about getting into sheep farming (something Mom and I have been really interested in, ever since I heard about the mill in Mora, New Mexico) and introduced us to her sheep. One of her sheep, Cappuccino, got sheered while I was there. I've never actually seen a sheep shearing before, having always been frantically busy with school every time there was a sheep and wool festival in Maryland. When in the special shearing position, sheepies go from being freaked out and running around and stressed to limp and funny looking. Cappuccino looked like a big, disgruntled wooly teddy bear. It was really cool to touch all the wool that came off of her. The lanolin was really nice on our hands, surprisingly! I bought some of the most beautiful, soft gray yarn from Ellen. It has some Cappuccino in it!

Some other highlights included a spinning lesson for me and Mom- Mom really wants to get a spinning wheel, I am still more interested in knitting. Though I am wanting other people to make me yarn.
There was this amazing woman, I think her name was Janet Sillars, doing old school spinning. It was so amazing to watch, mom and I were hypnotized for awhile. It looked like the wool was just coming out of her fingers.
Everything was a delicious color.
And the landscape was beautiful. I would say that New Hampshire does indeed deserve all those electoral votes.

Fibers Trip

2008-10-08T14:07:00.001-04:00

I'm home with my mom, and we decided to do a little bit of local tourism. We drove up Cape, along scenic route 6A, which we usually avoid because of tourists. We're the only tourists now! We stopped at a local Unitarian church that was having a sale.
Mom bought a fabulous vintage mint green and white apron, and a beautiful table clothe with red roses.
Then it was on to the wool! The town of Dennis was having a local spinning/knitting/wool festival. We touched all of the fibers and talked to everyone about how they made their stuff.

Many of the people were dying their wool themselves with natural dyes, and getting the most beautiful colors. I bought some lovely pink yarn that had been dyed with cranberries.

Bunnies!

Last Picture Post!

2008-09-30T15:36:00.000-04:00

Picture Dump!

2008-09-26T04:55:00.000-04:00

And! What would this all be with out another sighting of ... The Blimp!

I guess, in the US, we have Black Helicopters

2008-09-17T06:45:00.000-04:00

I'm having an amazing time in Rotterdam!

A really good time. But, The Blimp won't stop following me!

That Blimp is Following Me

2008-09-15T11:48:00.002-04:00

City of Dreams

2008-09-12T11:40:00.001-04:00

Traveling!

2008-09-10T12:30:00.001-04:00

Well, today I go to the Netherlands! So Excited! Can't wait to see my Rachel!

2008-09-08T12:47:00.001-04:00

Finished my tank top!

Supposed to be a nightie! Hah! Nightie my bum. Any way, I love it.

In which I go on a slightly insane political tangent

2008-08-30T18:00:00.000-04:00

Those damn Obama kids. Could they be any cuter? Just keep bringing those kids out, its like having a panda. No one can resist the cute. Vote for me! Look! The Cute is on my side. But it is a little sad, kids in the spot light, their every move judged. Talk about an interrupted childhood. Being a president's kid is a very strange situation. I thought I was going to make a list of all the president's kids, like I did with all the presidents, but, oh my god, there are way too many of them. (And somebody else already did it, and did a much better job) Pretty much all of the presidents had about thirteen kids, except for George Washington, who was too neurotic, and James Buchanan, who was probably gay. So I decided to just find some highlights.

Most Kids Ever: John Tyler, tenth president of the united states, had eight kids by his first wife, and then seven by his second. Mary, Robert, John Letitia, Elizabeth, Anne, Alice, Tazewell, David, John, Julia, Lachlan, Lyon, Robert and Pearl. I really feel like he was running out of ideas in the middle there- Lachlan? Really? Not feeling like their were enough players on the family softball team, he had a couple more illegitimate children with some slaves.

Weirdest nicknames: Definitely a tie between John Adam's daughter, Abigail, AKA "Nabby" and James Garfield's daughter, Eliza, AKA "Trot." Maybe they could start a band or something, get Abe Lincoln's kid on the drums! Nabby, Trot and Tad. Nabby, Trot and the American Way. Or, White House Wedding!

Worst parenting style: Goes to Thomas Jefferson. He pretty much missed all of his kids being born, and then, missed their deaths too. To give the man some credit, most of them died about 15 minutes later. And those are only his legitimate children! Who even knows about the rest of them.

Most Bad Ass Babe: Hands down, Alice Roosevelt. During her white house adolescence, she set off fire crackers on the front lawn, was caught gambling, took unchaperoned joy rides in the presidential car, danced the shimmie, and smoked in the oval office. When TR forbid her from smoking inside, she went on the roof, and would take playful shots at pigeons and telegraph workers with her rifle. She was the first ingenue to jump in a swimming pool fully clothed. And you have to remember this was the eighteen dippity doos where women could be stoned to death for showing their ankles. Basically, she knew how to party. Armed with a quick wit and a hot body, she pretty much partied her whole life. Here's a review of one of her biographies, which gives a good taste for how rocking she was.

Best Pet: The Carter family seems to be in touch with a ludicrous and scary side of nature. When not dodging attacks from swimming rabbits, Amy Carter named her cat Misty Malarkey Ying Yang. She also gets cool points for being arrested at a protest when she was in college.

Best Rebel: Bleeding heart liberal Patricia Ann Reagan very publicly disagreed with Ronald about almost everything, voted (gasp!) for the democratic party, and wrote books exposing him as a negligent father. She also posed for play boy. Like you do. She's so liberal, she married her yoga instructor, and then got divorced.

Well, that's all I have. Republicans really seem to have a monopoly on family drama, don't they? John McCain seems right in line with history-- two wives, a football team of kids. I felt pretty bad for his adopted daughter, the only not white person at the republican convention. And Bristly Brush Palin with her teenage pregnancy. But, we can't forget, just a few years ago Bill Clinton showed the world that democrats, too, knew how to womanize! Messy, messy lives that shouldn't have any effect on how you vote, but for some reason, seem to. Makes you miss the old days of whiskey and hacksaws.

Book Report!

2008-08-27T18:44:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of reading The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest, by David Roberts. He seems like a delightfully macho flakey-hippy guy: "A day spent contemplating the ruins of an ancestral village, all but lost in the forest on top of a high plateau, conveyed to me the integrity of Pueblo life before the Spanish came better than some dry ethnographic report." Aww.

The most striking thing to me about this book (so far) is the destruction both sides wrecked on the other's sacred religious spaces. The leader of the revolt, Pope, had his reasons. "Pope had been one of forty-seven "sorcerers" arrested by Otermin's predecessor, Governor Jaum Francisco Trevino in 1675. For obstinately continuing to practice their "idolatry" (i.e. the Kachina religion, instead of the Catholicism that had bathed their souls in Christ's mercy) the medicine men were imprisoned in Santa Fe and severely flogged. Trevino hanged three shamans as an example to others; a fourth committed suicide by hanging." (Page 17) White man's destruction of sacred land has been well documented, and in August of 1680, the united pueblo tribes got their revenge. Burning churches as they came to them and murdering every priest in New Mexico, their 'hatred and barbarous ferocity went to such extremes that ... images of saints were found among excrement...there was carved crucifix with the paint and varnish taken off by lashes. There was also excrement at the place of the holy communion table." P 26

One of the first conquistadors to bumble and trample his way through New Mexico was Don Juan de Onate y Salazar. He pretty much destroyed the Acoma pueblo, and everyone he didn’t massacre, he sold into slavery, usually after chopping off one of their feet.

David Roberts writes: “That Acoma exists today is a profound testament to Puebloan resilience. It would take thirty years after the carrying out of Onate’s sentence before the survivors and their descendants were allowed to begin rebuilding the pueblo on top of the butte. Under the direction of Fray Juan Ramirez, after 1629 the Acomans were put to work erecting, with adobe bricks, one of the most grandiose mission churches in New Mexico.” (p 90)

Like any good land tromping investigative historical writer, Mr. Roberts pays a visit to the pueblo. “Inside the church, I admired once more the brown and red wall murals that mingled Puebloan rainbow and cloud symbols with Christian crosses, the painting of on buffalo hide of Saint Stephen’s (Estevan’s) stoning. Leo (the guide) mentioned that September 2 was the feast day of Saint Stephen, and then went on to say, ‘you come up and celebrate with us. The public is welcome.’ As if sensing the apparent paradox that stared us in the face inside the mission, now he editorialized (just as all my previous Acoma guides had), ‘There’s no contradiction at all between the two religions.’” P93

For some reason, this reminded me of a passage in another book I just finished reading- The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Totally different, I know. He’s writing about “America’s National Eating Disorder.” Only he actually uses all capitals. He writes: “…It seems as though our eating tends to grow more tortured as our culture’s power to manage our relationships to food weakens. This seems to me precisely the predicament we find ourselves in today as eaters, particularly in America. America has never has a stable national cuisine; each immigrant population has brought its own foodways to the American table, but none has ever been powerful enough to hold the national diet very steady. We seem bent on reinventing the American way of eating every generation, in great paroxysms of neophilia and neophobia. That might be why Americans have been such easy marks for good fads and diets of every description.” P 299

In this passage, Michael Pollan hits on something that I’ve often felt myself and heard others gripe about- the U.S.’s lack of a cohesive, binding culture. We’re a nastily congealed melting pot, too much old bitterness, fear, and some laziness is keeping us from truly mixing it all together, and tapping into what could be the richest of cultures. I though of something I saw at the Indian market in Santa Fe- a Christmas tree, originally a European pagan tradition, appropriated by Christianity, completely covered in hand crafted traditional pueblo ornaments. Maybe Saint Stephen’s day (Estevan was, by the way, a black man, brought here by the Spanish as a slave) should be a national holiday, where Americans commemorate those massacred at Acoma, and all victims of genocide. We could have a big, locally grown free-range turkey dinner, make offerings to our household Kachina alter, and pray for peace on our prayer rugs. I know it sounds a little silly when I say it like that, but having all these different traditions into our daily life make us more tolerant and grounded.

2008-08-03T02:57:00.000-04:00

To keep us from becoming completely demoralized from over work, the entire costume shop packed up last week and went on a little field trip Los Alamos. Once the sight of nuclear testing, the city of Los Alamos seems to now have a thriving fibers community. The exhibit was at the public library, and it was one woman's collection. In addition to being a nuclear physicist, she has also been traveling the world for years, collecting hand made lace and lace paraphernalia. She described it as a mania, which it certainly seemed accurate. The people who must have sat there for years at a time twisting tiny pieces of thread by candle light must have been just a little bit insane. The way it's made, all the layers and complexity, our maniacal lace collecting tour guide told us, was similar to figuring out complicated physics problems.

Lace has such an intense history, people got so worked up. But it seems like nobody remembers the makers. Our lace collecting docent had obviously taken such loving care of each piece.

She pointed out that in one piece contained the initials "M M" in one of the flowers. Can you see it? I love reminders that people, probably people a lot like me made this stuff, their hands and their time. And history doesn't remember them, because they were women, or because lace just wasn't important enough to be recorded, but they made it anyway.

My photography obviously doesn't do any of these lace bits justice, but it was incredible to see. Cathy decided right on the spot that she was going to get some bobbins and start working on her wedding dress.

Weird fact about lace bobbins: they used to make commemorative lace bobbins for public hangings. So as your sitting, twisting threads, your thinking, "Ah, the day James Banbit was hung for heresy. 'Twas a bright, sunny day, and the children and I had a lovely time in the town square." ????

Any way, there was a lovely farmers market right next to the library and we got lunch there. I also bought two skeins of yarn spun from sheepies right up in the hills of Los Alamos. This awesome woman gave me delicious bread for only two dollars. Because I didn't have enough money.

And at the end of the day we drove back right across the bandolier tuff. Which could make your heart stop.

Festivities

2008-07-29T20:22:00.000-04:00

I went to the Spanish Festival in downtown Santa Fe on my one day off.

The visual culture here is just so different than the old protestent greenery of the north, it never fails to shock me a little bit. I met this amazing woman selling beautiful weavings and yarn she had spun in a mill that she built herself in Mora, New Mexico.

You can see the indigo dyed yarn I bought in the lower right. She told me that I could work for her in the mill, picking alpaca fleeces apart, before they are spun. Wouldn't that be amazing? Here's the website for her mill: http://www.tapetesdelana.com/

Who knows what the future holds. But in the meanwhile, fibers!

Finished knitting projects

2008-07-28T20:50:00.001-04:00

So here in New Mexico, I have no time off. My blog has suffered but my knitting has not. Every night, I run wardrobe for the prestigious Santa Fe Opera. Which is a glamorous way of saying, I sit around and do nothing. Here's the first scarf I finished.
It doesn't photograph all that well for some reason. I wrote about this scarf here and here Its funny I wrote so much about such a simple scarf.
My second Santa Fe project was this shrug from this book which I bought in a rare fit. I try never to buy books because they are heavy and I run around a lot, to places like New Mexico.
I really liked doing the lace pattern, miniature leaf or something like that. The part that was surprisingly tricky was at the end when I had to pick up all these stitches to make the

outside neck border thing. I had to keep taking

it out. I had to do it at least three times. In the end, I'm not especially pleased with how it came out. I still wear it, but working on this made me realized that I have to work at being a more patient knitter. I rush things so fast because I'm excited, and I only have one project at a time so I get bored and sloppy. Of course, I'm doing most of this while, you know, opera singers are putting on period costumes so some of my difficulty could stem from that. But I still think that it is time to join the ranks of multiple project knitters. Here's this amazing hand dyed bamboo yarn I bought here.

I'm going to make this with it. It will be complicated, but not too complicated, so I won't get bored but will still be able to work on it while running wardrobe. New careful knitting Nelly did a sample to check

the gauge. I really like the way this pattern looks, I'm super excited.

My unattainable goal is too have this and two other top secret projects finished by the time I go home to Mass, so my mumsy and I can go to Webs and get all new projects.

Oh, the places you'll go

2008-07-22T21:00:00.001-04:00

It was a rainy day on Tatooine,
When I was attacked by a tusked beast.

Spot Removal

2008-07-16T11:29:00.001-04:00

Removing stripes from a tiger. Actually, a cow painted to look like a tiger, with rabbit all around. So, removing stripes from cowgerabit.

Vintage Shopping in Santa Fe

2008-07-07T02:21:00.000-04:00

I've been frequenting this one particular vintage shop in Santa Fe. It's called Pegasus Antiques, and its within walking distance from my house. It's also closing down, so everything is about sixty percent off. This place is amazing, its so full of stuff, it reminds me a little of a store called Sophisticated Junk in my home town. Pegasus has a huge collection of textiles- not just scarves, table clothes and aprons, but also fabric remnaments dating back to the 40s.
Here's one of the women who works there going through the fabric racks.

So much crazy stuff!
This is probably where Allison Smith's happy place is. There are these insane "sampler jackets" made up all of little crazy embrodiered patches.
And an amazing hankie from World War I!
I've been really obsessed with old photographs lately.
And old west themed prints.
I bought this amazing purse for my self, so I can accesorize all south west-y.

I bought this amazing radish fabric remnant for my mom.
And also this table cloth.

And I bought these two 1950s fabrics for me!

Foam Carving

2008-07-02T20:44:00.001-04:00

I carved foam masks today!

And got foamy feet.

Mail box day!

2008-06-28T03:34:00.001-04:00

Nora sent me the best package! Not only does it have a zine she made for our quilt that was in two shows in Baltimore, it also contained some beautiful yarn she spun herself.

She wrote me a little loving note that said the only condition of me using this yarn was that I tell her how she can improve her spinning! As if! It's a pleasure to work with handspun yarn! Now all I have to decide is what I want to make. It has to be something worthy! Maybe a hat?

Leap of Faith

2008-06-23T00:49:00.000-04:00

I decided to re-knit the scarf I started here. I thought I would do it on circular needles so that the feather and fan scallop would go all the way around. I measured before I cast on so it would be the right length but I just can't tell if its going to work now. Knitting scarves in the round is a total leap of faith. I just have to trust myself and my instincts and my measurements because there's no telling until I cast off. I keep drawing a metaphor between all these things in my life and this scarf. Is this long distance relationship going to work? Will I be able to find a creative job in this down trodden economy? And everyone keeps asking me as I'm knitting, how is this going to come out? Will it be okay? Baby, don't stop believing.

lets paint some shoes.

2008-06-11T00:57:00.001-04:00

lets party.

Not complaining

2008-06-05T23:47:00.001-04:00

When your punching beautiful leather while looking at the mountains

And listening to the opera.

New scarf

2008-06-02T18:12:00.000-04:00

I started knitting another scarf with sock yarn in the feather and fan pattern. But because I love the repeat so much, I made it way too wide! I kinda like it, but I'm still undecided. Should I start over?

Again, cell phone picture.

A present!

2008-05-31T21:39:00.000-04:00

Lucy drew me the most beautiful thing!

I love it! I wish to always be surrounded by leafy-ness and wild life. I wish I could have sheets or a sweatshirt or something printed with this repeat!

Some Santa Fe Yarn

2008-05-31T18:19:00.000-04:00

Some other knitting minded people at the Opera took me to see some Santa Fe yarn stores. My favorite was the Santa Fe School of Weaving.

The outside

And the inside! I had no idea that there would be so much knitting here. I found a reward for myself if I make it through the summer. Really expensive, amazing adirondack yarn! Here's a picture of the dye lot, but I'm going to get it in super fine silk wool blend. Its fifty dollars! But you get 300 feet. We'll see.

I walked around Santa Fe a little bit, too. I wish I had my real camera, but here are some crappy cellphone pictures.

Re stemming flowers in the Costume Crafts Shop at the Santa Fe Opera

2008-05-29T18:17:00.001-04:00

Getting ready

2008-05-25T01:03:00.000-04:00

Ode to Mr. Fish

2008-05-20T22:59:00.000-04:00

CenterStage does a program called the Young Playwrights Festival, where 7 plays by kids in K-12 are produced by CenterStage staff and professional actors. Its really fun, its all put together in two days, and the budget is very limited. My responsibilities for this years Festival included designing and creating an angry fish.
I made him out of sweat shirt! I sewed big lips around the hood, and eye balls on either side, and big scales all down the body.

It was the most fun to make, to design something myself, decide how I'm going to make it, and then do it. Wil said I got a little carried away, but it was one of the most creatively stimulating things I got to do at CenterStage. And, Mr. Fish was the first thing I've ever designed that has been on stage!

And I'm proud of him.

Goodbye to Baltimore

2008-05-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

To say goodbye, I want to write about how amazing theater is, about how it transforms the simplest, silliest stories into beautiful painful universal moments, and how happy I am that I can participate.
I also want to write about Baltimore, how even though its a hard, dangerous city has these blinding seconds of sublime brilliance.
I also want to write about how amazing it is to fall in love, and how unexpected.

I can't quite find the words, but I'll miss you, Baltimore.

2008-03-31T22:12:00.000-04:00

I'm making a backdrop for New York artist Allison Smith. It's very rainbow-y. I had lots of dye left over, so I made a scarf. I just put a bunch of dye in a squeeze bottle and scribbled.

Busy/Lazy

2008-03-18T22:30:00.000-04:00

I've been so busy I've hardly had time to think. But opening night it tomorrow, so calm is on the way. No new knitting, but I finished some wristy-fingerless gloves.

This was my first ever time making a thumb hole, and I did it! I am so smart. Maybe one of these days I'll make gloves with fingers, since I can kind of see how its done.

The lacy pattern was really simple, just knit one, yarn over knit two together. It did that awesome twisty thing on its own.

From an old book

2008-03-04T00:47:00.000-05:00

Theater Slave

2008-03-01T23:14:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel really beaten down by the theater. It could be because I'm an intern, I don't get a chance to fix my mistakes, things get taken away from me if I mess up. Perhaps it's being subject to other people's insane whims. It could be the deadlines. Or it could be the terrible hours or the terrible pay. But then I put on my penguin head and it's alright.

In which we make witchy yarn washing brew.

2008-02-26T00:58:00.000-05:00

When I was home a couple of weeks ago, my mom and I visited the local yarn store, Sage. It is staffed by my former fourth grade teacher and assorted other older ladies with fabulous accessories. My mumsy and I decided to embark on a felting project, and after getting rather witchy instructions from one of the yarn lady and armed with new wool, we were ready to begin. It was rather like knitting a sweater. And, of course, we wanted to finish it before I left, so we were obsessively knitting, taking turns and measuring our work constantly.
Here it is about to journey into the transforming washer. Note the Ivory, an integral part of this witchy process.

Washing machines are actually very scary. Our little mixture, which also included blue jeans, bubbled and gurgled, in what seemed to me an unnecessarily violent process. The hat looked pretty bad the first couple of times we took it out. We're nervous felters. We've had some bad experiences. But pretty quickly it started getting delightfully thick. We put it on our highly technical, expensive and offical head form.

I bring this up now, because I got a wonderful package from home, labled "Le CHAPEAU!" And lo and behold!

So mote it be.

How did I get here?

2008-02-19T22:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes my job just gets really insane. Today we had fittings with Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Ariel. Disney princessess, right down to the hair color and the sunny, sing song voice.

None of them thought it would be a good idea to wear panties.

Happy Presidents' Day!

2008-02-18T21:09:00.000-05:00

How do you celebrate Presidents' Day? It's easy to be cynical about past leaders, all being pasty white dudes, most of them a who-bit blood thirsty. But I love them! I don't know why, but something about the presidents fills me with glee. I used to make everyone at the College Light Opera try and help me remember all of them in order, but mostly they just called me a nerd and ignored me. It's upseting how often history turns into party trivia, but at least if it's trivia, some one will remember. And I don't feel so bad about doing it to the Presidents, because as soon as they're elected they become the answer to a trivia question. So I decided to celebrate this fine Presidents' Day by writing something about each of our chiefs!

George Washington, 1789-1797 Revolutionary war leader, red head and general hottie, he could have been king if he hadn’t been such a polite modest dude. He would be horrified if he knew there were naked statues of him.

John Adams, 1797-1801 As he once sang to Thomas Jefferson in the musical 1776, he was obnoxious and disliked. But he was married to Abigail, total babe and advocate for women’s rights.

Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809 Another red headed hottie, he was really smart, made a funky house in Virginia, played the violin and liked to have sex with slaves.

James Madison, 1809-1817 He declared war on the British in 1812, which was the beginning of the War of 1812, which accomplished nothing but making the year 1812 less boring.

James Monroe, 1817-1825 Made up a doctrine. You've probably heard it.

John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829 This is what it says about him on the Internet Public Library: “President Adams regularly swam nude in the Potomac River. Anne Royall, the first American professional journalist, knew of Adams’ 5 A.M. swims. After being refused interviews with the president time after time, she went to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. Before this, no female had interviewed a president.” I don’t know what “first American professional journalist” means, but Anne Royall rocks.

Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837 Killed lots and lots of Indians and got away with it.

Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841 My high school history textbook referred to him as “the little magician.” I have no idea why.

William Henry Harrison, 1841 He caught a cold while delivering his inaugural address and then died a month later because medicine in the 1840s consisted of whiskey and a hacksaw.

John Tyler, 1841-1845 Became president because Harrison popped his clogs, and then proceeded to do nothing that would ever appear on an AP history exam.

James Knox Polk, 1845-1849 Bullied (or “polked”) Mexico into giving the U.S. lots of land.

Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850 His super cool nickname was “Old Rough and Ready.” My imagination kinda goes to extremes with that one. He also died in office because of the whiskey-and-hacksaw medicinal practices of the times.

Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853 Well, I have no idea, but he sure has lots of Ls in his name.

Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857 Again, according to the Internet public library, the Democrat’s campaign slogan was: "We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852." Politics were way puny back then!

James Buchanan, 1857-1861 He was the only president never to marry. My boss at the College Light Opera was convinced he was gay. I think he just had no lips and did nothing about the Civil War.

Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865 An unconventional hottie, he was the tallest president. Possibly bi polar, probably not bi sexual, he kept our country from becoming bisected. He held séances at the White House, enjoyed the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and died from being shot in the head.

Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869 No body liked him.

Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-1877 He rocked the Civil War, but sucked at being president.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881 Ah, the presidency of Rutherford Hayes. I shall always remember him as being the president we got to in June, right as school was letting out. But I do know he had an impressive beard.

James Abram Garfield, 1881 I think some one named a cat after him. Then he got shot.

Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885 Famous for being the hardest president to remember.

Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 Okay, Cleveland? Really? Who knows?

Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893 Don’t worry, he won’t be on the AP exam. Wikipedia says he had electricity installed in the white house, but was afraid to touch the light switches.

Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897 Oh! Now I remember! Cleveland was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms!

William McKinley, 1897-1901 My high school textbook thought he was pretty cool, but Howard Zinn thinks he’s a douchebag. In any event, he was shot by an anarchist who would have enjoyed A People’s History of the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909 Despite looking kind of dweeby, he led the charge up San Juan Hill in one of those wars where we stole other peoples land. He liked bears and carried a big stick.

William Howard Taft, 1909-1913 I don’t think he got stuck in the bathtub, because he looks quite trim in this video!

Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921 President during World War I. He could have been really cool, if he hadn’t been a racist and basically set Europe up for WWII. So I guess he wasn’t cool. He had a hot young wife, though, who ran the country after he had a nervous break down during his 2nd term.

Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923 Even though this was during Prohibition; he liked drink, burlesque shows, extramarital affairs and poker.

Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929 Didn’t do much. But he called it “laissez-faire” and people thought that made it okay.

Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933 The economy went to shit while he was president. People started calling newspapers Hoover Blankets. But he redeemed himself with vacuums.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945 A hottie in a wheel chair, he fixed the economy with some socialism and some WWII. Not letting the wheel chair thing stop his mojo, he had an awesome wife and was making it with his mistress when he bit it.

Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953 He decided to drop the atomic bomb. That sucked. He tried his best to be cool, but it didn’t really work out for him.

Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961 Because it was the 50s, and he was a general, he didn’t really know how to party.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963 “Polked” both Jackie O. and Marilyn Monroe. Threw such awesome parties that Vanity Fair is still writing about them. Then he was shot in the neck.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969 Again, a president that tried really hard to be cool with some civil rights and some health care for people who were tired of whiskey and saws, but was thwarted by this thing called Vietnam.

Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974 He didn’t even try to be cool.

Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977 What? I don’t even remember him! Where did he come from? Must be a fluke. I bet Howard Zinn hates him though.

James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981 A pretty righteous liberal dude, but all I can remember about him is that story that he was once attacked by a swimming rabbit while he was canoeing. I wonder if that’s true. (AUGH!It's totally true!Swamp rabbit!)

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989 Despite being completly flakey, many Republicans have alters to him in their homes.

George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993 Whoo! My parents thought he was bad! They didn’t even know what was coming!

William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001 Another thwarted presidential attempt to be cool. But I heard a really good limerick! Okay:
There once was a girl named Lewinsky
Who played beautiful flute like Stravinsky
But it was "Hail to the Chief"
On a flute made of beef
That stole the front page from Kaczynski!

George Walker Bush, 2001-2008 Sheesh, what a way to start the millennium! And then we re-elected him! He makes the whiskey and hacksaw approach seem like a good option.

Did I miss anything? Or make any mistakes? Any more fun President facts? Have a Happy and Safe President’s Day!

Deliciously Home

2008-02-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it just feels so right to be at home. I am so lucky, I have work in a great place where we make beautiful things (like this fantastic gold dress) and I have friends who seek my company. Even with all of this goodness, I still feel distinctly melancholy sometimes. Today, in particular, in the midst of a large crowd, I felt very acutely lonely, in a way that I haven't in a long time. There is no better remedy for this situation than bowing out early for the comfort of home.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this fatigue is over work. It has been quite stressful recently at the little costume shop of horrors. I've been doing mostly assisting work this week, rolling fabric, xeroxing, maintaining the designer's bible (which is constantly being raided and added too) and swatching. There is nothing more stressful to me than being asked to take a pair of scissors to an untouched piece of million dollar fabric. I don't want to design, and my conviction is only strengthened by the fact that I am seriously jealous of my co-workers making wonderful 1900s corsets and bloomers and camisoles while I make binders.
I did, however, score some rocking vintage corset covers when we cleaned out camisole stock. I have to figure out a way to wear things like this. I want to be a little more adventurous in my clothing choices (mum's going to laugh at that) but what good are having such awesome items if they are never worn? Theater clothes have such odd fake history, one of the camis I stole has fake blood stains, I'm going to have to do some repairing. Tomorrow I'm going to Philly to see my Nora, hopefully mad crafting will ensue.

Back in Baltimore and stressing about the next show.

2008-02-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

To celebrate having new camera batteries, I took a picture of me wearing my new hat, sweater and scarf!

I wore all of these things to work today. (And yes, I'm on the floor. It was a long day, this show, A Little Night Music, is going to destroy the costume shop. And then my life. But more about that later.) Because my new hat (complete with Nora Yarn! (TM)) is so rockin', here's another picture!

I also made some wrist gaurds for my supervisor's daughter. She's going to be 4 tomorrow! I'm sure these will be lost immediately, but that's okay. As with all little kid gifts, it's for the parent more than the kid. My boss saw something similar on another kid, and was talking about how much she loved them, and how it would be good because her baby gets chapped wrists.

They fit me! I need some. I hope they aren't too big for her. I love the yarn, it's like candy!
So tomorrow I have to go into work and the first thing I have to do are plackets. It's not that I haven't done about 10 on each show, it's just that it's stressful! And complicated- I guess I just don't have enough experience to be confident in my placket abilities just yet. And, of course, I'm making silk charmeuse bloomers, meaning I only have one shot to nail it. Just like how the Rebel Alliance only has one chance to take down the Death Star.

Home and having to take it all apart.

2008-02-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'm at home, sitting with my wonderful mother in front of the fire! My mom made the most fabulous leaf boarder sample.
It's terribly cute. It was a shame she had to undo it, but she wanted to put the green yarn in a hat. Even though it's hard to take apart something I've worked on, I suppose it's part of the nature of knitting. In No Idle Hands(Which I wrote about already once) Anne Macdonald talks about how often yarn from one thing was reused for another. In Stitch 'N Bitch Debbie Stoller writes: "When my mother was small, it was standard practice to buy yarn and knit a sweater for a child, then, a year or so later, unravel and reknit it, with a bit more yarn, when the child had outgrown the original. Then there was the time, during the Second World War, that my grandmother had to unravel an old cotton bedspread-- which her own mother had knit-- to make underwear for her children." So bittersweet.
My mother taught me everything that I know about how to knit, but I have to give Ms. Debbie Stoller a lot of credit for being able to talk the knitting lingo. I've never heard anyone talk about "frogging" their project, but I have to believe her.
"In knitter's parlance, unraveling a large part of knitting is called frogging. Get it? A frog goes 'ribbit, ribbit' and your going to 'rip it, rip it.' Hey, I couldn't make these things up."
I couldn't make it either, and I had to start over on the hat I was working on. I really wanted to make a hat with the yarn Nora made me and I also wanted to use up some sweater leftovers. I was really excited, perhaps too much so, because I finished the hat and it was enormous.
(Well, it doesn't look too big in this cell phone photo, I really need new camera batteries!) So I undid the whole thing.

Fortunately, I was not discouraged, partially because I am home, and filled with lasagna, and also because the Nora yarn is wonderful to work with! I desperately need more. It looks so pretty knitted up too, all sparkly and turquoise.

Excitment in Nelly - ville.

2008-02-04T01:19:00.001-05:00

I finished! I finished! I finally finished my feather and fan scarf! I shut off my phone and just knitted for hours. And I'm done!

Better pictures later when I've purchased batteries for my camera. I immediately want to start a new project! Especially because this means I have no projects now. Maybe a turquoise hat with the yarn Nora made me.

In other news, I found a new dress that I want even more!

Its from this cool site full of beautiful vintage dresses. I want it! Why is it that every dress I find on the internet that I want is two hundred dollars? (Also, why is it that these vintage dress sites all look like they were designed in 1998? I can't complain because they bring me pretty and I can't html, but still!) Anyway! love to all and to all a good night!

Labels don't lie.

2008-02-01T20:09:00.000-05:00

How much do I want this dress?

2008-01-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

So much!

I found it on Nordstrom's website, and it only costs 200. How come that scary model gets it and not me?

Purple Rain

2008-01-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

Spent all day doing cartridge pleats.

There are two layers to the skirt- one is this really beautiful netting with fuzzy black floral overlay. It used to be white and black, but Will overdyed it blue.

The second layer is a purple blue taffeta. It's going to be a really fantastic dress. For the most beautiful boy ever. The actor has a 27 inch waist (yowza! skinnypants), so those two layers of fabric, almost 6 feet long, had to be gathered down, which was tricky.
This has been a pleat-tastic show for me! I made box pleats for Ophelia's dress last week.

Sweater Face!!

2008-01-20T13:29:00.000-05:00

I finished my first ever sweater!

It's made of delightfully light weight alpaca! And its turquoise, the most beautiful color. I love it.
I can also see why they tell you not to knit sweaters for other people (the curse of the boyfriend sweater) Because there are strange in consistancies in hand knit items. But I am going to wear it every day!

A few things I've been doing

2008-01-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I work for the tailor, Ed. I don't get to do as complicated things for him, because he has such a traditional, complicated method. But yesterday I made some pants for him! They were huge diaper pants, with no crotch seam! The center front panel was also the center back, it folded around, and two side pieces left room for little leg holes. They looked really funny, just like an adult upholstery diaper!

I tool a picture of the pocket, because I think its just so interesting how pockets are put into things, so logical and yet still kind of tricky. Like origami. Actually, making these pants was a lot like origami. I'll put a picture of them up when they're on stage.

My main project recently has been Ophelia's dress. I posted a picture of the mock up and research before. The dress is made up of all these layers of really beautiful lace.

The feathery bits on the end are called eyelash. We've been piecing different bits of lace together, especially on the bodice. It turns out you can just cut up little parts of the lace and then sew it on in different areas, and make this amazing, constructed lacy fabric, that looks really complicated and like it was woven specifically for the garment. But its just held together with a zig zag stich!

This dress has three layers to it, a peach chiffon layer, a sheer sparkly layer, and then the lace. My boss Jill showed me this magical thing. Instead of doing french seams on the lace, we made peach bias tape and lined the seams with it.

So that when its against the underskirt, it completely disappears. So cool! The worst part about making this dress has been knowing that when we're all done, we're going to have to turn it over to Will in crafts, and he's going to distress it. Sad!

A proud knitting moment

2008-01-13T14:45:00.001-05:00

My father went on a scientific expedition to study the ice sheets in Antarctica. Here's the website about his expedition and others. http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/ Its incredible what they do, it looks amazing down there, at the bottom of the earth, bleak and beautiful. Before he went, I knit him a hat! (Which I wrote about already, but didn't have a picture) It was my first time using two different color yarns to make a shape. It got a little messy on the inside, and I had to take a needle and thread to it, so the red part wouldn't fall apart. But for a first attempt!

Cartridge Pleats

2008-01-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

Knitting your heart break

2008-01-06T17:48:00.000-05:00

Back in November I read No Idle Hands: a Social History of American Knitting by Anne Macdonald, and it made me cry. One quote in particular, from the diary of Lavinia Porter:
"I never recall that sad parting from my dear sister on the plains of Kansas without tears flowing fast and free. It was like tearing our hearts asunder. But such sorrows are to be endured, not described. Climbing into the wagon, with everything we possessed piled high behind us, we turned our faces toward the land of golden promise that lay far beyond the Rocky Mountains."
Its hard to imagine now, being so far away from your family and not knowing if you'd ever see them again, and traveling in rickety, awful wagons, and being so isolated.
Anne Macdonald wrote about how all through American History women knitted to quiet their minds, to keep their anxieties at bay. During wars and economic recession and terrible hardship on the frontier, women would knit not only to keep their families warm, but also to loose themselves in quiet creative monotony.
My motives for knitting are similar, though my circumstances are much less extreme.
The first thing I knit when I arrived in Baltimore was a scarf based on the one Mary Poppins has. I felt as if my life was way more chaotic than the Banks household, and I needed a magic nanny with the voice of Julie Andrews. I bought bargain bin sparkly yarn at AC Moore, and size 13 needles at Rite Aid (isn't it crazy they sell knitting needles?) and it took me about a week to knit, just doing garter stitch with yarn so small and needles so big. Then I ironed it out with the industrial iron at work, so it would look all lacy like Mary P.'s. It stretched out twice as long. I ended up giving it to my boss, who I have great affection for. So I the only picture I have is the little sample I made on #10 needles.
Right after I finished that project, it became clear that my girlfriend and I were breaking up in a painful way. So I decided to knit her a scarf. Not totally logical, but I thought if I put all my frustration, sadness and anger into scarf form, I don't know, we'd get back together, all wars would end and Julie Andrews would come down from the sky and make me a princess. I made it out of chenille on number 8 needles, with 2 by 2 ribbing.

Obviously I didn't give it to her, not after all that work, and after it came out so warm and soft and lovely. I was really into it too, because it was red and blue and therefore sort of patriotic and therefore just like the knitting described in "No Idle Hands." I've decided I'll give it to the next girl who loves me.
And then I made myself a hat! My old hat was a comfort hat, I would put it on when I was sad or stressed out, and it would make me feel better. But, new winter, I have to make a new hat. I used the bunny ear pattern from the Stitch n Bitch book, but decided to leave off the ears. Because when I put them on they looked really goofy.

This was my first time doing seed stitch, which I was afraid of until I made this. (What do you mean? Knit the purls? Purl the knits? don't you get confused?!) And it was my first time making i-cord! Which is my new favorite thing to do. My father liked this hat so much, I made him one that was gray and had red stars above the ear flaps. I wish I had a picture of that one!
This has been a brief chronicle of how knitting helped me get my life together. I haven't gone over the prairie or sent sons off to fight the rebels. But I know that if I keep knitting, everything will be alright.

Oh, is it a new year?

2008-01-05T14:26:00.000-05:00

New years always seemed like such a tacked on holiday, as if the calander making people just couldn’t let go of the christmas season yet. The Jewish new year, in the fall, makes more sense to me, because it happens right as school begins, which is the time to make resolutions. I actually did go out, this year, though it is my normal habit to stay indoors and be in bed by 10 to avoid shennagians.

I have a vague memory of the new year’s episode of “Will and Grace”, Will’s resolution is to “move on” with his life, get a boyfriend, not be so needy, etc. The episode ends with him kissing Grace at the stroke of midnight, and him saying “kissing a woman, that’s the opposite of moving on.”

If you replace Will with Nelly, Grace with a random dude, and woman with man, then you have my evening.

The gentlemen are really digging me right now, and I can’t figure out why. Some guy even followed me home the other night! I am really really out, all I talk about are gay things. It’s got to be one of two things:

1. Ladies aren’t as bold as gentlemen, and are intimidated by my straighty looks. Or
2. I’m not hanging out with the right crowd.

So I geuss my resolutions should be
A. Initate conversations with more lesbians.
B. Hang out with more different crowds.
Or hidden option
C. Stop caring that I’m single. And just say no to kissing dudes.

One Minty Statue Man

2008-01-04T19:46:00.000-05:00

For one of the first times at CenterStage, I worked with Will in the dye kitchen. We're doing an independent project together, making a costume for a living statue. He's a judge statue, and he's all bronze, which has worn into mostly patina green. Will dyed a suit and cape yesterday, and today I covered all of it with a watered down mint green acrylic paint.

I totally got a paint headache.

He looks a little sinister doesn't he?
The woman who asked us to do this gave us no insight into why she needed a living judge statue. We're a little worried that it's going to be some sort of weird porn thing, or maybe a presidential assassination attempt. I was really flattered that Will asked me to work on this with him. His job, Craftsperson, is totally the job that I want someday. He gets to do everything, making hats, dye-ing, distressing, fat suits, armor. (On the other hand maybe I would miss dress making- AH! I don't know, this is why I'm the intern.) The best part about minty statue man is that I'm getting paid $800! That will quadruple my bank account.

Mock it up

2008-01-02T20:57:00.000-05:00

I had a really fun day at work today. Even though it’s exciting to run wardrobe and be part of the show every night, I'm glad to be back in the shop. I'm always endlessly optimistic about the new show (and totally disparaging after it opens) but so far I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The designer is a woman named Candy, who is very into using fashion for inspiration. She gave us a bunch of shoots from Italian Vogue as research. Totally a change from the last three shows. This is the pattern Jill draped and had me mock up today.

The sleeve is the long piece sticking out the back, so when it was sewn, I didn't have to set a sleeve, I just went all the way up the side. I learned that's called a kimono sleeve. It’s going to be fierce when it’s done in the real fabric, which is shiny and dark blue.

It goes over a sexy sheath dress, and will be worn by the character Gertrude. Because the sleeves were kimono sleeves, they needed gussets, which Jill showed me how to do. I think I may have done that before as a sample, but with Jill instruction it was much easier, though mine didn't look quite as nice as Jill’s.

Jill had Sarah working on Ophelia's mock up, which was beautiful.

This is the image we were given to work with.

Tomorrow Jill is going to pattern the dress that Alfred is going to wear. Yes, I said Alfred. The character is apparently a boy-whore. And he wears a Shakespearean style dress. I hope I get to work on it.

Knitting the night away

2008-01-01T20:04:00.000-05:00

I was inspired by my old friend Laurel to write about knitting things, which is what she does on her blog, www.wildthreads.blogspot.com. I am falling in love with this as I knit it. It's a very simple lace pattern called "feather and fan," and I'm doing it with fingering weight sock yarn.
I know it's a little bit your hippie gramma's summer house, but hey, thats me and I love it! Here's a picture of the yarn as I was balling it up.
The other thing I'm really excited about right now is the sparkley yarn my friend Nora made me for ChristmaKwanzaakkkauh. That's right, I said made, as in spun herself! A skill that astounds me. I can't wait to make myself a little blue hat out of it!

I’ve been having this really insane urge to photograph and catalog all of my yarn and the projects I want to make. I geuss that was also inspired by Laurel, and her membership in the website Ravelry. I don’t know if I can go there yet.

waxing poetic about 42nd Street. Never a good sign.

2007-12-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

Here's a dumb cell phone picture I took during 42nd Street when I was running wardrobe this summer. I remember thinking what a stupid play it was. But recently I've begun to feel more kindly towards the accursed musical. It is, after all, a story about a young girl who gives up the security of home for the magic of the theater. And she gains a persnickety, loyal and annoying tap dancing family. And I like that she ends up single at the end, with what seems to me like two gay boyfriends. I'm feeling that, innocent, single theater girl in the big city vibe. I came home today humming "young and healthy" under my breath. Could be I've been running wardrobe for too long. I feel like I haven't seen natural light in ages. Joe Turner has come. And Gone.

I'm not really a bad girl, I just do bad things.

2007-12-27T23:58:00.000-05:00

Tallulah Bankhead once said "it's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time." I've been haunted by this quote everytime I try to write in any kind of blog. Tonight, slightly tipsy on whiskey after missing a quick change in tonight's show, I decided instead of going out to the lesbian bar that I would stay in with only the company of my dying computer. It's hard being lonely but it will make me better. And maybe I've proven my bad girl chops for the time being.

Wardrobe at Centerstage

2007-10-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

2007-08-15T16:01:00.000-04:00

I always have such high hopes for blogs, all these plans about the things I'm going to share in them, but I'm such a space shot I can never do it. Last night I saw Candide, my last play, last night and then had champagne at the shop. Now I'm sorting through all my stuff and trying to remember life before the College Light Opera abducted me into its sphere of insanity. Listening to Sandra Bernhard, her cover of Kiss me Deadly moves me to tears. Farewell image of College light opera shop.

Workaday Attic

2007-08-01T23:15:00.000-04:00

The show we're working on now is 42nd street, and I'm doing wardrobe, running the show, so it's my responsibility to pull most of the costumes, the ones we aren't making, from the attic. The attic is the most indescribable place. I've had anxiety dreams that have taken place in a similar setting. The Inn was built in 1902, so the attic is creaking, splintery, and dark. There are thousands of costumes, jammed together, hanging from rusting metal pipes suspended by chains from the rafters. Pipes run along the floor too, at a variety of heights perfect for tripping. Overflowing boxes of costume pieces line the floor. Nothing is organized. It's also the hottest place imaginable. And I spend hours up there every day.

The big gossip today was that all the girls found some townie boys and they all went to the beach together and flirted and hooked up. I ended up knowing the townie boys from high school, and the whole thing just made me sad for some reason. I miss my rock star girlfriend, so out there she could never be a townie.

Just starting out

2007-08-01T17:05:00.000-04:00

I've tried to write in a blog before, on my old Livejournal, and it became increasingly hard to do as I got older. Now I want to give it another try, a creative outlet during post-college time. I thought I would start, as many people do, by posting a picture of my cat.